by Ferenc Máté
I didn’t dream about her that night. I lay half awake and thought about her. Her dark eyes filled the night, enormous and enigmatic.
The simple repetitious chores of daily life—lighting the fire, making a ten-word entry in the log book, tying a knot—became unsolvable puzzles. I stared dumbly at a rope or the empty page. When I was alone I talked to her. Aloud. Even around others I had to catch myself sometimes.
The next two afternoons I saw her in her dinghy, fumbling with the sails, just out of the shadow of the yacht. I hardly slept those nights. The third night I slept but woke up at dawn. The light soft; all calm. I felt much better. It was over. Back to normal. I thought of hauling the anchor chain onto the dock, checking it and repainting the fathom marks, a red stripe at ten fathoms, white at fifteen, two red at twenty, two white, and so on.
Four days later, when I sailed back from the islands, I almost killed her.
There was a rickety floathouse on logs anchored near the woods at the entrance of our bay. To sail up to my dock, I had to sail close to it, almost touching, then make a sharp turn into the wind and drift up to my float. Preoccupied with looking for her near the yacht, I didn’t see her little boat coming out from behind the floathouse. I almost ran her down. My boom slammed her shrouds and knocked her over. She clutched the gunwales, but had the good sense to leap to the high side to right her boat. There was fear in her eyes, even more beguiling than before. I veered hard short of the dock and had to go back out and try again. The yacht’s skiff rushed out and towed her home.
THE NEXT MORNING the cabin boy rowed over as soon as he saw me on deck. The lady sent profound apologies. He handed me an envelope with much too generous a payment for the half day’s work of rigging. Then, just as he pulled away, he looked up and said, “The lady would like to know if you could teach her how to sail.”
We began the next day at ten. I must say I owe God an immeasurable favor. Can you imagine being with her in a small boat, a sailboat she barely knew? Anywhere else I would have been at her mercy—on the street corner, I couldn’t think of a word to say—but here, it was my world. I knew every damned thing: a hundred names, a thousand tricks, how to get her into danger and how to get her out. In a sailing dinghy at sea, she was mine.
I rowed over with enormous pulls, then long glides—childish, I know—and reached the yacht in a dozen pulls, each so forceful that I almost ripped the oarlocks out of the wood. She arrived in a thin dress, no sleeves; just her bare arms glowing like some goddess statue in the sun. We pushed off.
There was no wind near the yacht, so I skulled with the rudder to get us away. “No broken masts today,” she said with a laugh.
“You never know until the day is over.”
When we were out of hearing distance of the yacht, I stopped. She was sitting on a narrow fore-and-aft seat to starboard, I in the stern-to-port at the helm. Her eyes were attentive.
“Everything on a sailboat has a particular name,” I said. “Do you know them?”
“Try me.”
“What’s this?”
“That’s the rope that you pull to tighten the little sail up in the pointy end.”
“Jib sheet.”
She laughed out loud. “You’re kidding.”
“No. Jib sheet.”
“What’s wrong with ‘the rope that you pull to tighten the little sail up in the pointy end’?”
“When we’re in a typhoon, and the mast is about to break and crush us, which do you think more likely to save our lives, me yelling: ‘Slack jib sheet!’ or ‘Would you mind unraveling the loops from the little horns and letting out a foot or so of the rope you pull to tighten the little sail in the pointy end?”
She laughed heartily. “Touché.”
“We’ll do the names another time,” I said. “Now. At sea only one thing counts: the wind. You always need to know where it’s coming from. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said, but looked as if the word “wind” had never crossed her mind.
“Where is it now? Can you tell?”
“There is no wind,” she said, after surveying the bay.
“There is almost always some. Land people don’t sense it, but there’s some.”
She looked at me with hurt and admiration. I turned away. “Look at the water there. It’s just a little darker. Not perfectly reflecting the light. A breath of air. Once you know what you’re looking for, you’ll find it.”
I thought she turned away from me, but she looked around and pointed with much enthusiasm. “And there.”
It was there, all right, a breath pushing a shadow over the sea.
“Very good,” I said. She turned back to me, basking in her triumph. I looked her in the eye. “Lift up your hair,” I said.
She blushed. Her long hair draped over her shoulders, and she touched it, slightly unsure. The gust of wind reached us then and tossed her hair like a veil across her face. “There’s a spot on your body,” I said softly. But she pushed the hair off her face and turned her head away. “The back of your neck. That’s the one spot that always feels the wind.”
She gathered her hair and raised it slightly, baring her shoulders. “More,” I said. “Lift it more.” It came out like an order, and she obeyed. The tide was ebbing, pushing us imperceptibly out to sea.
“Most people would give up now,” I said. “They’d get out the oars and row.”
“We have no oars,” she said.
“So we find the wind.”
She concentrated.
“Close your eyes.” An order. “Now, always thinking of the back of your neck, turn your head.” She did. “When you think you have it, turn it ever so little back and forth until you’re sure.”
“I have it,” she said.
I crouched past her to the mast, my leg brushing hers, pushing her dress above a knee. I hoisted the sail.
