The Boatmaker

by John Benditt

  Two weeks later he and his boat are on the rocky beach below the town. Everything he needs is in the hull, packed in nets fastened under the deck. He’s rigged a canvas cover over part of the cockpit to keep the spray out. The steamer makes the trip in two days. He might need four or five, depending on the wind.

  One of the last things he did was to sew himself a sealskin bag with two straps to go around his shoulders. In the bag he put the handkerchief from his mother, along with what is left of the money he earned from carpentry jobs. The bag is strapped to his chest under his clothes; the compass is mounted on the foredeck just behind the mast. He’ll have to leave the tiller and step forward to read it, but when the wind is fair, the boat should sail itself.

  Before leaving, he swept the shed, leaving the door open for the next man who wants to use it. He took the important tools with him, in case he needs to find work on Big Island. Any honest man of Small Island is welcome to the rest.

  His final job was to step the mast, which he did when he got his boat down the steep slope to the beach. Now he pushes the boat out into the water, leaving the stern on a rock. He waits a moment, going over a few last things. Then he takes off his boots, ties them together and throws them into the cockpit. They land, one on each side of the centerboard well, dangling from their laces.

  He steps into the water in his bare feet and frees the stern from its rock. The boat floats in the green water, waiting. He steps in, feels the boat take his weight and settle. He sits on the stern thwart, lifts the rudder and sets it in place on its two brass pins. He raises the gaff-rigged sail he sewed in his shed from heavy canvas. The breeze picks up—a summer breeze, no more than a puff, but enough to move his boat. He trims his sail, and the boat springs forward, leaving a hissing wake. He reaches forward and slides the centerboard down. When the centerboard is up, the boat will draw only a few inches. A little water comes through the seams onto his feet. This doesn’t matter. As he sails, the hull will swell, seal itself and become watertight. Sitting on the thwart, he holds himself still, looking straight ahead, not turning around to see Small Island shrink out of sight behind him.

  CHAPTER 5

  When the boatmaker reaches Big Island, it is hot and dusty: high summer. The boat sailed beautifully for four days and three nights, letting him know he had done the right thing in building it and sailing out onto the open sea. He steered by the sun and the compass the woman ordered all the way from the Mainland, his wake bubbling behind him. The summer winds were fair and steady, and he ran downwind almost from the moment he put his boat in the water. It took a few minutes to work out of the wind shadow of Small Island and catch the prevailing winds. From there it was like sailing in a dream.

  The best times were at night. The moon gained fullness on his journey until it lay whole and round on the water, his boat gliding over the wide white disk. The sea was calm, a big lake, the waves little more than ripples as he ran downwind, the gaff-rigged sail far out over the gunwale, held by a pole he had cut and stowed before setting out.

  On the water, he wasn’t hungry. He ate a little of the pemmican he had brought, along with water from a stone jug. When he needed to, he relieved himself over the side, feeling that the ocean belonged to him and his boat, a Small Island double-ender made from nothing but the tools at hand and an understanding of how wood fits with wood.

  After leaving his mother’s house, he kept himself from drinking. And knowing himself, he didn’t bring anything other than water to drink while he was at sea. But when he was on the water he didn’t even think about drinking. While he was working on the boat, the work kept his mind off alcohol. He thought perhaps on the water, work on the boat done, he would want it again. But he didn’t. The moon on the green water was enough: full and still, the bright field undulating as the keel of his boat cut through it and left the waves, their crests painted with moonlight, behind.

  He finds a pier and ties up without asking for permission. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around to ask. Farther down the bay big ocean-going ships, sailing and steam, are tied up at long piers. Among them he can see the steamer that goes to Small Island once a week. He knows he could walk down there now and board the steamer. When he woke from the dream of the blue wolf, all he knew was that he would build a boat and sail to Big Island. Now he’s done that—a remarkable thing for any Small Island man, especially one who is not of the boatbuilder clan. Perhaps what he’s done is enough. He has enough money for passage back to Small Island. He could walk down the bay, buy a ticket, find the woman a present and go on board, leaving his boat to rot against this pier. He would have done everything he set out to do. And he knows that, even if she was angry with him for leaving, or for trying to give her banknotes to make up for having taken her away from work, she would take him back.

  As he ties up his boat, he can see himself returning—and the future they would have after that. They will live together, in her house or a house he builds for them. They will have a child of their own, a brother for the girl. He will drink, but not as much or as often. He will work more regularly. Her love will change him a little. Occasionally, when he’s drunk, he will hit her—but not as hard as Valter does. She will be happy he belongs to her. She will love the new child as much as she loves the girl. Sometimes in the winter, when everything is frozen and the four of them are sitting around the fire in their little house, she will laugh and tell the story of how her man had the crazy idea of building a boat. And not only had the idea, but did it, sailing all the way to Big Island and coming back on the steamer like a rich man. She will laugh and the children will take their cue from her and laugh also, tentatively at first, then harder, the girl almost grown, the boy sitting on her lap, firelight on their faces in the winter night.

