The Nautical Chart Read online

  "Taken to Cartagena"—she bent over to light her cigarette from a box of matches, again protecting the flame in the hollow of her hands—"the survivor recounted the events to the harbor authorities. But he didn't have much to tell, he was badly shaken from the battle and the shipwreck. They were to interrogate him again the next day, but the boy had disappeared. At any rate, he had given important clues to clarifying what had happened. In addition, he pinpointed the place the ship had gone down, for the captain of the Dei Gloria had ordered a position reading at dawn, and this very boy had been charged with noting it in the log. He actually had the page in the pocket of his long coat, the paper where he had written the latitude and longitude. He also told them that the charts on which the ship's navigating officer had worked out his calculations from the time they came within sight of the Spanish coast were Urrutia's."

  She paused as she exhaled, one hand cupping the elbow of the other arm, hand uplifted, cigarette between her fingers. It was as if she wanted to give Coy time to measure the import of that last bit of information, told in a tone as dispassionate as all the rest. He touched his nose without comment. So that was what was behind the story, he thought, a sunken ship and a map. He shook his head and nearly laughed, not from disbelief—such stories could contain as much truth as chimera, with one not excluding the other—but from pure and simple pleasure. The sensation was almost physical. A mystery at sea. A beautiful woman telling him all this as if it were nothing, and he sitting there listening. Whether or not the story of the Dei Gloria was what she believed was the least of it. For Coy it was a different matter, a feeling that made him warm inside, as if suddenly this strange woman had lifted a corner of a veil, an opening through which a little of that wondrous matter dreams are woven from escaped. Maybe that had a lot to do with her and her intentions—he wasn't sure—but it certainly had a great deal to do with him, with what makes certain men put one foot before the other and travel roads that lead to the sea, and wander through ports as they dream of finding sanctuary beyond the horizon. Coy smiled but said none of that She had half-closed her eyes, as if the cigarette smoke was irritating, but he knew that what was disturbing her was precisely his smile. So he wasn't an intellectual or a charmer, and he wasn't good at expressing himself. Also, he was conscious of his burly physique, his rough hands and manners. But he would have stood up at that moment, touched her face, kissed her eyes, her lips, her hands, had he not assumed that his action would have been gready misinterpreted. He would have sunk with her to the rug, put his lips to her ear, and whispered his thanks for having made him smile the way he used to when he was a boy. For being a beautiful woman, and for being so fascinating. For reminding him that there was always a sunken ship, an island, a refuge, an adventure, a place somewhere on the other side of the ocean, on that hazy boundary where dreams blend into the horizon.

  "This morning," she said, "you told me you knew that coast well. Is that true?"

  She looked at him questioningly, one hand still cupping an elbow, the cigarette held high between her fingers. I would like to know, he thought, how she gets that hair cut to be so asymmetrical and so perfect at the same time. I would like to know how the hell she does that.

  "Is that the first of the three questions?"

  "Yes."

  He lifted his shoulders slightly. "Of course it's true. When I was a boy I swam in those coves, and later I sailed that shore hundreds of times, both very close and farther out to sea."

  "Would you be able to determine a location using old charts?"

  Practical. That was the word. This was a practical woman, with her feet on the ground. One might say, he considered with amusement, that she was about to offer him a job.

  "If you mean the Urrutia, every miscalculation of a minute in latitude or longitude can translate to an error of a mile." He raised his hand and moved it before him, as if referring to an imaginary chart. "At sea everything is always relative, but I can try."

  He sat mulling over what she had said. Things were beginning to fall in place, at least some of them. Zas again gave him a big lick when he reached for the glass on the small table.

  'After all"—he took a sip—"that's my profession."

  She had crossed her legs, and was swinging one of her black-stockinged feet. Her head was to one side, and she was looking at him. By now Coy knew that this posture indicated reflection, or calculation.

  "Would you work for us?" she asked, watching him intently through the smoke of her cigarette. "I mean, we'd pay you, of course."

  He opened his mouth and counted four seconds. "You mean the museum and you?" "That's right."

  He set down the glass, contemplated Zas's loyal eyes, then glanced around the room. Outside, on the far side of the Repsol gas station and Atocha terminal, he could see, lighted at intervals, the complex of tracks.

