A Marker to Measure Drift

by Alexander Maksik

  Evolution, her mother said. To chart the evolution, not the decline. There is no rise. There is no fall, there is simply what He wants of you.

  “What do you want?”

  “Only to say hello. To welcome you. To say to you, bon chance, my friend.”

  She looked at him. Studied his eyes, his arms spread out, his long hands hanging still across the top of the bench.

  “Thank you,” she said and would have walked on, but did not have the strength.

  “You are doing here?”

  “What?”

  “On the beach. You are doing what?”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  He waved his hand at her like she’d told him a bad joke. “Yes,” he said. “You do. You do.”

  Jacqueline stared at him.

  “You are working.”

  She did not respond.

  “You are working and I think you are living. Here,” he said. “I am thinking you are living here.”

  “I’m going to have lunch,” she said and pushed herself away from the railing. It was the new adrenaline that allowed her to move, adrenaline of fear, of anger.

  “It is possible,” he said and looked at her again with that broad cruel smile, “it is possible I know where is.”

  She’d taken a step forward. She would have to pass in front of him now to get to the restaurant.

  “What is? Know where what is?”

  “The place you are living.” He nodded toward the beach.

  Jacqueline stood beneath the shower, naked in the streetlight.

  “You can work for me,” he said, the smile now absent.

  “No, thank you.” Jacqueline took two steps to pass the man. His long right arm came alive. He snatched her wrist in his rough hand.

  She met his eyes and did not fight and did not look at the fingers on her arm. “Do not touch me,” she said. He kept his hand where it was and smiled at passersby as if it were a game he and Jacqueline were playing. She did not want to be seen, did not want this attention, but she would not smile. She focused on his face, trying to work out what he was exactly, the danger he posed. There were a thousand degrees. Everything seemed to bend around her and despite the fear she felt, the adrenaline had begun to dilute and disappear. Perhaps there was none left. And without it fear took on a different feeling altogether. What she had left was anger, which gave her enough power to pull her arm away. People stopped to look. An incongruous scene on this quiet bay.

  Jacqueline pulled hard. She felt his nails claw across her skin. She’d broken his grip and now she walked from him toward the restaurant.

  She entered and took a seat at a table farthest from the sidewalk, closest to the sea. There were three raised red lines on her arm. She was very tired and more than food, more than water, what she wanted then was to sleep, was to hide away, to bury herself somewhere and close her eyes, to be contained and protected and gone.

  It was a woman who brought the menu, who brought the bottle of water, the basket of bread. Jacqueline watched the door to the kitchen, but it was always the waitress who came and went.

  “Is the owner here?” she asked.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Not at all. No. I was just hoping to speak to him today.”

  “To speak to him?”

  Jacqueline looked up. Until then the woman had been a vague presence, a sweeping hand, a smell of garlic and dirty oil. All familiar smells, which made her trust that presence. But the face was jarring. Somehow she’d expected a face like her mother’s, or some element of her there in the eyes or in the voice. But this woman gazing down at her—pale skin, black hair—was young and looked at Jacqueline with suspicion.

  “Why would you need to speak to the owner?”

  “Oh, only because,” she began. She wanted to say that he had helped her, that she owed him money for a meal, that she wanted to repay him today, to thank him for the water. But she understood that this must be the man’s girlfriend, his wife, so she said she was hoping for a job, she wondered if there might be a job. She did not want to cause him any trouble.

  “We’re not hiring anyone now.”

  Jacqueline nodded and said she understood and ordered the yemista. When the woman left, she drank half the bottle of water before using the glass. Now her focus widened.

  She ate the peppers slowly, but still her stomach cramped in tight pointed pain. It was important to repay the man. She wanted to speak to him, and as the food calmed her, slowed her heart, she hoped he’d return. But it was only the woman who moved through the restaurant, proprietary and efficient. He never came. The woman left her alone with the check. Jacqueline dug the money from her skirt pocket. There were two bills. Five euros. Then she unfolded the other. It was a fifty. Fifty euros. Charity. A donation to the victims of their pathetic little war. Victims of her father’s hero. Victims of her father. Charity from those people on the sand to whom she knelt.

  But why anger? Why is your first response always to be furious, always to doubt? You must see, JaJa, these things are not accidents. Those people, this money, everything is intended.

  Jacqueline laid the fifty down. When her change came, she slipped a twenty beneath the receipt. She owed him nothing now.

  She found the bathroom, where she sat bent over on the toilet. The cramping was worse. She thought she might vomit, but she willed it down. She could not afford to lose what she’d eaten. She knew she would need it. She wanted to stay longer behind the locked door, but she was embarrassed. She washed her face and was grateful there was no mirror above the sink. She wound several feet of toilet paper around her palm, buried it in her pocket, and left the restaurant swept with nausea. She stood out front on the sidewalk and when she counted three men standing in front of the sunglasses, she turned and walked in the other direction.

  IN THE CAVE, she sat with her bare legs in the sun, calves pressed against the warm rock, and watched the boats pass. She did not want to leave. She did not want to begin again. She wanted to fight. She was not afraid, but she could only lose. There was a familiar cruelty in that man. He would come for her. He had nothing else to do.

