by Mandy Hager
Now Maryam cast about for any sign of the water containers, grunting with relief as she spied an unbroken earthenware jar amidst a pile of other debris wedged against the one undisturbed shelter wall. She and Ruth rushed to rescue it—and, miraculously, a cup as well. But Maryam's elation was extinguished as she realised all the other containers had been smashed. If they were careful perhaps they had enough to last the day, but nothing more.
Very cautiously, Ruth poured the precious water into the cup Maryam held at the container's lip. The sight of it set Maryam salivating, and it took all her strength not to gulp it all in one thirsty rush.
“Here,” she said to Ruth. “You go first.” She couldn't take her eyes off the cup, as Ruth swallowed down its contents. When, finally, it was her turn to drink, she sipped her share in tiny mouthfuls, savouring the sensation as the cool liquid worked its magic and soothed her throat.
Now she carried it over to Joseph, and Ruth lifted his head while Maryam offered him the cup. He lay passively in Ruth's hold, his eyes fixed on Maryam's face as he took a sip. Immediately he choked, sending him into a spasm of coughing that left him limp and short of breath. Again they tried, little by little quenching his thirst. By the time his share of the precious water had been drunk, he seemed exhausted, weakly waving Ruth away as he closed his eyes and sank back to the deck.
“Give Lazarus his share now,” Maryam told Ruth. She was reluctant to leave Joseph's side, so eased herself down beside him, wriggling her one good arm under his head until it cushioned him in her embrace. The deck was cruelly hard and dug into her hip, but she didn't care—he was desperately sick, and he needed her: that was enough.
Revived a little by the meagre amount of water, Lazarus and Ruth began to sort through the wreckage and take stock of what they had left. It was a dispiriting result. The map—their precious map—was gone, and the book of celestial navigation was so waterlogged the pages tore under Ruth's fingers as she tried to separate them out. In terms of food, all they could salvage were five coconuts (and their life-saving milk), a bunch of six bruised bananas, one container of te kabubu powder (hard to digest unless mixed with water) and one squashed round of goat's cheese—hardly a feast, and barely a fraction of their original store. Their best find was another half container of water in a broken urn, which they carefully secured in place against the wall. It was not a lot to keep four needy bodies alive—especially when they did not know how far they had been blown away from land.
They decided to divide the goat's cheese first. Maryam gratefully ate her share before breaking Joseph's into pieces small enough for him to eat. But he shook his head, and clamped his lips tight together as she tried to force the soft crumbly cheese between his teeth.
“Come on, cousin,” Lazarus urged him. “You must eat.” He squatted down beside Joseph and gently touched his fingers to the pulse in Joseph's neck. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the pulse, then slowly met Maryam's gaze. He frowned and subtly shook his head. “He's very weak.”
“Perhaps if we mixed up some te kabubu so he can drink it, it might give him strength?”
“We can try, Sister, but I fear the time for food has past.”
No! He could not be saying this. Maryam slipped her arm out from under Joseph's head and launched herself upright, determined to give her plan a try. She would not fail him now.
Ignoring the stabbing pain that shot through her arm, she shook some of the te kabubu powder into the empty cup. Next she scooped a little of their store of water in on top and stirred it into a thin creamy paste. She licked the mixture from her finger to check it was not too thick to swallow: the flavour was insipid but the consistency just about right. Please Lord, please. Don't take him yet.
She knelt down at Joseph's side, carefully raising his head until it rested in her lap. “Come on,” she pleaded with him. “Just try to take a little of this.” She dipped her index finger into the paste, then placed the finger to his lips. He opened his eyes again, staring up at her with a glassy lack of focus as he licked the paste away, his tongue as dry and ridged as a lizard's. “Good. That's good,” she said, dipping her finger in to repeat the process.
Again he licked the te kabubu paste away, and her heart seemed to lift and soar. She would save him, she was sure of it—all she had to do was keep him nourished and hydrated until they drifted into land. She smiled down at him, determined to raise his spirits with her warmth, just as he whispered something she could not hear.
