In the Beginning Was the Sea

1

THE LUGGAGE was transported on the roof of the bus. Two leather suitcases containing their clothes, a trunk containing his books, and her sewing machine. Their belongings were surrounded by bunches of plantains, sacks of rice, blocks of unrefined sugar cane wrapped in dried banana leaves, and other suitcases.

Elena and J. were heading for the sea.

There were stops in dusty villages. Elena and J. got out of the bus, numb, drank coffee in bars that smelt like urinals where pot-bellied men sat steeping their endless entrails in the golden glow of beer. There were stops in dismal, dirty service stations littered with discarded engine filters and empty oil cans where the bus would fill up with petrol before setting off again. By day, the bus picked up passengers carrying bewildered chickens; at night, empty-handed individuals boarded the bus in dark, desolate places only to get off in equally dark and desolate places twenty or thirty kilometres further on. Silent men with machetes slung from their belts and dirty, battered hats on their heads.

When, finally, the bus arrived at the port, the sea was not magnificent and blue. The harbour was built on a narrow inlet that looked more like a canal — a filthy canal three kilometres long that spilt into the sea. At 4 p.m. the bus pulled in to the main plaza. There was no sign of the sea, though the air smelt of salt and the fetid stench of open drains. The tall almond trees in the middle of the plaza were wheeled about by flights of swallows. Amid the trees, perched on the backs of granite benches, people sat chatting. The undersides of the granite benches seemed eroded. In the shade of the trees were kiosks selling fruit juice; split papayas, their exposed bellies gorged with seeds and teeming with flies; large glass jars filled with cubes of mango ready to be liquidized.

Parked all around the plaza were lines of Jeeps. Some looked new, but most were rusty broken-down Willys half eaten by rust or clapped-out Gaz or Carpatis. The newer models had metal driver’s cabs with small red or blue fans mounted on the dashboard while older models sported grubby statues of a saint next to the steering wheel and faded, patched tarpaulin roofs.

The dusty streets around the plaza would become quagmires in the rainy season. Traffic was heavy: trucks full with packages arrived as the jeeps teeming with passengers left. Garishly painted buses pulled up, their roofs piled high with live chickens, multi-coloured tin trunks and bunches of plantains.

The squat buildings of concrete and brick — mostly grain stores and seedy bars — were roofed with corrugated iron or asbestos tiles. There was no attempt at elegance or style; the walls themselves were grimy. The people teeming on the plaza were ugly: the white men were garrulous, potbellied traders with a yellowish tinge to their skin; the blacks, raised far from the sea and cheap fish, had prematurely rotting teeth.

“You get the bags unloaded and I’ll go see about a boat.”

“OK,” said Elena, then yelled up to the boy, “Hey! Careful with our luggage, hermano!”

Her sewing machine — the one thing that she had kept from her first marriage — had spent almost twenty hours riding on the roof of the bus. The wooden case that housed the mechanism was wrapped with cardboard boxes held in place with packing tape and twine; the feet and the pedal were exposed.

It tumbled to the ground with a dull clatter.

Elena unleashed a torrent of hurried, confused abuse before composing herself and calmly swearing at the boy, choosing her insults with silky venom.

“It ain’t my fault, seño,” the boy said simply.