Marta sits on the bed combing and combing her hair while the bolero plays, solemnly frowning as she forces herself to remember all the brave young compañeros fighting at the war fronts, her sister sitting on the opposite bed with an examination book open on her lap, lightly obliterating with her pencil eraser some equation she’s just realized she set down wrong. Both sisters wear long, loose, white T-shirts to bed, and lately Esteban lets himself briefly savor the smooth, sturdy curve of her bare thighs leading back into the shadowy crevice, a glossy centimeter of scar tissue on her gleaming shin like a foreboding amidst soft, brown angel’s hair. How long do we have left to live, sister? How many months and days left to you, to me? It will happen twenty-three days after the true love thing. Shhh, grosera, good night, turn off that ridiculous Amante Loco. Do you think he tells the truth? Leave the light on so Esteban can watch us. He doesn’t need light. His brain and lungs are full of light…
Esteban pushes off his blankets, sits up gasping cold air. He’s never told Bernardo, never told anyone onboard, about the volunteer nightmare battalion from León, about la Marta and her sister. Once he told the viejo about Ana, the German shepherd tracking dog, and he kicked up such a hysterical fuss Esteban swore never to mention war to him again.
He sits at the edge of the mattress tying on his boots with electrical wire laces and moments later steps from the short passageway out onto the deck and looks up at the lights of small planes scattering like mercury beads into the far corners of the night. A helicopter banking towards the glowing skyscrapers, abandoning its futile search for some sign of life from the
Urus
and her crew buried somewhere down there in the darkness. The decanted thunder of yet another descending airliner. The night sky is always busy, always awake too.
2
THEY FOUND A RAT SKELETON AT THE BOTTOM OF THEIR WATER TANK THE first time they took it down to refill it at the spigot at the foot of the pier, that’s why everyone but Panzón and Miracle was so sick those first few days in June; even Capitán Elias and Mark, but everyone knows
they
went to see doctors. But Capitán Elias brought them a clear plastic jug filled with something watery and almost tasteless to drink; it made everyone’s diarrhea worse and then left them constipated for three days. Sometimes, they’ve noticed, Mark, with a touch of friendly mockery, calls Elias “Doc.” Capitán Elias seems to know almost everything about the mechanical workings of ships, and el primero Mark seems to know almost nothing, though they can’t know this for sure, since he doesn’t speak Spanish.
By the end of that first week onboard, nearly everybody already had a nickname: Panzón, sagging stomach so strong he was the only one who hadn’t gotten sick from rat water; burly El Barbie, after the doll, because he’s so loud, ugly, and macho; El Tinieblas, his hard, thin body covered with prison tattoos, a vivid black scorpion on each forearm, always speaking in whispers as if hiding in dangerous Darkness; Cebo, radiantly good-natured and built like an Adonis from so many years of deep-sea free diving for lobster, no one was sure exactly why Tomaso Tostado had decided to call him Fish Bait, but it seemed hilarious the first time and stuck; El Faro, the Lighthouse, wearing glasses and smilingly nodding and agreeing with whatever anyone says; Bonnie Mackenzie, El Buzo, his skin like a skin diver’s wet suit; Cabezón with his big head; Chávez Roque, Roque Balboa; Caratumba, the only Guatemalan; Pínpoyo, the pretty boy electrician; Canario. They’d tried Rambo on Esteban, and then El Piricuaco or El Piri, which means Rabid Dog, which the Hondurans knew was what la contra called their enemies in Nicaragua, but both names always made him look befuddled-crestfallenand later they’d come up with El Nieto because he was like the viejo’s grandson, but
Esteban pushes off his blankets, sits up gasping cold air. He’s never told Bernardo, never told anyone onboard, about the volunteer nightmare battalion from León, about la Marta and her sister. Once he told the viejo about Ana, the German shepherd tracking dog, and he kicked up such a hysterical fuss Esteban swore never to mention war to him again.
He sits at the edge of the mattress tying on his boots with electrical wire laces and moments later steps from the short passageway out onto the deck and looks up at the lights of small planes scattering like mercury beads into the far corners of the night. A helicopter banking towards the glowing skyscrapers, abandoning its futile search for some sign of life from the
Urus
and her crew buried somewhere down there in the darkness. The decanted thunder of yet another descending airliner. The night sky is always busy, always awake too.
2
THEY FOUND A RAT SKELETON AT THE BOTTOM OF THEIR WATER TANK THE first time they took it down to refill it at the spigot at the foot of the pier, that’s why everyone but Panzón and Miracle was so sick those first few days in June; even Capitán Elias and Mark, but everyone knows
they
went to see doctors. But Capitán Elias brought them a clear plastic jug filled with something watery and almost tasteless to drink; it made everyone’s diarrhea worse and then left them constipated for three days. Sometimes, they’ve noticed, Mark, with a touch of friendly mockery, calls Elias “Doc.” Capitán Elias seems to know almost everything about the mechanical workings of ships, and el primero Mark seems to know almost nothing, though they can’t know this for sure, since he doesn’t speak Spanish.
By the end of that first week onboard, nearly everybody already had a nickname: Panzón, sagging stomach so strong he was the only one who hadn’t gotten sick from rat water; burly El Barbie, after the doll, because he’s so loud, ugly, and macho; El Tinieblas, his hard, thin body covered with prison tattoos, a vivid black scorpion on each forearm, always speaking in whispers as if hiding in dangerous Darkness; Cebo, radiantly good-natured and built like an Adonis from so many years of deep-sea free diving for lobster, no one was sure exactly why Tomaso Tostado had decided to call him Fish Bait, but it seemed hilarious the first time and stuck; El Faro, the Lighthouse, wearing glasses and smilingly nodding and agreeing with whatever anyone says; Bonnie Mackenzie, El Buzo, his skin like a skin diver’s wet suit; Cabezón with his big head; Chávez Roque, Roque Balboa; Caratumba, the only Guatemalan; Pínpoyo, the pretty boy electrician; Canario. They’d tried Rambo on Esteban, and then El Piricuaco or El Piri, which means Rabid Dog, which the Hondurans knew was what la contra called their enemies in Nicaragua, but both names always made him look befuddled-crestfallenand later they’d come up with El Nieto because he was like the viejo’s grandson, but
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