by Ben Jones
I pulled like a mute beast with all the strength I had in me— bearing up even Reinhold as we made our way south. But the mind is itself and not what we think it, and it reaches out with unimaginable hands into that chaos and finds a shaped order that your eyes cannot hold—like the inside of your mouth that you have never seen except in reflections, but that your tongue knows perfectly with a knowing that is not spaced but still ordered—and I came to understand something of the darkness in itself, not as a mere boundary to the light.
Mercifully, the weather was even and not so punishingly cold. West began to rave again, when we could hear him, bellowing out and singing and cursing at us.
“And in these days,” he called out, “shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die and death shall flee from them.” I do not know if he was cursing us then, or exhorting us. I am sure I lost my senses also, across the miles of ice, my legs pounding dully after my dull heart, and me insensible above it.
In the darkness, I thought foot on foot of being here, of destiny that had somehow twisted beneath me into fate, and of my own self and its weak and ineffectual desires; of desiring greatly a gift that I had not the grace to be offered, and of sitting in the rigging beneath an impossible blue, of a stack of arms and legs, of the doctor and my coarse hand on the delicate knob of the sextant with the sea heaving beneath me.
The key, of course, is finding a fixed point from which to measure. Then it becomes easy, though it is not simple; oddly enough, it is exactly the opposite. Once you finish calculating the variables for the imperfections of the lens, for the flaws of the mirror, the distortions of the light, for the uneven effects of the cold on different metals, of light, of atmosphere, of the bend of the very earth beneath you, once you have dug through the books and run over the tables and charts, you are buried in great complexity, but that fundamental point of measurement has not changed.
And then the journey begins, you begin to move, the land passes beneath you, and the wavering line in the mirror dims and fades. You plod on, measuring yourself by your own steps, the lengths of your body, your heavy foot, confident in the weight of your numbers, wrapped and blind in them, carried on by your original energy, however compromised and deformed, however distorted and deceived it has become. There is something comforting in the complexity, in the tracing out, some weight in the columns of numbers and figures, the footnoted charts and weighted years of annotated tables, as if the very complexity somehow sharpens your eye and hones your powers of observation, as if it fixes that point more clearly and focuses it before you, and holds your foot to it as you march in the cold and darkness.
But what a terrible deception lies in this, this comforting obscurity of calculation, because it lets you deceive yourself (and oh how willingly you are led) into believing that this easy complexity can stand in for vision, that the ordered march of numbers can pull you forward, can somehow change the one hard cold fact that remains after you recognize the bouncing, shifting treachery of the light and the ignorant hopefulness of your science: that it is only the determination of that fixed point and your uncertain eye upon it that matters.
March on march until we heard shouting in the distance and Reinhold called out to the hut, the echo sounding familiar to me. We all called out and stumbled forward, yanking the sledge behind us. In the distance I heard bellowing, and the roar of an animal. I felt Reinhold and the doctor jerk free from the harness and felt the harness drop away. They cried out and cried out again; many voices were shouting; and there was the crash of splintering wood and the rough thump of flesh on stone, then the crack of a rifle. I dragged after them, stumbling up onto the beach, anchored by the sledge.
I struggled to be free of my harness, but could not. I yanked hard on the sledge again, eventually upsetting it and wedging into the rocks just down the beach from the boats. Their voices were buzzing now, and low. From the black inside of the camp, I could hear a low moaning.
eighteen
What is it?” I called out. “What’s happened?”
A hand came to my elbow and cut me free.
“A bear,” a voice—Adney’s—said. “Reinhold is badly wounded, as is Preston. The captain and Creely are both uninjured, but it made off with our meat, such as it was. We’re lucky you came when you did. Is West still alive?”
“If he is, then just barely,” I replied. “I’ve lost my sight. We have some seal on the sledge.”