  He climbs up onto the pier, looks up and sees stairs—wood below, stone above—climbing the bluff. Three boys are playing at the foot of the pier near the pilings, which are rough with mussels, limpets, seaweed. The boys are brown and nearly naked, throwing stones at crabs that scurry out of sight behind the pilings or race into the water. They look to be seven or eight. On Small Island no boy of eight would be playing this way. He would be working alongside his father, on land or sea. He would not be working only if his father was too drunk to work, or in the still of winter when everyone is inside and people live on what they have put by before everything froze. In any case, on Small Island there are no piers to play under, and no sandy beaches. The shoreline is rocky all the way to the water’s edge.

  The boatmaker passes the boys and climbs the steps. Once he’s over the top of the bluff, the sea disappears and he’s in the middle of a dusty road. It’s bigger than any road on Small Island, even though it is far from town and must be a small road for this place. The dust is deep and soft. He walks through it, following the road as it leads inland, joining and leaving other roads just as soft and sunbleached.

  He walks slowly, finding his land legs. It reminds him of being drunk. As he walks what he thinks is a straight line, the island sways to the left, then to the right, then back to center. He hasn’t had anything on his feet since he pushed off from Small Island, and his boots feel unfamiliar, heavy and confining. In this awkward fashion he walks away from Small Island and everything he knows.

  In the noon heat the road is mostly empty. Occasionally he passes a man or two, dusty as the road, wearing wide-brimmed hats, wide pants and loose-fitting shirts. The boatmaker has never seen such clothes and doesn’t know how to place their wearers. Are they rich? Poor? In between? Some of them are carrying tools—adzes, scythes or buckets; they must be workingmen.

  The men he passes seem friendly enough, but they look at the boatmaker sideways as he moves by. His corduroy jacket is over his arm, the sealskin bag strapped to his chest under his clothes. He begins to feel he’s worn his clothes too long without washing them, a feeling he never had on the water and rarely on Small Island. The spinning feeling slows and finally stops. As he walks inland, the trees thicken. His shadow peeps o
ut from under his boots as if it is afraid of Big Island.

  The road widens, the trees open and the boatmaker sees a big old building that has been patched and added onto many times. It is framed by a grove of tall oaks. Hanging from the peak of the roof is a sign with faded cream letters on a purple background. The sign, which reads Mandrake Inn, hangs motionless in the heat. Underneath the name a mandrake root is painted in the same faded cream color. The big oaks, their leaves dusty and still, shade the building even in the middle of the day. In their shadow, the roof shingles look purple.

  In front of the inn on a little patch of dying grass is an unfinished pine table. At the table a woman sits smoking a cigarette, the smoke drifting up over her head. The smoke is almost invisible in the summer heat. In front of her is a glass filled with a clear brown liquid the boatmaker knows well. Her head is bare, her hair a dark-blond mane shot with lighter strands. A clip at the back of her head is attempting to hold her hair back—and half succeeding. She is wearing a dress of dark red, the bodice tightly fitted. The opening of the bodice is cut square and her breasts fill it as if they were in a picture frame. The boatmaker has no idea what to make of this scene. No woman on Small Island has ever sat exposed this way in public.

  As the boatmaker comes down the dusty road toward her, the woman of the town looks without expression at what the sea has thrown up on Big Island. He is mute as a stone. The woman at the pine table seems elegant beyond imagining—and available in a disturbing way. He walks up and takes a seat on the bench across the table from her, one seat down so that he is not facing her directly.

  Sitting this way, it is hard for the boatmaker to know what to look at: her breasts, framed in the square opening, or the drink in front of her. He resolves his dilemma by not looking at either the woman or the drink, which she now lifts to her mouth, showing sharp white teeth. She pauses before drinking, her lips the same red as her dress, her tongue clearly visible, before letting the liquid slide in. The boatmaker sits stiffly, strangled by thirst. He feels that if he doesn’t get a drink and then another immediately after, his body will turn itself inside out. But he has no idea how things happen on Big Island. They sit there in silence. She is coolly appraising; he is trying not to look.

  Behind the woman of the town, the open door of the Mandrake is a rectangle, cool and dark. The boatmaker stares into it as if he could make someone appear with a drink by willing them to.

  The woman of the town exhales smoke and fingers a box of matches. On the box a pink swan swims serenely in profile on a green diamond, which floats in turn on a yellow rectangle. She holds the box so the swan faces the boatmaker, then spins it in her fingers, hiding the swan, her face giving no sign she is doing anything at all.

  A man emerges from the doorway holding a round tray with a drink. He is wearing a nightshirt, not very clean, that reaches below his knees. He sets the drink in front of the woman of the town and blinks, examining the boatmaker as if he is surprised to see a customer.

  “You too?” he says, letting the tray fall to his side, where it makes a wet spot on the nightshirt. The boatmaker nods.

  The man retreats into the door of the inn. A little while later he comes back with another drink. He sets the drink in front of the boatmaker and then stands motionless, waiting.

  The boatmaker looks at him, not immediately understanding. On Small Island, there is no need to pay for anything when it arrives. Everything that is delivered has its place in a specific account. These running accounts stretch back over generations, connecting everyone on the island, laid over ties of blood, marriage, death and history. Occasionally someone will come into money through gambling or an inheritance and make a debt smaller. It is not considered right to eliminate the debt altogether: that would break a bond.

