The Island of Last Truth
Europa Editions
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2011 by Random House Mondadori S.A.
First publication 2012 by Europa Editions
Translation by Laura McGloughlin
Original Title: L’illa de l’última veritat
Translation copyright © 2012 by Europa Editions
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco
www.mekkanografici.com
ISBN 9781609458690
Flavia Company
THE ISLAND OF LAST TRUTH
Translated from the Catalan
by Laura McGloughlin
Toast
Now I have an island, I wish to toast C.C.,
who is the sea in which it lies.
I have attempted here to lay bare with the unreserve of a last hour’s confession the terms of my relation with the sea, which beginning mysteriously, like any great passion the inscrutable Gods send to mortals, went on unreasoning and invincible, surviving the test of disillusion, defying the disenchantment that lurks in every day of a strenuous life; went on full of love’s delight and love’s anguish, facing them in open-eyed exultation, without bitterness and without repining, from the first hour to the last.
—JOSEPH CONRAD, The Mirror of the Sea
When reverie and memory become confused, and fatigue and anguish set themselves up as lord and master, one must turn to all sorts of ruses so as not to abandon oneself to despair. My situation didn’t differ greatly from that of a convict, locked in a dark dungeon, given food and drink at the most absurd and unpredictable times. I was scared of losing the notion of time.
—CRISTINA FERNÁNDEZ CUBAS, The Year of Grace
PREFACE
I don’t remember who introduced me to Dr. Prendel. However, I do know that it was at the home of Martin Fleming, the psychiatrist, during a get-together of the faculty professors to celebrate his promotion from Assistant Dean to Dean, and I was immediately captivated by his reserved, taciturn attitude and the indifference with which he looked around him, as if he knew exactly what would happen and what would be said.
I also remember that it was Amy Fleming, Martin’s wife, who told me of a certain legend that was circulating regarding Dr. Prendel. What’s more, accidentally and not too long ago, Amy had met Prendel’s dentist, and she’d told her that when he came to her clinic for the first time, she could clearly see by the state of his teeth that his diet had been irregular for a long period of time. This didn’t prove but did strengthen the hypothesis that expert sailor Prendel had been shipwrecked years before, when his boat, the Queen, was attacked by a pirate ship. He’d lost his crew and his boat. He was left alive, a stroke of luck that, depending on the circumstances, is relative. The thing is Mathew Prendel disappeared for five years and at the time I was introduced to him, he’d been back in New York for four years, more or less. Since then, he’d been invited on more than one occasion to the parties the Flemings organized for one reason or another, parties he’d attended only rarely in the past. Everyone was dying to see a shipwrecked person up close. Dr. Prendel, however, had never accepted the invitation until that day, and after that day he never wanted to return.
According to those who had ever spent time with him, he was unrecognizable; not only his physical appearance, but above all his character. They also said that what had truly destroyed him wasn’t the shipwreck, but the news on his return that his father had died alone, under the torrid Texan sun, sitting in the only chair on the sparse grass of his lawn. It seems his father had asked him many times not to let him die alone.
Among those who had known him best, there were those who said he wasn’t even Prendel, but naturally no-one said this to his face and afterwards I never told him any of these rumors. He had enough misfortune, my poor doctor, being incapable of recognizing anyone from the past, as if being shipwrecked had erased his memory. Later I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t amnesia, but defeat.
The doctor was a tall, thin man with large hands. Strong and attractive, without a doubt. Black hair already graying. A slight limp in his right leg. He was forty-five and lived on an “income.” No one knew of what this income consisted. There were those who speculated about the possibility of the boat’s insurers having paid him compensation of millions, but it was a baseless hypothesis. He never wanted to talk of his adventure to anyone. He did say that being shipwrecked was such an intimate experience that, as little modesty as one might have, it should be kept to oneself. Since his return to New York, Prendel was the favorite topic at these parties, and it seems that so he was once again after that day he accepted the invitation. I never went back myself.
It was easy to understand that, in reality, there was no-one left who really knew him: he’d lost his partner years before, his friends during the attack, his father in his absence. Mathew Prendel was alone, and furthermore, he was a loner, and maybe that was what made me feel an immediate complicity with him, the prodigious feeling of recognizing in his glance a demand equal to what I could give.
I hadn’t heard anything about the whole shipwreck thing because I’d spent the last five years of my life falling apart in a marriage with no future and imparting classes in English literature at the University of Vienna, the city most closely resembling a postcard that I’ve ever seen. Among other things, I’d learned from the Viennese to discipline my impulsive, rash character and to adopt a reserved attitude even to what most stimulated my curiosity, for example a twenty-first-century pirate attack. When I was put before Prendel, nonetheless, I felt I was meeting Conrad or Stevenson. “You’ve got too much literature in your head,” my grandfather would have said. Then added, “Watch that guy, little one, one can see in your eyes that you like him and there’s something about him that doesn’t suit you.”
