Morning. An early dawn, sun rising red in the east, at a wharf in a harbor on the south coast of Bassanda. Sound of gulls above and of waves below, slapping against the stone bollards of the wharf. Footsteps on salt warped boards; wind and flapping canvas. A babble of voices, most of them trading commands and plans back and forth as a motley crew of sailors load last-minute supplies and instruments. Musicians are trickling down the quay, some looking bleary on this last morning in port after the night before, leaning into the wind that blows off the gulf. Yezget-Bey, a tall, lean figure in loose corduroy trousers and a cable knit sweater, stands with Etsy, the concert master, atop the pilothouse, checking off items on a manifest, riding easily as the ship rocks and rubs up against the surplus truck tires that serve as bumpers to protect her gunwhales from striking against the wharf. The ship is a tatty looking schooner with a stump mast. There is a tall thin Asian-looking man, with long white hair brushed back, and a thin white goatee, at the wheel: his other hand lies on the stirrup-shaped throttle that controls the twin engines. These can be heard rising and falling in pitch as the pilot rides them to maintain her position.
Those engines are the tell: though her brass is tarnished and there is grease on her cordage, the engines purr like two sleepy tigers. Under her counter, and the soot that fouls it, can be read the name Bruxa do Mar.
Beyond, a few meters out into the open water of the harbor, is another, smaller boat—a stubby, two-masted cat ketch, swinging at her anchor in the fresh morning wind. Clambering over her deckhouse is a tall, lanky, bearded and bespectacled man, who moves easily as the boat pitches and rolls. He flemishes lines and snugs-down hatch-covers; it looks as if his departure, also, is imminent. He is smoking a cigar and, as the boat swings, those on the quay can see the ketch’s name: John Hurt.
On board the Bruxa, Etsy swings himself up the ladder from the cockpit and joins Yezget Bey on the pilot house roof. He gestures overside, toward the John Hurt.
“You’ve met him before, Baba? What do you think of him?”
Nas1lsinez answers briefly. “I think I recognize him.”
As if to prove a point, a large-engined motorboat puts out from a wharf down the pier, just in front of the harbor-master’s shed office, over which the BSSR flag—a yellow sickle on the upper left corner of a horizontally-barred red-white-green field—flaps idly in the light dawn breezes. The boat itself, painted with a gunmetal gray upper structure and a camouflaged green & gray hull, quickly accelerates, the roar of its open engine echoing around the harbor as its skipper opens the throttle full, throwing an ostentatious bow wave as it skids across the undulating, oil-iridescent surface of the harbor.
The master’s boat throws another wave as it loops around the ketch, momentarily cutting it off from the harbor’s mouth, before throttling down its engines with another roar, as it comes up against the John Hurt’s sides. The tall American ignores the harbormaster, even when the official shouts up to him through a scratchy bullhorn, even when the sailor on the foredeck of the harbormaster’s boat swings a mounted heavy-machine gun to train it on the John Hurt’s hull. Only when the patrol boat strikes against the ketch’s side, with a crunch that can be heard over the water and all the way to the Bruxa, does the American yell in frustration, in English in a flat New England twang—and louder than the bullhorn, “Hey, you fucking lubbers, mind the sides. Fend off, assholes!”
The harbormaster shouts again, incomprehensibly, through the scratchy defective bullhorn, and the American yells again. “Fuck off away from my sides, you asshole! Lemme get the fenders overside, first!” He drops down into the ketch’s cockpit and peers up at the harbormaster, who lowers the bullhorn in frustration for a moment, and then raises it, yelling through its distortion, in broken English, “Papers, boat! Manifest? Papers? Where come from?”
The tall bearded man shakes his head and cups one hand to his ear. “Can’t make you out, pal. Doesn’t any of you lubbers speak English?” Unnecessarily, he adds, “I’m an American. This is an American boat.” Waiting until the swell pulls the two hulls apart, he drops the fenders down between, shaking his head at the fresh scars in the John Hurt’s paint.
Frustrated, the harbormaster shakes his head, and yells an order to his own crew; two sailors carrying lines clamber up the side of the John Hurt and make her fast to the pilot boat. The American ignores them, but glares at the harbormaster, hands on his hips.
Etsy steals a sideways glance at his boss, to see how Yezget is taking in the exchange. Incongruously, the Conductor is grinning; he shows no inclination to intervene, but seems satisfied as a spectator to this small maritime drama. The short-statured harbor master is waving his arms, demanding—in a combination of voluble Bassandan and broken English—that the American sailor produce the necessary papers: manifest, visas, passport, previous ports of call; the tall bearded American, on the other hand, is furrowing his brow, still cupping his ear, in a pantomime of monolinguality. At one point, he raises his head and looks over the harbormaster’s epauletted shoulder; even at this distance, Etsy can literally feel the wink that the foreigner throws their way.
Finally, the harbor master becomes so frustrated at this dumb-show incomprehension that he looks around the harbor, almost as if seeking an ally—or perhaps an interpreter. He spies the Bruxa tied up inshore against the wharf, and Etsy and Yezget-Bey on the deck of the pilot house, and raises the bullhorn again, to cast his voice toward them.
