There was nothing to do on the island. The dogs chased glass
lizards into the dense myrtle bush. I don’t know how the chil-
dren slept. Men and women did what they could to extinguish
the brightness of the stars.

One night my own supply of rum ran out, and I paced the ve-
randah of my little hut-on-stilts. A ship was passing, the air was
warm and moist like an animal’s tongue. The island had once
been home to pirates and runaway slaves, and giant sea turtles
that crawled out by moonlight to lay their eggs. I no longer re-
membered what brought me there. And always the sound of the
sea, like an overtone of eerie applause, the clapping of the palms
of the palmettos.

I was dreaming, slightly intoxicated, and I found myself stand-
ing outside the little Catholic church, Stella Maris, “Star of the 
Sea.” The priest stood before me, a beaten, disheveled man with
ashes on his robes an the unmistakable aroma of alcohol like an
unholy ghost drawing us closer.

“These people,” he said, waving his arms around at his imagi-
nary flock, “they think love’s easy, something nice and tidy that
can be bought, that makes them feel good about themselves. Be-
lieve me, it’s a horrible thing to love. Love is a terrible thing,
terrible!”

And I, an unbeliever, believed him. The next day the owner of
the liquor store told me that the priest had been a Jew and a law-
yer from New York before converting and becoming a priest as-
signed to this, the dregs of the Pope’s Empire. Sharks and wild
boar had thinned out the unbelievers. And Father Moser drank
through the night, testing his faith with Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I never knew whether or not I had dreamed up that black-
hearted priest, but I left the island shortly, and only now look
back at my darkest hour with nostalgia.