Sea of Lost Dreams: A Dugger/Nello Novel

by Ferenc Máté

  The moon burst from the clouds so bright it hurt their eyes. The ketch came alive—the sails, the deck, the lines all glowed. The stern wake etched white curves into the night, and a boat length behind, yawing left, then right, were the white breast and dark wings of the gliding albatross.

  “Like a guardian angel,” Darina said.

  “But half white angel, half dark,” Nello said.

  “So silent,” Darina said. “It suits the night.”

  “My favorite time of day.” Nello smiled.

  The hatch slid back and Kate’s head slowly rose. “Sorry I’m late,” she said.

  “I’ll take your watch if you want,” Nello offered.

  “I’ll be fine,” Kate insisted, covering a yawn.

  “I’ll make sure she stays awake,” Darina said.

  Nello looked at her. Her mouth was tight again. Except for the dark veins at her temple, the moon lit a face as cold as alabaster. Maybe Dugger’s right, he thought. “Good night,” he said, and, passing the silver flask to Kate, he went below.

  “THIS IS FOR YOU,” Darina said, and handed Kate an empty book. “Perhaps if you were to write . . . things might come back as you write.”

  “That’s awfully kind,” Kate said. “Or I can draw. I love to draw.”

  “Yes,” she said, but her lips went even tighter. “Drawing is good too.”

  Kate raised the flask. “To unexpected friends.” She smiled. She took a quick drink and passed it to Darina.

  Darina raised the flask. “To friends,” she said, and the silver glittered as she drank. Then she sat down near the wheel.

  The ketch veered off course and Kate moved quickly to bring it back. “If I could just steer my brain like I can steer this ship,” she mused. “I’m always trying. One day, hoping to ignite some memories, I asked Dugger if he remembered our first kiss. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Oh, yeah?’ I said. ‘Let me hear some details.’”

  Darina sat up. In the darkness she saw Maeve Flynn in her brother’s arms.

  “Did he tell you?” she urged Kate.

  “Yes. He said I started crying. Not a very romantic thing to do, was it? And that I held him so hard, I almost cracked his ribs.”

  Darina watched the albatross come abeam the ketch. It stared at her, then raised its wings and leaned against the wind like Maeve Flynn under the bridge. “Did it help?” Darina said.

  “Oh, yes. As he went on, everything came back. My dinghy. Last summer. I sailed it alone after midnight to his ketch. He’d been sleeping on the aft deck and when I bumped the ketch he woke up. He didn’t say anything, just reached down, and held my face in his hand. I couldn’t imagine anything nicer. Then he got into the dinghy and we sailed to where tall cedars blocked the moonlight. I was aching for him to touch me again. He kissed me. My temple, my cheeks, my lips. We were so in love.”

  The albatross banked, flew off north, and vanished as if swallowed by the night.

  Darina saw herself in the red dress following her brother on that stormy night. “My brother was in love,” she blurted. “With Maeve Flynn.” It had been years since she’d said her name aloud.

  “Who’s Maeve Flynn?” Kate asked, utterly surprised.

  “She drowned. He loved her. My brother loved her. And she drowned.” She looked up, her face calm, but her blue eyes shone with tears. “And after every storm, he would sit and watch the waves. Watched them roar up the chute. Where she drowned. Waiting for the next wave to bring her back from the sea.”

  Dear God, Kate thought. The compass, she thought. Watch where you’re steering. South. Two-o-five. Without a word she reached out and took the flask. She drank, then handed it back to Darina.

  Darina gazed down at the tops of her sunburned feet. She felt the rum rush to her head, and the words and images boil inside her, as if they just couldn’t wait to be let out. She began telling Kate all about Inishturk: the harbor, the houses, the sheep, the bluffs, and the raging sea. She told Kate about Michael, and how they were inseparable since the day they could crawl. How they’d played with dolls for years and he’d pretend to be a girl, then later they’d play soldiers with swords and she’d pretend to be a boy. And how after a battle they drank water with molasses and pretended it was ale. Then she told her about the storms, the waves. And Maeve.

  Kate stood spellbound at the wheel.

  Then Darina told her every detail of the day that Maeve Flynn died: the sound of round stones grinding in the waves, the smell of kelp that hung in wreaths from rocks. And Maeve, oh, Maeve, with her laughing eyes.