The wind strengthened. Tossed the boom, darkened the sea. We surged ahead. I slipped to the side. “You steer,” I said.
“Where?”
“Wherever you want to go.”
She held the tiller firmly and, with the wind behind us, headed out to sea. Then she said in deadly earnest, “Except China.”
It took me a while. “Nothing wrong with China.”
The wind and current pushed us out, but we turned into it and fought our way back, tacking and beating, tacking, beating, against the wind and sea.
FOR THE NEXT four days we sailed; starting later each day to catch the strengthening sea breeze. She learned fast. We concentrated, as if we knew we hadn’t much time. It helped to keep my mind from wandering, my eyes from looking at her. I inundated her with sailing terms; clew, tack, luff, leach, spreader, snatch block, gooseneck, gudgeon, pintle, and when I wanted to make her laugh: baggywrinkle. She learned every one. When I couldn’t avoid it, my bare arm pressed against her naked shoulder. I felt her stiffen but she didn’t move away.
By the third day, she was able to sense the movement of the waves. When we tacked or gybed, we moved together well, in harmony, without speaking. It was like sharing a well-kept secret; an intimacy. By then I knew. Wasn’t sure how, but I felt it from her lingering smiles, and by a brief moment, a defenseless look in her eyes. I had been explaining the need for a captain. “Sometimes you have to obey on faith,” I said without chiding. “There will be rogue waves, gusts, when you’ll have to trust me blindly.”
“I know that,” she said softly, without her brashness, her humor—the armor that had kept her safe all her life.
The last day it blew hard. As soon as we passed the point and headed toward the sea we took constant spray over the bow. Little by little we were soaked. She wore her hair tied up to free her neck but loose tufts were now plastered across her face. She steered flawlessly. A rogue wave burst and surged toward us and, without time to explain, I grabbed the tiller, her hand with it, and yanked it hard toward me to head us into it. I had pulled her off balance and she slid toward me, grabbed my arm, and fell against me. In
all that wind I felt her warm breath on my face. We stared, her eyes deeper than ever, a shadow of doubt around them. But her voice was tender, barely a sigh. “And then what?” she said.
I gybed the main, slacked the jib, and headed back into the bay. We didn’t speak. Where would we begin?
I had to sail to the Gulf Islands on the dawn tide.
WHEN I CAME back from the islands, I stayed aboard all day waiting for word from the yacht, or for her to sail up alone. But she was nowhere. By evening I hated her, hated her for not coming, hated her for not giving a sign, hated the hand she had put on mine while I held the tiller, hated her smile, her laughter that she must now be giving to someone else. She might be lying with him now, his hand on her, on her neck, in her hair, all the places where I had dreamt my hands to be. I rowed over.
It was past midnight, and the yacht was dark except for the anchor light dangling in the bow, the ports open in the warm night. I rowed along the portside, then back on the starboard, hoping to hear her. The next day I couldn’t stand it beyond ten. I rowed back to ask if she would like some more lessons, but was told by the cabin boy that Mr. and Mrs. Hay had gone inland for a few days.
That night I slept in peace.
The evening of the day she returned, there was a large gathering on the yacht. By sunset, the aft deck was crowded with well-dressed people. It had been so hot I had anchored out to catch a bit of breeze. I was close enough to them that I could see her clearly through the binoculars, her bare shoulders among the suits and gowns, smiling here, nodding there, laughing, reaching out and touching an arm fleetingly, but occasionally her smile faded and she glanced toward the ketch. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I rowed over to Hoffar’s to play cards with some fishermen on a crate on the docks. And lost. The yacht was dark and silent when I returned after midnight.
I slept restlessly in the cockpit until I was awoken by a thud. Stars filled the night; the mainmast loomed like a dark road among them. A sliver moon hovered near the horizon, with a fainter glow behind it where its darkness ended, and I watched, bewitched by that curve of light, when a pale, ghostlike shape swam suddenly before it. A sail. A small sail.
She moved awkwardly, trying to hold on to the caprail of the ketch with one hand, fending off the slowly weaving boom with the other. I could barely see her face until she looked up and the anchor lantern reached her with its glow. She looked thrilled having sailed in the dark, but it was mixed with a fragile, captivating fear.
I sat on the deck with my hand on the caprail barely touching hers. She stood there with her face close to mine. “I just came over to….” She fell silent and said softly, “I just came.”
As gently as I could, I held her head in my hand; felt her cheekbone, her hair, the bone around her eyes, the hollow of her temple, her heart beating there. With the heel of my palm I touched the corner of her lips, and she closed her eyes and tilted her head, let it weigh in my hand.
We stayed unmoving for a long time. When she raised her eyes, they sparkled with tears.
AFTER A WHILE she said, “I’d better go. Someone might notice that the sail has stopped moving.”
I swung my legs out over the gunwale.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m coming with you. Move over.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“As long as the sail is moving, no one will see me in the dark.”
She remained silent.
“I’ll sit on the floorboards if you’re afraid.”
“It isn’t just that,” she said.
“What, then?”
Instead of answering, she looked away.
A sudden anger filled me. “Then why did you come?”
She turned back to me, her face confused. “I don’t have to justify everything,” she said. “It’s my boat.”
