by Oisín Curran
How? I asked. How did God speak to you?
It was a shudder. He felt a shudder come over him.
A shudder. The contingencies that depended on that shudder overwhelmed me. Upon that shudder my existence depended. But for that shudder I wouldn’t be standing in the dark of the tool shed gaping down at the hammer, mind adrift, hearing again Myles’s voice hovering now on the edge of desperation. I shook myself free of mental drift and made my way back to the car. Myles was not pleased with the hammer—why could I never find anything in that shed? he wondered. Had I looked where he instructed? Were my thoughts circling the ionosphere? His voice was muffled by the engine block past which it travelled, and then it spiked suddenly into a fluent stream of curses because he’d whacked the troublesome bolt with the hammer and managed to flatten his thumb in the process. The filthy engine oil began to gush onto him, and as he cursed he scrambled to slide Padraig’s chamber pot under the flow. He emerged at last—glasses, face, and shirt black with viscous fluid, eyes hooded with rage. He did not look at me but stomped away, lamenting the necessity of cars, the inadequacy of their design, the tyranny of matter.
An hour later the three of us huddled around the woodstove waiting for dinner to bake. Among the burning logs inside the stove, Myles had placed three potatoes wrapped in foil, along with two cans of B&M brown bread, even though, according to New England regulations, you were only supposed to have canned bread with beans and hotdogs.
Money was the problem, as always. How to get it, how to keep it. Myles wanted to travel—Iris wanted running water. In summer we bathed behind the garden in a tub filled with sun-warmed water—and that was luxury next to winter’s few gallons of ice melted on the stovetop and splashed under the arms. The dollars my father earned painting houses spent little time in the bank next to Iris’s newsroom wages before the chequing account was bled dry by the banalities of power and light. The savings for water pump and copper piping had just been emptied into the car’s new transmission. And meanwhile Willard demanded his tithe of labour on his farm for the privilege of inhabiting the radius of his wisdom.
And beneath the oil changes, penury, and meditation was a substrate rarely exposed to open air, but if it were it might sound like this:
Myles: I can’t go on painting houses forever. I’m a poet-mystic forced to petty labour by the exigencies of family, a family I never intended but the responsibility for which I honourably shouldered.
Iris: I’m too young—for you, for marriage, for a child. Biology shackled me to family before I had a chance to become the artist I dreamed myself to be.
Me: Since this is all my fault, I will make it worth your while. Let me tell you a story, a tale of derring-do, of cunning, tenacity, and ruthless ambition to become your child. It will be grand and miraculous and carved in stone, and when it is done you will understand why I had to make you bring me into this world.
But for all my efforts, the waters that coursed above that bedrock were rougher than ever, thanks to the looming non-subject of cancer. Iris still refused to discuss her diagnosis, but the oil change had been made to prepare for a trip. We were going to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where Iris had made contact with an oncologist through a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. Iris was worrying about the trip and Myles was worrying about Iris, but neither of them was willing to talk about these fears, so instead they fought about money.
But then they stopped and I saw them turn to look at me, for I had begun to speak.
Three days after leaving the island of white houses, we come to the waters where we saw the first one. But it’s not there.
A disappearing island is romantic to contemplate but aggravating to look for, says Rook.
But it is here, I say. I can feel it.
Captain Severn is going through his logbooks on the bridge and barely looks up when I enter.
The island, I say.
Yes?
Is below us.
Now he looks up and his face closes like a folding book. Even his eyes somehow shut while remaining open. He looks like he’s strangling himself from the inside.
I point down.
He gets up. Is he going to throw me out? He turns some knobs on his sonar equipment.
There’s something there, nine fathoms down.
Severn climbs into the two-person submarine that’s stored on the deck. Nolan, small and wiry, climbs in after him with a big camera. Apparently he’s not just the third mate, but also the expedition’s documentarian.
