Three Views of Crystal Water by Katherine Govier Read Free Book Online

and he whined, a mother’s boy, he had been until then. But Papa kept on, determined that the boy should know, and follow him in his way of life. James ate some roasted meat – goat, judging from the upset displayed by the goat’s relatives who were tied up outside. He thought he might be sick. Sweet-smelling smoke came from certain tents along the side of the crowd; this was where the men were smoking ‘bang’, his father said.
    The air was alive with hailing and haggling, and Papa was joyous. He pointed out a weird solitary figure at the fringe of the water, facing out in the direction of the pearl banks. They called him the shark binder. Pullul Karras. His job was to keep the sharks from eating the divers. He did this by casting spells. Papa said that the man was a charlatan, but the divers would not go near the sea if he were not there.
    ‘His is the best job in pearling,’ Papa grinned.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Why don’t you see? He has fantastic opportunities for snitching.’
    Apparently everyone snitched.
    The conjuror kept up a tranced dancing, his voice rising into a wail, and dropping to a polite appeasing manner, and his body curling and snapping up, arms flung high, repeatedly, like a whip. His eyes were glassy and his lips were black. Papa said that he was supposed to abstain from both food and drink. But, as they watched, he regularly hailed a young boy in a filmy fabric skirt, who had a brass tray with drinks on it. This was ‘toddy’ from the palm winetree. The shark binder drank one and ordered another. Then another. Now his song came and went without its former conviction, and his arms lost their former height.
    ‘Papa,’ James said, ‘I don’t think he’s saying the chant right.’
    ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘I’m sure the sharks will get the point.’
    There were fortune tellers and charm setters and religious fanatics. He watched an Indian with matted hair put hooks into the flesh of his breast. Then he was hoisted on ropes and swung around a post, his skin tearing.
    ‘Don’t look,’ his father said when James screamed. ‘He’s doing penance.’
    The hour stretched on and the sun inched its way over to the west, where India lay. The boy wanted to see the divers.
    ‘The best are called Malawas and are from the Tutacoreen shore,’ said his father, speaking of them as if they were dumb animals, although James was certain they understood. ‘They’re Roman Catholics. A long time ago St Francis Xavier went to the coast of India and baptised the people. Because they’re Christian, they don’t work on Sundays but they also observe any festival, Hindu or Mohammedan. They want protection of all the gods, and you would too if you had to earn your living under a ton of water.’
    James wanted to see them go down, so his father contrived for them to go out in one of the diving boats. They set sail for the banks at ten that same evening with the landward breeze. James lay on a wooden seat under a robe with his head on Papa’s lap. The sky overhead was a whirl of southern stars, brighter than any he had ever seen. The divers sat on the bottom of the boat, silent, dark, strangely passive shapes. There were ten of them, and several sailors on each boat. His mind went to where theirs was – he saw a shimmering heat, foul smells, salt, and wonderment. Then darkness. Tomorrow might bring their death.
    He must have slept. The dawn was a miracle of gold and pink, with clouds shaped like a funnel through which the daylight poured. He watched the divers oil their bodies, and talk amongst themselves. Each had his set of equipment, ropes, and a large red stone shaped like a pyramid with a hole through the top. Each man picked up the rope and the stone with the toes of his right foot, and the net bag with the toes of his left. He held another rope with his right hand, and, keeping his nostrils shut with the left, jumped into the water and, riding on the stone, sank, rapidly toward the bottom.
    James rushed