The Sea Grape Tree (18 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

E
verything seemed to be coming apart, Eric reflected as he looked at the loafers he'd worn to work many moons back, New York written all over them. The upper leather of both shoes was moldy from sitting in his damp closet, and the soles were separating from the rest of the shoes—a metaphor for his life.

“Mistah Keller,” Ras Walker said, tossing his salt-and-pepper dreadlocks back as he bent over the shoes, “I think you have to throw them shoes out. You can't wear them again.”

“But I've hardly worn them.”

The shoemaker rubbed his polish-blackened finger around the edges of the shoes. “No, man, these shoes finished. Like how you going to be a manager again, with a new hotel and everything, you need nice shoes. You can't be walking around in old shoes or rubber sandals no more. Take my advice, throw them shoes out and buy some new leather ones in Ocho Rios.”

Eric took the shoes from the man and stuffed them back in the brown paper bag while Ras Walker bared his large teeth in a smile, two teeth missing unashamedly from the top row. He leaned on the inverted metal boot in front of him. “I glad you come anyway, suh. I meaning to ask you if I could have a shoe-shine stand in the new hotel lobby. Not a big one, you know.” He looked off into the distance, his mental image of the stand painted already. “A pretty red, yellow, and green one, with a sign saying
Reggae Boots
. What you think?”

Eric grunted. “I don't know if tourists need that, Ras. They wear sandals the whole time they're on the island.”

“But when they go dancing at night, they want to look nice, right, or if they having a wedding or something? And I was thinking I could have a little sandal section if they want to buy sandals.”

“You thinking about that from now?”

“I thinking about my nephew Saul. He almost finish school and he going to need a work. He could manage it for me. His mother say she don't want him hanging around in Port Antonio. She afraid he going to get into trouble.”

“Let's talk about it when the hotel is further along, Ras. It's going to be a year or two before it's finished.”

“So long?”

“Yes, ma-an,” Eric said in his pseudopatois. “We still have plenty paperwork left to do, then we start construction. It's going to take a while.”

The Rastafarian stroked the metal boot and looked up at the bar owner, his smile fading. “I was speaking to Mistah Delgado the other day. He said it going to take about nine months to build, as long as we don't have no strikes or nothing. I was talking to him about doing little extra work myself during the building time. My father show me how to do little carpentry, you know. Like how times sort of tight, and not much shoemaker work happening now, I was thinking I could make a little money myself.”

Eric neatly folded the top of the brown paper bag. “Let's talk about it down the road, okay?”

It was the answer he'd given to at least a dozen Largoites in the last few weeks. There'd been requests for construction jobs, housekeeping jobs, gardening and maintenance jobs. Even Solomon had approached him the week before, wielding a knife and a yellow onion, to ask if he was going to be the chef in the new hotel.

He would be first chef in line for his old job, his employer had informed him. “But you're going to need help,” Eric had added. “Twenty rooms means forty meals three times a day, plus staff meals. You think you can handle that?”

“Pshaw, man, that just child play,” Solomon had answered, waving the knife. “When I was chef at Three Seasons Hotel in Mo Bay, is three sous chef and four hundred meals a day I have.” Ever since the conversation, Solomon had been as cheerful as a dour man could get. He had been coming to work on time, drinking less at the bar in the evenings, and taking fewer days off for his indigestion.

Nothing like a little hope, Eric thought as he drove away from the shoe repair hut. Everyone in Largo was speaking of the future hotel in glowing terms. The idea, floating only mirage-like on their horizon at first, seemed to have drifted into the villagers' consciousness and now become as solid as reality. It had become intertwined with their personal dreams. The place had even been given a name: The New Largo Bay Inn, they were all calling it. Every time Eric heard it, it felt like one more thorn in his side, reminding him that it was all or nothing at this point.

That evening, his son drove the point home again. “What do you mean the investor . . . waffling?” Joseph asked. He was speaking on a cell phone that kept going in and out.

“He was all gung ho when he first came, really excited. But things haven't been working out.” Eric sat down heavily in the kitchen chair. “He's going back to the States.”

“What's wrong . . . the financials hold up?” Eric pictured his tall son frowning, the brown curl falling into his eye.

