A Trip to the Beach (29 page)

Bob made his way up to the third floor and walked down the dark hall toward the end where he could hear voices. He was standing outside an open door, trying to decide if he should knock, when out came the two men who had given him the ride.

“Ready to go?” asked one without surprise, and Bob followed as they walked downstairs. The three climbed into the car and drove back toward Port de Plaisance.

“I guess that's it, then,” the driver said to the other man who simply stared out the window.

Bob sat in the backseat, sympathizing in silence with the men and their failed sting operation. He looked out the windows at the damage. The shacks on the hillside were demolished, and he wondered if people had gotten out in time. Store windows had completely vanished, and cars lay upside-down in yards. He was grateful to have gotten a ride to a phone.

Back at the hotel, the guests were now out walking around the grounds, inspecting the damage. Suddenly famished, Bob went to the room that had held the ice cream freezer. There he found Mr. Spittle and his assistant putting out food for the guests. They were dragging a large barbecue grill outside but had no charcoal. Bob offered to build a fire using some of the branches strewn on the ground. As he gathered bits of boards, broken chair legs, and branches, other guests joined in, and soon they had the grill heaped with wood and palm fronds. Hungry guests lined up while Mr. Spittle cooked steaks and chicken salvaged from the hotel's freezer.

It began to get dark, and Bob decided to get some sleep. He would have to wait until the next day to get back to Anguilla.

Up at five-thirty the next morning, Bob noticed that the boats that had survived the storm moored in the Pond were finally beginning to move around again. He ran down to the pier and saw that one of the Anguilla ferryboats was cruising in circles around two others. Just then a little rubber dinghy with an outboard motor came shooting out into the harbor. Bob waved his arms frantically to get its owner's attention. The man in the dinghy turned toward the dock and, pulling alongside, asked Bob what he needed. Bob said, “Can you take me out to those boats?”

The man shrugged and said, “Get in.” Abandoning his luggage in his hotel room, Bob climbed into the dinghy. It was only about five feet long and barely held the two men.

The man said he had been living on his sailboat, which had sunk during the night; he was lucky to be alive. He had managed to get off his boat into the dinghy and had cut the rope between the two just before the sailboat sank. He told Bob the only thing he had left in this world was the rubber dinghy. Even his wallet had gone down with the sailboat. Bob pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and gave it to the man as they approached the Anguilla boats.

Hubert, the captain of one of the ferries, spotted Bob coming and shouted, “Blanchard! Blanchard!” as if Bob were bringing a rescue crew. When Bob climbed from the dinghy up onto the big steel ferryboat, he realized there were about ten guys on board. Inside, the floor was covered with empty soda cans, beer bottles, and potato chip bags.

Hubert said, “We been here for two days. Only three of us still floating. Look there.” He pointed to a small island about a hundred yards away, where a ferryboat had run aground.

“Look there,” he said again, pointing toward the airport. Another ferry was out of the water and sitting up on the road by the runway.

“Some a these guys come off the other boats. We goin' home now, soon as
Lady Maria
get her engines goin'.”

They continued cruising in circles around
Lady Maria.
Finally her engines fired up in a cloud of black diesel smoke, and the three big ferries motored toward the channel that leads out of the Pond.

“How do we get under the drawbridge?” Bob asked Hubert.

“Oh, they lifts it up for us,” said Hubert.

“But there's no electricity,” said Bob.

“I think they gots a generator,” Hubert said, clearly hoping this was true.

The boats cruised over to the drawbridge that spans the little channel, which leads out into the open sea. They stopped and drifted while Hubert tried to raise someone in the small building by the drawbridge, first by radio and then by yelling from out on the deck.

There was nobody in the little booth, and after about half an hour Hubert announced, “We drop anchor an' wait.”

“But they're talking about the power being off for weeks,” Bob said. “There must be another way out of the Pond.”

“This the onliest way,” said Hubert, and he threw the anchor over the side.

“Okay, I have to get back to Anguilla,” Bob said. “You guys can stay here and wait if you want, but there must be a smaller boat that can fit under the drawbridge.”

Hubert shut off the engines and sat down on a bench to think. One of the other guys aboard said, “Grandfather.” He was pointing to a small, stubby boat chugging slowly across the harbor.

Hubert jumped up and yelled, “Grandfather, Grandfather.”

“Whose grandfather is he?” Bob asked.

“He jus' call Grandfather,” Hubert replied. “Yo, Grandfather,” he yelled again, and the boat turned toward Hubert.

As Grandfather pulled alongside, Hubert said, “You wanna take the man to Anguilla?”

