The Fisherman’s Story

As promised, here's an excerpt of a story that appeared first in print in Rhubarb Magazine and then later, online as a part of a trilogy of stories @ Fiction on the Web. 

Part 2 - The Fisherman’s Story — Mismaloya, Mexico 1975

[...] Violeta opened her eyes to the new day. She looked up at a scorpion sunning itself, looking like a black feather on the gray frame of the doorway. As the patch of sunlight worked slowly higher, the arachnid crept upward, its hooked tail seeming to sniff the air, moving delicately from side to side.

She thought that her daughter should get a fresh coconut from the beach, one that could easily be chopped open with the machete. It will smell rich and make the dough more savoury, Violeta thought. And it will sweeten the tortillas and the oil will make Josefina’s hair shine.

With a hand on her knee for support, she rose and walked on the hard dirt floor to the basin. The water was cool from the night and she drank several handfuls before taking the black lye soap and washing, slowly rubbing her face, her neck and her strong arms. Of all the mujere in the village, she could still carry the largest stones of water or the greatest bunches of bananas. She thought of the smell of the green bananas and the feeling of their firm skins pressing against her shoulder bones as she walked. She put her hand on her angular hip in the way she would to underpin the bananas, feeling how it was to accept the weight through her arm and then down through her hips and into her shanks and across to the far leg and down through her foot and finally into the cool ground.

Poking the fire, she fed it some dry bits of bark to let it sputter into flame. She opened her palm to the fire and felt the stiffness leaving her fingers. The lye scent was strong on her shoulder and the tang of it helped her feel awake. Outside, a bunting hopped about in the dry grass, making a crunching sound that was loud in the dawn stillness. Violeta remembered she was hungry and knew that the girl would be too.

Taking a silky tipped straw from an earthenware jar filled with them—some dyed blue and red, but most yellow—she walked to the girl’s place by the back wall and used the weaving straw to tickle her curving jawline. She continued until a petite hand reached out, like a flower stretching up for the sun. The little eyes opened suddenly and the whites were pure and bright. Josefina smiled up at her mother and was immediately happy to see her and to know it was morning.

Our Josefina is so clever and she is not one to complain, Violeta thought, pleased and feeling herself entering the flow of the day, like slipping into the river current and sensing how it took her with buoyant ease. She felt happy for the child and hoped her husband Jose was likewise content as he went about the daily business of catching fish. It’s what he has done since he was a boy, she thought. Beginning in Acapulco, with his cousin Avelino.

Expectantly, the girl asked if she should fetch a coconut and when Violeta smiled and nodded once, Josefina put on the sandals her father had made for her, cut from the thick blue plastic of an empty drum that had washed up on their beach. He had laced the toe thong with stout, wound coconut husk. Each sole had been carefully centred on a white triangular recycle symbol.

The low light from the rising sun was sprinkled in pinpoints and shards in the jungle like seed corn strewn carelessly. Dashes of golden light cut through the thin mist at descending angles – silent, harmless tracer bullets. No single point of light was like another in shape or size or hue. No patch of shade was like its neighbour as some were the darkest black and others charcoal and still others tinted with sharps of red or green. Looking up, Josefina could see the dappled blue of the morning sky through the tree leaves.

She ran down the path, her brown foot stepping on an identically brown tree root, worn smooth by thousands of similar footsteps. She made a game of skipping from one fallen yellow leaf to the next until she was close enough to the beach to smell the salt and also smell the sun baking the sand.

Zenate birds rained song on the jungle, sitting in the thick foliage, arching their necks and appearing to peer straight up as they whistled and squeaked and clicked. The proud males puffed their feathers importantly, and then let their form recede back to its original sleek, iridescent blackness.

Josefina was reminded of the game her mother and her played on the beach. The bird game: stand on one foot and look up until you see three birds at once. When you saw three—most often frigates, pelicans or gulls—you could take three giant steps towards the water. The first one to wet their feet won. It was hard to balance in the deep sand next to the trees; harder still on the steep sloping shore; hardest of all to balance while looking up at the brilliant dome with no reference point except for the wheeling black specks impossibly high above.

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Violeta lit a cigarillo that Jose had brought home with him from fishing. A Canadian tourist had given him a pack of them. Her husband told of the man’s white skin and red beard and his big voice. Her husband, Jose, liked the strange visitor and was glad to take him out in the boat. The tourist brought a jug of water and a small net filled with bottles of beer. This tourista hung the net in the water, tied to a yellow rope he unwound from his waist. Jose described how the gringo would raise up the net, exchange his empty bottle for a full one and then pry off the metal cap with his silver belt buckle. The man’s name was Matthew, but Jose called him Mateo. When a fish was caught, this Mateo would grin and pass the beer to her man to drink, saying always, “Salud!”

Violeta smiled as she thought of how she teased Jose about his pet gringo, his mascota. The man was so unfamiliar with the facts of life in Mismaloya—fishing, food, Spanish, the Catholic church—that he seemed almost like a child to her. But his imposing size, compared to her at least, belied his childish demeanour.

For almost a year now, Mateo worked at the Menonita church, mixing mortar and carrying water for the local bricklayers. It was said he worked there for free, building a school. She had seen him handing a mortar-laden hawk up to her mason brother. The Canadian's sunburned hands were in bright contrast to those of her brother which were as dark as wet leather.

Violeta had everything in readiness: Oil, flour, the steel plate, coals. All she needed was the coconut and she could halve it and then cut out the dense, white meat. She would mince the nutmeat and dry it with the clean towel, made from a flour sack. She would grind some vanilla bean and mix it together in the flour. Finally, she would roll the tortillas and then fry them for the girl and herself. When Jose came back, he would eat them cold, with fish that she prepared. She hoped he could bring home some bottles of beer from the big red and white Mateo man.

With enjoyment, Violeta smoked the cigarillo. After a moment, she set water to boil and thought that she would sweep the floor and then make her tea. […]