  Understanding that on Big Island things are done differently, the boatmaker rises and goes around the corner of the inn, watched closely by two pairs of eyes. Out of sight, he reaches under his shirt into the sealskin bag and pulls a bill out by touch. He brings it back, sits down and puts the banknote on the table. It is pale blue, enough for many drinks, even if two people are drinking.

  The woman of the town sits watching, spinning her matchbox round and round. She looks up at the innkeeper, nods with her eyes. The innkeeper picks up the blue banknote, leaves the drink and vanishes into the inn.

  The woman takes in the strange little man’s discomfort, her eyes alive, her mouth a red smile on the glass. She lowers her glass, puts a forefinger into it, stirs the liquid slowly. Its motion amuses her. She decides that on her husband’s next trip she will have him bring her a glass of water cooled by some ice from the precious store in the cellar.

  “You’re not from around here,” she says, crushing the red end of her cigarette out in a saucer while thinking about the next one.

  The boatmaker can’t say anything. The noon heat, the woman of the town, his arrival on Big Island after four days at sea, have rendered him dumb. He dips into the drink, his first in many months, knowing what’s coming, feeling the burn in his nose and throat as fumes rise up to his brain. As always, the drink seems to know him by name.

  “No.”

  “And where are you from, my friend of not too many words?”

  “Small Island.”

  “Small Island. Now isn’t that something?” A smile pulls at the red corners of her mouth. “You don’t see many here from Small Island. More from the Mainland. Rich folks from the Mainland think Big Island is a picturesque sort of place these days.”

  The woman of the town has seen men from Small Island before; they haven’t impressed her. This silent one seems as though he might be different in some way she hasn’t figured out yet. But she will, with a little effort. Men aren’t difficult to figure out. There are only two things to keep in mind when you’re trying to understand a man. Those two items cover ninety percent of all situations. The other ten percent you figure out as you go along.

  This one, she thinks, does look the same as all the others from Small Island, which is a tiny rock at the end of the world, a very shithole. He has the grime, the overalls, the drooping mustache, the long underwear worn even in summer. They must have a depot over there that issues every man a pair of longjohns when he’s born. After that, they grow with him, never needing to be washed—until the funeral maybe. He’s got a little stash of money on him that he doesn’t want anyone to see. Funny the way he went around the corner to get into it.

  He doesn’t seem too bright, possibly even stupid. But there is something alive about him, like a healthy animal. The image of a seal comes to her mind, its fur smooth, wet and flashing. There aren’t many seals left in the waters off Big Island, because their fur is fashionable on the Mainland, and being fashionable is a death sentence. Mysterious how they live down there in the dark and cold. Yet they’re like us, breathing air, warm, not like fish, which are cold and alien, barely alive. In spite of her contempt for the boatmaker, at the thought of the seal, the woman of the town feels a motion in her chest.

  “You came on the steamer?”

  “No.”

  “So how did you get here? Fishing boat? Whaler? Sealer?” He doesn’t look like he would be working on any of those, but there aren’t many ways to get from Small Island to Big Island. She has named them all, as quick and efficient as a businessman.

  The boatmaker doesn’t feel like telling her about building his boat or the nights he spent on the water. Once he starts talking, he might tell her about the woman on Small Island, about being sick, the wheelbarrow, the money he tried to give the woman, the compass she ordered for him. He might not even stop there, going on to babble about his mother, his brother—even the blue wolf. Better to stop before he says anything.

  His silence begins to unnerve the woman of the town just a little. Perhaps that is how he is different, she thinks: by being able to remain silent. In her presence, most men start talking right away and then don’t stop, boasting about this or that, thinking they can impress her. This o
ne is uncomfortable, she sees, but he can hold his peace. And that bothers her. She has worked so hard to keep the layer of ice around her heart intact. Any feelings she might have had for a man she pushed into the ring of ice and let them freeze solid. Here and there one touched her in a way that might have begun to melt something inside her. When that happened, she pushed him away and froze him right up again. It has always worked. She uses them, pulls the money out of them in a steady stream while she dreams about the capital and the beautiful things they have there.

  But it is hard work to keep things frozen inside. She has always known that some man might find a way to begin to melt that ice. And then it could all be over very quickly. This thought often flickers at the edge of her mind. But the grimy silent little man from the shithole at the end of the world won’t be the one to do that. There’s not a chance of it, regardless of his unnerving silence. It won’t even be much of a challenge.

  The innkeeper comes out of the inn. The boatmaker orders two drinks for himself and one for her. While the man in the nightshirt goes to fill the order, the boatmaker slides one seat down until he’s directly across from the woman in the dark red dress with the square-cut neckline and the mesmerizing cleft between the two roundnesses.

  He reaches into her bag without asking and takes out two cigarettes. Removes the matchbox from her hands, puts both cigarettes in his mouth and lights them, holds one out to her. She is not sure she wants to accept anything from this man. While her mind debates, her hand reaches out, apparently of its own accord, takes the cigarette and brings it to her mouth. She begins to smoke in rhythm with him, taking the smoke in and letting it go when he does.