  "You seem unsure," she murmured, before smiling with disdain. "What a shame."

  She bent down to flick ash into an ashtray, and the motion tightened her sweater, molding her body. God in heaven, thought Coy. It almost hurts to look at her. I wonder if she has freckles on her tits, too.

  "It isn't that," he said. 'It's just that I'm amazed." His lip curled. "I didn't think that captain, your boss..."

  "This is my game," she interrupted. "I can choose the players."

  "I can't imagine that the Navy is short on players. Competent people who don't ground their ships."

  He watched her reaction closely, and said to himself: This is as far as you go, mate. Get up and button your jacket, because the lady is going to give you the bum's rush. And you deserve it, for being a clown and a big mouth. For being short on brains, an imbecile.

  "Listen, Coy." It was the first time she had spoken his name, and he liked hearing it from her mouth. "I have a problem. I've done the research, it's my theory, I have the data. But I don't have what it takes to carry it out. The sea is something I know through books, movies, going to the beach— Through my work. And there are pages, ideas, that can be as intense as having lived through a storm on the high seas, or having been with Nelson at the Nile or Trafalgar. ... But for this I need someone with me. Someone who can give me practical support. A link to reality."

  "I understand what you're saying. Wouldn't it be easier, though, for you to ask the Navy for what you need?"

  "But I am asking you. You're a civilian and you have no ties." She studied him through the smoke spirals. "You offer many advantages. If I hire you, I control you. I'm in command. You understand?"

  "I understand."

  "With military people that would be impossible."

  Coy nodded. That much was obvious. She had no stripes on her cuff, only a period every twenty-eight days. Because naturally she was one of those. Not one day more or less. You only had to see her—a blonde in permanent high gear. For her, two and two always made four.

  "Even so," he said, "I imagine you will have to give them an accounting."

  "Of course. But in the meantime I have autonomy, three months' time, and a little money for expenses. It isn't much, but it's enough."

  Again Coy focused on the view outside. Below, in the distance, a train was approaching the station like a long serpent of tiny lighted windows. He was thinking about the commander, about how Tanger had looked at him as she was now looking at Coy, convincing him, with that array of silences and expressions she used so well, to intercede with the admiral in charge. An interesting project, sir. Competent girl Daughter, you know, of Colonel So-and-So. Pretty thing, I might mention in passing. One of our own. Coy wondered how many people with a degree in history, museum employees by dint of examination, were given carte blanche to search for a lost ship, just like that.

  "Why not," he said finally.

  He had leaned back in the chair and was again rubbing Zas behind the ears, entertained by the situation. All things considered, three months with this woman would be a magnificent return on the We ems & Plath sextant.

  'After all," he added, as if reflecting, "I don'
t have anything better to do."

  Tanger seemed neither satisfied nor disenchanted. She just clipped her head a little lower, as he had seen her do before, and the tips of her hair once again brushed her face. The eyes on Coy were taking in every detail.

  "Thanks."

  Finally she'd said it, just as he was beginning to wonder why she wasn't saying it.

  "You're welcome." Coy touched his nose. "And now it's my turn. You promised me a question and an answer_____ What is it

  exactly you're looking for?"

  "You already know that. We're searching for the Dei Gloria."

  "That much is obvious. My question is why. I'm asking what you're looking for."

  "Museo Naval aside?" "Museo Naval aside."

  The light from the lamp fell obliquely on her freckled face, intensifying the effect of the fading whorls of cigarette smoke. The play of light and shadow turned her hair to shades of matte gold.

  "I've been obsessed with this ship for some time. And now I think I know where she is."

  So that was it. Coy felt like smacking himself on the forehead for being so stupid. He looked at the framed photograph: Tanger as a teenager, light hair, freckles and a T-shirt loose over bare, brown thighs. She was leaning against the chest of a tan middle-aged man in a white shirt, with short hair. About fifty, he estimated. And she, maybe fourteen. Behind them was the ocean and a beach, and he also noted an obvious resemblance between the girl and the man. The shape of the forehead, the willful chin. Tanger was smiling into the camera, and the expression in her eyes was much more luminous and open than any he had seen. She looked expectant, on the verge of discovering something, a present or a surprise. Coy remembered. LDS: Law of the Diminishing Smile. Maybe you smile at life like that when you're fourteen, and then with time your lips grow chill.

