Island Page 11

  When the sun began once again to fall away, the old fisherman came home, and after giving his catch over to his wife, he went outside to look at the mermaid. “It is time,” he said. “I have thought all day of nothing but this moment. And still, I do not know that I can begin the process that will make you nearly human without asking you again whether you are sure this is the thing that you desire.”

  The old woman came up behind him carrying a long knife with a newly sharpened blade. “Silly man,” she said, laughing. “Don’t ask it what it wants. It doesn’t know what it wants anymore than do those puny fish you caught today—hardly a meal, them, let alone worth a trip to market. Take the knife and cut. When it’s become a child, maybe then we’ll ask it what it wants. Maybe.”

  So the fisherman took the long sharp knife from the wrinkled hand of his gray-haired wife and held it steady in his weathered one. “Where?” he asked.

  “Here,” she said pointing. But just as he was about to cut into the tail at the place she had indicated, she stopped him crying, “No! Wait! Lower, I think.”

  So the fisherman lifted the sharp knife once more and moved it down along Lillith’s tail, keeping one eye on his wife. “Here?” he asked.

  “A bit higher,” she said. And she touched Lillith’s tail with one finger. But just as the fisherman was about to cut at the place which his wife had marked with her wrinkled finger, his wife screamed, “No! Wait! Here,” and touched Lillith’s tail once more. But just as the old fisherman was about to cut at the new place his old wife had marked with her wrinkled finger, she cried yet again, “No, wait. Here,” and touched Lillith’s tail once more. And just as the old fisherman set the knife at the place on Lillith’s tail which his wife had marked with her wrinkled finger, he saw that she was about to change her mind once again, and so he cut the tail quickly before she could do so.

  Though the pain went flying like chaos itself, up through Lillith’s tail and into her chest and down her slim arms and into her fingertips, Lillith uttered not a sound, for she understood that a transformation was to take place and that the pain was a necessary part of it. She watched through her tears as the old fisherman dug with his hands the hole in which she would spend the night. And when the hole was ready, the old fisherman lifted Lillith and placed her in it. Then the old woman came and covered her carefully from the waist down with the grasses which had come from the sea. And the salt from the grasses on Lillith’s wound stung like no stingray she had ever encountered, and for a short time her pain was so great that she wished herself dead. But then the fisherman knelt down beside her, and laying his rough hand against her smooth cheek, he said, “We will treasure you, little one. We will give you a life worth the pain you are now suffering.” And Lillith smiled to hear his soothing words.

  “Don’t be touching that seaweed now,” the old woman called from the door of the shack.

  Lillith tried that night to follow, as she had on the previous night, the miracle of the world’s transformation, which she imagined was not unlike the one she would soon experience herself, but her eyes were swollen and full of tears, and the stars she saw through her tears were as dim and unreal as the ones she had once seen looking up through the watery surface of the sea. But as the hours passed, she fell asleep, and in her dreams she was no longer a mermaid but a beautiful child with spindly legs running up and down the paths on the island, laughing and singing to the others songs about the ways of the sea. And when she awoke, she found that the pain had stopped and she imagined that she could feel, beneath the seaweed wrappings, two fine-looking legs like the ones she had had in her dream. And then it was all she could do to lie still and refrain from calling out while she waited for the fisherman and his wife to awaken.

  When the door to the shack finally opened and Lillith saw the fisherman and his wife emerge, the fisherman rubbing his belly and scanning the sky and his wife rubbing her eyes and yawning, Lillith’s heart began to pound in her chest. Then the old woman came and knelt down by Lillith’s side and began to peel back the seaweed wrappings, one strand at a time, while her husband stood behind her, watching and smiling. But suddenly his smile was gone and his features drew close in together, as though out of fear. “You cut its tail in the wrong place!” the old woman snapped.

  “I cut where you told me to,” the fisherman cried.

  “You couldn’t have,” she hissed. “If you had cut where you should have, it’d have legs now just like Granny’s merboy. It’s of no use to us like this. Get rid of it. Throw it back into the sea.”

  “But wife,” the fisherman pleaded. “With her tailfin cut off, how will she manage back in the sea? And smelling of blood as she does, the sharks will be on her in no time.”

  “Do as I say,” said the fisherman’s wife as she got to her feet and made for the shack, “or you’ll find what’s left of its long tail on your plate tonight at dinner. I won’t be nursing a fish, not even one with a pretty face.”

  So the fisherman lifted Lillith from her hole and carried her down the path that led from his shack to the sea, but try though he did, he could not bring himself to toss the creature back into it, and after some time he started back up the path, but before he got to his shack, he turned off onto another path and headed for the marketplace in the center of the village.