  Then she told her all about the brother’s year-long grief, his silence, and the pictures he drew. And about Maeve’s mother and the red dress in brown paper. And the night of the next storm when her brother got up in the dark and headed toward the sea.

  “I unwrapped the paper and pulled out the dress,” Darina said, and swallowed hard.

  “You don’t have to say any more,” Kate whispered. But Darina kept looking down as if she hadn’t heard.

  “I tied my hair to one side just like Maeve. Then I took off my nightgown and slipped the red dress on. I felt as if I had entered a new life.

  “I went out and ran past Connally’s cottage, circled past the bridge, then doubled back and ran down a cleft to the shore. The waves were as big as hills. The island shook from their pounding. I could barely catch my breath. I hid behind a rock. The water swirled around my knees. It felt like ice. My legs cramped, then grew numb, but still I waited. He finally came, and sat down. And, like a statue, watched the sea. I prayed to God to forgive me; I swore on my eternal soul that I meant no harm. I meant to help him.

  “As a long wave receded, I stepped out into view. The dawn lit us both. He stood up. He was far away, up the slope. Then he started down toward me. I panicked. I held out an arm like I’d seen Jesus do in prayer books, and he stopped. I waved to him—waved goodbye—then, when the next wave rose around me, I sank into it and swam under, and hid back behind the rock. He came down to the shore yelling, “Maeve.” He ran into a wave. Almost drowned. I crept up the cleft and ran away through the dawn.”

  She looked pleadingly at Kate. “I thought I could help him, don’t you see?”

  “Yes,” Kate whispered. “Of course.”

  “I never told anyone. Not even in confession.”

  Tears filled Kate’s eyes. She reached out and touched her arm.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right . . .”

  Darina looked away. “Hours passed before he came home. When he stepped into the house he was shaking from the cold. His lips were blue. But worse were his eyes. It broke my heart to see his eyes. They weren’t just sad, but pleading, pleading for something. Or for something to end. I don’t know. Our mother heated water on the stove, but by evening he was trembling with fever. For three days he burnt.

  “The storm raged on, so the doctor couldn’t come. Our father tried to sail to Galway for him, but when he launched the skiff, the storm threw it back on shore. He got Father O’Malley for last rites. My brother looked at him with such relief, as if this was what he had longed for all his life. Father O’Malley left after midnight.

  “I went to bed but didn’t sleep. Just lay there in the dark with the rain pounding like pebbles on the slate. My brother tossed, and whispered Maeve Flynn’s name.

  “I lay facedown on my bed and promised God I’d do anything he wanted if only he would please let my brother live. I touched the worn paper of the package under the bed. Then I slipped on the red dress.

  “I went out into the rain and walked around the house to my brother’s window. The moon came and went among the clouds. I put my face against the pane to see inside; he barely made a lump under the sheet. Then he turned. And saw me. His eyes came alive. He sat up, then came toward me as lightly as a ghost. His face abeam, with an infinite tenderness in his eyes. He raised his hand and put it against the pane. Against my face. Then he slowly drew. Across my forehead, down my temple, around my chin, my neck,
then down where there was no moonlight. His hand stopped moving . . . It stopped at my heart.”

  Darina fell silent. She lowered her head into her hands. She kept her face down for a while, then looked up and stared off into the night. “Then suddenly he was gone from the window. I heard the door. I didn’t dare look up, but I felt him there beside me. The rain poured down. He took me in his arms. ‘We can’t,’ I whispered. ‘You know we can’t.’ ‘It’s you,’ he whispered back, his voice full of life. His eyes blazed with fever. I pushed him, pulled him, nearly had to drag him back inside. He was drenched. ‘You’ll catch your death,’ I whispered. He had his face against my neck. He kissed my neck, my shoulder. His face was so warm. Then he pulled my dress down, all wet, he peeled one arm at a time. I felt his hot tears. ‘I love you,’ he whispered.

  “I said, ‘I love you too.’ It felt so good to say it. ‘I love you too.’”

  Darina bit her lip; her chest heaved with gasping sighs. “My heart was breaking . . . I loved him.”

  Kate wrapped an arm around her. “Of course you loved him,” she whispered. “He’s your brother.”

