Sailors on the Inward Sea

by Lawrence Thornton

  I was startled out of my reverie by the racket of the sprockets as Duval pulled the form out of the typewriter.

  “Well, now,” he said as he handed it to me. “If you’ll just read this over and sign at the bottom we can get busy.”

  The Nellie’s name was in thick black capital letters at the top of the form. Beneath it was a series of clauses followed by a list of details and measurements that defined her type. Reading the bill of particulars you would learn the facts about her, but nothing of her spirit. That was what struck me. Her real value was ineffable and resided in memories that came flooding back as I read the document, in a history rooted in the last century, in the stories that were told on her deck and had become great books. That was her value and it made a joke of the price typed conspicuously at the bottom, along with the amount of Duval’s commission. I signed and gave it back. There was nothing else to do. Duval proceeded to explain his strategy for selling her, taking me through the process a step at a time, and I must tell you that his methods sounded quite impressive. I halfheartedly asked a few questions, more for his benefit than mine, and then said I was satisfied.

  “You have my confidence,” I told him as we shook hands. “Let’s hope she goes quickly.”

  Duval walked me to the door and pushed it open.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m quite good at what I do. I should have no trouble finding a buyer for a vessel like this, I assure you. And I’ll try to make sure it’s someone who will take good care of her.”

  Never mind that he was coddling me, Ford, talking to me as though I were a child to whom he had promised a sweet after I’d skinned my knee. I appreciated it. And yet his assurances did nothing to staunch my discomfort. That I had to get on with my life seemed inconsequential in the face of the feeling of betrayal that accompanied me down the stairs and out into the street.

  PUTTING MY HOME on the block initiated a number of errands. No matter how urgent they were, I couldn’t walk more than a few blocks without feeling a profound desire to return to the Nellie. There’s no mystery to it. With the end of our time approaching, I wanted all that was left, every hour. I swear, I craved every movement of her deck when she was rocked by a gentle swell. Covetousness of this sort goes against the grain of my nature, Ford. Normally, I’m not the grasping kind and that includes both my relationships with people as well as things. Early in my life I had learned the hard lesson of letting go, learned to recognize when I must despite my feelings. There’s no question that if I’d had my wits about me this uncharacteristic resistance would have set off an alarm in my head and I might have penetrated to the source of my anxiety. But my wits were conspicuously absent as a result of the radical change under way in my life, which is to say that I put my feelings down to the imminent physical separation from the Nellie and the dissolution of our circle of friends.

  Nonetheless, I didn’t spend all my time moping. When I kept my mind fixed on the archipelago, I could deal well enough with less happy things. One night in a pub, I was going on about the loveliness of Java seen in the distance at the end of a long voyage, its various shades of green like a wonderful batik, when I suddenly imagined that vision from the deck of the Nellie and made an offhand comment about hiring a chap or two to help me sail her there. My companions, old salts as crusty as myself, knew a thing or two about the treachery of the sea in those parts. To put it bluntly, they laughed in my face.

  “I know, I know,” I said, “but with a little luck it might just be done.”

  I wanted it to be true and because I wanted it so much I believed it was possible, foreseeing myself overcoming all the obstacles they threw at me, inventing ingenious replies that they handily dismantled as they pointed out how deeply flawed my reasoning was and had a fine time doing it. It didn’t matter. I had to go through the whole voyage on the chance that I might come up with a notion that was sound enough to warrant giving it a try. I must have held out for half an hour before I admitted the obvious: Being a pleasure craft, the Nellie wasn’t up to the travails of an ocean voyage and would likely break up in even a middling storm. It was like that moment when you’re playing chess and see your last defensible position crumble, leaving you nothing to do but resign, be resigned. The Nellie would never see the Java coast.

  The next morning I went to the harbormaster’s office and inquired about ships bound for the East. A clerk thumbed through the register and found several freighters scheduled to depart at the end of the month. One, destined for Batavia, could accommodate a few passengers. An hour later I was in the company’s office, booking passage. Afterward, on an impulse, I rang up Duval to ask how things were going. Three men wanted to see her.

