Red Sea

by Diane Tullson

  Jesse doesn’t always wait for me, though.

  And the thing with Jesse is she is never wrong. Ever. She used to have a dog, Jesse did, a taut, wiry thing called Bree. Jesse got her when she first moved here in fifth grade. We used to take her for walks, Vanessa, Jesse and I, down onto the bog trails. We had to cross a set of train tracks, and Jesse never kept Bree on her leash. One time Bree ran out ahead of us just as we heard a train whistle, and she stopped right on the tracks. She was wagging her tail, and if she saw the train, she didn’t know what it was. She was still young, practically a pup. Vanessa ran for the dog and I followed her. This scene plays out in stop-time and I couldn’t invent it, no one could. Vanessa stumbled, caught herself, then stumbled and fell, right onto the tracks. I know she fell on the tracks because I heard the clink of her eyeglasses on the rail. I guess I screamed. The dog was still wagging her tail. The train whistle was screaming, that I know, one long, drawn, pleading blast, and I reached down for Vanessa. It’s true what they say about having more strength when you’re desperate. I yanked Vanessa clear to her feet, yanked her so hard she left the ground. The train was just three yellow lights, on us now, compressing the air in front of it so that at first it was hard to breathe, then the air punched to the bottom of our lungs, making us gasp.

  What I was thinking right then was, Oh no, Jesse is going to see her dog get killed.

  She didn’t. As Vanessa and I moved back from the train, the dog bounded off the tracks toward us. Jesse caught her collar. The train finally came to a stop a ways up the tracks, but we didn’t stick around. We ran, and Vanessa started to laugh, but I’m thinking that was just so she wouldn’t cry. Or maybe so I wouldn’t.

  Jesse told me later that it was Vanessa’s fault the dog was on the tracks, that she shouldn’t have chased the dog. That Bree thought she was playing.

  About six months after that, Bree got out of the yard and took off. Jesse said that she probably found a good place to live and more power to her; if she came back, then fine. The dog never did.

  EIGHTEEN

  I’M USING THE HEADSAIL WITH the engine. The sail provides additional propulsion and makes me more visible in case anyone on those ships is keeping watch. We always assume they’re not, especially at night. So I’ll repeat last night’s routine: stay in the cockpit, stay awake, sleep only the brief ten-minute intervals in each half hour. I’m not looking forward to it, but at least we’ll hold our course.

  No clouds tonight and the sky is so dense with stars that I could reach up and run my hand through them. Nights like this would captivate Duncan. On our passages in the Indian Ocean he used to regale us over breakfast with the constellations he’d identified the night before. South of the equator the stars are different from at home, not that I’d know any, other than maybe the Big Dipper and the North Star, simply because the dipper points right at it. I always think of that song about following the drinking gourd; the one the slaves sang so they’d know which way was north if they tried to escape. One small reference point in a night as big as any ocean, that’s all they had to go by. It’s strange, in a way, how in order to find freedom, they had to go farther from home. Duncan used to show me the constellations, but I had difficulty following the patterns and it didn’t excite me, which I’m sure I let him know. He used his binoculars to look at the stars. Mom said it made her feel unwell just to watch him doing it. Still, she often sat out in the cockpit to keep him company.

  Duncan says the desert is like a sea, and that nomadic people still use the stars to find their way.

  I wonder what it must have felt like for those enslaved people, when they finally reached America, to find that even the night sky was foreign.

  Tonight, the boat curls the seas behind us and the prop stirs phosphorescent purple streamers that cling briefly to our trail. Yes, Duncan would like a night like this.

  At first I think I imagine it, a quick movement of air across my cheek, but then the bird returns, fluttering over the cockpit before settling on the bench. It surprises me, its sudden presence, but I stay perfectly still, watching it just from the corner of my eye. It’s small, the size of a sparrow, plain-colored plumage, a beak like a robin’s. Duncan would know what kind of bird it is. He kept books on them. The bird watches me too, eyes like black pearls. Then it stretches out its wings, and I see a bright patch of yellow feathers appear beneath each wing.

