Castle of Water: A Novel(55)

“Yes, I suppose, but that’s how it is. And of course, you would certainly have to meet her family, too, just like she met yours.”

“Let me guess—she’s from the south.”

“But of course. She’d take you to her house in the village outside Toulouse to meet her parents and her brother and her grandmother. You’d bring a bottle of good bourbon for the father and the brother, and fresh flowers for Maman and Grand-mère, and you’d all eat confit de canard by the fireplace, followed by a plate of very creamy cheese, and a big baba au rhum cake with flaming sauce. They’d have a dog named Pat that you’d try to pet even though you’re allergic, and your eyes would swell up and you’d break out in a rash and you’d be very embarrassed about it.”

“How’d you know I’m allergic to dogs?”

“Lucky guess.”

“I see.”

“But you would all have fun together, and you’d drink and listen to old Jacques Brel records, maybe some Georges Brassens and Yves Montand, too, like you said, and when the bourbon ran out, you’d switch to Armagnac. The next morning, you would go to the Pyrenees to see her family’s village, and you’d walk up into the mountains, through the Cirque de Gavarnie, and she would show you where her grandfather’s ashes were scattered, beneath the Brèche de Roland, because he loved the mountains so much.”

“Do you think we’d ever get married?”

“I think so. You’d probably ask her father’s permission, even though it was old-fashioned, and you would most likely use one of your family’s old rings to propose.”

“Like the little ruby ring my great-grandfather gave to my great-grandmother before he left to fight in France in World War One?”

“Yes, exactly like that.”

“And how would I propose? Would it be a surprise?”

“Yes. You would wait until after Christmas, and hide it in a galette des rois.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a king cake. Normally you hide a little figurine inside for good luck, but you would hide the ring and make sure she got the right piece. Only she wouldn’t notice it, and she’d actually almost eat your great-grandmother’s ring.”

“Almost eat?”

“Yes. Because she’d pull it out of her mouth, and you’d go down on one knee and put it on her finger, and she’d say oui, oui before you even asked.”

“Would it be a big wedding?”

“No, I don’t think so. Just a small, beautiful wedding in the south, with both of your families and a few friends. You would have the ceremony under an olive tree in the garden behind her house, and afterward, when the sun was setting, you would all sit at a long table in the field next door for dinner. Her mother would prepare a ratatouille in an enormous pot, and her father would roast a big gateau à la broche over a fire. To make it a little bit American, there would be a grill outside, and you would serve barbecue for the main course. Maybe some of that pie your grandmother used to bake, too.”

“Strawberry-rhubarb?”

“Exactement.”

“And the honeymoon?”

“A road trip across America, of course. With a long stop in La Nouvelle-Orléans. You’d stay in an old French hotel with a fancy wrought-iron gate in the Vieux Carré, and eat étouffée at Galatoire’s, and dance all night to jazz on Frenchmen Street, and go to the swamps to look for alligators, and the guide would throw marshmallows into the water to attract them and call out to them in Cajun, ‘Viens ici, viens ici.’ You would have breakfast at Café du Monde, too, but you’d sneeze and blow powdered sugar all over her, and you’d both laugh about it for the rest of the day.”

“You seem to know a lot about New Orleans.”

“My old firm back in Paris did the interior design for a house there. I didn’t go, but I read all about it.”

“I see.”

“But there is still one thing to discuss.”

“What’s that?”

“Des enfants.”

“Kids?”

“Yes. Do you think you’d like to have some?”

“I mean, sure, at some point.”

“Tu es certain?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Really sure?”

“Yes.”

“Really, really sure?”

“Yes! Jesus.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Good? How come?”

“Because—”

And just then, the weather report from Tahiti was drowned out by a voice. Not of a newscaster or meteorologist, but of someone else. Someone chatting over the radio in English about an approaching storm, chuckling about the copious Bloody Marys his crew had enjoyed with their breakfast, and giving his speed at roughly ten to twelve knots.

It was the ships. They had returned.





37

When Barry had guessed that the flurry of shipping activity that periodically appeared north of their island constituted a shipping lane, he wasn’t exactly correct, although he wasn’t entirely off the mark, either. What he had actually witnessed when the storm battered him all those miles out to sea was what is more commonly known as the Equatorial Countercurrent. For while the trade winds generally create two large bands of western-moving current both north and south of the equator, a narrow slipstream of warm water can be found wedged between them, threading its way across the Pacific in the opposite direction. This corridor is common knowledge among mariners, and although used occasionally by Russian and Chinese freighter ships headed for the Panama Canal, it is especially sought after by recreational sailors and yachtsmen—it can be tricky to find, but once it has been located, the crew of a pleasure craft can sit back, relax, and allow the countercurrent, like an airport conveyor belt, to ferry them pleasantly through Polynesia, all the way to South America. Indeed, hunting it down and riding it to the end is considered something of a sport among those who have the time and the money to do such things, and the current can boast a steady procession of vessels bobbing their way along it throughout the year.