by James, Ella
Fuck me.
I don’t know what to tell them. “No” makes me sound like a dick, and “yes” means I’ll end up trending on Twitter.
I sit up and rub the shoulder. Useless. Without my usual concoction keeping me numb, the fucker hurts every time I breathe. My Sox trainers pushed for surgery before this trip, but my med team pushed back. Of course they did.
I lie back down and shut my eyes and focus on my breathing. In and out…and in and out. Behind my eyelids, I see sunlight stretched in gold webs on the sand and on the underside of waves.
* * *
My phone’s alarm wakes me at 6:05 after one snooze. I throw some clothes on, climb the stairs on legs that shake, and step onto the deck, stopping as a soft breeze feathers my hair back. Fog settled sometime overnight, blanketing the ocean in a haze that’s tinted sepia by the rising sun. It’s so thick I can barely see beyond the deck’s rail.
I know I should haul ass to the dining room, but we’re close to the island now. I can’t resist climbing up onto the deck atop the nav post. The damp stairs squeak under my shoes as I hasten my steps. The stair rail is cool under my palm. I step onto the upper deck, feeling my pulse quicken at the thought of being here again. At that moment, a breeze pushes the fog aside, revealing a sight that I haven’t seen since I was six: Tristan da Cunha—a massive chunk of dark brown rock that rises to a cloud-swathed peak.
Of all the islands in the world, this one is the most remote—the most isolated patch of land where humans live. These thirty-eight square miles of land are 1,700 miles from South Africa and 2,000 miles from South America. With no airport and no safe harbor for large ships, no GPS or cell phone towers, people here live cut off from the world. Mail comes every two to three months, the birth of a baby is a rare occasion, and if someone has a medical emergency, it’s flag down one of the fishing vessels or cargo ships that travel back and forth from Cape Town to Antarctica and back, and hope it’s headed back.
My throat tightens as I squint at the island, searching the grassy valley at the foot of the volcano for cottages that I don’t see from here. Somewhere, maybe on the other side, there’s a little village. If the guidebooks are to be believed, there are just a dozen or so shy of three hundred people—fishermen and farmers, mostly descended from a handful of British.
I remember them packed in their church, their heads all bowed in prayer, some cheeks wet with tears. I can see the women clutching rosaries, the men pulling on jackets and stepping into boats. I remember the lights at night as boats arrived and departed. Each time they came back empty handed, more tears.
Despite the circumstances, Dad and I were welcomed right into the fold. I remember helping an old lady knead the dough for bread while my father went out in a boat and helped search. I remember all the misty rain. I shut my eyes, seeing Dad’s face when he stepped back onto the dock for the last time. His eyes were closed, but hers were open. That’s what I remember most. This little girl wrapped up in blankets, with a dirty, sunken face and ropes of tangled red hair. And weird eyes.
I remember how they stood out in her pale, grimy face. Unlike all the other eyes I saw, hers hadn’t leaked with tears. They seemed as depthless as the sea itself, and hot, almost like brownish-yellow fire. I think they stuck with me because I couldn’t pinpoint the emotion in them. Not for years.
A gull caws, bringing me back to the moment. I can hear the swish of waves against the boat, can feel the wet fog on my face.
I did it. I’m back here. I laugh. Genius or crazy?
I don’t have time to decide before someone slaps my back. I turn around and give the captain a smile. For the next hour, I’m Homer Carnegie—household name. I tell myself to buck the fuck up, try to act like the record-breaking Red Sox pitcher they expect. I sign everything from baseballs to a woman’s sports bra, telling jokes and answering a bunch of questions while the chef serves me two omelets I can’t taste.
“Thanks, man. Real good.”
I sign his apron, listen to someone’s account of a record I broke last summer. When I can, I steal away to have a smoke and hide my shaking hands.
I close my eyes and try to feel the warm sun on my face, but all I feel is pressure in my throat and chest, behind my eyes.
“Hey, dawg.” I look up and find one of the crew lighting his own smoke. I think his name is Chris. He’s kind of short and wiry, with brown hair hidden beneath a gray beanie. He’s another one of the American crew members. “Just want to tell you thanks. My kid loves the Sox. He’s gonna be so happy when he sees that ball.”
“Yeah—no problem, man.”
“If you don’t mind my asking…whatcha doing way out here, in the middle of the ocean?”
I smile tightly. “Here with the Carnegie Foundation. We’re laying new phone lines. Maybe internet, too, if we can find a way to make it work.”
He nods once. “Riding back to Cape Town with us?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn, that’s eleven weeks. I’m surprised you can be gone that long. Aren’t things firing up?”
I guess this guy’s an actual fan. I shrug. “I’ll miss some, but it’s a one-time thing.”
