A Marker to Measure Drift

by Alexander Maksik

  Jacqueline knew that to go down into it, this last town, was the inevitable thing. She had reached the end and whatever was to happen would happen here. There was no logic to this, and yet she knew that it was true. It was possible to turn around, but she knew she would not. She’d come for this beautiful town, with its lights, its glass beads. She knew this and yet she also knew that she would wait. That she would stay above it for the night, maybe several nights. First, something needed to be prepared. She wasn’t sure what that was, or what she meant, but she knew it nonetheless.

  So she opened her pack and removed the bread and cheese and a tomato. She spread these things out and pretended to ignore the dog, who sniffed and nudged her arm with his snout. And then as she tore the last roll in half and laid a slab of cheese across it and tore pieces of the tomato with her teeth and dropped those across the cheese, the dog licked her cheek. Jacqueline added almonds, closed the sandwich, and tried to avoid the dog, who was licking her neck. She held the sandwich tight together to seal it, pressing the tomato into the stale bread, and now she laughed and said aloud, “Hey, hey, stop it,” and pushed him away with her shoulder.

  The dog moved his eyes between Jacqueline’s and the sandwich. She smiled at him and in return he dropped his head twice as if to say, Hurry up. Ignoring her mother, she fed him a piece. Then she ate. Each time she looked over at the dog something shifted in her chest and she knew that she would feed him the last bit. And after he’d finished it she gave him her hands to lick clean.

  She found the water bottle, which was less than half full, and drank. She poured a bit into her palm and watched him lap it up.

  The bread was gone. There was a tomato. A few almonds. A peach. A bit of cheese. Again, she would have to buy food.

  The dog was curled up at her side. Jacqueline was trying to count the glass beads. She followed one to another. It seemed as if someone had thrown them over the town and they’d rolled and gotten stuck between the white buildings, caught at the cliff edge.

  The church door was chained and padlocked, so she crossed the path and began to climb.

  The hilltop was wide and fell away gently in all directions. As she walked she watched the dog dodging through the moonlight. There were no trees. Only scrub brush and boulders. Some of them big enough to cast wide shadows across the ground. It was behind one of those massive boulders that Jacqueline dropped her bag. She watched the dog mark their night’s territory. She swept the area of rocks, spread her blanket over the ground, arranged the pillow beneath her head, and watched the sky. She lay in the shadow of the rock while all around her the moon cast the world in silver and blue. She turned her head and watched the wind blow through a thyme bush.

  She called for the dog. “Hey,” she said. She whistled her father’s whistle. Quick breath in, quick breath out. High note, low note. High note, low note, but the dog didn’t come. She extended her arm and watched her hand cross out of the shadow and turn to silver. She snapped her fingers. “Hey,” she called again. “Come here, boy.”

  She returned her hand beneath the blanket.

  She would have liked him to sleep at her side, to feel his warm body against hers.

  She dreamed of the orange cat turning its figure eights around Saifa’s legs and Saifa, her back to the house, her hands on her belly, standing motionless looking out over the ocean. The cat was bright as flame and its fur seemed to be the only source of light in the yard. It paced and paced through the long skirts, which rose and fell over the cat’s body like gauze.

  When Jacqueline woke, she was sweating. The moon had set, and in the darkness she wished for her sister. She wished for her mother. And then, in spite of herself, she wished for Bernard. For the sound of his voice. But all she could hear aside from the wind moving through the thyme bushes was her father sobbing as they brought him into the kitchen. This was what her memory gave in return for wishing.

  She wished the dog would return.

  She wished this island would erupt again and turn her to ash.

  She wished she could hold Saifa’s feet in her hands.

  Instead her father was led gently into the kitchen, his hands bound behind his back. Her father in his fine navy suit pushed to his knees to join his wife—each of them with their hands bound, her mother silent, her father sobbing and sobbing.

  And where were you?

  Now her mother spoke.

  Where were you? My proud and principled girl.

  You know, Jacqueline said.

  Yes. Yes, I do know.

  To fight it, Jacqueline thought of the letters she’d sent Bernard at the beginning. She thought of her box of red envelopes and their razor edges. She tried to imagine what she’d written to him, the kinds of things she might have said.

  She wished for those letters.

  She wanted to read them, to see the kind of person she’d been. Not even a year, but she could barely remember. She wished she’d kept copies. Records of herself as something other than what she was now.

  You are what you always were, her mother said, her voice now gentle. My girl with the enormous heart. My brave and stubborn girl. You are what you always were. You must remember that.

  But Jacqueline knew this was not true. She was no longer whatever she’d been. Still, she’d like to see those letters. They were the only record and she’d like to see them. They’d be evidence of something.

  Dear Bernard, I am sitting here, outside the house, looking at the ocean. The storm has cleared and the sun will set soon. Now all I need is you. Just you. I want nothing else. Do you understand that? I don’t want anything more than you and to be somewhere like this. Somewhere with a table and a bed and view over the world.

  Who had she been to write like that? Capable of such silly romance. Paying some kid to run her envelopes to the hotel.