Adney moved off. After a time, hands pulled me up, and the harness was cut free. I was led up under the boats, where Griffin called to me:
“Kane, good to see you, boy. Come on in. They’re just mending the roof with your sledge, then we’ll have a small fire and get you warmed. Ash,” he called out, “we’ll pull under the boat with the tarp anchored to the south, and break up the dinghy.”
“What happened, sir?”
“Bear broke in the end by jumping on the keel of the dinghy. Preston was underneath and got knocked out. Our rifle was trapped beneath him. Adney jumped up and tried to drive it off, but it ignored him. Ash and I pulled Creely back and tried to restart the lamp while it gorged on our stores. Finally Ash got the torch lit and was trying to drive it off when you arrived. Reinhold leapt onto its back, but it threw him off. The doctor finally managed to get some shots off—it didn’t appear hurt, but it has left us alone, and dragged off our seal with it.”
“And Reinhold, sir? How is he?”
“He’s had a bad knock, but he’s made of iron. He’ll be all right.”
We unpacked the slege and settled into our new, smaller quarters, Griffin issuing sharp orders, though taking care not to overtax any of us. He did not ask about our trek, for which I was grateful.
A fire was started and the wind subsided as the cracks around the hut were sealed. We had a weak hoosh, and I slept.
When I awoke the hut was cold again. Adney was clambering over me, back from a fruitless hunt.
“I can see the coming of the light,” he said. “Just faintly in the sky, a long way off, but it is there.”
A weak cheer went up across the hut.
“It should break the horizon in about two weeks,” said the doctor.
“We need to start south by then, if we can,” said Captain Griffin, “if we want the ice to hold. I don’t imagine we’ll make better than five or six miles a day.”
“We should wait for the ice to break up,” said the doctor. “We can rely on the boat and drift out with the pack. You cannot march on your foot yourself; we can let the ice do much of the work for us.”
“The boat won’t hold us all. We can’t drift out into the sound and have it melt beneath us.”
“We can ride the ice and use the boat to ferry us to shore when the need arises; hunting and fishing should both improve as the light comes back—we’ll be able to build up our stores again, and regain some strength. We may even have another chance to go north—the Barrier is only forty miles away.”
No one responded to this invitation.
With the hut restored, and Reinhold, West, and the others tended, the doctor and Griffin went through the stores remaining. With the addition of our seal, we had two weeks of fuel and half rations for us all. The captain did not ask about our journey and Dr. Architeuthis did not offer. Instead they focused on the care of the men, hunting parties, the state of the ice and currents of the water. The doctor took the rifle and went with Adney to look for seals. Inside the hut, West mumbled and shook, but did not wake. For the others, I could not tell if they were asleep or awake—even the jovial snore of Reinhold was silent. The hunters returned eventually in silence and made the hoosh. Dr. Architeuthis examined each of us in turn.
“Will my sight return, Doctor?” I asked.
“It should,” he replied. “Perhaps a week. There is nothing I can see as the cause—some time to rest and steady meals in the hut. Our Atlas must not weaken.” He rubbed my shoulder with an awkward affection.
West came to for the hoosh and he was lucid.
First he demanded a full accounting of the stores, and then of the men, and then of the weather and ice, and then demanded a second, full hoosh made. Adney took the rifle again and left, and Dr. Architeuthis silently began to melt ice and shake his droplets in. Adney returned with a fox he had shot approaching the ridge. It was no more than a bag of gristly bones, but it added weight to our meal. None of us could trust our teeth to the bones except Ash, who cracked them with vigor and scraped the marrow into the pot.
Adney went out again and stayed out, except for meals, and to minister to Reinhold. He brought in an occasional fox, and shot some birds—the first we’d seen in months—but no seal; he lacked Reinhold’s skill at finding the holes and saw them only in the distance. The doctor brought shrimp in from the nets. We soon used up our seal meat and moved to cold hooshes made from whatever grace the day had granted us. Reinhold began to sit up weakly, and his raspy breathing filled the tent.
