Veracity

by Mark Lavorato

  Everything stopped. Our mouths dropped open. I saw the pupils of her eyes dilate, the black of them ballooning out toward the edges of her irises. Her hand flung off my skin, her arms shooting out to her sides, fingertips sinking into the soil as if getting ready to launch herself out from the leaves and run. Whereas I had the opposite reaction, in that my body had instantly become useless. I was petrified, and slumped over, settling silently onto the ground, my head to the side. In my mind, I repeated the voice that had called out, and recognized it as Mitra's. It had sounded ridiculously clear, which meant that she was probably standing on the section of trail that passed closest to the vegetation we were huddled in. It would take her five - maybe ten - seconds to get to us. I looked at the pieces of paper in front of my face. It was useless to try and hide them. It was useless to try and hide myself. There was nothing to do but lie there and watch Kara as the ugly mess unfolded.

  But Kara had composed herself in an instant, and was busy staring forward, thinking. "Yeah?" she called out in reply, just before the pause would have become a suspicious length. But she didn't wait for Mitra to say anything before moving onto the next task that she'd somehow organized inside her head within the few seconds that had passed. She rocked forward onto her feet, being careful to keep her head low and out of sight as she did so, and turned to the side. Then she proceeded to untie her pants, and tucked her thumbs into the hem at the waist, ready to pull them down.

  "What are you doing?" Mitra pressed.

  "Well - if you must know - I'm taking a pee," she said, poking her head above the bush and flinging her hair to look behind her. At that point, she slid her pants down her legs with the most fluid motion she could, making sure that her head didn't drop a subtle inch out of Mitra's sight as she did so. For my part, even being as terrified as I was, I still had the presence of mind to take in every smooth detail of her thigh that I could.

  "And talking?" asked Mitra.

  "Singing, actually. But apparently not very well," Kara replied jokingly. It was amazing how calm she was, how shamelessly truthful she sounded.

  "Oh." All at once, Mitra's voice had lost its sceptical edge, "Sorry."

  Kara pulled up her pants as she stood up, looking down at the strings as she tied them, and then walked out from behind the shrubs and toward the trail.

  "Are you going back to the gardens?" Mitra asked, her tone completely back to normal.

  "Mm-hmm."

  "Good. So am I."

  The dampened sounds of their walking on the bare soil began to recede, and I could hear snippets of their conversation as they walked away, talk of who would be doing what chores and when. I listened to their voices until they faded, until the whispering sounds that the trees were making drowned them out. When I was sure I was alone, I started to breathe again, the air cooling the inside of my mouth, my tongue, my throat.

  At first, it was all I could do to just stare at the cleanly cut edges of the papers, watching as they shifted with a bit of breeze, one of the folds in the middle acting as a fulcrum, and the lazy weight on either side of it trying to decide which end was heavier. After a few minutes of staring forward like that, completely stunned, I lifted my head off the ground, tiny balls of dirt falling from my hair. I'm sure that the reason I was so dazed wasn't only to do with what had happened, it also had to do with the countless underlying urges and possibilities that had just been rendered null and void because of what had happened. I brought a slow arm up to my face until I could look at the spot where Kara had touched it, at the semicircle she had run her thumb across, at the tiny hairs there that were pointing in different directions. It was obvious that we would never touch each other again, never see each other again - ever; except maybe to wave goodbye as the ship set sail. I flopped my hand onto the ground in front of my face.

  There are few words that could describe how frustrated, how furious I let myself become. My hand flexed. And then I watched my fingernails claw into the soil, the tendons bulging straight, digits sinking beneath the surface, digging their way deeper. I remember the shadows of the leaves darkening behind my hand, a ringing in my ears, and then my head clearing, just before it became very, very busy. The truth is, I don't even like to think of what went through my mind at that point - or at least not of the bleeding details.

