That Savage Water

by Matthew R. Loney

  I taught Than to hold his breath the same way. Ask him if you like. Anyways, after a minute, once you’re used to it, I’ll come down there and stay with you. We’ll hold our heads under together.

  The teak forest ruffled sprays of the dry season sun through its leaves and they landed like canaries on Nu’s wet hair and shoulders. Myaing felt the current shoving across her inner thighs, that perpetual force that pressed her skin like a fist and then furled backwards on itself in a chorus of ripples.

  Hold your breath, sister. Ready?

  The water hit her face. Then she was under.

  Like algae, the stream pulled her hair in its direction. Something clacked or ticked loudly in her ears and Myaing realized it was the water lifting and dropping the pebbles against each other, tumbling them towards the ocean. For a moment, it sounded like music, like the hooves of water buffalo striking stone, her father splitting stalks of bamboo. But the sensation of not breathing – of not having the choice to breathe – shot pellets of panic up her throat. The unfairness of it all, of being completely immersed in it, at its mercy, overwhelmed Myaing as Nu’s palms covered her skull and kept her from being able to surface. I’ll come down there and stay with you, sister. I’ll hold you under and then come stay with you after. But when, Nu? When? That minute felt so impossibly long. Long and cruel and painful and solitary. Then Nu’s grip suddenly loosened and she felt her sister’s hands move down to her shoulders, the soft brush of her black hair flowing towards her, both of them like adjacent pearls clutching each other, sinking to the bottom of the stream.

  JESUS VERY THIN AND HUNGRY

  I can understand a fear of flying – Cassie said finally – We should be afraid of heights. The sky never pretended to be hospitable to us. It’s incredible we’re even alive on the ground.

  Less so than the ocean? – Miles drained the can of tuna into the sink and unscrewed the lid from the jar of mayonnaise.

  What can you do if the ocean scares you? You can’t even take a boat or go parasailing. What about swimming? Are you just going to pace along the beach?

  Nobody travels by boat anymore – Miles said – Life would be so much worse with a fear of flying. You can bypass the ocean completely in a plane. Besides, there’s nothing relaxing about the sea. Nothing could be more unpredictable.

  Whenever Miles made the tuna salad, Cassie always felt he added too much mayonnaise. That oblivious, wasteful excess was another one of those annoyances that so often felt amplified because of the presence of so many others.

  I just don’t enjoy the taste of fish – he defended – And I think we should respect each other’s fears.

  Cassie assured Miles she was going to buy that bikini anyway and that he could lay on a lounge chair and watch her swim if he wanted. Wryly, her voice had intoned for all I care. It had been five years since they had attempted to backpack around India, after which Cassie decided she wasn’t the roughing-it type and would fare better at an all-inclusive. During their travels, she had gradually revealed to Miles her disgust at the hostels’ bed linens, still bearing odious traces of the previous occupants. She cringed at the residue on the Indian Rail seats that turned slippery with the heat and movement. For Cassie, a walk around the streets of Calcutta was tantamount to a backstage pass into a circus of horrors. No matter how much goodness and light Miles claimed emanated from a beggar’s eyes, Cassie believed the perfect vacation consisted of rows of lounge chairs lined up like dominoes, mounted by leggy bodies basted with coconut oil and truncated by flapping beach umbrellas.

  Why can’t we travel somewhere inland, like Mongolia or Paraguay? – Miles asked – Besides, the ocean gives some countries an unfair advantage. I’d feel better supporting one without a coastline.

  Cassie didn’t respond but switched on their small kitchen television. A man was being interviewed on the news. A long unkempt beard fizzled down to his chest and nickel-sized blisters like popped bubble wrap annexed most of his skin. The rest of his body was wrapped in a bright orange rescue blanket. In a thick Spanish accent, the reporter described that after two hundred and sixty-nine days the two Mexican fishermen had been found alive off the coast of Taiwan and appeared “very thin and hungry but otherwise healthy.” The man who had been rescued was named Jesus Vidaña.

