by Paul Lynch
* * *
During the night, the rain departs. The sound of the ocean resting again in an unhurried, ceaseless expression. Bolivar wakes and paces the deck. He stares at his sun-bronzed legs, his great hands, begins to think of himself as some sad, caged animal, something agleam still in the muscles. The eyes turning this way and that. The hands loose and empty.
He turns on Hector. Here, give me your cup. Let us start with this much water a day. I reckon there is enough to see us through until we are rescued. Some trawler or a giant container ship will come along. Wait till you see. It will rain soon again. For sure, our luck has turned.
In his sitting shape, Hector appears to be dozing or listening to his thoughts, but his face takes a sudden frowning look.
He says, it wasn’t luck.
Huh? What are you talking about?
What you just said.
What?
That it was luck.
What was it then?
You saw what I did.
What?
You saw that I prayed.
Bolivar exhales and rolls his eyes.
He says, the sun has really cooked your skull. It was going to rain anyhow.
Hector stands up, folds his arms and turns away.
* * *
Schlik schlik. Schlik schlik. Bolivar wakes and the scratching sound stops. He peers into the half-light. There is Hector bent to the hull, the youth slowly leaning back on his haunches when he knows he is being watched. For a moment each self watches the other shadowed self as though each can see into the deep of the other, the private place of dream.
Then Hector climbs to his feet, steps into the sun as it sits upon the water at its lowest colour, his body robed in dawn light.
He says, good morning, captain.
He sits by the bow and sips a cup of water.
Bolivar continues to stare at Hector, an inscrutable smile on the youth’s lips.
He sighs, then says, I didn’t hear a single thing last night. I did not even dream.
As he speaks, a feeling rises within that tells him this is not true. Then he can see it, the dream again of his parents, this one worse than before – their house set alight and ravaged by fire, his parents alive but badly burnt. He stares into himself as though to meet the source of such horror but there is nothing to see within.
For a moment he meets a fear that what he saw in the dream was true.
He continues to stare at the youth with his hands on his hips. How Hector sits now with embered skin, the body slowly on fire. He can see how close Hector has come to death, the youth still a broken figure, his flesh coming out in sores. The light upon the body, the breathing body. The light falling as though beholding him in grace. It is then that Bolivar feels for Hector a rush of forgiveness. He is alive and not dead. I am alive too. We are still doing this. Maybe this is all a miracle, who knows.
He sits quietly, pretends not to see the new place on the boat where Hector has scored time.
Two weeks now, each week with a line through it. Another three days marked into the hull.
* * *
Just before dark, Hector rushes towards the trim with a shout. His eyes fixed upon a yellowed plastic bag afloat upon the indigo waters. Bolivar peers over his shoulder.
He says, we can reach it with the plank.
They find within the bag empty paint tins and a bamboo stirring stick, Japanese ideograms beneath slops of dried paint. Dead crabs fall out of the bag onto the deck.
Hector holds one up by the claw and sniffs.
Bolivar says, who knows how long those crabs are dead.
He takes the bamboo stick and begins to shave the tip into a spear. When it is done he hands it to Hector.
The youth stares at Bolivar with a long, gaunt look.
Slowly a smile appears.
* * *
The next day, Hector whoops and spears out a fish. It thrashes the deck in flecking yellowed green. Bolivar slaps his hands. I don’t know what it is, he says. It looks like some type of mackerel. When Hector spears out another, Bolivar says, we can hang it up and let it air-dry.
Hector turns towards the Virgin idol. Within his eyes, a growing light.
Bolivar thinks, what is hope but a small flame. You feed it one small thing and then another. This is how we live.
He says, all I really know about you is that you are the son of Papi. You never really talk about yourself.
Hector shrugs. What is there to tell?
There must be something.
I don’t know. What am I to say when you put me on the spot like this?
Tell me about your girlfriend. What does she look like?
I had a picture of her on my phone. The one you threw into the sea.
