by Unknown
“How do you know where you are when you’re out of sight of land?â€� said Boaz-Jachin. He saw nothing scientific-looking in the wheelhouse but the compass and the fuel and engine gauges. No instruments that looked like navigation.
The trader showed him a wooden board in which were drilled many little holes in the thirty-two-spoked wheel of a compass rose. Below that were short vertical lines of holes. Pegs, attached to the board by strings, were in some of the holes.
“When I need to I use this,â€� he said. “Every point of the compass is divided into half-hours. I mark with a peg how long I’ve been on any heading. Down below I mark the speed. I add on or take off for wind and current with me or against me, and that’s how I know where I am. That’s how my father did it, and I do it the same.â€�
“I thought you had to have instruments, charts, maps, take sights and all that,� said Boaz-Jachin.
“That’s a lot of crap for playboys with yachts,â€� said the trader. “I know the winds, the currents, the bottom, I know where I am. What do I need all that machinery for? My father was the best sailor, the best pilot out of our port. Fifteen, twenty other men masters of their own boats in our village, but if you came there a stranger and asked for ‘the Captain’ they knew you meant him, nobody else. From him I learned the sea.â€�
“You had a good father,� said Boaz-Jachin.
The trader nodded, spat again through the wheelhouse window. “Nobody like him,â€� he said, and sighed. “‘Keep the boat and follow the sea,’ he told me. Left it to me in his will. So here I am. This trip oranges, next one wine, cheese, olives, whatever. It’s not a bad life, eh? I mean it’s a proper thing for a man to do — not like running a restaurant or some shore thing like that. Dressed up like a gentleman all the time, greeting your clientele, making them feel big by remembering their names. White tablecloths, flowers, snapping your fingers for the wine waiter. A mural on the wall with the bay and the grottoes. All the same, for some people that too is a way of life. Takes all kinds, eh?â€�
“Yes,� said Boaz-Jachin, “I guess it does.�
“That’s how it is,â€� said the trader. “For me, as for my father, it’s the sea. Always the other thing looks good, you know — the thing you don’t have, the road you didn’t take.â€� He put his arm out through the window, slapped the side of the wheelhouse. “Swallow’s all right,â€� he said. “She’s all right.â€�
The coast slid by — stretches of brown, stretches of green, old red rocks, lion-colored cliffs, ruined forts, oil tanks, water tanks, pipelines. Blocks and planes and facets of houses, roofs, walls, angles scattering down hillsides, each casting a morning shadow. White walls, red tile roofs, black-cut windows and doorways. Clusters of boats painted blue, painted white. Boats in twos and threes, single boats passing. Sometimes a tanker, sometimes a big white cruise ship. The gull flew off the masthead as the Swallow left the coast astern and headed out to sea. The salt wind had a deep-water smell.
“Where are we on the chart?� said Boaz-Jachin towards the afternoon. There was no land in sight.
“I don’t have a chart,â€� said the trader. “A chart’s a picture. Why bother with a picture of the ocean when you’ve got the ocean to read? We’re half a day out from the port we left and we’re two days away from the port we’re bound for. Keep her on this heading while I make some lunch.â€�
Boaz-Jachin, alone in the wheelhouse for the first time, suddenly felt the weight of the sea that Swallow pounded through, the depth and the weight of it heaving against the boat’s old bottom. The engine chugged steadily, driving her on. She answered the wheel easily as he gave or took a spoke, his eye on the quivering compass card. Ahead of him the sunlight on the water danced, and dancing light reflected from the water rippled on the wheelhouse ceiling like flashes of mystic writing, like word-flashes in an unknown language. The blue dinghy followed astern like a child of the boat, its bows slapping the water in the wake of the Swallow, its own smaller wake spreading briefly behind it. Up forward the smoke from the galley stovepipe heat-shimmered against the sky and water, wavered the near and distant images of other boats and ships.
