rack and a strobo-cycloidal rotator, probably has a global
function unknown to him.
Not daring to pass a night in such unpromising surroundings,
Ishmail simply "borrows" as many tools as his arms can carry, as
also a big brass cauldron, a chopping board, a winnowing fan, a
matchbox or two and a hip flask brimming with whisky, and
quickly slips off to a clump of dark woodland not too far away,
in which stands a run-down shack; starts doing it up, allowing
not a day to go by without improving it; hunts, kills and cooks
rabbits; and, on his most fruitful raid, actually corrals an agouti
with his lasso, making bacon and ham, dripping and black pud-
ding, out of its carcass.
Days and days of this. Days of monsoons, of a curdling sky,
of ominous clouds amassing on its horizon, of a high, cold, gusty
wind blowing up all about him, of tidal troughs and billows,
of a foam-capp'd flood rushing inland, plashing and splashing,
washing and sploshing, anything in its path. Days of rain, rain,
rain.
Not long into his third month Ishmail sights a yacht putting
into port and dropping anchor off his island. Six individuals now
climb up to its casino, from which soon float out sounds of a
jazz band playing a foxtrot, a 30s "standard" that's obviously still
popular. At which point nothing again is as it was.
Though, initially, his instinct is to turn tail, to withdraw into his
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shack, Ishmail cannot but find this situation intriguing and crawls
forward on all fours. What is going on? In a malodorous pool
choking with fungus, and around a shabby, unglamorous casino,
his visitors start swimming and dancing: a trio of guys, a match-
ing trio of dolls, plus a sort of footman adroidy mincing back
and forth with a tray of snacks, drinks and cigars. A tall, smiling,
muscular man - in his mid-20s at most - is particularly conspicu-
ous in a suit with a Mao collar and without any buttons down
its front, a Cardin fashion of long, long ago. His companion, a
man in his 30s with a tuft of bushy black hair on his chin, sporting
a stylish morning suit, sips from a glass of whisky, adds a dash
of soda and lazily hands it to a young woman - obviously his
girl - snoozing in a hammock.
"This is for you, Faustina. May I kiss you for it?"
"Why, thank you," says Faustina, half in a laugh, half in a huff.
"Ah, Faustina, what bliss I'd know if only . . . if only I could
. . . oh, you know what I'm trying to say . . ."
"Now now, I said no, no and no again. Why can't you and I
stay just good chums?" adds Faustina, fondling his hand for an
instant.
What a fascinating woman! thinks Ishmail, who now starts to
follow Faustina around, though naturally, as a runaway convict,
still afraid for his own skin. For who's to say that this group of
upstarts isn't harbouring a cop or a grass? What am I but an
oudaw, worth a king's ransom to any informant? As an outcast
from my own country, having had to fly from a tyrant as corrupt
as Caligula, as bad as any Borgia, how can I know that this
insignificant-looking yacht isn't on a kidnapping mission? Alas,
I don't know and I don't want to know; all I know is that, loving
this woman as I do, I want to know Faustina - Biblically.
Caring not for company, Faustina strolls about this way and
that, hips swinging lighdy to and fro. Finally Ishmail accosts his
inamorata, who is studying a book, Virginia Woolf's Orlando,
as it turns out.
"Miss, oh Miss, I'm sorry, awfully sorry, I . . . I had to talk to
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you. It's just my hard luck if anybody spots us . . . I'm willing
to risk it. . ."
Alas! ignoring all his sighs and supplications, Faustina looks
straight through him.
At which point Ishmail falls victim to hallucinations, possibly from
consuming a poisonous black mushroom or having had too much
to drink; or, why not, from having shrunk so much as to vanish
wholly from sight, so that Faustina is nothing but a vision, a vision
passing right through his body; or, if not, from