A Marker to Measure Drift

by Alexander Maksik

  “I don’t know,” she whispered aloud, feeling the calm evaporate. Now she was a homeless woman in a public park whispering to herself.

  It was coming undone again.

  Answer me.

  I can stay at this wall, in this place, or I can leave and go somewhere else.

  Yes, her mother said as they walked together through Trafalgar Square.

  These were her choices.

  She didn’t know where else to go.

  You could go to Oìa, her mother said. I hear it’s lovely and, of course, your husband is waiting for you.

  Waiting for me the way your husband is waiting, Jacqueline hissed.

  The cruise ship inched along, a toy dragged by fishing line across a frozen lake.

  If I go to Oìa, there will be another wall and the same choice.

  That is called living, my heart, her mother said, kissing Jacqueline’s forehead, tucking her into bed. She looked down on her daughter sadly and said again, That is called living.

  What was once an island is now the ruins of an island.

  She looked at the small cone of Nea Kameni. Like a dormant fountain, she thought.

  But it is not dormant. The nice woman told you. It could go anytime. Anytime at all.

  A swimming pool rode the back of the cruise ship.

  A rectangle the color of sky, so much paler than sea.

  Sometimes in the late afternoons they drank Club beer at his hotel. In the early days, when they’d first met, when that hotel was a place to drink beer and watch the waves through the razor wire. When Jacqueline was there to hustle journalists. Before it became a bunker, a place for stringers and aid workers to hide and pray. Their table was just inside a portico, where the breeze was amplified, and they had a straight view over the pool and out to the ocean.

  Jacqueline couldn’t remember their conversations. Maybe they hadn’t talked at all. Maybe that was the ritual. Just the slow fall into evening. Just the two of them at their table drinking beer from the bottle, while outside the hotel skinny boys sprayed white UN Land Cruisers clean for cash.

  The ship below was still as a building.

  She remembered their waitress. There had been an unusual softness about her and in those evenings she was a part of their ritual.

  But what had Jacqueline said to Bernard? What had he said to her? For a while they’d talked about the country, about the stories he was filing, about his life before her, about her life before him. But all of that seemed so much earlier than those evenings at the hotel.

  There was a time when he’d be away a week in the north reporting on the LURD for the AFP and when he came back he’d tell her about Sekou Conneh.

  They’re not fucking around, Jackie. They’ve got the whole north. They’re coming.

  She listened to him and remembered what he said, but only to use against her father in her sad, too-late rebellion. As things got worse out there, as those children in the jungle were developing a taste for cocaine, all she wanted from Bernard were stories of the Blue Lake in Tubmanburg, a place her father talked about as if it were Liberia’s own wonder of the world.

  “It’s a mining pit filled with water, Jackie,” Bernard said.

  The journalists knew Jacqueline, knew who her father was, and what she wasn’t, knew Bernard, of course. Still, there had been a fight once. An aid worker, someone from the UN she thought, had leaned over and whispered a question in Bernard’s ear, and Bernard had stood and hit the man in the face with his nearly empty bottle. He’d held it not from the neck, but in his palm like a grenade. The glass didn’t break and the man bled over his white shirt. Jacqueline saw it now with such clarity—the blood running down his face and staining that clean white fabric in drops. That she saw as if it were happening now on this wall, as if the shirt were in her fingers, but still she could not remember what they said to each other in those last months.

  Perhaps they hadn’t spoken at all.

  Now she was very tired. She found a low bench and sat with her arms crossed over her breasts. She let the weight of her head draw her chin down so that all she could see were her wrists, her bare arms.

  His fingers traced along her skin. His middle finger gliding in curves along the soft inside of her arm from the mole on her bicep to the very center of her palm. She on her back, a white sheet drawn up to her waist. The window open to the ocean. The air heavy and warm. Bernard propped up on his side, his fingers moving over her body. Her eyes closed, a palm now caressing her shoulders, so soft along her face, over her breasts, her stomach, the back of a nail along her hip bone where the skin was thinnest. She remembered his hand returning to her breast, a welcome weight. The television floated there for a moment, until she saw that it was fixed to a rack bolted to the wall. There were oranges arranged in a pyramid on the dresser.

