Moti on the Water

by Leylah Attar

  “Got it.”

  “Great.” Nikos shrugged his shirt off and left it dangling on the chair. “Ten minutes. And then look for me up there.”

  I found a spot on the rocks, where I could get a clear shot of him. It sloped gently into the sea, so I dipped my toes in the water while I waited.

  Apart from the glint of glass on the distant yacht, it felt like I had the whole island to myself. Milos was a multiplicity of colors. The gods had thrown all the colors on a canvas that had exploded from the sea. Luminous bone-white rock, frozen in giant swirls like folds of whipped cream. Red volcanic cliffs, dark rocks rising starkly out of the water, sheltered coves colored green and blue by mineral deposits and tiny beaches made by lava flow.

  “Ready?” The echo of Nikos’s voice bounced off the stones around me.

  I stood and gave him a thumbs-up. Holy shit. That’s a long way to drop.

  But Nikos wasn’t fazed. Arching his body like a rainbow, he launched off the cliff and dove gracefully into the water.

  Click. Click. Click. Click. I captured all of it, including the few seconds before impact, when his body straightened into an arrow parting the water. He disappeared a few moments and emerged with a victorious whoop. I took a few more shots while he swam and headed back to the table.

  As I reached across for some water, my eyes fell on the glass-domed dish labeled Pastitsio.

  Be sure to try the pastitsio, Alex had said.

  I helped myself to a wedge, thinking it looked a lot like lasagna.

  It tasted like lasagna too. Luscious layers of meat, pasta, and tomato sauce baked to a creamy goodness with what tasted like bechamel sauce. There was something else, something sweet. Cinnamon? Nutmeg? Yes. But as that first bite melted in my mouth, the aftertaste was overwhelmingly candy-like. Yuck.

  What the hell, Alex? What kind of dish is this?

  I took a sip of water to wash it down and went for one of the appetizers instead. It was topped with feta cheese—something I was familiar with, so I knew what to expect.

  I ended up spitting it into my napkin. It tasted like it had been soaked in sugar water.

  I sampled the dips, the fritters, the salad, the bruschetta.

  Sweet. Sweet. Sweet. And more sweet.

  By the time I got to the stuffed grape leaves, I was laughing.

  Just as Dimitra protested her son’s departure by switching the salt for sugar, Alex was protesting my picnic with Nikos.

  Shading my eyes, I walked to the water and smiled at the hazy outline of the yacht, hearing his protest loud and clear.

  Beyond the narrow arm of rocks that separated us, Nikos was still swimming. The water was much shallower where I stood. And warmer too. I lay my kaftan on the sand, weighting it with a couple of pebbles. My hands were darker. I loved my masala-chai skin tone, but the deeper, dusky shade was a reminder of my afternoon with Alex. In spite of all the childhood drillings to stay out of the sun, my legs, my back, my whole body belonged in it. I wasn’t too dark, too short, too fat, too anything.

  I held my arms up to the sun and twirled, humming as I let the water kiss my feet. Scooping up some sand, I let it wash away in the gentle lap of the next wave, like cool lava receding from my fingers. I sat cross-legged on the beach with the sun on my back and the sea before me.

  It was a perfectly rare, perfectly beautiful day.

  And then, to make it even better, I spotted a starfish.

  “Hey there, little fellow.” I waded into the water to get a better look.

  The small starfish was purple, its spindly arms reaching for deeper waters. I gathered it in my hands and took a few steps into the sea.

  “You’ll be safer here.” I was about to let it go when I noticed a barnacle-covered rock jutting into the water. I thought the darker color below the water’s surface was from patches of lichen, but as I approached, I realized dozens of purple starfish were feeding off the barnacles.

  “Is this where you want to go?” I tried to get my little starfish to the rock, but the mass of seaweed around the rock made it impossible to see where I was stepping. I followed the rock around and found a clearing at its craggy tip.

  “Whoa.” I steadied myself as the sea pulled at my legs in a sudden rush. I was in a lot deeper than I’d realized. Settling the starfish down, I started making my way back.