  "Go easy. There aren't any more sunken treasures."

  "You're wrong." She scowled at him. "Sometimes there are."

  To convince him, she talked a while about treasure hunters. There were people like that, obsessed with old maps and secrets, and they searched for things hidden at the bottom of the sea. You could see them in Seville, in the Archivo de Indias, the New World archives, bent over old files, or casually dropping by museums and wandering through ports, attempting to wheedle information without giving away dues or raising suspicions. She had seen several come by number 5 Paseo del Prado on the trail of a piece of evidence, asking if they could look something up in the archives or consult old sea charts, sowing a patch of false information to camouflage their true objectives. One of them, an Italian and a very pleasant man, had gone so far as to woo one of her fellow employees in order to gain access to classified documents. These were unique, interesting people, adventurers in their way, dreamy or ambitious. Most of them looked like bookish library mice, fat, bespectacled, not even remotely like the muscular, tanned types with tattoos you saw in movies and television documentaries. Nine out of ten followed impossible dreams, and only one out of a thousand ever fulfilled his ambition.

  Coy kept petting Zas, contemplating the dogs faithful eyes. He felt Zas's appreciative breath on his wrist. Moist.

  "That ship wasn't carrying treasure, unless you didn't tell me the whole story. Cotton, tobacco, sugar, you said."

  "That's correct."

  'And you also said one in a thousand, didn't you?"

  She nodded through the smoke, took another puff of her cigarette and nodded again. She was looking at Coy as if she didn't see him.

  "The Dei Gloria was also carrying a mystery on board," she said. "Those two passengers, the interception by the corsair. You understand? There's something more. I read the survivor's statement, it's in the naval archives. There are pieces that don't fit together. And then his sudden disappearance. Pouf! Vanished into thin air."

  She had put out her cigarette, crushing it until the last little ember was extinguished. She is one tenacious girl, Coy said to himself. No one who wasn't would have got this far, nor would she have those poker-player eyes, or crush the life out of cigarettes as if she were murdering them. This babe knows exactly what she wants. And I, for good or for ill, am standing right in her path.

  "There are treasures," she said, "that don't have a price."

  Coy took another quick glance toward the train tracks illuminated in the distance, and a look at the service station across the street, halfway between the door to this building and the terminal. A man was standing in front of the station, and he seemed to be looking up, although from the fifth floor that was difficult to determine. Something in his attitude or his appearance, however, seemed familiar.

  'Are you expecting anyone?" Coy asked.

  She turned to him, surprised. She said nothing, but slowly walked toward him, focused on him, not the window. When she got there, she looked down. As she leaned forward her hair fanned across her chin, hiding her face. She raised a hand to brush it back, and Coy studied that profile hardened by the broken nose, lit by the glow from the street. She seemed preoccupied.

  "That man's been there a while," he said.

  Tanger was holding her breath, then finally released it like a groan or a sob of irritation. Her expression had turned somber.

  "You know him?" Coy asked.

  Administrative silence. Sphinx, Venetian domino, Aztec mask. Mute as the ghosts of the Chergui and-the Dei Gloria.

  "Who was that man with the ponytail? Why were you arguing with him that night in Barcelona?"

  Zas's eyes were shifting from one to the other, tail wagging with glee. Tanger stood there quietly a few seconds more, as if she hadn't heard the question, and placed her hand on the window-pane, leaving the mark of her fingerprints. She was very close, and Coy again breathed in the scent of warm, clean flesh. A gentle erection began to press against the left pocket of his jeans. He imagined her naked, leaning against that same window, the illumination from outside lighting her skin. He imagined tearing off her clothes and turning her toward him. He imagined picking her up in his arms and carrying her to the sofa, or to the bed in the next room, with Zas affectionately wagging his tail from the doorway. He imagined that he went mad and followed her through wind and storm to the lighthouse at the end of the world. He imagined that she wanted more from him than just to use his skills. He imagined all that and much more in a sequence of quick scenes, moving through them rapidly, ardently, desperately, until suddenly he realized that she was scrutinizing him, and that the expression in her eyes was exactly that of the woman on me yacht near Venice, the time he had spied her through the binoculars and believed that despite the distance he was penetrating her thoughts.

