A Marker to Measure Drift

by Alexander Maksik

  Beauty as a form of respect. Of superstition.

  You see? her mother said.

  Perhaps, Jacqueline said. Her father’s word. Perhaps.

  That is it exactly, my heart. Live in fear of God.

  Ruin, I said. I didn’t mention God.

  But they both knew what she meant and so neither of them spoke.

  Jacqueline came to the end of the village, stepped off of the marble street, continued along the asphalt road, and soon she was standing in front of the market looking across at the arbor of bougainvillea. Yesterday, she’d not noticed the name, but now she saw the small blue windmill, and the sign—ANEMOMILOS.

  She crossed the road, stepped onto the terrace, and took the same seat at the same table. Then the waitress was coming out of the building, a plate of food in each hand, and when she saw Jacqueline she nodded. Once the plates had been delivered to a somber couple with matching sunburns, she came over.

  “Kalimera,” she said.

  Jacqueline smiled and repeated the word.

  “Good morning,” the woman said. “Kalimera is good morning.”

  “I like it,” Jacqueline said. “Prettier than good morning.”

  The woman laughed. “Yes, I think I agree with you.”

  Jacqueline wanted to know the woman’s name. She wanted to say, My name is Jacqueline, and extend her hand.

  “So, you’ve returned. Here again. Coffee and eggs and toast?”

  Jacqueline laughed. “Just coffee today, please.”

  “Nothing to eat?”

  “No, thank you. Not today,” Jacqueline said, though she was very hungry.

  “Coffee,” the woman said. “I’m right back.”

  She rehearsed her introduction—My name is Jacqueline, or, By the way, my name is Jacqueline, or, What’s your name, by the way, or, her father’s line, Forgive me for asking, but I’d like very much to know your name. Her father, always formal, always overly polite and infuriatingly grammatical, was never more so than when speaking to women.

  Forgive me, he said with those dangerous eyes upturned, his fingers moving over some object on the table. Around the rim of a glass, over the tines of a fork, collecting grains of salt on his nail. Forgive me for asking, but I’d like very much to know your name.

  Her mother rolled her eyes and looked across the room, pressing her lips together tight.

  Your father, she said coldly, is too many things at once. That’s a mistake you should never make, JaJa. I forgive myself for being fooled, she said. But a man who can do too much can play too many parts and in the end too many of those parts will have nothing to do with you.

  Jacqueline nodded, though she only vaguely understood and at the time there was no man alive more attractive than her father.

  Find a simple man, her mother said. Find a man who wants very few things and make certain that most of those things exist.

  He wants things that don’t exist? Jacqueline asked. Yes, her mother said.

  Yes. And that was the end of the discussion.

  Later, Jacqueline wondered if she too wanted things that didn’t exist.

  “Coffee,” the waitress said and delivered the pot, the cup on its saucer, the spoon, the pitcher of cream.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You will tell me if you decide to eat.”

  She nodded.

  “Good,” the woman said and touched Jacqueline’s shoulder before returning to the restaurant.

  She prepared the cup with cream and sugar and took her time. When the coffee was gone, she went to the bathroom. She peed and washed her hands and face. She applied the ChapStick to her lips. Using her finger, she ran it over her cheeks and beneath her eyes. When she was finished, she wiped a paper towel around the sink and then she returned to her table. She asked the woman for the bill and when it had come, and she had paid for the coffee, and the woman had told her she wouldn’t charge her a cover for just a coffee, Jacqueline waved and left.

  Tomorrow, she thought, or the next day, she would introduce herself.

  I like her, her mother said as Jacqueline waited for a bus to pass.

  I know, Jacqueline said.

  Your father wouldn’t like her.

  No?

  She’s too tough.

  No, you’re probably right, Jacqueline said. You’re probably right.

