The Tourist Trail

by John Yunker

  “Right. Aeneas is an environmental pirate. Maybe I’d know that already if I had someone to give me a proper briefing.”

  “I told you everything you need to know.”

  “Who’s Noa?” Lynda asked.

  “What?”

  “You said her name. In your sleep.”

  Robert remembered his dream. It was like all the others—he was Jake again, and Noa was alive.

  “You know, Bobby, I can keep a secret,” Lynda said. “Especially one from my own partner.”

  “Even if he violated policy? Lied to his superiors?”

  “Especially if he violated policy and lied to his superiors. So what gives?”

  Robert wanted to tell her. He was tired of carrying Noa’s memory around all these years. But when he looked at Lynda, he caught the flicker of her eyes toward the door, and he knew he couldn’t. Not now, anyway.

  “Just a bad dream, I guess.”

  Lynda shook her head and opened the door. He felt a dry rush of cold air, sensing the change in atmosphere.

  “Did I miss anything else up there?” he called after her.

  She turned. “Captain Zamora made a pass at me.”

  “You sure he’s not seasick?” Robert forced a smile.

  “Ah, your sense of humor has returned, I see. I liked you better comatose.”

  She left Robert alone, and he cursed himself silently—for talking when he should’ve kept his mouth shut, and for not talking when he’d had the chance. Yet a part of him worried that if he began talking about Noa, if the memories were spoken aloud, they might somehow not be his any longer—or worse, they might disappear entirely.

  Angela

  Angela savored the nights. Back when she was on land, her days were busy yet without a destination—no reason for ending, only solitary evenings in a leaky trailer. But out here, though her days were empty, she always had night to look forward to.

  Like now—waiting for Aeneas under the threadbare white sheet of the bunk, listening to voices beyond the door in the map room. Earlier she’d left him with his crew to plan the next day’s strategy and, knowing Aeneas, to have a drink or two afterward. She was beginning to think he’d be up most of the night, but then, just as she was about to fall asleep, she heard the creak of the cabin door opening, heard him stumble in. In the light from the hall she could see him smiling. He gazed at the outline of her body, and she waited. At times during the day, it seemed as if Aeneas barely recognized her, as if she hardly existed—but at night, alone in their cabin, his attention was singularly directed at her, as intensely as it was directed at whalers during the day.

  Aeneas dropped a CD into a portable stereo, and the Carmina Burana blared. He kneeled next to her, put his hands under the sheet, moved them upward. When he kissed her, she tasted whiskey. She watched his face as he lifted the sheet and let it flutter down to the floor.

  The next morning, Angela lay in bed, wishing the sun away. Soon Aeneas would leave her for the bridge. At least now her days were no longer aimless: she had a stowaway to feed, a purpose. She decided not to ask Aeneas about Annie last night. She would begin with a lower-ranking crew member; Aeneas had enough on his mind as it was. As he slept, his eyelids flickered, his lips twitched, and his arms and legs were in constant motion. Even in sleep, he never seemed to fully relax. He never spoke about the danger of his work, but she knew it weighed on him. Along with the volunteer who died. That there was a reason he kept a supply of alcohol on board.

  She reached around to the back of her neck and unclasped the chain that held Diesel’s stainless steel tag. She held it in her hand for a moment, then leaned over Aeneas, letting the tag rest on his bare chest as she hooked the clasp around his neck.

  Aeneas awoke suddenly and tried to sit up. Then he winced and fell back into bed.

  “Hangover?” she asked.

  “Slightly.” He turned his head toward her. “You slept well?” he asked.

  She nodded, smiling. “I hope we weren’t too loud last night.”

  “They don’t call this latitude the roaring forties for nothing.” He kissed her on the lips, then raised his head again as if contemplating another attempt at standing. She watched his hands find the chain around his neck.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “My penguin tag.”

  “What’s it doing around my neck?”

  “I thought you could wear it for luck.”