  "I promised you one answer," she said finally. "There've been enough for tonight. The rest will have to wait."

  HE wanted to go to bed with that woman, he thought, as he ran down the stairs two at a time. He wanted to go to bed with her not once, but an infinite number of times. He wanted to count every golden freckle with his fingers and his tongue, and then lay her back, gently part her thighs, enter her, and kiss her mouth as he moved in her. Kiss her slowly, taking his time, tirelessly, until, as the sea molds a rock, he softened those hard lines that made her seem so distant. He wanted to put sparks of light and surprise in her navy-blue eyes, to change the rhythm of her breathing, and cause her flesh to throb and shiver. And then in the darkness, like a patient sniper, he would watch for that moment, that brief, fleeting moment of self-centered intensity, when a woman is absorbed in herself and her face contains the faces of all women ever born and yet to be born.

  That was Coy's state of mind as he stepped out into the street well past midnight, his erection retreating woefully to its cold bachelor's nest. That was why he found nothing strange in the fact that instead of following the sidewalk downhill to his right, he should look both ways at the Paseo Infanta Isabel, cross at a red stoplight, and walk straight in the direction of the man standing by a light in front of the service station. At heart, and in body, Coy did not like to fight. On the wildest of his shore leaves, d
uring the happy time when he had ships from which to go ashore, he had played the part of involuntary actor, chorus, and comrade. He was one of those guys who goes along with friends and then, when the atmosphere heats up and things come to a boil, he is suddenly punching and taking punches without being responsible for any of it. That happened especially in the days of the Torpedero—the Tucuman Torpedoman—and Crew Sanders, when Coy would often return to the ship with an eye black as a widow's weeds, the collar of his jacket turned up in the cold of dawn, walking along wet quays reflecting yellow light from the sheds and the derricks and the dark silhouettes of moored ships. Three, four, ten staggering men, sometimes with the arms of a drunken buddy over their shoulders, feet dragging, and always some laggard on the edge of alcohol coma who followed farther behind, weaving dangerous "s"s past the bollards at the edge of the water. Jan Sanders was the man who drew the humorous illustrations for the Sigma naval calendars peopled with a crew of plastered, whoring, trouble-making sailors who despised their captain, a petty little tyrant with a huge mustache, and who shared catastrophes, scraps, and shipwrecks across all the seas and through all the whorehouses of the world. Independent of the calendars, Crew Sanders had been composed of Coy, Gallego Neira, and chief engineer Gorostiola, alias the Tucuman Torpedoman, when the three sailed on Zoe ships between Central America and northern Europe, and were just as likely to be broiling in anchorages and ports with tropical Caribbean rhythms as shivering with cold when an icy wind swept the deck and the bridge and the mercury dropped off the thermometers in New York, Hamburg, or Rotterdam. These three were the basic Crew, the standard models, although others were added depending on the port. Neira was six feet five and weighed two hundred and ten pounds, and the Torpedoman was a shade shorter and a few pounds heavier. That was useful, even reassuring, in places like Panama, where they were advised to go no farther than the duty-free shop at the end of the pier, because any farther and there were always pistols and knives waiting for you. Between those two wild men, Coy looked like a dwarf. They had arms like twenty-inch hawsers, hands like propeller blades, and a marked inclination to break things—bottles, bars, faces—after the fifth whiskey. Where those two walked— with Coy in tow—the grass never grew again. In a bar in Copenhagen, for example, filled with blond men and blonde women who in the end turned out to be more blond men, the Torpedoman got riled because when he copped a feel he found a handful of something he hadn't expected. After a brief skirmish he and Neira grabbed Coy, one by each arm, and took off with his feet dangling between them, back to the port and the ship with a half-dozen police—also, inevitably, blond—hot on their heels. "I swear to God I thought he was a bimbo," the Torpedoman kept repeating. Neira was making fun of the Torpedoman's questionable eye for women, and even Coy was in stitches—something his newly split lip could have used—while the Torpedoman was shooting glances at them out of the corner of his eye, highly offended. "Now don't you tell anyone, you hear? Don't even think of it. Assholes."