  They were images mostly, cold, flashing pictures in bluish-grey hues that told the vicious story of how Kara could come with us on the expedition. Sequences of running to get Mikkel, of finding out how he'd once planned on smuggling people onto the ship. I pictured nodding at him, smiling a cutting smile. Then both of us bursting into the kitchen area. Throwing the men and women aside to get to the drawer of knives. Spinning around and sweeping a blade through the air. The walls spattering with dark dots. People backing away, showing their palms, staring at the floor, at the twitching, gurgling evidence of just how serious we were. The slamming open of the door again. The wild rushing to the ship. The crew scurrying to raise the sails. Kara and the children huddled below. The knives in our hands, thrashing through the air, through skin, through muscle tissue. The hollers of the Elders, the frightened, desperate hollers, commanding us to stop. Our blaring deafness to those commands. Mikkel and I, shoulder to shoulder, gripping the handles of our blades.

  And then I stopped. I remember feeling the earth squishing between my fingers then, lying on my side behind the bushes, the pieces of paper still teetering semi-balanced in the slight movement of the air. I pulled my hand out of the soil and held it in front of my face, feeling that pressure under my fingernails that tells how stuffed full of dirt they are. I recall that I was breathing quickly, but was also calming down.

  Because I had suddenly come to understand something that I'd discussed and analyzed so many times, yet had never really grasped: This was exactly why the Elders had so strictly forbidden Kara and I from seeing each other. It was because of the great potential that such relationships had to stir dangerous things inside us, things that were volatile and desperate, that could, and probably would be used to rationalize and carry out all sorts of troubling exploits. Like the ideas that had just flickered across my mind of killing people who were close to me, ideas that had seemed, not only justifiable, but almost glorious in some way, almost valiant. And the scariest part of all was knowing that, were Mikkel to have come by while my fingers were in the dirt, while I was grinding my teeth at the 'injustice' of not getting exactly what I wanted, I would have almost certainly stood up and let myself get swept away by it all. I would have become numb, blinded, and most likely ended up with blood splattered across my face. After months of tedious discussions, I was finally becoming aware of just how short the walk is between what we are, and what we can be. We only need a catalyst, something to nudge us forward onto the slippery slope, and the rest falls tragically into place. And the Elders, knowing this, were wise enough to guard us from it, to cautiously keep us from the devices of our weaknesses. They knew perfectly well that Kara was a likely vulnerability of mine, that she represented a place where I was prone to falter. And the more I recognized it as well, the more I understood that I had to get as far away from her as I possibly could.

  I looked at the paintings again and shook my head. I had risked everything, and were it not for a bit of stupid luck and someone else's quick thinking, I would have lost it all. And how incredibly self-defeating that would've been. How ridiculous. I sat up and stared at the earth that I'd gouged out with my hand, and knew exactly what to do. I bent over and started digging a deep hole in the ground, ripping through roots and lifting out rocks, cupping handfuls of dark soil and piling them beside me. But when I was finished, I found that it wasn't enough just to throw the pages inside. No. I wanted to do more, wanted to make sure that I would never find myself down this stupid, frightening road again. I poked my head above the bushes to see if the coast was clear, and then ripped the paintings in half. And then again, and again, until they were tiny squares of colour, rimmed with a slender frame of white fibres, every on
e of them completely indecipherable. I sprinkled them into the ground and buried them, shoving the earth and stones back into the hole, until I was patting it down dense, pushing it with all of the weight of my body, my arms straight, hands stacked on top of one another. When I was satisfied, I sat back, cleaned my fingernails, and after listening for a long while to make sure no one was coming along the trail, I slipped out from the bushes, and walked away feeling completely relieved.

  After that, it was only a collection of scattered moments as the last preparations were made, the rolling of food barrels up ramps, the inspirational talks to the crew, the final checking of equipment, until the raising of the mainsail in the sunlight that morning. And then we were off, there, on the ship, watching everyone on the island watching us, as we drifted away forever. We stared at the shore until the people became indistinguishable from the foliage, until the waving of hands could have been the slight motion of branches on distant trees. Only then did the crew's attention to the stern of the ship begin to wane. And as soon as I noticed this happening, I ordered the raising of a jib sail on the foremast as an addition to the main, in hopes of keeping their minds occupied on something other than what we were leaving behind. Which worked, I think.

