As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth
Page 16
The path was wide enough for two of the three to walk abreast. It was only dirt, but it had been carved out and graded with some care. At the top of it, a cart waited. They squeezed past it into a generous clearing, a taming of the undergrowth. As well as the overgrowth.
A low stone wall meandered around the free-form perimeter. At one end a rounded lobe of the clearing held a garden. The striped lighthouse towered from the other end. Midway between the two sat a whitewashed cottage with a red tile roof. In front of it, something roasted on a spit over a fire. Untroubled chickens, reddish brown and white and black-and-white ones, trolled picturesquely upon the green for bugs and worms, scratching and dipping, throughout the territory.
Alejandro led them over to the lighthouse, where they ascended a stairway carved into one of the boulders at its base. From there, they had an unobstructed view of…water and air. Sea and sky. It was a panorama that gave new meaning to the word island. Or the words the ends of the earth. They were standing on one of those ends.
Then Alejandro pointed and said, “¡Miren! ¡Allí!” Look, there. They miraron and vieron otra isla. Another island. A little bump rising from the sea.
Now Alejandro took the map from Del and opened it again. He pointed and used kindergarten-level words Ry could mostly understand, to show and tell them that the island they were looking for was on the other side of the island they could see.
“Ya casi están allí,” he said. You are almost there.
“How far?” asked Del. “Ask him how long it will take us.”
“¿Cuánto tiempo por ir? ¿Cuántos horas?” asked Ry. How many time to go? How much hours?
“Esta noche es demasiado tarde, pero mañana, al medio dia. Con buena suerte y viento fuerte,” dijo Alejandro. It’s too late tonight. But tomorrow, by lunchtime. With luck and good wind.
“¿No lo podemos hoy? ¿Seguro?” asked Ry. Not today? Sure? He could see that the sun was falling toward the horizon. And to be honest, he had no desire to jump back into the boat.
“¿Conocen bien las estrellas?” dijo Alejandro. How well do you know the stars? And, “Un sitio para descansar por una noche es preferible a uno permanente.” A temporary resting place is better than a permanent one.
Of which Ry understood “is better than” and “permanent.” It gave him the gist.
“¿Si están tan apurados, por qué viajan en velero?” preguntó Alejandro. If you are in a hurry, why are you in a sailboat? And, “La noche no será larga. ¿Que hay tan importante allá?” The night is not long. What is so important there?
It was a reasonable question. Ry wasn’t sure his Spanish was up to it, so he just shrugged. But later, he tried to answer it as they sat chewing on roasted meat of some kind. Which was not that bad. Actually, really good.
“My grandfather is lost. In the United States. My mother and father are here on a boat, or an island. We look for them.
“My grandfather’s head…” He couldn’t remember how to say that something might be happening. Or might have already happened.
“Danger,” he said. “We need to find him. My parents need…to know. To help.”
“¿Esta seguro que ellos estan por St. Jude’s?” Are you sure they are on St. Jude’s?
Yes. I think that. I hope it.
The thing was, his days were getting mixed up now. What day it was, which day his parents had said they were leaving. He was pretty sure it was tomorrow that was the now-or-why-bother day.
THE CRUMBLING CUPCAKE
“¿Solamente usted vive aqui?” asked Ry. “¿En esta isla?” Only you here? In this island?
The three of them sat on the porch of the little cottage, around a table which held the detritus of their meal. Ry was the interpreter. Piecing together a conversation with his level of Spanish skills was like building a bridge out of toothpicks and gumdrops. You wouldn’t want to put a lot of weight on it—yourself, for example—but it took your mind off your worries.
“Sólo yo y las ardillas de tierra,” said Alejandro. Only me and the burrowing squirrels.
Ry didn’t know the words for burrowing squirrels. “¿Ardillas de tierra?” he repeated. “¿Que son esas?”
Alejandro smiled. He held up a finger, then the palm of his hand, indicating that they should wait uno momento, then disappeared into the house. He returned with a book, a notebook, and a pen. Ry and Del stacked the dirty dishes and pushed them aside to make a space on the table.