“Gonna cost ya,” Grandfather said, grinning at Bob.

“How much?”

“How much you got?”

“How about a hundred dollars?” Bob offered, knowing this might be his only chance of getting home for days.

“I ain' goin' Anguilla for no hundred dollar,” Grandfather replied, and crossed his arms. “Seas still pretty high.”

“Look,” Bob said, “I only have three hundred dollars, and I'm going to need some money when I get there. Don't rip me off.”

Hubert jumped in and said, “He okay, ya know, Grandfather. He a friend a we.”

“Okay, since he a friend, I take two hundred.”

“Let's go,” Bob said, and after he climbed down onto Grandfather's boat, the rest of the men followed. Bob was apparently paying for the trip, and the others were coming along for the ride.

The seven-mile voyage, which usually took twenty minutes, took two hours. The boat chugged along slowly; its engine stopped twice, and each time Grandfather would tinker for a while and get it going again.

Bob had never seen waves like this before. They were easily fifteen feet high, but without any crest or whitecaps. They were just huge swells that rolled along, and Grandfather's boat would work its way up one side, over the top, and down the other side, only to head up another one again. At the bottom of each roll Anguilla would disappear from sight, and then it would reappear as the old boat made its way to the top again.

Approaching Anguilla, Bob could begin to make out a huge crowd standing on the dock and up onshore, waiting for the boat to arrive. As they got closer, voices from the crowd started shouting, “Look, it Hubert.” Several other names were called out as more faces were recognized. “I see Blanchard. Blanchard comin'.” It was Clinton. Bob realized they were probably Anguilla's first contact with the outside world since Luis had attacked, and everyone was at the dock to hear the news from St. Martin.

The sea was rolling so hard that Grandfather could not tie up. He motored up as close as he dared, and as each man jumped off the bow onto the dock, Grandfather would reverse and back up again to prevent his boat from being smashed against the cement pier.

Bob leapt off and the crowd caught him, pulling him onto the pier. As he made his way toward Clinton, he felt a bit like a celebrity as everyone pressed around him, eagerly asking about the condition of St. Martin.

“What 'bout Marigot?” someone shouted. “You see my brother?”

“How the Pond? Any boats sink?” another called out.

Bob and the men from the ferries were deluged with questions and did their best to answer. Most people wanted to know about relatives who lived in St. Martin, but there was little information to give. Bob was afraid to mention the shacks that had been blown away on the hillside near town.

Clinton patted Bob on the back several times, happy to have him home. “Lowell tell me you couldn't make it to Anguilla. Where you sleep during the storm?”

“It took a while, but I found a hotel room at Port de Plaisance. It was scary, though. They didn't board my windows, and I was right on the water. What about your family? How is everyone?”

“Everyone cool at home,” Clinton said. “We get a lotta water in the house, but everything cool.”

“What about the rest of the staff? Have you seen them?” Bob asked.

“I see most a them,” Clinton said. “They okay. An' the radio say nobody hurt here in Anguilla. But lotta boats sink. A big cargo ship mash up Sandy Ground. She sittin' right up on the beach. An' there an empty container up by the airport. The wind blew that thing right on top a Harrigan's rental cars. They all mash up.”

“Have you been to the restaurant?” Bob finally asked.

“The restaurant ain' so good,” Clinton said quietly.

“What happened to it?”

“Dining room gone,” Clinton answered as they got into his white minibus.

“What do you mean, gone?” Bob asked.

“She blow away. Whole roof came off. All them shutters gone. Just the floor leff. An' the plants mash up real bad. Mel gonna cry long tears when she see it. The sea come right through the restaurant an' into the salt pond. Meads Bay flood out.”

The drive to the restaurant took twice as long as usual. Clinton had to drive off the road to avoid broken telephone poles and uprooted trees; electric wires were strewn in tangles everywhere. As they pulled into the parking lot at Blanchard's, Bob felt numb. There had been four large, stately palm trees right in front of the restaurant, and all but one were lying on the ground.

He stepped over one of the downed trees and onto the walkway that led through the picket fence and up to the bar door. Several sections of the fence were broken off, although tangled bougainvillea vines held the pieces in place. There were tiny scraps of the teal shutters scattered about. The side of the building facing the road looked amazingly intact, but all the paint had been sandblasted off, in some places right down to raw wood. Whatever paint was left was no longer clean and white but yellow and dirty.