She bent down over him, as far as her arm would allow. “What did you say?”
“Remember that I love you,” he whispered, the scent of the te kabubu not strong enough to mask his putrid breath. He could barely keep his eyes open, the lids drooping as he struggled to hold her gaze. His breath came in rattling bursts, with long gaps between each exhalation.
“I love you too,” she murmured back, aware of the tingling in her nose that warned of tears. There was something way too final in his words, as if he used them to say goodbye. She would not let him think like this. Had to give him back the will to live.
“Tonight we'll plot the stars with your mother's book,” she burbled, hoping to catch him up in the confidence she now feigned. The book, of course, was now too sodden to read. “If we can roughly figure out where we are now, then we can watch the wind and currents, and calculate the closest land. We will make this work, Joseph, I promise you. We've come too far to—”
Her words froze on her lips. He had not breathed. He had not breathed! She waited, willing him to inhale. Come on. Come on. His eyes still fixed upon her face, but there was no focus at all now, no light, no life. She dropped the cup, not caring that the precious paste now spilt, and grabbed him by the shoulder, shaking him.
“Breathe, Joseph, you have to breathe.”
As her heart pounded with panic, he dragged in another rattling breath. His body jerked, shocked by the additional air, and his eyes cleared of their haze and settled on her face. He smiled, and slowly mouthed her name.
She smiled back at him, transmitting her love for him out through her eyes. Thank the Lord he is still here. “That's better…you had me going then!” She trawled her finger through the spilt paste, pressing it to Joseph's lips. “Come on now, lick it up,” she prompted him, shaking his shoulder ever so slightly to rouse him into action.
As she did so, she heard something clink beneath him on the deck. She rolled him a little, reaching into his trouser pocket to see if she could make him more comfortable by removing whatever lay inside. Her fingers touched on something small and round.
She drew it out, and for a fleeting moment was confused by what she held. The compass!
“Look,” she cried out to Lazarus and Ruth. She waved the compass at them, buoyed by the thought that now they had another means to claw back some small sense of control. She tossed it to Lazarus, remembering he'd seemed to know how the strange little object worked. “Does this help?”
“Damn right it does,” he replied, studying the compass face as Ruth bristled at his blasphemy. “This helps a lot.” He leaned over, grinning broadly at Joseph. “Trust you to come to our rescue, cousin. What you won't do to make a good impression on the girls!” He chuckled at his own joke, prodding Joseph playfully on the arm.
Joseph did not react. His head lolled limp and unresponsive in Maryam's lap. She looked down at him, and her stomach contracted as she saw how his eyelids drooped over his eyes.
“Wake up, Joseph! You can't give up on me now.”
Again she shook him, leaning right down over him despite the pain that seared her arm. She put her ear to his sweaty, discoloured chest. Listened for the beating of his heart…for any hint of breath.
It could not be. There was nothing. No pulse. No breath. No hint of life. She shook her head, willing it not to be true. He could not leave her, could not just die here like this in her arms. She jiggled him, again and again, calling out his name as though she could summon his spirit back from the brink. Beside her, Lazarus and Rut
h moved in to still her hands, their faces bleached, eyes wide with shock.
“Leave me!” she screeched, twisting away from them to scoop Joseph's sagging body up into her one good arm. “I will not let him die.”
She pressed him to her in an awkward, agonising embrace as she howled out her anguish. “Don't die. Don't die. You just can't die…”
Her head was bursting with a buzz of tangled noise; her eyes too full of tears to see. Terror at the thought of losing him took her by the throat and pressed the cruel point home with such dizzying force she could hardly breathe, her lungs filling with an ache she knew could not be purged. It was not fair. For the first time in her life she'd found someone who made her feel loved and treasured, and the Lord, in His wrathful vengeance, chose to punish her by taking him away.
She raised her tearful face to the heavens, wailing out her pain. “I hate you, Lord. I never will forgive you for this act.” She pressed her lips to Joseph's, as if her own life force could somehow revive him, but it was pointless—death lay upon him like a pall.