  She crossed the road and went into the small market, where she spent the rest of her money. She bought a fresh bottle of water and a bag of almonds and the smallest bottle of olive oil they sold. She bought two peaches and a plastic container of cherry tomatoes, which the short man at the register told her he had grown himself.

  Now there was no more money. She sat outside on the bench in front of the market and carefully arranged her purchases in the bottom of her pack. She kept one of the peaches in her hand, and when everything was neatly away, she closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, the waitress across the street was watching Jacqueline through the arbor.

  JACQUELINE ATE THE PEACH as she returned to town.

  Where the road broke away, and the marble walkway began, there were now two policemen.

  She could feel the rise of adrenaline. So familiar, the dry throat, damp palms, clear vision, thumping heart. She pretended to be occupied by the remnants of the fruit and continued walking.

  She could feel them watching. She had seen herself in the mirror. There was nothing to draw their attention. Not that she could see, but what if they saw what was imperceptible to her.

  As she approached, she took a deep breath through her nose and raised her eyes to the two men.

  She gave them her brightest smile. Eyes wide open, brows arched, all teeth. She would not be the hangdog refugee. She would not lower her head.

  The smile seemed to surprise the men.

  One of them straightened. The other nodded. “Kalimera,” he said.

  “Kalimera,” Jacqueline responded without hesitating. She put hard emphasis on the third syllable, perhaps too loudly cutting the word apart. She thought the second man, the one who’d greeted her, might have nearly smiled as she passed.

  She stepped onto the white marble, the peach pit in her fist, its point cutting into her skin, heart beating hard, and the small of her back damp with sweat.

  She moved through the village, waiting for the adrenaline to subside, for her heart to slow. She knew that soon she’d have to sit down, that in a few minutes she’d be so weak she wouldn’t be able to stand, that she’d go light-headed. They were always the same, these moments of danger and fear. Or they were the same to her body.

  She came to the square, where she found a bench and sat. She looked down at her hand. There was a point of blood at the center of her palm.

  She let the pit fall to the ground.

  She closed her eyes.

  She stood outside the Land Cruiser on the red dirt road surrounded by those boys who stank of cologne. And though she’d never seen them applying it, she could see them now, standing around in the jungle, or in some roadside camp, passing the bottle around, smacking the liquid against their necks, believing their commanders, their lords, that it would make them invincible, superhuman, immortal.

  She’d never seen any man use cologne. Not her father, not Bernard, not anyone she’d ever known. But she saw these boys in their camps, passing a squat green bottle from hand to hand, slapping themselves with it, cold and clear.

  None of them spoke until they’d crossed the border and were miles into Sierra Leone. Not Jacqueline, not Bernard, not the driver. Were there others in the car? She could no longer remember. She could see the back of the driver’s head and Bernard’s knees next to hers and the deep, green jungle racing past. Maybe they didn’t speak until Freetown. Maybe not until the airport.

  No driver. No guard. She had walked vacant through the streets. Anything could have happened to her, but nothing did. Nothing more. She’d come to the hotel, to Bernard’s room. Stood in the doorway. No silly seductive lean, no bare foot pressed
against the frame.

  He gave her the wrong expression. He put her in the car. She heard the door close and then nothing. He was packed. He was leaving. He’d been waiting for his ride out. She could see him looking up at her. He’d have left without her, but there she was at his door. And what could he do? Her escape would be his last burden before ridding himself of her vile country. Of her.

  She saw the flash of river and then they were at the Lungi airport, at a café table. There were her hands, flat on the peeling Formica.

  She could see him writing telephone numbers across the back of a white card. They’d both looked at the Spanish visa smoothed into her passport. He’d done this for her somehow. She hadn’t asked. Some friend. Some phone call. She must have thanked him. Had they spoken then? She could taste the weak tea, could see the cream powder she’d poured into it, the empty sugar packets in a pile, three deep, but she could not hear Bernard’s voice.