Bob wanted to cry as he inspected the gardens. The lush greens and vibrant flowers were gone. Not one palm frond. Not one leaf. Not one petal. Only broken stems, roots, and bare tree limbs remained. As he made his way around the side of the building, the big sea grape tree came into view. It was on its side, split down the middle. More full-sized palm trees that we had brought in from Florida lay tipped over, roots in the air. All the path lights were missing, and the fountains were black with leaves and murky water. There was nothing living in sight.

Picturing me up to my elbows in potting soil, surrounded by flowers, Bob was overwhelmed by the devastation, but the worst was yet to come. When he continued down the path, he saw that the entire dining room was indeed missing.

Bob stared at the tile floor where the building had been, and his teary eyes slowly scanned the destruction. No roof. No walls. No tall teal shutters. He remembered pushing open the shutters that first night of business, opening the dining room to the lush gardens with beach and sea beyond. The only part of the room still standing was a plywood-covered structure where the glass windows of the wine cellar had been. He realized that the plywood was actually covering the glass doors and saw that there was no roof over them.

“Me, Shabby, an' Lowell board that up before the storm,” Clinton said. “Jus' in case.”

“Clinton,” Bob said, “you saved the wine cellar! That was brilliant. Is the wine still in there?”

“Yeah, man. She all there. So, wha' we gonna do?” Clinton asked.

“You must have more cleaning up to do at home,” Bob said. “Why don't you go do that today, and tomorrow be here first thing in the morning with your tools and as many of your brothers as you can round up? I'll see if I can find the rest of the staff, and we'll start to clean this mess. We've got to get rebuilt so we can open for the season.”

“So we ain' closin'?” Clinton asked.

“Closing?” Bob asked. “No, we're not closing. We've got a lot of work to do. Drop me off at home so that I can get the truck and see what damage I have there. What about the phones?”

“Cable an' Wireless got one line goin', but you gotta go into town an' use it in their office,” Clinton replied. “They gonna have some more soon.”

As they drove away Bob looked back at the beach and tried to picture what everything had looked like only three days before. The sky was blue now, and a gentle trade wind had returned from the east. A goat stood on the side of the road, munching a bare branch and watching the minibus drive by. Finding food was going to be a challenge for the animals until some greenery returned. Earning a living was going to be a challenge until the tourists returned.

Chapter 16

During the two weeks that followed the storm, I was back in Florida at Home Depot. Bob and Clinton made a list of the materials we needed to rebuild, and we kept in touch through Bob's nightly calls from the Cable & Wireless office. I rushed around, repeating what I had done only a year before—the same fabric for the chairs, the same printer for the menus, the same glasses and dishes and silver. It felt odd to be doing it again so soon.

After arranging to have our containers shipped to Anguilla, I filled three suitcases with batteries and flashlights and called American Airlines to get on the next flight back. But getting home was not to be as easy as that.

American Eagle was not flying any passengers into Anguilla. They were only bringing in emergency supplies for an undetermined period of time and told me I'd have to go through St. Martin. Looting on St. Martin, however, had forced the Dutch and French military to put the island under martial law. A six o'clock curfew was in effect, and airlines were told they could bring in only residents of the island. They didn't want journalists or tourists seeing the island in such a state. What they hadn't addressed was how residents from the surrounding islands were to get home; Anguilla, St. Barts, Saba, and St. Eustatius were now cut off from air service. After two days of negotiating with the governor of St. Martin, several phone calls to the chief minister in Anguilla, and dozens of conversations with supervisors at American Airlines, I finally boarded a flight from Miami to St. Martin. It was made very clear, though, that I could not remain there for any time at all. I would not even be permitted to go inside the terminal without an escort from immigration. The ferries were still not running, and I needed a private pilot to meet me on the runway, escort me through immigration, and fly me directly to Anguilla.

My flight down was eerie. The giant Airbus had only a few scattered passengers and I kept to myself. It was my first chance since the storm to prepare myself for what I might see when I arrived. Bob had described the damage in detail, but I knew seeing it with my own eyes would still be a shock.

I wasn't looking forward to the estimated two months without electricity, and not knowing when Cap Juluca would reopen was scary as well. If the hotel didn't finish its repairs before the season, there wouldn't
be
much of a season. But Malliouhana was working around the clock and had set an opening date of November 17, and two new hotels were also opening—Sonesta was planning to open by Christmas, and Cuisinart Resort and Spa was under construction. They were bound to help the economy, I hoped.