Sometimes Boaz-Jachin saw his face reflected in the wheelhouse windows, recalled the blank face of the king, the frowning face of the lion-king. The being-with-the-lion came back for a moment and was gone again. Again the emptiness, the urge ahead towards something gone out from him.
The chariot wheel, the wheel in his hand … He felt himself on the verge of understanding something, but could go no farther. He held fast to being where he was.
The trader came on deck with a napkin over his arm, carrying a tray on which was a covered dish, a bottle of wine, a basket of bread, a wine glass, silverware, a clean folded napkin. He set the tray down on the hatch cover, took the napkin from his arm, spread it out, arranged a place setting on it, put the covered dish, the wine bottle, the bread basket in their proper positions, stepped back, looked at everything critically, then came aft to the wheelhouse window.
“The gentleman’s table is ready on the terrace now,â€� he said. “I will take the wheel. I ate below before I brought your lunch up.â€�
There was an omelette under the dish cover, very light and delicate, flavored with herbs. Boaz-Jachin sat on the hatch cover and ate and drank while the trader watched him from the wheelhouse, smiling his desperate smile and showing his large teeth.
Late in the afternoon the trader took a nap while Boaz-Jachin steered. When he took the helm again he said, “Tonight we’ll stand regular four-hour watches.â€� In the evening he told Boaz-Jachin to heat a tinned stew and brew a pot of coffee, and he had his dinner in the wheelhouse. “I’ll stay here for a while yet,â€� he said to Boaz-Jachin. “You might as well get some sleep.â€�
When the trader woke Boaz-Jachin it was two o’clock in the morning. Boaz-Jachin looked out through the windows of the dark wheelhouse, saw nothing ahead but the phosphorescence of the bow wave in the blackness of the night. “Aren’t you afraid to leave me alone at the wheel for four hours?â€� he said. “What’ll I do if something goes wrong?â€�
“What could go wrong?â€� said the trader. “All you have to do is stay awake and keep out of the way of big ships. Our running lights are lit. Here’s the switch for the masthead light if you think somebody doesn’t see you. Here’s the button for the horn. I’ve showed you how to steer and how to reverse the engine. If you have to relieve yourself you use these two eye-spliced lines on either side to tie down the wheel.â€�
“How do I stop the boat if I have to?� said Boaz-Jachin.
“For what?�
“I don’t know. But if I have to?â€�
“It’s not like an automobile where you can put on the brakes,â€� said the trader. “And it’s too deep to drop the anchor out here. You have to steer around things or put her in reverse if something shows up in front of you. And if you shut off the engine and let go of the wheel the sail will bring the boat up into the wind and she’ll lose way, stop going forward gradually. Right?â€�
“Right,� said Boaz-Jachin.
The trader looked at his watch, moved some of the pegs in his navigating board, gave Boaz-Jachin a new compass heading. “In a couple of hours we’ll pass a light on the horizon on the starboard side,â€� he said. “After that there’s nothing until I come on watch again. All you do is stay on the heading I gave you. Right?â€�
“Right,â€� said Boaz-Jachin. The trader went below, and he was alone in the dark wheelhouse with the lighted circle of the compass card and the dim green eyes of the gauges before him. Forward in the blackness the phosphorescent bow wave parted always while the Swallow’s wooden eyes looked blindly into the night.
After a time the aloneness became comfortable, the
darkness was simply where he was. He remembered the road to the citadel and the ruined palace, how it had seemed nowhere the first time, but the second time it had become the place where he was. The wheel felt good in his hands. When he found his father he would simply say, May I have my map, please? Nothing more than that.
There was a light, a light that turned and flashed from a lighthouse, but it was much closer than the horizon, much sooner than a couple of hours, and it was on the port side.
He said starboard side, thought Boaz-Jachin, and he said it would be on the horizon in a couple of hours. Him and his fucking pegboard. He shut off the engine, let go the wheel, and went below to wake the trader.