  I started packing. The deck and cabin were knee-deep in boxes, which I guided Duval and the clients around while they peered into her nooks and crannies. With each visit I became more indignant, as if they were taking liberties with her, men I didn’t know. Never mind that they were perfectly decent chaps, experienced sailors (you could tell from a few minutes’ conversation), knowledgeable enough so I didn’t have to worry about them running her aground or ripping out her bottom. Strangers with no appreciation of her soul were traipsing around her innards and on her deck, thinking of laying claim, making modifications, perhaps renaming her, the courtship as unromantic as an arranged marriage. I swear I could feel her wince whenever one of them opened his mouth and inquired about her virtues.

  One day, after a prolonged investigation, a chap named William Straw made an offer. It was slightly below the asking price and Duval was for holding out, but I told him I didn’t care to haggle. We went below and spread the papers out on the table. Straw agreed to put down earnest money with the understanding that I would remain on board until the freighter left.

  Once my belongings were transferred to the shipping company’s warehouse I began saying my good-byes. I had separate dinners with Harrison, Barnes, and Kepler to avoid the sadness of being together. I visited other friends and business acquaintances, and all our farewells were tinged with more than the usual somberness. I doubted I would return to Britain or that any of them would make the long journey to the East—too old, you understand, too set in their ways. And yet I don’t mean to give you the impression that I was morose, Ford. Though I felt sorry about leaving my friends and letting the Nellie go, I was excited by the prospect of returning to that part of the world where my heart had been rooted since I was a young fellow fresh off the Judea. A circle was being closed.

  I had arranged to meet Straw at his bank the day before I departed. I woke early with a waspish sense of uneasiness. While I drank my coffee, a trawler chugged by, followed by a large ship that ran low in the water, heavy with cargo. The wind was blowing steadily out of the north at seven or eight knots, perfect for sailing. I had an urge to take her out—it didn’t matter where or how far—just for a valedictory sail, a last chance to enjoy the feel of her, the way she handled. I could do it and be back with time to spare before my appointment. That hour would be a memento of our time together and if I wasted the opportunity I knew I’d regret it. I imagined Straw coming aboard the next day, taking possession of her, walking up and down the deck, pleased as punch. The scene had appeared to me on several occasions but never as clearly, never with the sound of his boots reverberating on the deck, playing a tattoo while the wind in the lines piped me off the boat and out of her life. It was one of those blessed moments when everything suddenly becomes clear, Ford, when the scales fall from your eyes and you see what has been hidden in a flash. I was on the verge of making a terrible mistake—not in letting her go, there was no question about that—but how.

  An hour later I called Straw from Sebold’s shop and told him that something unforeseen had come up that forced me to withdraw my offer to sell the Nellie. He was vastly disappointed. He reminded me that I had accepted earnest money, adding that he had spent a good deal of time arranging for the rest of the price. He had made plans. Apologizing profusely, I said I’d send a check immediatel
y.

  “You’d better,” he replied, and then he called me a swine.

  With Straw’s insult ringing in my ears I set off for the post office a few blocks away, chastised but happy, a spring in my step, a grin pasted on my face, nodding amiably to passersby. I think that I must have known what I had to do since the evening of Conrad’s wake, known it, I mean, on the deep level of consciousness where things bide their time, waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves. This one occurred when I turned down the street and saw the post office. It wasn’t a blinding realization, and I can’t say that I was even mildly surprised, not in the least. It was very simple, very clear, unassailable. Of course, I remember thinking, of course. While I stood at the high table in the gloomy great room of the post office, the light filtering through the arched windows casting long yellow oblong shapes across the floor, I thought of what I had to do to prepare while I wrote a check to Straw and addressed the envelope with an uncharacteristic flourish. If I’d possessed the talent to conjure spirits as men in Java claim they can do, I know Conrad would have applauded and given me his blessing, very likely asking why it had taken me so long to see which way the wind blew.

