by Tad Crawford
Her laughter continued—laughter for all she knew that I would never know. She watched me as I moved and neared the oven door. Then, to the cascades of her wild laughter, I leapt to join my mentor in the salamandrine fires.
32
The tide brought the waves crashing against the rock face below the raft. Despite the violence of that headlong rush, Tsukino-san and I loaded our craft. He and Tex had saved a motley of bottles that had washed ashore and filled them with fresh water gathered from noonday storms. By leaving containers of seawater in the sun until they evaporated and left only a crust of salt, they made brine to preserve the flesh of grubs, crabs, worms, mussels, clams, fish, and the occasional bird. They shaped stoppers of wood to seal the bottles. If rationed, this food and water would last for two weeks. Tsukino-san held Mayonaka in one hand, a naked man with a blade that reached from his hip nearly to his knee. I had expected him to wear the sash of a thousand stitches or the white headband that had adorned his forehead on his mission in the kaiten. But they, like his and Tex’s uniforms, had long since fallen to pieces. Only the parachute had survived, and we’d use its remaining scraps on the raft to shelter us from the sun. Tsukino-san gestured with his head to show that it was time to return to the cave and use the litter to bring Tex to the raft.
I started up the path. Once Tex settled in the litter, it would take about twenty minutes, or a half an hour at most, to bring him to the launching site.
I was half a dozen steps ahead of Tsukino-san when I saw the body. I ran forward and dropped to my knees, holding my hand to Tex’s wrist to feel for his pulse.
“You fool!” Tsukino-san cried out at the inert body, thrusting me aside.
He slapped Tex’s cheeks, gently at first and then more forcefully.
“Wake up!” he yelled and placed his arms around Tex to pull him up to sitting. “Wake up!”
I didn’t know what to do. Standing a few feet away, I watched Tsukino-san rock Tex’s body ever more violently. When Tex didn’t awaken, Tsukino-san at last became still. He held Tex’s torso upright in his arms.
“He wanted to walk,” I said, helpless in the face of what had happened.
Tsukino-san simply hugged Tex. I reached out to comfort Tsukino-san, but the raised muscles on his arms felt like stone. He paid no attention to me. I stepped away and sat with my head cradled in my hand. Tex didn’t want a meaningless death like this. He had hoped to free Tsukino-san and me from our confinement on this island.
A high-pitched cry woke me from my misery. Tsukino-san had thrown back his head. The cry, strangled and inhuman, protested—refused to accept—this waste. Quickly Tsukino-san shifted to arrange himself with his legs crossed beneath him and his back straight. He took Mayonaka in both hands and pointed the blade toward his lower right abdomen.
“No, I’ll take his place!” I yelled at him. “Let me take his place.”
He sat no more than ten steps away from me. Tex’s body separated us. But as my muscles tensed to move, he brought the knife into himself. For a moment, I believed he was uninjured. Then I saw how deeply the blade sunk, how close the handle came to his skin. The blood bubbled up like water from a spring. His two hands strained to move the blade across the depths of his stomach. I looked at his face, but he had flown from me. He turned the blade to gash upward. As he began to cut back across, his eyes rolled and his arms ceased their motion. Slowly he toppled to rest beside Tex.
I knelt in the bright pool of his blood.
“Why didn’t you wait?” I raged, tears pouring down my cheeks.
One bloody index finger pointed. It surprised me, because I thought he was dead. He lifted the finger, though his hands were still wrapped around Mayonaka, and pointed toward his throat. I understood, but I did nothing. The finger uncurled a second time and pointed again. Would I let him die a slow, painful death? A third time the finger lifted, trembling, opening joint by joint. I pried open his hands and pulled Mayonaka free. Anchoring his head between my knees, and holding the blade in both my hands as he had done, I drove in the point and with all my strength moved the blade across his neck. Blood spurted on my face, chest, stomach, and arms. Wiping my eyes, I saw that I had nearly severed his head from his body. I slipped one hand beneath his head and the other between his shoulder blades and rolled him over so his head rested facedown on Tex’s shoulder. Tex faced the sky.