  But Darina pulled back, her face contorted, “You don’t understand; I loved him. Maeve Flynn died because I loved him. That day in the storm, I grabbed his arm. When Maeve yelled, he turned, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him up the shore. I loved him. God forgive me; I loved him. And that night . . . that night . . .” She sobbed. “I loved his hands that night . . .” She whimpered softly, then gave a great sigh as if swallowing her pain.

  Kate clutched her, their faces touching, mingling their tears.

  Chapter 15

  By noon the air had densed into a haze. The sun grew sickly pale, and the restless sea, sallow and without luster, heaved as if exhausted. The wind blew in fits and starts, the ketch slowed, surged, then slowed and surged again, the sails straining, then luffing with a lift and bang of the boom. The albatross gained height, fell, pitched, and yawed unable to find a constant line of lift. After a while it gave up, landed on the waves, pulled its head under a wing, and slept.

  Nello leaned heavily against the port shrouds and spread his feet for steadiness. He held the sextant perpendicular with one hand and with the other swung the sextant’s index bar, then yelled down through the open skylight, “Cappy! Time?”

  “One minute,” came the reply.

  Through the clear half of the fixed mirror he could just make out the horizon, and he swung the angle-measuring arm until its mirror reflected the sun onto the fixed mirror below. Then he rotated the fine adjustment, bringing the rim of the sun down to the edge of the sea, and yelled out, “Ready. Mark!” Down below, Dugger entered the time into the log just as the ship’s clock tolled the first of eight bells. It was noon. He went up for his turn at the helm.

  “Where’s the bird?” Dugger asked, looking around, surprised.

  “I didn’t see him fly off,” Guillaume replied, letting go of the wheel. “He might just be sleeping.”

  He sat down in the shade and watched Dugger settle the ketch on course with one arm. It’s always there, Guillaume thought. No matter how friendly he tries to be, there’s always that sadness in his eyes.

  Nello, holding the sextant, stopped and looked around at the thickening sky. “Nasty, and getting worse.” He went below to do his calculations.

  “Will it rain, Capitaine?” Guillaume asked.

  “It will do something,” Dugger said. “With this dismal a light.”

  Thunder rolled across the heavens as if someone were rolling an empty barrel in the attic. Guillaume wiped the sweat from his eyes. “If you don’t mind my saying so, it would be advisable to be moving your arm or the shoulder will lock.”

  “Like the wings of an albatross.”

  “But only one wing.”

  “Then I’ll go forever in circles.” Dugger smiled.

  “Like most of us,” Guillaume said.

  Dugger eased his arm out of the sling. It felt stiff, but without pain. At first, he rested it on the wheel, then little by little, he used it to steer. “Good idea. Thank you,” he said.

  Guillaume didn’t reply. From the locker below the seat, he pulled out a wooden box of fishing gear and, with a honing stone, began sharpening a hook. He had not fished since the albatross arrived, afraid that the hooked fish might attract and hook the bird, but while the bird was gone or sleeping he could give it a quick try.

  “Is it the male that comes so far alone?” Dugger asked.

  “Male, female, in between. I don’t really know. I guess whoever gets the wanderlust.” He set the tip of the hook in his fingernail to see if it was sharp enough to catch, but it just slid off. “They mate for life, you know. Funny; when they court—preen, stare at each other, dance, even point their bills at the sky and utter a kind of howl—it’s all so exciting. So new. Each pair invents a language all its own. But once it’s over—the courting, I mean—they never use it again. Maybe it’s like falling in love: once the fire goes out . . .”

  The haze darkened and a louder rumble rolled. The light dimmed and the air became heavier to breathe.

  “Guillaume,” Dugger said. “Isn’t it odd for a spy to tell everyone he’s a spy?”

  “You don’t believe I’m a spy?”

  “No,” Dugger said.

  “There, you see? It worked!” And he gave a quiet self-congratulatory laughter. “Had I told you I was a buyer of pearls, or a copra trader, or that I had a thriving pineapple plantation, and then made just one little error, a slip, you would say, Aha! Caught in a lie. Must be a spy! As it is, you don’t believe me, plus you probably think I’m crazy, and that allows me to spy to my heart’s content. N’est-ce pas?”

  He tried the hook again, and this time it stuck. “Anyway, aren’t we all spies? Don’t we watch each other constantly wondering, What does he think? What does he feel? What does he really want? And if we can’t figure it out, we remain miserable.”

  “What’s wrong with miserable?”