At no time did I doubt the legend. At no time did I think it might be a falsified story, a trivial anecdote embellished to the extreme and that, for example, Prendel could have lost his boat a few meters off the coast of Africa due to a more prosaic collision with a rock or another boat and later on, rumors had made it into a heroic exploit. I knew I couldn’t ask him about it. As Amy said and everyone who ever came across him knew, Mathew Prendel had always maintained an absolute silence on the subject. So I sat by his side, drinking whiskey and listening to him explaining that African masks were in fact religious symbols with the function of stabilizing the lives of the villages. “Drink too much,” my grandfather would have said, “and there’s always a reason, Phoebe; people always drink the problems they can’t solve in the form of alcohol.”
Prendel had been a surgeon and later on, a professor at Columbia University. But his real passion was the sea. He was captain of a yacht. His hoarse, virile voice rang out above the others, or so I thought. I also thought that being a doctor would have helped him to survive the shipwreck. And captaining a yacht would have made him used to being alone. There are people equipped to be shipwrecked, people among whom I could never count myself, a professor of comparative literature who barely knew how to swim.
My friendship with Dr. Prendel bore fruit rapidly, perhaps because at a certain age the capacity for risk, if it has survived, turns out to be immense.
We were lovers for almost seven years. One of my aims was to endure longer than his shipwreck. As if some kind of rivalry or competition could be established with something like that. “You always want to defea
t impossible opponents, Phoebe; opponents that aren’t even there. You take after your mother.” My victory has been bitter and, in truth, transient, because a “shipwreck” endures much longer than a shipwreck. It is like a lantern: it illuminates what you shine it on and the rest as well.
He asked me not to tell his story until after his death. But to tell it. “You who know literature, Dr. Westore, and have sailed with me, you may write it.” We always spoke formally to each other; it was our game. And I promised him I would do it. It’s absurd, but promises to the dead are pressing. Absurd because the dead can’t care whether they are carried out. People usually fulfill promises to the dead with more zeal than those they make to the living. “I will write your story, Dr. Prendel,” I assured him. “But beforehand you must tell it to me.” After seven years of sleeping by his side, he hadn’t told me a single detail. The surprise attack of the illness changed everything for him. “We know we have to die,” he told me, “but we’re not conscious of it until our hour comes.” I remembered what my grandfather used to say: “Perhaps death is the best part of life. We’ll have to wait and see.”
THE SHIPWRECK OF MATHEW PRENDEL
Phoebe Westore
PART ONE
1.
The first incongruity that occupies Mathew Prendel’s mind is thinking, just as he feels the roughness of the damp sand against his face, that he doesn’t know if he is alive. It is pitch-black night, and he doesn’t know if being alive is a stroke of luck either. He remembers the salty hell of the last few hours. How he has managed to arrive at a beach is unknown. He didn’t even know there was an island at a distance he could cover swimming. The last coordinates taken with the GPS, which he’d noted meticulously on the map, fifteen minutes before the attack, gave a latitude and longitude of open sea many days’ sailing from any point of dry land. They were more than eight hundred miles from the west coast of Africa. They’d left Jamestown a week before and were expecting to reach São Tomé, all going well and wind permitting, in eight or ten more days.
Katy Bristol was in the cockpit, gathering up the spinnaker. The wind, although light, had changed direction and the sail could no longer hold the course. Frank Czerny was in the cabin, making sandwiches for lunch. Mathew was steering. They were moving at a rate of six or eight knots, with a cross wind; a sufficient quantity of clouds, none threatening, defended them from the scorching heat of the midday Atlantic sun, at a point some five hundred miles southeast of the coordinates uniting the equator with the prime meridian. Katy put the spinnaker pole in its cover, went down to the cabin with the spinnaker folded up and back in the bag, made a joke about Frank’s poor cooking in a very loud voice so Mathew would hear it too, and came back up top. She was carrying the binoculars. She was fond of using them even when there was nothing definite to be seen except the horizon which, despite always seeming much the same, changed according to the spirits of the person contemplating it. They were discussing the celebration they were going to have when they passed the equator. Katy was most insistent on the menu. She wanted them to prepare a special meal; she was tired of tins and sandwiches. All three were more or less in agreement that they had earned a celebration. As they were talking, Katy was looking through the binoculars. Suddenly, in a voice not altogether calm, she said:
“There’s a yacht, port side. Three or four miles away. I can’t see what flag they’re flying. Looks big.” The noise of the motor still hadn’t reached them.
Mathew suspected that Katy was afraid. Some colleagues they’d met up with in Jamestown port on the island of Saint Helena had told them blood-curdling stories of pirates attacking sailors in the region, with a cruelty as unnecessary as it was unchanging. It was strange, because piracy was usually concentrated on the east coast of the African continent, but they assured them that at least one dangerous vessel which had caused the disappearance of more than one sailboat was operating in these waters. It wasn’t their principal objective, because they made a living from contraband, but if they came across one, they plundered it.
Frank, who’d heard her, stuck his head out the companionway.
