A Marker to Measure Drift

by Alexander Maksik

  “You do not need to pay me,” the man said, but when Jacqueline glanced up, her eyes rising from the food to meet his, he said, “You pay me the next day. The time after, yes? Now you’re eating, yes?”

  God, her mother said. All of this, God.

  “Yes. Not the next day, but I’ll pay you. Not tomorrow, soon.”

  “Not important,” the man said.

  She spread the paper napkin across her lap and raised the heavy silverware from the table. She drove the tines in, drew the dull, serrated blade through the baked crust of rice, the skin, the soft flesh of the tomato. She ate. Then there was nothing else—not her mother, not before Spain, not Spain, not the cave, not the Senegalese men, not this man. For those minutes there was only the food.

  THE MAN HAD LEFT her alone to eat. Still, when he could, he stopped by the table, smiled at her while serving other tables, and when she’d finished, came to offer her more. She could have eaten endlessly. But after she’d sopped up the olive oil on her plate with a thick piece of bread, after she’d finished the bottle of Coke he’d placed before her next to a fresh glass, she watched him serving his customers, and then, despite every desire, stood up to leave. She did not take with her any of the bread that was left in the basket. She did not hide any of the sugar packets in her pockets. Aside from the one she’d spread across her lap, she left the paper napkins in their dented silver holder.

  “You must stay,” the man said. “You must have dessert. Coffee. Grappa.”

  “No.” She had seen the frosted metal bowls of ice cream, the long-handled spoons. “No,” she said. “I’m late already.”

  “Late?”

  “I have to meet my friends,” she said, her stomach already cramping.

  “Yes,” he looked away from her.

  “I’ll pay you for the food.”

  “No,” he began and then, seeing her eyes, “Yes, yes, when you can. It is no race.”

  She smiled at this. Again, she wanted to know his name and nearly asked, but stopped herself by lowering her head and swallowing.

  “Not race at all,” he said and swept his hand back across the space between them, as if he were wiping a table clean. “You are fine for walking?”

  A group of young women had arrived and were standing at the entrance. The man glanced over his shoulder and then back to Jacqueline.

  “I’m fine for walking,” she said. “Thank you very much. Thank you.” She felt the thickness rise in her chest and then in her throat as if she might cry. She thought of her posture, the string at the top of her head pulling her straight.

  Raise your chin, young woman.

  “The food was delicious.”

  “You are welcome,” he said. “Forever you like.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled again and now stepped away from her chair, from her good table, from her warm corner, and began to walk toward the clean young women who had taken menus from the stack on the small wooden table.

  “Come,” he said and pointed them to a corner of the terrace closest to the sea. “Come, beautiful ladies.” Jacqueline slipped past and out onto the street as the women clicked and teetered to their table.

  “Don’t forget,” the man said.

  Jacqueline turned. The white plastic bag hung from his fingers.

  “Oh.” She said, “Thank you,” and took it. The bag was heavy. He’d replaced the bottle.

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  “Forever you like,” the man said, smiled at her once more, and returned to his restaurant.

  THE SUN HAD NEARLY SET and in the blue twilight stars were beginning to appear. There were shopkeepers and restaurant owners standing outside with menus beneath their arms, there were club and bar touts, and there were the tourists, mostly young like the women in the restaurant. Clean clothes. Suntanned or sunburned. She had not eaten so well since leaving. No, before leaving. How long had it been? Warm food on a plate. Flavor. She thought of the food she’d refused on the plane. She saw that tray often and now again saw the hand take it away, all the small packages unopened. If you prefer to live, the loss of appetite is a luxury. So when then? Her mind did this more and more often. It slipped away from her. She was trying to answer one question, to stay on one track, but she would lose it.

  There was the bread left in the wire basket, there had been more peppers, more rice, more oil.