  So she sat, most of herself in shade, trying to ignore the pain in her stomach and the loss she felt for this new home. She liked the pretty bay, the changing light, her bed, the order of her life.

  Nostalgia, her father said.

  Maybe, Jacqueline said. And anyway, she could not risk the man’s cruelty. He was not the one to fight. This salesman. This bully.

  No, her mother said, pouring gin over ice, he is not the one to fight.

  This is not the end, her mother said. It is no more the end than any of those Spanish beaches were the end. You must go on. God has shown you that. You see it now, my heart.

  She spread her money on one of the shelves, counted and arranged it, and returned it to her pocket. She folded her blanket and clothes and pressed them down into her pack. She slid the mattress to the very back of the cave, as if she might someday return.

  Despite its weight, she kept the pillow.

  She swung out and slipped down, and went on.

  ALONG THE ROAD she stopped in a small store and bought water and half a kilo of almonds. She bought tomatoes and figs and peaches, a loaf of bread and a block of feta, and still she had plenty of money to spare. Jacqueline turned her back to the bay. She had the intention of returning to the central town where she’d arrived and perhaps finding her way onto a ferry for Athens, or to another island, but because a police car passed by, because she saw the driver’s black eyes in the rearview mirror, she turned from the main road and followed a dirt path that took her upward and as she hiked she saw that she was now climbing on the mountain that had contained her. Somewhere below was her cave.

  Mostly she was alone, though sometimes when she looked up she could see figures above on the higher switchbacks. She followed tourist signs for Ancient Thera and after forty minutes of steady climbing came up onto a ridge and into the wind. From here she
saw the coast extend in a long arc. In the other direction she looked down at her black beach and the flat bay. She rested and watched a sailboat move across the water and disappear around the point where the mountain came to the sea. After a few minutes she saw it come out the other side, where it began to trace the wilder coast. The expanse of all that land was a surprise and the sight of it, combined with the wind blowing her sweat cold, released some pressure, allowed her to breathe, gave her a sense of lightness. She looked at the hills sloping gently to the water, the small white houses scattered among vineyards and the farms spread out in ordered green rectangles and squares to the dark coast braided with surf. The food she carried and all the land and water beneath her provided momentary peace. The feeling was akin to those brief moments of abandon when she stood naked beneath the shower.

  But the color of those farms returned her to memory. To Saifa at her side, the two of them comfortable in their chairs, the rain stopped, the dark clouds moving south like great trucks. The two of them looking out at the jungle encompassing the city, more threatening than ever, the shanties on the beach, blue tarps drawn tight, the ocean turning to green marble, the ocean returning to steel. Saifa holding a radio in her hands as if it were her child, balancing it on her belly, its long silver antenna extending nearly to the overhanging roof. The two of them quiet, listening to the voice of DJ Lobo Courtnoy as he read for the Red Cross. She remembered names and that he spoke them twice before declaring each child’s sex. The lilt in his voice, the unintentional poetry, accidental music in the litany of names: Patrick Tilla. Patrick Tilla. Patrick is a boy. Age three. Mother’s name Mani Tilla. Father’s name Jalla Tilla. Patrick Tilla, Patrick Tilla. Jonah Tilla, Jonah Tilla. Jonah is a boy. Age six. Mother’s name, Mani Tilla, Father’s name Jalla Tilla. Jonah Tilla. Jonah Tilla.

  SHE HIKED THE LAST SECTION of the path, which ran out toward the sea and then descended into the ruins of the ancient city, where there were broken foundations, dwellings, remnants of an amphitheater, and smooth black stone-cobbled streets.

  A tour bus arrived, and soon there were more people wandering the pathways, holding up maps, comparing drawings of the original city to the remains. For a while Jacqueline watched a heavy man in leather sandals recounting history while he wiped sweat and errant strands of blond hair from his forehead. But she did not listen.

  Instead she leaned against a cypress tree and watched a small girl in a green dress ignore the tour guide and, balancing on a boulder, extend her arms and spread her fingers to catch the wind. A lizard came to rest on a jagged, lichen-covered stone. It snapped its tongue and then disappeared over the cliff edge.

  The branches of the cypress moved above her and Jacqueline saw the place as a living city: people in the streets, smell of fresh bread, children running past, sound of bare feet on black stone, women walking together, wood smoke on wind.

  She walked away from the tour group, past a man with a boy on his shoulders, past a woman in a wide, pink-banded straw sun hat.

  She found the remnants of the amphitheater. Here she sat in the shade of a tall cedar. Breaking a piece of feta from the block, wetting her fingers, Jacqueline pressed it into a piece of bread. She bit pieces from a tomato, made a crude sandwich, and ate. She liked the acid in her mouth, the sharpness cutting something open in her.

  She had been sleeping somewhere down below, somewhere beneath where she was now. Somewhere inside this mountain, this great hunk of earth and rock, she had been hidden away. Somewhere beneath where she was now were her shelves, her mattress, the sand her feet had carried up into the cave, the oil from her skin staining the rock, all of it already distant, remainders, remnants of a former life. Far off and otherworldly.