  After nine months lost at sea, thin and hungry doesn’t seem like a terrible diagnosis – Miles said, transfixed. The sight of another survivor, someone who had ridden the cusp of catastrophe and then, like a champion surfer, emerged out the other side, was enough to make Miles feel less alone. If there was Jesus, there were also others who could sympathize with how it felt to suddenly arrive back on dry land, so much having changed in the meanwhile.

  They must have been starving – Cassie said – Unless they ate each other. Now there’s something I’m petrified of. That’s my fear. Hunger will lead a person to do anything.

  Raw turtles and sea birds – Miles corrected absently – That’s how they survived.

  Cassie thanked God for their Taiwanese neighbours, Sun and Chen, the kind of predictable people who hung their laundry on the clothesline year round, who travelled to sensible places like Miami or Rome. They highly recommended Mexico. There were plenty of beaches so she could feel like she was on vacation, but there were still temple ruins and that smell of burning trash Miles needed to feel like he was really travelling.

  Make sure the hotel has a swimming pool – Miles called – I won’t be going near the ocean.

  The pennants of white briefs and light purple panties provided Cassie with an inexplicable but neutralizing comfort she knew Miles wouldn’t understand. She imagined their neighbours’ garments spelled out some sort of code – a love poem from Sun to Chen as cryptic and beautiful as the cage-like glyphs of their kanji. From the kitchen sink, she watched their laundry flap in the August breeze like maritime semaphore while, in the corner of their yard, their dog Piglet tugged holes in a black garbage bag. Cassie heard Chen’s voice scold Piglet in broken English as the dog’s greasy snout emerged clasping an old chicken carcass studded with Q-tips.

  Sun and Chen were small-boned and friendly and could be trusted to water Cassie’s collection of houseplants. Anyone who stil used a laundry line could automatically be trusted in Cassie’s books. Trust wasn’t something you could earn but was something demonstrated in every one of your actions. Despite everything else, Cassie knew she could trust Miles implicitly: Anyone who clung to a palm tree for six hours deserved it.

  From behind the refrigerator door, Miles mumbled to Cassie that it didn’t matter where in the world you went, someone was bound to be starving to death. His comment summoned inside her the anxious feeling that she might run into one of them casually, maybe even walking home from work one evening. Starving people could be lurking anywhere. There was something true and credible inside that possibility and it terrified her.

  I’d have given up hope – Miles said.

  You couldn’t pay me to eat raw birds – said Cassie, silently translating the drying underwear.

  The receptionist had greeted them cordially as they checked into the four-star all-inclusive fronting a beach of perfectly groomed sand and rolling aqua surf.

  You have arrived at the right time – she smiled nervously – I’m honoured to inform you that Jesus himself will be a guest at our resort during your stay.

  The woman’s accent pronounced it Hay-zoos.

  That’s right – she repeated – Jesus.

  I don’t know who that is – Cassie said, eager to scour the complimentary minibar – Someone famous?

  Jesus is a source of pride for all Mexicans, señora – the receptionist informed them – Jesus Vidaña, a truly remarkable human being whose trials and tribulations have inspired all Mexicans to a deeper faith in El Señor. Here is the key to your suite.

  That afternoon Miles spotted Jesus by the swimming pool. In a loose blue Speedo and plastic gift-shop sunglasses, he reclined beneath a m
etal palm tree that cast a stylized frond of shade over his skin tanned the colour of perfect toast. Every twenty minutes or so, between flipping the pages of his cracked paperback, he would coat his torso with a veneer of oil he kept beside his lounge. Miles chewed his cocktail straw into a kinked wad of plastic. He watched Jesus reach his arms around to oil the backs of his shoulders. Faint marks where the blisters had healed spotted his lower back.

  Miles stood and stretched casually, glancing out at the sea. Cassie was still floating on the neon green blow-up bed out where the water turned from turquoise to deeper blue. As he walked, the textured concrete semi-circles scraped into the pool deck annoyed the bottoms of his feet. In the air, a flock of gulls worried the sky in a matrix of winged arithmetic that dove in a swarm at loose french fries and empty Styrofoam containers.