  In the marketplace in the center of the village there was a large shallow pool whose concrete floor was covered with coins, each an emblem of a villager’s wish. But these coins could barely be seen because the water within was unclean. Into this pool of unclean water the fisherman placed the little mermaid, for he wanted to see whether he was correct in believing that she was now unable to swim. And he saw right away that he was correct, for although she could float—and float she did, ’round and ’round, for the unclean water was soothing on her stinging tail—without the tailfin to flip she could not propel herself properly. All day long Lillith floated ’round and ’round, and people came to marvel at the mermaid in the dirty pool in the center of the marketplace. To each of them in turn the old fisherman told his story and begged for advice. Though all the villagers were fascinated with the creature’s beauty and the fisherman’s story, no one had any advice other than that which the old fisherman had already gotten from his wife—throw her back into the sea.

  Finally though, a young lad came down to the pool. He was Cale, son of Hatra, and though his mother was a witch, he himself had a reputation for kindness and gentility.

  “I don’t know what to do with her,” the fisherman said to Cale after he had told him his story. “My wife won’t have her in the house, but as you can see, she’s not fit for the sea. She’s sure to drown without her great tailfin. But if you were to take her, young lad, I would find a way to pay you for her care and your secrecy, and my wife need never know. My wife is older than I am, you see, and bound to leave this world for the next before me, and should that happen, I will come and take my mermaid back.”

  “What of my mother?” asked Cale. “She’s not likely to let me keep a fish in the house any more than your wife will let you. And you of all people, old man, know of her powers and what she could do should she find out.”

  “Your house is the largest on the island,” the old fisherman said. “Surely there is some room which your mother seldom enters. Keep the mermaid there. And if your mother finds out, you need only say that you are caring for the mermaid at my request. Your mother did love me once when I was a younger man and she was a great beauty who needed no spells to have her way with half the men on the island.”

  So the old man and the boy came to an agreement. And in the dark of night the young lad came down from the large house in which he lived with his mother to the unclean pool in the center of the marketplace and lifted out the mermaid and carried her back up to his house on the largest hill of the island.

  The boy’s mother had had the house built many years ago when half the men on the island were wild for her and their ignorant wives were bringing her coins and other valuables
in exchange for the spells that would keep their husbands from wandering at night and smiling so boldly in their dreams. And because she was as skilled in her sorcery as she had once been beautiful, Hatra knew right away that her son had brought a mermaid into the house, just as her son knew that she would know, but Hatra said nothing, for she knew too that mermaids can be as powerful as witches.

  As for Lillith, she lay in the basement of Hatra’s house and for many days thought of nothing but the expression she had seen on the face of the old fisherman when his wife had uncovered her mutilated tail, and she found that the recollection of his expression was far more painful than had been the mutilation itself. Cale’s visits—he came each day when he had completed his sundry chores—were her only distraction from these thoughts. But unlike the other creatures of the land that Lillith had encountered, Cale was faithful, and always kind. And so it was that before long he became the focus of Lillith’s life and her recollection of the expression of the fisherman’s face became the distraction.

  Cale began to teach Lillith his language, for though legless and finless, she was nonetheless an intelligent mermaid. When she was able to understand him, he told her all about the life on the island, its people and its ways, of his friends and the games they played, and she in return, when his language had become her own, told him all about the sea, its continuous motion, the variety of its creatures, and the great sawfish and her fourteen nameless sisters. The boy was fascinated by her stories of the sea, and he came to agree, as he listened to them week after week, that there was far more evil on land than in the sea, and when Lillith asked him if he would give up his legs to take on a tail and join her in the sea if such a thing were possible, he said that he would—if such a thing were possible.

  One day Lillith heard coming down the stairs that led to the basement footsteps which were too slow and heavy to be Cale’s, and she rolled herself quickly into a corner and lay quietly in the dark. But Hatra went instinctively right over to the corner where Lillith was curled, and laughing at Lillith’s feeble attempt to conceal herself, she bent down at her side and held her candle near Lillith’s smooth cheek. “Ah,” she said. “So this is the creature that has so captivated my son. And a pretty little thing at that. Speak to me, little mermaid. I know you know our language because I have heard you speaking to my boy. I have heard you conspiring with him to take him back with you into the sea. Is that true, little mermaid? Have you been conspiring to take my boy into the sea?” Hatra grabbed Lillith’s wrist in anger, but then quickly released it.

  “You have heard my thoughts,” said Lillith, “not my words, for I think often of taking your boy back to the sea to swim by my side, but surely you must see that I am in no condition to get back to the sea myself with my tail the way it is. It is only a dream, not unlike the dreams I possess of the days I once spent with the great sawfish and my fourteen nameless sisters. The conspiracy you speak of is merely that which I imagine to pass away the hours. I beg you not to forbid your son to see me because I have had such dreams. Without his visits I would die of loneliness here in your damp basement without even the miracles of day and night to inspire me. I mean you no harm. Take pity on me, Hatra.”

  “I mean you no harm either,” said Hatra. “But I do not wish you to make of my son such a close friend. I have spent many years saving my pennies and making plans for my son and myself to go to the mainland where there lives a beautiful princess, a rich beautiful princess, who has of late taken an interest in my son. It is my hope that her parents will soon tire of trying to coax her to marry another who is more equally suited, and instead permit her to marry my Cale. Such a marriage would enable me to have control over an entire continent. And Cale would grow to be a rich man who need never bother to soil his hands with the smell of fish—if you’ll pardon my saying so—in order to make his living. But as the day for our next visit to that continent quietly approaches, Cale despairs more and more of leaving—for to leave is to leave you behind. And so it is that I have come to you today to suggest a compromise.”