  This is something you must learn, her mother said. The physical home is nothing. The sooner you learn that, my heart, my proud girl, so sure of yourself, so sure of your body, such confidence in the ground beneath you, the sooner you learn that, the sooner you learn that, well, her mother said, well.

  Well, what?

  But she knew.

  It was a beautiful amphitheater. Better now, she thought, with only the lizards crossing the stage, with only the white-caps, the occasional sailboat, a hydrofoil, in the channel far below for scenery.

  She imagined an audience. She imagined life returned here.

  Ghosts.

  But you don’t believe in ghosts, her mother said. Spirits. Child of logic. No such thing.

  No.

  And where has all that got you? Sitting here alone. Not a pot to piss in. No one to talk to, your chest empty.

  Jacqueline shook her head and stood up. She finished the bottle of water, returned the food to her pack.

  If not, then what is left? What is memory, if not ghosts?

  The problem is not ghosts, the problem now is what to do next.

  But her mother said nothing.

  Jacqueline turned to watch the group of tourists follow the blond man into the amphitheater.

  She left the ruins and followed the fall line into a stand of gnarled, stubborn-looking cypress trees. Their rough branches fanned out to screen the wind blowing harder up the coast. She dropped her pack here and sat on the ground softened by fragrant fallen needles. Through the branches she could look back and spy on the tourists moving up and down the streets.

  She had clear views north and west. Otherwise she was cupped in by the curving trees. An amphitheater of her own. She noticed the sun and was surprised to find it so low.

  Time passes, her mother said, peeling carrots. No matter what you do. No matter what happens, she said, crushing garlic, hammering the side of her favorite knife with her fist. Beauty or horror, my heart. Turning on the stove. Beauty or horror, it passes.

  Jacqueline saw herself sitting on the earth, watched herself rotating away from the sun.

  From the terrace, she and Saifa strained their necks. They chased after it, off the terrace, onto the grass, and all the way to the property line. They jumped up and up and up.

  Drowned it again, Saifa said.

  Jacqueline had preferred to feel the earth, rather than pretend the sun was setting. The turning was magic enough.

  She’d always wanted to follow it in a boat, stay right behind, maintain just that speed. Keep the sun right on the horizon, never let it set.

  At the equator, the earth moves at one thousand miles per hour, my love, her father said, hand covering the mouthpiece of the telephone, kissing her forehead.

  Just before this sunset, Jacqueline imagined taking Saifa’s hand and chasing across the concrete.

  Underfoot, the low-cut, dry grass. Running to the line where everything turned to wild undergrowth. The whole world pausing, settling. A deflation, a drop in pressure. Last bit of palm oil leaving the funnel. The sun flattening out. The flares, the ocean going dark, the lights snapping on across Monrovia, cooking fires appearing between the blue tarps on the beach.

  She wrapped herself in the blanket. She turned on her side and was grateful for the pillow. The wind pushed hard through the trees. She watched the land below, a wide, black tongue.

  The lights came on across the island.

  There was no moon yet to pick up the thick rope of surf, to distinguish topography, to turn the sea to tin.

  She lay with her hands squeezed between her knees and stared into the night. Like this she fell asleep and dreamed the air smelled of smoke, of dried fish, of storm clouds, her mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood, everything on fire, but there was no light, the flames colorless, nothing moved, the smell unbearable, smell of burning fish and sweat, of garbage. Jacqueline couldn’t breathe.

  She heard the beat of rubber sandal against damp heel.

  Peel and slap, peel and slap, peel and slap.

  When she opened her eyes her heart was hammering in her chest. She could taste the smoke. The moon hung nearly full above a long knifing ridge.

  The sea was silver.

  The island was blue.

  Her mouth was full of b
lood.

  She stayed there on her side until the restlessness was too much. The wind had gone dead. Unable to sleep, she pulled herself up and walked down toward the cliff edge, where she squatted and urinated with her back to the setting moon.

  She ran her tongue over the hole she’d bitten from the inside of her mouth.

  The flap of skin moved free.

  She worried it as she walked the ruins. The sky blued to the east, paling at the horizon. She walked every street. She slipped beneath the ropes and stood in the best-preserved dwellings. In one, she sat on the floor with her back to the wall and watched the stars as they were drawn out of the sky. She returned to the amphitheater and sat for a while. She tried to breathe deliberately, tried to keep her hands still, tried to let her tongue lie motionless in her mouth.

  She stood and walked to the southern side. From here she could see the black beach. She tried to find the restaurant, but couldn’t be sure which was his.

  She should return there. Find the tall man with his menus.

  But for what?

  She shook her head.

  Now you are here, she thought. You cannot return. You cannot think in terms of return. There is only away.

  Forward, her mother said.

  “Away,” Jacqueline said. This time speaking the word.

  Forward, her mother said again.

  Away.

  They’re not the same thing, one of them said. Jacqueline wasn’t sure whom.

  The morning came in fast.

  You’ll burn your eyes, my heart.

  Jacqueline turned away. Her shadow stretched long.

  The whole ruined city was hers. She walked the streets again, one after the other, up and down, back and forth.