My Last Continent

by Midge Raymond

“You don’t want to stay,” she says. “You want penguins, not songbirds. What is it, a boyfriend?”

  I’ve been sleeping with a guy named Chad I’d met in a photography elective, but I’m not calling him a boyfriend. Not yet.

  “No,” I assure Pam. “Nothing like that.”

  “Great,” she says. “Then nothing’s stopping you.”

  “What if I like working with you?”

  “Get out of your comfort zone. That’s the first rule of making it as a researcher.”

  “And the second?”

  “You choose science,” she says, “or you choose family. Women don’t have the luxury of doing both.”

  Though she is my mentor, I don’t know a lot about Pam’s personal life. I know she is single and lives in a small house not far from campus; she bikes to work in almost any type of weather and, like me, usually works weekends and holidays. She doesn’t have pets because she travels to Central America to track the migration of the songbirds, and I once heard her refer to her graduate students as “my kids.”

  We get back to work, and later, when Pam returns to the car, I stay behind for a few minutes on the pretense of taking some more notes. I like the quiet out here, and when I’m all alone and very still, I can sense the ghosts of the Civil War battles; I glimpse deer passing delicately among the low branches, or a turtle sunning on a rock near the river. On campus I often feel lonely, left out. Here in the woods, there’s no such thing as loneliness, only quiet, and something like peace.

  WE’RE AT A winery in the tiny town of Rocheport—Chad and me, his friends Paul and Heather—less than half an hour from the university. The trees are on fire, bursting in shades of red and orange, and we’d arrived this afternoon, with enough light and warmth in the air to walk through the historic little town and around the vineyard, where we’d settled in to sample the wines.

  It was supposed to be an afternoon getaway, but now, having just opened a fourth bottle as the sun sets over the Missouri River in the valley below, I’m wondering when we’ll get back to Columbia. And, to my own surprise, I don’t really care.

  Chad and I have been sleeping together for about a month, and this is the first time we’ve gone anywhere beyond a mile of campus. Chad is a grad student in the print journalism program, a few years older than I am. We’d met in our photography class a couple months earlier, at the beginning of the semester. I’d registered for the class because it fulfilled an art requirement; he did it to learn enough to photograph his own stories. I was instantly drawn to his unshaven, dog-eared good looks; he doesn’t have the polished, preppy look and attitude so many of the undergraduate guys have. He’s smart and ambitious, which I like—and, as a budding journalist, he’s always picking fights with local politicians about things I care about, like logging in the Ozarks, though I sense for him it’s more about getting a good story than actually changing the world. Chad writes for the local newspaper, reporting on everything from city council meetings to local art lectures, and he’s been inviting me along to some of the cultural events—film screenings, dance performances, readings by visiting writers. Though I might insist to Pam that I don’t have a boyfriend, I’ve enjoyed the chance to experience a world outside of dirt and birds and sweat.

  Before Chad, my sex life had been limited to a boy from Science Club in high school and a few short-lived, drunken flings with fraternity guys. But with Chad, I discovered the liquid-body pleasures of sex, the addictive and all-consuming nature of it. Being desired was, for me, an unfamiliar sensation, an exhilarating one, and it didn’t matter that we didn’t have much of a relationship outside the bedroom. We’d see each other in class, and we’d go out on the occasional photo shoot together, and all of it led to the same place—the tiny room in his apartment, which he shares with two other grad students who are never around.

  And Rocheport, despite being a last-minute plan, feels like a step forward for Chad and me—spending the day with another couple, in a romantic spot. After class that morning, Chad had mentioned it casually, suggesting it might be a good place to get some photos—the river, the vineyard—and it would only take a few hours. I’d looked at him in the autumn morning light, wanting to touch the hair at the back of his neck, to feel the curve of his cheekbone under my fingertip, and within an hour we were climbing into the back of Paul’s car.