  It makes me smile, the way it holds its wings out from its body like that. It looks like kids do when they’re pretending to be a bird or a plane. Maybe it’s tired and is airing out its under-wings.

  I often see birds overhead. The Red Sea is just a narrow neck of water between the continents, an easy passage for birds. In the Indian Ocean we rarely saw birds, and it always made Mom sad thinking they’d been blown off course in a storm. One landed on our boat and proceeded to devour a crop of little flies that had also found us and were scurrying around on the deck. The bird stayed with us all that afternoon then disappeared. Emma and Mac said they’d been visited too.

  This bird has barely moved since landing. Occasionally I see it rearrange its tiny clawed feet for a better grip on the slippery cockpit bench.

  Speaking quietly, I say, “You are one desperate bird if you think I can take you where you need to go.” The bird tilts its head, almost like it is listening to me. “But you’re welcome to come along.”

  The bird sways with the swells of the sea, sometimes splaying its tail feathers for balance. A couple of times it flutters up in the air but comes down again to perch on the bench. It’s impossible to tell from the bead-like eyes where the bird is looking, but it is a wild thing, and it must surely be looking at me. How could it know that I’m not going to snatch it up in my jaws? What mental process happens in a wild thing’s brain that allows it to accept greater risk in order to save itself? “Don’t worry little bird. I’ve had enough of death.”

  Fanny would have a different notion of what to do with this bird. Her sharp cat teeth would be chattering right now and she’d be licking her lips.

  The alarm sounds on Mom’s watch indicating I can rest, and both the bird and I jump. This makes me laugh, and I imagine the bird laughing at itself too. I say to it, “It’s your turn to keep a lookout. Let me know if you see a Pizza Hut.” I settle onto the bench, lay my head down and curl my legs up. Maybe it’s the bird being there, it’s bright black eyes on me, but I don’t feel sleepy. I turn onto my back and look up at the sky. The stars seem liquid, like quicksilver. I imagine sailing through the stars, pale moons and greenish blue planets like beacons guiding me through the night.

  Quicksilver is mercury. Mercury makes you crazy.

  If I moved closer to the bird, would it move away from me? Does it allow me only this prescribed closeness, no more, like lines of latitude that never touch? The other lines, longitude, they meet at the poles. They’re really far apart at the equator, but at the ends of the earth, they converge to one ink dot, one point where they are no longer separate. If you stood in that very spot, would you be connected to the entire globe?

  Emma would probably say that any spot on the world is connected so long as you can draw a line from it. She’d illustrate her point with an elaborate geometric design, showing how even independent spots are carried on lines whether they like it or not, and everything connects, given time.

  When Duncan first moved in, I never spoke to him. If I had to ask him for something, like the salt, for example, I’d do it through Mom. “Mom, could you ask Duncan to pass me the salt.” On the phone to Jesse, I’d talk loudly about what a jerk Duncan was.

  Jesse liked Duncan because he always asked how she was doing, and he’d drive us anywhere, even if we phoned for a ride late at night.

  I could feed this bird, and given time it would let me touch it. It would sell its wild soul for the easy life, even if I caged it. If I caged it, then I could do anything to it.

  Maybe Jesse was right to let Bree go.

  But I wouldn’t cage the bird. I’d be
happy enough to know it was staying with me because it liked my company.

  Duncan used to laugh at my jokes. Mom never got them. We liked the same books. I allowed him only a prescribed distance and he respected that.

  I know Duncan never bothered me at night. Mom was right. I wanted him to be a monster so I’d be justified in hating him. I don’t know why I wanted to hate him. Maybe I thought that if I liked him I was betraying my father, that I was saying it was okay what my mother did, leaving my father, divorcing him. I close my eyes against tears.

  I thought that if I hated Duncan enough, then my mother would too.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said what I did. I didn’t let you get close and now time has run out.

  When the alarm goes off again, the bird is gone.

  NINETEEN

  “MOM, I CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT you’re saying!”

  Her skin is flushed red and her shirt is wet from sweat, but she’s shivering. Her eyes are glass.

  “Maybe it’s best if you just stay quiet. Try another sip of water.”

