Letters To My Mother

by Rebecca Heath

  In a deep locker behind the stove, half a dozen cans rolled back and forth with every heave of the boat, setting up an unbearable rhythmic clatter. I opened the locker and set the cans upright, but they fell over on the crest of the next wave, resuming their mournful cadence. I opened the locker again, grabbed a can of vanilla pudding just before it rolled out of reach, and sat down on the cabin sole to eat it. According to my calculations we were 40 miles from Seattle; at an average speed of five knots that was another eight hours. Eight hours and we weren’t making anything like five knots against that wind and sea.

  I untied Sturmvogel's tiller and took over the steering myself. We continued south, passing towns and islands whose names I couldn’t remember, breasting wave after wave in an unending succession until I was hypnotized by the motion. At five-thirty I turned on the navigation lights, hoping the batteries would last, for I couldn’t recall if David had charged them recently. I wasn’t worried so much about the navigation lights themselves - I was willing to take a chance with ships – but I would need the instrument lights to read the compass in the dark.

  At nine, by my reckoning and the boat’s log, it was time to alter course and head for Seattle, still some 20 miles over the horizon. Coming about was an automatic maneuver; I pushed the tiller to port and waited for the moment when the bow would swing through the wind and I could release the port jib sheet and start hauling in on the other side.

  As Sturmvogel started to come into the wind, a wave shoved the bow back. I waited until the boat gathered speed and tried once more with the same result. I tried a third and fourth time. On the fifth try we came close; Sturmvogel's bow swung slowly around and she poised on the top of a wave. She shuddered for a moment, as though undecided, and then fell back on the starboard tack. I was beginning to feel panicky. What if she refused to turn? We’d keep right on sailing southeast, a veritable Flying Dutchman, until we fetched up … where? I was too tired to remember the geography of Puget Sound. I considered our situation. I could always jibe the boat, but in forty knots of wind that risked carrying the boom, the sail and quite possibly even the mast, completely off the deck. Jibing was out. I would have to turn at precisely the right moment, preferably in a stretch of smooth water, if I could find such a place in the tumultuous seascape that surrounded us. I tried again and this time we almost made it; the bow was only a hair’s breadth away from completing the turn before it fell off, and I was encouraged. On the seventh attempt I shouted, “Goddammit, Sturmvogel, TURN!” The bow swung ninety degrees through the eye of the wind and then over to the other side. I released the port jib sheet and hauled in on the starboard side. I felt triumphant; we were heading home.

  At ten, I lashed the tiller again and went below to eat something. Inside the cabin it was black; even though I was afraid of exhausting the batteries, I had to see, so I turned on one of the electric lights and kneeled beside David.

  “Do we have any hot water … for coffee?” he asked. There had to be some left; I’d forgotten all about the thermos and my spirits lifted at the thought of a hot beverage. I found the thermos under the remains of the table, but when I picked it up my hopes were dashed, for the sound of tinkling glass inside told me the liner was broken.

  “I can try lighting the stove …”

  “No, it’s too rough. Can you get me some water?”

  “How about fruit juice?”

  He nodded.

  I made another foray into the locker of banging cans and came up with one can of tuna fish and another of peach juice. I poured a small amount of juice into a plastic cup and bent over beside David. He lifted his head with difficulty, and I noticed a bloody gash down the right side of his face; even by the dim cabin light I could see the area around David’s eye was bruised and swollen. He gave a short, wheezing cough and more foaming blood appeared at the edge of his mouth. I pulled a tissue from my pocket, wiped his lips, and whisked the tissue out of sight.

  “Show it to me.”

  Reluctantly I held it in front of him; our eyes met, but he didn’t comment on the blood.

  “How far are we from Seattle?”

  About seventeen miles.”

  “What’s our course?”

  “One-five-eight – when I’m steering; I have the tiller lashed.”

  “So you’ve already tacked,” he said, struggling through a curtain of pain to remember the course he had plotted earlier in the morning.

