‘Does Machito come round here?’
The roof was very high and half its stanchions were now rotten. The dust was floating in the light, a light which had grown old. There were boats here that were new, but the majority were ancient, and some completely useless. He was pretty sure he recognised at least two or three, from ’47 or ’48. One there in the courtyard that was lying on its side, the Slocum, with its YCA plate visible from here.
They waited in the dusty light, silent, in a group, the man a pace in front of them. It seemed as if the other hadn’t heard him. But they were pretty sure he had, and was thinking how it was he ought to answer. The man could guess what he would tell him.
The other played his card and then he gathered up the trick, was still gathering the cards when he turned halfway to the man.
‘Who was it you said?’
‘Machito.’
He spread the cards into a fan and studied them at length.
‘No, it’s a long time since I’ve seen him.’
Now he turned right round and took a close look at the man, peering out through half-closed eyes.
‘And who are you?’ he said.
‘Machito knows who I am.’
‘Yes, I’m sure he does. It seems to me I know you too, from some place or another.’
‘No, I’m sure you don’t.’
‘It seems that way, in any case.’
They spent a couple of days like this, going round the boatyards. And the man asked for Machito, not that it concerned them much. He had something in mind, though.
He liked the coast on this side. The boats knocked down in corners of the boatyards left him saddened, but he liked it all the same. At one point he considered ditching the other three, and finding shipyard work. He didn’t like feeling tied to things in summer. But it wouldn’t have taken much for him to choose to work in a shipyard here, on this side of the coast.
They spent a couple of days like this. Rubia complained on a couple of occasions.
‘I’m sick of going in circles.’
‘I’ve got a plan,’ the man said.
And they kept going round among the boats.
For Sale, Skum, five metres R, designed by Harry Becker — Honduran mahogany — 1937. For Sale, Río de la Plata sloop full rig. For Sale, Melgacho, auxiliary cutter 12.80 × 1.60 × 1.50, Bermuda rig — 18 h.p. engine. Palomita — double prow — Frers design — 15 h.p. Brooke engine — 10 Ratsey sails…
‘Let’s get going.’
‘They look as if they’re sailing on the air.’
‘What do?’
‘The boats.’
‘Fuck the boats! Isn’t there anything else to look at?’
‘Half of them are useless…’
‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘I said I’m on to something.’
‘Yeah, that’s right, you’re on to something…’
‘Have you seen this bloke Machito?’
‘Yeah, that’s right, have they seen him…’
It wasn’t just the boats that were getting on his nerves. There was the little fellow and dog as well.
‘They’re nothing but a nuisance.’
‘I don’t see why,’ he said.
‘He’s a halfwit… and the dog’s not all there, either. Why don’t we do things properly?’
‘I know exactly what I’m doing.’
‘They’re nothing but a nuisance.’
‘Just leave them alone.’
When the man made his decision that the time to leave had come, he said there was a little job to do. They always finished up with a little job. This time they took a magneto, a Paragon gear lever, two chrome-plated windows, a Danforth, a time bomb, a full set of position lights and one Exide battery. And the clinker-built dinghy that belonged to the Bermejo. Boga was the one who swam across to the Bermejo, and used the old man’s gift to him, his rigging knife, to cut it free. The night was very cloudy and the water thick and still.
The drizzle was beginning when they sailed out from the port. Rubia went to light up but the man said that he couldn’t. They all craved a smoke now, the man was no exception, and they all became bad-tempered. They had to wait a while, until they’d moved away a bit, although they’d left the port behind. The man rowed and the rest of them lay in the bottom, sullen and not speaking. When the moment came to smoke, they found the cigarettes were wet. Rubia cursed the rain.
‘It’s an advantage in a way,’ the man said.
It really did rain now, and the rainfall on the river left them feeling indescribably alone. The little fellow got underneath the canvas.
‘I’m not sure all this is worth it,’ said Rubia, and loudly.
‘The Paragon alone is.’
‘We ought to do things better than this.’
‘We’re doing them just fine.’
‘This isn’t the way to do them.’
‘What?…’
‘I’m only saying, this isn’t how it’s done.’
‘This is just to pass the time,’ the man said.
He’d put the oars aside and was trying to light a cigarette.
The little fellow began to laugh.
‘What’s wrong with that little shit?’ said Rubia.
‘Who bloody knows! But where’s the harm in it anyway?’ And then he turned to Boga: ‘Why is he laughing?’
‘I don’t know.’
The rain hissed in their ears and they seemed to hear the laughter far away.
After San Fernando, and just beyond the factory, they came upon a rotten hull, lying in the entrance to a stream concealed by reeds. The man had seen the hull before, quite a while ago, and thought they might still find it there. They carried all the things aboard and Boga took the boat out to the middle of the river, swimming back to join them. It would be taken by the current, far away, beyond their starting point, perhaps, if the water wasn’t turning. It wouldn’t, more than likely, until morning.
The boat smelt like the sodden earth, or, to be more exact, like the mud that lay and rotted in the bottom of the ditch. When the daylight came, they saw the deck had sprouted weeds.
Boga went to fetch the dinghy brought down from the islands, and the man went down to Tigre, to get rid of the things. He left the Paragon and the battery on the boat, and took the rest as best he could. He’d probably go asking for Machito. He came back as the night arrived, bringing them some food and a pair of Negretti & Zambra binoculars with a tilt-compensated compass built in.
‘We can live off this, easily,’ he said, suggesting the binoculars in some way or other. ‘These sods are so damn slack, they can’t even hold on to whatever’s in their hand.’
He meant people from the coast, no doubt.
‘There’s no point in just lifting a little something here, a little something there,’ said Rubia.
‘This isn’t a little something,’ said the man, as he waved the pair of binoculars in his face.
He smelt a bit of wine.
Rubia went on and on about the need to get organised. In that case, the man said, the best thing they could do was to open up a boatyard, as this was where you found that theft was organised the best, out here along the coast. A sense of humour wasn’t one of Rubia’s gifts, and he wasn’t really sure what was meant.
The man sold the Paragon for 2,500 pesos. He haggled over a price as if he bargained for his life. And Rubia got nervous.
‘What’s the need to argue so, I wonder.’
‘I’m not going to throw the things away.’
‘As if they’d cost a fortune!’
‘You’ve got no head for business.’
It was right when the man said you could do this for a living, and they did so for a while. They stole a thing in Tigre which they sold in San Fernando, or else in San Isidro. They stole in San Isidro and then sold in San Fernando, or in Tigre. There were occasions when they even stole the same thing for a second time, and then they sold it twice, of course.