My Last Continent

by Midge Raymond

  “I really wanted that, years ago,” he says, “and I don’t know—maybe a part of me still does. Children are so ­hopeful. Ally was all future because she had no past. And after she died, the notion that I might be able to see the world through innocent eyes again was pretty tempting.”

  I lean close and kiss him. Then I say, “I want to give you something.”

  I return a moment later with a penguin tag from my early days of graduate school in Argentina. I hand it to him—a thick piece of metal about the size of his thumb, shaped like a melting triangle. Six numbers are on one side, and the other side has the address of the research station where I used to work.

  Keller turns it over in his hands as if it were as priceless as a Fabergé egg. “Punta Tombo,” he reads from its back.

  “I’ve had this tag for fifteen years,” I say. “It’s from the Magellanic colony in Argentina, in Chubut Province. Where I met my first penguin.”

  “Do you know the one this belonged to?”

  I nod.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. When you have a tag without the penguin, it’s never a good story.

  “I saw dozens of tags when I was down there, but I’ve kept this one as a reminder. That the birds aren’t just numbers.”

  I take a deep breath. I hope he’s listening between the lines, hearing what I’m saying as an apology, of sorts—for what happened on our last voyage, for my wanting more than he can give. “Anyway,” I continue, “you’re the only person I know who can understand.”

  He lifts my face toward his and kisses me. “Thank you.” He looks back at the tag between his fingers. “I’d love to hear about the bird who wore this.”

  I rest my head on his shoulder. “I’ll tell you about her over a beer on the Cormorant.”

  He holds the tag up toward the light, and we look at all its scars—its numbers and letters, its scuffs and scratches—and I sense he’s thinking, as I am, of these tags and their long and mysterious journeys, from the hands of researchers to the left flipper of a penguin, to the hundreds of miles of seas where they forage for food, and, finally, to the sloppy wet deck of a fishing boat, before they make their way back to where they came from, completing a full and tragic circle.

  THREE DAYS BEFORE SHIPWRECK

  Whalers Bay, Deception Island

  (62°59'S, 60°34'W)

  The first time I saw Deception Island, I thought I’d been struck color-blind. Under a steel-hued sky, the landscape is all gray, black, and white, with streaks of snow melted into the sharp, serrated black hills that form a horseshoe around Whalers Bay. As the Cormorant passes though Neptune’s Bellows—a passage so narrow that most early seafarers missed it, giving Deception Island its name—her white-and-blue reflection bounces off the dark mirror of greenish black water. The island is awash in varying shades of light and dark, the only color coming from human sources: the ship, the bright red parkas crowding the main deck.

  As we prepare for our landing, thoughts of what to do with the news I received from Susan run through my head. Of how to tell Keller. It now feels stranger than ever that he’s not here with me, and I’m counting the days in my head, my thoughts skipping ahead to when there’s a possibility, however remote, that I’ll see him again.

  I certainly can’t e-mail news like this, but I dread another awkward ship-to-ship phone call, afraid of what I’ll hear in his voice when I tell him—that this news may be not welcome but instead a painful memory of all that he’s lost.

  I think of the emperors, the devoted males who guard the eggs—this is Keller. The depth of his devotion would equal that of the birds, while I’ve avoided motherhood. But nature has a way of surprising us, of overpowering us, of reminding us that, no matter what we believe and no matter how hard we try, we’re not in control after all.

  Thom and I direct passengers into a Zodiac, which I then maneuver across the expansive, colorless bay toward the island, easing through the sunken, watery caldera of the peninsula’s most active volcano. The penguins don’t build nests here, on the unstable black volcanic sand, and their absence gives me a lonely feeling as I pilot the Zodiac toward the beach. When we’re close, I hop out and drag the boat onto dry sand.

  It occurs to me, for a split second, that maybe I shouldn’t be doing this, that Susan had told me to take it easy. But I can’t slack off on work without drawing attention to myself. I haven’t confided in anyone—not even Amy or Thom—and I’m not about to tell Glenn.