  “About an hour ago. It was awful. The waves just kept pushing …” I checked myself. There was no point in worrying David with my problems. “I’d better go back up and steer. Can I do anything for you besides get you to Seattle as quickly as possible?”

  “Yes …” he hesitated. “I hate to ask you this, but I need to urinate. There’s a small basin under the sink … would you mind?” I unzipped David’s pants and held the basin while he relieved himself.

  There was a wry smile on his face, the first smile I’d seen since the accident.

  “This has to be the ultimate humiliation; now I know how it feels to be helpless.” He wheezed again and coughed up more blood.

  “Don’t talk anymore, David,” I said covering him with a blanket. “Go to sleep, if you can.” I readjusted the pillow under his head and leaned over to kiss him on the forehead, braving the stench of oatmeal, blood and salt water that rose from the cabin sole.

  I disposed of his urine in the toilet and started up the steps to the cockpit, fork and tuna in hand.

  “Kate?”

  “Yes?"

  “Thank you.”

  The wind had moderated to thirty knots; that was still far more than anything I’d experienced in the past, but in comparison with what we’d encountered in the afternoon, the evening wind was a mere zephyr. I finished the tuna and tossed the can overboard.

  The moon and stars were invisible behind the clouds of the night sky; there was nothing to see at all except for the red glow of the instruments and an occasional winking light on shore. I was still wet from the soaking at the bow and thoroughly chilled besides; my teeth began to chatter and I was wracked with uncontrollable shivering. I went below, rummaged around in the hanging locker, and found two dry sweaters. David’s transistor radio lay intact at the bottom of the locker; I stuck it inside my jacket to protect the case from the damp air and spray, and returned to the tiller. How strange it seemed to be sitting in Sturmvogel's cockpit listening to popular music while the wind screamed overhead and David lay below badly injured. How unreal that just a few miles away people were carrying on the most mundane activities – brushing their teeth, riding in cars, watching television – while we were living a nightmare.

  My head kept drooping. When my grasp on the tiller relaxed, Sturmvogel changed course and the boat’s altered motion awakened me. I was tired, incredibly tired, fast falling into a torpor that made any sort of mental activity a virtual impossibility.

  It was past midnight when the loom of Seattle’s lights finally shone over the horizon; the water was calmer although the wind was still blowing hard. For the first time since David’s accident, I dared to hope we were going to make it, and I started to think about getting into the marina. I’d have to sail in; the outboard motor was far too heavy for me to lift from its place under the cockpit seat and secure on the transom of the boat. If I sailed in I’d have to take down the main and use the jib alone, for I wouldn’t be able to spill the wind from the mainsail fast enough to avoid a crash landing at the dock. These thoughts were going through my mind, but slowly, very slowly.

  I was steering by eye now; Seattle’s skyline was emerging over the horizon and I began to make out a few of the landmarks. Then, gradually, the city started to fade. I blinked several times; was I losing my eyesight? My answer came as a rainsquall hit us, blotting out everything beyond the bow of the boat. It was back to steering by instruments. I looked at the compass and looked again, in horror, for the light had gone out. The other instruments were dark, too, and I realized with despair the batteries were exha
usted. I searched for the flashlight David kept in the cockpit, but it had either gone overboard or been hurled into the chaos below. The rain pelted down and I started to cry. Oh God, I sobbed, how can you do this to me, just when we’re so close? I began to panic. In the dark and the rain I was completely disoriented; without the compass how was I going to find Seattle? We were somewhere near the vessel traffic lanes; how was I going to avoid the ships?

