Family Album: Stories

BAPTISM

ALL THE TABLES at the bar are full, as usual, but the staff, instead of waiting on the customers, is huddled in a corner; even the owner is there. I once heard his wife question the wisdom of that lack of interest in the clientele. Where else are they going to go? he said, without a trace of sarcasm, so she shrugged and went on talking with her friends. That’s when my notions about the ways of the world switched into reverse. It’s true. This is the only bar on the island.

I couldn’t join them because I was working the cash register that night. But I could hear them, talking about the afternoon’s waves. Most of the people who work here are surfers. The guy they called El Cojo, The Crip, was at La Lobería, the rest went to Ola Carola. From what I gathered, El Cojo had better luck, he caught the perfect wave, but nobody believed him. The staff tend to be skeptical, too many people pass through here and we’re in the Galápagos. Everybody thinks they have the right to claim they saw a shark, they grabbed a dolphin by the fin, they swam with seven sea lions. Nobody believes them, everybody believes them. It cancels out. To a certain extent, it’s all a matter of perspective and ambition.

My colleagues don’t stray from three points on the island: Playa Mann, La Lobería, and Ola Carola. The wildest thing you’re likely to see there is a German tourist lying topless on the beach. Life is too short to miss the perfect wave and those are the only places you’ll find one. Why go anywhere else? They know what they want and they go after it. I envy them. Once I read that the only way to be happy is to be satisfied with what you have. I work with a group of laid-back guys who only care about waves, that’s why they’re skeptical. I’m not. I’m not a skeptic, but I’m also not happy. I want, sometimes I don’t even know what I want. Eight years ago, right after arriving on San Cristóbal, I worked in the galley on a boat that sailed around the archipelago. Close to Wolf Island, with my head under water, wearing a face mask and a snorkel, I saw two mating stingrays more than six feet long, seven humpbacked whales, and hundreds of sharks swimming ninety feet below me.

I like to listen and I tend to keep quiet, or at least I try to. But sometimes I can’t, sometimes I talk too much.

That’s Robinson Crusoe’s map, I say. The man turns and looks over his shoulder.

What? he yells.

That’s the map Alexander Selkirk made of the archipelago. I walk over to his table and put my hand on the map he’s spread out.

He widens his eyes and stretches his neck, he’s got some kind of a gadget behind his ear, he looks like a turtle, his skin sags in folds as he leans over the tablecloth, there’s a cataract on his right eye. He looks at me, searchingly, he wants me to keep talking, a sign I’ve already said too much. I ask if he wants another drink. He shakes his head, points to the chair next to him. I sit. This guy didn’t come on a tour. If he had, the bus would have been parked around the corner. And he doesn’t seem like the tourists who stay at the boarding houses in town. He must have a boat anchored in the bay. He offers to buy me a drink. His Spanish isn’t bad.

What do you know about Robinson Crusoe? he asks after I have a gin and tonic in front of me.

That that wasn’t his name.

He smiles.

And what else? he asks.

That he came to the Galápagos under orders from Captain Woodes Rogers, that he was a pirate, that he was with Dampier when they attacked Guayaquil, and that his boat sank near here, I say.

Full of gold. When he smiles again, the old man displays a set of perfect dentures.

That’s what they say.

Somebody at another table calls to me. I ignore him.

You don’t believe it? he asks.

I believe a lot of things, that doesn’t mean they’re true, I reply.

In fact, Selkirk is one of my favorite subjects. I’ve read his diary, I know his story backwards and forwards. I’m convinced we would have been friends if I had been born in the eighteenth century. I wouldn’t have thought twice about hanging out with him to soak up some of his knowledge. The guy knew what he wanted. There aren’t many people who do, and then act on it. He asked to be left behind on an abandoned island because the ship’s captain was planning to risk going around Cape Horn in a leaky boat. He survived for four miserable years. But he was luckier than his shipmates, who all died. The old man and I don’t talk about that. We keep speculating about the fate of the ship that went down somewhere in the Galápagos. But when the customers start whistling, I have to leave him. The man, his name is Max, stays until closing.

Everything I know about Selkirk I learned seven years ago when I worked in Victor’s shop. Victor taught me how to dive. After I’d been working there for three months, he asked me to go with him on a dive. He hired five other divers. We went with our equipment to a boat near the dock. On top of a table in the middle of the boat was a waterproof map. After a few hours’ sailing, we stopped and got ready to go down, with orders to look for signs of a shipwreck. We stayed down forty minutes and found nothing. We sailed on for half a mile and tried again. We went on like that until we were out of oxygen. On the way back, I sat next to the man giving instructions; he was a historian, a Scot. He asked what it was like to breathe under water. I don’t know, I told him, I’d never given it any thought. A few minutes later he asked again. The rest were talking about what they were going to eat when they got back and about the price of some new surfboards that had come in on a navy ship. I closed my eyes and tried to remember.

The first time it was like I’d gone into a woman’s bedroom while she was taking off her clothes. I stopped there, but then I thought of something else. I swam, surprised, for a while until suddenly I was out of breath and the oxygen regulator fell out of my mouth.

And what did you do? He seemed interested.

I knew I would drown if I didn’t do something fast, but I didn’t try to climb the twenty-five feet that separated me from the air. I blew bubbles through my nose until I found the mouthpiece, stuck it in and started to breathe again. I paused there. I gave myself up to the water and I stopped thinking. I was quiet again. It worked.

I didn’t know what else to tell him but, since he still seemed interested, I went on.

That got me hooked.

I don’t understand. What got you hooked?

Having to operate according to a different logic, learning to let go. I looked at him before going on. Then, I paused, there was the wall.

What wall? he turned to look at me.

When I went down and into the bedroom where the woman was undressing, the room had no far wall. Since then, I’ve been looking for it. He looked surprised at what I said.

We were close to Tijeretas. Just around the last reef was the port. Soon it would be dark. The sky was orange with violet streaks. When the sun set the world would disappear.

The far wall? he asked.

I could barely see his outline, I couldn’t see his expression, nor how interested he was in my answer.

The end. It has to be someplace, I keep looking for it, I said.

Then Victor signaled for me to get the equipment together, we sailed into port, and we unloaded. The rest of the week we kept diving, each time farther out, each time farther down. We found nothing. The same thing happened the following week. On the Monday of the third week, we didn’t go in a boat, but instead, we hauled the equipment onto a yacht with a metal hull, its navigation instruments connected to a satellite. Once there, I heard the historian yelling as he tried to talk to the small man with the captain’s cap. When they were finished arguing, he approached and said to Victor that he no longer needed him, but that he still needed my services to take care of the tanks. With the yacht came