A wave of grief overwhelmed her, stealing her breath and, with it, her desire to live, leaving her as cold and flat and lifeless as the body she clutched so urgently against her chest. But now, as Ruth laid a tentative hand on her shoulder, she understood the awful and enduring truth: this kind sweet boy was dead, and nothing—nothing—she could do, or say, or give to him, would ever bring him back.
The hours melded into one long numbing nightmare as Lazarus and Ruth tried repeatedly to prise Joseph's lifeless body from Maryam's clasp. But she would not budge. The Lord might have stolen his life away, but she refused to relinquish Joseph's corpse as well.
How the Lord had played with them all: demanding loyalty and love, yet giving none back in return. He had rained His punishment down on her, and left her as bereft as poor Job in the Holy Book. He leadeth priests away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty…And taketh away the understanding of the elders…the heart of the chiefs of the people of the earth. And causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
Job's words swirled inside Maryam's head, his anguish giving voice now to her own. It was as if Job understood her pain, had seen her struggle with the Apostles and knew the fault lay not with her—despite the Lord's cruel vengeful acts. Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment. He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, And hath set darkness in my paths…he hath broken me down on every side, and I am gone…when I looked for good, then evil came; and when I waited for light, there came darkness…
A hand shook her shoulder, breaking into her thoughts. “Maryam, please,” Ruth beseeched her. “You must put him down and drink some water or you'll perish too.”
Maryam looked into Ruth's face, but it was as if she was trapped inside tree resin: could see out past the lucent wall but could not move, respond or feel. Her survival counted for nothing now—with the snuffing out of Joseph's life, she found her own will spent as well.
She pulled Joseph even more tightly to her, revelling in the pain it caused her arm. Let it hurt. Let it overwhelm her until it blanked this day forever from her mind.
Ruth continued to stare at her helplessly. She plucked at Maryam's sleeve. “We must give Joseph the last rites, Maryam, or else his soul will not go to the Lord.”
The sound of Maryam's laugh was harsh and mirthless as it welled up from her depths. “You think his soul is not already pure enough to meet Him? Then damn the Lord.”
Ruth gasped, her face flushing an angry red. She grabbed Maryam by the shoulders and shook her. “Stop this! Stop it, or you will commit us all to death.”
Ruth's threat washed off her—what did she care? But the shaking she could not ignore, as it juddered her bound arm and drove sharp shards of pain into her brain. She cried out, and Ruth dropped her arms back to her sides as if burnt.
“Leave her,” Lazarus broke in. “We have more pressing problems right now.” He rose from his brooding, taking the compass from his pocket and placing it carefully into the upturned palm of his hand. Maryam watched, dizzy from pain and totally detached, as he studied the arrow and slowly turned in a half circle until it lined up with the marker to indicate north. Now he glanced out to sea, pointing to his left. “It seems we've been blown south. We need to go back that way if we want to find the islands to the west.”
“But how can we do that?” Ruth glanced around the crippled boat. “We haven't even got a sail.”
“I don't know.” Lazarus shrugged. “If only we still had the map.” He wrapped his fingers over the compass, weighing it in his hand. “Let's clean up what we can, and think about our options then.” He glanced over at Maryam, a deep frown forming between his eyes. “I tried to warn her…” He shook his head, then moved away to start picking through the wreckage on the deck.
For more than an hour and a half Lazarus and Ruth worked around Maryam, trying to make sense of the shattered bamboo, stores and thatch, sorting whatever they could salvage into small piles. They failed to shift the fallen mast, so were forced to work around it, sidestepping the chiselled timber each time they crossed the deck. The sea, at least, was calmer, and eventually a little order emerged from the chaos. But it was only when the deck was cleared of its debris that they discovered yet another calamity. Something had punctured one of the boat's hulls, up near the forward mast, and water was slowly seeping in.
“Damn, and damn again,” Lazarus cursed, ignoring Ruth's righteous glare. He rummaged through their meagre possessions and pulled a pair of Joseph's trousers from the sodden pile. He called Ruth over, and together they worked to stuff the fabric tightly into the hole, using a piece of broken wood to tamp down on the folded layers until they were firmly wedged in place.