  The next rush of water dragged the sand beneath my feet away with it. Suddenly, I was neck-deep in water, and clinging to the rock. A wave of panic swept over me.

  I can do this. Alex taught me how. I searched for the yacht and held it steady in my vision. I can—

  The next powerful surge swept me off my feet. I gasped, my nails scraping the edges of the rock, my feet searching for a seabed no longer there.

  Fuck. I was caught up in a current. I could feel the sea pause around me as it gathered force, the brief reprieve ringing like alarm bells in my ears. When it came for me again, my heart was pumping furiously in my chest. I latched on to the barnacles, oblivious to the razor-sharp edges shredding my skin. Every muscle in my body—my arms, my feet, my shoulders, my chest—clamored to hold on to the last solid thing within my reach.

  The rock slipped from my grasp, millimeter by millimeter, and then all at once.

  I’d imagined drowning many times, in many different scenarios. I pictured my arms and legs flailing frantically. Yelling for help. Splashing. Thrashing.

  My drowning was quiet, my movements restrained by the current. Everything happened under the surface. One minute, my head bobbed above the water and the next, it was gone.

  I was gone.

  My hair floated like tangled seaweed around me. A stream of bubbles escaped from my nostrils, rising a strange angle. The current dragged me through the water like a fisherman reeling in his catch. My lungs were on fire, every cell in my body screaming for air.

  When the pull slackened, as the sea stopped to take a breath, my arms and legs kicked desperately to get to the surface, but the harder I clawed, the deeper I sank.

  Alex’s words came back to me.

  The more you fight it, the faster you’ll go under.

  Eyes to the sky. Little kicks to get your legs up.

  I looked up, but the light was starting to dim. Black blotches seeped along the edges of my vision. I couldn’t tell whether the hammering rush in my ears was the water or my heart about to explode. I couldn’t hold my breath much longer. My lungs were going to inhale. Air or water—it didn’t matter. As I struggled to keep myself from breathing, darkness held out its arms.

  Like a babe being cradled in her mother’s embrace, I let its cloak fall around me.

  Flashes of recollection spiked through my mind, little beeps of activity in the flat line that the sea was compressing me into.

  Naani rubbing Vicks VapoRub on my feet. In the morning, you’ll be all better.

  Running after my father as he rolled his suitcase to the car. Don’t go. Please. Don’t leave.

  Moti, Moti, Moti. The incessant chanting of the kids when I’d gone back for another slice of birthday cake. Fatty, fatty, fatty.

  Prem Prakash Pyarelal. Who was he? I couldn’t remember.

  My memories slowly seeped into the water like indigo ink from purple starfish.

  Come on. Hand it over. Isabelle grinning, as I fumbled in my bag for something. For what?

  Love you, beta, Dolly said. Finally said.

  Dolly had said to stay away from the water.

  As the sea rushed into my lungs, one final memory floated up from the darkness.

  Don’t you dare leave me now, Alex said, water droplets glistening like little crystals on his eyelashes. I know it’s hard, but this is it. You give up right now and you’ll be giving up on yourself.

  My eyes flew open, my chest convulsing as my lungs fought to expel the water.

  Take my hand, Moti. You can do it. You were already doing it. You were floating.

  I reached my arms up through the darkness.

  No, I told it, even as the
sea flooded into my lungs. Not now. Not yet.

  Something propelled me upward. The dying person’s abnormal surge of well-being. A brief burst of energy before death. Perhaps the black dot that Dolly marked me with. Or the bracelet I wore to ward off the evil eye. Someone’s prayer. Or my own will to survive.

  This is not how my story ends.

  The first breath was like fire scorching my airways. Air and water collided in my throat, my nostrils, my lungs. I gagged and went under again. The current wrapped around my body like a python ready to devour its prey. I felt its grip around my chest, squeezing out the air I’d managed to steal.

  When the water closed around me again, I knew it had me.

  As the world dimmed around the edges, everything fell silent.

  Like a bubble rising to the surface, one final thought:

  Alex?

  I’m listening…

  I’ve never been happier than the time I spent with you.

  She told me she was going to die in the water. It was written in the stars the day she was born. I dismissed it, the same way I dismissed anything that defied logic. I should’ve listened.