  She left first. He’d held her elbow as if she were an old woman. He’d held her elbow and guided her gently through the sweltering airport as if she’d been someone’s grandmother. She hadn’t resisted. She’d let him do it. And she’d let him put her on the plane. He’d been patient the way you are when patience won’t be needed much longer.

  Patient the way you are when you know a thing has ended.

  Patient the way you are with those about to die.

  She glanced back once. They looked at each other before she went through the door, and then she turned away.

  And then there was no more of Bernard.

  She remembered the plan, but not the sound of it. Call when you get settled, he would have said. Call from the hotel, call and we’ll take it from there. But she couldn’t remember him speaking. Not a word. Not a sound.

  SHE OPENED HER EYES. Two girls sat across the square. They were leaning in and whispering, holding hands. Sixteen, Jacqueline thought. Saifa’s age. She watched them for a while, and then when she’d regained her strength, when her heart had calmed, after she’d scraped the blood from her palm with a fingernail, she stood and continued on.

  Instead of walking out to the fort, or down the steep steps to the water, she explored the streets in the direction of the bus station. Here, not all the buildings were polished and clean. There were no restaurants, no bars, no shops, no hotels. This was where people lived.

  She turned onto a shaded stone street and walked past the small houses. There was the chatter of televisions, loud voices, none of the reverent hush of the caldera side. Many of the houses were partially whitewashed, and some not at all. She passed small gardens. Staked tomato plants. Lettuce in rows. Not all the lots were inhabited and as she walked she occasionally passed fenced-off properties where only concrete foundations stood.

  It was behind the chain-link fence of one of those lots that Jacqueline heard the symphonic mewing of kittens.

  Here she stopped, grasped the fence, and looked through the wire diamonds.

  She could see the kittens in the sunlight, a nest of them tiny and writhing in the dirt. Their matted fur was brown and white with shocks of yellow.

  Jacqueline stared at them through the fence, listening.

  She couldn’t stay there. Someone would see her.

  Through the window of the house next door, she could hear the thin clatter of dishes being washed.

  She stayed where she was and watched the kittens.

  Thank God, Saifa isn’t here, her mother said.

  Yes. Jacqueline nodded. Thank God.

  She’d be over the fence in a second. Her mother was at the counter cutting oranges for juice. Jacqueline could hear the slice and thunk of the knife blade.

  There’d be nothing we could do, her mother said, smiling.

  The knife hit the plastic cutting board and the shining orange halves fell away from the blade.

  No, probably not.

  In the kitchen her mother was on her knees.

  In the kitchen her father was on his knees.

  Their hands were bound behind their backs.

  “Cry,” the bearded man said to her father. “Cry.”

  And her father cried.

  Jacqueline could hear the relentless mewing and through the window what sounded like clean dishes being stacked.

  Your sister would have saved them, her mother said. But you, you will save yourself.

  Jacqueline walked away from the fence and through the little streets until she found the bus station full of arriving tourists.

  She left along the hot asphalt street and when she came to it, turned down the dirt road. Soon she could see the hotel and the parking lot, which was full of scooters and cars. She walked onto the terrace and paused. She saw all the colored towels on the beach, a few umbrellas, driven deep into the rough sand.

  She snuck inside the room to make sure her things were still there and to leave the food she’d bought and then she descended the path. On the way down, she rebuilt herself, and by the time she heard the water clawing at the rocks, she was ready to return to work.

  AND WHEN HAD THAT BEEN ANYWAY? Those days of walking the burning black beach and sleeping in the cave and showering beneath the streetlight. She had no sense of it. How long ago or how long she’d spent there. It made no difference. The facts were the facts.

  The facts remain, her father said.

  Jacqueline nodded.

  You have what you have. You are where you are.

  Yes, Jacqueline said.

  You have lost what you have lost. You have built what you have built.