“Maybe we should change course. We could beat to windward and be out of sight. What do you think, Matt?”
But with the worst possible timing, Mathew didn’t share his crewmember’s fears. Doctor Prendel wanted to stick to the schedule they’d mapped out and now that they were taking a direct course towards their destination he didn’t want to deviate from it. It wasn’t the first time he had sailed in these waters, and he’d never had any run-ins with pirates, although he’d often heard about them.
“We’ll keep going,” he told them. It will be an annotation in the logbook: boat sighted at this time, latitude, longitude, that course. “Frank, how’s that lunch coming?” The silence of his companions made him reflect. “All right,” he gave in, “if we see them coming deliberately towards us, we’ll change course.”
But in sailing, as in life, you have to change course before hitting the obstacle. If you wait too long, you collide. It is as bad weather begins that you must lower the sails because when the storm is already upon you it is much more difficult and, at times, very risky if not impossible.
“They’re coming directly towards us,” informed Katy, who hadn’t put down the binoculars, even to grab one of the sandwiches Frank had brought up. “Matt, they’re coming head-on and there’s no doubt they’ve spotted us. Either they have problems and need help or they’ll make problems for us and the ones needing help will be us.”
Mathew looked to where Katy was pointing. The binoculars were no longer necessary to see the boat. It had to be sixty foot. Bigger than the Queen, which was forty-two. It must be travelling with a considerable crew. However much they tacked, if the other boat chased them, they would catch them. Sails versus motor: it was obvious. The only solution—although calling it a solution was extravagantly optimistic—was to face them.
“Katy, go down and lock yourself in your cabin. Frank, look in the starboard trunk for an aluminum box, grab the pistol inside. Then lock yourself in as well.”
“Pistol? Why do you have a weapon?”
“Does this seem like a good time to explain?” Dr. Prendel was a pragmatic man, decisive.
Katy hadn’t moved. She wasn’t planning to hide herself in the cabin. If it were necessary, she wanted to defend herself with her own hands. Frank told her that captain’s orders couldn’t be questioned. Katy answered that when your life is at risk, yes, they could. They argued for a few minutes before Prendel’s impassive silence. It’s easy for people to disagree when they are talking about death. Or when they are talking about life. It’s easy for people to disagree.
“Doesn’t matter. There’s nothing to be done. We’re done for. They’re pirates,” announced the captain. “They’re predators. We’ll be lucky to get away with our lives. But I’m not confident about it. At all.”
Then Prendel thought that he shouldn’t have changed the name of the boat, that the legend of bad luck pursuing vessels whose names had been changed was true and now being confirmed once again. Why couldn’t he have a boat called Mary? How could memories weigh on him so much?
The captain turned the bow into the wind. Better to wait for them, show a total willingness to be plundered. And so he explained to his companions. There isn’t only one way to be a victim, but Prendel was convinced that surrender was the optimum. He took off his gloves and leaned on the wheel to eat his cheese sandwich. He reflected that this was perhaps the last meal of his life. He looked at Katy and Frank and told them he was very sorry, very sorry to have involved them in this adventure whose close, tragic end could now be glimpsed. They answered that he shouldn’t blame himself. Fear kept them tense and prudent.
“What can we give them? What are they hoping to find?” he asked out loud, but received no answer. Katy knew they were carrying nothing of value, except some money and their laptops. But that would seem like pure junk to pirates.
The Queen rocked lazily,
calmly. The halyards slapped against the mast. The horizon line was broken only by the silhouette of the boat approaching them. Frank lit a cigarette.
“I’ll have to resign myself to never having climbed the six hundred and ninety-nine steps of Jacob’s Ladder,” he said.
During the days they were docked in Jamestown port, Frank had tried to convince his companions to go see the island from above; to do so only required climbing the six hundred and ninety-nine steps of that narrow and steep staircase that ascended the mountain. Katy and Prendel kept putting him off and in the end they set sail without climbing it. Confessing that he would never satisfy that desire was an admission of death. “And you two? What did you not get to do?”
Dr. Prendel was calculating the time left before they were boarded. Five minutes? Ten?
“I don’t know, Frank. If this ends here, I’ll still want everything. I’m only thirty-six. You?” He turned to Katy.
“I’m thirty-eight, like Frank. I would like to have had a baby. But wouldn’t you know it, now it would be left an orphan.”
If they spoke so clearly of impending death, it is because they didn’t believe in it. Believing in it might have saved them. Maybe, if they’d felt threatened up to that point, they would have sent an SOS by radio.
The appearance of the pirates was nondescript. No special mark or characteristic gave them away. Nevertheless, there was no doubt what they were. Five men on deck. Three black and two white. No visible weapons. The boarding was rapid. They pulled in alongside the Queen with the speed and efficiency of experience. They fixed cables to stern and bow. Two men came aboard the Queen and gave Prendel, who identified himself as captain, an order for him and the whole crew to throw themselves overboard. Seeing they spoke English, Prendel tried to talk to them.