The Clearing Read Online Free PDF Page B

it free in a single motion. “Back at Vigie, you asked me about de Bolom. You called it, what... a kid’s tale?”
    â€œA fairy tale,” said Nate sheepishly.
    â€œRight, a fairy tale. Well, tell me what you remember ʼbout dis fairy tale. From when you were a boy here on dis island. When did you leave here?”
    â€œ1976.”
    â€œOK, tell me what de boy from 1976 remember ʼbout dis Bolom.”
    Bolom . The word had such a powerful effect on Nate, something that he would forever associate with the island and the deep reaches of the forested interior. He thought about what he should tell Smiley, and wondered whether the telling of it would demean him in Smiley’s eyes and reveal him as just another gullible vwayaje ,here for a week of sun and then gone. And if he did think that, would it matter? Whatever the outcome, Nate reasoned there was little to be gained by hedging, and so he decided to tell it all.
    Bolom . Nate rolled the word through his head like a child fumbling with a marble set deeply in his pocket. The word had the usual effect, and within seconds he began to hear it. It evoked two sounds: one setting a hollow background note in the darkness, and the other, laid over it sharply, a staccato of intense and hurried footfalls from something solid, soft-footed, and wild. He knew exactly what the first sound was – he’d seen them himself as a boy: hundreds of thousands of nutmegs, all wrinkled and hard like dried walnuts, lying in a sprawling, empty old attic on hard wooden floor boards.
    Through them ran something unseen in the darkness. It was short, quick, and stocky, and while the sound of its footsteps were soft, presumably unshod, they landed firmly. Almost arrogantly. And as it darted through the nutmegs, they began to roll, rattling along the wooden flooring in their thousands, sending up that singular note, a drone; an empty, soulless drone.
    And so it scurried through the attic, making the nutmegs roll and roll and roll.
    Smiley pressed on. “Come now, Nate. Back to 1976. Tell me what you know ʼbout dis Bolom.”

 
    5
    Â 
    1976  
    Â 
    Island life for the ex-pats was good. Very good.
    Nate’s mother came through from the kitchen carrying a tin tray crammed with piña coladas. She wore a bright orange floral-print dress with a matching band in her hair, and swept a wayward lock from her face. “Refills!” she announced to the crowd in the sprawling balcony area of her home. They rose with smiles and hurrahs from white wicker furniture, through a haze of blue tobacco smoke, to collect the icy drinks.
    The evening was humid, but the house was situated on the tip of Vigie, a headland that jutted out into the Caribbean and caught the cooling breezes that once propelled great galleons and men-of-war through the azure waters that the house now watched over. There were about thirty guests at the party; teachers, socialites, barristers, and politicians. Bellbottom pants, space-age polyester in brave plaid patterns, afro shirts and wide swept collars: all were in goodly supply. On the record player, the Carpenters cranked out a fresh hit and told everyone they were “On Top of the World” and “Looking Down on Creation,” and indeed creation seemed to be listening.
    Moths fluttered in their thousands around Chinese lanterns, those rice paper lampshades that hung like glowing planets in every room, and in the darkness around the house a chorus of a million insects, frogs, and toads kept rhythms of their own. And among the night sounds there was laughter, the hubbub of conversation, the sound of crushed ice and swizzle sticks and spinning Seventies vinyl; the Saint Lucian nights were thick and brimming with life.
    The kids darted in and out of the large balcony area, artfully breezing through the crowd of glowing guests, sneaking off with cans of beer and half-finished glasses of rum and Coke. They were barely noticed, and when