  “I don’t wear leashes.”

  “Penguins don’t like them much either,” she said, “but at least they don’t complain.”

  “Angela—”

  “It’s too late. You’re wearing it,” she said, and stared at him until he blinked.

  “Very well. I will wear it on loan,” he grumbled. “The minute this trip is over, I’m returning it.”

  “Fine.” She noticed that the sheet had slipped when Aeneas reached out and cupped one of her breasts. She laughed and gave him a playful shove. “Don’t you have a boat to drive?”

  “What boat?” He chuckled. “They won’t need me until we get into the icebergs. We still have plenty of latitude left.” Then he slid his other hand down her thigh.

  * * *

  Angela entered the storage room carrying a sandwich and two chocolate chip cookies. Ethan sat on a wooden crate against the wall, below the lone porthole. He looked past her expectantly, as if hoping to see someone else. Angela felt bad for closing the door behind her.

  When she’d brought him food that morning, he’d asked her about Annie within seconds of her entering the room. Now, she could tell by the look on his face that he was resisting the urge to do so again. She was relieved, because she had not yet found Annie.

  It was a simple task, and she was embarrassed by her lack of success—but the truth was, she hadn’t found the right person to ask. She still felt as though she were in the way on this ship—the crew members rushing around with their own jobs, turning down her offers to help as if they didn’t trust her to do them. At least down here with Ethan, she could relax, and she knew he wasn’t the type to judge.

  Ethan stood and accepted the food. “Thank you,” he said.

  “I also brought you this.” Angela reached into her jacket and held up a paperback copy of Endurance. “Something to pass the time.”

  He studied the back cover.

  “It’s about Ernest Shackleton,” she said. “I found it in the lounge. Have you read it?”

  Ethan shook his head and sat on the floor with the food. Angela took her position across from him, feeling the cold steel through her khakis. She’d done the same thing that morning, sitting with him as he ate, because it made her sad to think of him eating alone. But they sat in silence; talking did not come naturally to Ethan, as he’d confessed when he told her he was a computer programmer for an online matchmaking company. I’m better at communicating with databases than with people, he’d said.

  He also avoided eye contact, and she assumed he was shy. Now she sensed there was something more, something beyond mere geekiness. An emptiness. An emotional vacuum that exerted an odd pull upon her. Or, perhaps it was just that she could not resist the natural attraction between a scientist and an unsolved mystery.

  * * *

  That afternoon, to make herself useful—and to maintain access to food for Ethan without drawing suspicion—Angela volunteered to help Garrett in the galley. He was short an assistant, and she was eager to be productive, to get her mind off the world she left behind.

  Garrett’s stream-of-conscious meanderings were a welcome alternative to Aeneas’s bouts of taciturnity, and she learned more from Garrett about the crew than she would have ever learned from Aeneas. Like D. J.’s pet gerbil, which lived in his cabin. Or Maggie’s sexual orientation toward females, which was obvious to everyone except, apparently, Maggie. Or the time, two seasons ago, when Hedley married Gar
rett’s assistant on the way down to Antarctica, only to get divorced on their way back—both sets of papers signed by Aeneas.

  And then there were Aeneas’s marriages, which Garrett documented in great detail. First was Jennifer, a scuba instructor from Miami, who joined the crew during the second season. She caught Aeneas cheating on her with his soon-to-be second wife, Deborah, the one from Los Angeles who divorced him in absentia when he failed to return home for two years. That was the only marriage Aeneas had told her about.

  Though she did not show it, as Garrett continued, Angela could feel a part of herself shutting down, like a ship preparing for a storm. She found herself reverting back into the role of naturalist—a scientist, emotionally detached—and she began to think about Aeneas not as the man in her life but as another animal to be studied: its mating rituals, peculiarities, habits. Love and science occupied opposite ends of the continuum, but she knew that if she and Aeneas were to have a chance as a couple, she’d need to find a way to handle his personality, to take his past and his risks and everything else with the same dispassion she used in her work.