  “What kind of compromise can there be between us?” asked Lillith, trembling and holding back her tears.

  Hatra laughed. “Silly child!” she exclaimed. “Is it possible that you have yet to come to know of your powers? I see that it is, and I am grateful, for had you known you’d have gone back to the sea and taken my Cale to swim beside you long ago. Too late now, though, so don’t even think of it. Here is my plan. Listen carefully. In two days time I shall leave for the continent. Cale, of course, will come with me. I will leave behind a bucket full of green seawater. You need only take this bucket full of green seawater and swirl it three times while thinking of the watery world from whence you came and of your fourteen nameless sisters. Then spill the water from the bucket onto the floor, every last drop. And within three days, when I am safe with Cale beside me on the continent where dwells the princess whom he shall marry, a great storm will come to the island. And with it will come a great wave which will wash over the island. And within that great wave you will see swimming your fourteen sisters. You need only wait then until the moment when they join hands and make a circle around you. And when the circle is closed with you at its center, your tail will sprout a new tailfin, and you will be once more free to return to the world from whence you came.

  “Now, because I am kind I shall tell you further that any creature within that circle made by the mermaids who are your sisters shall likewise become a creature of the sea and as such saved from the harm that will be set free when the great wave comes to wash over the island. Is there anyone, besides my Cale whom you may not have, that you would like to take with you back to your world?”

  “I have no friend other than Cale,” said Lillith. “But I would take the fisherman who nearly befriended me and surely would have had he been able to get permission from his wife. But I fear even now, with his doom just before him, he will need her permission to leave her side and enter my world.”

  Hatra laughed. “Do not worry about the fisherman,” she said. “I have already paid him a fee to ferry my boy and myself over to the continent in two days time on his small boat, and thus he shall be with me when comes the storm that will destroy the island.”

  “But how did he get his wife to agree—” began Lillith.

  “Have you forgotten that the fisherman promised to pay my Cale for your care and his secrecy?” Hatra laughed. “I have all my life wanted a power over that man of the sort that I have had with all the others when I wanted it and when I did not. But never mind about that.”

  Later that evening after Hatra had gone, the boy came down into the basement to visit with Lillith. He found her crying softly in the dark corner where hours before she had thought to hide herself from Hatra’s scrutiny. “What ails you?” he asked.

  “It has come to pass that your mother Hatra has brought me the knowledge that will free me from this basement, this island, and this waterless world,” said Lillith. “I am crying for joy because I will soon swim once again in a school with my sisters and we shall be like one large body and always content. But I am crying, too, for beside my joy there sits the despair which results from the fact that when my sisters come riding in the great wave which Hatra’s knowledge will enable me to beckon, you will not be beside me in the circle they shall make within which all contained creatures will become as seaworthy as will I. But it occurs to me now, my dearest friend, that if you were to get the bucket of seawater that will call forth the storm and bring it here to me tonight, and that if somehow we could get this storm to come in two days time, or somehow get Hatra to wait three—”

  The boy covered his eyes with his hands and shook his head.

  “Why do you shake your head like that?” Lillith asked. “Are you not as happy as I to know that it may be within our power for us to go in so short a time to live in the world you have professed to love though you know it not beyond my account of it?”

  “I don’t want to live in the sea,” the boy admi
tted. “Through your account I have learned to love it, that is true. And many nights I have spent lying awake imagining myself swimming beside you, and I was happy. But I fear to give up the life I know for another when I have only your word that it will be better for me.”

  “Then you have no more been honest with me than was the fisherman who promised to make me his daughter and treasure me forever,” Lillith cried.

  “Please, Lillith,” he pleaded.

  But Lillith rolled over and would listen to nothing but her recollection of the bygone words of the great sawfish who had told her once that the waterless world was full of evil.

  Two days later Lillith awoke to find beside her a wooden bucket filled with salt water, and she knew then that the time had come and that Cale was gone and that much as she longed to forgive him his betrayal, she would never get the chance. So she took up the pail and set herself the task of teaching her thoughts to conjure up her sisters. And when her sisters, all fourteen of them, were swimming about, secured by her imagination, Lillith swirled the water ’round three times and then turned the bucket so that its contents ran out on the floor.

  There was nothing for Lillith to do then but wait. And her wait, which was only three days, seemed like three seasons as she lay in the basement alone and hungry, seeing little and hearing less. But when the morning of the third day came, it brought along with it a distant rumbling that grew louder and louder as the hours crept by. By noon Lillith could hear winds running fast and calling to one another the way the children on the island called to one another in Cale’s accounts of their games. And some time later there came a wind which was more than playful, and growling madly it tore from the island many trees and several shacks. It lifted Hatra’s house straight away from its foundation so that startled Lillith found herself for the first time in months looking up from the basement into the sky which to her disappointment was as dark and gloomy as the basement had been.