Well, I turned round on that fast, telling him, «Not near!» I pointed at the three double lines on both sides of her neck, so faint they were, still barely visible in her skin. «The gill slits ain't opened yet — drop her in a bathtub, she'd likely drown. Happen they might never open, I don't know. I'm telling you straight, I never seen this — I don't know!»
She looked at me then, and she smiled a little, but it weren't her smile. I leaned closer, and she said in English, so softly Henry Lee didn't hear, «Unbind my hair.»
They don't all have long golden hair, that's just nursery talk. I seen one off Porto Rico had a mane red as sunset clouds, and I seen a fair old lot with thick dark hair like Julia Caterina's. But I never touched none of them before. It weren't me place to touch her neither, and Henry Lee standing by, too, but I done it anyway, like it were the hair asking me to do it, and not her. First twitch, it all come right down over me hands, ripe and heavy and hot — hot like I'd spilled cooking oil on meself, the way it clings and keeps burning, and water makes it worse. Truth, for a minute I thought me hands was ablaze — seemed like I could see them burning like fireships through that black swirly tangle wouldn't let them go. I yelled out then — I ain't shamed none to admit it, I know what I felt — and I snatched me hands right back, and of course there weren't a mark on them. And I looked into her eyes, and they was green and gray and green again, like the salt wine, and she laughed. She knew I were frighted and hurting, and she laughed and laughed.
I thought there were nothing left of her then — all gone, the little Portygee woman who'd sat in me chair and said something nobody else never said to me before. But then the eyes was hers again, all wide with fear and love, and she reached out for Henry Lee like she really were drowning. Aye, that were the worst of it, some way, those last two days, 'acos of one minute she'd be hissing like a cat, did he try to touch her or pet her, flopping away from him, the way you'd have thought he were her worst enemy in the world. Next minute, curled small in his arms, trembling all over, weeping dryeyed, the way mermaids do, and him singing low to her in Portygee, sounded like nursery rhymes. Never saw him blubbing himself, not one tear.
She didn't stay in the bed much no more, but managed to get around the room using her arms and her tail — practicing–like, you see. Wouldn't eat nothing, no matter Henry Lee cozened her with the freshest fish and crab, mussels just out of the sea. Sometimes at first she'd take a little water, but by and by she'd show her teeth and knock the cup out of his hand. Mermaids don't drink, no more nor fish do.
They don't sleep, neither — not what you'd call sleeping — so there'd be one of us always by her, him or me, for fear she'd do herself a mischief. We wasn't doing much sleeping then ourselves, by then, so often enough we'd find ourselves side by side, not talking, just watching her while she watched the sea through the window and the moon ripened in the trees. The one time we ever did talk about it, he said to me, «You were right, Ben. I haven't been punished nearly enough for what I've done.»
«Some get punished too much," I says, «and some not at all. Don't seem to make much difference, near as I can tell.»
Henry Lee shakes his head. «You got out the moment you knew we might have harmed even one person. I stayed on. I'll never be quits for this, Ben.»
I don't have no answer, except to tell him about a thing I did long ago that I'm still being punished for meself. I'd never told nobody before, and I'm not about to tell you now. I just did it to maybe help Henry Lee a little, which it didn't. He patted me back and squeezed me shoulder a little bit, but he didn't say no more, and nor did I.We sat together and watched Julia Caterina in the moonlight.
Come that nineteenth night, the moon rose full to bursting, big and bright and yellow as day, with one or two red streaks, like an egg gone bad, laying down a wrinkly–gold path you could have walked on to the horizon … or swum down, as the case might be. Julia Caterina went wild at the sight, beating at the window the way you'd have thought she were a moth trying to get to the candle. It come to me, she'd waited for this moon the same way the turtles wait to come ashore and lay their eggs in the light — the way those tiny fish I disremember flood over the beaches at high tide, millions of them, got to get those eggs buried fast, before the next wave sweeps them back out to sea. Now it were like the moon were waiting for her, and she knew the way there. «Not yet," Henry Lee says, desperate–like, «not yet— they've not…» He didn't finish, but I knew he were talking about the pale lines on her neck, darker every day, but still not opened into proper gill slits. But right as he spoke, right then, those same lines swelled and split and flared red, and that sudden, they was there, making her more a fish than the tail ever could, because now she didn't need the land at all, or the air. Aye, now she could stay under water all the time, if she wanted. She were ready for the sea, and she knew it, no more to say.
Henry Lee carried her in his arms all the way down from his grand house — their house until two nights ago — to the water's edge, nobody to see nowt, just a couple of fishing boats anchored offshore. A dugout canoe, too, which you still used to see in them days. She wriggled out of his arms there, turning in the air like a cat, and a little wave splashed up in her face as she landed, making her laugh and splash back with her tail. Henry Lee were drenched right off, top to toe, but you could see he didn't know. Julia Caterina — her as had been Julia Caterina — she swam round and round, rolling and diving and admiring all she could do in the water. There's nothing fits the sea like a mermaid — not fish, not seals, dolphins, whales, nothing. There in the moonlight, the sea looked happy to be with her.
I can't swim, like I told you — I just waded in a few steps to watch her playing so. All on a sudden — for all the world like she'd heard a call from somewhere — she did a kind of a swirling cartwheel, gave a couple of hard kicks with that tail, and like that, she's away, no goodbye, clear of the shore, leaving her own foxfire trail down the middle of that moonlight path. I thought she were gone then, gone forever, and I didn't waste no time in gawping, but turned to see to Henry Lee. He were standing up to his knees in the water, taking his shirt off.
«Henry Lee," I says. «Henry Lee, what the Christ you doing?» He don't even look over at me, but throws the shirt back toward the shore and starts unbuttoning his trews. Bought from the only bespoke gentlemen's tailor in Velha Goa, those pants, still cost you half what you'd pay in Lisbon. Henry Lee just drops them in the water. Goes to work getting rid of his smallclothes, kicking off his soaked shoes, while I'm yapping at him about catching cold, pneumonia. Henry Lee smiles at me. Still got most all his teeth, which even the Portygee nobs can't say they do, most of them. He says, «She'll be lonely out there.»
I said summat, must have. I don't recall what it were. Standing there naked, Henry Lee says, «She'll need me, Ben.»
«She's got all she needs," I says. «You can't go after her.»
«I promised I'd make it up to her," he says. «What I did. But there's no way, Ben, there's no way.»
He moves on past me, walking straight ahead, water rising steady. I stumble and scramble in front of him, afeared as I can be, but he's not getting by. «You can't make it up," I tells him. «Some things, you can't ever make up — you live with them, that's all. That's the best you can do.» He's taller by a head, but I'm bigger, wider. He's not getting by.