  She wanted to make it work, to combine love and science, but Garrett was confirming that Aeneas was no different than the other men she had known in her life—lovely and passionate in brief doses, delegating attention long enough to make her fall for them but not long enough, never long enough, to make her stay. Nature was cruel, yet she’d grown accustomed to it. Love, too, was cruel, but when it came to love, she was still soft.

  “So where’s Annie been hiding herself?” she asked Garrett, forcing a change in subject. “I think she’s the only crew member I haven’t met yet.”

  “Annie?”

  “Annie Miller.”

  Garrett’s stopped chopping the carrots and gave her a quizzical look. “Have you asked Aeneas?”

  “No. Why?”

  “There is nobody named Annie on this ship,” he said.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “I think I should know.” He put down the knife. “Time for a smoke.”

  She watched him leave and turned back to the carrots. The sudden silence in the galley was unnerving—not to mention Garrett’s reaction to being asked about Annie Miller. Angela began to wonder about Ethan’s story. He’d seemed so earnest, but perhaps he was mistaken; perhaps he’d jumped onto the wrong ship.

  Or perhaps Ethan was the one she should be questioning. She’d been feeling so lost on the ship that she’d embraced him too quickly, without any evidence whatsoever that he was who he claimed to be. She suddenly wished she was back where she belonged, walking among the quilambay bushes, hearing her penguins calling to one another. That was where her world made sense.

  Lauren poked her head in the galley. When she made eye contact with Angela, what little of a smile she was wearing disappeared. “Where’s Garrett?”

  “Up on deck,” Angela said. “Lauren, I—”

  But Lauren was already gone, the door swinging back and forth. Angela caught up with her in the hallway.

  “You’re clearly not happy that I’m on board,” Angela said. “Why?”

  “If I’m being short with you, it’s because I’ve got other things on my mind, like making up for lost time.”

  “Due to me.”

  “Due to the FBI. Look, I’m here for the whales and the whales only. True, I don’t have a great fondness for starry-eyed girlfriends who hop aboard thinking they’re on the Love Boat—but it’s nothing personal. Stay out of my way, and we’ll get along just fine.”

  Lauren disappeared up the stairs, leaving Angela alone in the hallway. She didn’t bother returning to the galley but instead made her way to the rear deck, where she would be shielded from the wind and from people. Once there, she saw that the albatross was still tracking the ship, gliding off the wind currents, hitching an effortless ride south to Antarctica. Wings outstretched, locked in place, the bird slowly circled the ship, as if suspended by wire on an Equatorial mobile. She envied the bird its ability to stay so close and yet remain a few feet above it all, at perfect ease. If for only a minute she could exhibit such grace, such economy of motion, confidence, and calm, perhaps then she would not be standing alone.

  Smoke from the diesel engine drifted into her hair and made her cough and turn toward the water. Below, a line of churned water fanned out into the distance. The wind at her back was a familiar feeling, bringing to mind days spent staring out at sea from the hills of Punta Verde. But she could no longer hear the penguins, just the deep roar of an engine.

  She felt an arm on her shoulder and looked up to see Aeneas. “There you are,” he said. He kissed her forehead. “I thought for a moment you went overboard.”

  “Not yet,” she said.

  “Not yet?”

  “Did I make the right decision?” she asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Joining you. Here.”

  “Of course you made the right decision.”

  “I feel as if I’m intruding.”

  “This is my ship. You are my guest. How could you ever intrude?”

  “There are a few on this boat who may have a different opinion. Lauren, for one.”

  “She’s got her hands full right now. Give her time.”

  Something caught his eyes, and he looked over Angela’s left shoulder. She followed his gaze, but saw only waves. On land, she could spot a penguin under a bush from a quarter mile, while Aeneas couldn’t see it until he was nearly on top of it. Out here, she was the blind one, the one in need of direction. She wasn’t sure she’d ever adjust to this new arrangement, this loss of control. The confidence that she had back in Punta Verde had evaporated.

