Adrift (29 page)

I'm given antibiotics and a couple of strong sedatives and am told that I should sleep. Ah yes, sleep. I could sleep for days...

Uniformed men suddenly bustle into the room and begin hurling questions at me. Their uniform looks different from that of the police who brought me to the hospital, and it turns out they are the gendarmerie. In the middle of our lengthy interview, there is a phone call for me. An orderly wheels me back across the portico and into one of the doctor's offices, where there is one of the few telephones in the hospital. The call is from Mr. Dwyer, the U.S. consul in Martinique, who extends his welcome to the islands, assures me there will be no problem about my lack of a passport, and extends an offer of any assistance he can render. The news has traveled very quickly. Even as I speak, my mind drifts around sleepily. But back in my room there are more officials and more questions to answer. Finally everyone leaves and I'm left in peace The old man across from me smiles. I hear dishes clattering in a kitchen below. The breeze blows lightly ac ros's my face. A black spiritual sung in a beautiful baritone echoes from the kitchen and through the hospital grounds. I drift off into dreamland.

After a couple of hours I awake, feeling calm. A civilian comes in shyly and sits by my bed. He too looks almost Egyptian. He has a broad smile and speaks a few words of English. I understand that his name is Mathias, that he has a radio station, and that he runs a hotel. I can come and stay in the hotel if I like. He asks what I have with me, and when he sees the bag and my ragged, stinking T-shirt he tells me to wait right here—as if I'm planning on going somewhere—and disappears for an hour.

I pull myself up to a sitting position, grab the railing at the foot of the bed, and gradually stand. My roommate watches me as I wobble about, trying to keep my knees from collapsing. We jovially chat with each other, though neither understands much of what the other is saying.

Mathias returns and spreads out an array of colorful clothes for me: blue pants, bright red shorts, sandals, and a new T-shirt with a map of Marie Galante on it. There is also a bottle of cologne. Maybe I really do reek. I am deeply touched by the generosity of these people. Outside of my room are a number of islanders who have come to see me. They wait patiently, sitting on benches or leaning against the portico railing. I know no one on this island, but I feel as if I'm a long-lost brother who has returned home.

I get up several times and hang on to the bed until I feel pretty confident. The next move is for the door, which is always open. I leap and stumble to it in two steps. Then, hanging on to the rails, I guide myself down the open-air hallway, feeling the breeze, listening to the rustle of the palm fronds, and sucking in the sweet smells. Each step takes a minute, but I'm in no hurry. The nurses watch me but don't interrupt. I think how lucky I am not to be in a stuffy, antiseptic, uptight American institution. Sign language, a few words of French, a few of English, and an intangible spirit go a long way in communicating with the many patients and visitors outside the rooms. I can't believe how relaxed and high-spirited most of them seem.

By early evening the trade winds are cool and a little stronger. I'm dressed and, though tired, anxious to go out on the town. The anesthesiologist at the hospital, Michelle Monternot, has heard of my arrival, and although we have not met she has invited me to her home for dinner this evening. Mathias arrives, followed by two young Frenchmen and a Frenchwoman, who introduce themselves as André Monternot, the anesthesiologist's husband, and Michel and his girlfriend Nanou. They carry an enormous picnic basket, just in case I don't feel up to accompanying them to dinner, but I can't wait to get going. I think I can get across about a hundred feet of open ground by myself, so we make for Mathias's car. I stagger around like a drunk, and I must sound like one, too, because I can't stop laughing hysterically I guess I'm just intoxicated with being alive.

First we go to Mathias's hotel, where I make some telephone calls. I get through to my parents' house. My brother Ed picks up the phone. "What are
you
doing there?" I ask. "Trying to find out where the hell you've been," he replies jocularly. It seems that my parents have already heard the news. In fact, they knew of my arrival before many of the local authorities. Mathias was among the crowd when I was carried up from the beach, and he immediately sent a message on his CB radio to his friend Freddie in Guadeloupe. Freddie has an amplifier and rebroadcast the message. A man named Maurice Briand was fishing off the coast of Florida when he picked up the signal. He called my parents less than an hour after I stepped ashore. For days I won't believe that this was all possible with CB radios and not ham units but it turns out to be true Anyway, my parents are out buying me clothes and making arrangements to come down to the island But I'm already starting to feel overwhelmed and I suspect that things will be hectic for a few days. Also I want to be in better shape when they arrive So I ask my brother if he can convince them to delay their trip There's no big panic now I'm safe and secure I don't know anything about what they've been through in trying to find me My brother is caught in the middle and tells me he'll do what he can, though he knows they'd hop on a flight tonight if they could.

I will return to Mathias's hotel, Le Salut, tomorrow. Tonight I am regaled by a feast at the Monternots'. Michel turns out to be the customs agent on the island. We joke about my slipshod method of smuggling rafts into Marie Galante. I end up sleeping at the Monternots' house. When I wake up in the morning, I look into the mirror. My God! Who's that? The face I see is straight out of
Robinson Crusoe.
Long, stringy bleached hair, hollow eyes, drawn brown skin, shaggy beard. Michelle Monternot gives me a toothbrush. It feels strange in my mouth. What's even stranger is that my teeth are not crusty and slimy but are remarkably clean. I wonder what my dentist would say about that.

André drives me down to the hospital to collect my things. Upon entering my room, I smell the stink of dead fish. My bag really does reek. Someone's taken the T-shirt, to the nearest rubbish bin, no doubt. A nurse takes my blood pressure again. I check myself out and walk through the gates and into the world, feeling like a free man after a long imprisonment.

