AS I GOT TO KNOW the Pradhans better, I could see how important his ulcer was in both their lives.
“How does it feel, Srinivas, dear?” Mrs. Pradhan would ask her husband if he was noticeably quiet during dinner or high tea. He didn’t need more encouragement than that to launch into a description of his ulcer’s fluctuating moods in the course of a given day. We’d listen respectfully.
I foolishly mentioned that I sometimes had slight headaches that might be the aftermath of malaria, or whatever my original fever had been. Thereafter, when the first mate had finished talking about his ulcer, he’d inquire about my headaches. He may have thought he’d sound like less of a hypochondriac if I made a contribution. If so, I let him down, and my motives were quite self-centred: talking about those headaches sometimes brought them on, or made them worse.
All in all, the Pradhans seemed a happy enough couple. Though I wondered if it wasn’t The Ulcer that held them together as much as love.
Love, true love. I often thought about that once-in-a-lifetime rarity I was sure I’d possessed, then lost. In the course of the voyage I actually did read dozens of those popular romances from Mrs. Pradhan’s library — she recommended them as therapy for a broken heart. But the heroines in them were so unconvincing they only made me feel, even more deeply, the loss of the real thing — Miriam Galt.
2
After calling in at several small coastal islands to deposit and pick up cargo, the SS Charybdis headed out into the Atlantic, leaving the sultry air of Africa in her wake. Three days later, a high column of cloud began to appear on the distant horizon. Under the column, in time, we could make out a smudge, which became in due course the outline of a mountain. Finally, the Charybdis took us close enough to see the shores and forests of the island on which the mountain stood: Isla Perdida.
Of the islands we’d so far visited, this was the first one I could find an article about in one of the library’s encyclopedias. Isla Perdida had an occasionally active volcano, four thousand feet high. The island had belonged over the centuries to Portugal, Spain, and France before becoming part of the British Empire. The main town had had a variety of non-English names but was now known as Stopover. It had served as a base for fishing fleets, a slaving station, a military outpost, and a penal colony. The town’s prison, in fact, had only lately been closed down. The present small population of the island reflected its history: African, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and British bloodlines were mingled, the descendants of prisoners had intermarried with the children of former wardens, and so on. Socially, life on Isla Perdida was apparently quite harmonious. Any havoc now was caused only by occasional eruptions of the volcano.
WE SAILED RIGHT UP to Stopover’s dock, which lay at the narrow end of a deep fissure in the cliffs, safe from the Atlantic’s storms, though this day was perfectly windless anyway. As the Charybdis nestled alongside the high seawall a team of local stevedores, burly men with close-cropped hair, tied the ship to huge bollards. Aside from these stevedores, none of the local population came out to greet the ship.
First Mate Pradhan was on an upper deck beside me, keeping an eye on the docking operation.
“We’ll only be in port twenty-four hours,” he said. “We’re picking up some cargo dropped off here a few weeks ago for delivery to South America. The ship’s engines will get some routine maintenance, too.” He looked at me as though he’d just thought of something. “You should take the opportunity to see the island’s medical officer about those headaches of yours.”
I was reluctant, he persistent.
“Once we’re tied up I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs,” he said. “You can come along with me and I’ll show you where the Medical Office is. I visited it when we were here last year. Some of these out-of-the-way places have homegrown cures, so I thought I’d give it a try. Of course, I’d no luck — nothing seems to help this ulcer of mine.” There was a touch of pride in the way he said that.
SO, SHORTLY AFTERWARDS, Pradhan and I walked into the town of Stopover itself, about a quarter mile from the dock. Along the way, we were assaulted by armies of mosquitoes and biting flies enjoying the windless conditions. We swatted at them in vain.
As for the town itself, it was an odd place. It was built in that narrow crack between the huge walls of black rock and seemed to consist of a single street of paintless and weather-beaten clapboard buildings, including a post office, a general store, and a bar. Several ancient-looking passenger cars and trucks were parked on the potholed road. As we walked along, we passed some of the townspeople. The men were all of that burly, short-haired type we’d seen tying up the ship. The women wore black headscarves and baggy dresses with flowery designs. Pradhan observed how, though we surely stood out as strangers, these islanders ignored us, just as they’d paid no attention to the ship’s arrival.
“Now you know quite literally what ‘insular’ means,” he said.
As we walked on, I noticed that the street didn’t have any trees, only a few shrubs and little plots of grass, no bigger than graves, outside some of the clapboard houses.
“The volcanic rock’s just below the surface, so trees can’t take root,” said Pradhan. “Most of the soil here is imported, and sometimes it’s blown away by storms.”
WE EVENTUALLY CAME to the only noteworthy building in town, a cube-shaped structure made of stone blocks and filling an entire corner at the upper west side of the street.
“Here we are,” said Pradhan. “The building’s all that’s left of the old prison. See where the cell blocks were dismantled when it was closed down?” Heaps of rubble stretched over a wide area behind the building. No effort seemed to have been made to remove them.
The heavy wooden front door bore a brass plate:
PRISON MEDICAL OFFICER
DR. MACHLA CHAFAK
“Just give the door a rap,” said Pradhan. “I’ll get on with my walk and see you back at the ship.”
After he left I knocked and a small elderly woman came to the door. She had eyes that were astute but small on either side of quite a large nose. I told her I’d like to see the medical officer.
“I am the medical officer,” she said. “I’m Dr. Chafak.”
Pradhan hadn’t said anything to indicate the medical officer was female. I’d assumed from her appearance that this woman was the maid — she wore one of those baggy dresses like the other townswomen we’d seen. She didn’t, however, wear a headscarf to cover her shoulder-length grey hair.
“Come in,” she said.
I followed her into a large, well-illuminated room. A big window with bars on it looked out onto the ruins we’d seen at the back. The room had a desk, an examination table, various rubber tubes, a sink, and some medicine cabinets — the usual items in a doctor’s consulting room. Usual, but for one thing: an elderly German shepherd lay on a rug in the corner. When I came in, it slowly got up, growling and baring its fangs.
“Pongo! Don’t be silly!” Dr. Chafak said to the dog. “Am I not allowed visitors?” She spoke with an accent similar to that of some of the Eastern European sailors I’d met.