Picking up Mayonaka, I stumbled toward the raft. If only Tex hadn’t tried to walk that short distance. And why hadn’t Tsukino-san accepted my offer to take Tex’s place? I would have surrendered my life on the raft. I would have been the nourishment that sustained Tsukino-san on his long journey home. If he were going to take his own life, why hadn’t he waited for the midnight light, the sacred light that would guide him?
Had I murdered Tsukino-san? Yes, I must have. I, who imagined that I wanted to injure no one, not even Tex who would have died anyway. I pulled the knife across arteries and veins and esophagus and windpipe. I should go back. I should return to that place where the old men embraced. If I didn’t want to hollow a grave in the sand, I could certainly pile up stones to protect their bodies and mark their passing.
Instead I rushed on and pushed aside the rocks that anchored the raft. Holding onto the mast, I made the terrifying descent down the sloping cliff face and into the waves. I manned the sail and held the rudder. Slowly the island became smaller and smaller. At night the moon and stars hung like bright ornaments in the sky. I oriented myself and tried to remember the charts I had glanced at during my passage to the island. But I couldn’t bring the prevailing currents and winds clearly to mind. My plan was merely to keep moving, always in the same direction.
Day after day I steered the raft in as close to a straight line as I could achieve. I watched for ships, but the island had been far from the shipping lanes. I wrapped myself in a cloak cut from the parachute. This gave me protection from the sun during the day and from the cool winds and ocean spray at night. Soon I realized how unfortunate a choice it had been to preserve the food in brine. The salt made my thirst unquenchable. Yet I had to drink as little water as I could. Without Tex and Tsukino-san, I calculated I might survive six weeks if I conserved the supplies. But each day I drank more water than planned. By the end of the second week, I had only enough left for another two weeks.
I fished with crude hooks we’d fashioned, and failed. I tried to net the gulls that landed on the raft, but I might as well have tried to harvest quicksilver. Far too agile to be caught by my clumsy lunges with the parachute fabric, the gulls would simply lift off the raft and float in the air only a few feet from me, as safe as if they’d been in the highest heavens.
At night I could see the constellations. The moon first waxed, until its silver dominated the firmament, and then waned. Occasionally rains would pour down, but the ocean remained calm, with swells of no more than four or five feet. When I slept, I would lash myself to the deck as a precaution. The rest of the time I simply moved the sail to catch the prevailing winds and kept the rudder firm. I tried to calculate how far I traveled as each day passed, but even though I had read of ancient Greeks who measured the circumference of the earth by using shadows, I could make no sensible calculations. I could only hope that I was moving toward the shipping lanes and populated islands.
I used Mayonaka to mark the passage of each day with a notch. On the afternoon of the twenty-third day, the sky ahead of me began to darken. First it turned gray at the horizon and I thought that there would simply be another downpour of rain, but the gray became black and grew in size until it curtained all I could see. I looked behind me and saw a faint glimmer of light. I considered turning and running for that tiny glow, but it might have taken days to go that far.
The waves grew in size. I strapped on a life preserver. Quickly I detached the sail from the boom and wrapped it around the mast. I checked the supplies to make sure they were fastened as tightly as possible. The empty containers I left upright in the hope of catching rainwater. I slipped M
ayonaka within a hollowed section of a tree trunk I had fit to one side of the raft and forced a wooden plug I had fashioned into the opening to keep it safe. Then I squeezed into the right angle where the raft’s side met the deck and did my best to bind myself to it with ropes and vines.
The waves rose higher and higher in frothing surges. Ten- and fifteen-foot swells tossed the raft. Rain came, lightly at first and then pelting the deck as the winds howled above. The waves enlarged to twenty and twenty-five feet. The raft bobbed like a cork, frightening ascents followed by sickening tumbles to the troughs. At last darkness as absolute as in the ocean’s depths enveloped me. Soaking wet despite my cloth covering, I shivered uncontrollably.
