The High Sea*
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
H
ERR PROFESSOR
and Frau Rutten opened their eyes, moved
their heads experimentally and asked in duet, "How do you feel, my
dear?" Comparing notes, they decided their sea sickness was past,
they must rise and face the day. Bebe got up and walked about con- _
fidently, and when Frau Rutten kissed him on the nose, he responded
with a hearty lap at her chin.
The Indian nurse waked Senora Esper6n gently and tucked the
baby to her breast for the morning nursing. The mother drowsed and
waked deliciously to the steady warm mumbling of the ravenous
mouth, the long rolling forward surge of the ship, the sleepy beat of
the engines. Her pains and fatigues were gone at last. Folded together,
mother and baby slept as one in soft animal ease, breathing off sweet
animal odors, cradled both like unborn things in their long dark
dream. The Indian woman, who slept in her white chemise and full
white petticoat, filled her palms with cold water and smoothed her
hair, slipped into her skirt, put on her ear rings and necklaces, and lay
down carefully, her meek bare feet, pointed and delicate, close
to–
gether, and dozed again. Now and then she twitched a little, opening
one eye. A voice she did not recognize, but believed to be her dead
mother's, often called her name in a tone of warning as she slept.
"Nicolasa," the voice said, very tenderly as if she were a child again.
But it meant to tell her the sad news that she was needed, she must
break her rest, she must all day long be ready to do whatever was
required of her. She often wept in her sleep because she lived her
whole life among strangers who did not know her language, and
who never once asked her how she felt.
"Nicolasa," said the soft voice, urgently. She sighed and sat up,
and saw that her poor little baby was still asleep and the poor mother, -
also,_but perhaps they would be quieter, would sleep longer,
if
she
kept watch over them. She drooped on the edge of her bed, smiling
vaguely at mother and child, and took her rosary out of her pocket.
A charm of dried herbs in a cheese cloth bag was attached to the
*
This is a passage from a novel in progress, entitled
No Safe Ha rbor.
