Changeling, and Other Stories
bananas 'll do for the present. I 'll go off and get some. You need
n't worry,' she says as she notices me looking at her. 'I can't get
off the island.'
"After a while she comes back and sits down.
"'Do you know how you got ashore, McCarthy?'
"'I don't,' I answer. 'I know nothing.'
"'When the boat struck,' she tells me, 'you and I were washed over the
reef. Something hit you on the head. But I pulled you in, McCarthy.
You went down. You were out cold. I had a job, too,' she laughs
nervously. 'Your hair is awfully short.'
"'Well, I got to thank you,' I said.
"'Don't mind thanking me,' she said. 'Tell me this!' She 's awfully
serious. 'Don't you think a life is worth a life?'
"I say nothing to that.
"'Don't you, McCarthy?' she pleads.
"'I 'm sorry,' I tell her. 'I 'm awfully, awfully sorry, but I 've got
to bring you in.'
"'You 're a hard man, McCarthy.'
"'I 'm not a hard man. I 'm just a man sworn in to do my job. I 'm
just a man a big trust's been put in, and I can't fall down. Sis, you
missed your chance,' I told her. 'You ought to have let me go down,
when you saw me going. Then you 'd have been free. You ought to have
stood clear and let me drown.'
"'Oh, I could n't do that!' she says.
"'Neither could I let you go!'
"In the afternoon I go around the island to see where we are. But from
no point can I see land or a sail or anything. We are just on one of
those Pacific atolls, as they call them, away from the line of
everything but sailing-ships trading from isle to isle. I look
everywhere--north, east, south, and west--and there is nothing but
boiling sea, white, muddy, with birds fluttering, or floating in the
air.
"The island itself is not more than ten miles square and there are
rocks everywhere about it except around the cove where we landed, and
that has a coral breakwater. The sand is bright and yellow like new
gold, and on the island itself there is greenness that is nearly black.
And you can see cocoanut-trees and banana-trees and oranges. And while
I 'm standing there a little pig breaks through the underbrush and
looks at me, and then flies off with a squeal. And for a moment my
heart goes pit-a-pat because I think there are people on this island.
A pig is a human thing. It's always been so near humans, it's nearly
human itself. But a moment later something in me tells me there 's no
one here. It's been put ashore, it and others, by some of the old
whaling-ships that are gone now.
"I look around and I see the island, the sand like gold, the clean
wind, the water in the cove as transparent as water in a glass; the
fish in the water and the animals on the island, and the fruit on the
trees. And the sun is bright and warm and full of life, and in the
distance I can see Janssen. She has let her hair down and it covers
her to the knees in a great shining cloak, like some wonderful fur
cloak.
"And I think: There's many 's the old cop in New York--there 's many 's
the millionaire, even--would like to finish his life alone in this
paradise island, away from all trouble and worry and having everything
he needs in sunshine that's more like wine than light, and with Janssen
with him, when she has let down her hair.
"But I says to myself: You needn't think that way. You 're not old,
nor disappointed. You 've got no reason to idle your life away. You
've got a job on hand. You 're a detective officer, and you 've got a
prisoner, and you 're going to bring her home!
"I return to where Janssen is by the cove and I look for my knife and
watch and gun. But my gun is n't there.
"'Do you know where my gun is?'
"She wheels around on me suddenly and points it at my head.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'your word's good with me. Either tell me now
you 'll let me go when we 're rescued or I 'll kill you.'
"'I can't,' I said. 'I won't. Now give me my gun and be sensible.'
"'I mean it,' she said. 'Let me off or I 'll kill you.'
"'I would n't be the first.'
"'Will you?'
"'No!' I says.
"I 'm watching the gun, to grab it if I can. Then I see a spat of fire
like a match lighting. Then something burns my ear like red-hot iron.
I hear the shot. I 'm sprung halfway round.
"I face up again.
"'You made a better job with De Vries,' I says, stupid-like.
"I 'm expecting the finisher, but she walks up to me and hands me the
gun. She just looks at me, and her throat works, and then suddenly
from her eyes run two big tears down to the corners of her mouth and I
turn away.
"'I 'm going to fix you a bed of banana-leaves, and then I 'm going to
light a fire. Forget your troubles for a while. Think of this as a
picnic.'
"But the tears still run down her face and she says nothing. I go off
and get busy because I can't stand the sight of It. I 'm not feeling
any too like a comedy, myself.
"'We 're sitting that night at a fire on the beach, and the thin new
moon is up. A light breeze is in shore. Suddenly she turns to me.
"'You 're religious, McCarthy,' she says to me.
"'I 'm not exactly religious,' I say. 'I 'm like every one, I guess.'
"'You believe in God, McCarthy?'
"Nobody likes to talk much about things of that kind. You think about
them, but you don't say them. And particularly you don't talk about
them to a prisoner who 's up for murder, unless you 're one of those
Holy Willie boys.
"'Who does n't?' I spars.
"'You believe--' her voice is serious--'that God takes care of you on
this island?'
"That's what they say.'
"'Do you believe, McCarthy, that He knows me, takes care of me, cares
for me?'
"I say nothing--because I can't see it. She 's too far out of the
pale. I 'd like to tell her 'yes.' But I can't.
"'You don't believe, then, McCarthy--' her voice is just a husky
whisper--'that there is any caring for me, anywhere.'