“But I’m its captain. Now shut up and move over. And why don’t you learn to button your blouse.” She had miss-buttoned at the bottom and skipped another at the top.
She gave a nervous laugh, and moved toward the stern. “I almost came in my pajamas,” she said.
I pushed us away from the ketch.
“Sit down before you tip us,” I said.
“Yes, Captain.”
The breeze filled the sail and the dinghy heeled so I had to crouch quickly onto the floorboards at her feet.
“Spread your legs.”
“What does—”
“I have to sit somewhere; just shut up and spread your legs.”
She spread her knees but only enough to give me room to sit and lean back barely past them. I put my hand over hers on the tiller to head us up into the puff of wind.
“I like it when you tell me to shut up,” she said softly.
“Good. Then do it. And watch where you’re steering.”
We were beating away from the ketch and the yacht—tacked twice unnecessarily to give whoever might be watching a good show—and headed toward the far tip of the bay, where the great firs blocked the moonlight, darkening the sea. In their lee, the wind softened and we ghosted in the dark. The sail shook; the wind was on the bow—we were in irons.
She slowly eased the muscles of her thighs and let me lean back. I felt her breath on the side of my face; then her lips touched my cheek—hesitant, like a child stealing a kiss. Then she drew back. I took her hand from the tiller and kissed the delicate skin of her wrist. I pushed up her skirt and kissed the long hollow on the inside of her knee. She ran her hand across my neck, wrapped her fingers around my throat, and pressed. “I could kill you.”
I bit her thigh. She cried out softly. Her mouth ran across my neck, kissing and biting hard into the muscle of my shoulder, higher in the back, into the nape, where the Kwakiutl say the soul resides.
I turned. She leaned away but kept her arms around me. I could only see her teeth, the whites of her eyes, and her white blouse. I unbuttoned it. She lowered her forehead onto mine.
I kissed the sweat from the bone between her breasts, kissed her breasts, her stomach, then pulled her skirt up to her hips. She was naked under it.
“You…” I said.
“Me,” she whispered.
I pushed her back against the transom, raised her knee, and kissed and bit the topmost part of her thigh.
“Damn you,” she murmured.
“Damn you.”
“Oh, shut up.”
THE MOON HAD already set when I sailed us back toward the ketch. She was down on the floorboards, with her head in my lap, her legs curled up like a cat, her skirt hiked high, and her white breast and naked shoulders pale in the darkness. She slept with long, even breaths. I pulled down her skirt and covered her with her blouse to keep her warm.
I could have stayed in that dinghy all my life.
I SATON the caprail of the ketch and held the dinghy’s shroud. She stood in the dinghy, did up her buttons, then tried to press the creases in her skirt with her hands. “Look at me,” she said. “I look like I’ve been run over by a train.” Then she slowly and patiently combed her hair with her fingers. “May I have a glass of water?” she said.
I reached down to help her aboard but she shook her head; her eyes seemed to be looking far away.
“I better not,” she said.
She drank, holding on to the shroud for balance, then handed me back the glass. She took my hand from the shroud, kissed it, and then put it against her face just as it had been when the night began. Then she lowered it and, as I turned to put the glass on the deck, she let it go. By the time I turned back, she had pushed the dinghy off. She sat and filled the sail, eased the sheets to get up some speed, then hauled in and accelerated as she sailed around my stern.
“What time for the lesson tomorrow?” I said in a loud whisper.
A block squeaked as she let out her sheet and began a dead run toward the yacht before her reply came out of the darkness. “He doesn’t want me to see you again.”
The eastern sky had a thin blush of dawn. The yacht
, dark except for the anchor light, stood black and immobile against it. On its aft deck, a small flame flashed then ebbed and flashed again, as a match does when someone is trying to light a pipe.
KATE
The Wilderness
I feel myself less than a beast, without dreams or aspirations. I don’t need sleep and I don’t care if I never eat again, all I want is to be warm once more in life. I sit in the canoe and shudder. I feel colder inside than out. I can’t help but wonder if it is really only the cold. I should be afraid of what they might do to me, especially the young one with the icy eyes, but I’m too cold to care. I believe in fate, or God, or whatever it is that does these things to you. I longed for you but I got him instead. I wonder if it’s too late to make amends; if I promise to be good forever, would the world let me go home and just stay by the fire? The sun is coming up; at least it will warm my face. What wilderness and silence all around me. It is as quiet as a graveyard.
5
CHINATOWN
Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey.
—Chinese Proverb
By the time I woke up, the stove had gone cold and the fog hung dark over the skylight. I counted the bills from the envelope Hopkins had left—I hadn’t seen that much money in a long time. There was also a note about a passenger: Katherine Hay’s husband was coming along.
I went to look for Nello.
In the gloomy alley, the smitty’s fire glowed, and lantern light came from the cobbler’s shack. The door to the shop of the frail Welsh beauty was ajar, and she sat by the fire knitting sweaters as thick as armor. And the Gypsy woman, who patched and darned, came out and hung a lantern on her sign, and beckoned to read my palm, always the same: I would live and be in love forever.