  It wasn’t long before I relaxed in a way I rarely allow myself, letting the day unfold, enjoying the unscripted moments. Chad’s arm around me as we walked through town. The effects of the wine, which smoothed away my concerns about having skipped a class that afternoon. The sensations of experiencing a part of life that I’ve never known and that was so remote it felt almost fictional—as if we were playing the roles of ourselves years into the future, grown-ups on a weekend getaway. And as the fourth bottle is opened and poured amid our laughter and slurring voices, I know we won’t be going home tonight.

  When Chad excuses himself to find the bathroom, I get up, too. Though I’ve only had a couple of glasses, I rarely drink and find myself wavering, grabbing his arm for support.

  “I take it we’re not going back tonight?” I say.

  “Yeah, no way Paul can drive,” he says with a laugh. “We’ll stay in town. It’s on me.”

  “So you planned it this way.” I squeeze his arm, pleased.

  He squeezes back. “It was Paul’s idea. Don’t tell Heather.”

  He hadn’t thought of me at all. I drop his arm. “I hope he doesn’t mind getting up early,” I say snappishly. “I have to be at work at six-thirty tomorrow.”

  He laughs again. “Don’t worry so much.” He puts his arm around me. “Let’s just have some fun.”

  Back at the table, Chad raises his glass toward mine, as if to make sure all is copacetic between us, and I clink my glass against his. By the time I finish the glass, my head is pleasantly spinning, and it no longer matters that this overnight wasn’t Chad’s idea; we’re here, together, and that’s enough.

  We make it back to town, where the guys had gotten rooms at an inn that used to be a schoolhouse. In the four-poster bed with Chad, I let go of all lingering thoughts; it’s just us and the soft cool sheets beneath our bodies, the slight creak of the bed as I take in the heat of his body and sink deeply into the warmth of my own. We’ve never spent a whole night together, and I soften into the curve of his arm before falling asleep.

  The next morning, I wake with a headache. Chad is sprawled on the other side of the bed, his back to me, and I doubt he’ll move for hours. It’s almost seven already, and my headache sharpens as I remember. Pam.

  There’s a phone on a little desk across the room, and I wrap myself in one of the inn’s robes as I dial Pam’s number, catching her in the office.

  “I’m in Rocheport,” I say, “but I’ll be on my way soon.”

  “Rocheport?” she repeats, and I can picture her expression as she figures it out—her research assistant, the one who insisted she didn’t have a boyfriend, missing work because she’s at the region’s most popular couples’ retreat.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Forget about it,” she says. “You’re there. Enjoy it.”

  “I didn’t expect to—”

  “Take a day off, Deb,” she says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And then she hangs up.

  I stare at the receiver in my hand for a long moment before putting it down.

  Chad has barely stirred. I put on yesterday’s clothes and go to the inn’s reception desk, thinking I’ll take a taxi back to Columbia. But once I’m there, I realize I don’t have money for a fifteen-mile cab ride, and even once I get back, I’ll have no way to get out to the Ozarks if Pam’s already left.

  It’s barely light outside, and I sit in the empty breakfast room with a cup of coffee. I cling to the mug, letting it warm my hands, staring into my wavy, dark reflection, trying to decipher what Pam said. Her
tone was the same as always—brisk, no-nonsense—but somehow I get the feeling I’ve disappointed her. Pam herself never takes a day off, at least as far as I can tell, and I worry she’s thinking what I’m thinking—that I should be out in the field instead of lounging around in a bed-and-breakfast with a man who still hasn’t earned the label of boyfriend.

  I’m not sure how long I sit there before someone pulls out the chair next to mine. “I was wondering where you’d gone,” Chad says.

  He still looks half-asleep, with his mussed hair and weighted eyelids. When a waitress walks by, he asks for coffee. I hadn’t noticed, but now there’s another couple sitting across the room, and yellow light is sluicing through the windows.

  “I’ve missed work,” I tell him. “I think my boss is pissed.”

  “Why didn’t you just call in sick?”

  I hadn’t even thought of that. “I shouldn’t have come here. This was a bad idea.”

  His coffee arrives, and he fills the mug with cream. Watching him, I try to make myself savor this moment, our first morning together, but I can’t.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asks.