  “You slept with her,” she said suddenly, the thought occurring to her in that very moment.

  “Who?”

  “Lauren.”

  Aeneas paused, as if weighing his options. “Yes,” he said. “Before I met you. Not since.”

  “You could’ve told me,” she said. “At least I’d have been prepared.”

  “I didn’t think you wanted a complete inventory of my love life. I certainly don’t want one of yours.”

  “It would be a quick read,” she mumbled.

  He smiled and gently put an arm around her waist. “Angela, I am a sailor, not a monk. But that is all past tense now.”

  She pulled away. “Past tense for you, maybe. You told me you were only married once when we first met.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes. You lied.”

  “I needed shelter. And, as you may recall, I was rather desperate.”

  “You’re always desperate.”

  “Angela, I’ve spent a decade of my life defending whales, and occasionally I go too far. I bend the truth. I lie. One thing I’ve learned is that when you get too attached to something, whether a whale or a person, you do silly things, stupid things. I am a flawed man, and for that I apologize. But we are not all that different, you and I, which is why I wanted you here, which is why I’m glad you came.”

  She looked into his eyes for something she could hold onto, but he glanced past her again out into the ocean, wordless again. Then he pointed. “Look. Two-o-clock. A sperm whale.”

  Angela turned around, and in the distance she made out what looked like an off-white, barnacled Volkswagen bus, parked between whitecaps. Almost motionless, the whale appeared to stand in place, watching them pass. She realized that Aeneas wasn’t evading her but simply looking for whales on the horizon—always one eye on the horizon.

  “How did you spot him?” she asked.

  “It was he who spotted us. Then he chose to make himself known.”

  “You sound as if they speak to you.”

  “In their language, yes, they do speak to me,” he said. “Don’t your penguins speak to you?”

  She pictured Diesel standing outside
her office, tapping at the door with his beak, like a dog wanting to be let in. The first time she’d heard his knock, she’d opened the door, and he’d hobbled over to the bookcase, peering at the Patagonian field guides as if he had a book in mind. His breath was raspy, like a purr, which she had never noticed outdoors on the wind-deafening hills. Angela had stood by the door, holding it open; Emily sat at the desk. They remained motionless as Diesel toured the cramped room, investigating every eye-level oddity—the half-open file cabinet, mud-stained Wellingtons, a pile of knee pads, a fire extinguisher. She imagined him as an explorer among penguins, one given to researching humans. Off alone in the field, sacrificing his childbearing years, all for the greater good of knowledge. What notes would he take? The humans are easily approached, yet spastic in nature and prone to outburts. They seem oddly attracted to Punta Verde. Most visit for a few hours and are gone again. Perhaps the land is of spiritual significance. Tagging them will prove challenging.

  Diesel had returned to the bookcase and looked up at Angela. He wasn’t about to leave on his own, and if she could have gone back in time, to that room on that morning, she would have closed the door instead of ushering him back outside.

  Aeneas put his arm around her again, and this time she did not resist. She turned to kiss him but a voice interrupted them. It was Lauren, standing just outside the door to the deck, speaking words they couldn’t hear over the wind.

  “What?” Aeneas pointed to his ear. Lauren walked closer, ignoring Angela.

  “The radar,” Lauren said. “We’ve got company.”

  Aeneas looked back at Angela, as if to apologize. She nodded and watched him follow Lauren back into the ship.

  Robert

  Radar was useless now. Robert stared helplessly at a screen littered with shards of green static. The shards were icebergs, many as tall and wide as the Pentagon, and the Arctic Tern was a dot small enough to hide in their shadows. Just an hour ago, Robert was watching the dot racing toward what he thought at the time was an archipelago of islands. Now he knew why the Tern was headed there in such a hurry: to hide itself among the icebergs.