Alejandro opened the book to a photograph. Ry and Del recognized the squirrel/prairie dog they had seen so many of as they climbed up the hill. Through words, sketchy diagrams, and hand gestures, Alejandro told them that the animalitos had been brought to the island from another land, long ago. They were brought by a man who intended to raise them as livestock. As a gourmet delicacy. They were very tasty. As you already know, he added. Then some of them escaped. It was a jailbreak; they escaped by digging tunnels. Burrows. Because that was the kind of animals they were, burrowing animals. They started burrowing all over the island. It was their nature.
Part of the island was rock, solid, and they couldn’t burrow through that. But after a while, there were so many of them burrowing through the softer parts that whole chunks of the island became unstable and fell right off, into the sea.
The island used to be bigger, Alejandro said. “Antes era más grande.” People had lived here, then. Ry wondered what would happen when the squirrels ran out of dirt. Alejandro thought maybe they would learn to swim and take over the ocean, too. Not really, he said. But when there were so many, they reminded you of cucarachas. Cockroaches. Pests.
“Wow,” said Ry. “¡Caramba!”
“Sí,” said Alejandro.
Allowing for the possibility that he had completely misunderstood or that Alejandro had just been alone on the island too long (though he seemed more rational and sane than Ry thought he himself would be in that circumstance), it was an interesting story. Creepy. In the crawly sense.
Trying to fall asleep on yet another sofa—this one was not much more than thin cushions on a bench—Ry imagined the island crumbling out from under them in the night. He cast back earlier into the day for a more sleep-friendly image. He came up with the boat. The little boat tipping and tilting in the big ocean. The wrench and the compass. He cast back further. The homemade airplane. Nothing much in recent history was soothing.
“It’s cool that you know some Spanish.” Del’s voice came from just a few feet away. He was bedded down, or up, in a hammock. “My brain can barely manage English.”
“Your brain does lots of other things, though,” said Ry. “You’re like the ninja cowboy fix-it man.” He knew somehow that Del was smiling in the dark. So he went on. “You’re like, ‘Howdy, ma’am, do you have any broken appliances? Excuse me while I rewire your toaster quick-a-minute.’ Zipzapzoop, blow on your fingers, walk into the sunset. ‘Oh, you need a ride to the other side of the world? I was just going there.’”
A stray moonbeam found the way through a window and fell in a faint square on the faded carpet, leaving the darkness around it blacker and more velvety. Soft, mild air moved almost imperceptibly in and out of the room. With it floated the gentle traces of ocean salt, flower and vegetation scents, earthy essences, campfire smoke molecules, lingering aromas of roasted foods, effable evidence of human exertion (meaning sweat), all dissolved in great quantities of fresh pure washed air to make a soporific mélange. Sleep Potion Number Nine.
The next island was visible from here. That is, it would be, come morning. There was only one more island after that. Del would get them there. It would all work out.
“And how do you even know how to sail a sailboat?” Ry mumbled into the lullaby of stillness close by and breakers harmonizing rhythmically down below. “You live in Montana. How do you know about the rocks that look like a French warship?”
His words drifted invisibly away from him like seed fluff on the night air. There was no answer from Del. Ry wouldn’t have heard it anyway.
Ry slept profoundly. No dreams could find their way into the black velvet canyons of his sleep. He was physically exhausted, and his mind and his emotions threw in the towel, too. For several hours the lights were out; all was silent. He did keep breathing. He had a pulse. His heart pumped blood through his veins; his organs functioned at a basic level. That was pretty much it.
But wait—a dim light, a soft humming was coming from somewhere. Up in the attic. Brain cells were still sifting through the events of the day and rearranging themselves in light of what had happened. They were looking for ways to organize the new information. They were talking it around and building tentative synapses. Networking.