“Your report has held up, no problem.”

“Something must have turned him off,” Joseph commented dryly.

“It's more expensive than he thought,” his father replied, defending himself during three fade-outs, explaining the setbacks, the time it was taking to get approvals from the Parish Council, the added costs. “And then Horace is holding out about installing the infrastructure on the island, so that's kind of up in the air.” He sighed and looked out the window. There was a choppy sea today, afternoon glare bouncing off the waves.

“I guess if it's going to work out, it'll work out,” Joseph sighed—a different Joseph. His son had never been a fatalist, not that he knew, anyway, but the words could have come right out of someone else's mouth.

“How's Raheem?” Eric asked, trying to sound casual.

“I think he has a job coming up in Bombay.”

Eric pictured his son's elegant friend modeling designer clothes in India, a photographer trying to capture the moment, the crowd and the cows getting in the way. “His parents—I know they're Trinidadian-Indian, right?—they must be excited—the mother country and all.”

“I'm sure they are.” Joseph paused and his voice rose an octave. “Hey, guess what? I got my first client.”

It was another pivotal moment for father and son, who'd seen each other rarely since Joseph had turned nine, when Eric's wife had divorced him and moved to Virginia. Joseph's recent trip to Largo to write the business proposal—at his father's urging—had created a shift from their former polite exchanges and, when the thirty-one-year-old delivered a fine report, he had won his father's respect. Eric took a dish from a cupboard while Joseph told of a client hiring him to analyze her agency and write large grant proposals. He recounted the meeting, almost verbatim, and how he'd shown the executive director the proposal he'd written for the new hotel.

“She was impressed, I could tell. I have to thank you for that.” Eric spooned rice and peas onto the plate, grateful that his son had something to thank him for at last.

“You did a great job.”

“They just called me . . . got the job,” Joseph continued, his voice light with happiness.

“Terrific! When do you start?”

“April first.”

A sea breeze gusted through the window and Eric pushed his hair out of his face with his bent arm. “You're sure you want to start then, April Fools' Day?” he said, chuckling.

“Dad, you . . . crap like that.” Joseph went back to talking about the hotel. “No, seriously, dude, it's got to work,” he urged, no longer fatalistic, the boy whose diaper he'd changed in the middle of Central Park, now giving him orders. “You need to get Caines back in that good mood. You don't have anything else to fall back on—”

A click. Eric found himself holding a dead phone and a plate of cold rice and peas. He'd wanted to mention the laptop.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

S
unlight had made its way through the leaves of the tree outside the window and fell in small triangles on the snow-white tiles. An unseen dog made whimpering noises while it scratched its fur. A tap dripped in the bathroom. In the distance a car horn; a few minutes later the sound of a bigger vehicle not far from where she was, the rattling engine fading away.

Sarah lay on her side curled up, her heart still pounding in her throat, her arms wrapped around her legs. It would be about two in the afternoon, maybe three. Yesterday she'd started marking off the days with a pencil and there were two one-inch marks on the wall near the floor beside the bed.

She was hungry but her stomach was tight, her mouth sour. A tray sat on the table beside her. Food had been brought for her again, this time a soup with thick bread, and again she hadn't eaten. When she'd drunk from the tap, the water had tasted metallic, but she'd given in, too thirsty and tired to care.

The room she'd inspected and paced for the last two days was a white bunker, the only furniture being a double bed, a side table, and a plastic chair. A locked wooden door led to the corridor and an open one to the bathroom. On one wall, louver windows, three feet above the floor and six feet long, broke the monotony of the room. Vertical burglar bars covered the windows at four-inch intervals (she'd measured them with her fingers) and were intersected by heart-shaped designs, both ensuring her safety and preventing escape.

It was not a new house. She'd known it from the beginning, the stale smells of food and musty furniture reaching her under the hood when the driver had pulled up to the house—Square Jaw beside her still clutching her wrist. She'd heard the driver getting out of the car and opening a gate. He'd driven about a hundred yards before stopping again. Dragging her out of the car, they'd pulled her up some steps and into a room. Someone pulled the hood off, her head jerking back with the tug, the fabric scratching her cheeks. She was standing in a large room with armchairs arranged along bare walls. Visible through the louver windows was the ocean; the house was on a hill.