  I couldn’t explain why the hair on the back of my neck stood when she was around. Or how, when she smiled, my heart felt like it had been hit with a million jolts of electricity. There was no logical reason to explain why pieces of me were dying alongside her still, limp body, and yet it was as real as the air I was breathing. Air that she was not.

  I should’ve fucking listened.

  The kicker was that I’d watched Moti go in the water. I told Eddie I’d keep an eye out for the flag, signaling a pick-up request, but really I was stalking their goddamn picnic. I picked up the binoculars a hundred times. I had a clear view from the galley and at one point, I saw her sitting on the rocks. Maybe the glint from the binoculars caught her eye or maybe it was my imagination, but I could’ve sworn she looked directly at me.

  The next time I checked, she was wading into the water. God, she was beautiful, in her striped swimsuit, with droplets of water dancing on her skin. The thought of saying goodbye sat like an undigested lump in my stomach.

  Panic started to set in a few moments later. Why the hell was she going in deeper? And where the hell was Nikos? The second I saw her clutching onto the rock, I knew she was in trouble.

  I bolted for the tender, pushing Dolly out of the way as I swarmed the deck.

  “Excuse me?” she exclaimed.

  Fuck. Eddie had taken the faster boat to drop everyone off at the hot springs.

  “Sound the alarm,” I yelled, as I launched the rubber dinghy. “Tell Captain Bailey to get her eyes on the shore.” I pointed to the picnic spot.

  “What’s going—”

  “It’s Moti.” I revved the engine, peering through the binoculars once again. No trace of her. I let out a curse, eyeballing how long it would take me to get to her. Nikos spotted me coming in and swam up to meet me. He manned the boat, searching the surface, while I dove beneath, where I’d last spotted her. The current was powerful even for a seasoned swimmer like me. Despair grew heavier as the seconds ticked by. Within three minutes of submersion, most people are unconscious. Within five minutes, the brain begins to suffer from a lack of oxygen. Within ten minutes…

  I wasn’t looking for blood, but that’s how I found her—a darker tinge against the water. It was gone the next instant, folded into the sea’s massive, greedy palm. Diving under the surface again, I made a slow, wide circle, eyes wide open.

  Once again, I came up empty-handed.

  She’s here. I know it. I can feel her.

  I took another breath and plunged beneath the water again.

  I spotted her dark tresses first, fanning out under me through blue shafts of light. A flat fish with gold eyes darted away as I swam toward her, my heart pounding hard and fast against my ribs. She floated vertically, suspended in a slow-motion matrix. Ribbons of blood rose from her arm, curling upward like smoke from a snuffed-out candle.

  Her stillness felt like hell to me.

  I undid the rope around my waist and tied it around her.

  I got you. I got you, Heart-Eyes.

  The alarm bells in my head got louder when I brought her up. Her body was slack, her lips a fatal shade of blue.

  “Over here,” I yelled.

  Nikos gunned the motor, and we got her on the boat.

  Come on, baby. Come back to me. I urged between chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

  Water and tears dripped down my face as I pushed—one hand on top of the other—on her breastbone.

  If I hadn’t taught you to float, you wouldn’t have gone in the water. You would’ve stayed away.

  I’m sorry, Heart-Eyes. I’m so fucking sorry.

  My arms grew numb from pushing on her breastbone, my heart frozen from the shock of her cold, clammy skin. Her expressionless face. Her lifeless form.

  Come on. Breathe, baby, breathe.

  My compressions became more forceful. It didn’t matter if I hurt her, bruised her, broke her ribs. None of it would matter if I didn’t get her to expel the water.

  I felt a slight contraction of her diaphragm, followed by the sweet, glorious sound of her coughing. Choking. Gagging. Moti’s hand wrapped around her throat as she thrashed on the bright yellow floor of the dinghy. I convulsed over her writhing body—laughing, crying, the relief unbearable even though she was struggling to breathe. She was back. And she was alive. Nothing else mattered.

  I wrapped a blanket around her shaking body.

  I didn’t let go when the onboard medic rushed to our side.