  Mom turns away, but I set the water bottle against her lips and trickle water into her mouth. I don’t know how much really goes down, but I’m afraid to give her too much in case she chokes. I’m not sure she has the strength anymore to cough.

  Normally, daybreak on a passage is the best time of the day, a victory over the long night, a hopeful, optimistic time of day. Not this morning. This morning, Mom’s leg wound is strangely pale, the discharge now almost gray. I have to keep speaking to her, keep tapping her feet to make her stay awake so she can drink.

  “You’re giving up! You’re choosing him again!” I pinch her foot, hard, and her eyes fly open.

  “Oh, Lib, are you all right?”

  I hear it, I know I do, but it’s like when someone wakes up in a dream, my friend Vanessa would do that, just speak out like she was awake, but she wasn’t. Mom’s eyes are closed again, and nothing I do makes her wake up.

  “No, I’m not all right and neither are you. We’re in trouble.” I swipe the tears away from my eyes. “And I’d just like you not to die. Okay? Do you think you can do that?”

  I remember my mother doing the same thing to me after the party. She pinched my feet and it pissed me off. I just wanted to sleep. I could hear her crying, heard Duncan’s voice saying, “He’s gone and no one saw anything,” then their voices low, angry and sad at once. There was some blood on my legs; I must have started my period. I let them turn me on my side in the bed “so she doesn’t choke if she vomits.” I let them pull the blankets around me. Then they left me alone.

  I was in their bed.

  “I know you can hear me, so listen. I’m sorry I lied about Duncan. I thought it would upset you if I told you the truth. I’m not real crazy about being without him myself.” Mom’s eyelids are veined in blue. Her hair needs washing. Her lips are cracked. “But you have to get over it, just for now, and when we reach Port Sudan, then we can have a good cry.”

  It’s like she’s a different person, this sleeping mother, like she’s already left me, is in that mythical tunnel, gazing at the bright white light.

  “Mom!” I shake her, hard, and her eyes widen briefly, then settle closed again. “Don’t give up!” She is so stubborn. “Don’t even think about leaving me alone.” But it’s no use. Her jaw slackens and she’s out again.

  Her breathing is fast, her pulse too. She barely managed the tiny amount of water I trickled into her mouth. I can’t take a chance on her swallowing the Tylenol, so I put it under her tongue. Now I wait with her while it dissolves to make sure it doesn’t go down her windpipe.

  “No, Mom. I’m not all right. I’m doing the best I can, but it’s not enough. I don’t know where we are. We could be plowing toward the reefs for all I know.”

  With the headwind, the seas are short and steep, and I’ve had to sheet-in the headsail so the boat is heeled over, making everything tilt. Walking in the boat is like being in a manic fun house with the floor suddenly dropping away, then slamming my knees up to my ears, over and over. My hips are bruised from constantly banging into things. My arms are tired from hanging on for every step. In the cockpit, I can balance on my feet behind the wheel, and it’s better, because I can anticipate the movement. But my thighs and calves feel like I’m in an aerobics class in hell.

  I pack towels on either side of Mom’s head to keep her from rolling too much in her berth and bunch pillows along her sides. Except for her T-shirt and shorts, I leave her uncovered. If the Tylenol does anything for her fever, I can’t tell. I leave her leg wounds uncovered too, thinking that it might be good to let the air at them.

  Sweat is already beading on her forehead and I wipe it away with a cool cloth. “I told you what I thought you needed to know, Mom. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what happened to Duncan. I’m sorry you won’t have him, that I won’t have him.” I have to pause a moment until the lump clears my throat. “I think Duncan was a good man, and I know he loved you. I think he even loved me, in spite of how hard that must have been. I miss him too, not just because I’m on my own to find our way off the sea. I miss him because he was good for us.” I rinse the cloth, wring it and drape it over her forehead. “You and I would never have taken this trip without Duncan. However it ends, we tried. You tried, Mom, remember that. You did your best with me. I just wouldn’t let you win. I thought that if I did, then that meant I was losing. But I was losing all along.” I empty the bowl of water and hang up her towel. “Anyway, it was nice talking to you.”