  Jesus’ back was a slab of lean muscle that tapered down to an athletic waist. Black hair formed a V as it converged at his waistband and then disappeared between his buttocks. Miles had never approached a celebrity, not even a minor one. The thought caused a hollow yet bloated feeling to descend down into him like a hunk of chewing gum. More than anything though, Miles needed to speak with someone who could understand what he’d been through, a person who understood survival. If that man were really the Jesus from the news, he felt he should push all pride aside.

  Can I offer you help with that? – Miles asked softly as he approached. He felt awkward and blushed immediately. He sounded rehearsed, in a pornographic way.

  Jesus Vidaña turned and lifted his sunglasses, studying Miles – Si. Gracias.

  He was clean-shaven and his jet-black hair was trimmed short and brushed back off his forehead, but up close Miles felt that jolt of recognition. It was a different version of the Jesus he’d seen on television, but it was most certainly him.

  The bottle was slick and Miles had to adjust his grip to press down adequately on the pump top. He squirted more oil than was necessary and worked it across the broad acreage of Jesus’ golden back. Miles felt the texture of the healed blisters like Braille. A bead of oil descended through the lower patch of back hair like a hedge maze and disappeared down into Jesus’ crack.

  Could I ask you to do my legs also? – He spoke with a Spanish accent that made Miles think of cedar planks and chin-up bars, bleach and tile setting on concrete.

  Of course – Miles offered. One must make oneself of as much service as one could to a man whose disaster outmatched one’s own, he thought.

  As Jesus rolled onto his stomach, fully extended, Miles looked out to the ocean, to the swimmers who frolicked and bobbed so heedless of the ocean’s danger. Cassie had also rolled onto her front and was maneuvering the green blow-up bed in line with the incoming waves. Her head was turned to gauge the timing of the breaker and as it crested, she paddled furiously, skidding down the front of the curl and riding nearly to the shore. The look of joy on her face reminded Miles of a Down syndrome child who had just learned how to make hot dogs out of playdough.

  This might sound strange… – Miles’ heart thumped in his chest – But have you ever been lost at sea?

  Jesus turned to the side – I could interpret that question in many ways. But yes, how did you know?

  I don’t know. I just remember you – Miles said, relieved – from the news… You ate seagulls for nine months. Fishermen rescued you.

  That is some of what happened. The part that interests people…

  Miles hesitated, his hands pausing on Jesus’ solid, warm hamstrings – Can I ask you a personal question?

  Claro.

  How do you still face the ocean? I mean, doesn’t it scare you to be near it?

  Jesus rolled over and lifted his sunglasses to rest on his forehead. Deeply set within thick lashes and brown eyes, his dark pupils were large and held fast to Miles’ gaze. On their black canvases, Miles watched a small wooden boat lift and drop on the swells of an endless sea. Huddled together against the storm, the silhouettes of three men picked apart a gull, a blizzard of loose feathers catching the howling, disinterested wind.

  It wasn’t the ocean that scared me, señor. The ocean saved my life.

  What about Jerusalem? – Cassie had asked Miles as he rinsed the empty tuna can in the sink. She sat at the dinette, flipping through the newest edition of a library-rented Israel guidebook – It’s far enough inland, isn’t it? God, I don’t remember anything from the Bible.

  Funny – Miles said – I don’t think I remember anything either. I feel I should, but I don’t.

  It’s hard to hold on to what no longer inspires you – Cassie offered casually. After a pause, she declared – The feeding of the five thousand. That’s a decent one. Something about all those hungry people suddenly having food. Happy multitudes with full stomachs. It’s hopeful, isn’t it?

  Jonah – Miles said, after some thought – That’s mine, I guess. Minus the whole giant fish bullshit.

  Do you think if you were ever hungry enough you’d eat

  another person? – Outside, Sun was pegging a sentence of panties to the line. Cassie wondered if the message spelled I can’t anymore or You don’t deserve me – I’d really have to be starving – she continued absently – I don’t enjoy hungry people.

  You’re afraid they might do anything. That’s why you dislike them.

  That’s why I hated India. Do you remember I wanted to come home? Thank God I didn’t go to Thailand with you, that’s all I can say. Do you see how everything happens for a reason?