Then, in one terrifying moment, the raft flipped end over end. When it struck the waves, I was beneath it. I choked on the salty water. The bonds that had held me safe now threatened me with drowning. Even if I could struggle free, what good would it do? If my life preserver buoyed me, I would be floating in the open ocean without food or water. Yet I would be alive. With that thought, I struggled to loosen my bindings. Then suddenly I could breathe, but only because the raft was flying through the darkness. It landed with crushing force, but I could inhale without swallowing salt water. This time it had landed upright, but the next wave or the wave after could easily flip it again and drown me.
At last the waves began to subside, the winds calmed, and the rain tapered to mist and vanished. The firmament reappeared as the dark clouds broke apart, and the slender crescent moon showed itself at the far side of the sky. Soon after, a dawn began like no other I have ever seen. It lit the waves, clouds, and sky with a rosy light so saturated and intense that it seemed to me a birth canal through which creation itself was replenished.
Carefully I calculated my losses. The mast, boom, and sail had vanished. A hole where the mast had been torn free let a foot of seawater cover the deck. The raft wouldn’t sink, but I couldn’t lie down. Worse, all the supplies had washed overboard. I had no more of the briny food and, more important, no water. At last I stopped cataloging my losses; it was simpler to enumerate what remained. I had the life preserver I was wearing, the cloak cut from the parachute, the ropes and vines that bound me to the deck. Opening the hollow where I secured Mayonaka, I saw that I still also possessed the samurai blade.
Sitting with my legs crossed in the sloshing water and my back supported by the side of the raft, I tried to organize my thoughts. I looked in every direction in the hope of sighting land. But I had been traveling so long that it seemed the continents had vanished and the oceans joined seamlessly to form an endless expanse in which I might float forever without making a landfall. For all I knew, civilization had vanished and the bonds that connected one human to another had disappeared.
At last I drowsed sitting straight up in water that reached my navel. When I opened my eyes, I saw Tex and Tsukino-san. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I didn’t know what else to call them. How could they be with me if I were still alive? I stared at them but didn’t speak. Both were far younger than the men I’d known on the island. They were naked, and their skin had a fullness and hue that was hardly ghostly. They sat opposite me, perched on the far side of the raft. My age now, they looked to be far healthier than me. I had long since shed the roll of flesh around my middle and shrunk to an emaciated semblance of my original self.
“You’re taking on water.” Tex broke the silence. He had the same accent, the same ambling speech, like a tourist with time to linger over the most uninteresting sights.
“Yes,” I answered, “but it’s not sinking.”
“You have to repair it,” Tex said flatly.
“You don’t understand,” I replied. “The supplies are gone, the water. I have a few more days, but I’m not going to make it.”
“That’s not for you to say,” Tsukino-san broke in. “Just get to work.”
I lacked the will to resist them. I fell to my knees and groped in the water, studying the logs and branches on the sides of the raft until I saw one that might work to plug the opening. Taking Mayonaka in hand, I began the tedious work of cutting free a section and then shaping it. Time and again I plunged the wood into the water and felt how close a seal it made. Hours passed and the sun had already reached its summit and begun its descent before I finally fit the tapered block of wood snugly into the hole and with my failing strength pressed down and jammed it into place.
I rested back against the side of the raft. My thirst was unbearable. My tongue felt swollen. I looked at the endless waves and wondered how salt had permeated all these fathomless depths.
“Now bail out the raft,” Tex ordered.
“With what?” I protested, barely able to enunciate the words.
“You’ll find something,” Tex answered.
“Don’t be so helpless,” Tsukino-san interjected sharply.
I thought of the section of hollow trunk where I had secured Mayonaka. After freeing it from the side of the raft and removing the stopper, I began to bail. Again and again I filled this tube and tossed the water over the side. After a hundred or more times, the level in the raft looked unchanged.
“It’s not working,” I said.
“You’re doing great,” Tex opined.
“Just keep at it,” commanded Tsukino-san.
