“Me, neither,” he says.
I let my eyes fall shut again. It’s not often anymore that my mind wanders toward Dennis, but right now, it goes straight back. I’m always surprised by how, even after all this time, it can feel like only days ago.
There’d been an investigation, of course, an autopsy, more questions than I knew how to handle. The worst was the media. News of the investigation had leaked out—everything from the fact that Dennis and I had spent the night together to details on his drowning. I think the family hoped, and I certainly did, that Dennis’s death would’ve been kept as private as possible—but when something happens in Antarctica, it’s newsworthy by default. Everyone knew, from my colleagues at the university to the tourists on the new season’s trips south. The investigation ruled Dennis’s death a suicide; the tour company and everyone involved, including me, were officially off the hook.
I still have his ring, the wedding band he’d tried so hard to lose. I’ve kept it hidden away in a small box at the top of my closet with a few other valuables. No one had ever asked about it. When I saw pictures of his wife in the news, I convinced myself that, by being there with him during his last hours, I had more right to keep it than she ever would, since she’d been off with someone else when he died.
I drift away to sleep, and the next thing I know, I’m awakened by an announcement from the pilot. I open my eyes and see Keller’s confused face. When I hear the sighs and groans of everyone in the cabin, I know what the news is—the plane is turning around.
“What’s a boomerang?” Keller asks.
“Bad weather at the station,” I explain. “If the plane can’t land at McMurdo, the pilot has to turn around.”
He nods. We don’t speak again, and we go our separate ways when we land back in Christchurch. When I arrive at the Antarctic Program passenger terminal the next day, I don’t see him. But then, soon after I board, I feel someone sink into the seat next to mine, and there he is.
“We meet again,” he says.
All around us, passengers are pulling their parka hoods over their heads and faces, preparing to sleep, and I offer Keller a brief smile and then do the same, closing my eyes quickly so I don’t have to look at him, so he won’t keep talking to me.
The only problem is, I can see his face even with my eyes closed.
I remain awake, aware of Keller beside me, of his arm lightly brushing mine as he reaches into one of his bags, as he opens a book to read. I don’t know how much time passes until I feel movement next to me again, what I think is the motion of Keller leaning his head back against the netting behind us.
Finally I succumb to sleep—there is little else to do on these flights—and wake to a dull pain in my neck. I’ve slouched over in my seat, my head resting on Keller’s shoulder.
I straighten up, mumbling an apology. Then I notice that he looks very pale. The LC-130 is heaving and pitching in the sky. “I don’t remember it being this bad the last time,” he says.
“We didn’t make it this far last time. It’s often like this when we get close.”
I watch his face, just a hint of tension under the stubble of his jaw, and when he gives me a sheepish grin, I notice that his brown eyes are streaked through with a color that reminds me of the algae veining the snow on the peninsula islands—a muted, cloudy green.
There are no armrests on an LC-130, nowhere to put your hands during a stressful landing. Keller is gripping his knees, his knuckles white. Biting back a smile, I reach over to pat his hand in a there, there sort of gesture, and I’m surprised when he turns his palm upward to clasp mine.
There’s not really any such thing as a routine landing at McMurdo, and by the time we approach the ice-hardened runway, the storm has whipped up whiteout conditions. The pilot circles several times in an attempt to wait out the weather, but eventually he must descend. When the plane touches its skis down on the ice, a sudden gust of wind seems to take hold of its tail, spinning it across the runway and nose-first into a fresh bank of snow.
But the plane holds together, as do Keller and I, our hands still clasped. After the plane stops moving, we let go at the same time. I try to ignore the fact that I hadn’t been ready to let go. That a man’s hand in mine, after so long, had felt good.
With Keller behind me, I step through the hatch, down the half dozen steps to the ice. The air hitting my face is so cold it stings, the whirling snow a blinding white. As I put my hand up to shield my eyes, I see the Terra Bus that will transport us to the station from the runway. The bus is even more cramped than the plane, and after boarding I don’t see Keller among the parkas, hats, and luggage stuffed inside. Fifteen minutes later, the station comes into view through the bus’s small, square windows.
With its bare industrial buildings, McMurdo looks like an ugly desert town whose landscape is drab and brown at the height of the austral summer and so white in the winter that you don’t know which way is up. On clear days, Mt. Erebus is visible in the distance, steam rising from its volcanic top, and later in the season, when the sun finally begins to set, the mountain looks as if it’s on fire.
I’m stretching my legs, taking it all in, when I notice Keller watching me.
“I was thinking,” he says. “Maybe I could shadow you out there one day? See the colony firsthand.”
I tell him, “Maybe,” both charmed by his interest and a bit wary of it.
We’ve been assigned to different dorms and say quick good-byes before going our separate ways. We don’t make plans to see each other, but I know I’ll eventually bump into him around the station, in the cafeteria. At McMurdo, during the busy season, you can’t avoid people even if you want to.
Yet I don’t see him again until two days later, when I’m heading out for my fieldwork and find him standing outside the Mechanical Equipment Center, wearing a jacket that looks too light for the temperature and that same red bandanna tied around his neck like a scarf.
