Immortal Water

by Norman Brian Van

  “Good then. Now, from this shameful incident I shall teach you two lessons. First, you must never again accept a peasant’s challenge. He is beneath you as dust to your feet. And second, tears are not for gentlemen. Peasants may bawl and women weep and children may howl to their hearts’ content, but you are none of these. Your tears are a sign of weakness, Juan. Guard your emotions. Be the private man. No one respects the fool who renders his feelings public. Soon you will be leaving this house to take your place at court. You must learn from your errors and never repeat them. You may go now, but not to your mother. You are a Castilian lord; seek strength in yourself.”

  At the time these were only words and I too young to comprehend them. Yet after this my mother changed. I do not know whether my father had spoken to her or if it was I who had transformed, but things were no longer as they had been. The flowers were only flowers, my sisters merely women and my mother ... well, suffice to say, my father replaced her. I followed his code. And so I missed something in life.

  Unless ...

  Unless I find the end of my dream, this voyage’s far destination, and begin again.

  To learn the things I was not taught.

  2

  For Age, with stealing steps, Hath clawed me with his clutch.

  —THOMAS, LORD VAUX

  Autumn — The Present

  Mountains of ocean rolled around him beneath a lurid sky. The horizon crackled with forks of lightning, thunder boomed above roaring waves. Each great wave was a green undulation, a moving aqua emerald mass combed with hoary white spume, the spume in streaks along its surface, sometimes leaping in silver geysers like reaching hands.

  He was on a ship, but no modern vessel. The ship heaved and bucked beneath his feet and when he looked round he felt even more distressed for this was a single hulled, weirdly shaped vessel. He navigated from an aft-castle. He guessed it might be some kind of ancient caravel. It was frightening for him to be aboard a ship as small as the one he piloted now particularly in such a powerful sea.

  And he saw down the deck odd, powerful men, all wearing red caps, climbing rope netting up to wooden crosstrees high above him. They desperately took in sail up there, their bare feet seated in hempen loops while he steered with a simple rudder arm. The ship ascended water cliffs: climbing up, up the steep sweeping sides, then would slip out of control down the backsides of rollers at speeds which would soon take her straight to the bottom.

  Lightning again split the skies. The sea rushed beneath him, climbing the flanks of the ship, spewing great waves across its decks. He could taste the tang of salt. The ship turned and turned like a spinning top between cliff crests of ocean. He felt himself dizzy with the ship’s motion. He did not understand it; could not comprehend its whirling speed. It seemed set upon drowning him, horribly, within the green hands of a spectral sea. The hands weaved up through white spume to take him.

  And then he awakens.

  His head still spins. The taste of salt is in his mouth. His body is sheened in sweat.

  Daylight shows through a crack in the curtains. It is a Sunday morning, he becomes aware; the day after his retirement party. Ross Porter wakes too suddenly from his sleep. It has been a fractional sleep filled with frightening, twisting dreams. He cannot recall much of them but the last one, the ocean. Before there had been another dream: some sort of foot-sucking quagmire through which he had slogged, a half-submerged meandering swamp trail lined with bearded trees whose branches interlaced above him. The dreams have been recurring a while now; months actually. They trouble him deeply.

  He awakens with the unfamiliar pangs of a hangover: the kind brought on by cognac and cigars yet also by those unknown depths he has only just now in his dreams confronted. This hangover has brought much more than a queasy stomach and headache; it is the kind which displaces his mind.

  Emily is dying.

  His first truly conscious thought rattles him. His Emily: his partner, friend, lover, his wife is going to die and there is nothing at all he can do to save her. This is no dream. His awful thoughts stay with him as sunlight seeps through a chink in the bedroom drapes. It illuminates a shard of the room in hard gloss. His eyes follow the light. He glances toward the gifts from last night: the golf bag he will never use lying by the door and eleven volumes of Durant’s History of Civilization still in their packing on the floor. He glimpses his rumpled suit hung over a chair with a rose in its lapel. The rose has withered.

  His gaze lifts past the chair to the wall above the dresser. A portrait of the family hangs there: Emily before her illness, himself with a hand on her shoulder standing beside his son Robert. His grandson Justin, blond curls and impish round face, is tucked in the lap of Robert’s wife, Anne, seated seamlessly beside Emily. He is more proud of that picture than any baubles of retirement. It represents something intimate, lasting.

  He’d thought.

  He reaches for water on the night table and misjudges the distance. The glass falls with a wet thud, staining the grey broadloom black. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and leans down to pick up the glass. Suddenly the room spins. A fluttering in his chest frightens him. He keeps his head down and tastes once again the burn of cognac. He gives himself a few moments, then slowly rises, testing himself, and goes into the bathroom.

  Ross Porter is not accustomed to this. He is fifty-nine years old. Things should not end at fifty-nine. And then, perhaps because of the hangover, or perhaps because of the withered rose and spilled water glass, Ross Porter apprehends that he will die; get old, and die. But first he must watch his wife perish before him; end hard in the grip of her disease.

  He cannot know her death will also create a beginning. No one can read the uncertain future; particularly one’s own.

  He glares into the mirror at what he sees glaring back: touches of grey in his chestnut hair, lines on his narrow face, his pale blue eyes now steely in the mirror’s harsh light. He must shake away the shadow and go downstairs to Emily. He must find a way to keep up appearances, bolster the spirit within her wasting body. He takes a hot shower scrubbing off the hangover, feeling the scald of the water wash away his perplexing tremors and gradually he becomes what she needs. She does not need the remains of last night: the self-indulgent husband drinking his way through a celebration of himself. He must think only of her today.