  Back on board, I made sure the oars were in the dinghy, then uncoiled the rope ladder and saw that it was frayed but strong enough to bear my weight. I checked the petrol can that I kept in reserve in the event her tank went dry. With everything in order, I went up to a fish-and-chips shop for lunch, eating by the window where I could see the Nellie and dozens of other boats strung out in a line that led my eye to the spot where I’d last seen Conrad. My thoughts went back to the Pent, Singapore, to our days of working for Walter Craig, Conrad standing bare-chested on a tiny dock, his head done up in a blue rag, none of it in sequence but that didn’t matter. The shape of his life was there for me to see and I thought that, on the whole, it had been more satisfying than most I knew, including my own.

  It was going on toward six o’clock when I slipped the Nellie’s mooring lines, running on the old Chalmers auxiliary engine out of the estuary, where I raised the sails and headed down the coast a few kilometers to a spot well away from the shipping lanes. After tying the wheel down, I lowered the dinghy from the stern, secured the painter with a half-hitch, gave it an extra tug to make sure it held, tossed the rope ladder over the side, and waited for the sun to go down. I was feeling sentimental, Ford, the elegiac mood that had earlier come over me stronger now, piqued by the light show that was beginning in the west, the sunset reminding me of all those the five of us had witnessed together and they all seemed to be happening at once, as if years had never separated them.

  The Nellie was one of the boats in my life inhabited by the presences of former owners and passengers, and I must say this was never clearer than during the next hour or so. Conrad and Harrison and Barnes and Kepler were as good as there. The air was redolent from Harrison’s shag. I even had a vision of the legionnaire, girded for a run-in with the local savages and probably wishing for a glass of good Falernian wine, standing on the trireme’s deck and staring into the dense growth along the riverbank.

  When all that was left of the sun was a fiery dome pooling like orange paint on the horizon, I got up and went over to the locker, where I removed the gooseneck petrol can. On my way to the bow I unscrewed the cap and began sprinkling petrol in a zigzag pattern across the deck. In the wan last light of day the liquid reflected the mast and sails as well as my own shadowy figure in peacoat and visored cap, looking rather like an old salt watering his plants. As there was still some petrol in the bottom of the can, I walked back through the fumes, which made my eyes water, and poured it around the base of the mast. The voices of the old gang started while I was on my way toward the ladder. Faint at first, they quickly grew louder, the lot going on as vivaciously as ever, a medley of heated arguments, reflections, storytelling, Conrad talking about the Roi des Belges, me holding court about the Congo, Jim, a swirl of words and images that for a few moments preserved our past together as perfectly as Dowell’s minuet of the Hessian bathing places, where he had what he wanted and took his ease in shadows and coolness.

  I climbed over the side and stood on the lowest rung of the ladder while I removed a waterproof container from my pocket and struck a match. The moment I tossed it onto the deck there was a tremendous thud, as if a huge boot had come down squarely on the Nellie. I felt a blast of heat and saw black smoke billowing skyward as I stepped into the dinghy and slipped the knot on the painter, letting her drift away a hundred meters or so. Holding her steady with the oars, I watched the conflagration, the flames’ fierce reds and golds and yellows an homage to Conrad. Within the hour, the Nellie’s mast fell toward the bow, trailing sparks like the eyes of peacocks staring into fire. The cabin roof collapsed and, when she began to settle, I could see the interior of her hull filled with the glowing embers of mast and sails and decking. Soon afterward she went down without a struggle, without trying to hold on longer than was seemly, went down by her stern in a hiss of steam lighted by the last embers.