“Will it be enough?” Ruth asked, her voice drenched with worry.
Lazarus was bailing out the excess water with the help of a broken jar. “You'd better pray so,” he replied. “If it doesn't, we're sunk.” He handed Ruth another scoop and indicated that she should help him empty the storm's residue from both hulls. Maryam watched them work, so removed from their actions it was as though she saw them through a veil. She didn't care about the hole, would be relieved now just to sink and drown. Joseph is dead…Joseph is dead. The words would not stop ringing in her ears and she felt diminished by them, as if her own body dried and congealed around his corpse to form a human shroud. She stroked his hair, his arms, his back. Could feel his body cold and stiff beneath her touch.
She knew, in some small recess of her brain, that she should lay him down now—put him to rest—but every time she made the move to draw her hand away she panicked, terrified she'd never have the chance to hold him in her arms again. It hurt so much. More than the desertion of her mother and, later, the news of her mother's death. More than the rejection of her father. More even than her cruel treatment at Father Joshua's hands. Every cell inside her ached.
The sun had finally broken through the clouds, bearing down and stealing every scrap of moisture from her skin. Her tears were sucked up by the stifling heat before they even left her eyes and her mouth cried out for water, but still she could not move. She could see Ruth and Lazarus finish up their bailing and sensed they were discussing her, but she did not care. Let them think whatever they wanted of her, she would not desert her love.
Ruth came over and squatted down beside her, offering a cup of water. “Here,” she said. “Please drink. You know Joseph would want you to.”
She understood what Ruth was playing at, could see her game. But she found she could not resist what might be Joseph's wish; besides, the urge to drink was now so overpowering it was impossible to fight. With Ruth's help she took the water sip by sip, hating how her body kept on fighting to survive while his did not.
When the cup was empty, Ruth cleared her throat. “I know you don't want to let him go. I understand. But if we leave him in the sun like this, he'll start to—” It seemed she could not bring herself to say the
words, but Maryam's mind filled in the gap. Bloat and stink. If they left him in the sun, his body would soon start to smell and decompose.
She shuddered, the terrible reality of it reaching through her veil of grief. She could not do this to him, could not expose him to such humiliation just because she needed him. But when she tried to release him, her hand refused to heed her call.
“I can't,” she whispered miserably. “My hand will not let go.”
Slowly, Ruth reached over and started to prise Maryam's fingers away. As they began to loosen, and his body started sliding from her grip, Maryam panicked, as if she might hurt him if she dropped him now, and so she rallied all her strength and helped Ruth lower him gently to the deck. He would not lie flat, his body set into the mould of her embrace. She tried to move his limbs, to straighten him, but was frightened he would break. The horror on Ruth's face bled into her consciousness, and in the end she reluctantly conceded defeat. Yet despite the ugly markings of Te Mate Iai and the awkward frozen rigor of his body, to Maryam he truly looked as if he slept; as if at any moment he would wake and smile up at her with his luminous blue eyes.
“He told me he loved me,” she murmured.
“Of course.” Ruth nodded as tears tracked down her cheeks. “His love for you was plain to see.”
“Was it?” Maryam almost smiled. She ran a finger around Joseph's mouth to brush away the dried remnants of the te kabubu paste still on his lips. They felt resistant to her touch, etched in stone. Joseph is dead, Joseph is dead. To think that only hours ago he'd kissed her with these lips.
“I must wash him,” she announced, the thought rising unbidden into her mind. “To make him ready for his journey.”
Now that she had decided this, she could not sit still. She sprang into action, wrestling off his grimy shirt—no easy feat with only one useful hand and a corpse that now refused to bend—and leaned down between the hulls to dip the fabric into the sea. She pressed it down onto the deck to wring out a little of the water, then began to bathe his skin, biting down on her lips to fight back tears. The last time she had washed him…no, it hurt too much to think of this. She blocked it out.