I shuddered with exhaustion but obeyed. I bailed without pausing to rest or complain. At last even I could see that the water in the raft had lowered. I kept on beneath the watchful eyes of Tex and Tsukino-san. The sun had begun to set by the time I finished my work and collapsed with my head cradled on my arms.
“What are you doing?” Tsukino-san demanded.
“Resting.”
“There’s no time for that.”
“What else can I do?”
“Prepare for rain,” he answered.
“I have no containers.” I could barely make my voice heard. My need to drink overwhelmed me in every way.
“You have containers,” he replied calmly. “If nothing else, the raft is a container.”
I saw that the raft would hold rainwater, at least until the sun evaporated what might fall on the deck. In fact, if it rained, I could spread out my cloak. By keeping the edges higher than the center, I could gather the water and funnel it into the trunk I had used to bail out the boat. I wedged the fabric into the logs, forming a corner, and drove Mayonaka into the deck to support the other side. Looking up, I saw that the moon had thickened ever so slightly and flown upward, like a silver kite, in the night sky. I lay on my back. In a few seconds the moon trembled and vanished as my eyes shut. This time I heard no protest from my friends.
Rain woke me like the touch of delicate fingers. I didn’t think I could move, but at last I opened my eyes. Strange that the moon still glowed through the few rain clouds overhead. I was sure I had slept for a long while. Had twenty-four hours passed? Forty-eight? I propped myself up on my elbows. Tex and Tsukino-san were still sitting exactly where I had last seen them.
“How long has it been?” I asked.
“Drink up, partner,” Tex said. “This round’s on me.”
Even in the moonlight, I could see the drops of water glistening on the deck. I knelt on all fours and licked the rough surfaces of the logs and occasional planks. The exquisite taste of water! I lapped in the crevices, shameless in my desire for more of the droplets. The rain lasted twenty minutes or half an hour, more a fine mist than a downpour. I freed Mayonaka and carefully scraped the liquid sheen off the fabric into small rivulets that I channeled to my tube. Having saved three or even four ounces of water, I was overcome by the irrational hope that I might live. Carefully placing the tube upright, I embedded Mayonaka in the deck to secure it in a corner.
I awoke to an inflammatory sunrise. Tex and Tsukino-san remained seated on the side of the raft.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
They didn’t answer; I retreated beneath my cloak. At noon the sun made a fiery ceiling. I struggled against my thirst but finally drank th
e few ounces of water I had saved. Night brought relief. I begged for rain but there was none.
Another day beneath the burning sun. Now I began to see what could only be an illusion. The sun rose not once, but many times. Each sun joined the others in the sky until I no longer dared look up for fear of being blinded. More than a dozen suns had ascended in a single day. As each sun found a place above me, it burst like a nova that shone with a beautiful and destructive light. I hoped for relief if night ever came, but these shining destroyers never left the sky. I thought I could see darkness on the horizon, but I remained dwarfed beneath these brilliant lights kindled in galaxies that hurtled ablaze in the dark forever.
Still I hoped and prayed for rain. Living in this light, I had no idea how many days, how much time, might be passing. A seagull landed beside me. I wanted to dart out my hand and seize it—wring off its head and drink the blood from its neck. I ordered my arm to move, but the deserter refused to obey. I was sprawled on my back with my head propped up. The gull hopped on my stomach and swaggered to my solar plexus and then my sternum.
Looking into his dark eyes, I believed him to be a messenger. He had come from the skies. Surely he had the answers, although I had no sense of what my questions might be.
“What do you want?” I asked in a muffled, mumbling voice.
He held my eyes in a soulful gaze.
“Speak,” I commanded.
With that, and without any warning or even a sign of preparation, the gull drove its beak into my cheek. Reflexively I lurched forward and the bird took flight. It didn’t rush away but hovered a few feet above, where I could hardly see it because of the brightness of the sky. Tex and Tsukino-san hadn’t moved, but now I saw that gulls were perched on every side of the raft. Their beaks gaped, and suddenly I could hear their frantic squawking. They waited for me, hungry and eager to strip my flesh to the bone.
