by Steven Welch
Taariq smiled and raised his hands.
“Look. Sorry. Peace. I’d like to go along. That okay with you?”
Elise untied the lines that held the little craft to the metal cleats.
“Sure. You better be able to swim, or float at least, otherwise there are no guarantees I’ll save you, is that clear?”
She tossed the line into the boat.
“I can swim,” he said.
“The gear in the dive shop is all rotted and useless. ShuShu might not let you have it anyway. Something tells me you probably don’t travel with a wetsuit, snorkel, and fins.”
Taariq held the boat steady against the dock as Elise climbed in.
“Got swim trunks on under the jeans. That’s all I’ll need. I’ve been swimming the river near my home for years. Only place where I could get fresh food.”
Elise nodded and tossed a wooden oar to Taariq. She grabbed the other, and they both began a slow paddle out into the calm waters.
There was a light breeze that kept them cool against the warm rays of the sun. Elise rowed hard and steady. Taariq kept pace. He was lean but his muscles were like live wires under his skin.
They kept the western shore close. The light brown sand and scattered rocks were broken here and there by abandoned homes and stores that jutted out of the desert like teeth. A road ran along the shore and there were cars and buses here and there that sat silently on rotten tires. Off to the east was a spit of land where the King once kept a mansion and beyond that was the Israeli town of Eilat. According to old Ahmet the Engineer there had been bad blood between the old countries of Israel and Jordan and war was not uncommon. None of that mattered now.
A school of tiny fish leapt from the water and skittered along the surface. Elise looked over the bow and it seemed as if the sandy bottom of the bay was only inches away. She knew better. The clear water gave that illusion, but it was deep here and would get much deeper within a few meters.
They passed the massive tanker dead on its side, a whale of metal and fading paint that loomed out of the sea like a mountain.
Elise watched closely but there were no giant crabs clattering along the rusted metal hull, no sign of life.
That was good. The new creatures, the ones that came with The Turn, were quick to attack and much more cunning that the creature’s of old Earth.
The cut on her hand stung, but she kept up the pace. The salt air smelled fresh and good. Elise laughed and then stopped as if she had forgotten that she wasn’t alone in the boat.
“What’s funny?”
She hesitated.
“Something stupid,” she finally said, “something old.”
“Yeah?”
“You wouldn’t get it.”
“Try me.”
“Popeye.”
Taariq looked over his shoulder at Elise. “What?”
“See, there was an old cartoon about a sailor named Popeye. He had these massive forearms and squinty face. Smoked a pipe and got into lots of fights.”
Taariq turned back and kept rowing. “Sorry. What’s a cartoon?”
“Oh, will be tedious,” she said, “if I need to explain everything it won’t be worth the effort.”
“Try me.”
“So, a cartoon is a drawing that moves. They used to show them on television. A glow tube thing with moving pictures. Popeye was a drawing that moved and he was a sailor with these big ass forearms and he went around getting into fights. Super funny stuff.”
“Sounds like it.”
Elise couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not so she assumed that he was.
“Shut it. It was funny. Anyway, he would always get his ass kicked in the cartoon and just when he was about to die, somebody, usually this skinny girl, would shove spinach into his mouth and he got super strong and beat up the bad guy. Sometimes his tattoo would even come to life and form, like, battleships and stuff.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. It’s stupid when I say it out loud but yes, I’m serious. So I laughed because when I was little I used to think salt air, like at the beach, was my spinach. So I’d take a deep breath and throw punches against the waves at the beach. Like Popeye.”
“That’s why you laughed.”
“Yes.”
“You’re right, I don’t get it.”
They rowed on past the tanker and further into the gulf. The waves became choppy as they went and the sandy bottom disappeared. The clear water became a deep blue. Elise steered them close to the shoreline, and they kept at it until their muscles felt the effort. Water lapped into the boat and made soft sounds against the fiberglass deck.
“This is good,” Elise said, and tossed the anchor out.
They were fifty meters offshore. The sea was calm there and the desert to the east was nothing but sand and rocks split by the old road.
“This is as good as anywhere,” Elise said.
The water looked to be shallow. Taariq could see the reds and browns of a vast reef that ran the shore and seemed to be only inches below the hull of their little boat.
“This is so different from Amman,” he said. “Salty water, so much of it too. Still good places for things to hide, though, good for fishing I guess.”
“I didn’t bring fishing gear. Aqaba’s like an actual little town now so there’s always somebody trading fresh food,” said Elise.
Taariq stared at her for a moment then looked away.
“I’m not lucky like that. I brought this, see?”
He slid a long knife out of a sleeve attached to a leather strap that was tucked along his thin waist. The steel glinted in the sun and the blade looked clean.
The tiny hairs on Elise’s neck stood up.
“I see.”
Taariq twisted the knife in the air and smiled.
“Always need to be ready to catch my food.”
Elise clenched her fists and took a deep breath.
“And I don’t know about here, but there are nasty things in the rivers over to the west so a sharp knife has saved my life a few times,” he said.
