The Drift

by Lloyd Kropp

  After a while Peter opened his eyes. He felt he had awakened from a long sleep filled with strange dreams. Tabor was gone. Several of the others were leaving. Pao sat on a rolled-up canvas near the center of a sprawled circle of dancers and talked quietly to three young men from The Madrid clan.

  At the stern he noticed a young girl going down the slide followed by a young man. He went to it and peered over the edge. The chute plunged down between two large boats and from where he stood he could see no further. Beyond the curve of those two ships he heard a sound that reminded him of Pao’s laughter. He thought again of her dancing, of her inward world lost in the books of an old Spanish ship and in the shadowgames and dances of her enchanted mind. Now she was with the others. She was the leader of the dancers and he was clearly an outsider. He wished now that things might be as they had been four days earlier, but that intimacy, he felt, would never be recaptured. Pao was too securely a part of her own world and he could never be a part of it for long. He knew now that she and Tabor would never leave The Drift; it was their whole life; his lay on a continent somewhere to the west, beyond The Sargasso Sea and the vast ocean that lay beyond it.

  It was with a sense of regret that he turned away from the wooden slide and the laughter that echoed from somewhere below him. The sound of it was a bitter taste in his mind. Pao. Paolozzi, the princess of mystery, now forever beyond his reach. Perhaps he had never wanted anyone in his life as much as he wanted Pao. At first, she had seemed to be only an enchanting child with a childlike curiosity about strangers. Then she became a young woman whose beauty and intelligence and flattering attentiveness had been diverting for a while. And now? He could not believe that it was only a desire for something that was suddenly unattainable. No, he had loved her almost from the beginning. It seemed now that for days, for weeks, for years he had been waiting for her.

  “Hello,” she said.

  He turned around. She had been standing a few feet behind him. Her lips were open slightly, and for a moment her eyes seemed fearful or apprehensive. She stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder. The touch made him shudder.

  “Are you cold?” she said.

  “No, Pao, I’m not cold.”

  “Then take your shoes off. And your shirt. We’ll go down the slide together.”

  A long silence of desire and anxiety welled in his throat and made his voice tremble.

  “What’s at the end of the slide?” He watched her take off her shoes. He could not stop watching her.

  “A pool,” she said. And with that she disappeared over the edge.

  He removed his shirt and his shoes, set himself on the lip of the slide, and let go. He saw Pao vanish around the edge of the boat about twenty feet ahead of him.

  The slide was very long and very smooth. It consisted of a series of long, curved wooden sections that had apparently been worn and buffed by constant use. It descended very gradually and the momentum carried him along very slowly. He had the sense that any moment he would stop, but the angle of incline was just enough to keep him moving. It was a curious feeling.

  Gradually he descended below the first level of ships. At first he could see the cabins and the sails and the lifeboats. Then he sank deeper, turning between the dark hulls that were shielded from the sunlight. Noises began to reverberate in the semi-darkness. Water lapping against the boats seemed to blur and fade in a hundred directions in the shadowy green light. Time was slow. The dizzy slide moved downward inexorably toward the dark water, toward the pool that Pao had promised would be at the end of it.

  Once, he looked up and recognized the broken railing of the schooner from which he had seen the slide several days earlier. He saw himself standing on the edge of the boat, peering down into the shadows. He waved to his former self, and the ghost in his imagination waved back and shook its head in consternation.

  Suddenly the boats fell away and he came out into a burst of light just an instant before he plunged into the cool water. Pao was there waiting for him. A giant splash of white foam, and then they sank together to the bottom of the pool, their arms around each other. He felt that they would never come up again. It would be an eternity of death and they would plunge together to the bottom of the ocean and to the heart of things beyond the circle of the ocean currents and beyond even the circle of time.

  For what seemed to be a very long time they swam together in the deep water. The pool was made of an enormous net suspended between three boats near The Southern Edge. It was perhaps a hundred feet across, lifting into a shallow line of water near its edges. Together they swam down to the deepest point in the center of the net. Slowly the net undulated to the movements of the water. Long strands of seaweed and the roots of flat-petaled seaflowers clung to the heavy cords of hemp, waving in the slow currents and transforming the net into a green web that held them there in the deep silence.

  Pao touched his shoulder and pointed through the net to a school of yellow fish that skittered like bright coins falling through the water. Their tiny faces held looks of perpetual amazement. When Pao moved, some turned to look at her, while others darted away.

  And then, far beneath them, Peter saw a large gray shape drifting north. Once it stopped and turned upward. And through forty of fifty fathoms of water he imagined his eyes met the eyes of the shark. It was a fearful confrontation, even though the shark was lost in an unknown and endless world far below him. For a moment he felt unhinged. It was as if he might fall into that deep world. But the beast was far away, the green web was strong between them, the water was cool and green and soothing. He put his arms around Pao and together they drifted to the surface.

  “I was almost out of air,” he said.

  “So was I,” she said.

  “Another minute and we might never have come up.”

  “It would have been a good death,” said Pao.

  “Yes,” he said. “I was thinking that too.”

  “I wanted to swim all the way down to the shark,” she said.