  Inside my jacket the radio lost power and station KIRO flickered out. What, you too? I thought bitterly. Then a wave caught the bow of the boat, we changed course, and the music came on again. The radio. What had David told me once about navigating with a radio? I struggled to clear the cobwebs from my brain, and then I remembered. He was telling me about a Japanese sailor who had crossed the Pacific in a home-made boat, heading for San Francisco. His only navigational instrument, other than a compass, was a small transistor radio, and he’d pinpointed his landfall homing in on a San Francisco radio station. But how had he done it? There was some trick to lining up the radio’s axis with the transmitting tower, but what was significant, hearing the station or not hearing it? Suddenly the answer came to me; if I was able to hear KIRO at full volume when I could see we were heading in the right direction, then all I had to do was keep the radio in the same position and orient the boat in such a way that the signal strength remained constant. I shoved the tiller to one side and the music faded again; I changed course and the music returned. Satisfied my theory worked, I readjusted our course and steered through the rain to the sound of music. We were going home.

  My memory of the rest of the trip is blurry. The rain lasted for about an hour and, as the shower passed to the north, Seattle emerged again from the haze. When we were less than two miles offshore, I started to recognize individual buildings. Even late at night they were lit up, and as I scanned the skyline for familiar landmarks, the buildings seemed to inflate. They billowed out like budding yeast cells. Parapets and towers mushroomed up, wagged their heads and leered at me. I watched in horror, fully aware I was hallucinating, but the city kept changing shape ominously, expanding and contracting like something out of a drug-induced nightmare. The land seemed so close; several times I changed course in a panic, sure we were running aground, only to realize we were still in deep water. I looked at the companionway and saw an elephant climbing out of the cabin; one-half of my brain accepted the pachyderm with complete indifference, while the other half told me I was seeing things. I blinked hard several times and the elephant disappeared. Somehow I found the breakwater outside the marina and got the mainsail down and secured around the boom. It was no longer so dark, for the lights of Ballard illuminated the deck.

  The landing at the marina was hard; in my exhaustion, I let the jib sheet fly too late, and Sturmvogel charged into her berth, hit the dock with a bang, and bounced back. We were home. I sat in the cockpit for a few minutes considering how to get David to a hospital. Until then I’d been so concerned with surviving, that reaching Seattle was my only goal, and I hadn’t thought beyond our arrival. I was too weary to think and I needed someone’s help. Norma and Rosemary didn’t have cars. Was Frank back from his trip to Spokane? I wondered if I dared ask Frank for assistance after the incident in his apartment. What would David say?

  I finished tying Sturmvogel's lines and went below. The hard landing had awakened David; he was coherent, though in great pain, and when I told him I was going to phone Frank to arrange for the doctor and ambulance, he just looked at me and whispered “all right.”

  The simplest tasks were agonizing; I knew I needed the marina key as well as money for the telephone call, both of which were in my purse, but somehow the purse had got misplaced in the knockdown and it was too dark in the cabin to find it. I sat down on the cabin sole wondering stupidly what to do. David suggested I use his key, so I slid my hand deep in his trouser pocket and came up with not only the key, but enough change for the call.

  Once out on the dock my head cleared somewhat and I began to worry what to do if Frank wasn’t home. David’s doctor was a family friend; I didn’t want to phone him and say the two of us were sailing back from the San Juans when the accident happened. Should I just call an ambulance?

  I found a telephone booth, dialed Frank’s number and counted the rings. One…two…three…four. Oh Frank, please be home, I prayed. On the fifth ring someone picked up the receiver and a sleepy voice said hello.

  I was flooded with relief. “Frank, it’s me. I’m so glad you’re back. I need your help. David was hurt on the boat and I think he’s badly injured. Can you call his doctor and get an ambulance and come yourself to let them in?”

  “Kate? Let them in? Where are you? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m at the marina. We just got here. David’s still on the boat and I think his ribs are broken. Do you have a gate key?”

  “Yes … but …”

  “David’s doctor is Sanford Kadish. K-a-d-i-s-h. Since you have a key, can you open the gate for them? I’ll explain everything when you get here. Please hurry, Frank. I’m going back to the boat.”

  “Are you ok?”

  “Yes, I’m just … very tired.”

  Twenty minutes later, when Frank and the ambulance crew arrived, I was asleep on the cabin sole beside David. A beam of light from Frank’s flashlight shone in my face, awakening me, and then played around the interior.