A thin, worn man with graying hair had been standing in the room smoking a cigarette and staring at her. He wore a white shirt with long sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his eyes had ashen circles around them. When he spoke, his voice surprised her.

“Anybody see you?” he'd said, his voice high-pitched and nasal, almost as thin as his body.

“You think I stupid or what?” the driver had answered. They'd hustled her down a corridor with several closed doors. They opened one door and pushed her inside.

“What—what are you going to do to me?” she'd managed to say when they released her.

“Rest yourself,” Square Jaw had said. She'd retreated to a corner as they latched the door on the outside. A few minutes later they'd returned with her large suitcase, which they'd thrown down in a corner of the room. She'd stared at it numbly, realizing it must have been in the trunk. The easel box and her painting bags they'd stacked on the folding chair, plopping the large sheets of paper on top. The computer was missing.

Who her captors were and what they wanted she had no clue. They wouldn't answer her questions and she could hardly understand a word they said, even when they spoke as if she were deaf or stupid.

Shortly after Square Jaw and the driver had left her that first day, a woman in a gingham dress had entered the room with a pillow and a pink flowered sheet. Sarah had been standing in a corner of the room hugging her arms, and she'd been startled to see the woman enter as if she were making up a hotel room. While she was tucking in the first corner of the sheet, the woman had said something without looking up and Sarah had stared at her.

“Likkle cocoa-tea?” the woman had repeated, louder, and Sarah had shaken her head, not wanting anything anyone would offer her here.

For a long time after, there'd been no other visitors. She'd finally shuffled to the bed—her hands shaking—where she eventually lay down on her side in the fetal position. The first rational thought she'd had was that someone had entered her room at Roper's uninvited, had pulled her underwear and painting clothes out of the drawers, taken her dresses off their hangers, and packed them up. Everything had been planned in advance, and the men had been waiting for her to leave her painting spot. Her mind kept circling back to Janet and she'd gone through a series of protests, in case the woman appeared and accused her of carousing with Danny.

“I teach him art, that's all,” she was going to say. “I haven't even seen him for days.”

After it got dark, she didn't switch on the light, but lay in the same position, willing someone, anyone, to come and rescue her. When the door was unlocked and reopened, she'd pretended to sleep until the door closed again.

She hadn't slept that first night, her whole body rigid, waiting for whatever, sure something would happen. It didn't seem right that someone could disappear and be locked up without the police being called. She lay in wait for a siren. Surely, surely, she'd soothed herself, Sonja or Ford would report her missing and the police would come. But there was only the dripping of the bathroom tap. At least once an hour she'd raised her head, listening for cars real or imagined, hearing footsteps coming down the corridor. A door had opened and closed. Someone speaking loudly had passed, the syllables harsh and disjointed.

Just before dawn, a rooster had crowed loudly somewhere. She'd felt her way to the bathroom and turned on the light. While she relieved herself, she looked around the stark, windowless room, even whiter than the bedroom. It had no shower curtain or mirror and only a bar of soap and one thin towel.

She must have fallen asleep after, because she'd awakened to find the old woman bending over her, the round cheeks and stubby mustache making her look like a walrus. She was wearing a striped dress this morning and her breath smelled of coffee.

“Likkle breakfast,” she said, a drop of saliva falling on Sarah's arm.

“Where am I?” Sarah had ventured, but the Walrus had only shrugged and left the room.

The day had passed uneventfully, the prisoner waiting for something to happen, wondering why her abductors hadn't come back, refusing to eat again, drinking from the dripping bathroom tap. By afternoon, she couldn't stand her own grime and decided to take a shower, even if the water splattered on the floor. She'd found clean clothes among the mix of things thrust into her suitcase and showered with as little water as possible, looking over her shoulder through the open door, thinking of the movie
Psycho,
which she'd watched with a cousin, and drying off with the pink towel on the rack.