  “Did you see the shark?”

  “Yes. He would have eaten us.”

  “Sharks are beautiful,” she said. “There’s no reason to be afraid of sharks. When they swim deep they never bother anything.”

  He looked at her floating there in the green water. He could think of nothing else to say. He was sick with desire for her. A young man and a woman at the other end of the pool were talking quietly, and their voices reverberated across the water. The air was still bright. He watched Pao moving her arms in the green water.

  “Are you that much in love with me?” said Pao.

  “Yes.”

  She swam closer to him and touched his shoulder with her white hands. “Are you trembling?” “Yes.”

  “Are you in love with me?” she asked again.

  “Yes.”

  “The sharks have eaten your tongue again,” she said.

  “Not the sharks,” he said. “There are things much larger and more beautiful than sharks. Things that can eat you alive.”

  “And have you been eaten alive?” She pressed herself against him and bit him very gently on the shoulder. He closed his arms around her in the water and together they began to sink for a second time toward the bottom of the pool. After a while Pao caught herself, and with two strokes brought them both back to the surface. She swam to the edge of the net. Peter followed her. She lifted herself out of the pool, her arms and legs dripping with the green water. Her black hair fell around her neck and down the front of her white shirt in a thick shining river of darkness.

  “Where would you like to take me?” she said very softly.

  He took her hand and led her back up toward The Cliff to his own boat. The shadows of masts and sails were long now. The afternoon light was fading. When they were inside the cabin and when the door was closed he kissed her on the mouth.

  She began to weep. “I thought you would never love me,” she said. “For so many days I thought you never would. We have only a few days before you sa
il away. But now at least …”

  She lay back on the bed and pulled him down to her. He could feel his desire for her drawing him into the hollow silence of her mouth and into the coolness of her body, that was still dripping wet and smelling of seawater. Nothing else mattered. He was sinking now into the green labyrinth of his senses, and the world of his own mind and his own past shattered, broke away like a continent disintegrating somewhere beyond the horizons of The Sargasso Sea.

  Thirteen

  A MARRIAGE AND A HISTORY LESSON

  It was nearly morning when he awoke. Pao lay curled around him, her leg pressed between his, her head resting on his shoulder, her long hair across his chest. He lifted his head and looked for a moment out his window. A touch of color wavered in the east. There was not a sound anywhere. His head fell back on the pillow. Pao murmured something in her sleep and drew her hand slowly across his face.

  “What did you say?” he whispered.

  “Donmove,” she said. “Snotimetogetup.”

  He put his arms around her.

  “Umm,” she said.

  He thought of his dinghy lying in the hull of the old wreck. Probably by now it had been torn apart or stolen by the Outlanders. No matter. He would stay here on The Drift. He would live with Pao and they would have their children here away from the world. Here where all life was a feast of the imagination and the days passed in a never-changing season.

  Pao was very warm in his arms. He closed his eyes and listened for the sound of the world, but there was nothing, only an immense stillness that rested like a white balm in the center of his mind.

  An hour later he awoke again. Gently he disengaged himself from Pao and got dressed. Before he left for his morning’s work he pulled the sheet back over her and kissed her on the temple.

  He worked steadily that morning with Reuben and Javitt until nearly eleven-thirty, and by that time he was ravenously hungry. As they made their way back toward The Mary Strattford he heard, very faintly, the sounds of The Hatchmaker from Driftsend, and between the boats he saw David and Michael weedwalking. The shadush, shadush of their wooden weedshoes melted into the atonal melodies from Driftsend. When he waved to them they waved back and shouted and ran in a quick, foaming circle of water.

  “Listen to The Hatchmaker,” said David, cupping his hands and calling up to him.

  “He’s playing lunch music,” cried Michael in a loud, piercing voice.

  “But The Hatchmaker doesn’t eat lunch,” said David. “He’s a ghost, and ghosts don’t eat anything.”

  “I know that,” said the other impatiently. “So ’stead, he has lunch music. Isn’t that right, Sutherland?”

  “I guess so,” said Peter.

  “His music is like shadowgames,” Michael persisted. “He plays with music like a game. For ghosts, things in the air like music take the place of real things like eating and breathing.”

  His brother frowned. “Sometimes we skip lunch to play shadowgames,” he said doubtfully as the two of them shadushed away toward Northside, “but that’s different.”

  Michael laughed and shouted something at his brother as they disappeared around the edge of a New Bedford whaler.

  At the noon meal Peter noticed that Pao and Raven were both missing. With as much of a casual tone as he could muster, he asked where they were.

  “I don’t know where Raven is,” said Bright. “But Pao is taking a nap.”

  “At this time of day?”

  “Well,” said Bright, “she’s not used to making love all night long.”

  His fork fell out of his fingers and dropped with a noisy clatter to his plate. His face turned scarlet. Desperately he looked up at her. She was smiling at him benevolently. Reuben and Javitt continued eating. Rose was sitting very erect in her chair, staring out of one of the portholes. The children were playing with their food at the other end of the table. It was as if nothing of any real interest had been said. “I see,” said Peter in a voice that was barely audible. He turned to Tabor, who sat next to him. Tabor was busily eating the last of his scallops, but the faintest trace of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

  “What’s so damned funny?” said Peter.