  She imagined he’d kept them, that somewhere in a drawer in Nice were all of those letters in a neat bundle wrapped with rough twine the way they are in movies. She imagined that he was there waiting for her. That he was out there somewhere searching for her. None of this was true, she knew. She’d never called him. He’d done as much as he would do.

  Jacqueline was falling to sleep.

  She could see him searching for her. She could see him searching for the woman who had written all those letters, the woman who had folded them and sealed them in red envelopes and had them delivered not even a mile from her house, to the front desk of the Mamba Point Hotel, where someone would walk to his room and slip them beneath the door.

  III

  WHEN JACQUELINE WOKE, it was light out and the sun was just beginning to rise. She was cold and very tired and her back was sore. She walked a few feet away to pee. Her legs hurt. Her feet hurt. Everything seemed to have been taken from her in the night. It was all she could do to stand and draw her underwear back up.

  She folded her blanket. She finished what was left of the water. There would be no more waiting.

  No wallowing, her mother said.

  Jacqueline sat on the rock and faced the sun. She ate the last peach. The warmth, the sweetness and acid of the fruit brought her some energy. She did not look at the town below, but she knew that today she would descend the path.

  It was inevitable, this descent, this entry. In one way or another, something would end here.

  She flung the pit away, opened her eyes, and stood up on the rock. She turned her back to the sun, her shadow stretching long in front of her. There were the patchwork farms and vineyards sloping gently to the white frothing coastline. There was the church, pink as bloodied water, and beyond that the cliff edge and the caldera below. She looked down over the town, the buildings like white teeth piled at the very edge of the cliff, at the very end of the island. White teeth and beads of glass.

  Only go down the path. Only find water. Find food. Find shelter.

  She climbed off the rock and changed into her last pair of clean underwear, her last clean tank top. With her mouth, she wetted the thumb and forefinger of
her right hand, and used them to clean the sleep from her eyes. She removed the visor from the pack, brushed the dirt off, and tightened the Velcro band around her head. She tried to see herself. She changed expressions. She smiled. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. She played with spoken language.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said. “Hello. How are you? Where are you from? What do you do? What is your name? What is your name? What is your name?”

  The words seemed to echo and rattle in her head long after the wind disintegrated them.

  She walked down the trail with Saifa at her side. She was atop her father’s shoulders, her fingers on his forehead. She held her mother’s hand.

  She was alone. There was nothing of them left. Nothing but memory and memory seemed like madness. As the path took her farther down, as she listened to her mind, and the wind, and the sound of her footsteps, she was again having a difficult time distinguishing between madness and memory.

  She walked on and on down the hill. The path steepened and turned and all she wanted then was to walk with someone else, to not to have to enter this town alone, and the feeling took her over, became dread, became terror. She wanted to stop walking, but she knew that walking was the only thing she could do. Stopping might kill her.

  Like a little shark, her mother said.

  She continued to walk until the path flattened out and the town became individual buildings, small hotels with swimming pools, and then it rose up and became the parking lot of a desalination plant, and then picked up again and became a wide paved walkway from which narrow paths descended past low wooden gates, down the cliff edge to individual hotels, and houses with tiny swimming pools and terraces painted the color of storm clouds and trimmed with white. She continued walking along the main path and soon there were people. Early-morning walkers, and hotel employees in white shirts and name tags. Her heart had slowed, but still, as she made her way along the pathway, past all the whitewashed buildings, she wished and wished that she were not alone.

  Now as the path ended, she stopped walking. She stood in front of a small market, which faced the main road. Across the street was a taverna.

  The market was closed. She sat on a bench outside and rested. From time to time a delivery truck passed, the occasional taxi. Otherwise, it was quiet. It would be nice, she thought, to sit somewhere and eat breakfast.

  What she wanted above all was a cup of coffee. Very hot with cream and sugar. She could feel the smooth cup in her hands. And like that, she had direction. This was the advantage of desire. Desire focused the mind. It eliminated extraneous thought. The greater the desire, the less the burden of the mind. She would like to live her life this way. Perhaps it was how to survive intact. Live to satisfy her desires. Desire only what she could have.

  That cup of coffee possessed her. It was all she wanted. For the moment, there was nothing else.

  She crossed the street. She could just see over a long white wall onto a broad terrace where there were set tables. The entrance to the restaurant was an arched arbor covered with pink bougainvillea. From here she could see past the tables and into the building. The doors were open.

  She took a breath and crossed the terrace. She found a table. It felt good to sit in a chair. It felt good to run her palms over the clean white paper tablecloth. Overhead, more bougainvillea trained through a wooden trellis, which filtered the sun and dappled her table with rounded squares of pale light. She could feel those squares warm against her bare neck.

  She checked the zippered compartment. A single bill. Twenty euros. A few coins.

  All that’s left, her father said.

  All that’s left, she agreed.

  We must always take stock, he said. Be clear with yourself. Know what’s there and what isn’t. Don’t imagine. What you see is what you have. Nothing more. No fantasy will change that, do you understand?

  Hypocrite.

  Jacqueline wanted a cup of coffee.