"'Oh, what's the use of bothering about that?'
"'You don't, then,' she said. 'You think I 'm too bad for--even--that.'
"I get up and shake myself. 'Maybe there's nothing to it, after all,'
I tell her. But all of a sudden she is crying, her face down to the
sand, as though her heart would break.
"I move away, because I 'm no good to her, and go down the strand a
bit. The water laps the strand, and whispers in the trees, but I can
hear Janssen crying still.
"I walk on and on. I hear the sea rumble on the rocks, and the whisper
of the trees is louder. A turtle pluds into the water, and a cocoanut
falls with a thud, but over it all I still can hear the voice of
Janssen crying, little tearing cries, as though pieces of silk were
being ripped from the main fabric with shrill protesting tragedy. It
struck me that she herself was flaying her heart with brutal knout-like
strokes, and that every red shred was moaning in protest: 'Don't,
don't, don't!'...
"The new moon became the full moon, and waned and died," McCarthy went
on. "But no help came.
"There was nothing to do but wait, and a policeman does n't mind
waiting. All his life is waiting, except for a hint of action now and
then. But I worried about Janssen.
"Janssen gave me no trouble. We talked just as friendly strangers
might talk, waiting on a railroad platform. She got the bananas and
the cocoanuts and the breadfruit, gathering them as they fell. I
managed to kill a suckling pig now and then, and I rigged up a
fishing-line from a piece of rope I unraveled that had come ashore from
the wreck of the boat, and a pin Janssen gave me.
"There 's nothing I like to do better than fish, and I sit there and
fish and think all the time. And little things come to me of the life
in New York, and I worry over them. I never was a grafter. I never
took a penny from any one when I was on the vice squad, in the way of
protection, but there 's little things that worry me. As, for
instance, when I go into a saloon for a drink, they never take my
money. When an arrest is made, sometimes I find a bailsman for the
prisoner, and they give me something as a favor. Or I sell tickets for
this benefit or another, and nobody wants them, but nobody dares
refuse. And I sit there in a few acres of coral in the Pacific Ocean
and the sun rises in the east way over New York, and the moon sets in
the west down China way. And the winds blow south from Japan or north
from the edge of the world. And I think: It's very small. It's not
worth a man's while.
"And while I 'm thinking Janssen is thinking, too. But what she 's
thinking about, I can't figure. She 's very silent. And at times her
mouth is n't hard at all, nor her eyes, either. And when she speaks
her eyes are on the ground and she 's very serious.
"'What are you thinking about, Janssen?' I ask.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'did you ever, after a hard day's work,
disappointed, clogged with dirt, come in and turn on a cold shower and
suddenly feel better and cleaner--and be happy again?'
"'That's the only thing to do, on a day like that.'
"'Well, I feel,' she said, 'as if this island were that bath after the
awful day of my life,' she said.
"At times I think, myself, that it must be getting on her nerves, this
place. She 'll want the lights, the gaiety, the people, if only for a
little space, before she faces her trial. Even the chair must be
better for her than this waiting, I think.
"'Are n't you getting lonely, Janssen?' I ask. 'Does n't this get on
your nerves--having nobody to talk to?' We never speak any more about
the murder or the trial.
"'Why, no, McCarthy!'
"'I should have thought,' I say, 'that after the gaiety you knew you 'd
find this a terrible trial.'
"'McCarthy,' she said suddenly, 'were you ever at Saranac?'
"'I 've passed through it.'
"'Did you ever see the poor people there, quiet, waiting, glad to be
alive, just being healed? Well, I 'm like those.'
"I don't notice for a while the change that is coming over Janssen. I
see things on the outside of people. I don't see them on the inside.
I 'm a detective. I just think maybe she 's got the blues, Maybe she's
worried. But one afternoon she comes to me and springs a new one.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'would you mind every afternoon keeping away for
an hour or so from the cove?'
"'What's the idea?' I says.
"'Well, I used to be a good swimmer,' she says, 'and I 'm going to
practise, and I have n't got any bathing-suit,' she says, 'not even
tights. So you 'd better keep away.'
"I think to myself: 'This is a queer thing for any one as tough as they
tell me Janssen is, to come out with.' And I wonder if she means
exactly the opposite of what she says. She wants me, I half figure, to
hang around. And maybe she thinks I 'll fall for her. And if I do,
she has me, I say to myself.
"And then I look up at her, and I see her eyes, and I never was so
ashamed before or since.
"'All right, Janssen,' I say.
"'Thanks, McCarthy!'
"A week later she borrows my knife.
"'My clothes are in rags, McCarthy,' she says, 'so it's back to the
Garden of Eden for me. I got to dress up like these wahinies down
here. Don't laugh at me, McCarthy; promise me you won't.'
"'Not too much Garden of Eden, now,' I warn her.
"'Don't worry!' she laughs. And next morning you could have knocked me
down with a straw, as they say. She has strung together big green
banana-leaves with fiber, and made a knee-length skirt of them. And
under her arms and about her is a little closed jacket of leaves, and
that great golden cloak of her hair falls around, rippling and
shimmering.
"'How do I look, McCarthy?'
"'You look fine,' I tell her. 'You look like a picture, you sure do.
You might be in a stage play,' I tell her, 'only you 're so fine and
modest.' She blushes pretty as a girl of sixteen, until it was a shock