Turning the key, the engines came to life and they got under
way again and continued their circumnavigation around the small island. They
found a few small coves with potential, but nothing that they could use. The
sun hit the horizon when they arrived at the first landing spot, pulled up
close to the beach and secured the boat as they did before. Deciding to spend
the night, hiding the goods and supplies and then returning with the first light
to Papeete, seemed to be a good idea. Helena and Leo would remain on the island
attempting to find a way to the grotto over land. If someone came, they would
just hide while the people were around.
Because of the information from Leo, Helena and Gábor felt
they would be back in a few days. Ivan was sceptical but said nothing. He's had
more experience with police and authoritarian governments than he cared for.
Certainly, the gendarmerie would ask a lot of questions and the embassy would
be involved too. Possibly his friend would have to find a lawyer to give him a
chance to clarify the situation aboard the cruiser. The French were not as bad
as the Russians as he remembered from Russia, but the nature of any authority
was such as to exert power in order to control and manipulate, often
excessively.
Together they walked in search of a path towards the cave
they saw. The dense vegetation hindered their progress, but then Leo found a
clearing with a large rain tree and a sheltered crevice in the rock wall to
stow the supplies until they either found a way to enter the grotto or a good
hiding place. The place to store the gear and other items was a relatively
short distance away from the beach and it was a good location. Even if it
rained, it would remain dry. It would make a great cache. Unloading the
supplies and stowing the goods took only a short time and then it was too dark
to organize things.
Pitching the tent, they dug out the compact camping cooking
gear and cooked a light supper, ate, and then laid back and rested under the
trees a few meters away from the tent. Tossing ideas as what they could do to
enter the tunnel to the grotto, nobody really watched their surroundings. As
they observed the sky, a meteor with a fiery tail streaked across the western
section of the stars studded heavens, then suddenly Ivan jerked his head aside
and a split-second later a thumping sound right beside Ivan's head scared them
out of their reverie.
Like a greased monkey, Ivan rolled away from the blanket to
the left and crouched into a defensive posture. Hands in front of his chest,
fingers open and curved like claws, ready to fight, he scanned the sky
overhead. At that moment he looked very dangerous. Gábor covered Helena's prone
body. She had been just as ready to move, but he had moved before she could.
Leo had barely twitched. An object lay on the blanket were Ivan's head had
rested seconds before. Ivan relaxed and with that, Gábor too eased off Helena.
"Aren't you a bit too amorous, Honey? We're not alone,
you know," said Helena a few seconds later, and that broke the tense
moment they'd just had.
The object, a coconut, had fallen between Leo and Ivan, but
so close to Ivan, that in fact, he had received a glancing blow to his ear.
Fortunately, he had very good reflexes and moved a fraction of a second before
the nut connected with his head. He touched his ear and there was a little
blood on his fingers and he cursed at the tree in his native tongue for a few
seconds.
"Almost got killed by a nut," he protested,
rubbing his right ear and threatened the offending palm. "I'm going to cut
your nuts off, you bastard."
"That will fix him," remarked Helena laconically.
"Would you like any fixing?" the double meaning included an
application of a Band-Aid.
"Nah. I still have some hopes. This is just a scratch
on the ear."
They all looked at her and laughed. Helena had a wonderful
sense of humour and Ivan appreciated a witty woman. After many years without a
partner, he wished to find one like Helena. Gábor was indeed a very lucky man
to have a mate like her. Despite his protest she checked on his ear. It was
nothing serious.
“Nothing you couldn’t live without is missing”, she
reported.
Ivan, grumbling something under his short beard, moved his
camp to the safe side of the tent, away from the tree. The Fabien's followed
his move, relocating also. It wasn't very wise to be under trees that had
objects growing on them that had the potential to kill if one was unaware of
the danger. The beam of a flashlight in Ivan's hand danced over the area.
"For a second I thought someone else was here and we
didn't keep a good enough look-out. Perhaps we should do that. There's a good
spot on that high rock over there."
"We need airspace watch," jested Gábor.
"Those nuts are worse than bombs. They don't whistle before they
strike." Ivan agreed and pointed to the near, large towering rock
formation, which rose a bit higher than the closest coconut tree.
"Kitty, would you check that out?" he said to Leo.
Leo nodded and then bounded up to the top with ease and
found a level area about four to five square meters covered with grass, with a
view out to sea. One could easily get to the top from the rear. Leo insisted on
doing the first watch. For three hours, he would have to stay awake and Helena
wondered if it was that good of an idea to involve a kid in this.
Ivan thought it was okay and didn't think of Leo as a child.
He would not be sleeping much after his brush with death anyway. Taking the
second watch, he would be with Leo, Gábor the next and Helena could take the
last. They thought it to be a good plan and Helena settled down.
Leo and Ivan took their blankets, climbed the lookout rock,
and made themselves comfortable. The view was great and they could observe a
large portion of the ocean from that elevation, including the landing. They
engaged in quiet conversation. Below Helena turned to Gábor.
"That was a close call with that nut. We will have to
watch when we walk around under those trees; I imagine they could kill a person
if one falls on their head.”
Nodding in the dark, and then realizing she could barely see
him, he replied. “This is a good spot, but if it is this good, anybody will
want to land here and could discover our presence here. We didn't see anything
better or as suitable as that grotto. It would be the best place if the
entrance were high enough to get into with the boat. We’ll find a way to make
it accessible. What do you think? Do you have any ideas how to make the
entrance a bit higher, just to get the boat inside?"
