The Girl of the Sea of Cortez Read Free Page A

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    “Nowadays,” Jobim had said, “some people don’t call it a sea anymore. They call it a gulf, the Gulf of California. But it doesn’t need a name. It is the sea. There are three things that make up life here: the sea, the land, and the people. They don’t need names to separate them.” He had smiled. “If you can’t tell the difference, life won’t be easy for you.”
    So to Paloma, it was, simply, the sea—provider and friend but also tormentor and enemy. For if it gave her most of what she loved in life, it had also taken from her the one thing that she had cherished most in life.
    Because of its peculiar combination of mountains and water, extreme dryness and extreme humidity, Pacific Ocean winds and high sierra winds, the Sea of Cortez was a breeding ground for sudden, violent low-pressure weather systems. With no warning at all, a fine day on the sea could turn mean. Over the horizon would race a black swirl of clouds. Beneath and before the clouds, the calm sea would begin to churn. At first, there would be a sound like a distant whisper, but soon it would swell into a horrid, wailing roar.
    They were called chubascos , and unlike hurricanes and typhoons, they did not come from anywhere: They were created right there, and they lived and died right there. So, even if you had a radio, you could not hear a weather forecast about a chubasco approaching.
    If you were lucky and were on land, you could fling yourself into a ditch or into the lee of a hill.
    If you were unlucky and were on the water, you hoped to be able to notice a few early signs—even one sign, like a subtleshift in the wind or the sudden formation of a tower of black clouds—that would give you time to run for a lee or, at least, to reach open water, where you could face the pounding waves without fear of being driven onto a rocky shore.
    If you were so unlucky as to be underwater when the first signs formed, and did not see them until the storm had made up and was almost upon you, and were forced to scramble aboard your boat and start your motor and free your anchor—then all that was left to you was prayer. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t.
    Two summers before, after the terrible “ chubasco of the full moon”—the moon was full and the tides were very high, which meant that the storm-driven water rose higher and did more damage—he was found, drowned, washed up on the beach of a nearby island.
    That was one reason Paloma tended to question the acceptance, by Viejo and others, that everything mysterious was somehow an integral part of God’s master plan.
    If anyone or any thing or any force had deliberately willed or caused her father’s death, that something would be the focus of her hatred till the day she died. She believed, rather, that Papa’s death was an accident, a random blow, something that nothing had ordained or could have prevented. She had conditioned her mind not to think beyond that, about what might lie behind randomness or luck.
    A t supper that evening, Jo insisted on describing in detail, for Paloma and their mother, each of the triumphs of his day at sea.
    He boasted about how many fish they had caught, about how hard the grouper had fought, about how sharks had swarmed around his boat and tried to steal his catch.
    Paloma sat silently, knowing that for her to comment could lead only to argument. But Miranda, their mother, smiled and nodded and said, “That’s nice.”
    With a glance at Paloma, Jo said, “I even threw my iron at a manta ray, a giant devilfish. He dodged at the last second and I missed. But then—I swear—he turned and attacked the boat. It’s a good thing I was quick, or I would’ve been rammed and sunk.”
    Paloma said quietly, “Manta rays don’t attack boats.”
    “ This one did. This was a real devilfish. I swear.”
    “Why do you want to harpoon a manta ray? They don’t hurt anybody.”
    “So you say! The devilfish is evil! That’s why he has horns. He