  She sat up straight and pressed her palms against the paper and waited. She was the only one on the terrace and wasn’t sure if anyone had noticed her or even if the restaurant was open. She watched the building and began to think about going inside. She would have to stand and cross all that space. It was not something she wanted to do, but she was prepared for it. She would do it like any tourist impatient for service, impatient for her morning coffee.

  But then came a young woman dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. When she was close enough, Jacqueline could see that she had a pretty face. Round and soft with narrow eyes and a wide mouth. She came to the table and spoke in Greek. And then in English, “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” Jacqueline said in return.

  “Some breakfast?” The woman covered her mouth with the back of her hand and yawned.

  “Coffee, please. Very strong coffee.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Not for now. Thank you.”

  The woman returned to the kitchen.

  Jacqueline was buoyed by the exchange. There was something in its normalcy, its familiarity. She liked the way the woman had yawned, the ease with which she had smiled.

  Jacqueline moved her left hand back and forth over the paper, watching her fingers crossing through the sunlight.

  The woman returned with a pot of coffee, a cup, a spoon, and two small pitchers on a tray. She put everything on the table.

  “Coffee,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Not for now.”

  The woman slipped a laminated menu between the sugar and saltshaker.

  When Jacqueline was alone she tore two sugar packets open and emptied them into the bottom of her cup. She added cream and then poured the coffee. She stirred it all together with the spoon, wrapped her cool, dry hands around the cup, and raised it to her lips.

  And there it was. The thing she wanted. Coffee with cream and sugar. Everything was right. The flavor of the coffee, the heat, the fat, the sugar. She finished and made another; this time she let the liquid stay longer in her mouth, trying to taste it.

  By the time she’d finished the second cup she could feel the heat inside her, the caffeine moving in her blood. Her vision became clear. It was as if she’d barely been alive. She wanted to talk. She was ready to go on. She felt such a rush of confidence she had to stop herself from laughing aloud. She poured another and leaned back in her chair.

  She saw all the pink flowers above her, the shards of blue sky beyond them.

  Maybe she would order something to eat. She glanced at the menu and considered picking it up. But if she did that, it would be impossible to control herself. In her bag there were some almonds, the remnants of the cheese. One way or another she would need more food.

  I am taking stock, you see?

  Her father was looking at her from across their little table at Astoria Restaurant on Carey Street. Long before Bernard. Before the LURD meant anything to her, before she’d ever heard the name. Before Saifa had reached puberty. Jacqueline and her father. Every Saturday afternoon. Just the two of them eating lunch together. The waitresses rushing to wipe the sticky wooden tables clean whenever they came in the door. Whatever else he had, he always ordered groundnut soup.

  Over those lunches, when sometimes he allowed her two or even three Cokes, they would talk and talk. They’d come in and she’d wait while he moved through the room smiling and kissing cheeks and shaking hands. When he was finished, he’d put his arm around her shoulders and they’d take their table opposite the front door, and here he would turn all of his attention to Jacqueline. For those hours he would barely look away from her. She looked forward to those lunches all week. She wouldn’t have given them up for anything in her life.

  JaJa, how is school? Tell me about school. Tell me about these boys your mother says are chasing you. Should I have them shot? I will have them shot tomorrow. Tell me the one you like the most and I’ll have him shot first. Or maybe we’
ll cut his head off. Chop off his hands. Give him some long sleeves.

  No one was funnier than he. No one more brilliant. No one more handsome. She laughed until she couldn’t breathe. She threw bread at him and told him to stop. And each Saturday, she relished the moments when she’d look away for a moment and notice people watching and she was reminded of the way they were, how uncommon it was. She could see them in the eyes of others. Saw jealousy and joy and wonder. It was the pleasure of belonging to a private and impenetrable club. She was just then beginning to play at being something other than a girl. During those lunches she experimented with posture, upright with her hands on her lap or slumped back in contrived ease. Both feet on the floor. Or legs crossed. And when her father said that she was beautiful—Oh, JaJa, as beautiful as the sea—then she believed that it was true.

  And what will you do with your life, my beautiful daughter?

  How old was she then? When had that tradition begun? How old had she been? Ten? Eleven? The years before they’d sent her to England.

  My lovely daughter. Young woman, what will you do with your life? It is not too early, you know. It’s not too early to answer those questions.

  She shrugged.

  It is not up to the universe to decide. And the sooner you know, the sooner you can begin. You are not one to wait around for inspiration like your mother. Signs from God. You are different than she is. We are different than she is.

  Jacqueline nodded.

  Don’t wait, JaJa. Don’t wait, her father said.

  Her father who died of waiting.

  Be practical, he said. Take stock of your life.

  To tell a little girl to take stock of her life! Her mother shook her head. They were walking somewhere. Jacqueline could see her mother’s bare feet. Ignore that foolish man. Go to school. Stay out of trouble. Be a child while you still can. Life will take that away from you soon enough.

  Jacqueline nodded, but her loyalty had been won. She said nothing, but her faith was with her father. And no eleven-year-old girl wants to remain a child. She wants to sit in a restaurant across from a handsome man who never looks away from her, who smiles as if she is the source of all his joy.