Bolivar opens his hands before him and shrugs as if to say, that was then and this is now. He stares at his open hands.
Look, he says. I am only trying to ask you.
The skin between Hector’s brow begins to crease.
Then the youth speaks.
Listen, I don’t know how to answer your questions. Each day now I am watching a part of me that is not a part of me. This is the part that is here. All the other parts of me are not here. They are back there. I do not know how to explain this. There is a part of me playing football right now. Another part of me is with Lucrezia. I am holding her hand as we watch some stupid thing she likes to watch on the TV. One of those soaps or whatever. A part of me is fighting with my parents. I am guessing it is about nine o’clock right now, so I am on the strip drinking beer. I am playing table football and speaking English with one of the gringo surfers. The part of me that is here is not here. It is back there. So I am not. But who I was back then is also not. Who I am not now is somebody else. But I don’t know who he is. In some ways, he is still the son of Papi and Miriam and the brother of Rafael and Julia, but in other ways he is not. One is not the other. Do you see what I mean? I am not sure I fully understand this myself. No matter what way I look at it, I am not here and I am not there. I am not nothing but I am not anything either. So I am not-not. That is what I feel.
Bolivar blinks at Hector.
He tries to see into the words but the words thicken and grow obscure. He tries to see into the mind of the youth but can see only the skin on the bones that draw the face around the eyes in suffering.
He begins to knuckle his head.
* * *
Bolivar shouts and puts down the bamboo stick, reaches outside of the boat. What he pulls dripping out of the water is a green turtle as large as his chest. The turtle stares at them with a wizened expression, gestures some unfathomable thought with its flippers. Bolivar goes to work with the knife. He drains the blood into a cup, cuts open the flesh to find the stomach full of white plastic pellets. He cuts free the organs and portions the meat. He holds up the liver shining in his hand. Hector’s face twists with disgust, he turns away and refuses to eat. Bolivar places the liver on the cowling and slices it into strips, puts a piece in his mouth and chews. He lets out a groan. It tastes so good, he says. He takes a sip of the blood and offers some but Hector shakes his head. He takes instead a sliver of raw leg meat and chews on it with a disgusted look. Then he stops and leans over and retches the food into his hand. When he lifts his face he is crying.
He says, I cannot eat this raw.
Bolivar takes the food and stares at Hector a long moment. Then he begins to smile. He takes the turtle shell and pretends it is a sunhat. Then an umbrella. Hector begins to grin, takes the shell and turns it into a kettle drum.
Then Bolivar pretends it is a large telephone.
Hello? Yes. I am hoping you can patch me through. I want to put in an order for a crate of beer and a rescue boat. Yes, within the hour. Thank you.
* * *
It is the hour of the world’s vanishing. Bolivar watches until there is nothing to see. Then he closes his eyes. He can see himself standing in Gabriela’s bar. Telling Rosa and Angel. The others leaning in. He can feel a joint hanging
from his lips. A wash of smoke in his lungs. He sees himself moving his hands as he tries to explain. He sees himself pointing towards the beach. What you do has no effect upon it. I’ve always known, but yet— And still you are a part of it. The fish as to the sea, the sea as to the fish. He grasps a cold glass of beer, rinses his mouth with the malt taste, licks his teeth. He spreads his hand upon Rosa’s lower back and she moves closer to him. The ocean is. You are also. But the ocean always is, it is never not. He opens his eyes. He can sense Hector puzzling at him in the dark. The drooping face. What is given shape by the body is the telling of the man. This is what he tells Angel and Rosa. The story of the man is told by the body. Look at Hector and you know what he is. He studies the imprint of the youth’s body as he sits in the dark. He tries to sense the spirit under the skin. He thinks about Hector catching the fish. He thinks about the spirit rising within him. What is alive now and growing within the youth. For sure he is not like you, Angel, but he is not a bad skin. He is not some insect pest. He is my friend.