  Hours passed, and things were running smoothly. The sun had crept up until it was directly overhead; our shadows slinking beneath our feet, and the winds were in our favour and even slowly picking up.

  I was standing at the helm in the early afternoon when Niels' shout interrupted the quiet. "Joshua!" he hollered. I had my back to him at the time, and at the sound of my name, I was unsure of whether or not I should answer.

  Just before we left (and I doubt it was a coincidence that it happened shortly after Dana and I had our little talk), the Elders had given the crew a long speech about the importance of maintaining the respect for rank on the ship. The crew were commanded to refer to me from that moment hence as 'captain', which was, I guess, Dana's way of pre-empting the questioning of my authority. Though, it wasn't really anything new for us. Throughout every sailing exercise we'd ever had in our lives, there had always been a clearly defined captain who was referred to as such, but I think this was viewed as an adolescent novelty more than anything else. We certainly didn't treat that person with more or less respect, it only indicated who would have to make the final decisions, maintain course, and divvy out orders. Among the younger people of the island, headings had never really held any meaning, and when I thought about the way Niels had called out my name instead of my title that first afternoon, it hardly seemed like a deliberate undermining of my command. Instead, given the fact that it was the very beginning of a lifelong journey, and that everyone was sure to have more than a few things weighing on their minds besides petty labels, it seemed like a fairly reasonable slip. And one that I decided to let slide.

  "What?" I shouted over my shoulder.

  "It's - uh," his voice lowered a bit, "it's gone."

  I turned around. "What's gone?"

  "The - um... the island." He was looking down at the deck, well aware of how childish he seemed. Though, whether it was childish or not, we all turned to squint at our wake as it fanned out behind us, looking for the vague outline of a mound in the distance, pressing out of the haze like an apparition. But he was right; there was nothing.

  "Huh," I muttered. And then, very slowly, everyone on deck pivoted around to face me, their expressions expectant and uneasy for some reason. "Well," I cleared my throat, "thanks Niels," and then turned around to face the helm again, feeling everyone's eyes on my back. I listened to what was going on behind me until they returned to whatever they were doing, which didn't take long.

  Meanwhile, Mikkel was in front of me, organizing some ropes. I could see that a playful grin had spread across his face after hearing Niels' grand proclamation, and with the universal inquiring gesture, I shot my chin out at him and raised my eyebrows. "What is it?" I asked.

  Seeming a little surprised that I'd addressed him at first, he shrugged his shoulders and threaded one of the ends of the rope through a pulley. "Nothing really," he finally responded, and then paused for a moment to stare off into space, his grin broadening into the strangest smile, "I'm just happy."

  "Huh," I acknowledged, looking down at the helm for a second, trying to understand. "Why?"

  "'Cause..." he mumbled, giving me a sidelong glance, his eyes half-closed, "we're on our own now."

  * * *

  17

  There is a strange excitement out at sea; and it isn't rooted in anything mysterious or ethereal, but rather inside a fact that everyone who has ever seen a map of the world can plainly see, and that is that the earth is mostly blue. Which, if you think about it, means that the moment you can become self-sufficient in a boat is also the moment every imaginable limit is lifted from you. You can go absolutely anywhere. And I think that once a person truly understands this, that the same water that they stare into when they lean over the rail of a ship is also stretching out to wrap around the entire globe, simultaneously lapping against every shore and spit of land that exists at that one sacred elevation called sea level, then, inevitably, their mind opens up like the sky.

  But in the first few days of the expedition, that energy, which was normally so charged with promise, had become something very different, something muted, even gloomy, and I'm positive that I wasn't the only one to feel it. We were as quiet as we had been when we pulled away from the island. And maybe this was only due to the fact that the uncomfortable reality of our situation was slowly settling in; that situation being that we were boys fond of calling ourselves men, who had just left our home, never to return. Which, regardless of age or experience, is a sobering fact to face. And though the Elders had reminded us of it countless times, I don't think its certainty had ever really sunk in until those first few days, when the glaring solitude finally asserted itself from every possible angle.