  She felt the warmth of his chest against her cheek. The breeze came up and brought the smell of ocean air and wood smoke. In this position, when he was on his back and she on her side, she liked to wrap her leg around his and fix herself to him—a kind of grounding. Her cheek to him, her hand flat, her thumb moving over the rise where his chest ended and the stomach muscles began.

  She saw all of this in the sky before her.

  She could feel him whispering into her skin, into her hair.

  But she couldn’t hear him. Either of them in those last months.

  She ran her fingers over the soft skin of the inside of her arm.

  And then he was gone.

  And she was returned to the bench, to her present life, to the endlessness of choice.

  To the facts, her father said.

  And those are these: You are alone.

  You have the clothes you’re wearing.

  You have the contents of your pack.

  Including twenty euros.

  It will soon be night.

  It will soon be colder.

  You are thirsty.

  You will soon be hungry again.

  II

  THE TEMPERATURE WAS FALLING. There were decisions to make, an unrelenting present pressing down on her, and all she wanted then was for Bernard to draw the sheet and the thin cotton blanket over them both, to feel his knees fit behind hers, to feel his chest against her back, to close her eyes against her rotting country, against the coming night, against the rising wind, against this bench, against the inevitable, cold red sunset, against the bus driver’s eyes and the guide’s oiled legs, against her own blathering mother, against Saifa’s eyes, against those ghost boys and their jackal father.

  But all the wanting in the world, her mother reminded her, will leave you with exactly what you have.

  And it was true. For all that desire, a desire that hung heavy and mean in her gut, she remained where she was: holding herself in her own arms, her skin turned to goose-flesh, while the earth rolled back from the sun with devastating speed.

  And it was the speed, if nothing else, that provided some solace. For if it moved like that, it would always move like that, and somehow, because of it, things change, somehow things end.

  Look, her mother said. You are not a child. You may not sit here wishing. We don’t have time for that kind of self-indulgence. The problems are immediate. Where will you sleep? She looked up from the cutting board and pointed a paring knife at Jacqueline, holding it like an ice pick, not to slice but to puncture. Tonight? Where will you sleep?

  It could not be there in the park on that bench. The path was crowded with tourists. So she forced herself up and descended back into the town to find a shop, a place to buy food and water, and then to find a place to sleep.

  And that would be all she’d think about.

  First the food. Then the bed and nothing more.

  Jacqueline walked through the main square and out along the road, where the fragrant eucalyptus trees spread above her against the sky. She walked until she found a small grocery.

  She bought two liters of water, hard rolls, a bag of almonds.

  Fruit, her mother said,
and so she bought tomatoes and peaches.

  She reached for a thick bar of milk chocolate.

  Reckless girl, her mother said.

  And so she bought a block of Kasseri instead. But cheese doesn’t last.

  It’ll last longer than that chocolate will, little pig.

  She left the store, and rather than continue along the main road she turned up a side street. The sun was gone from the sky and what was left were the remnant reds dissolving into blue. At this hour the island seemed even further delineated—every surface broken by clean line and sharp shape. The texture was gone as if the physical world before her had been cut from dark and heavy paper.

  Soon she came out onto the footpath that ran along the caldera. She was farther along to the north now in the direction of Imerovigli and far beyond, of Òia. Nea Kameni was a shadow on the steel water. Cruise ships were motionless, lit up bright. A small boat moved along the far coast.

  Jacqueline followed the path out of town. The dark was descending fast and far ahead of her, lights were coming on, illuminating low white buildings, domed churches, small restaurants. Abruptly, here, the path was no longer illuminated and turned occasionally to dirt, and soon she was nearly invisible. This dark stretch between the two towns was made up of small homes and half-built hotels, an occasional church in disrepair, a few tavernas.