Elise was mentally kicking her own ass. She always kept her dive knife with her but had left it behind, in the backpack where it would do her absolutely no good at all. Now, here she was in a little boat in the middle of nowhere with a guy she had only met the night before and he was showing off his spectacular sharp knife.
Stupid.
“I don’t know you. You have a knife. How do I know that you won’t try something?”
Taariq smiled.
“Please,” he said, “you’re the one who let me tag along. I saw what you did to that thing on the pool deck. I should be afraid of you.”
“True.”
She stood, the boat shifting slightly under her weight, strapped into her vest and propped her mask on top of her head. Taariq unzipped his jeans and slid out of them. His green swim trunks were tight and faded from use. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him and his muscles were lean and strong.
“What?”
Elise shook her head. She’d been staring at him.
“Nothing. Just spacing out for a second.”
Taariq shrugged and dove into the water. The water barely splashed as he knifed in with a low scoop just in case the reef below them was too close.
“Stupid,” Elise said to herself as she followed Taariq over the side.
The water was cold and clear, the reef just a few feet below them. Elise swam out with strong strokes until she was over deeper water and a large coral head surrounded by white sand. Taariq was swimming a few meters to her right. Schools of tiny, colorful fish flashed around them, diving and ducking around the reef.
Elise kept her head on a swivel. Years ago the Gulf had been home to a few species of shark that might have posed a danger but they were rare, even then. Now, after The Turn, you never knew what might come swimming up next to you.
The cold salt water felt good on her many cuts and wounds. This would help them heal, she thought
as she swam. Taariq motioned for her to follow. She did and saw they were swimming over the carcass of an old tank. Coral, barnacles, and other life blanketed the shell of the vehicle so it was almost hidden. Elise went up for a breath and then dove straight down toward the tank.
She couldn’t tell how old it was or if it had been damaged in battle. Taariq circled around it with her. Perhaps it was sunk as part of a reef building project. Elise had read about such things in the library back in Paris. If it were left here as part of some battle there should have been more damage.
Larger fish swam around the relic at this depth. Shafts of light curtained down from the surface and revealed the beauty of the reef colors. Little crabs and shrimp clambered over and around the tank.
The creatures of the sea have made a home from something that was built to kill everything in its path. Cool, she thought. A garden under the sea.
Elise floated close to the rusted hulk. So much life, so small and so fragile. Little feathers that popped up and retreated. Shrimp as thin as gossamer webs danced along with fish of every color and shape, none larger than her finger. Her lungs were strong, so she went to the bottom where the rotted away tread of the tank met the sandy sea floor. She looked into the darkness of the well of a drive shaft and something looked back, something dark and hidden. A lobster, like a creature from prehistory, and it was curled up in the darkness with another of its kind. A pair of lobsters just hanging out in their undersea garden. Cool.
They both came up for a breath of air at the same moment, a few meters from each other in the calm sea. Elise smiled and Taariq smiled back, his teeth much whiter than she would have thought possible from someone who had apparently been living rough for much of his life.
“I saw some big crayfish down there, under the tank,” Taariq said, “So much bigger than the ones in the river back home. Dinner?”
“Saw them too. I think those guys have made a home down there,” she said.
“I guess so, yeah,” said Taariq, “sure. Take me two seconds and we can head back with dinner. Sound good? We could grill ‘em and hang out? I’d like to learn more about this place.”
“That sounds great but maybe we can just trade for food back in town. I’ve got coin. Those lobster have probably been down there for years, right?”
“No problem. Save your coin,” he said as he dove back into the gulf.
Elise swam back to their skiff and pulled herself aboard. The cold water ran off of her in sheets as she stood balanced in the small skiff and the warmth of the sun did its work.
There was a soft splashing and there was Taariq. He tossed two large lobsters over into the skiff. The creatures clattered and thrashed in the shallow water at the bottom of the deck. Taariq followed them aboard with little effort and took a seat at the stern.
“These will be good,” he said, “full of meat.”
Elise picked up an oar, moved to the bench at the bow of the boat, and rowed.
“Don’t let them get too close to your toes,” he laughed as he kicked one away from his feet. He picked up the other oar and join Elise.
“Lots of food down there,” he said, “nice dive. That old war tank was interesting. Wonder how it got there?”
Elise watched the lobsters struggle and wave their pincers as she put her back into rowing.
“Hello?”
“Yeah,” said Elise, “Tank was probably part of some old reef building project. Back in the old days they would try to give the fish and the coral places to live. Make up for the damage they were doing to the rest of the world. Too little, too late. But now their little project has outlived the army so I guess that’s something.”
“Like an undersea garden, huh? How do you know this stuff?”
“Maybe I’m making it up. Let’s shut up and row. I’m hungry.”
Elise gently moved one of the struggling lobsters away from her foot and she rowed as hard as she could.
“What’s that thing on your wrist? Is that a watch?”
“Kind of, yeah,” Elise said, “friend of mine gave it to me when I was a kid. It’s a toy more than anything else.”
“It looks important.”
Elise laughed. She’d been wearing it so long she forgot someone might think it had some significance.