  Steam rises from the sand as I help passengers from the Zodiac. Behind them is the dark, glimmering jewel of the bay; in front, yards of black sand stretch out before the zebra-­striped hills. With no penguin colonies on this side of the island, we let passengers wander on their own, and I watch them make their way from the beach toward a shantytown of enormous oil containers and abandoned buildings—relics of the Antarctic whaling industry—so old and suffused with rust that they blend into the lava-blackened cliffs behind them. This reminder of whaling’s gruesome past makes me shudder: the whalers removing the blubber on the ships, then bringing the remainder of the bodies to shore, where they’d boil them down to get every last bit of oil. And the whaling industry isn’t even history—though the International Whaling Commission banned whaling in 1986, the Japanese have continued hunting in the Southern Ocean, killing minke and fin and even endangered sei whales under the guise of “research,” even though they haven’t published a paper in years and continue to sell the whale meat commercially.

  Thom arrives in a second Zodiac with more tourists and our ship’s historian, an older British guy named Nigel Dawson. As if sensing my mood, Thom asks Nigel to begin a tour, then hands me a shovel and offers to ferry the tourists back and forth as I get to work. I walk down the beach, away from our landing spot, and start to dig. The water under the rocky sand is hot-tub temperature, and one of the highlights for our passengers is taking a dip in Antarctica, even though our reservoir will be large enough for only three or four bodies at a time.

  The sand is wet and heavy; it’s like shoveling deep snow, and I pause to catch my breath. The water pooling in the shallow basin is somewhere around 110 degrees, and though we won’t dig more than two feet deep, my arms are already beginning to ache. When Thom returns to the beach and offers to trade places, I don’t hesitate to hand over the shovel.

  As I walk along the shoreline, taking advantage of a few moments to myself, I notice that couple, Kate and Richard. They’re standing several yards away, near one of the abandoned oil containers, and it looks as though they’re arguing again. Then Kate stalks off toward the water, and Richard turns and heads the opposite way. I study them as I would a pair of birds—not because I’ve never seen an unhappy couple on a cruise but because I assume they’re continuing the same conversation as before, about starting a family. Penguins cannot successfully raise a chick alone; they need each other, or the chick will perish. With humans, child rearing is infinitely more complex and yet still so black and white. There’s no such thing as compromise, as having half a child—it’s all or nothing.

  Turning back toward the bay, I glimpse the round black back of a penguin as it swims by, revealing its white belly when it streaks out of the water. I keep my eyes on it as it porpoises along, and I don’t notice that Kate is next to me until she speaks.

  “So there are no penguins on this island?” she asks.

  I turn toward her. “Not right here. There’s a big chinstrap colony on Baily Head, over on the eastern side.”

  “It’s probably for the best,” she says with a sheepish smile. “I assume Thom told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “During the tour the other day, I wandered off,” she says. “I sat down near the beach, and a penguin came up to me. It seemed really friendly, so—I reached out to pet it.”

  I shake my head. “You could’ve gotten a nasty bite.”

  “I know. Thom read me the riot
act.”

  “Maybe you should stick with the group next time.”

  “I know,” she says, then adds, “It just felt so nice to get away.”

  “Get away? You don’t get any farther away than here.”

  “I meant, from all the people,” she says. “It’s ironic—you’re down here in the middle of nowhere, but you’re still surrounded by people.”

  “That’s the nature of a cruise.”

  “How do you deal with it?” she asks.

  “I drink,” I say, only half-joking. Keller and I always used to share a drink at the end of a long day, but without him here I haven’t had a drop. Then it hits me, as it keeps hitting me—I can’t drink. I’m pregnant.

  Kate smiles. “That seems to be Richard’s solution, too, these days. At home, he usually doesn’t drink at all. It’s fun to see him get tipsy. Loosen up a bit.”