* * *
A distant light on dark sea. Passing by, unreachable, a ship.
* * *
Days of hammering sun, the sea the sun’s anvil. Hector sits in the cooler chewing air-dried turtle meat. He loosens his mouth with water. When he speaks it is barely over the breath.
Just eight days till Christmas.
Bolivar begins to shake his head.
He says, I cannot believe it.
Then he says, look, we will be rescued by then. I know it. Some kind of vessel. Like the one that passed by the other night.
I just don’t know. How can you know? There is no knowing any more.
Hector climbs out of the cooler and kneels before the Virgin idol. Bolivar visors a hand against the sea’s sparkling light and studies the youth. The burnt shoulder skin has bronzed. A sore weeps like an eye.
He climbs out and sprinkles seawater onto the last of the turtle liver.
Then Hector turns and watches Bolivar.
He says, I would love a swim.
Me too.
We could try it. I am a very good swimmer. Just stay by the boat.
No. You will bring the sharks up.
Damn it. I am going in.
Hector grabs hold of the trim with a decided look.
Bolivar moves quickly, takes him by the elbow but speaks quietly.
Don’t do it, brother.
Bolivar tries to hold the youth with a warning look, the sea whispering, something within the youth changing before him, a hardening in the eyes that Bolivar can see. Then Hector begins to nod.
He lifts his hands off the trim.
OK, he says. OK.
Bolivar smiles.
He says, look, we will celebrate Christmas here. It will be the greatest of all celebrations. We will skip the midnight feast and eat in daylight instead. It will be memorable. You will speak of it for years to come. You will see.
* * *
A gauze of rain slowly fills the cups. In sleep Hector hears something strike the boat. He climbs out of the cooler blinking against the rain-dark. Steps into moonlight spread thinly on the panga. It is then he can see it, a shadowed thing, something rounded, passing by the hull. He grabs hold of it, shouts for Bolivar to wake.
They haul it in dripping and dark. Bolivar cursing, for something has sliced open his finger. He puts his finger to his mouth and enjoys the taste of blood.
I hope it’s some type of hook, he says.
They must wait till dawn to see what it is.
The unfolding light reveals a great tangle of debris – old nets and fishing line, faded plastic bottles and bags, hundreds of stinking dead crabs. Hector reaches into the debris and pulls free a tangled pair of tights, then the bleached and headless body of a doll. Bolivar begins to pull at the flotsam. How in places it seems as though the sea with infinite patience has grafted one thing onto another, the sea slowly working until all things become single matter.
Hector smiles brightly. He says to Bolivar, this is a gift from God.
* * *
A day is spent cutting and untangling webs of netting. Bolivar fumbling with thick fingers. He snorts and climbs to his feet. You are better at doing this, he says. Hector does not look up. He sits at a slight lean with an unblinking gaze. Bolivar begins to pace the deck. Then with the knife he cuts at snarls of fishing line. He knots them into a new line and wraps the line around some wood. Then he ties to the line a metal sinker and a hook fashioned from the engine spring.
Hector works without word, his fingers moving like a crab, the sun dialling around his body until he spreads out a makeshift net. It stretches half the length of the boat and is hued it seems of every colour. Bolivar runs it through his hands. Here and there he pulls the knotting tighter.
Hector says, it isn’t so bad.
Bolivar says, it will do.
He ties the net to the bitt. Then he takes a piece of metal from the motor and clove-hitches it as weight to the net. Again he tests the net’s strength. They stare at it for a moment before they let it run. All night they can hardly sleep, each man taking turns to climb out in the dark and test the net. And when they do sleep it is of the net that each man dreams.
* * *
In the half-light Bolivar begins to shout. A silvered skipjack tuna has been caught. Hector stoops out of the cooler and pulls back his hair to reveal a grin. He begins to whoop and jump, rocking the boat until Bolivar puts his hand up. Take it easy, he says. He untangles the fish and watches it slap about the deck. Hector bends and prods at the glazed skin, pokes at a fin, runs his finger down the fatty loin.
