Paradise (pt 6)

The next morning they visit underground caves where waterfalls fall and bats fly over their heads; they’re in a crowded tour and the father tells anybody who gets too close to back off for crying out loud, why does everybody keep touching him. They take a boat to the far side of Kuai where they can snorkel: the girlfriend sits on a towel with her back arched while the boy and his father jump in; the ocean is an arena where everything is bright and moving and frightening. His father swims down for shells; the boy takes bread given to the tourists and holds it while angelfish shove him aside to get to it. He and his father float as light as nothing, buoyed by the current, and when the boy starts to drift his father takes his hand pulling him back, and connected they float like twins.

He pokes his son and points into the dark blue at a hammerhead skating sidewinder close to the bottom; the boy jerks free and bolts for the surface, hauling himself up the ladder dripping and shivering.

Don’t be a pansy, his father says when he surfaces, gesturing for the boy to come back. It’s fine, I swear. I won’t let it get you.

Yes you will, the boy says without thinking. Some of the other tourists have heard and come over to see. His father hates attention; he starts to climb the ladder with his teeth set and the boy gives into the inevitable and dives – but this time he doesn’t care if anybody sees him, he turns into a ghost and lets the water flood him: there’s no sign of the shark, just enormous fish that sail right through him, but he refuses to surface, staying down so long they must think he drowned.

But when he comes up nobody is looking; nobody even noticed. His father is sitting in a chair facing a Jupiter sun setting clouds on fire, already burned into a black shadow. The boy stays away from his father until they are back at the dock. He knows the rules.

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