  “That’s what vacation’s for, right?” I say.

  “I guess.”

  I look at her. “Aren’t you having a good time?”

  “Sure I am,” she says. “We both are. It’s just—it would be nice to have a little space sometimes.”

  “Any particular reason?” Normally, I wouldn’t engage her like this, but she clearly wants to talk. And I’m curious about how a couple deals with the fact that one person wants a baby and the other doesn’t.

  “We’re so fortunate, it’s embarrassing to even hear myself complain. My husband sold his business, and now that he’s retired, he wants to start a family. Simple, right?”

  “Not necessarily,” I say.

  “I’m not sure he should’ve retired so young,” Kate continues. “He’s a workaholic, which isn’t really so bad—I admire his work ethic, all that he’s accomplished. But when it came to getting away, taking a break, I always had to drag him out of the office. And now he faces a lifetime vacation. I’ve never seen him so restless.”

  “Why’d he retire if he likes to work?”

  “It’s more like he can’t stand still,” she says. “The ink had hardly dried on the deal before he signed up for rock climbing, surfing lessons—all these things I don’t have time for, since I’m still working. So he says, ‘I know what we can do together. Let’s make a baby.’ ”

  “Is that what you want, too?”

  “I just wish I had more time,” she says. “I would never tell him this, but part of me wishes his business hadn’t sold. He worked so hard for it—we both did—but I have a feeling it all happened too soon. That we’re just not ready.”

  “What do you do for work?”

  She waves her hand as if to brush off a pesky gnat. “Oh, I’m in marketing. For a beverage company in San Diego. They make organic kombucha, juices with chia, stuff like that.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “It’s okay,” she says. “I don’t know, maybe having a ridiculously successful husband makes a girl feel inadequate. I’ve bounced around a lot, work-wise, mostly because I love to travel. Maybe it’s because I have no idea what else I’d do if I ever had to get serious about just one thing.” She looks down at the sand, digging into it with the toe of her rubber boot. “Maybe what bothers me most about Richard’s rush to have a baby is that I feel like we’re not enough anymore—you know, just the two of us. Like I’m not enough anymore.”

  She turns to watch a few passengers walk past. “I’m the only woman I know without kids. Some of my friends have kept working, some haven’t—but I’m just not a part of their lives anymore. It’s not their fault—they probably don’t think to invite me to every toddler’s birthday party, but those are the only times they get together, which means I never see them. And to them it’s so normal, so I feel like I must be the crazy one. You know? Because even though I feel left out most of the time, I still can’t picture my life like that.”

  She stops then and turns to me. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I should’ve asked. Do you have children?”

  “Me? No.” I feel my face flush with heat.

  “I guess you can’t exactly put them in a stroller and take them on the landings, can you?”

  “No. You can’t.”

  “So how did you get interested in penguins?” She suddenly seems eager to change the subject.

  “I’ve always loved animals.”

  Kate smiles. “Don’t we all. Even Richard, who claims not to like our cat, secretly does. I always catch him scratching her under the chin when he thinks I’m not looking. But pets are different from penguins.”

  “I suppose I gravitated toward penguins because they’re so dapper and good-looking—what’s not to like? And then, in junior high, I learned about this Japanese company that wanted to harvest penguins in Argentina for gloves. This’ll tell you how naïve I was, but I couldn’t believe people could do such a thing to penguins. To any animal. It was actually the first time I’d made the connection between the animals I loved and where my shoes came from.”

  “They actually make shoes from penguins?” Kate looks stricken.

  “No,” I say. “But really, how’s that different from using snakes or alligators? Just because they’re not as cute?”

  “Definitely,” she says with a laugh.

  “What about calfskin, or sheepskin?”

  “I see your point. I guess I haven’t really thought about it.” Then she asks, almost tentatively, “So what happened to that colony in Argentina?”