When Bolivar slides the knife into the flesh, the incision jets a spurt of blood. He puts his hand into the fish, pulls out the heart and places it on the deck. He drains the blood into a cup but the heart of the fish continues to beat in reflex. Slowly Bolivar works the knife through the flesh but the heart still beating free of the body calls out to them. They stare at it, this heart that can never go back into the body and yet still it beats.
Look at that, Bolivar says. Even in death the heart doesn’t give up.
* * *
Bolivar stares at the sea and gives thanks. The sea is a giving thing, the net is doing its work. One tuna and then another, other types of fish that could be this or that. One time, a glossy young tiger shark. A handful of fish that glitter as though made of sand. Hector lays one in the palm of his hand and runs the flesh with his finger.
Bolivar fills the pair of tights with fish cuttings and hangs the meat to air-dry. Under the sun they slow-bake fish laid out on the cowling. Then Bolivar winds in the line to find the fashioned hook has gone. He stares at the sea a moment then shrugs. It is not so bad, he says. We have more fish than we can eat. Seabirds have begun to circle the boat. Now and then a bird lands on the trim and Bolivar shoos it away.
He sits savouring the moisture of the tuna. Then he takes a sup of water and swirls it in his mouth. He watches Hector as he eats, the long fingers putting the food into the mouth. The mouth closed in chewing. Something alight now in the eyes. A growing fire.
Bolivar says, maybe we should give her a name.
Who?
The lady.
Hector stares at the stocking full of fish.
Bolivar runs his hand down the lady’s leg.
I think I am in love, he says.
He slaps his thigh and leans back and laughs.
Then he leans forward with a sudden serious look.
He says, it is strange to say it, but this is good, is it not? What I mean is, it is very simple. Nothing else. We are making it work out until we are rescued.
Hector finishes chewing then slowly swallows. He says, it is amazing what you can get used to. We have enough food and drink to last a couple of weeks. We have shelter. Every so often it rains. The sea is generous. I really think we can do this. I really think we can hold on until we are rescued by a ship.
Bolivar nods.
Yes, he says. We will be rescued. Th
at is a fact.
During the night, when Hector is asleep, he climbs out of the cooler and gently touches the lady’s leg but feels no response in his body.
* * *
Bolivar watches the wilderness of sea, the world vast to its seam. The eyes hoping always for a passing boat, a trawler or a ship.
He thinks, what is life but waiting.
He closes his eyes and listens.
Always waiting upon the awaited thing. But what if you hold what is given?
Watching how the wave travels then folds, falls upon another that carries the passing energy within it, the life and death of the sea.
Now and then a silent delight rushes through him. A feeling that begins to speak. That life on the panga isn’t so bad. That out here, for the first time, everything has fallen away. The weight you carry in your heart. The longing in the body for a woman. The pain and problems of living. He begins to imagine all those lost at sea. Those whom he knew or had heard of. Slim Martin and Francisco the Cat. Luis Fernando and Manuel the Harelip and Old Frank. Their fathers and their fathers before them. Perhaps they were not lost at all but lived on like this, adrift for years, adrift into old age, drifting farther and farther out to sea yet keeping themselves alive, a simple life lived on rainwater and fish. Perhaps this is so. Perhaps they are alive still.
I cannot believe it is Christmas, Hector says. He shakes his head in disbelief, then puts the Virgin idol on the seat, closes his eyes and begins to pray. When he opens his eyes he rests them vacantly upon the sea. Again he shakes his head. He speaks but his voice sounds far away.
All the things they were doing at home last night.
Bolivar turns and studies the horizon. He sees how the day has unfolded simply, the sun climbing into position, the ocean as it is. He thinks, today might be Christmas Day but also it might not.
He turns and studies Hector, sees within the eyes the youth walking among the ghosts of his people.