  Or when the medic cleared Moti, contingent on twenty-four hours of monitoring.

  Or when the doctor from Milos—the one I insisted Captain Bailey call for a second opinion—confirmed the prognosis.

  Moti was going to be all right.

  We tucked her into the big bed in the captain’s suite. She slept, and I kept watch.

  When she jerked in her sleep, her body stiff with panic, I rubbed circles on her chest. I held her hand, careful to keep the pressure off the bandages covering her scraped skin.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay.” I soothed the lines on her brow. “I got you, Heart-Eyes.”

  I didn’t hear Hannah walk into the suite until she rested her hand on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Chef. We have a boat full of people who haven’t had anything to eat. I prepared some snacks and Captain Bailey’s pushed the dinner hour back, but she’s requesting you get back to the galley.”

  Fuck Captain Bailey.

  I knew Hannah was right. Moti was exhausted, but she was in the clear. I glanced at Dolly, who was keeping vigil on the other side of the bed. She gave me a nod. I’ll look after her.

  It took every ounce of willpower to step away. I dropped a kiss on Moti’s forehead.

  “I’ll be back.”

  I didn’t care if her mother was watching. Or if Hannah or Captain Bailey or the entire world was watching.

  “You need any help?” Hannah asked, following me to the galley.

  I shook my head. I had twenty-four more hours on the clock. Twenty-four hours left in this charter. I was still an employee, contractually bound to fulfill my obligations of feeding everyone on the yacht. The frustration of being dragged away from Moti made me want to punch holes in the wall. It was the same seething burn in my chest that followed my mother’s death.

  Except Moti is alive. So why am I so freaking angry?

  Because I almost lost her without telling her how much she means to me.

  The edges of my heart curled up in flames, the unspoken words flaring like dry kindling in my throat.

  I’d asked Moti to stay for another two weeks, when I really wanted her to stay forever. I was chasing a dream that kept me from home most of the year. In a couple of years, I’d have enough capital saved to open a restaurant. I’d have a base. I could commit to the kind of relationship Moti deserved.

  Her near-drowning
jolted everything to the forefront. All the things I thought I had time for were clamoring to be seen and heard now.

  I took a deep breath, willing myself to calm the hell down. If there was one thing I’d learned in the kitchen, it was that food was more than the sum of its ingredients. Food absorbed the subtlest of nuances—the way it was sliced and stirred, the way it hit the pan. If you paid attention, food told you all kinds of secrets, like whether the oregano was gathered in the spring before it bloomed or in the summer, after it had been dried by the sun. Food told you if it was hastily thrown together or allowed to breathe and simmer. It spoke to you about care. Or neglect. Most of the time though, food slipped right through—because no one was listening—to be absorbed by all the things already simmering inside us.

  I kept an eye on the clock as I cooked. Captain Bailey would join the main table for the farewell dinner. Moti’s grandmother opted out of her early meal and would also be present. Moti was confined to bed rest, so a tray would be delivered to her suite. I cross-checked my notes and worked my way through the passenger list quickly and meticulously.

  I finished garnishing the plates and was checking on the crew’s dinner when Hannah stepped into the galley.

  “Right on time,” I said.

  “Am I?”

  I turned around, shark mitts over my hands, and froze.

  Moti had never looked more fragile. Or more alive. Her hair was still gunky from the sea, the strands clumped around her face.

  “You look like the first time I saw you,” I said. “Like a wave crashed on top of you.”

  A dry laugh escaped her.

  “Yeah, well. That was a roadside puddle and some idiot on a motorbike. This time, the whole sea crashed on top of me.”

  My heart caught in my throat. “Are you okay?”

  Her eyes followed mine to her bandaged arm. “I’m fine. Just scraped myself holding on to the barnacles.”

  “Christ, Heart-Eyes.”

  My entire being screamed to take her into my arms. I took a step toward her, but she held up her hand.

  “Let me finish. You saved me. I don’t just mean in the water today. You saved me in here.” Her hand went to her chest. “You believed in me. You told me I could do it. And I did, Alex. I came back up. I made it to the surface. If it wasn’t for that one breath before I went under again, I wouldn’t be here.”