His muscles were also reviewing their performance. They were blaming everything on the head. This was all stuff they could do. Get over yourself, they said. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. They were prodding. They knew they could not do it alone.
I’m working on it, said Ry’s mind.
At what, the speed of mulch? taunted the muscles.
Which is to say, the speed of geniuses since the dawn of time, said the brain, unperturbed. Go flex yourself.
All of these messages traveled osmotically, chemically, through processes but dimly understood, and only by statistically microscopic numbers of humans. They worked on their separate but intertwined tasks through the night. The conclusion they reached was provisional. Ry woke up feeling the uncertainty of the truce, though to himself he just said, I don’t want to get in that boat again. But it’s the only way out. Don’t want to. Only way. Back and forth it went.
After a breakfast abundant with eggs, they made their way down the jackknife turns of the trail. There was the boat; there was the water. Still liquid, still roiling, still mighty.
The de-haffing of the chuffs, the unclipping of the ridings, the lowing of the highs, and so forth to the cleats.
Or rather, the removal of the sail covers, the checking of the bilges, the eyeballing of the rigging.
Suddenly Ry seemed to know what the words meant. Maybe the part of his brain that had been activated by trying to speak Spanish was also working on speaking sailing. He was sailing in tongues.
Del made him put sunblock on, then they waved adios to Alejandro, and motored through the slim tumultuous passage out to the open sea.
Del called out to Ry to hoist the mizzen, and he did so.
Del called out to Ry to hoist the mainsail, and he did.
Del called out to Ry to belay the halyard to the cleat on the mast, and he was already doing it. They looked at each other and laughed.
The first island was in sight and they were headed for it. As they drew closer, the second island, the island, crept out from behind the first. The boat danced over the swells. They had a steady breeze. The sails hauled them along, the water sparkled around them, a million diamonds of light skittering over the surface. Ry could not think of anything he had ever done that felt better than this. Not that he was trying to. He wasn’t thinking at all, about anything, except wind, sails, water, sun.
A couple of times, when the sails were set and all they had to do was lean back and be exhilarated, inner bits of Ry and Del that were usually snugged in tight somewhere loosened up and leaked out. Floated out.
Ry told Del how once, as a little kid, he had stopped to tie his shoe while his family walked from their car to a restaurant. When he had tied it, he stood up and ran after them. He grabbed his father’s hand and started talking away, until he looked up and saw that it wasn’t his father. Same build, same kind of coat, total stranger. A nice-enough stranger.
When Ry saw that it wasn’t his father, he burst into tears. His parents by now had turned to look for him, and he saw them and ran to them and buried his face in his mother’s coat. As the stranger walked by he said pleasantly, “I thought I had a little boy for a minute there.” All three grownups laughed. Ry was mortified. He wouldn’t even look at the guy.
Ry hadn’t thought of this for a long time, and it surprised him when it came to mind.
Del said he wished he hadn’t argued with Yulia.
“I was really determined not to,” he said.
“You should just say you’re sorry,” said Ry. “Say you were wrong.”
“What if I don’t think I was wrong?” said Del.
“Well, how important was it, whatever you were arguing about?” asked Ry.
“Not that important,” said Del. “But I wasn’t wrong.”
Ry said, “All you have to do is say you’re sorry, then. Or you can say you were wrong, but leave out part. Like, maybe the whole sentence would be, ‘There may have been times in my life when I was wrong; I’m not saying this was one of them.’ Or you could say, ‘I could be wrong,’ and leave out the ‘but I doubt it’ part.”
Del said, “That seems a little dishonest.”
Ry said, “Not as long as you really mean the part you say aloud. ‘I’m sorry. I could be wrong.’ Or just, ‘I could be wrong.’ Then at least the person knows it’s not completely pointless to keep talking to you.
“Didn’t you ever go to preschool?” he asked Del.
“No,” said Del. “They didn’t have preschool back then. We had to go right out and forage for nuts and berries.”
