Via Dolorosa(39)

A lone figure, ghostly beneath the moonlight, was dragging a small johnboat down the beach toward the water. Nick watched with little interest. At the water’s edge, the figure paused, set the boat down, and seemed to consider his next course of action. A pair of oars were tucked into the belly of the johnboat; the figure, after some hesitation, removed the oars and slipped them into the rings on either side of the boat. As Nick watched, he could see the current was strong and hard against the nearby pilings. The slick, fingerlike outcropping of stone that had become something of a landmark to him was completely submerged now, too.

“Water’s a bit rough,” he called to the stranger.

It was a small boat. Who would take out such a small boat?

“It’s rough,” said the stranger. “Every night, it’s rough.”

“Night fishing?” Though he could see that, clearly, the man carried with him no equipment.

“No, sir, Lieutenant.”

“Roger?”

“Yes, sir?”

“What are you doing out here?”

“I’m out here every night, Lieutenant.” Not looking in Nick’s direction, the bartender added, “What are you doing out here?”

“Attempting to smoke myself to death.”

“There’s quicker ways to death, if that’s where you’re looking to go.”

“True.” He sucked at the cigarette. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Well,” Roger said, “have a good night.”

“Be careful, will you?”

“Sure,” said Roger.

He watched as the bartender pushed the johnboat out into the surf, coming up behind it and wading through the tide in his bare feet. He had rolled his cargo pants up past the knees. In the sand behind him he left two deep tracks parallel to each other and spaced roughly three feet apart, like the ties on a railroad. Between the tracks, Nick could see Roger’s footprints. The footprints, like the tracks, disappeared as they entered the water. Smoking, Nick watched the waves overcome the boat, Roger’s feet. Roger climbed in the boat and situated himself with the oars. He began rowing due south, right along the cusp of the beach. Amidst the silent and rocking sailboats and cruisers, Nick had never seen a human being look so hopelessly unimportant.

Back inside the hotel, he stood by himself for some time, listening to the faint, phantom croon of calypso music coming from somewhere, somewhere.

Sometime later, outside Isabella’s hotel room door, he found himself still smoking a cigarette and holding a bottle of shiraz. Slung over one shoulder was his portable nylon case containing what painting supplies he’d anticipated needing. Standing before the door, he may have knocked…though he could not recall; regardless, the door opened and he was suddenly aware that Isabella was completely naked beneath the terrycloth robe she wore. It was a white, full robe, loosely tied, and most evident was the shadowed cascade of cleavage bending into the V-shaped part in her robe. Her upper chest was fully exposed: as he had studied that day on the beach, her collarbone was smooth and dark like obsidian, yet prominent and perfectly symmetrical. A light smattering of brown freckles claimed the territory just beneath her neck. She wore no makeup and had done nothing with her hair. Still, she looked dangerous and alluring. For a second, standing helpless in the hallway, a half-smoked cigarette limp between his lips, the bottle of shiraz nearly sliding out of his grasp, he could only look at her and not move. Blessedly, after a moment, she spoke.

“There is no smoking in the hotel,” she said.

“You’re the smoking police?”

“Since when do you break the rules, Nicholas? You are certainly not the type.”

“Yeah?”

“You know you are not the type. It does not agree with you.”

“All right.”

“Come in.”

She shut the door behind him as he crossed the floor and set the shiraz on a small wooden desk. He looked around the room—unmade bed, clothes strewn haphazardly about, a careless stain of something dark and fresh and nearly like blood on the carpet.

“Did I come too soon?” he asked.

Isabella laughed. “I love a man who asks the poignant questions.”

“I meant I could come back if you’re not ready for company…”

“Pour your wine,” she said. “There are glasses in the bathroom.”

Obediently, he carried the wine into the bathroom, flicked on the light. Froze. Everywhere—every available space (and where space was not previously available, she had made it so)—hung glossy photographs: from the retractable clothesline above the tub; clothespinned to the shower curtain; tacked or taped to the walls; pasted to the mirror above the bathroom sink. The toilet seat, he saw, was up, and there was even a single photograph taped to the underside of the lid. Numerous, countless photographs mostly of the island—the trees, the abundant spread of golf courses, the beaches, the date palms and wooded hillocks—loomed everywhere. On the counter he could see a spread of eight-by-ten glossies, black and white, of the swans from the hotel fountains. On the floor, strewn about like a spilled deck of cards, lay photographs of the island cottages that had been recently destroyed by the storm. Standing in the doorway, still smoking, he could only stare and not move. Some of the pictures taped along the frame of the door were of dead bodies. He peered curiously at these, and at one in particular: what appeared to be the long, scissor-like nylon legs of a woman bent at impossible angles as she lay, lifeless and dirty, in a darkened, rain-swept alley. The woman wore what appeared to be a tight-fitting halter beneath a suede vest studded with rhinestones and fringe. Her face was not visible, but Nick could make out a tributary of black blood seeping away from where her face must have been, trickling down the alleyway and filling the fissures in the cement.