Mathias takes me back to his hotel and introduces me to his friend Marie, who speaks English quite well. Throughout my stay they are kind hosts and never balk at the huge quantities of their delicious Creole food that I consume. Everyone is amazed at how much I can pack away.

My parents arrive on an evening flight on the twenty-third. We are reunited after a year, my mother in tears, my father stoical, and me all smiles. So much has passed under my keel in one short year. Yet to them, although I'm a good deal thinner, I am still the same, their son returned.

I am honestly surprised by the fuss that everyone is making over me. Within twenty-four hours I'm giving telephone interviews to English, Canadian, and American reporters. Telegrams arrive. I am debriefed by the French and American Coast Guards and by the police again, and then get my picture taken with the amiable chief. CBS news sends a crew down from Florida. The
National Enquirer
asks me for an exclusive. I decline to give them an interview at all, but that doesn't stop them. They create a fabulous story of how I looked straight into the "glowing amber eyes" of a whale that "roared as only the sea can roar" and smashed my boat again and again. I have yet to see a whale with amber eyes and I've never heard even the slightest croak from one.

When I have a few moments, I try to extend my walks. Within a couple of days, I can do a hundred yards. My legs begin to blow up, as if I have elephantiasis. A local physician, Dr. Lachet, comes by every day to check on me. I feel fortunate because Dr. Lachet has had a lot of experience with starvation in Africa, so he knows what to expect. He runs some tests. I have a very high sodium level, a low potassium level, and I am pretty anemic. My body isn't getting rid of fluids and they are sinking to my legs. I begin taking pills.

I have long, leisurely meals and tour the island. I'm so excited by everything that it's difficult to sleep at night. By dawn I'm awake again and can't wait to get at the world. Instead of resting properly, I get overtired and cranky. People are trying to help me, I realize, but I am beginning to feel my autonomy slip from my grasp. The pressure is getting to me and my temper will probably soon get to everyone else.

My parents try to convince me that I should fly home with them and convalesce. I tell them I can't, that I don't want to be a patient. What I want is to regain my strength here, hitchhike on boats up to Antigua to collect my mail, and then fly back to Maine.

I spend the next several days getting to know the people of Marie Galante. The bar and restaurant of Hotel Le Salut are open to the street. People often come in to talk. Every few days the fishermen who picked me up stop in. They actually live on Guadeloupe. The day they brought me in, they took their fish home and sold it late into the night. I would like to go out in
Clemence
again, perhaps go fishing with them, but it never works out. My walks lengthen. Everywhere I go the islanders stop me. They invite me into their homes or surround me on the street. Those with whom I can speak make jokes about my sure-fire all-fish diet plan. I watch children fill drums with water from spigots that poke up from the sidewalks and roll them home, pushing them with their feet. I feel at ease here, at home. The people of Marie Galante have adopted me.

Some people have started to call me the Super Fisherman or the Superman. I try to explain to them that while I was adrift I kept struggling to survive not because I was heroic but because it was the easiest thing for me to do, easier than dying. One day I am honored by a visit from the local witch doctor. He stares close in my face, his eyes bulging out. He chants a bunch of words, shakes some things around, and looks at me curiously. After he leaves, Mathias tells me who he is and that he has cast a spell to speed my recovery.

The next day I get incredible stomach cramps, develop a high fever, and begin a long bout with diarrhea. For a while I think that I have kidded myself, that I am going to die after all. I ask Mathias not to tell the medicine man about my "recovery." The Creole cooking is excellent, but it is very spicy. Dr. Lachet and Dr. Dellanoy agree that I must lay off the hot peppers for a while. A classic case of way too much way too soon. It's pretty tough for four or five days, but I slowly pull out of it, thanks to the good doctors, my parents, Mathias, and Marie.

I finally recover enough to walk again. I have been on the island ten days. I realize that it is time for me to go. I've met with several sailors. Nick Keig, whom I know of but have never met, arrives with the
Three Legs of Mann IV
and agrees to take me on to Guadeloupe. My parents accept my decision rather well. They help me to get things together, give me money and food treats, and don't try to hold me back. When everything is ready, I hobble down to the concrete pier beside the beach on which
Clemence
delivered
Ducky
and me, lower myself into the waiting rubber dinghy, and am shuttled out to the Three Legs. I wave good-by to my many friends on the island. I know that I am relaunched into real life. The crew on the Three Legs hoist sail, we turn the bow toward Guadeloupe, and I watch my new home recede into the distance.

With natives of Marie Galante on the beach where I landed in St. Louis, about a week after I arrived

It is hard to believe that my little ocean odyssey now rests serenely some sixteen years in the past. It seems like lifetimes ago, or as if it had happened to someone else, yet it also keeps me as constant company as the daily sun.

Science tells us that virtually every cell in our body (except in the brain) is replaced every ten years, so in a sense the experience did happen to someone else. I hope that I have changed a bit psychologically and emotionally too.

At the same time, whenever I fill a tub with water, I think, This is more fresh water than what I lived on for two and a half months. I feel a slight pang of guilt for letting it escape down the drain. When someone says, "Let's get something to eat; I'm starving," a little bell goes off in my head and I think, Well, not really. I know the difference between hungry and starving. Often the experience sneaks up on me. Two people touching hands or a phrase that reveals a simple human kindness can drill into the core of the aching loneliness and desperation I once knew, and I find myself in tears. So too does my soul feel wrung by people's pain and the dignity with which they must sometimes bear it. Finally, even after all this time, the spirit of the dorados and their oceanic home have not diminished for me. I think about them daily, and still feel their spirit dwarfing mine. Whenever I eat fish—occasionally mahi-mahi, the popular restaurant name for dorado—it reminds me of my connection to the whole world and my need to remember that no life should be devoured without thought or appreciation.