Bob arranged to fly over from Anguilla with Ben Franklin, the pilot who brought in our restaurant food from St. Martin. My plane was scheduled to land at three, and at two-thirty Ben and Bob were on the tarmac in Anguilla, ready to go. They taxied onto the runway, prepared to take off, and stopped. Ben was arguing with someone through his headset, but Bob couldn't figure out what the problem was. Exasperated, Ben turned the plane around and taxied back to the terminal.

“What's going on?” Bob asked, as Ben shut off the engine.

“They got too mucha style over there,” Ben muttered. He climbed out of the plane and instructed Bob to stay put. “I'm going up to the tower to talk to St. Martin,” he said.

Bob was sweltering as he sat in the copilot's seat of the little plane. When he couldn't stand it anymore, he unfastened his shoulder harness, and stepped out onto the tarmac to wait for Ben. It was two-forty-five, and he was getting nervous. If they weren't there to pick me up, the St. Martin officials would send me right back to Miami. He scanned the sky anxiously, looking for my flight.

Ten minutes later Ben came out of the tower and sauntered back to his plane. “Leff we go,” he said as he started up the engine.

“What happened?” Bob asked.

“The phones aren't working yet in St. Martin,” Ben explained. “One of the guys in the tower over there has a brother in Tortola, and he hasn't heard from him since the storm. He wouldn't give clearance to land until I called his brother from the tower here to say that he's okay. Too mucha style.”

The flight took five minutes, and then Ben filled out paperwork in the St. Martin immigration office. As I stepped off my plane an immigration officer greeted the small group of passengers and escorted us inside. Just then Ben and Bob rounded the corner. I was so happy to see Bob that I didn't want to let go of him, but Ben said immigration couldn't wait for hugs. He rushed me over to find my luggage and have my passport stamped, and then the three of us ran back out to Ben's plane.

I pressed my head against the scratched window, and from the air, Anguilla looked pretty much the same: flat and scrubby, but browner than usual, since there wasn't a single leaf left on any tree. It looked like the aftermath of a forest fire. The water, however, was still a magnificent blue-green, and I could see the coral reefs as we got closer to shore. The outrageous beauty of Anguilla's coastline hadn't changed. The immigration officer in Anguilla smiled as I entered the terminal. “Good afternoon,” she said. “Welcome home.”

On the way to our apartment, I could hear the sporadic hum of engines as we passed those lucky enough to have generators. We drove by a group of shirtless men gathered around an Anglec truck, and several backhoes nearby were erecting new telephone poles.

“That's the British navy,” Bob explained. “They've sent in two hundred troops to help restore the power. It's still going to take about six more weeks.”

Rugs were draped over porch railings to dry in the sun. An old man was getting a haircut on his front steps, and a herd of goats meandered into the road in front of us, forcing us to stop and wait until they had crossed. “Island time,” I said out loud. “Things don't really change.”

But one thing, sadly, had changed. From the top of South Hill I looked out at the tranquil bay where Sandy Island was supposed to be. It was gone. Its landmark tuft of palm trees was nowhere to be seen, and the little white island was completely under water.

“Everybody's saying that Sandy Island will come back,” Bob reassured me.

“We're really lucky nobody got hurt here,” he went on. “I've heard stories of several close calls. A lady in Sandy Ground retreated into a back room of her house when the storm chewed away at the front walls. She moved furniture against the doors and the wind just blew it across the room, pushing her back farther and farther. Another woman in Island Harbor was huddled in a closet for over twenty-four hours. All of her windows were blown out, and it was the only place she could find to hide.”

I could see people everywhere putting their lives back together. Men were cleaning up fallen trees, some with chain saws, most with machetes. Others were still pulling off the plywood that had been nailed over windows before the storm. As we pulled into Christine's for a cold drink, there was a domino game in full swing under the big tamarind tree in her yard. The tree looked naked without its leaves.

Inside, Christine was her same jolly self. “Mrs. Blanchard, it is so good to see you, but I'm sorry to hear about your restaurant.” She came out from behind the counter and we squeezed each other hard.

“At least nobody in Anguilla was hurt,” I said. “Our restaurant can be replaced.”

Lowell's mother was hanging laundry on the line as we drove past her house. “All right, all right,” she said, waving and smiling.

“Okay, okay,” we answered together.

We drove over the top of the hill, and Long Bay appeared below us. Overlooking the sea, our apartment was as spectacular as I remembered. Bob had cleaned it up pretty well, though it still smelled damp and all the furniture legs were discolored from sitting in water.

I opened the door to our balcony and stepped onto the shady terra-cotta floor. It was cool and smooth under my bare feet, and I stared at the waves on the beach below. Bob unloaded my luggage and came out to join me.