The crane lowers the two of them into the water and they submerge. Here, up above, it’s suddenly very quiet. Flat, flat water. Some people lean over the railings and look down. Others smoke and gaze at the horizon or the birds that have found us, even here in the middle of the ocean. Maybe the sunken island confuses them as much as us. Mood as gloomy as the clouds.
Chisolm and her otter appear next to me.
I hear, Chisolm says, That it was you who knew the island was below us.
I nod. I notice her eyes seem to have changed, grown larger, softer, soft enough to cushion my gaze, even absorb it.
Who are you? she asks, and her voice has changed too, no longer remote but now warm and curious, almost motherly. Her otter, which she calls Lutra, curls around her shoulders like a big, fluffy scarf, its black nose settled near her earlobe. My fingers itch, wanting to stroke its fur. Maybe Rook is wrong about her. And maybe her hold over Severn is a spell of gentleness and understanding, not cold scheming.
I don’t know who I am, I say. I only know I have to get on that island.
Chisolm is about to say something but, just then the submarine resurfaces. Severn and Nolan climb aboard and report that the island is there all right—in the headlights of the submarine, they saw yellow fish schooling above the dock and sharks nosing the stone doorways. No sign of the inhabitants.
Now what? says somebody. There’s a long silence.
There is a line in the prophetic tradition, says Chisolm, Which states that the Isle of the Dead rises to a fire in the sky.
There’s a murmur of assent from the crew, but Severn seems unmoved.
What does that refer to? he asks. The sun? Obviously not. What other fire could it mean?
Comets, says Rook.
Very well, says Severn acidly, Let’s leave and come back when a giant space rock is scheduled for an appearance in a hundred years or so. Or more. It might be a thousand years before that island comes back up for air.
Then everybody talks at once and I feel myself unspooling, losing myself, what little there is to lose. My pictures flash by me.
waiting room
bread
rainbow
firewood
bird
treasure
gun
ghost
invalid
duel
book
girl
Another one is missing. I scramble after it in my mind, but the babble of the crew makes it impossible to think. I slip away. There’s no time to waste trying to reach a consensus. I have to find City before I disintegrate.
I have to do something now.
Near the stern of the boat, the expedition’s single-engine pontoon plane sits on its runners. I find the stays and release them and then open the cockpit canopy and climb in. How do I know what I’m doing? My fingers move of their own accord, guided by some obscure force or by muscle memory alone. But memory of what? When have I been in a plane before? No time for doubt or reflection. I strap myself in, start the engine, and watch the propeller blur in front of me. Then I taxi along the rails and into the air.
I can feel the air pressing up under the plane’s wings, my lungs, lifting us up, up, up. My heart lifts too. I’m flying!
Banking, I see the dimly lit crew of the Lizzy Madge milling chaotically on the deck in uproar. I can
’t hear their shouts, but I know they must be shouting. I turn away from them to concentrate on the flight path. I know what I must do. Pulling back on the joystick, I force the plane into a steep ascent. Higher into the constellations I climb, higher into darkness. The night is black and silver and still except for the roar of the engine, which I’m pushing to its limits. The heat gauge nails itself in the red zone of danger, but still I climb into the thin, cold air. I find a strap and tie the joystick in position, then unbuckle myself, locate the parachute, and put it on. Under my seat I feel for the flare-gun kit. I load one flare and pocket the rest, tucking the gun into my waistband. Then I open the canopy.
As soon as it’s unlatched, the wind rips it off and I’m nearly blown out of the cockpit by the force of the bitter, hard air. My face and fingers go numb almost instantly, but somehow I pull myself out of the cockpit and, clinging to whatever handholds I can find, I crawl down to the left pontoon and stand on it. The wind is screaming in my ears, my eyes. I should be terrified, but instead I’m filled with wild joy. This is the way, the only way, forward and I have nothing at all to lose.