  “My God, what happened?” Frank was down the ladder in an instant; I stood up and sagged against him.

  “Oh, Frank, it was so awful,” I said, starting to cry. He put his arms around me and patted me on the back.

  “Everything’s going to be all right now. Let’s go up and give these guys room to get David out of here.”

  Two paramedics went below and, with Frank’s assistance, they swayed David out of the cabin in a blanket, and then laid him on a gurney. The men covered David, strapped him loosely, and started rolling the gurney toward the gate. I jumped off Sturmvogel and began running after them.

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  “I’m going with David … to the hospital,” I called back. “Can you lock up the boat?”

  Frank was beside me in a moment. “Kate, they won’t let you go with him; Dr. Kadish is going to be waiting for the ambulance and they’ll take David right to the emergency room. You won’t be able to see him for hours. And besides, they’ll call his wife…”

  “But I want to be with David,” I wailed.

  Frank took my arm. “Come on, let’s go to the car and I’ll drive you home. “

  “What time is it?”

  “Three thirty.”

  “I can’t get in,” I said wearily. “They don’t open the residence hall until six.”

  Frank didn’t reply. He helped me into his car and I fell asleep while he went back to lock the boat. When I awakened, Frank was opening my door.

  “Where are we?” I asked, staring into the darkness.

  “My place.”

  “I thought you were taking me home.”

  “I did take you home. My home.”

  I climbed out, too exhausted to care where I spent the rest of the night. Frank switched on the lights in his living room and stared at me in disbelief. “My God, but you’re a sight!”

  He handed me a pair of pajamas and I went in the bathroom to change. I looked in the mirror with shock; the face that met mine was barely recognizable, a grotesque caricature of myself. My hair was matted and stuck out from my head; I looked like a waterlogged Medusa. Underneath the puffy lids, my eyes were inflamed from the buffeting of the wind, and there was a streak of blood – David’s blood – down one side of my face. I left my soggy clothes in Frank’s shower and stumbled into bed.

  Chapter 18

  Blaine Hall, Room B102

  University of Washington, Seattle

  May 15, 1957

  Dear Mother and Daddy,

  I’m sorry you received the ambulance bill before I had a chance

  to let you
know I’m ok. The drivers must have sent it airmail on

  the way to the hospital. Anyway, please don’t worry – it was just

  a mild case of stomach flu, and an intravenous drip restored me to life.

  Dr. Rosenau, the professor I used to work for, has recovered fully

  as well …

  Nothing about the start of that morning set it apart it from the countless other mornings which preceded it; no premonition warned me that this particular day marked a watershed in my life, and that in less than a month I would be gone forever from the university. Indeed, it was so unremarkable that I didn’t even bother to note the date, but it must have been some time in early May.

  I awakened with a catchy tune running through my head, the title song from a Spanish movie called Marcelino Pan y Vino. I was eating breakfast, and on the hundredth replay, a sudden surge of nausea knocked my mental needle off the record. It wasn’t a slowly developing feeling of unease as I’d felt the day of Maldonado’s memorial service, but a violent spasm of vomiting. I bolted from the dining room into the small bathroom just off the reception desk at the main entrance. I didn’t even have time to raise the toilet seat. As I sank to my knees in front of the ceramic bowl, a torrent of undigested egg, toast and orange juice poured into the water. I retched a few more times, rinsed out my mouth and staggered to my room. Trembling and bathed in a cold sweat, I covered myself with a blanket and went to sleep.

  The next few days I felt fine and I attributed my sickness to stomach flu. Another bout of nausea later in the week was far more serious, however; the vomiting didn’t stop immediately as it had before, but continued through the rest of day until I was so weak I couldn’t get out of bed to go to the bathroom. I vomited into an empty coffee can. Occasionally someone knocked at the door, but I didn’t answer; the phone rang, but I didn’t have enough strength to lift the receiver.