Installment III

Adorable Cassandra,
Thou breath of all my being,
Who with suitable candor,
Has turned my soul to wooing,
My soul is in tears,
I like your head, your dears
your eyes!
oh to see you once more before goodbyes!

-Margrave

Chapter 7

That night, I slept a fitful sleep. I was so afraid. Questions raced around and around in my head. Why had my mother died? Where had Jack gone? Was I to trust Antonio? Would it only hurt me in my quest to find my father to keep on refusing the Captain like this? Why was Mrs. Willowbend so set upon evil? But then I remembered what Antonio had taught me. Fear is only another barricade for true love and happiness. Oh, Antonio – my beacon of light!

Suddenly, I heard the key turn in the lock.

“A-A-A-Antonio?” I cautiously asked.

“Only a lowly Captain,” brawled the captain calmly. “Recognize me? I wouldn’t expect you to without my mustache.”

He had shaved. All the happiness and joy and peace and love that welled up on in me for Antonio were brutally dashed.

“Now I’ve had some time to cool down, I realized that you only refused my offer to heighten the passion that you know exists in my heart for your love. Will you marry me? Or is it to the Americas for you?”

“NEVER!”

“Then it’s the plank,” he said, roughly dragging me up the stairs by the hair.

The plank, I soon found out, was a large piece of oak wood stretching off the muddy deck, with nothing underneath but the aqua-blue perse waves frothing sordid colors. “H-H-How does it work?” I pondered.

“Step on it,” ordered the Captain. As I did, he produced from his seaman’s vest a big saw, obviously intended to cut something. And then, slowly, ever so slowly, the Captain knelt down onto the deck and began to saw off the plank. I felt faint. Antonio would not come. He had deserted me. Memories flooded in, of Jack, of Mother, of Father, of Aunt Catherine….

“Look, the girl’s crying!” the Captain guffawed.

The horrid crowd of ruffians laughed and jeered. I searched their dirty, disheveled faces for Antonio’s clean-shaven face. I could not pick it out from the crowd. Why was all this happening? Could it all be part of a plan? Seconds became minutes. And minutes turned to hours. And still the plank stood. The captain hit himself and swore and swore and swore. I hated it. Dam’ him!

“What in the name of St. Peter is wrong with this saw?” cut in the Captain sharply.

“The game is up, Fitzwilliam,” shouted a loud voice near the back.

“Who said that?” roared the Captain.

There was a stir amongst the sailors, and Antonio emerged, with scintillating [usage sic] black hair streaming in the wind, and tan skin shining in the happy streams of sunlight. He wore a leather vest over his red sailor’s shirt. The sea sparkled in his eyes.

“I did.” Antonio’s deep voice seemed to surprise and intimidate the Captain.

“What is the meaning of this, sailor?” raged the Captain infuriated.

“I took Ms. Verbatim’s nail-file and used it to dull the blade of the saw,” explained Antonio in his romantic Spanish accent.

“Curse you,” wailed the Captain.

“Oh, Antonio! ” I yelled, flinging my arms around his neck.

“Oh, dearest Ms. Verbatim!” he screamed. Happiness exuded out of both our hearts. I felt like singing and laughing and running through a field of daises. Just before I was about to step back onto the ship, Antonio said in an urgent voice, “Ms. Verbatim, there’s something I must tell you about your parents -”

There was a loud bang and the sound of splintering wood. A shotgun shell splashed into the already churning waters. I looked through the hole in the plank and there was Mrs. Willowbend. She licked a martini-soaked olive off the end of a toothpick, dropped it back into the glass, and blowing the end of the barrel, aimed the 12-gauge at me and smiled.

I looked deeply into Mrs. Willowbend’s eyes and I saw, for a fleeting moment, a nice old lady like my great Aunt Catherine (I had only met her once back when I was little), trying to break through the hard exterior of painful experiences and give me a hug. Jack’s words from yesterday flooded back – “It’s not what you do that makes you, it’s who you are. Deep down. There in your heart.” All in a flash, as the first rays of sunlight come beaming over the horizon on a cool June morning, or as the first leaves come out in spring on a March full moon, I saw the real Mrs. Willowbend. The real Mrs. Willowbend was really a good person. Deep down.

I smiled. She just needed warmth and understanding.

“Would you like some tea?” I asked.

I flung myself into Antonio’s arms as the plank exploded in the gunfire.

“I’ve got a martini, thanks,” she responded.

“Quick,” cried Antonio, “We must leave!”

“But Mrs. Willowbend – I can help her!”

“Quick, Ms. Verbatim.”

We ran to the other side of the ship. “Into the lifeboat,” said Antonio. I got in.

“Antonio… aren’t you getting in?”

“No, dearest Ms. Verbatim. I must deal justice Mrs. Willowbend and the Captain!”