After dressing, she'd taken her first look out the window. To her left was a tree that rose higher than the louvers. About twelve feet in front of her was an expressionless blue wall, separated from the house by dry dirt interspersed with weeds. As tall as a man and running parallel to the house, the solid concrete wall held a sparkling and terrifying detail. Cemented into the top of the wall was a sinister line of broken bottles, the jagged brown and green points translucent in the afternoon light, scoffing at the distant ocean visible above.

She'd turned and walked to the door, the porcelain tiles cool beneath her bare feet, and put her hand on the knob. It turned easily, but a latch prevented it from opening. Peeping between the door frame and the door, she'd seen a shadowy obstruction above the knob, a thick bolt, it looked like. No one appeared to be around, no sound of movement or footsteps.

Imagining who else was in the other rooms along the corridor (residents, captives, other women?), the artist had passed the rest of the afternoon sitting on the bed, first cross-legged, then with her back to the headboard and legs straight, and then on the edge of the bed. She'd drunk water from the noisy tap, made her first scratch on the wall to mark the days. At one point she heard distant noises from what she assumed was the kitchen, the clanking of a pot on a stove, the rattle of china. When the tray was brought in, the woman had removed the last untouched meal and gone away down the corridor, sucking her teeth.

That second night she'd slept fitfully, aware finally of light creeping into the room and the rooster crowing again, over and over. Breakfast had been early that morning. Walrus had been wearing a pale yellow dress with long sleeves and a large hat.

“You haffe eat,” she'd declared. She deposited the tray, removing the uneaten meal, and left. What looked like salt fish, ackee, and breadfruit, recalled from breakfast at Roper's house, sat on a white plate, the concoction swimming in oil, forcing Sarah to put the tray in a corner. Shortly after, the still of the house was broken by a church choir singing a cappella, the church perhaps a few hundred yards away. One woman's voice rose above the rest, pleading with God to aid her somehow. Sarah had paced for a while when all was quiet again, then lain down and slept. When she awoke, there was a fresh tray on the bedside table. She was still lying in the fetal position when the latch was slammed open.

“You have money on you?” It was the driver, asking the question even before he got into the room. He stopped just inside the door and left it open. The corridor behind him was empty. Sarah sat up on her elbow, her heart jumping to her throat. Driver leaned on one leg. He had a scar that ran from the front of his ear down to his throat, unnoticed before.

“You deaf or what? I said, mon
-ey
.”

She tried to swallow. “I don't—a hundred, maybe, a hundred and fifty American dollars.”

“I going to need it to buy food for you. The boss don't pay us yet.”

Sarah stood up, steadying herself on the bed. “In my wallet, but I don't think—”

The driver opened his mouth—about to curse again, she could tell—and she ran for her handbag and handed it over.

“You—you can't keep me locked up,” she blurted out as he rifled through her wallet. “It's against the law.”

The man's wide mouth slackened and one side pulled up in amusement. “Is foolishness you talking. You don't see where you are?
You lock up,
you can't get out.” He waved toward the window. “You see any police coming for you?
Blood claat,
” he said, after he'd withdrawn the money, “only eighty dollars.”

“Why am I here?” she pleaded. “You can't just kidnap me like this.”

“You think anybody care?”

Tears bubbled up inside. She sank with them to the floor, determined not to cry. “I haven't done anything wrong, believe me. Somebody has made a mistake. Please let me go, please, please. I haven't done anything, I swear to you.”

“Get up!” the man barked.

Walking on her knees, Sarah approached the man holding out her hand. “I'll do anything you want, anything,” she pleaded. “Just let me go, I beg you.”

“Anything?” he asked, and threw the bag on the bed.

“Anything, whatever you want.”

“Cook my food, wash my drawers?” He snickered, enjoying his own wit.

“Anything, but please, please let me go.”

“I love it, Englishwoman on the floor begging me.” A sudden frown brought his eyebrows low over his eyes. “You ever see my trial? Nothing I can't stand more than a begging woman.” He slapped her outstretched hand away.

“I promise you, I won't tell them anything. I won't tell them what you look like or what the house is like. I'll pretend that I don't remember.”

They stared at each other, not moving, she not daring to breathe, outside the window only the sound of a scratching dog.