Pescador's Wake Read Online Free PDF Page B

there are few reminders of its fishing hey-day.
    â€˜Well, good luck to him.’ Rubén removes his hat and scratches his wiry, white hair. He draws another breath through his pipe and exhales, mixing tobacco smoke with the smell of fish and fuel in the evening air.
    â€˜He’s away a bit then, your Carlos?’ Rubén asks, his eyes on the fullness under Julia’s coat.
    â€˜Si,’ Julia says, stifling tears. Old people always make her feel emotional. Perhaps it’s because they are not afraid to say what they’re thinking. When time is running out in life, it makes sense to cut the small talk.
    â€˜He’s obviously in port long enough to keep the family line going though.’ Rubén slaps himself on the knee, and Julia is grateful for his attempt at humour.
    â€˜Si, I’m due in a few months.’
    â€˜It will all be fine,’ Rubén says gently, his face more thoughtful now.
    Julia meets his eyes, letting a few tears come. She thinks of the miscarriages she has had at home on her own, between María’s birth and now, and the courage it has taken to fall pregnant again. No sooner had she told Carlos the news of this pregnancy than he accepted his current job on the Pescador. It makes her furious, to be abandoned again, but with toothfish selling for upwards of thirty American dollars a kilogram in fancy foreign restaurants it had been difficult to say no. A full hold, Carlos had said, would be worth two-and-a-half million dollars. She knows that if they get away with just some of that, a tenth even, he and Eduardo could pay for a deposit on their own boat. They’d never look back.
    She studies Rubén as he watches a boat unload countless tonnes of fish into refrigerated trucks.
    â€˜It’s a wonder there’s anything left in the sea,’ he says. ‘The boats are hitting the stocks so hard nowadays. No sooner do you hear about a new fishing ground opening up—Crozet, Kerguélen, Prince Edward—than they are having to start on another. That’s why your Carlos has gone so far south, you realise.’
    â€˜Si, but these foreign boats took our fish. What are we supposed to do?’
    â€˜Hmm,’ Rubén muses. ‘I don’t have an answer for that. But I suspect even if all the fish were gone, some of us would still find an excuse to go to sea.’ He smiles. ‘I was like your Carlos. An explorer. A hunter.’ He focuses on something a long way out to sea. ‘And what of your parents, Julia? They moved to Tarariras to retire, didn’t they?’
    â€˜I know it’s only two hours away, but I miss them.’
    â€˜Of course. I used to see a lot of your father. He sold my fish out of his shop at Puerto del Buceo. You remember?’
    María comes back with most of the bread still in her hand. ‘They weren’t very hungry,’ she says.
    Rubén laughs. ‘For another day then,’ he says, taking the bread and packing it back into the plastic bag.
    â€˜Can we keep walking, Mamá ?’
    â€˜Si, for a little while, then it’s bedtime for you,’ Julia says smiling at her daughter. ‘Take care, Rubén. We’d better keep going.’
    The old man gives Julia’s hand a squeeze and tips his hat. As Julia walks away, she thinks about what he said. If the stocks are so overfished, perhaps Carlos won’t have the choice of going to sea for much longer, anyway. She whispers a small prayer for this trip to provide them with enough financial security for her husband to dry his feet and learn another trade. She could resume teaching, which she had reluctantly given up after María was born. With Carlos spending so long away, it had been impossible to balance work and motherhood.
    Julia puts her hands on her stomach and rests for a moment. If this baby is also a girl, perhaps Carlos will have another reason to stay home. Maybe he won’t feel the obligation to pass on