“Oh, Antonio, you valiant man!” I said it with remorse, for I felt this might be the last time I see Antonio. And then – oh! Hope! – I didn’t know why, for it was almost as if there was another voice speaking through me – “I give you your new name ‘Thrimhas, the Brave’!”

“Thank you, Cantaloupe!”

And he was gone.

My lifeboat drifted away from the ship and into the dense, murky, cobalt fog, lined with the sinister figures of drooping leaves.

Antonio boarded the boat, muscles rippling in the sunset as he swung himself over the side. He stealthily stole down the deck and around the front of the ship. He came up to the Captain’s cabin and hid outside the window. He grimaced and swept his beautiful dark hair out of his eyes. Antonio had a small goatee. From inside the cabin, he heard Mrs. Willowbend talking to the Captain.

“You understand, Fitzwilliam, that while I must disagree with your methods, I do believe that you have fulfilled your contracted function in this matter and that your part is finished. I thank you for the use of your watch and I shall return it when I am done with it. In the meantime, I have some cookies in the oven, which should be ready in.. oooh… five minutes. If you will excuse me, I am going to go clean up.”

She started for the door. Antonio, the strong muscular man he was, climbed atop a nearby barrel and swung himself onto the roof of the cabin. Mrs. Willowbend walked out, slumping over, as she retreated toward her own cabin. She hummed A More Humane Mikado to herself and Antonio heard her singing a small ditty about scuba gear.

Then, the same realization that hit me hit Antonio. Mrs. Willowbend baked cookies. She also liked scuba-diving. She hummed the Mikado. She was just like anyone else, and was a good person, deep down. There could be no justice dealt to the innocent. Antonio saw, as I so fervently wished in my heart that he would, that would never solve anything. He felt through his linen pockets. He only had 5 pence left. He hopped off the top of the cabin and followed Mrs. Willowbend. She darted through passageways on the ship and Antonio began to despair of catching her. At last, he encountered Willowbend coming out of her cabin wearing full scuba gear.

“Willowbend!” he yelled.

“This ought to be interesting,” she muttered to herself as she turned around. “What,” she asked aloud, “do you want from me?”

“I…I just wanted to…to give you this,” he said, holding out the five pence. “Take it. It’s yours. To keep. With this money, Willowbend, you can make a new life for yourself. You can go out and buy a
farm, and, while I realize that most of your life is past you, you still have this chance to get out of this rut that you’re in. You must take it, Willowbend. Happiness is knocking at your door. Will you answer?”

He held out his hand farther, inviting her to take the money.

Mrs. Willowbend looked up at him quizzically.

“What, pray tell, do you expect me to buy with five pence?”

With that, she hit Antonio over the head with an oxygen tank. Antonio’s hair waved in the scintillating twilight as he reeled back. Mrs. Willowbend calmly walked over and delicately pushed him off the deck. Upon hitting the water, Antonio awoke from the shock. He looked in his hand. The five pence were gone. He knew Mrs. Willowbend had reconsidered and would turn her life around.

Antonio swam away with Herculean strides, muscles bulging, from the ship, and, a few minutes later, he came upon the lifeboat, for I had drifted far from the ship.

He climbed aboard and I offered him a towel.

“Oh, Antonio,” I quietly said, “You saved me!”

“I’m afraid not, dearest, sweetest thing, ” spoke Antonio, “These are infested waters and we have no food.”

But he was interrupted by a bang and a loud roar. I looked behind me to see the ship go up in a ball of flame. The heat singed my face and tears.

“Oh, Antonio! Mrs. Willowbend!”

“All will be well.”

“B-b-but… Mrs. Willowbend,” I choked, “She couldn’t have survived that explosion! She’s… she’s… dead…. Oh, is that word so hard to say? Do we yet retain the irrational, inarticulate fear of the end? Could it be that man never really changes no matter which are the pedestals of sophistication upon which he sits? Past all the layers of societal graces and customs, perhaps Man really is still a barbarous savage underneath the facade, terrified of death, fearful of retribution, waiting in mortified expectation for the final stroke to be dealt. It is only when confronted with the reality of and the possibility of life after that the disguise falls apart; it is only then that the man is unmasked, shown as he truly is: no different from men of old. None of us, when confronted with death, are sure of anything. I think we should help save Mrs. Willowbend’s orphanage! She would have wanted it that way. ”

“Yes. She would have.”

“And then we can try to find my father!”

“Of course, dearest Ms. Verbatim.”

“And how many times must I ask you to call me Cantaloupe?”

“At least once more,” said Antonio.

“Will you call me Cantaloupe?”

“Cantaloupe.” I smiled. “That’s a beautiful name.”

“My mother always said so. I miss her so.”

As we sat waiting, I thought of my parents and remembered.

To be continued…