  She had lost track of time. There were only the fundamental events of her life, the sensual elements, and the places themselves. In fact, all of it, well, no, not all (but that, she sometimes thought, was a question of time and of control), had blurred, was fading from clear image to murky sensation. Everything behind her, even the very most recent life, seemed to have lost its form or structure in her memory so that those events, those people, those places, had become clouded and obscure and existed only as a kind of aftertaste.

  Saifa’s room, for example, was no longer something she saw. Instead it was a feeling, a brief wash of sensation, the way a smell, burning butter, say, recalls a man whose name you remember, but whose face is impossible to recover. You cannot describe him and yet you remember him nonetheless. This blurring spread across her memory but avoided certain scenes, certain faces, the way a woman chooses one man and not another.

  Her mind spun on like this. She had walked nearly to the end, where the road turned away from the sea. She stopped on the sidewalk, leaned over the railing, and looked down at the black sand, following it with her eyes to the rocks, where she could see a skirt of white foam.

  She tried to answer the question.

  She remembered the porch in the sense that to remember is not always something that happens to a person. To remember is an active verb also, her father had told her. More than most things, places were easier to recall with clarity. She saw their terrace. There was shade. Four chairs around a plastic table. Four green chairs around a white table. That was on one end. Then on the other, there were four chairs. These reclined and were made of metal and tan mesh. They were kept in a row, the last aligned, by its two outer feet, with the corner of the house. In the other sense of the word, she remembered lightning storms. Without any conscious provocation, the sky turned violet and was shattered by jagged veins of light. This is the show, her father said. This is the show, children, the show. He laughed high and nasal and clapped his hands. I am not your child, her mother said. I know, my love, I know, he said. But he did not know.

  They drank Coca-Cola from the bottle, except for her mother, who insisted on a glass. And Saifa. When she became pregnant, she stopped drinking Coca-Cola altogether. Jacqueline did not know when this lightning storm had been, or how old she was then, or even if her sister had been born yet.

  The show, the show.

  She unscrewed the cap of the plastic bottle and drank. After sitting at a table, glass after glass of cold water, Coke, it was an indulgence to waste this. She capped it and returned it to the plastic bag. She was irritated with herself. Any bit of luxury and she softened, shifted, and forgot. This was the problem with fortune.

  This is the problem with your God. You are lulled into faith.

  Her mother in the hall mirror adjusting a pale green scarf around her neck.

  Looking out at the shining black rocks, Jacqueline had been thinking she would not return to her cave, but again, she was angry for her laziness.

  Nothing has changed because you’ve eaten this meal, her mother said. If anything, you must be more careful. You are known. You are present in the minds of at least four people. Now you must take your plastic bag, walk across the sand, and move carefully. As always, you must do what is difficult. Despite your laziness, despite your lack of will.

  Her mother sliced a lime in half lengthwise.

  Jacqueline was overcome by fatigue and more than anything at that moment, she wanted to lie on the bench and close her eyes, but she walked down the steps into the dark. Her eyes felt swollen and heavy. She walked along the water to the end of the sand and climbed up onto the boulders. She m
oved carefully, staying low, trying to keep her hands and feet always on the rock. The tide was high and the waves broke fast and rolled up the long spits of sand spreading their white foam. It was cool and humid, the air heavy with salt. Handhold by handhold to the lip of the cave she was nearly certain was hers. At the top, she wiped her foot dry. She counted one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three, pushed off, and threw herself headfirst into the darkness, where she found her pack and the blanket. She spread it out across the cool, damp floor. She lay on her belly and faced the sea. There was no sound other than the breaking waves and the sloshing water.

  She watched the lights traverse the bay until she gave in.