“What time is it?� said the trader. “What happened to the engine?�
“I shut it off,â€� said Boaz-Jachin. “It’s quarter past three and there’s a light on the port side and it’s pretty close.â€�
“Shit,� said the trader, and started for the deck. As he got out of the bunk there was a horrible grating sound along the keel. The boat lifted sharply as they reached the deck, they heard the splintering of planks. The boat lifted again, grated again, with more splintering.
“Get into the dinghy and pull clear,� said the trader in a calm voice to Boaz-Jachin as they half-fell down the slanting deck towards the stern.
Boaz-Jachin, pulling away from the Swallow into the darkness, heard the engine start up as the masthead light went on. The Swallow leaped glaringly out of the night, the sea lifted her again, she came off the rocks in reverse and started to settle by the bow as the trader jumped clear with a great splash.
My guitar and my map, thought Boaz-Jachin. Gone. By the time the trader had got himself into the dinghy, half swamping it, the masthead light had gone under and they were in darkness again, across which the beam from the lighthouse regularly swept.
“Son of a bitch,â€� said the trader. “Son of a bitch.â€� The sea slapped and gurgled quietly against the dinghy as Boaz-Jachin pulled farther away from the rocks that had sunk the Swallow. He could see the trader’s hunched shape leaning forward, darker than the sky behind him. Whenever the light swept over them Boaz-Jachin saw his wet white shirt and dark trousers, his face open-mouthed and wet. Suddenly the being-with-the-lion feeling came to Boaz-Jachin. He almost roared. Then it was gone. Emptiness.
“How did I do this to myself?� said the trader quietly. “How did I find you? What demon possessed me to put my boat in your hands? Mother of God, who sent you to me?�
“You and your fucking pegboard,� said Boaz-Jachin. “How did that lighthouse get on the wrong side at the wrong time?�
“That’s for you to tell me,â€� said the trader. “I was sure at least that you could hold a wheel in your hands and look at the compass. When I went below at midnight you were on a safe course. Tell me, you fateful one, imp of the devil, bringer of ill fortune, what did you do then?â€�
“It wasn’t midnight when you went below,â€� said Boaz-Jachin.
“All right,â€� said the trader. “So it was ten past twelve. Not exactly midnight. We’re not quite so precise here as in the navy. My humble apologies.â€�
“It wasn’t ten past twelve either,â€� said Boaz-Jachin. “I looked at my watch.â€�
“Don’t play games with me, imp,â€� said the trader. The light swept over them, and Boaz-Jachin saw doubt in his face.
“It was two o’clock in the morning,â€� said Boaz-Jachin. “The little hand was at the two and the big hand was at the twelve. If you want to call that ten past twelve, go ahead, do as you like.â€�
“Ten past twelve is the other way around,� said the trader. “The little hand, the big hand.�
“Wonderful,â€� said Boaz-Jachin. “You’re learning fast.â€�
“Two o’clock in the morning, not ten past twelve,â€� said the trader. “We were two hours past where I thought we were when I put you on the new heading.â€�
“Right,� said Boaz-Jachin. “Which I stayed on as you told me to, and here we are.�
“Son of a bitch,� said the trader. “The big hand and the little hand.�
“‘Keep the boat and follow the sea,’â€� said Boaz-Jachin, and he began to laugh.
“I’ll tell you something,â€� said the trader. “Fuck the sea. I’ll never be able to collect the insurance on Swallow because of the way we sank her, but I have a piece of land I can sell, and I’m going to open a restaurant.â€�
“One thing about a restaurant,â€� said Boaz-Jachin — “when you wake up it’ll be exactly where it was when you went to sleep.â€�
“Right,â€� said the trader. “So that’s that. It’s out of my hands. The sea made the decision.â€�
“Tell me,â€� said Boaz-Jachin. “What’s the name of the rocks that sank us?â€�
“The rocks I don’t know. The light is Rising Sun Light.â€�
“S-U-N or S-O-N?� said Boaz-Jachin.
“S-U-N,� said the trader. “It faces east.�
“Where the son sank,â€� said Boaz-Jachin. “Well, on my new map the rocks will be called Rising Son Rocks, spelled S-O-N. I’m naming them after you.â€�
“Thank you,â€� said the trader. “I’m deeply honored.â€�
The sky was pale now, and in the water they saw oranges floating. The trader leaned over and picked up two.