“Living here makes up for a lot of the bad stuff,” he said. “Think how awful it would be if we still lived by the gas station.”

“How have you been taking showers?” I asked, somewhat afraid of the answer.

“I have a surprise for you.” He smiled. “Follow me.”

We went back to the driveway and up the steps to the yard. Bob lifted a blue plastic tarp, and there was a brand-new Honda generator, just like the one at the restaurant. He turned the key, pulled the start rope, and it roared into life.

“It runs the whole apartment,” Bob said proudly. “The hot-water heater, the pump, the lights—everything. I got it in St. Martin. The government issued a moratorium on duty for generators because of the storm. So we also saved twenty-five percent. The only problem is finding gas for it. There has been a shortage, but they say a tanker is on its way and should arrive any day now. And I have six full gas cans at the restaurant.”

“This is great,” I said. “I can't believe you didn't tell me about it! Now I have a surprise for you too,” I said, pulling out the latest issue of
Wine Spectator.
Bob flipped open to the page I had marked with a yellow sticky note. The year's list of recipients of the coveted Award of Excellence included Blanchard's Restaurant.

“I can't believe it,” Bob said. “Look, there are only five other awards for the whole Caribbean.”

“I've known about it for a couple of weeks, but I wanted to surprise you.”

“Thanks to Clinton, Shabby, and Lowell, we still
have
a wine cellar,” Bob said.

“I can't wait any longer,” I said. “Let's go see the restaurant.”

“Are you sure you're ready? It looks pretty bad.”

“Let's go,” I answered.

We pulled into Blanchard's and walked around to where the front of the building had been. I had just bought all the materials we would need to rebuild it and had ordered an entire container of plants for the gardens, so I knew in my head what to expect. But the reality of the past two weeks finally hit me. It was just as Bob had described. The white fountains were black with muck, the landscaping was a disaster, and the dining room was simply gone.

Clinton and Lowell were shoveling wet sheetrock into a wheelbarrow. I ran over and hugged them both.

“How are you guys doing?” I asked.

“We jus' here in a cool, Mel,” Clinton replied, grinning. “We gonna build this right back how she were. Don' you worry. Ain' no problem.”

“Mr. Luis brought too mucha wind,” Lowell said. “We gonna show him that he ain' gonna destroy Anguilla. He ain' gonna mash us up like St. Thomas and the rest a them islands. I hear they ain' even startin' to fix things up in those places. They waitin' for government to help. No, sir. Luis ain' gonna get the best a we.”

As I looked away so the men wouldn't see my wet eyes, I noticed three green buds sprouting from what otherwise looked like a dead bougainvillea.
Clinton is right,
I thought.
There ain' no problem.

I hugged Lowell and Clinton again, then went in to look at my kitchen. Everything was there, but nothing shone anymore. The stainless-steel tables were coated with a dirty film, there was at least four inches of water on the floor, and the ceiling had been plastered with sand. Bob and I walked down the path to the beach, under what was left of the big sea grape tree. A lizard scampered toward the bushes, its tail swirling an intricate pattern in the sand, reminding me of the hot, sunny days on Meads Bay only a year before. We had watched the lizards dart in and out of the shade while we drew up plans for our restaurant under the blue beach umbrella.

We stood on the sand, the water washing away our footprints. A wave splashed over our ankles, and we stood perfectly still, mesmerized by the gentle rolling tide. The ocean was so calm—it was barely moving at all. A wisp of a breeze blew from the west. “How could this peaceful place have been such a disaster only a short time ago?” I asked Bob. “It just doesn't seem possible.” But to our right, the wrath of Luis was evident at Carimar Beach Club, where the sand had completely eroded away and waves now splashed up onto the steps.

A pelican cruised past, missing the tops of the waves by only inches, its wings steady and unmoving in silent flight. A few flaps and it soared upward. A few more flaps and it circled once, flattened its wings against its body, and dove like a missile into the water. The bird bobbed up to the surface, gulped its catch, and floated contentedly in the bay.

Puffy white clouds drifted over the horizon, and a sailboat glided toward St. Martin. The shape of the beach had changed from the storm, as had our lives. I dreaded the impending insurance battle and prepared myself for another marathon of building and gardening before the season.

“Too mucha wind,” I said to Bob, shaking my head as we walked back into the restaurant. “Too mucha wind.”

“Hey, Lowell. You hear that? Mel sound like she from Anguilla,” Clinton said with admiration. “She one a we, you know.” He emptied his wheelbarrow and shoveled another load of debris. Lowell handed me some pruning shears, and I went to work.