“Not really, at least not at the moment. Also, if we raise
it, it would make conspicuous and would attract attention,”
"Right,” he confirmed. “If we enlarge it, we would need
to camouflage it. I would like to go there again tomorrow morning before I
leave for Papeete and see if I can visualize something. I would like to go with
Ivan because he can handle the boat better until you have had more practice
with it. Do you mind staying with Leo here alone until I come back?"
"We all could go to see the grotto and then you can
drop me and Leo off here and then go. How long do you think it will take you to
get to Tahiti?"
"About three
hours, depending on sea state and the winds. From here to there, the wind is on
our back and the sea will not be slowing us down. Coming back is another
story."
"I want to come with you, but I understand someone
needs to be with Leo. He looks okay and heals fast, but it is better if I stay
with him until he knows his way around. Two is better than one. Please, talk to
a lawyer about counsel."
"I will if I need to, and you just be careful. There
are a lot of steep rocks and crevices where you could get hurt. The nearest
hospital is in Papeete and we'll be gone for at least a day."
"Okay, dad. I'll be a good girl. There is nobody around
to be bad with anyway." She purred, leaned into him, and blinked
mischievously.
"I'll be back as soon as I can and you will get your
chance to be bad. You're good when you're bad. And you owe me one,
remember?"
"How can I forget? I think about it all the time,"
she admitted and snuggled closer to him.
"Patience, pretty one, is a virtue."
"Patience and virtue is for geriatrics. And what is
that anyway?"
He laughed softly and both lay back and embraced.
Reflecting on the certainty with which Helena seemed to know
that Leo was alive, the crazy thought to start looking at the atoll, the
encounter with the dolphins that guided them to the place where they found Leo,
and the miraculous recovery of their son seemed so unreal to him that his
entire view of what was wishful thinking and logical reasoning tumbled around
in his head like laundry in a dryer.
Were Helena's intuition more than just hopes of a mother
clinging to wisps of an unlikely event? Against all odds Leo was alive,
survived in shark-infested waters, to end up on the atoll of Niau. The crew
also survived and the only thing the gendarmes could charge him with was
aggravated assault on a man that had battered his son.
And then there was his son Leo. The discovery of his son's
intelligence through Ivan changed his perception about what intelligence was
supposed to look like. It changed a lot with regards to his feelings toward Leo
and his mate. He no longer had ambivalent feelings about Leo although some
questions remained unanswered. His concerns about Helena's or his possible gene
defects dwindled and his love for her didn't flicker anymore but burned with a
steady flame and much brighter than in the past few months or even in the
beginning.
Leo's appearance didn't matter and whatever another child
would look like, he would accept and protect it with his life. How intelligent
Leo really was remained open to discovery and on this island they could relax
and focus on his education. Once they returned to Canada, Ivan would stay and
continue with Leo's training here, alternate with them every few months and in
a few years, Leo would re-join them in Canada. He put his arm under Helena's
neck and she laid her arm across his chest.
"Are you still interested in having a big family?"
he asked his wife.
"No human could wish for a pride any more than I do,
Honey. Have you been thinking about that right now?"
"Yes, among other things," he confessed.
"Perhaps we'll have a human child the next time."
"There goes my Pride," Helena said and snuggled
closer to him. He laughed and held her close in his arms as he slowly drifted
off to sleep and had some dreams. Helena lay awake and had her own thoughts.
Happy with the discovery of the grotto, she envisioned how she would make it liveable
and have it accessible by the boat. Ideas came to her and many were discarded,
but one of her biggest concerns was to leave Leo behind. True, she trusted that
Ivan would look after him, but as a mother, to leave her child behind, that
wasn't an easy thing to do. She had no idea how intelligent Leo was and what he
was capable of, but not seeing him for several months would be very difficult.
She got used to him and felt a connection that seemed to be beyond the normal
bond a mother has with her child. It was as if she knew what he wanted and vice
versa.
When he fell overboard and disappeared in the ocean, there
was a link, a connection that didn't break with his absence. While they were in
Papeete, she felt with certainty that he was alive, and during the search for
him she had the impression that he was on solid ground and it gave her the idea
of looking for him on one of the many island and atolls. That it was the first
atoll where they found him was pure luck, and when the dolphins showed up, the
nebulous idea that Leo could be there, condensed into a conviction and it
didn't astonish her much when they discovered Leo, battered but alive.
Her eyes, used to the darkness, scanned the towering spire
where Ivan and Leo took up the lookout. Listening to sounds of a few
unintelligible words, she smiled and put her arms around her husband, the man
she loved and the man that was the father of that extraordinary being with a
body of a lion, and that would undoubtedly present them with some surprises.
A thought about her parents came to her mind. If they just
had an idea about Leo’s intelligence, and could get over their revulsion for
his appearance, and blaming Gábor for it, she would want to visit them, make
peace, and heal their differences.
She loved her parents, and even her brother, but their
worldviews were old-fashioned and full of conservative ideas that she couldn’t
share. Leo’s condition was in their eyes demonic, a curse of God Almighty, and
it was her mother that incited her father to be against their grandchild. For
her, Leo was the devil incarnate and she wished with all her heart her mother
could break away from her religious superstitions. She had many arguments about
that. Her mother had always insisted that there was a god that ruled over
everything, loved unconditionally, but one had to obey his laws. Helena had
bristled and countered. If god loved unconditionally, he would have never made
laws and still would love his creation, regardless. Of course, her mother
thought differently and they never settled in peace. Letting out a sigh, she
nestled into her husband’s arms, kissed his head, closed her eyes, and joined
him in his sleep.