“Hey,” Keller says in greeting as I approach the building. “Are you heading to the Garrard colony?”
“That’s right.”
“Is this a good time for me to tag along?” he asks.
I look at him, wondering how serious he really is about learning about the penguins. “Don’t you have dishes to wash?”
“Not until tonight,” he says.
“Why don’t you spend some time getting the lay of the land?” I suggest. “You could visit Scott’s hut—it’s a nice walk from here.”
“Already tried,” he says. “It’s closed for renovations. Indefinitely, they told me. What are they doing in there, anyway? Adding indoor plumbing? Central heating?”
I can’t help but smile.
“I promise I won’t get in your way,” he says.
I glance toward the MEC building, then back at Keller. “Have you been trained on the snowmobiles?”
He shakes his head. “Not yet.”
Which means if he comes along, he’ll need to ride with me. There’s just enough room for two on the Ski-Doo, and I don’t carry many supplies for day trips: a counter, field notebook, water, pee bottle and plastic bags, and a survival kit, all tucked into a compartment of the snowmobile.
“I’m not on a schedule,” I warn him. “I can’t drive you all the way back here so you can be on time for your shift.”
He grins. “You scientists. No respect for the workingman.”
I give him a look, but he’s still smiling. “What’re they going to do, fire me?”
“Probably.”
He only shrugs. “Look, I may not know a lot about penguins yet,” he says, “but I could be a great assistant.”
I’m not sure I need an assistant, but I consider it anyway. There’s a lot of data to collect, and he could be helpful—as long as I don’t have to spend my time picking up after him or fixing his mistakes. At least he knows about the colony, which is
something. A decade earlier, a gigantic iceberg calved off the Ross Ice Shelf and blocked the penguins’ access to the ocean, their only source of food. They had to find a new path, which was more than twice as long. None of the chicks survived that season, and most of the adults starved. Once a fairly healthy colony, with thousands of breeding pairs, it had to start over—but it’s been recovering, growing slowly, and thanks to our five-year grant from the NSF, someone from the Antarctic Penguins Project travels down here to do the annual census. This year, it’s me.
“I guess I could use an extra hand,” I say. Keller’s smile is so genuine I can’t resist smiling back.
It’s a clear day, with lucent vanilla ice sandwiched between blue ocean and bluer sky. When we arrive at the colony, I set about my work, instructing Keller to either stay put and watch or follow my footsteps exactly so as not to disturb the molting birds.
“It’s called a catastrophic molt for a reason,” I tell him. Unlike most other birds, penguins molt their feathers all at once, rather than shed them gradually. The emperors’ molt happens over a month, a physically exhausting feat that uses up all their energy. The penguins, fattened up in preparation, look as though they’ve gotten bad haircuts, their brownish feathers sloughing off in a patchwork of fluff, the beautiful, sleek new feathers coming in underneath.
“Don’t do anything to cause them to move,” I say. “They need every bit of energy they’ve got.”
Keller nods and follows me, just as slowly and carefully as I’ve instructed. In addition to counting the birds—a job made easier by the fact that they’re molting and standing still—I slip quietly among them to inspect carcasses on the ground. The dead are mostly chicks, killed by starvation or skuas—the mean-beaked predators that feed off penguin eggs and dead chicks—but this means that at least the adults are making it back out to the ocean to feed.
It isn’t until later that afternoon, when I press my hand into an ache in my back, that Keller suggests we take a break. “You haven’t stopped once,” he says.
I look at my watch—it’s been five hours since we left the station. And it occurs to me that Keller hasn’t stopped either; he hasn’t gotten cold or tired or hungry.
“I always lose track of time out here,” I say, almost to myself.
He swings his slim backpack off his shoulder. “I brought lunch.”
“You go ahead,” I say.
“You forgot to bring food, didn’t you?”
“I don’t usually eat when I’m in the field.”
“I have enough for both of us,” he says. “Sit down.”
He shakes out a small, waterproof blanket, and we settle down about thirty yards away from the birds. I don’t bother looking at Keller’s food—vegans become accustomed to not sharing meals. It can be rare even to meet garden-variety vegetarians down here.
But Keller’s pack is filled with fruit and bread, with containers of leftover rice and beans and salad. “Seriously?” I ask.
“Rabbit food, I know,” he says, as if he’s had to defend his food a hundred times before. “It’s all I’ve got. Take it or leave it.”
I almost laugh with the sudden pleasure of this strange, simple thing—sitting with Keller on the ice, sharing a meal among the molting emperors, on a blindingly bright Antarctic day. It’s been so long since I’ve made a connection with someone else. I haven’t been with anyone since Dennis, and even after a year, it hasn’t been difficult; in fact, life’s been a lot simpler. Or maybe I’ve just managed to convince myself of that.