  The flames were still dancing in my eyes when I swung the dinghy round and began to row, the scent of burned wood and canvas, of petrol and metal and rope dissipating till there was only the cool, fresh smell of the sea. I can’t say how long I labored, only that my arms were tired and my back ached and pain ran from my palms into my fingers long before I saw the dock lights and the shadowy forms of the great pilings looming up. I was exhausted by then and it was an effort to row onto the Nellie’s empty slip. After snaring a mooring line with an oar, I pulled the dinghy up against a piling, tied her off, and went down on my knees, plunging my hands into the water, bathing the pain out, exulting in the cold. In a while I climbed the ladder up to the dock, holding on to its rails with the heels of my hands. It was deserted at that time of the night except for a watchman walking his dog. I greeted him and after he went on stood there at the head of the ladder, not quite ready to leave, wanting to take it all in one last time. The lampposts ran off in the distance, patterning the rough boards with pools of yellow light like steppingstones that grew closer together and smaller toward the far end. On an impulse, I walked over to the rail and looked down at the dinghy, noting that it occupied only a fraction of the space, that the water where the Nellie used to be was untouched by any of the lamplight and felt satisfied that I had done right by her. I gingerly felt around in my pocket for the key to a room in the boardinghouse where I would spend my last night in London, a decent place on a narrow street along which I’d wandered the night of Conrad’s wake, turned up the collar of my jacket against the chill, and went out to the road.

  VII

  * * *

  The Wayang

  IT’S MORNING IN this part of the world, Ford. We have come round to another season of the dry monsoon, the time of sweltering heat and the Wayang, where I spent last night. When I came home at dawn, tired but at peace with myself, I was not quite ready to take up my pen and finish this memoir and so I drew a chair up to the table on the veranda and have been gazing down at the Old Port for the last hour. The dock has filled up with lorries, bullock-drawn wagons, men with pushcarts hawking food and drink and clove cigarettes, the daily bustle that will continue until the light fades. Three freighters lie at anchor in the bay, waiting to enter and disgorge their cargoes. Others are tied up at the piers, where men who bend beneath the sacks of bounty ceaselessly flowing to Batavia move like hunchbacked beetles from the ships to warehouses and back again. The South China Sea is a mosaic of blues: cerulean where the ocean floor falls away, turquoise near the reefs, the shade of a blond child’s eyes close to shore. Past the beach, huge shining leaves shaped like hearts, spiky palm fronds, delicate runnels of vines, long strands of chartreuse grass flutter on the trades like a great batik banner. This is the seductive Indonesia Conrad had in mind when he wrote of Almayer dozing on his wharf, having succumbed to the jungle’s sensuousness, hardly able to rouse himself in the scent-laden heat. Were the end of this memoir not in si
ght, I would very likely unroll the futon I keep out here and sleep away the day.

  Given the troubles I had finding my way into this writing, you may be wondering if I am satisfied. All things considered—and by that I mean the intractable nature of key elements in the story that will never fully be known, most obviously the details of Conrad’s manuscript, along with what he thought those last two weeks of his life—I am, though not quite as I had imagined. I am probably not the only memoirist who set out to record his impressions confident that he would eventually reach a point in his narrative where some overarching meaning would poke its head over the horizon and become clearer as he neared the end. That was certainly my expectation. But the moments along the way when I thought the adventures of our troika were beginning to suggest a larger idea or two never developed into anything significant. I have no reasoned explanation to offer, no pithy summary of human nature, no hard-won cautionary lessons, only an image from last night’s shadow show that is self-contained and requires no gloss from me. I will come to it soon, but it must wait its turn while I address a last bit of unfinished business concerning Fox-Bourne.

  I NEVER SAW HIM again after he sped away from the church, never wanted to. I had said what I had to say in the rose garden and whatever further thoughts I entertained about the man weren’t fit to give vent to. He had damaged all of us in the seaborne life by tarnishing the standard of conduct we stood for. In that respect, I was considerably more harsh on him than Conrad, who, in writing about Fox-Bourne, had to put aside his anger and contempt in order to do justice to him. I suppose the by-product was a kind of sympathy. I don’t mean that he forgave the man. You can tell from the story he told me that he did not and also that he had told nothing but the unvarnished truth. He was just and fair. Being under no artistic constraints myself, I was free to indulge my distaste, quite happy to think of him living with the words of Conrad’s manuscript knocking about in his head for the rest of his life. After a while he drifted out of my consciousness almost entirely and when I did think of him it was fleeting.