  Guillaume studied Dugger’s face, the drawn cheeks, stubborn cleft chin, the furrows on his forehead, the deep creases beside his lips that now beamed with a broad smile. And his eyes, a child’s defenseless eyes that couldn’t for a moment hide what he felt.

  “Rien du tout!” Guillaume said. “Nothing at all. Being miserable keeps one young. Keeps one amusé. In fact, I can’t imagine what ‘happy’ people do for fun.”

  “Fall in love?”

  Holding a flying fish over the gunwale, he sliced open its underside, releasing a flow of blood, then slid the hook into its mouth and out its eye.

  “Fall in love? D’accord, but why? I propose to you that they fall in love to have their hearts broken so they can join les misérables. Les misérables can dream. Dream of a touch, an embrace. A night of flesh to flesh; the long hours in the moonlight. But what’s there for a happy man to dream of? A new pair of pants? A tie?”

  “You might have something there.”

  “Oh. I do have something there. I was taught two vital things about spying: One is trust no one, not even your mother. And two, they will always, always, always try to make you fail. Not the enemy but your own people. Your comrades, your commandant, your friends. Vraiment. They are set on you failing. And you know why? Because failure will torment you, make you miserable, and that will bring improvement. Innovation. I hate to guess what they have waiting for me in Tahiti.”

  He dropped the fish and fed out just enough line to have it alternately skim and dive, but kept it short in case the albatross returned. “Anyway, if misery pushes spies, it will surely push most people. Take you, for instance, Capitaine. Take your life. What a life! Merveilleuse! Danger. Glamour. Adventure. Your own ship; une femme ravissante. And how did it come about? What triggered it? Happiness? I’d bet on misery. You were miserable enough to throw away all, to become a man without a home, without a country, without bounds—what could be more romantic?—all because you had been truly miserable. Had you been happy, you’d still be ther
e, buried in some dismal warehouse, grinding through a dismal day with your dismal wife and dismal children awaiting you in your dismal house. No, mon ami, God blessed you with his greatest gift: misery. To have and to hold, forever and ever, amen.”

  Dugger looked back at him, then broke into laughter. When he stopped, he shook his head. “Maybe we really are all crazy,” he said.

  “It’s this air.” Guillaume sighed and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “It’s like breathing steam: boils your brain from inside. Anyway, I’m not so much a spy as what I believe you call a secret agent.”

  “What’s the difference?’

  “Not sure. I guess a spy tries to find out what’s going on; instead, a secret agent tries to stop it.”

  “The rebellion?”

  “The rebellion.”

  “THE GLASS DROPPED TWO MORE MILLIBARS,” Nello said grimly, standing in the companionway with a book in his hand, looking at the sky. “With this haze I can’t get a true horizon. We might be near the equator, but I’m not sure if we’re above or below it.”

  “Two millibars since when?” Dugger asked.

  “Since yesterday. And two the day before.”

  “Damn,” Dugger said in an undertone.

  “Short notice, soon past. Long foretold, long last,” Guillaume recited.

  Dugger spun around to look at him. Guillaume smiled.

  “You know too much,” Dugger said. “You really are a spy.”

  He shrugged. “I keep trying to tell you that.”

  “And her.” Dugger nodded toward below decks and the cabin. “Is she really a nun?”

  “Don’t you think she is?”

  “Is that what spies do? Answer a question with a question?”

  “It’s the best way to learn without giving yourself away. As for the sister, I’d wager fifty-fifty.”

  “Well, if she’s not a nun, she’s the dullest woman alive.”

  “Or the most intriguing,” Nello said irritably. “Now can we get back to the problem at hand before we die here of gossiping?” He opened the book of the Hydrographic Department of the Royal Navy and read aloud. “If the corrected barometer reading is five millibars or more below normal, it’s time to consider avoiding action for there can be little doubt that a tropical revolving storm—the most violent of storms at sea—is in the vicinity.” Then he looked around to catch the direction of the wind. “But how do we take avoiding action if we don’t know what we’re supposed to avoid? Look,” and he spread the open book on the cockpit seat. There were two diagrams of tropical storms. Storms in the northern hemisphere, where the winds spun counterclockwise around the eye, had their most destructive part, ‘the dangerous quadrant,’ north of the storms path. In the southern hemisphere, where the winds spun clockwise, the “dangerous quadrant” lay south.