After a time they were passing fairly close to the first island. This one was large, and populated. Boxy houses that looked small from out here, but probably weren’t, were sprinkled over the hillsides, nestled in the foliage. Farther along, a flock of buildings and boats formed a harbor town.
Ry didn’t notice the windmill until Del pointed it out to him. Del said it was hundreds of years old. It had been taken apart in the Netherlands, brought here in pieces, and put meticulously back together. This was a Dutch island, owned and operated by the Dutch. It was called St. Jeroen. Del said he had always wanted to take a look at the windmill. He was a big fan of windmills.
“And here we are,” he said. “So close.” He squinted toward the windmill.
“I wonder if they’re taking care of it,” he said. “I wonder if they’re even using it, or if it’s just there for tourists to look at and take pictures of.”
The way he said this made Ry smile. It was as if he were talking about an animal, a noble old animal forced to wear a silly costume and do tricks in a traveling circus.
“Do you want to go check on it?” he asked. “Make sure it’s okay?”
“Do you mind?” Del said quickly. “I think we have plenty of time. It’s still pretty early. It wouldn’t take very long. I’m just curious. I’d like to take a look at it, up close.”
Ry thought he knew what was coming next, so he decided to say it himself.
“It would be stupid to pass it by when we’re so close,” he said. “It wouldn’t feel right.”
“That’s how I feel, too,” said Del.
“But we won’t stay very long, right?” asked Ry.
“Not long at all,” said Del. “A quick look and we’re back on our way.”
“Okay,” said Ry. “Let’s go.”
As they headed for shore, he yelled to Del, “If it needs to be fixed, you have to come back after we find my mom and dad.”
THE WINDMILL
The main harbor was behind them. They could have made a U-ey and headed for it, but they spied a boat emerging from another inlet, closer to hand, and decided to go there. This seemed to be nearer the windmill anyway. No way to tell yet if the windmill was milling anything, but the blades were spinning merrily around. Glancing to the south, Ry saw the island of St. Jude’s. It was close enough that he could make out the movement of a tiny car climbing a steep tiny road that traversed the face of the mountain rising behind the port. It was unbelievable. They were almost there. He felt his blood quicken and more than a mild astonishment: they had actually done this. But there was no time to bask yet. They had swells to slice. They had rollers to romp over, spray to be soaked by.
“Be right there, Mom,” he said over his shou
lder at the clump of verdant volcano tips. He turned back to St. Jeroen’s. The inlet they entered looked like paradise. Two other boats were anchored in the azure waters off the white sand beach. Del and Ry dropped anchor, too. They lowered themselves into the dinghy and paddled in.
The windmill, when they reached it, was a tourist attraction, but not too crowded. There was a guide dressed in a Dutch costume, but his hair was in dreads so he didn’t look that authentically Dutch. He demonstrated how flour was made between some grindstones, then he would sell people a bag of it if they wanted one.
Del asked several questions, but it was clear the Dutch miller was not a real miller, either, because he didn’t know most of the answers. He was just someone getting paid probably not much to dress up in his outfit and be friendly. Del kept asking questions, because he was interested and curious, but when he started talking about the industrial revolution and alternative energy, the miller looked at him, amused, and said, “The wind blows, the wheels turn, I put the flour into a sack. Do you want some?”
So Del and Ry went back outside while the handful of other people lined up to buy paper sacks of flour.
Ry wandered around the base of the windmill while Del was completing his observations. The stone foundation it rested on looked fairly ancient, and he wondered if that, too, had been brought from the Netherlands, or if the St. Jeroenians had built that themselves. On the back side, he looked up at the cranking arms that translated the spinning of the blades into the turning of the grindstones. Okay, he thought, that makes sense. I get it. Humans were pretty brilliant, really, to think up stuff like this. Of course, it had taken several dozen eons to get to the windmill. Still, he was glad someone had done it. Because of how one thing leads to another. First the windmill, then just an epoch or so later, the airplane propeller. Though he couldn’t say that was currently his favorite invention. That would be the pillow-top mattress.