  It is simple: you are looking for a place to live. One thing and then the next thing.

  Again, Jacqueline wasn’t sure who was speaking.

  She passed a low building blocked off with a makeshift plywood fence.

  She could see the outline of a small cement mixer. A stack of disassembled scaffolding. It was built in the style of all the cinderblock buildings on the island—rounded roof, cavernous, plastered. This one remained gray, waiting to be painted white and trimmed in blue.

  She gripped the top of the fence and stared at the little cement mixer. She held her breath and listened, but there was no sound, and when it felt right, she pulled a section of plywood back, slipped through, and returned the wood to where it had been. She crossed the dirt yard and passed through the arched entryway. Inside, she stood quietly in the dark, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

  She added flashlight to her list.

  The dim light from outside cut a long blue triangle across the concrete floor, but the depths of the building remained in blackness. She did not have the courage to push deeper, so she imagined the dark a solid wall and dropped her pack and the plastic bags of food. She sat on the damp floor, beneath a glassless window, and closed her eyes.

  She tore a roll open and filled it with a chunk of the white cheese. She used her teeth again to tear pieces out of the tomato.

  She ate her dinner and drank water from a bottle and was happy to feel the food change her. Happy for the little warmth, the clarity of mind.

  She ate a peach for dessert and then, when she was finished sucking all the fruit from the pit, reached above her and placed it on the window ledge.

  At least today she’d eaten well.

  Yes, her mother said as the thrill of solving immediate problems began to dissolve, but you will always need to eat well. You will always need to have shelter and privacy and safety. We are in search of permanence.

  Permanence, Jacqueline repeated.

  So far as it exists, my heart. Don’t fight me. Tonight you sleep. In the morning we will see where we’ve landed.

  Jacqueline spread her blanket across the floor. She removed her sandals and laid her head on the pillow made of sand. She missed her cave and its mattress. She missed the pine needles and her cypress trees.

  You see, her mother said, the way it happens? You don’t think of your home, your blankets and pillows and sheets drawn tight, drawn smooth. Now you dream of cardboard and garbage. You dream of dead trees. You see? Time is God, my love. Time is God.

  She closed her eyes and listened.

  A dog barked at slow intervals. Not the rapid, hysterical barks of desperation. The sound was plaintive and certain. After some time, the barking stopped, and so she listened to the wind rushing through the building. With each gust, something rattled in the far dark behind her, behind the imagined wall.

  She drew the blanket over her face and tried to make herself still, but with every fade toward sleep, whenever she felt herself being drawn away, her body wouldn’t allow it. She shook. Her heart wouldn’t rest. She felt her throat constricting. Soon she could no longer keep her eyes closed and now stared into the blanket’s dull darkness. It seemed to her that she would have to decide between being suffocated and throwing the blanket from her face, risk exposing herself to the cold air, to whatever it was that waited for her, rattling in the black.

  It was the calculus of night. Of sleeplessness. She knew this.

  She knew this, but for what felt like a very long time, she could not bring herself to push the blanket away. The air was hot and fetid. She wanted to breathe but still she remained below, beneath, pressed down, her eyelashes catching against the worn fabric.

  She thought she might chew through the cotton, cut an air hole, and so brought a bit of blanket down into her mouth, sucked it in, the salt on her tongue, saliva running, she began to gnaw at it, sawing her front teeth sideways. She was seeking air. A way to be protected without being smothered to death. It was the logic of night, of half-sleep, of terror.

  Her mother said, Stop it. Her mother said, Take it out of your mouth. Easy now. Easy, she said, and cooled her hands on a sweating glass full of ice and tonic and lime and gin and held her daughter’s cheeks. Easy, angel, easy, she said, peeling the blanket from Jacqueline’s face, wresting it gently from between her teeth. The blanket for a moment sharp as a dart, its point between Jacqueline’s lips, and then going limp and gone. Her mother massaged Jacqueline’s jaw where the muscles roped. You were dreaming, her mother said. Just dreaming. Soft hand, cool on her daughter’s damp forehead.