Hanging on with one hand, I pull out the flare gun, take aim at the fuel tank, and fire. For a moment I can’t tell if I hit it or not, but then the flare lights up a hundred feet away. I lower myself to sit on the pontoon and grip it with my legs as I reload the gun, fighting the wind and the numbness in my fingers. Now the flare is loaded, but a sudden gust flips me over upside down. I don’t have the strength to right myself in the terrible wind. Hanging from the bottom of the pontoon, barely gripping it with my legs, I use both hands to aim at the fuel tank and fire. I think I see a tiny hole in the metal, but before I can make sure, another jolt shakes me loose, the wind rips me away, and I’m falling.
In freefall on my back, the night suddenly opens up to me and all the stars rush in as though I’m falling upward, as though I’m flying, pushed by the wind into space. Something brushes my face—feathers? Far above me the plane still climbs, climbs, explodes.
I’m far enough below to see the fireball billow outward in purple-and-yellow waves of flame several seconds before I hear the roar of the explosion. The plane carves a burning arc down the sky, cutting open the blackness. Will it work? It has to work.
I spin around and face the whip of freezing air and the giant void of the dark ocean looming up at me from below. I pull the cord and feel a great jerk as the wind drops and I dangle at the bottom of a drifting parachute.
Far down below me, the plane hits the water without a sound. Flames spread across the waves, then slowly disappear with the burning wreckage, and the ocean is black again except for the deck and mast lights of the Lizzy Madge, pinpricks in the darkness. I load another flare and fire. How angry they must be. They’ll declare me crazy, dangerous. They’ll want to leave me here and let me drown. But Chisolm won’t let them. She understands now that I will lead them where they want to go because I am desperate enough to do what none of them dare to do. As the cold waves rise to hit me, I close my eyes and collect my pictures.
a treasure of silver coins
a rainbow of light flashing on a wall
a ghost with a gun, a shot, a wound
a loaf of bread still steaming from the oven, butter melting
a pale woman in pain, in bed
You sank my plane, says Captain Severn in a choked, choking voice after he fishes me out of the freezing water. Even Rook looks furious. I’m too cold to answer, too bruised from landing to care. When he and Rook bundle me on-board the rest of the crew is shouting at me. I think they might push me back overboard. But before they can, the Lizzy Madge heels over and we fall.
We’re going down! somebody shouts.
But we aren’t. We stay where we are on a crazy slant. Captain Severn lights the ship’s spotlight and swings it around. The Lizzy Madge has run aground.
How? shouts Quill. We were anchored.
But as the light uncovers the ground beneath us, everybody recognizes it. We’re on top of the Isle of the Dead.
No, no, F sharp! yelled Ms. Ohm. She was in the shower. I could hear the splashing behind her muffled voice. Two rooms away I was trying to pick my way painfully through the prelude to “The Well-Tempered Clavier” at her white Yamaha piano. Because I had, as usual, failed to practice, the going was slow and full of errors. I corrected the note and continued. The shower stopped splashing, I heard her humming, lighting a cigarette, and then heading into her kitchen. A short time later the toaster popped and there was the unmistakable sound of a knife scraping butter onto scorched bread. The delicious odour of raisin-bread toast accompanied Ms. Ohm as she came wandering into the room clad in her bathrobe and munching her snack. She was tall, slender, round-faced, cheerful, energetic to a restless degree. The only time she was still was at the piano.
Are you hungry? she asked, absently. Then before I could answer, she sat next to me and began to play the right-hand part.
You see? It should flow together, like a brook flowing over stones. Each note is a stone, but the water keeps moving.
A car horn outside signalled the arrival of my parents and the end of the lesson. I jumped to my feet, thanked her, and ran out the door.
Tell your mother I said good luck! called Ms. Ohm.