“If the gentleman would like breakfast,� he said, “his table is now ready.�
The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz by Russell Hoban(1973)
-19-
Jachin-Boaz’s wife, with her husband and son both gone, now considered the situation in which she found herself. In the first months after Jachin-Boaz’s departure she had gone through torments thinking of him in the arms of young and beautiful women. Wherever she looked she seemed to see only girls and young women, all of them so pretty that she wondered how men could choose among them. But she had talked to other women since, and the consensus was that men of her husband’s age often did what he had done, that after a few months or a year they yearned for the comforts and habits they had left, and, if allowed to, returned. She was determined to encounter such a possibility from a position of strength. She did not expect her son to come back, and made no effort to trace him. Nor did she attempt to locate his father. She concentrated her energies on the shop. She had long had her own ideas about how to run the business, and now she put them into practice.
She hired a girl to help her. She stocked paperback books, and made lively displays of them in the window. She worked up a line of fortune-telling maps for each sign of the zodiac. She took good-luck charms and cheap jewelry of an occult character on consignment from local craftsmen. She installed a palmist in the parlor above the shop — an elderly lady with jet-black hair and piercing eyes who was clothed entirely in black and turned over to Jachin-Boaz’s wife a percentage of whatever she took in. To create an atmosphere around her a coffee machine, tables and chairs were added, and regular coffee-drinkers appeared. A small ensemble of young musicians, playing folk songs and paid by the passing of a basket among the coffee-drinkers, attracted a larger clientele. Soon Jachin-Boaz’s wife took in more money in a week than her husband had done in a month.
During business hours she was comfortable, even gay. Sundays were bad. Sundays with Jachin-Boaz had often been depressing. Without him they were frightening. Alone at night she found her thoughts difficult to control. She washed her hair often and took many baths, luxurious with scented soaps and essences, but she avoided looking at her body. She looked at her face often in the mirror and felt unsure of how to compose it, what to do with her mouth. After not having worn her wedding ring for months she put
it on, then took it off again. She began to read more than she had for years, and every night took sleeping tablets. Often she dreamed of Jachin-Boaz, and in her waking hours, however she occupied herself, there were thoughts of him most of the time.
Boaz-Jachin was in her mind less often. Sometimes he had seemed a stranger to her. They had not thought alike, had never been as close as she had expected a mother and son to be. Now he seemed less an absent son than an emptiness, an end of something. Sometimes she would be surprised not to hear his footsteps, his guitar, would catch herself thinking of what to cook for him. Sometimes she wondered what he might be doing at a particular moment. His father is in him, she thought. He is lost and wandering, seeking chaos. Sometimes the two of them blurred together in her mind.
She looked at books of poems that Jachin-Boaz had given her when they were young. The inscriptions were full of love and passion. He had found her beautiful and desirable once. She had thought him beautiful, exciting, the young man with whom she would make a green place, a place of strength and achievement. She had sensed greatness in him as a desert-dweller senses water, and she had thirsted for it. She had fallen in love with him, and she had locked herself in the bathroom and cried because she knew that he would give her pain.
Jachin-Boaz and she had met at university. She was in the arts course, he was reading natural sciences, a brilliant scholar. Then unaccountably he had failed his examinations, had left university to work in his father’s shop. Soon after that the father had died. Then she too had left university, and they had married, living with Jachin-Boaz’s mother above the shop for what seemed long years while the mother throve in chronic ill health until struck down by a bus. If not for that bus she would still be here, thought Jachin-Boaz’s wife, surrounded by her medicines, telling me how to take care of her son, telling me what a wonderful life they had when the father was alive, telling me what a wonderful husband the father had been, not telling me about the mistress that everybody knew about but her. Did she know? The wonderful husband. Another one like my father with his green place in the desert. The good place is never here, the man’s heart is never here.