A ragged man stands on the shore of a small island. He watches a big ship recede slowly towards a red sun sinking in the ocean. ‘More Estranjeros,’ he thinks. ‘They surely are the oddest looking lot I’ve ever heard of.’ This is not saying much, as it happens. Disconsolate, he turns away to the small shelter built only a little distance back, where the sand of the shore blurs with advancing vegetation. Palm trees shade him and coconuts feed him. If ever there was a classic castaway, Billy Ben is it. He wouldn’t know about that, since his education has been strictly limited, and he hasn’t heard of Robinson Crusoe or the Swiss Family Robinson. A pity.
Billy Ben is not his real name, either, but he has grown used to it. He was born in a small Mexican village north west of Tantoyuka, but when he came to ship out, the captain explained that he could only sign him as a crew member under an English name; something to do with ‘bluffing out the union quotas in the American docks’ which he didn’t understand. He couldn’t write a word of English anyway. Not even a word of Spanish. One of the other sailors, who didn’t seem to mind, showed the young Mexican how to form the letters of his simple American name. He practised until he could write it on demand, while his crewmate explained what he was to say if American officials questioned him. The necessary papers were quickly completed and he was christened anew.
Sometimes Ben wonders just where he has been washed up. He doesn’t know much about the sea. At seventeen it was only his fifth voyage when the ship was sunk in a sudden squall somewhere between Tampico and Galverston. With no company except a couple of timbers from the ill fated steamer he floated here six months ago. Since then he has been totally unable to get away.
He goes inside the shelter and sits down. All things considered, he makes a pretty good castaway - rather better in fact, than he was as a sailor. He has fashioned a reasonable home here, whilst waiting for rescue and if the truth be told, he would not be completely happy to leave. He was lucky enough to be carrying a long handled knife, and had fishing twine and a couple of hooks in his pocket when they foundered. The knife, always a useful tool for splicing ropes and cutting meat, has proved invaluable. It is made of good steel, there is no doubt, for he has cut the branches of his home with it, and killed the curious crabs and grey furred marsupials that haunt the outer fringes of the forest, with progressively cleaner thrusts as his hunting skills improve. Lean, stringy and dark he is the island’s number one predator and the nine inches of sharp steel his most valuable possession. Platted rope from palm leaves holds the shelter together, along with dark mud from water holes in the jungle; and the stronger twine he brought with him, he is able to use for its intended purpose. With a couple of rough fishing rods, Billy often waits patiently by the deep pool in the island’s only fresh water stream and steadily depletes its very scarce stock of fresh water fish. He doesn’t even know that he may be the sole instrument in the extinction of an entire subspecies. Darwin would be horrified.
He has few amusements. Outside the back window there is a vegetable garden. A small cleared spot, where he has tried to grow to order some of the roots and fruit of which he is most fond. This is not really much more than an amusement. He has no skill at gardening and precious little success, although one bush yielding delicious yellow berries seems to have survived transplanting, if in a rather poor condition. But as a symbol it is important. It even has a little fence and a garden gate.
On a rough wooden table there is a solitaire board and forty four tiny brown nuts sitting in their required positions. Billy starts another game. Ever since one of the Americans on the steamer showed him how to play, towards the end of the second voyage, he has been fascinated by the pattern of vanishing beads and the action of jump and counter jump. Often he sits here, watching the waves from his front window and counting away the captured pieces. He does not always play to win.
Across the ocean he can see the home of the Estranjeros on their larger parcel of land. He lacks the words to describe them. Obscurely, he knows that they are not human but consciously he does not formulate the thought. He just thinks of them as foreigners. So profound is his ignorance on these matters that he can blithely put down all differences to region. In some ways they are no more peculiar than the Americans in their big cities. Their culture is closer to his own, now, and if he does not understand the language it is no worse, no more alien, than the loud mouthed white English of the dockers.
The island he watches every day has a steep sloping volcano at its centre. It has been called many names since it rose from the ocean. It has been called ‘Fire Island’ today. Billy did not see the white balloon descend from the skies. He was fishing as it crossed the island, and trees screened him. But this evening, with a sensitivity to change beyond thought, he knows that something is different. He waits.
Billy calls the island by many names himself. As the only other place he can see, perceptibly distinct from home territory (that needs no name) it naturally occupies a large place in his imagination. Sometimes he thinks he has been washed ashore in Hawaii and he calls it Honolulu. But another part of him remembers that the Hawaiian islands are in the Pacific, and anyway they would be too far away to drift to from the drowning boat - wouldn’t they? Sometimes he thinks it is Cuba and he calls it Havana. He is very loose with geography. Mostly he gazes at the volcano. The only place he has heard of where there is a volcano is Santiago. Santiago, he feels, is on the mainland but he is not sure. He has the strong impression it is somewhere in South America. The people there are strange. The sailors have told him many stories about South Americans. Santiago, then, is his favourite and although he less than half believes it, that is what he most often calls it.
He knows the Estranjeros will not rescue him and so he waits. He waits until a ship with his own kind draws near enough for him to shout. Then he will be saved. But as he waits the memories of his former life grow dim. The pictures he has of the catholic orphanage and the biting dust in that earthy Mexican village where he was born are washed paler and paler with each swim he takes in the warm salty ocean. Sometimes it feels as though he has been here forever. Sometimes it feels as though he will be here forever.
Patiently he watches the island. Only one thing is wrong. He has a daydream. Some day, a fine lady will come to the island. He has seen pictures. On the fourth voyage they took two passengers from America. There was a furtive man who carried a gun, smoked a lot and clutched a plastic briefcase to his chest. With him was a hard nosed blonde with brassy eyes and a sharp little chin. The captain obviously did not like them. He was taking them ‘as a favour to a friend’, he’d said; none of which Billy understood.
But the lady had a magazine and Billy sneaked a look when they were out of the cabin. It was called ‘Vogue’ and it was printed on glossy paper of a sort he had never seen before. Inside were European ladies in elegant costumes. He can picture them now. They wear long flowing dresses, high necked blouses and floral skirts, or silver grey fur coats and bright red boots.
He thinks of the things he would make if a fine lady came to his island. There would be another chair. He would fashion a cloak from the pelts of the marsupials. He would climb the coconut trees to get the largest and ripest nuts, instead of waiting for them to fall. On the other side of the island he would dive where the coral grows for the juiciest ripple fish and he would make her necklaces and bracelets from shells and berries.
Whatever she wanted, I would do it, he says to himself. He yawns. His thoughts are fuzzy and confused. The waves are sympathetic but their endless rhythmic chatter is only making him sleepy. With equatorial suddenness the night descends.