  I push my mug away and straighten my back. “This has been fun,” I say.

  “Has been?” he asks, smiling. “Am I past tense now?”

  Despite myself, I smile back. “You call yourself a journalist? That’s not past tense. It’s present perfect.”

  “Thank God for editors,” he says with a laugh. “Okay, remind me—what does present perfect mean?”

  “It means a past action that remains an ongoing present action.”

  “You’re saying you’d like us to be ongoing?” he asks.

  I’m surprised; I’d been thinking only of preempting the inevitable. “Would you?”

  He’s still smiling, and as I look at his face, I remember the night he took me to see the Parsons Dance company, a modern dance troupe with a wildly creative use of light. The dancers had spiraled into darkness, then leapt into a beam of light, fluidly, as if made of water. And then, moments later, the effects of a strobe light held them in place, highlighting them in split-second poses—and as I think of how they moved across the stage, their bodies frozen in midair, it occurs to me that this is Chad and me, inching forward and yet motionless at the same time.

  He gets to his feet and says, “Sit tight. I’m going to check us out and then call a cab. Maybe you can salvage at least part of the day.”

  “Really?”

  Now standing behind me, he leans down. “Sure thing,” he says in my ear. With his lips, he traces my jawline to my mouth, giving me a kiss that asks for forgiveness, a kiss I return.

  As I wait for him, I sip my cold coffee and hear Pam’s voice in my head, and I wonder whether love and science are incompatible after all. I’d embraced her philosophy because I’ve mostly had only work. Now, through Pam, I can see who I might one day become, and I want to prove her wrong, to find a way to have both.

  The Gullet

  (67°10'S, 67°38'W)

  Freshwater freezes at thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, but seawater has to be colder. Depending on the salinity, it freezes between twenty-four and twenty-eight degrees. At these temperatures, of course, the odds of survival for humans come down to a matter of minutes.

  Right now, I wish I didn’t know what it feels like to be in that water; I wish I couldn’t even imagine it. In all my years in Antarctica, I’ve fallen through the ice exactly once. It happened seven years ago in the Ross Sea; I’d been with a group of geologists from the U.K. who were planning to drill a hole in the ice for their research on fossils. We traveled in a caravan of snowmobiles but also had to do a lot of hiking on foot, across pressure ridges formed by overlapping pack.

  I don’t remember falling in—it was so sudden, so unbelievably quick—I recall only the sound of the ice breaking, the heart-stopping rumble and crack, and then I was submerged. The water was violently cold, sucking every bit of heat from my body. When I opened my eyes, gasping for breath, I realized that I was being pulled underneath the ice by the current. I reached up through the opening my body had left and grabbed on to the shelf of ice. Turning my head, I saw one of the geologists holding out a pole for me, standing well back from the edge, lowering his body to the ice so he could crawl toward me. It was dangerous for him to be so close, but he had no other choice. I caught hold, kicking my legs, trying to help him in his efforts as he reached down to haul me out. As he towed me up onto the ice, I saw that behind him another geologist was holding his legs, and yet another was holding hers—a chain of humans flattened out on the ice, desperately moving backward, away from the thin part that had given way.

  As soon as we backed onto more solid ice, one of the geologists helped me strip off my clothing, and the one who’d reached in for me was taking off layers of his own, dressing me in his socks, his sweater, his parka, calling out to the others to bring me dry pants, gloves, a hat. My skin was bright red, the blood having rushed to its surface in an attempt to preserve the body within. My limbs felt numb, and my entire body shook convulsively for the next hour—but I was lucky. Many who meet head-on with the waters of the Southern Ocean don’t survive long enough to die from acute hypothermia; they suffer cardiac arrest, or they go into what’s known as cold shock and drown. Within the first few moments of submersion, the heart rate escalates, the blood pressure increases, and breathing becomes erratic. The muscles cool rapidly, and those closest to the surface of the skin, like the muscles of the hands, quickly become useless. You can’t move, can’t speak, can’t even think. Even at forty degrees Fahrenheit, let alone twenty-eight, it only takes three minutes for hypothermia to set in. Water rescues are rare; recoveries are not.