  Though, I venture to guess that it wasn't only loss that we felt, but also a tinge of disappointment. I remember noticing it for myself, organizing some ropes and thinking about Kara (or, rather, about how smooth her skin might have felt - and how I really shouldn't have allowed such a thought to come into my mind in the first place), and I happened to look over at Toivo, who had his hands in his pockets and was busy scratching at his crotch. He noticed me staring at him, and attempting to maintain some kind of grace, snorted a gob of phlegm into his mouth and turned to spit it into the water. I remember thinking, 'Well then. This is my new family. These are the closest relationships I'll have in the remaining span of my life, the people I'm going to grow old with. How very splendid.'

  But in spite of the general miserableness of the first few days, slowly, slowly our spirits began to gather vitality, and I recall that when the first few jokes were made, the laughter was forced, but also eager, welcomed. Until finally, each on his own terms and to a different degree, we came to grips with the reality of our endeavour, and soon the crew was socializing and intermingling as we would have done on the island - or, almost as we would have done on the island.

  There was one clear difference; when we'd done it there, we were living safely inside the roles that we'd already established for ourselves, whereas after the first few conversations without the Elders present, it became very clear that these roles were about to change. And almost immediately, everyone in the crew began that age-old rivalry that exists within groups, people asserting themselves with various tactics - some of them delicate, some crude - all in the hopes of finding a favourable niche to fit into, which, for some reason, would turn out to be different from the ones they'd always filled. Most often, this posturing was done while sailing, as people ran about from task to chore along the deck, while other times it was done below, as they huddled in the shade of their quarters, their bodies shocked by the unrelenting sun and heat of the multiple days at sea - something we hadn't really experienced before.

  When the Elders first explained how the crew would be chosen for the expedit
ion, they gave me the impression that I would be handpicking them myself. Like Mikkel predicted, they'd calculated the optimum number for the ship to be about eight. So, with this number in mind, I began making my selection, only to find that I wasn't going to be nearly as free to decide as I'd been led to think. The Elders were quick to council, intervene, and often even completely veto my suggestions. They told me that they simply had a better handle on individuals' characters and that I could trust them in 'helping' me to find people who would be compatible with one another. After all, they'd said, the last thing they wanted was to have me worrying about personality issues. So, it was decided, we would all create guidelines together, and they would help me follow those guidelines, one step at a time. I'm happy to say that we at least agreed on what we should look for: talented, hard working sailors with some endurance, who could be easily led, and who would, ideally, each add to the overall faculty of the crew. However, I'm not very happy to say that this 'selection process' that the candidates all went through, wasn't quite as regimented as the people they'd expected to come out the other end of it. And it began, like most things on the island, with a lie.

  When first approaching the young men to find out whether or not they would be interested in going on the expedition, a very careful and elaborate story was concocted; and one that quickly leaked out into the community (as it was intended to), where it was enhanced and idealized into the noblest endeavour imaginable.

  The story went like this: The Elders, as was already clear, were scientists, but what we'd never learned about them, and which was directly related to that strange 'secret' that we were raised under, was that they were scientists whose sole interest was examining the remaining people alive in the world, whose lives had been spared from the global disaster that had somehow befallen the earth. For the sake of critical research, an expedition would be sent out to try and locate any remaining pockets of people, and then to perform experiments on them, in hopes of finding out if they had become contaminated by the strange and dangerous sickness that had almost annihilated our kind, but most importantly, to gather information about this disease, and to see if the cure that the Elders were experimenting with, had any effect. Periodically, maybe once every few years, the expedition would return to the boat so that I could report back the findings via a technological device reserved only for the passing of this information, hence preserving our precious findings for the benefit of future generations.