Red Island House by Andrea Lee

Author:Andrea Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2021-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

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“When he came by the Red House to discuss boat business with Senna, he’d stop to say hello to me, and show off the good manners of his dogs, who’d each offer a paw. Once when Maz caught sight of me far away down Finoana Beach, he ran after me at top speed, the dogs galloping with him, as if he had an urgent message to deliver. But when he caught up, he just walked beside me in complete silence. And sometimes when I stood bargaining for fruit at the noisy, stinking outdoor market of Saint Grimaud, I’d turn around to find Maz standing at my shoulder. Always without anything particular to say.

“ ‘Maz has a crush on Mom,’ said Roby once, when he was six or seven.

“ ‘He does not,’ said Augustina, who was two years older, but already was perceptive as a grown woman. ‘He just likes not talking with her!’

“The kids idolized Maz, though he was strict about shipboard behavior, the stowing of gear and the tying of knots. He was also respected by the villagers of Naratrany in a way unusual for a vazaha. He spoke their language, and let their women alone. And he respected their taboos with the naturalness of someone who’d grown up surrounded by ancient cultures. Even my Sakalava friend and housekeeper, Bertine la Grande, who measured all humanity by her own mysterious scale of values, said that Maz was ‘bien.’ A good person.

“So the years passed. In spite of the drugs and the drama, he and Valentine somehow made progress in building a future. When Valentine inherited some money, they bought half of a little island to the southwest of Naratrany. They cleared brush and laid foundations for a house, and Maz reckoned that in a few years he could quit skippering and they’d live there full-time. There was a derelict cocoa plantation on the terrain that he planned to revive. The life of a farmer, he told me with one of his rare flashes of wit, would suit him down to the ground.

“In this optimistic period, he was a little more sociable, and he and I sometimes planned ambitious cruises. We pored over the pages of his battered nautical guide, East Africa Pilot. The idea was simple: Senna and I and the kids and friends would fly into Mombasa, where Maz would meet us with the Prince, and we’d sail down the East African coast. We’d pass Zanzibar and Mafia, then through the Bazarutos to the Comoros, and finally to Naratrany. Or we’d set out south from Naratrany down the west coast of the Grand Île, past a bay that holds a rusted hull that is said to be the remains of a Russian battleship. We would head down to Morombe, where you can take a rickshaw over salt flats to a peninsula where Vezo fishermen live and worship—so people say—a sea goddess. Or we could go north from Naratrany to the Îles Glorieuses, where you can bribe your way past the French military guards and see huge flocks of terns and boobies milling on the sand.

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