“It’s like a toy,” she said again. One of the lobsters crawled across her foot and she felt the cold spines of its legs as they tickled.
“Ah, screw it,” she said under her breath. Elise picked set the oar in her lap and grabbed the closest lobster. She tossed in into the sea and before Taariq could say a word she had the other one and it was off with its friend.
“Hey!”
“I’ll buy you dinner. They have some big fish, fresh caught, in town. I’ve got you covered.”
“I catch my food. That was my food.”
Elise picked up the pace with the oar. She heard the splash of her paddle but Taariq’s had grown silent. She turned.
“Hey,” said Taariq again, “that was my food.” She turned to look at him. He had the oar in one hand and its paddle was trailing along in the water. Elise tried not to look down to his knife but her eyes drifted there anyway. She looked up quickly. Taariq’s mouth was a thin line, and he was not smiling.
“I’ve got you covered. Dinner is on me,” she said.
Taariq stared at her for a long moment.
“Look,” said Elise, “those old things had probably been living in that tank since the water came back. Sometimes I don’t like to disturb things like that because they’ve, hell, I don’t know, they’ve come back too. Five years ago this was a desert and now there’s a little reef down there and some lobsters and screw you if you don’t like me throwing them back into the water but it’s done so deal with it. Now, you can let me buy you some food tonight or you can swim back to shore because I will throw your ass overboard. Your choice.”
Taariq didn’t move for a breath and then he smiled slightly.
“Got it. No problem,” he said. He began to row and Elise turned slowly to join him. The skin on her back felt vulnerable. She did not like being at the bow of the boat with Taariq behind her.
They paddled hard and Elise paid close attention to make sure that Taariq’s oar was hitting the water. That sound meant that his hands were busy and unable to reach the knife.
THE DINNER
Their grid of solar, sea, and wind would be a few days recharging but there was no lack of light on the pool deck after the sun set below the horizon. Aqaba had been a fairly large and populated place before The Turn and it was surprising how many candles could be scavenged in a large, empty city. Old Ahmet and a few others had taken time to gather everything of wax they could find. There had been more than enough so on nights when their grid was down the pool deck and most of the inhabited parts of Aqaba glowed amber with the light of countless candles, some recently hand-turned and some the remains of what had been before.
Elise sat at a wide wooden bench under the golden light of the candles that ringed the club’s pool deck, the voice of Édith Piaf drifting lightly through the evening air. The sea water that fed into the pool glistened with the candle glow. She sketched the lobsters and the sunken tank on a sheet from her journal with a charcoal pencil. Her lines were clean and crisp and she quickly captured the beautiful loneliness she had seen. Her skin crackled with salt from their dive and she did not mind. It felt good to her. The small screen on her wrist glowed green and music of old Paris came from the little speakers. The song was “Sous le Ciel de Paris” and it was beautiful.
The aroma of sizzling fish came from the flames of the wood fire at the pool’s grill station. Sahla, the young woman who had adopted the role of Aqaba’s top chef, brought a platter piled high and placed it next to Elise.
“Where’s your friend?”
“Here,” said Taariq as he stepped out of the shadows from the alley next to the club, “I needed to rinse the salt off of my face.” He moved to the table and sat next to Elise. Sahla lingered.
“How much?” Elise asked.
Sahla shrugged. “A kiss?”
Elise laughed without looking up from her work. “No. Nice try.”
“Sketch me. Great artwork. That would be good. Deal?”
“Deal. If you keep your clothes on.”
“No fun but deal.” Sahla went back to the grill. There were a few others at tables around the deck and they were enjoying their meal under the candles and stars. Denzel the giant Orcanum wandered past and his sleek black and white skin was lit from the amber glow of the candles.
“So,” said Taariq, “good setup here. Not like any other place I’ve been.” He pulled hot pieces of fish meat from the bone and ate.
“How did you get here?” Taariq didn’t look up as he asked. He was fixated on the fish.
“The weird way. France, then Italy and east through Turkey and back south. It’s been a long time. A long ride.”
“What’s out there? What’s it like? I mean, I thought I was doing well just to get out of Amman. Are there many people?”
“No. I’d go weeks without seeing a person. Then there’d be a little caravan or a village of a dozen or maybe just a family living in a bus on the side of the road. Shelter and defense is everything. We’re weak and it’s not just the new things that can take us down. Packs of dogs are everywhere and they’re just as bad as the wolves or the bears.”
“And you’ve been alone the whole time?”
“Mostly, yes.”
“Seriously, what the hell is on your wrist?”
Elise was silent. She concentrated on her artwork.
Taariq ate and contemplated Elise as she sketched. His eyes went back and forth from the paper to Elise.
She stopped sketching and set her pencil down. Elise activated Jules. The green light of the screen came on with a soft glow.
“What are you?” she asked.
“I am not a what, I am a who,” said the French accented male voice.
Taariq watched closely.
“What the…”
Elise held up her finger for him to be quiet.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I am Commander Jules Valiance, leader of The Astonishing Aquanauts. Do you have a question for me, or would you prefer to hear one of my extraordinary adventures?”