He nods. “Yeah. It’s cool you’re doing what you’re doing. It was nice to meet you.” He holds his hand out. I shake it, squeezing harder than I have to so he can’t feel my fingers shaking. “You’re an idol to so many. Don’t forget it.”
I give him a small smile and a nod, and, thankfully, he turns and goes downstairs.
I spend the next half hour packing up and helping haul wooden crates—full of supplies provided by the foundation—to the boat’s ledge. From there, they’ll be lowered in an elevator type of apparatus that’s hooked onto the boat’s side, and eased into a boat from Tristan.
Since the island’s coastline is mostly rocky cliffs, with just one tiny harbor, ships dock out about three hundred yards, and islanders come out in small boats to get visitors like myself.
Morning crawls toward noon. The fog burns off, and I can see the island more clearly. Is that a seal? Fuck, there’s a bunch of seals or sea lions on the cliffs. I reach for my phone, snapping a few shots. I remember those guys.
Finally, I spot the smaller boat—a nickel-sized brown dot moving from the island toward Miss Aquarius. The crew shuffles around me. I step closer to the rail, stopped short by a hard lump in my throat.
Meanwhile, two crewmembers go overboard on rope ladders to attach the smaller boat from Tristan to the side of this one. After that, the crates are slowly lowered.
I fill out some departure forms, toss my pack over my shoulder, and move to the boat’s edge, where my gaze falls down a rope ladder to the waiting boat. It’s pretty small, maybe even smaller than a cabin cruiser—the smallest of all yachts—and looks like it’s powered by a single motor on the back. I’m watching two guys strap down the crates when the captain’s voice startles me.
“Pack off,” he says. “We’ll lower it. Just climb down and you’ll be on your way.”
Then I’m over the boat’s side, clinging to the ladder as I inhale salt and brine and the scent of wet rope. I can feel the dim sun on my shoulders, the boat’s slight rocking underneath my boots. One rung at a time, and I can see the sea shifting between my moving feet. Then I step into the boat and turn to greet my island escorts—two ordinary-looking, middle-aged men in ordinary, working-class clothes. One—in a pair of oil-smudged coveralls—reaches to shake my hand as the other tips his ball cap.
“Homer Carnegie,” the hat-tipper says, as the hand-shaker says, “I’m Rob.”
“Mark,” the one with the cap says. “You got everything?” His face is creased with sun-lines, and his pale brown eyes are kind.
“Once you’re here, you’re here to stay,” Rob chuckles.
I nod. “Good for it.”
Rob nods to the wooden bench behind me. “Have a seat.”
I sit, the motor rumbles, and we’re off.
The sea looks like a sheet of black glass as we zip ove
r it. A fine spray arches up on each side of the boat, dotting my arms and cheeks with cool water. The breeze lifts my hair off my head as we move along the island’s rocky coast.
I look up at the grassy cliffs with eyes that sting. From down here on the surface of the water, I can’t see the valley that covers most of one side of the island; Tristan da Cunha simply looks like grass-covered cliffs that stretch to an unseen plateau.
I’m wondering where the boat will land when its nose points slightly inland, toward the cliffs, and I see…yeah, that’s penguins. A bunch of little dudes on a low-lying, flatter-looking rockface, hopping up and down and doing penguin shit. As we pass by, I swear one looks right at me. A cold sweat flushes my skin, but I shake my head and laugh and rub my hands together.
I’ll feel better by the time I leave this place, if everything goes right. Until then, penguins.
We curve around the island’s edge, and finally I see it—Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, the long name of the little village I remember.
From here, it looks like a smattering of brightly colored buildings in the shadow of a mountain. Fuck—it looks like almost nothing.
I wrap a hand around the top of my pack, take a deep breath. I rub my forehead. Christ.
We’re headed toward the jagged shoreline, which has dipped down lower, rising only ten or fifteen above the crashing waves. I tighten my grip on my pack and try to look alive when Mark glances at me.
Soon the motor’s noise softens, the boat slows slightly, its nose tipping up, and I see we’re coming up on the strange dock—two lines of cement jutting outward from the shore like two arms forming an almost-circle. Waves crash into them, shooting toward the sky in a wall of frothy white. As we edge closer, spray slaps my cheeks. I push a hand back through my now-wet hair and smile as my escorts grin back at me.
As we idle into the gap between the arms of the dock, the waves beneath the boat smooth out some, so we’re bobbing lightly. I can hear birds caw above us, smell the thick, salty air. A wave hits the dock behind us, and I see a flash of rainbow just ahead of the boat. I’m looking at it when I notice people standing at the shoreline—blurry figures through my wet eyelashes. They’re clearly here to greet us. To greet me.
Fuck, I’m really here again. And suddenly I feel like I can breathe.
* * *
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