“Bruxa do Mar. Stand by to receive the State Harbor master and incoming arrival. You will translate in the process of official interrogation.” Etsy looks again at Yezget-Bey. The Conductor meets Etsy’s eye and nods; Etsy turns back toward the distant patrol boat and cat-ketch, and waves an ironic affirmative.
A few minutes later, leaving several of the port’s armed sailors on board the John Hurt, still swinging at anchor, the harbor master, an escort of sailors, and the tall bearded American tie up alongside the Bruxa; the master gestures imperiously that Yezget and Etsy should come over transom and down into the pilot boat. But the Conductor shakes his head, waves the clipboard with its bill of lading still held in his hand, and shouts to the harbor master: “We have a manifest. If you want me to talk, get on board, and make it quick. Neither the tide nor I will wait!” The harbor master glares, but, recognizing the official BSSR seal which adorns the stern of the Bruxa, scrambles up the forward ladder, and then comes aft, out of breath and accompanied by a bespectacled secretary. The tall foreigner follows in leisurely fashion, stopping to yank on a halyard, run his hand up and down along the worn teak of the Bruxa’s foremast, and stooping to peer below decks as he passes the open hatch that leads down toward the engines.
Arriving in the cockpit, still out of breath, the harbor master says to the Conductor in officious brusque Bassandan.
“Do you know this foreigner, this Angliski? He says that you can vouch for me. He doesn’t speak our language.” Etsy, who is watching closely, sees a small grin cross the tall foreigner’s face, behind the scrubby black beard, but Yezget Bey gives no sign of recognition.
For a moment, looking the foreigner up and down, the Conductor appears to ignore the harbor master’s question. Then, in leisurely fashion, he drawls, “No, I don’t recognize him. Angliski, you say?”
The harbor master harrumphes. “Well, he says he is Americanski. But I’ve never seen an American who can con a sailboat worth a damn.”
Yezget-Bey nods thoughtfully. “No, perhaps not. But if he is Angliski, he is eligible for harbor papers, is he not?” The tall foreigner, head craned back to look up the length of the main mast, holds up a thumb to measure its angle against the sky—he appears to be oblivious to this conversation whose language it is alleged he cannot understand.
The harbor master scowls. “Yes, he is eligible. And his boat has British papers, God knows how. They appear to be in order, but I have my doubts…”
Yezget-Bey interrupts. “Be that as it may, friend officer, I have little time, and not much more inclination, to translate between you and this American, or Englishman, or whatever you think he is.”
The harbor master puffs with importance. “I’m aware of that. I am merely observing the port regulations regarding identification of all foreign vessels seeking anchor.”
Before Yezget-Bey can answer, the tall foreigner finally turns his attention to the conversation which has been going on around him. Though he looks directly at Yezget-Bey, he addresses his speech to the harbor master. He speaks flawless Bassandan, albeit with a pronounced accent which Etsy himself recognizes as American.
“I’ve got papers, friend. You should have asked me directly, instead of figuring I wouldn’t understand.”
**
An hour later, they sat below decks in the Bruxa’s low-ceilinged galley, drinking Bassandan arrack. The harbor master, clutching the shreds of his dignity and the all-important papers he would need to report to the secret police—and the extortionate anchorage fee that he would not—had shoved off from the John Hurt, after issuing a stern instruction to the American that he must “file all ports of call planned.”
The American hunched forward over the scarred mess table. He knocked back another tiny snifter of arrack and turned the thick-walled small glass upside-down on the table, between the plates of black bread and sour pickles. “It’s good to see you again, Baba.”
Etsy stared as Yezget-Bey smiled. “Indeed yes, Arrick. It was at Bricktop’s in Rome, wasn’t it, on that Fulbright? Did the gallery show ever come together?”
“Arrick” grinned. “I’d forgotten I told you that, Baba. No, the show never quite happened, but I’ve met a lot of musicians in the States, especially around Boston and New York, since then. There’s something happening there that I think you and the Band might find it interesting. How long is your tour—how many dates? You have any windows?”
Yezget-Bey looks at Etsy, who sets aside the sudden realizatation that in fact his leader has met this American before, and replies, “About three weeks. 15 concerts, and a couple of two-a-days. They work us hard. First show is the day after tomorrow.”
Arrick nods thoughtfully. Though he addresses himself to Etsy, he looks at Yezget-Bey. “That’s what I figured. If there were more time, we could maybe get you shoehorned onto a couple of festival bills in the States.”
Etsy shakes his head. “That sounds great, but I don’t see how we can get there, and back, in time. The Bruxa is fast but she’s not that fast. And we don’t have manifests or clearances for any other kind of transport.”
Before responding, Arrick continues to look at Yezget-Bey. He finally answers with a noncommittal, “Uh huh.” Finally some communication passes between them, and then Yezget nods slightly. Arrick turns back toward Etsy.
“What if we could get you there and back quick; quick enough to make your first show on the itinerary?”
Mystified, Etsy says, “Well…if Baba says we can try, then we can try. But how can you get us halfway across the world, and back, with a show in between, in two and a half days.”
Arrick meets his eye, and grins widely. Yezget is smiling as well.
“That’s why I brought the John Hurt—so I can clear the way. You and the crew ready for a gale?”