In science, in the natural world, things make sense. Animals act on instinct—of course, they have emotions, personalities; they can be cheeky or manipulative or surprising—but, unlike humans, they don’t cause intentional harm. Humans are a whole different story, and I learned at a young age that, in most people, meanness is more instinctual than kindness. I’d been a boyish kid—tall for my age, with cropped blond hair, a science geek. After being physically kicked out of the girls’ restroom in junior high by girls who were convinced I was a boy, I grew my hair halfway down my back. I wore it that long, usually braided, until just last year, when I chopped it to right below my chin—long enough to look like a female, since I never wear makeup, and to still be able to pull it back and out of the way.
“What is it?” Keller asks. “What’re you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” I say, and he hands me a fork.
“How long have you been with the APP?” he asks.
“About eight, nine years.” I take a bite of salad and rice. “And what about you? What did you do before entering the world of janitorial services?”
He shrugs. “Something a lot less interesting.”
There’s something closed off about the way he speaks, and I don’t ask him anything else. We finish eating, and I get back to work. Despite my earlier vow not to cater to Keller’s schedule, I get everything loaded back into the snowmobile in time to return to the base for his shift.
That night, I lie awake in bed for a long time, despite the exhaustion that sears the space behind my eyes. A lot of people have trouble sleeping at this time of year, thanks to nearly twenty-four-hour daylight, but I know this isn’t the reason.
The next day, Keller’s waiting for me at the MEC again, and he asks if he can help me count the birds.
“Did you bring me lunch?”
He nods.
“All right, then.”
At the colony, I spend more time observing Keller than counting the birds. I watch how carefully he moves among the penguins, clicking their numbers on my counter. I watch his eyes inspect every inch of the carcasses we kneel beside, as I explain how to identify the cause of death. “Only an autopsy can determine if their stomachs are empty,” I tell him, pointing at a thin, hollowed-out body, “but you can see here that this one was in really poor condition. Hardly any body fat at all.”
I become so absorbed in the work that I fail to notice the wind whipping up around us. It isn’t until I feel icy snow pelting my face that I look up and see that there’s no longer a delineation between ice and sky, that the world has gone white.
“Shit,” I say under my breath, and I radio the station. They’ve already restricted travel, and the winds are over fifty knots. We need to get back now.
I call out to Keller, and immediately he’s at my side, helping me load the snowmobile. Within a few minutes we’re ready to go—but the engine won’t start.
I try again, the engine grinding slowly but refusing to turn over.
“Dead battery?” Keller asks. He’s sitting right behind me, his mouth next to my ear, but I can hardly hear him over the wind.
“Could be,” I shout back. “But if it was, I probably wouldn’t get any juice at all.”
We dismount, and it’s then I realize that we don’t have time to troubleshoot, let alone to fix the vehicle. The wind is bracing, my hands so cold I can barely move them, even inside my gloves. When I glance back at Keller, only a few feet away, he’s a blur, his hat and parka coated with snow.
“We need to take shelter,” I say.
“Let me check the battery.”
“Forget it, Keller.” The driving snow is pricking my eyes. “Even if we fix it now, we’re not going to make it back.”
While Antarctic weather is notoriously capricious, I’m annoyed; I can’t believe I let the storm creep up on us this way. Keller is still going on about fixing the Ski-Doo as I pull our survival pack out of its hutch, and I turn and shove it into his chest. “You have no idea what this weather can do,” I shout over the wind. “Get the tent out. Now.”
There’s no time to dig ourselves a trench, which would be the best way to wait out the storm. As it is, we’re barely able to pitch the emergency tent and scurry inside. We’ve got just one extreme-weather sleeping bag and a fleece liner, and I spread them both out over us. Even if the tent weren’t so cramp
ed, the freezing air instinctively draws our bodies close, and without speaking we wrap ourselves up, pulling the fleece to cover us completely, including most of our faces. Despite the protection from the wind and our body heat, it’s probably no more than thirty degrees inside the tent.
“I bet this isn’t what you had in mind when you came to Antarctica,” I say, my voice muffled by the fleece.
“On the contrary,” he says. “This is exactly what I had in mind.”
I turn slightly toward him in the dim light.
“For God’s sake,” I say. “You’re not worried at all, are you?”
He moves his head slightly, and when he speaks I hear a smile in his voice. “I’m impervious to ice.”
This feeling he has—insane, illogical though it is—is one I understand. I’d felt similarly invincible once—at times, my life down here on the continent seemed surreal, a dreamworld in which whatever happened remained separate, protected from real life. It’s a notion that many who come here can relate to, but it lasts only for a brief time.
“You’ve read about the continent’s history, I take it?” I say. “You know how many bad things have happened here.”
“Plenty of miracles, too.”
“Is that what you’re hoping for?”
“Not really,” he says. He pauses, then adds, “Maybe.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know I’m not the first one who’s come here for a change of scenery. Midlife crisis sort of stuff.”
“Definitely not.”
“You wouldn’t have recognized me three years ago,” he says. “I was a lawyer. Married. Nice house outside of Boston. Everything most people want.”
“Everything my mother wanted for me, that’s for sure,” I say. “So what happened?”
A pause, and then he says, “The unthinkable happened.”
He goes quiet. I listen to the rhythm of our breathing, barely audible over the keening of the wind outside. I can tell he is still awake, and I ask, “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “You?”
My Last Continent Page 5