  THE SOFTNESS OF THE BED began to give way to a point of pain in her belly. She shifted and the pain sharpened. She opened her eyes. The sun had just come up over the bay and was cutting into the cave. She hadn’t menstruated for nearly a year, and now it had begun again. How could that be? Maybe it was the meal. But how could a single meal? She kept her eyes closed and thought of the thick pile of napkins she’d left in the restaurant. What she had kept from the ferry was nearly gone. She should have taken them. Not the sugar packets, but anyone might have taken napkins, not only a vagrant. She reached beneath herself. There was a sharp stone stabbing into her skin. She rolled it between her fingers. Only a stone. She did not open her eyes. She did not have the energy. Not for waking, not for turning her body, not for climbing, not for walking, not for finding food, not for doing what she knew she must if she insisted on living.

  AN ALGERIAN MAN selling fruit on a sidewalk in Málaga had told her a story of three women who lived with him in an illegal inland camp. They had shelter. There was water nearby, he said. They had jobs picking strawberries in a nearby greenhouse. They were paid regularly. But even so, they’d waited and held hands and stepped in front of a train. I understood, the man said. Even if I can’t explain it, and don’t have the courage to do it myself, I understand it. He gave her the oranges and told her that she must eat fruit if she wanted to live.

  She didn’t believe she deserved that quick exit, nor the romance and flash of that kind of death. Once, on a cold morning, she had been so incapable of movement that she had allowed a warm stream of urine to flow out of her while she lay on some beach wrapped in her blanket. She’d stayed lying in it, crying and shivering, as the urine turned cold. It was as close as she’d come. That was the suicide she imagined. Rot to death. Lie in the cold sand. Shit herself. Piss herself. Eat nothing. Go blank. Wait. The Algerian man had reminded her of her father, so naïve, so sure of himself. She had accepted his gift. Those oranges tasting so entirely like orange. She’d eaten while he spoke and the memory returned that flavor to her mouth. If you want to live, he’d said.

  I will get up.

  She counted down from ten as if before leaping from the rocks in Robertsport and at one she opened her eyes. A long white yacht was anchored in the bay. She could see women lying naked on the bow. The tide had retreated and below she could see the spit of black sand. Aside from the yacht and the sailboats moving far out across the horizon, she was alone. She sat up and stretched her arms above her head. Her body was sore. To stay here, she’d have to create some kind of mattress. After folding the blanket and returning it to its place, she closed the pack and slid it deeper into the cave, out of the light where it would not be seen. She moved down the rock easily. You can’t prevent it, places become familiar, your body adapts. Muscle memory. She’d always liked that expression. Whatever you do, the body remembers. She slid her underwear down, brought her skirt up to her waist, and squatted behind a boulder. There was still pleasure. Still. Even this morning.

  Until that was gone.

  She relaxed and felt the vaguest sense of rejuvenation. To have drunk enough to piss like this. She’d left the water bottle behind. She liked the idea of saving it, keeping it away from herself. A good thing to return to. Squatting there, her feet dug into the cool sand, in the shade of the boulder, she thought of the peppers, of the rice and the thick-cut bread left in the basket.

  She drew her underwear back up and stood. She needed to wash. She needed clean water. She hated the salt-stiff cotton. It burned where her skin was raw. She walked around the boulder and out to the water, letting it wash over her feet and up to her ankles. She looked out at the yacht, at the brown women on the bow deck. They were too far for her to see faces. She began to walk toward the main beach. She straightened her spine, unclenched her fists, let the weight of her hands swing her arms.

  I am at leisure.

  In Málaga, still carrying the remnants of her first life in her breasts and on her hips, she’d been sitting on the sand with her arms around her knees when a small blond woman with sunburned hands had shown her a peeling laminated card.

  “You want massage cheap? Good strong. Yes?” The woman had demanded. “Yes?” She pointed to the rates written in neat handwriting. Five minutes, three euros. Ten minutes, five. Shoulders, feet, and back.

  “No,” Jacqueline had replied. “No. But thank you.”

  The woman took her hand and from a glass bottle poured a small green pool into Jacqueline’s palm. She moved her thumbs, rubbing the oil into Jacqueline’s skin, pulling the blood along.

  “I have no money,” she’d protested. “No money.”

