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One
hundred and eight degrees. Bahia de Cangrejos on the
Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. This place will keep
our secrets - if we can find an exit. White sands
against tropic blue water. A coral bay, closed in
by two long points arching out to the sea, turning
inwards at their tips like crab claws. Our Spanish
falters but we share stories with the BriBri fishermen.
There are rumours here: gold coins are buried deep
in the sand, but cursed is the man who finds them;
in the 1800's a barque crewed by escaped slaves was
crushed by storm seas breaking on the reef, keel planks
splintering, a mile from the reef, not one man survives.
Luis says that in '45 white men, Germans maybe, arrived
from out of nowhere and disappeared into the jungle.
Never seen again. Just rumours, si? This heat breeds
dreaming and conflict. Nothing escapes from the Bahia.
We walk in the curve of crab claws. God is the knower
of beauty but the Devil is the expert in appearances.
We walk from claw to claw, feet burning on sand, total
quiet, and always with the feeling that all substances
are different here and that all things are falling.
Bahia de Cangrejos, our secret time, where nothing
can escape, rumour and tension and romance and all
things caught in the curl.
Ash
Wednesday in a white-washed church at Puerto Viejo.
Silence. We leave our sandals at the door and sprinkle
holy water, our feet left bare to the wooden floor.
The inside of a Catholic church in Latin America is
a different world from our own. It is a suspension
of time, a mystery and exoticism, a pure religion
and passion unknown in the north countries. It is
votive candles and the serene face of the Virgin,
seeing all things and accepting all things, sorrow
for all her children. Light floods into the eglesia
from a cracked pane of stained glass, the martyrdom
of St. Peter broken in two. The priest moves towards
us, his curled fingers dipped in ash. An ancient wisdom,
a rite for the centering of will. These ashes are
the remnants of burned pageant fronds from last year's
Palm Sunday. Remember man that thou art dust and to
dust thou shalt return. The priest touches our foreheads
with the sign of the cross, his hands ash-covered
and arthritic, humility and blessing and fear and
all things caught in the curl.
We
spend June at the home of Luis' mother. After three
months our time has become slow aimlessness. By July
there is no longer anything useful to say, just brief
observations breaking lazy silence. Uninspired good-byes
as I drop her off at San Jose's international airport
and drive back to the coast along potholed highways.
Drivers here seem to consider four wheels on the ground
excessive. Each turn is pusher harder than the last.
The wrecked cars of the unlucky and the unskilled
rust at the fringes of the jungle. I take the drive
slow, considering my survival to be a minor miracle.
My first night alone I find that I sleep better with
her gone. It is too damned hot to have someone beside
you. The next day breaks fine and clear. Still no
surf. I lie on a discarded door panel and watch contrails,
white vapour against blue sky. Up high the winds are
swirling. The straight lines of ice crystals left
by jet exhausts turn to strange shapes. A fishhook.
A necklace. A winding highway. Departure and memory
act in odd ways, ice in the tropics, separation, straight
lines blown by the wind and caught in the curl.
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One
Saturday I watch an Indian girl have her hair cut
in the outdoor market. Luis and I kick back with two
of the local surfers. We are young men, and like all
men we like to watch the proceedings of the world
we think we own. The locals tell us that the hairdresser
is some sort of soothsayer. A reader of palms and
a caster of tarot cards. I reply that women like that
make me nervous, because the future makes me nervous,
because they can see right through me, because they
can tell stories like knifeblades between your ribs.
She works her hands deep into the girl's hair. She
works dark magics. Later, Luis tells me that he and
the hairdresser once made love and that she moved
like smoke. I am growing bored and contemptuous of
my surroundings. I have been too long in this country
of heat and suspicion and strange juju, where nothing
is quite as it seems, where women seduce like jaguar,
where all things are caught in the curl.
Salvation by water: sometimes I think I am a Baptist.
It is overcast but the surf has come up. Boys and
girls in the shorebreak. Laughter and infectious smiles.
The set waves are a few minutes apart as I paddle
out. The tide rip is running. Don't forget your position,
don't forget where you belong. I line up two palms
with the edge of a church fence, and let the first
two waves pass beneath me. Trim and balance. I paddle
hard, four strokes. There is a moment of stillness
and perfect balance. The board explodes downward.
Take the drop, set the rail. The water is eighty-two
degrees and clear as glass, the reef rushing underneath
my feet. In front of me the lip of the wave throws
itself into thin air. This is where the ocean meets
the land. I duck under the lip, into the wave's tube
section as it folds around me. This is why surfers
will go to the ends of the earth. This is why I came
to tico country. Not heat and boredom, not the leaving
of friends, but to drag one hand in the inside of
a breaking wave. Tropic bliss. To live a moment where
all things are good and right, all things caught in
the curl.
Back in the Bahia de Cangrejos. Late afternoon. The
sun sets behind low hills. Luis' son is dragging a
stick along the sand. Straight lines will go forever
and never see their beginnings again. Luis' son is
making spirals in the sand, closer and closer, falling
in on themselves. This is the work of children and
priests and physicists, the bending of space and time.
There are no straight lines. Perfect gravity, all
things collapsing inward, black holes. Waves and crab
claws. Nothing escapes. All things are eternal, all
things are blessing and return, arcing mystery and
shadows, where all things live forever, all things
caught in the curl.
©
2001 Malcolm Johnson
Reprinted by permission.
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