Our station wagon was a monumental vessel in the back area of which I was able to lie down full length and read. From that vantage I looked up from time to time to catch a glimpse of my mother’s head—her posture anxiously upright, her blond hair wound loosely up into a spiral while my father slouched cavalierly behind the steering wheel, occasionally handing her his glasses to be cleaned as he discussed the highway system, which led him to the subject of the military-industrial complex, which led to Eisenhower and thence to Truman, and from there to Hiroshima and onward, to his days in Kyoto—the cigar-chomping zen master, the boiling baths, the flight to New Delhi, and so on—all punctuated by Iris’s semi-regular gasps, strangled warnings, Myles’s irritated responses that while she had been in two car accidents, he had been in none—her riposte that he might consequently be more sensitive to her consequent fears… I lowered my eyes to my book.
It was a beautiful volume discovered at a yard sale for ten cents. Crumbling, cloth-bound, title embossed in gold. The paper, browned at the edges and faded subtly to the pale middle of the page with the delicate shift in hue of a clear sky, gave off the faint smell of dried mushrooms. The font was slender, serif, elegant—little could take my eyes from it, even the knowledge that Iris was suffering nearly unbearable anxiety as the car slowly approached Mass General, where her fate would be determined. Or, of course, the book was my distraction from her pain, just as Myles’s extemporized soliloquy was his, and perhaps from his point of view it was an attempt to distract her too. Their lives were organized around a meditation practice that eschewed distraction as delusion and exhorted engagement with immanence as the only path to illumination. Yet what power distraction had. Diversion, your qualities have not yet been adequately sung! And when it comes to distraction, little could beat what happened next.
A profound thud shook the car, everything tilted toward the rear left corner, followed by a catastrophic scraping. Iris shouted, Myles fought with the steering wheel, and I sat up abruptly. Through the mud-spattered, dust-caked back window I saw a car tire—no, a car wheel—bound enthusiastically back down the stretch of highway we had just driven, veer into the opposite lane, hop a ditch, sail off an overpass, bounce off the road below, and come to rest at last in a stand of firs. Miraculously it narrowly missed half a dozen cars and, beyond our dislocated nerves, there were no injuries. Myles brought the Fairlane to a grinding halt on the shoulder of the road and three cars stopped to help. Later it would be determined that the wheel had sheared off at the axle, and Myles recalled that to economize at some point he had taken the car to an unlicensed mechanic for a brake repair job only to discover him on his back under the car hard at wor
k with a hacksaw sometime later. When Myles pressed him, the mechanic’s explanation was so incoherent that it was clear he was pie-eyed. Myles took the car elsewhere, not realizing that a third of the axle had been shorn through.
Grandmother saved us. That’s what I called her, I punctiliously insisted on pronouncing the full three syllables like I was Little Red Riding Hood, while my cousins invented a happy array of pet names for her, as normal children do.
Grandmother was Iris’s mother. Small, laconic, kind-hearted, she arrived in her powder-blue Buick, peering over the steering wheel at us, a lit cigarette dangling between her immaculately painted fingernails. Not until her final years of decline did I ever see her without makeup, coiffed hair, a skirt showing off her calves, and permanently arched feet in high heels. Widow of a war hero she had adored and who, by all accounts adored her, she quietly, dutifully, sardonically fulfilled her allotted span of years, taking pleasure in her grandchildren, Red Sox radio play-by-plays, cigarettes, and highballs.
She seemed unsurprised by the Fairlane’s missing wheel. I suppose by that time she was accustomed to the disasters that pursued my parents—product no doubt of their indifference to money until such time as they had need of hers. And now was such a time. I don’t remember my mother’s mortification, but I have no doubt that she was mortified to ask and receive Grandmother’s financial help. What I remember is the cupboard and refrigerator stocked with sugared cereal, store-bought bread, pre-sliced cheese, and iceberg lettuce. Iris’s will to police my diet was currently sapped by a preoccupation with her mortality, and so I gorged on giant, multi-tiered sandwiches, followed by heaped bowls of fluorescent cereal and containers of ice cream topped with Cool Whip. All this consumed in front of the TV, a device that had never crossed the threshold of my parents’ house.