  “Yes,” the woman said. “Cheap.”

  Jacqueline shook her head and tried to take her hands away, but the woman held tighter.

  “No money. No money.” Jacqueline lowered her head and began to cry. It was as if the woman’s hands were taking something from her. “No money,” she said again.

  She looked up and was unable to wipe her face. “No money,” she said again. “I am like you. I am like you.”

  “Free,” the woman said. “Okay? Free.”

  And for a few minutes she massaged Jacqueline’s hands. The smell of the oil was rich and round and clean. As the woman pushed her thumbs along the muscle, Jacqueline cried and watched the small bottle in the sand, the sun through the glass, the yellow Puget label, the bright oil. When the woman released her, Jacqueline did not know how much time had passed. She raised her eyes and smiled.

  “Thank you,” she said. She could still feel the fingers moving against her skin.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry I have no money.”

  “We are fine,” the woman said. “We are fine, we,” she’d said, taking her card out of the sand with the very tips of her thumb and forefinger, as if she were extracting a hair from a plate of food. She shook the sand off, stood up, and looked down at Jacqueline.

  “Okay,” the woman said.

  “Okay,” Jacqueline said and watched her walk down the beach, stopping at each towel, each umbrella. She fell back then, her knees pointing at the sky, and with her eyes open and the fine sand sticking to the backs of her hands, she did her best to thank God, to wish that woman well.

  Now, Jacqueline walked along the black beach.

  And what you’re about to do? Her mother put down her book. This is not also God? This is not a plan? You still think it an accident that woman found you?

  You want me to say that I am fortunate? You want me to tell you that I am blessed? Because she pitied me? That is a blessing?

  HOW DO YOU BEGIN?

  Excuse me, sir, excuse me, ma’am. Excuse me for bothering you.

  Jacqueline walked to the waterline and followed it to the far end of the beach. The sun was strong, but not stronger than what she was used to. Still, if she were to do this, she’d need a hat. She imagined a wide white note card lying flat on a long oak desk. She wrote, hat. She ran her palm over her head, feeling the short hair bristle against her hand. She tied her skirt in a knot high up her thighs so that the fabric fell like drapes around her legs and she walked out into the water. The man would be there, far across the beach, up the steps. She thought of him setting his tables, filling the salt-shakers. She would need a lie. A student in New York. Columbia University like her father. And to make money, to pay for
what the scholarship didn’t, to make ends meet, she did this. New York is expensive. It was good enough. She had the accent when she wanted it. She knew the idioms. Her father had given her those.

  The chairs had all been unchained and spread out side by side in rows, some beneath umbrellas, some in the full sun. There were families who brought their own or who sat only on towels. The local buses came and went.

  There were other things, but nothing she was willing to do.

  She came out of the water and began with a couple sitting on a wide red towel. The woman lay on her stomach, propped up on her elbows. The man sat at her side, stroking her back. Jacqueline preferred the people away from the chairs. The attendants made her nervous. Out here, closer to the water, she’d be less conspicuous. It occurred to her as she approached that she’d never considered whether or not she knew how to touch these strangers, but she did not turn away.

  “Excuse me for bothering you,” she said.

  The man had watched her come, had pushed with his thumb into the woman’s back in warning.

  Jacqueline could see herself approaching. Thin, black woman. Bright, artificial smile.

  “Excuse me,” Jacqueline said again. She’d begun the sentence too far out and was afraid that with the wind, they might not have heard her. You must be polite. Above all things. “I’m sorry to bother you. Do you speak English?”

  “Yes,” the man said, and the woman nodded.

  “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  Jacqueline was standing between them and the sun. The couple looked up at her. She could see herself reduced and multiplied in their sunglasses.

  “Do you mind?” She said, lowering herself, careful to press her skirt between her knees, focusing on the woman, who smiled now.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said again, kneeling on the sand. “I’m a student but I’m also a masseuse, a massage therapist, and I was wondering if you’d like—”