‘You wouldn’t like to buy some fish?’
‘Why? Have you got some?’
‘That’s not what I’m saying… I mean the next time, if you might be interested.’
‘It depends… what have you got there?’
The man came to the gunwale and looked down into the boat. He saw the tararira.
‘Shit! What does it weigh?’
‘Three kilos.’
‘Bring it over here. We’ll put it on the scales.’
‘There’s no need… I’m just saying, if you might be interested, in the future.’
‘It’s a matter of having a look. It all depends on what it is.’
Boga finished stowing the things and gave the man the money. The boat’s engine had been running all this time. When he moved out from the launch, it seemed to him as if he’d gone into a silent, empty room. He found his ears were humming. He saw the man, his shadow, as it slipped towards the bow. The droning of the engine reached a pitch of desperation. Then the launch jerked forward, in the same direction, but within a few metres it turned all the way around and headed off towards the north. The man didn’t look down as he passed him in the boat. He was rowing more or less in the same spot on the river when the launch disappeared around the bend. He looked at the smoke plume that still hung above the river. While the humming of the engine travelled ever further off, and was finally absorbed by the distance.
The water here inside was very bright and very still, and the dividing line that ran between the river mouth and open sea was visible again. The water there outside was folding up in little ripples, and had another colour. He saw the little fishing boat, still there.
He rowed towards the river mouth, veering gently right. He heard the murmur of choppy water further out, and then, in a moment, he was sailing it himself. He headed for one of the beaches dotted round the curve which folds like a balcony above the open sea. Right there the water gets much shallower. He saw the reed beds on either side, and straight ahead the measureless expanse of grey that, when you’re far away, becomes confounded with the sky. He felt the morning wind that blew all the way across it, humid on his face. This wind and this murmur formed a globe or ring around him. He was at its centre and the globe or ring moved with him.
He heard the rub of sand against the bottom of the boat, and several metres further on he ran aground completely. This was the place. He stood up on the mast-hole seat and considered his surroundings with a certain satisfaction. He wasn’t the kind of man who could easily be pleased, but what he saw now gladdened him. The murmuring and the wind and this beach in the morning, looking onto the open sea.
The beach was almost hidden by a covering of logs that had been rounded by the water, with not a lot of space between the water and the weeds. It was scarcely a few metres to the first line of trees. First a line of willows. Behind them, and much taller, there were other trees that rose between their stooping green crowns. He’d heard some talk about these trees. Many of them were missing now, cut down in the war, but the ones that still remained were those most hidden and protected by the shield of grass and willows. Wild vines ascended them and honeycombs stirred in their old, splitting wood.
He felt the silence and the damp, and then the kind of hum that rises up from any place that’s been abandoned for some time. All of this emerged from the shadows of the scrub that was the heartland of these islands, and ventured out to meet him, the only thing so far to take on the murmur of the water, and the wind in from the river.
These are islands that rise higher, but have hollows at their centre, with tall trees hiding little lakes of still water. The ground is wet and overlaid with several layers of leaves, which give off tepid vapours.
But even though it’s narrow, the dry, clear stretch of sand is bright and makes you feel alive, drawing all the morning light.
He rolled his trouser-legs up high and jumped into the water, then dragged the boat as far onto the beach as he could manage. This was going to be his first real camp.
He’d have to put the boat right if he wanted to go on. He would need to fix it while he was stopped here. He’d put it off till now, simply to avoid starting out on several days of work without a proper camp. Now that he was here he could see it as a pleasure, stopping in a place like this and taking all the time necessary to set a boat to rights.
The first thing he did was to make a fire. This making of a fire has a special kind of meaning to a solitary man. It’s the same for any man lighting the first fire of a winter, whether he lives alone or not.
The fire burned in the morning with a riotous crackling, something like the water’s murmur, but wild and more intense. He set the kettle in the flames, and when the fire got going he removed it with a stick and set the grill down in its place. The kettle went on top beside a five-litre tin that was half-filled with water. He threw a hand of salt in and the ossobuco pieces. He’d forgotten to buy potatoes. It was a pity this had happened, but he didn’t regret it much, because he’d known right from the outset that he wouldn’t remember everything.
He went to look around while the meat was on the grill, and his thoughts were pretty worked out by the time he returned. He’d clear himself a space between the nearest of the trees, and build himself a shed using branches laid with straw. He knew the spot already. Its full view of the sea and the stretch of sand before it was the best along the beach. He’d start to clear the land at once, and maybe have the shelter up tomorrow. Once that job was done, he’d empty out the boat and store the things inside the shelter, on a scaffolding of sorts that would keep them free of damp and safely up above the water, and then he’d turn his mind to the matter of the boat. He had big plans in mind for this little rowing boat. To begin with he’d thought he would do the bare minimum, only what was urgent, but little by little he’d decided on a scheme that was a good deal more ambitious. It would all take time, of course. But then he, in a way, was time.
Now, to get things going, he’d do, as quickly as possible, the things he couldn’t put off; he’d change some of the planks, for one, renew most of the caulking, especially on the bottom, and apply a spot of paint. Once this work was finished, he’d deal with all the other jobs as something like a hobby, without the need to hurry things. What he had in mind was to bring this old boat back to something like it was at first, when it left old Froglia’s yard, if in fact it had done.
He’d brought along some planks with which he’d thought to build the scaffolding where he would keep his things. These planks would make a rudder. A pretty little rudder with a pretty little tiller. Then, and when he stopped off on his travels round these rivers, he’d make himself a lugsail with the canvas that he’d brought. No rush, of course. He had, inside a metal box, needles, thread and pure wax, and a sailmaker’s palm. It was the job he liked the most. Meantime, he would come across a pole along the way, or a boom or something like it, to serve him as a mast.
This, in general terms, was how he saw things in his mind. And when he came here next, sometime in high summer, he’d have himself a little yacht, or something pretty close to one, to sail out every morning on this river that is like the sea.
The boat was not as rotten nor as shoddy as it seemed. The opposite in fact, it was a splendid little boat put together in the old style. It had met with bad luck, was all. Perhaps because it lacked a name. No one wants to bother with a boat that has no name, or at least not take the same care as they’d take with one that has. To give a boat a name is in this way to provide it with protection. No, this boat had not found luck, in spite of its beginnings.
The problem of the leak was for the most part in the bow, at the junction where the timbers come together with the keel, and this part with the stem. Some caulking had worked loose and what was left of it had aged. It’s the spot that gets the most buffeting. He stripped out all the caulking from the best part of the bottom. He didn’t use the wicking, but the fibres of a hemp rope that he’d left to soak in diesel. But before he set to do this job, he changed three of the planks, and before he changed the planks he cleaned the old paint off the boat with a scraper that he’d sharpened, and which took the dirt off too. He thought it best, while changing planks, to bind one of the ribs that he noticed had split. He fettered it to either side, using screws of milled brass to secure the reinforcement, and then coating these with paint to make a seal.