My sight returned slowly, and it brought me back into a world of ghosts. With the blubber gone and the lantern out, we resorted to candles. The broken bones of foxes were added and then removed from each pot, in hope that some gluey trace of nutrition might pass from them to us. Ash tried to dry the shrimp shells and burn them, but could not get them to light. Adney managed to scrape handfuls of lichen from the rock that yielded weak and smoky fires.
Each of the men had lost so much weight that their bones angled sharply through the blackened skin of their faces. Their joints were so swollen that you could see the binding in their clothes, and the voids in between. Pools of blood seemed to sit open on their faces, and yellow eyes sat deep in black sockets; behind cracked lips solitary teeth sat in translucent gums. Aside from the hunters, most of the men sat upright, hands in their laps, staring blankly ahead. They drank hoosh when it was handed to them, but made no other efforts to stir themselves, took no notice of the day passing, like a tribe of lost revenants awaiting the return of their necromancer. Only West, glaring from inside his bag, gave any sign of volition.
One evening, Dr. Architeuthis built a stronger fire with wood from the dinghy to make a proper hot hoosh and do a more thorough medical exam. The fire roared up and the hut became delightfully warm. The doctor began with West, who refused to let the doctor examine him.
“At least let me see your frozen hand,” said the doctor. “Perhaps we can save the arm.”
“My hand?” said West. “And what is to be done about it? No medicines, no instruments. Can your eyes heal it? You only want to butcher me. You can’t wait for it. Why not eat the others first, eh? Creely first? Why is it me?”
“If the rot worsens without stopping it, you’ll die,” said the doctor.
“And that would make things easy for you wouldn’t it? Except then I’d be frozen and harder to eat—better to keep me soft and warm, eh?”
“We will restrain you if we must, Mr. West, but I need to look at it, for your own safety.” He glanced over to Ash, who rose onto his haunches.
“Oh by all means bring over your bone breaker, Doctor. I’ll not go lightly. Come, come, Creely first, or Kane.”
“No one is eating anyone, Mr. West. As the sun returns there is more than enough to feed us. I need to conduct my examination now.” He moved forward and Ash moved up behind him.
“Keep your distance. I’ll give you a look, butcher.” He pulled his hand from within his bag and held it out to the fire. It was curled into a gnarled crook, black and twisted and shriveled all the way to his elbow. The elbow was grotesquely swollen and yellow, with trails of pus edging down the black forearm.
“Right as rain,” he yelled. “Now look somewhere else for your gobbets.”
“Let me see,” said the doctor, putting out his hands.
“Nor stop me nor turn me nor drive me forth,” shouted West, “as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were not wood.” Then he appeared to calm down, and a broken smile bent his face.
“If it’s to be, than I am first,” said West. “Mine first for me.”
And glaring directly at the doctor, he put his gnarled thumb into his mouth and snapped it off. The doctor and Ash leapt forward but it was too late—West cracked and crunched the black thumb with relish, bits leaking out through the open flap in his cheek. He laughed shrilly.
“Ha! Can your feeble sailors do this? I am twice the man.”
He bit down on his fore and index fingers, tearing free long strips of his black skin down his forearm.
“Make yourself useful, butcher, and sew up my cheek. I’m losing all the juices.”
Dr. Architeuthis sedated West with a vial from his pocket, and pulled the remains of West’s hand from between his clenched jaws. He and Ash laid him back in front of the fire and slid him out of his bag. His legs were pale sticks, streaks of black extending up into his thighs. They cleaned up as best they could, tamping gently on large areas of open sores and bruising stretching down his haunches to the black rising up. His ribs were yellow, purple, and black, with their own mosaic of sores and rot. Again they cleaned gently, bound up his wounds, and then strapped him firmly into his bag.
