The captain did not answer and kept riffling the papers. The box was low now and really big. It no longer looked black, being away from the sky, but quite stained.

“And you know something else?” said the captain and suddenly slapped his hand on the clipboard. “There’s no customs notation here anywhere!”

Now the winchman above kept watching the seaman who stood on the pier. The seaman made slow signals with wrists and hands to show when the box would set down. He is an artist, thought the clerk, watching the seaman. Sometimes he only uses his fingers.

There were also two dark-looking Arabs who stood on the pier and waited. One held a crowbar, resting the thing like a lance. The other one had an axe.

The box touched, not too gently, but well enough. It just creaked once. A pine box, large and sturdy, with legends on the outside to show which side should be up. The side panels, close to the top, had slits. The top panel was crashed down at one end.

“It does smell, doesn’t it?” said the clerk.

“Christus-” said the captain.

The seaman by the box undid the hook from the lashing, fumbling with haste because he was holding his breath. When the hook swung free the seaman ran away from the box.

“Look at those Arabs,” said the clerk. “Standing there and not moving a muscle.”

“And in the lee of that thing yet,” said the captain.

Then the hook went up and the winch made its high sound. No one really wanted to move. The clerk felt the heat very much and the bareness of everything; he thought that the box looked very ugly. Siesta gone for that ugly box. It doesn’t even belong here. That thing belongs nowhere. Like the winch sound, the screech of it, which doesn’t belong in siesta silence.

Both Arabs, at that moment, gave a start.

“What?” said the captain.

The winch stopped because the hook was all the way up. The boom swung back but that made no sound.