  In India, Cassie had locked herself in the guesthouse for days on end. She hadn’t wanted to go outside ever since they’d seen a body, thin as a skeleton but still alive, lying in a puddle of its own urine outside the Meenakshi temple. Like stale oatmeal plagued with raisins, blackflies had settled along its naked spine. A few metres down the street, a man stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the prow of his rickshaw, bored. Beneath its wheel, a small bird hopped in the dirt searching for crumbs among a crushed marigold garland. The man’s chin tilted to his chest as he rubbed his eyes with his palms and yawned. The bird cocked its head and then swooped up to a branch that extended over the stone wall of the temple. From somewhere deep inside, a bell began to ring as if needing to break the scorching air for weighing too much. In the dust, a parade of ants scurried towards the liquid pooling around the body. Blocked, they stopped short and then detoured up the person’s leg bone, crossing to its other side. Cassie had gasped when the skeleton suddenly shifted and the puddle began to expand across the dust before dripping down the curb into the gutter. She’d been petrified the creature would crawl towards her, crack her open with its cries for food, cling to her forever. From then on she’d wanted to leave India. In Hampi she’d been petrified of thieves. She hadn’t been able to eat solid food since Agra. Worse was Varanasi where bodies were burned into charcoal mummies on top of the funeral pyres, billows of sparks shooting skyward from the hulls of their collapsing ribcages.

  Do you think it’s possible to fear a place in theory? – Cassie asked.

  Miles responded that most of what we fear is already theoretical and Cassie stared for a moment at the water swirling down the drain in a murky whirlpool and then out at the laundry line: I can’t anymore. She wondered if it was possible to love something only in theory also.

  It’s just that I survived a disaster of my own – Miles said. He wiped the excess oil on his shins and sat straddling the lounge chair, facing Jesus. Since arriving, his own skin had taken on an effervescent caramel glow that made him feel like a glazed duck in a Chinatown window – I held onto a palm tree. It doesn’t seem like much, but there were several waves.

  For how long?

  Six hours, thereabout. You ate seagulls. I know it doesn’t compare.

  It does – Jesus said – We both did what was necessary to survive.

  Jesus went on to explain to Miles how they’d been able to catch fish by making hooks with string from their
clothing and wire picked from the engine. They dove into the water with ropes tied to their waist and harpooned sea turtles with a shard of metal lashed to an oar. He’d strangled the creatures with his hands as their flippers spasmed against the boat’s wooden siding, their liquidy eyes blinking, weeping in slow motion. He described how he’d never expected how much would be packed inside that shell or how soft what keeps us alive is. After three months, he’d forgotten what trees looked like, how it felt to stand still. They’d collected rainwater in gasoline containers and stayed awake in shifts to scan the horizon for distant flashes of cargo ships or fishing vessels. One of the men had refused to eat the raw meat and starved to death. They’d lived with the corpse on board for two days before rolling it over the side. Finally, off the coast of the Marshall Islands, he and his friend had been rescued, two hundred and seventy days later, by a Taiwanese tuna trawler named Koo’s 102. Miles stared at Jesus’ hands as he talked, wondering if they looked any different as they strangled a turtle.

  Is there a girlfriend?

  Mine?

  No one comes to a beach resort alone. Am I wrong?

  You did – Miles said. Cassie had dragged the inflatable bed onto shore and she stood in the shallows, bending down every so often and picking at something beneath the waves that lapped at her ankles. Gulls circled above her, landed, then padded across the sand to the blow-up bed, pecking the sand around it.

  There’s a girlfriend. She’s enjoys resorts – Miles continued – She hated India. I forgave her for that though…

  She’s beautiful when she’s smiling – Jesus spotted Cassie – She seems to enjoy the ocean.

   … I slept with a woman in Thailand – Miles responded, almost automatically – Before the tsunami, after Cassie went home.

  The memory surfaced from a place Miles had buried deep beneath the events of the disaster, like a diver being pulled to the surface by a balloon of air. When the tsunami was over, he’d just been happy to be alive. The water had come for him and he’d survived. He’d been given a clear second chance and he’d squandered it immediately, insanely – More of a girl really… I didn’t know at the time.