  SHE DISCOVERED A MAKESHIFT SHOWER at one end of the beach. A hose fixed with a spray nozzle and fastened to a wooden post. She watched a fat man in black trunks place his small laughing son naked beneath it. He counted down while the boy danced his little legs, shivering in place, in anticipation. Jacqueline didn’t recognize the numbers, but the cadence was the same. Five, four, three, two, and at one, the man turned on the water. The boy screamed and laughed and tried to run away, but the man scooped him up and the two of them spun beneath the spray.

  She kicked off her sandals and put them in her pack and began to walk.

  She was looking for groups of women first. She had her bottle of oil.

  “Excuse me, do you speak English? I’m sorry to bother you.”

  She kneeled at the feet of two young girls.

  “Two euros for five minutes,” she answered.

  She’d forgotten her rates. She couldn’t remember what they’d been all that time ago. Anyway, better to start cheap.

  The one who’d said yes, the heavy one with the long brown hair, fell back onto her white towel like she’d been shot.

  Before she crushed it between her hands, the olive oil was a green coin glowing in Jacqueline’s palm.

  “Oh,” the girl said when Jacqueline pressed her thumbs into the muscle. “Oh,” she said again, closing her eyes.

  She worked the beach for six euros. She might have made more, but she was cautious. Better to be cautious. It should look like fun. Like something on the side. Not a living.

  But she was making a living. She played with the expression. It didn’t make sense to her. Not literally. To make a living. But that’s what she was doing. She was down on the beach making her living. And six euros was enough. She didn’t need more than that. Not for now. Not until she had a reason to save. It was enough to eat. It was more than enough. And she should be cautious. She must never appear desperate. It was all for fun. She was a tourist. A student.

  When she was finished, she slipped off her skirt and tank top and left them on her pack behind a rock and swam out into the sea, where she floated on her back. She looked up at the sky and when she stopped moving, she felt the salt stinging the wound on the back of her hand.

  The stinging is good, her mother said. The salt will prevent infection.

  Yes, Jacqueline said. You’ve told me. I know.

  You know everything, my heart. You know all there is to know in the world now.

  Jacqueli
ne closed her eyes and sank beneath the surface.

  Expelling all the air in her lungs, she fell and fell and fell.

  NOW SHE STOOD BENEATH THE SHOWER. The water was very cold, but she loved the feeling of it cutting away the dried sweat, the salt, some of the grime.

  Afterward, she lay on the warm stones at the back of the beach.

  She thought, I need to buy soap.

  Once she was dry, she moved into the shade, where she stayed until there were only a few people left. When the sun was low, she returned up the path, past the hotel, and on into town, where she bought a gyro.

  She made her way through the narrow streets and came up to where the views began, and where the views began the restaurants and bars began. The sun would set soon. The tourists were streaming in from the center of the village and up from the bus station. They were all over the walls, and on the restaurant terraces, and on the balconies of their hotel rooms and at the fort they were everywhere. At the ramparts, and on the stone steps. And every single one of them was facing the sun. Every face lit up the color of new rust. Jacqueline made her way through the crowd and moved carefully up the steps of the fort. She walked out to the ramparts and climbed over the wall between two couples. She scrambled down onto the rocks extending high above the sea and she sat with the light of the sun full on her face.

  From here she saw the cliffs and all the white buildings, and all the people drenched in orange sunlight. She watched the hushed crowd for a moment and then returned to the falling sun, and the phantom shadow islands beneath it. She unwrapped her sandwich, took a breath, and began to eat.

  This is where I have stopped, she thought.

  This is where I am now.

  This is where I live.

  Her mother carried a tall glass across the lawn in this same light. Same color. Same quality.

  Her father home from work, still in his suit, sat with his feet extended before him on one of the lounge chairs, the tips of his thick fingers grazing the concrete deck, watching his wife glide through the evening air.

  Jacqueline finished her dinner.

  When the very top edge of the sun dropped away into the water, the audience applauded. Jacqueline looked back. Three men, all in white, standing on a far wall raised their glasses. Someone whistled in celebration.