第10章 The Old Mans Return[第4页/共7页]

“Very good.”

“I didn't know sharks had such handsome,beautifully formed tails.”

“What will your family say?”

That afternoon there was a party of tourists at the Terrace and looking down in the water among the empty beer cans and dead barracudas a woman saw a great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and swung with the tide while the east wind blew a heavy steady sea outside the entrance to the harbor.

“Don't sit up.”the boy said.“Drink this.”He poured some of the coffee in a glass.

“No.Truly.It was afterwards.”

“I didn't either,”her male companion said.

“What's that?”she asked a waiter and pointed to the long backbone of the great fish that was now just garbage waiting to go out with the tide.

“We must get a good killing lance and always have it on board.You can make the blade from a spring leaf from an old Ford.We can grind it in Guanabacoa.It should be sharp and not tempered so it will break.My knife broke.”

“How is he?”one of the fishermen shouted.

Finally the old man woke.

He went into the Terrace and asked for a can of coffee.

“No.Afterwards I will see what he can eat.”

“Anything more?”

He was asleep when the boy looked in the door in the morning.It was blowing so hard that the drifting-boats would not be going out and the boy had slept late and then come to the old man's shack as he had come each morning.The boy saw that the old man was breathing and then he saw the old man's hands and he started to cry.He went out very quietly to go to bring some coffee and all the way down the road he was crying.