  “Fortunately, enough people fought to save the penguins, and now the colony is part of a research station and tourist center. I worked there when I was in grad school.”

  “So how’d you end up in Antarctica?”

  “I wanted to learn more about other species,” I say, “and I suppose I also wanted to keep going south.”

  “You like to travel?”

  “It’s not that, really. My family—we didn’t do much traveling. Not together, at least. The first time I got on a plane, I was on my way out west for graduate school. I was twenty-two years old.”

  Kate’s eyes widen. “And look at you now.”

  “I’m not that well traveled. I just go where the birds are.” I’ve surprised myself by talking so much, and I gesture toward the long, shallow hole in the sand near the water. “So are you going to take a dip?”

  “I guess I should,” she says. “It’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?”

  We part ways, and I amble along the beach in the opposite direction. After gaining some distance, I turn back toward the hot tub, where Kate is stripping off her winter clothes, down to a bikini and a pair of sneakers, which we recommend swimmers wear for comfort on the hot sand.

  Kate lowers herself into the pool, which is just deep enough to cover her as she stretches out horizontally, her hands propping her up from behind, her legs extended in front of her. She begins chatting with another passenger, and I wonder whether she’s telling her new companion all the same things she was just telling me. But she’s acting different than she had with me; her sentences are short, her smiles brief. She’s closed off again, and I consider what it was that made her open up to me, of all people. Maybe we’re more alike than I realize; maybe, like me, she’s always been the type who’s had more books in her life than friends.

  To say I wasn’t popular in school is an understatement as vast as the Ross Ice Shelf. Even my home life was quiet—my father, the one I was closest to as a child, traveled for work, or so I’d thought at the time; my older brother, Mark, kept busy with sports and friends when he wasn’t trying to fill my father’s shoes. My mother was in her own world—lost in prayer, or obsessively cleaning the house. Whenever Mark or I were home, she admonished us for leaving water spots in the bathroom sink, or footprints on the newly vacuumed carpet. Mark wasn’t around as often, but I spent my time skimming around the edges of rooms, ghostlike, hoping to remain unseen. When the weather was warm enough, I stole away to the tree
house my father had built years earlier for Mark, who’d since abandoned it. It was my favorite place to read, and the bird feeders I hung on nearby branches fed the cardinals and sparrows as well as the fox squirrels.

  I did enjoy school, in a nerdy sort of way—I embraced Science Club and the library’s book club rather than sports or social events. And it wasn’t until my junior year in high school that I finally made a good friend, Alec. It happened after he’d been seen kissing a guy in a car somewhere in the Central West End; back then, Clayton, Missouri, wasn’t ready for that sort of scandal. His conservative parents almost sent him to one of those so-called reform schools for him to be “cured,” but the guidance counselor at school managed to talk them out of it.

  I saw Alec sitting alone in the cafeteria a few days later, and I sat down next to him. He gave me a weary look and said, “What do you want?”

  “Fuck ’em,” I said. “One day you’ll leave here and none of this will matter. We both will.”

  On weekends Alec and I would park over by the airport to watch the planes take off and land. When his popularity rebounded after everyone mellowed out, Alec enveloped me into his circle of friends, and he made my last two years of high school more bearable—weekends at Cardinals games, nights at the Steak ’n Shake, jogging in Shaw Park. After graduation he moved to New York. We’re still close, though we rarely have an opportunity to see each other. I’ve always admired Alec for living the life he’d dreamed of having. He married his partner of four years, a poet he’d met through the publishing house where he worked, and eventually moved to the suburbs with his husband and their two adopted daughters.

  About thirty feet away, I notice a Zodiac heading toward the shore, piloted by an orange-jacketed crew member I don’t recognize. I think of the Australis and reach for my radio—no more than one tourist vessel is allowed to come ashore at a time, and whoever this is will have to back off—but as I’m about to call Glenn, I stop. There’s something familiar about the driver, and I start walking toward the landing, holding my breath.