  I PULL OFF the mask from over my eyes, which I’d hoped would help me sleep, and turn my head to the side. Amy is lying in bed on her back, a similar mask over her own eyes. I can’t tell if she’s asleep or, like me, she’s been lying awake all night.

  Glenn had encouraged us all to get some rest while we could, and Amy and I had lain in our bunks, speculating about the Australis, daring to hope the situation might not be as bad as it seemed. She assured me that Keller would be okay, and we told each other that the damage might, in fact, be minimal—that we could end up encountering a scene of calm and order. Finally we fell into silence.

  I get up, throw on extra layers and my crew parka, and look at my watch—nearly five in the morning. We must be getting close.

  Amy stirs and sits up. “Did you sleep?” she asks, and I shake my head. “Me neither,” she says.

  Outside, the water has given way to a dense mix of brash and pack ice. The sea is now a chunky soup of pure white, with a few specks of dark gray where the water peeks through. Amy and I stand together on the foredeck, not speaking, and I strain my eyes while the Cormorant creeps along, feeling it shudder as it punches its way forward. There are only a half dozen passengers out here—most are still asleep. When we’d passed through the lounge moments earlier, we’d glimpsed a few people with books in their hands, their eyes focused on the portholes. And here on the deck, several passengers shoot videos of nothing, maybe hoping to be the first to capture footage of the sinking ship, and a few others take selfies.

  I have to look away from them. Not far off, crabeater seals doze on icebergs and floes. Some raise their heads briefly and then return to their naps; those who are closer slump toward the water and slide in between the tide cracks, frightened by the rumble of the engine and the thunk of ice hitting the ship’s hull.

  We’re getting close, but thanks to the murky air, I can’t see very far ahead. The fog has coalesced into the ice, wrapping the Cormorant in a whitish haze. As we push forward, the muffled drumbeat from the hull intensifies in proportion to the ice in our path. I glance up over my right shoulder toward the bridge, half-wanting to be there and half-needing to be away from all that tension.

  “We should check
in,” Amy says, catching my gaze.

  I don’t want to take my eyes off the ghostly fog, as if I might see Keller emerge from the mist. But Amy’s right.

  I nod, and just as we turn to go, the air is pierced by a scream. I whip my head toward the sound and see a woman backing away from the rail.

  Amy and I rush toward her. “Are you all right?” I call out.

  The woman can only point toward the water, and when I see the horror in her face, I know what she must’ve seen. I want to close my eyes, back up, run inside. But I look past her to the water. Floating below, amid the slush, is a bright blue parka, hugged by an orange life jacket. As the ice parts, I see the legs, the arms, the lifeless body within.

  It’s begun.

  They’ve seen it on the bridge, too, or maybe they’re seeing even worse. The engines whine, dragging the ship to a stop. Amy’s got her arm around the weeping passenger, attempting to calm her, and I look up at the bridge and see that most of the crew has disappeared, probably down to the Zodiacs. High above, a flare explodes, bathing us all in a pale-red glow. In this burst of sanguine light, I see that this is not the only body; there are dozens of blue jackets bobbing in the water among chunks of ice, bodies floating facedown in the churning slush.

  We’re too late. As a second flare fires into the sky, I strain my eyes but still can’t see the ship, just gloom and icebergs and penguins scattered about on distant floes. And then, as my eyes adjust—and maybe as my mind adjusts—I realize that those figures on the ice aren’t penguins at all. They’re humans, passengers, dozens and dozens of them—some crouching on patches of breaking ice, others waving their arms for help.

  From the stern, cranes whir, preparing to drop the first of our eight Zodiacs into the ice-packed water. Amy is leading the woman toward the staterooms, and I start heading belowdecks. Suddenly I stop, remembering Richard’s binoculars. They are far superior to anything we crew members have, and they could make all the difference in helping me locate Keller.