  But she was not dreaming. Had not been dreaming. Was awake all that time, she knew. Awake when she tried to chew through the blanket like a rat. And the rattling was still there resonating in the darkness. The wind twisted and ran across the caldera, raced up and over the sharp cliff edge and through the spaces in the plywood wall and into this dark and doorless building where Jacqueline lay, no longer suffocating, where at any moment, if she were to make a sound, the mean and dirty edge of a machete would be brought down across her throat. Down against her skull. Lengthwise. Split like a nectarine.

  So she did not sleep. She breathed through her nose slow on the seven count, seven in, seven out, until the sun bleached the dark from the room. Then after she turned her head and squinted and saw forming in the depths the empty socket at the end of its wire shuddering against the fresh, gray concrete wall, she turned her back on it and closed her eyes, and breathed and slept until the morning gave way to the afternoon.

  And in the afternoon, when the sunlight fell full across her legs and warmed her cold feet, she brought herself up onto her elbows, arched her back, and let her head fall, finding something soothing in the sound of her cracking neck. Still, she was stiff. Her hip bone on the left side was bruised and tender.

  She stood up slow and cautious. Like an old woman, she thought. The room had yet to be divided and was just an open rectangle. A cement staircase rose through the ceiling into the next floor. At intervals, there were capped wires bending out of uncovered outlet boxes. A ladder lay atop a pile of folded canvas. There was the light socket of the night before, and all the others along the ceiling hanging down like pruned branches. Like the claws of plastic animals. There was plumbing. Capped pipes in the two back corners. An open drain covered in screen.

  She squatted at the back of the room and ran her fingers over the metal outlet box, held the stiff wires in her hand.

  Were they coming back? Had the building been abandoned?

  This is not the place, her mother said.

  Jacqueline climbed the stairs. The domed ceiling arched above her. Plywood blocked
out a single window at the front of the room. Sunlight edged around it. She pressed her cheek to the rough wood, and squinted through the light. There was the empty sky, the caldera below it. The path. The entrance to this building, this house.

  This is not the place, her mother repeated. That look on her face meaning, I know you before you know yourself. Know what you imagine, know your foolishness. And the answer is, No, the answer is, No, this is not the place.

  Jacqueline withdrew from the wood. She imagined the place a fortress. Somewhere from which to defend herself, somewhere to look out onto the world.

  She slid her fingers into the light and gripped the wood. She wanted to pull it out, fill the room with air.

  No, her mother said.

  She wanted a chair, to press her bare feet against the sill. Light on her face.

  Leave it where it is. You are trespassing.

  She left it where it was and began to walk a slow circle around the room.

  She wanted a chair. She sat on the floor and leaned against the back wall. She watched the window until all she saw was the outline of light—like something drawn in neon.

  She wanted a chair. She wanted Saifa.

  Saifa.

  She began to ask the question, but stopped herself. She didn’t need her mother to tell her what those questions were worth.

  Her mother cleared her throat, but Jacqueline didn’t need reminding. She dared her mother to say what she would say: But you cannot understand, but you cannot know, you should not try, but trust, have faith, etcetera, etcetera.

  But she was silent. Her mother wasn’t in that room.

  Nor her father.

  Nor Saifa.

  Nor Bernard.

  No one was in the room but Jacqueline. So she fixed her eyes on that frame of light and tried her best to fill the room anyway.

  First, there were Saifa’s feet. Calloused. Toenails painted. Pure Passion. She could see the bottle, its cap and tiny brush.

  Jacqueline unclenched her fists, opened her hands, and turned them upward. The feet were there, heels in her palms. She wanted to say more, but all she could find was the name.