  I tidy the galley, toss out the few remaining apples that are almost mush now, anchor the dishes in the cupboard so they don’t make such a racket in these waves, and maybe I am losing it: I rearrange the glasses so that the labels all face out. Duncan was here.

  I’m still finding shards of eggshell. This one has hardened onto a ceiling panel and I scrape it off with my thumbnail. I straighten up the bookshelves, throwing out some that have grown a fast black mildew from being put away wet. One of these is my math text, too bad about that, right, and a fat novel that was next on my reading list for Language Arts. I decide to put it in the cockpit anyway, maybe try to read a few chapters before it gets dark. That’s one thing about fiction, the characters always have it way worse than the reader. Right. I make some tea and fry up some leftover potatoes with an onion.

  I find three birthday candles in the cutlery drawer and light them from the gas ring. The tiny flames remind me of dolphins. I anchor them on a plate and rest the plate in the sink. I’d like to put them closer to Mom, but I don’t want to set the boat on fire. The angels will have to find her.

  TWENTY

  I DON’T BOTHER WITH A PLATE, just take the whole pan up to the cockpit. Fine reddish sand, windborne for hundreds of miles from the northern deserts, dusts the cockpit. I have to put my back to the wind so I can eat. Even so, the potatoes take on a gritty edge. I drain one water bottle after another.

  I’ve increased the engine speed and we’re cutting through the waves, heeled against the headwind, the genoa catching what it can to increase our speed. I imagine what it would feel like, driving full-speed onto a rocky shoreline in the pitch black of night. I also imagine the silence of the engine if I run us out of fuel while we’re still in the middle of the sea. Mostly though, I imagine my mother turning cold, but I try hard not to think about this because thinking it might make it real.

  Reading was optimistic. I read the same page over and over and still don’t retain a word. My eyes are constantly pulled to the horizon, to the endless water.

  It is possible that I’ve overshot Port Sudan and that I’m motoring northward into oblivion. No one would look for me there and I’d run out of fuel and fresh water long before I reached the Suez.

  I grab the chart. “The wind is from the north now, which means we’re probably close to halfway up the Red Sea. The north wind against us means the current probably is as well and I can knock a couple miles an hour off of the engine speed. If we’re that
far north, then I should be seeing this island, Masamirit.” But I’m not. All I see is green water and whitecaps. Masamirit is the turning point. From Masamirit, Duncan has penciled in careful course changes to make Port Sudan. “Masamirit has a light, according to the chart, so I should be able to see it night or day. But what if the light isn’t working? Emma said lights in the Red Sea aren’t one hundred percent reliable, or was it Duncan who said that? What if I sailed by Masamirit in the night and didn’t realize it?” My throat begins to ache. “What if I’m too far east or west? According to the chart, the light on Masamirit has a range of ten miles. What if I’m just out of range and can’t see it?” I jam the chart under the seat where it won’t blow away. “I don’t know why I bother with the chart. I may as well be sailing with a blindfold.”

  I MUST HAVE DOZED OFF. Early evening, and the flash of light makes me jump to my feet. Immediately I know it’s not the lighthouse, but a freighter, a far-off flash of low sun on a light-colored hull. Still, this freighter is closer than any have been. I watch it, trying to figure out if I’m looking at its stern or bow. The stern. They’re going away from me. But surely my radio is in range. I dive through the companion-way and down into the boat.

  “Can’t talk right now, Mom.”

  I grab the radio from the chart table and scramble back out to the cockpit.

  When I press the power button, the yellow battery light seems even more pallid than before. I check that the radio is set to transmit on the emergency channel. Then, with my eyes fixed on the distant freighter, I make the call.

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Mistaya, Mistaya, Mistaya.” My throat is suddenly dry. This is where I’m supposed to give my position. “Mayday. I don’t know where I am. I am a small sailboat and my mom is in serious danger. Please help me.”

  I release the button and listen. I hear ghost voices from transmissions farther away. Nothing from the freighter. “Big ship.” I’m crying now. “Please turn around.”