  Tabor turned to him with a look of injured innocence. But the smile was still there. “Funny?” he said. “Is something funny?”

  “How did Bright find out?” he whispered.

  “We all saw Pao come out of your cabin this morning at about ten o’clock,” said Tabor in a voice that to Peter seemed much too loud. “It’s been a wonder to everyone that it didn’t happen sooner. You really have quite marvelous powers of restraint. Herculean, I would say.”

  Peter flushed again and made a desperate gesture with his hand for Tabor to keep silent.

  “But everyone knows,” said Tabor. “Even her friends from The Madrid.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Peter in a furious whisper. “They don’t even know who I am.”

  “They all know you. They’ve even made up a little song about you and Pao that someone is going to sing at the next festival.”

  Peter blushed for the third time. He opened his mouth but he could think of nothing to say.

  “Pao is very popular with The Madrids,” Tabor continued breezily. “She always works with them on songs and dances.” Judiciously he stabbed the last scallop in his bowl and dipped it into a little cup of yellow sauce.

  “But isn’t anyone the least bit annoyed?” said Peter. “When people found out that I was working on my own dinghy no one would speak to me. I was an outcast nearly all day.” Tabor laughed. “Yes,” he said. “Nearly all day.” “But now that I’ve abducted one of the daughters of the clan, no one seems to mind.”

  “Well, if you feel you should be punished, I suppose we might manage to think up something,” said Tabor. “But really I think we’d all feel pretty silly. Especially now that you’re married.”

  “I’m what!”

  Now everyone, much to Peter’s discomfort, was taking an interest in the conversation. Reuben and Javitt were smiling in a fatherly, patronizing way that suggested amusement at the antics of a child. Bright was trying very hard not to laugh.

  Even the children were watching him. Only Rose had maintained her senile unconcern. She continued to stare fiercely out the same porthole.

  “You’re married,” said Tabor. “When two people love each other and live together they’re married. You do love Pao, don’t you?”

  Everyone stopped eating and waited for his answer. They all stared at him, and for a moment he imagined they were holding their breath. “This is ridiculous!” he muttered. And then, without meaning to, he smiled foolishly.

  “This has all been a plot,” he said with what was left of his embarrassed anger, knowing that it was too late now to make an issue of anything. “You’ve all been in on it! You’ve all taken advantage of the fact that I’m alone here and you’ve all been …” He had run out of words. He had never felt quite so stupid. “… in on it,” he concluded. Everyone was still staring at him. Suddenly he remembered that someone had asked him a question.

  “Of course I love Pao,” he said miserably. “Everybody loves Pao. Is there any reason why I should be an exception?” There was a general cheer, and the children applauded. Then everyone went back to eating. When he got up to leave, Bright threw her arms around him and gave him a large, wet kiss on his cheek.

  “You’ll be very happy,” she said. There were tears in her eyes. “Pao is such a wonderful girl.” Peter smiled in a boyish way and shook her hand awkwardly with both of his hands.

  “She is wonderful,” he said.

  Outside he saw Tabor making his way toward Northside. He was still smiling, and that made Peter furious. But then he remembered that Tabor was always smiling or nearly smiling. He was a curious sort of person. It was as if nearly everything in his life struck him as vaguely humorous. At a distance Peter had always admired and respected people with a sense of humor. Humor and wit had always seemed to hi
m to be a kind of magic. Perhaps that was one reason why he respected Tabor and in a curious way felt drawn to him.

  On the way back to his own schooner he happened to look down into the narrow space between the boats, and for a moment he saw something that almost made him laugh: three tennis balls bobbing in the green water, just below the surface. He imagined that in a few hours or days they would probably sink to the bottom of the ocean.

  “Tennis, anyone?” he said out loud.

  No one answered.

  A week passed. In the mornings he worked in The Seafields, in the afternoons he worked with Tabor on the old boats, and in the early evenings he would sit on The Northside Cliff and listen to the weird sounds of The Hatchmaker, watch the children’s games, or walk with Pao across Northside or through one of the ancient ships. At night they would make love fiercely, and in the mornings Pao would timidly ask him if married women were always so terribly sore and so terribly happy.

  Sometimes in the morning the rare, light wind that lasted only an hour or so would change directions, and he would watch long lines of Sargasso Weeds break up and then reassemble in new lines along the new direction of the wind. Sometimes hundreds of glassy, leaf-shaped creatures would float past The Southern Edge, just beyond the inside borders of The Seafields. Sometimes a school of sea horses would move about in the weed-choked water between the boats. Sometimes in the evening the musicians from Bluewater and Conquistador Blanco would wander singly or in two or threes down by The Southern Edge, singing songs until the moon set. Sometimes the children would weedwalk at night with torches, making chains of fire across the water that made him think of Chinese dragons, a weird complement to the cold, night-burning luminescence of the micro-organisms that lived everywhere in the weeds. And so the days and nights passed in a blur of sensations, and Pao was with him always. Her shadow seemed to touch everything he saw, everything he imagined.