The Birth of Venus
*****
Pointless. That was the word Zaire’s girlfriend had used to describe his life when she dumped him. At first he’d been upset at the sharpness of the insult, but now he was starting to see where she was coming from. He worked as a delivery driver, which earned him a decent income. On the island, people were always ordering one thing or the other online and the company he worked for was the most popular local delivery service. During the week, Zaire delivered all manner of things—televisions, computers, furniture, books, and smaller personal items.
Sometimes, to make extra money, he’d drive his truck on the weekends, running moving errands for people he’d met doing deliveries during the week. He felt he read those situations well, he would set something heavy and precious down for them on their porch or in their foyer, they would be appreciative, and he’d slip one of his cards into their palms. He had hundreds of them thanks to a cheap deal on a website.
Zaire felt he knew more about these people than their friends did, having handled so many of their most private possessions. Maybe that’s why when his girlfriend said that word it had cut him so deeply. Pointless.
It was Saturday when Ivan called. He was one of Zaire’s weekend regulars, a collector of some kind from somewhere in Eastern Europe. Ivan never went to work, but always seemed to be able to tip well. When Zaire answered the phone Ivan said, “Hey man. You still doing jobs on the weekend?”
“Yeah.”
Ivan fancied himself an everyman. He chatted up the elderly farmers at the market, hung out playing pool in the Dominican bars, and often smelled of weed. Zaire got along with him well enough, but he got the vibe that if he let Ivan talk long enough, he’d say something that would unsettle his stomach.
“Cool guy—hey, if you could come down to the house, I’ve got something I need you to take to Belmont.” Ivan paused briefly before continuing, “I mean, it’s not big or anything but I just need it done today. I’ll pay double the rate if you can get here in thirty. Two hundred? Right?”
*
They were spending a Saturday afternoon on the beach, a bright day at Long Bay, when she broke up with him. The beach was an arc of white on Beef Island facing north, but sheltered from the raw Atlantic by a few green islands with majestic homes rising out of their cliffs.
A couple years ago, on an afternoon like this one, Zaire and a friend drove a dinghy through the channel on their way back from Marina Cay. They’d been drinking at the bar there, before deciding to go meet some friends at Long Bay. As they sped over the blue dunes of the waves, Zaire gazed at the houses above them. He admired the neatly maintained lawns, the pruned trees, the elaborate walkways down the hills toward each of their private berths.
On one of the docks closest to them a woman sunbathed in a beach chair. Her white swimsuit shone starkly against the dull canvas, a large floppy hat obscuring her face. People like her, he thought, came all the way to the Caribbean and then spent a fortune to avoid having to speak to Caribbean people. Years later, the same thought occurred to him as that word came slipping out of his girlfriend’s mouth like something she’d spilled. Pointless.
*
Twenty minutes later, Ivan was opening his front door for Zaire. He lived in a large wooden house, inspired by the local carpenter-style architecture, lifted onto short stilts overlooking Lambert Bay in the east. As weird as Ivan was, inside his house was weirder. The entryway was dark except for a pale light from the next room over. A wooden sculpture of two large entwined fish, their grotesque mouths and eyes wide and gaping, overwhelmed the space. There were all sorts of misshapen mirrors in the foyer, and the walls were adorned with paintings that looked like explosions.
A shelf nearby was filled with photographs of Ivan in various places around the world. Below it, an assortment of ceramic figurines, tin saucers, a copper urn, and bits of iron musket balls. Nothing in Ivan’s house made sense to Zaire. Everything was too much. Pointless, he thought. Ivan grabbed Zaire’s palm and pulled him in for a hug.
“Hey guy! You have a seat and I’ll go grab the thing.” Releasing him, Ivan disappeared around a corner.
The only seat was a wooden bench, the armrests and back carved into strange patterns. It didn’t look particularly comfortable. Zaire stood.
Ivan returned carrying a box made of a rich reddish-brown wood. It was about a foot and a half long, ten inches deep and heavy enough that he had to hold it pressed to his chest to keep it from falling from his grasp.
“Here it is,” Ivan said as he laid it down carefully at Zaire’s feet. “Well? What do you think?”
“What do I think?” Zaire asked. “About what? The box?”
“Yes—isn’t it beautiful?”
“It’s a box,” Zaire said.
“It is,” Ivan conceded. “Well, really a chest. Touch it.”
Zaire stooped down and touched the domed top of the box. The wood didn’t feel the way he expected it to. It was unusually smooth. If he closed his eyes he may have described it as supple, the texture of fine leather maybe. As he paid closer attention he could see there was a lid with two small notches large enough for his fingers to take hold. Ivan touched Zaire’s shoulder.
“Hey! Don’t open it.”
“Okay,” Zaire said. But as he stood up, the notches seemed to disappear, fading back into the lustre of the wood. Maybe it was his angle, a trick of light. Zaire looked at his truck out in the yard. “So, where’s it going? The ferry or something?”
“No,” Ivan said. “How well do you know Belmont?”
*