“Well, then,” said Dr. Architeuthis mordantly, “who’s next?” The others of us had the usual sores and nips of frostbite, and some rot. Reinhold grunted with pain as the doctor felt his ribs and back, and sank into sleep as soon as his examination was finished. The doctor clipped off Ash’s fingertips and the tips of his ears as if he were clipping his nails. Ash cauterized them on a glowing coal, barking more with irritation than with pain. I had developed a cough, and with it a mild fever, but the doctor did not seem to be worried about it.
“I thought you said I couldn’t get sick,” I said.
“You can’t,” he said, trying to smile a little.
“So where did my fever come from? Was it something I ate?”
“What you have not eaten, I think, is the trouble. It is most likely a focal infection,” he said, “rooted somewhere in your body—frequently the teeth or throat, but perhaps within an internal organ, often the liver. You carried it up here with you, most probably you have had it for many years, and it has waited for your present weakness to reveal itself. Now you are weak and it becomes stronger. But with some fresh food you will recover yourself. Atlas will not fail.”
Fresh food was not forthcoming, though some storms brought back the sun, and warmer weather with it. Adney rolled back the canvas roof and we turned our faces feebly to the sun. The doctor was tireless—preparing all the food, examining us daily, caring for us with the most careful ministrations.
West’s song, when it came, was Italian. He rumbled out the vibrato, the skin dancing on his cheek, before slumping into silence and death. I lacked the strength to dig, but could hear Griffin and Adney pounding at the gravel with a thwart from the dinghy—a sound that seemed to have been there always, irregular, discordant, bitter.
The days passed in gaps for me now—long dark silences, and then a blaze of light, and the ice foot off in the distance. The doctor and Griffin arguing about leaving. My teeth chattering themselves loose and scattering into my mouth. The doctor’s face over mine tense and worried. Bright red spots on a field of white. And then another hacking cough and a wrenching in my stomach. Teeth again jumbled in my mouth—a mouth full of teeth.
It came clearly to me that I was dying; that dying was not a momentary severing, but a set of small steps of decline and submission. I sat dully and watched the others sitting for hour after hour. Of course the hours that sped now were the hours I cherish, the stained, sick hours, dark and bloody hours after the bright hours I had spent cursing, not like these, black and gray and dark and now, in my last days, shot with scarlet at last, these days. This day.
Today. I could not bring myself to think of today as the last. This could not be the last, though I knew it was not far. Today. The closeness left me license to search without shame for the light in these days, but the end was not so close that I did not need to search. I could not bring my face to bear on the bloods
tained handkerchief, could not listen to the cough as it worsened, and tried to (and could) think of my companions, of us working, sailing through the bright and fractured ice, of Aziz passing me a cup of hot tea and leaning back to tell me a story.
Starting with a flicker in my throat, but once caught, tearing, I coughed into my sleeve, the cuff already spotted and stained with blood dried to a reddish brown like the breast of a robin.
I took comfort that there was on the other side of the world one man who answered me in opposite—who balanced my pain with his joy and my hardship with his ease, my red for his green, in each of my flaws and failures and weaknesses his own virtues and triumphs and strengths. I saw him, languid days unrolling before him, heaped plates leaping up to rest gently beneath his fingers, fruit bursting whole from the ground, wine draining from grapes; before him new lands heaved up from the sea, trees whole upon them, shaking off the deep like energetic dogs from a pond. A straight and smooth row of bright teeth cracking into an apple.
I awoke shuddering and shaking in the darkness, Griffin’s arm over my shoulder, gently supporting me, his voice soft in my ear. My head rolled back, thumping hard against the boat, and my eyes lost their focus. Then the blaze of light from under my eyelids, which were torn somehow, and the light was burning in. A sharp pain in my face, and the delightful cool of rocks as the light fell. I retched soup into my lap and turned to the doctor, my head pounding and my neck too weak to support it—a great weakness, my flesh falling from my bones and skin tearing from its own weight; before me the angry faces of strangers. Fever cleanses and leaves one sober, chastened, humble. Fever passes, but I felt now the return of fevers rising in waves, fevers recurrent, native, and abiding.