  She is with me today. That is the true celebration.

  Emily is in the kitchen. She is humming some tune from the seventies, some love song he hardly remembers: the Bee Gees, before disco. She smiles at him.

  “Well, you finally got up!”

  She hurts him with that. She sees something in his face and swiftly changes topic.

  “It was a wonderful party last night. How do you feel?”

  “How do you think?”

  “Are you alright, Ross?”

  “Just leave it, will you?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her apology distresses him even more. He is the one who should be sorry. He tries to lighten the mood.

  “Hope I didn’t make a fool of myself.”

  “Of course, you didn’t. Want some coffee?”

  “Please.”

  “I’ll make you some toast.”

  “Just the coffee, thanks.”

  “The house should be quiet today; no little Justin running around.” She smiles again and hands him the coffee. Their fingers touch purposefully. Her fingers are warm from holding the cup but warm in another way, too. They heal him a little.

  “When did they leave?”

  “Early this morning. Robert talked about you over breakfast. He was so proud of you. They’ve gone to Anne’s mother’s. He’ll be back tomorrow to help us pack.”

  “I told him he shouldn’t take days off work.”

  “Oh Ross, he’s an executive.”

  “Still, you never saw me ...”

  He stops as he sees her grasp the counter. She turns away from him, sure sign of her pain. He waits an instant, giving her tim
e to adapt, then goes to her his hands on her shoulders, feeling her quiver. Her face has tightened into a mask; her eyes are opaque. The flesh at her temples is nearly transparent.

  “Come and sit down,” he murmurs.

  He leads her to a kitchen chair, white wicker rustling as she sits. He stands over her looking into her face but she is not with him. She looks so frail he fears she will shatter.

  “Can I get you something? Some water? Your pills?”

  “No. It’s gone now,” she responds quietly.

  For a while they sit, each observing the other, searching for something to say; just the proffering of conversation again. In the end he cannot stand the silence, the deep search of her eyes, and so speaks before he thinks.

  “Maybe we should reconsider this trip. It might be too hard.”

  Her face hardens as she fights the pain, and his ruminations.

  “Don’t say that, Ross. I want to go.”

  Her voice is flat, soft ... frightening.

  “We could postpone it until you’re stronger,” he murmurs.

  “We both know that isn’t going to happen. And I want to be with them when Robert and Anne take Justin to Disneyworld.”

  She is pleading now. Not overtly, but he senses it.

  She should not have to plead.

  “Okay, just a thought.”

  “Let me warm up your coffee.”

  She struggles to rise but is weak from the pain. She sinks back into the wicker chair. He can see she has exhausted herself, preparing his party when she should have been resting.

  “You just take it easy. I think I’ll go for a run. Clear my head.”

  “Are you sure you should?”

  Her caution eggs him on in ways she could not understand.

  “Hey, I might be retired but I’m not finished yet.”

  Even as it comes out he can see how his words affect her. It is something only two people who have shared years together can sense. He’s sorry he’s said it. Prevaricating will just make it worse. Instead, he kisses her cheek. Warm porcelain on his lips.

  “I’ll just jog. If I feel anything I’ll stop and walk. I’ll be alright, Em.”

  “I know you will.”

  It has not been a good morning for either of them.

  He starts out slowly, warming into his pace. It has snowed in the night. A wind frosts the trees around him; all silver. The air is fresh and very cold. The hangover makes breathing hard. As he runs he thinks, delving into himself. Immersed in quiet intensity, he misses a corner he’d planned on turning. When he runs he can take stock of things; flow with his thoughts inside solitude. He can run through the pain, through those other thoughts trying to catch him.

  If only I could keep running.

  His route takes him along a railroad line flanked by maple bush. The wind makes the trees creak. There is a pond to his right, iced over now. He glimpses a fox lapping at its edge where the ice has not yet sealed in the water. Normally he would stop to watch but today the scene is lost on him. Already he is turning inward.

  He recalls little Robert in the sand at the beach so long ago. A small, tanned Robbie with a pail and toy shovel laughing, tossing sand over his shoulder with Emily smiling behind him. He takes his son up in his arms and dips him into the waves near the shore. Robbie giggles as each wave brushes him. Water hisses upon the shore.

  Then Robert last night, in his Armani suit, laughing with men so much his senior, comfortable with them; his father can no longer lift him.

  Where has the time gone?

  Ross descends an embankment. He slips on the snow, loses his balance and hits the ground hard. He’d promised to be careful. He rises slowly; testing himself. His right hip is numb. It will ache later in the day. He starts out again. The road is wet. A car passes throwing up slush. Grey dribble on his black sweats. He glares at the car. The driver ignores him.

  He turns another corner, his body on automatic. The street here is not so frequently travelled and still snow covered. The houses have a sleepiness inside their cozy white blankets. He hesitates. This street has only one exit and he is not sure he wants that today. Then he mutters a challenge to himself, running harder, passing through the gate at the end of the street.

  Polished granite gravestones stretch away over rolling acres. The wind taunts him: snow now in ghostly swirls on the hillsides. There is only the sound of the crunch of his sneakers on snow. He follows his route past the graves of his parents. He stops, not something he has done often, and returns to the plot. The headstone wears a mantle of snow. Engraved on its granite are the names of his mother and father. They are the long dead. Twelve years now. He recalls with a kind of loathing how cautious they had become in their age.

  At his dad’s funeral his mother had cried until he’d taken her into an alcove away from the embarrassed glances of other mourners. She’d looked to her son, her eyes pleading for answers. He’d comforted her, the son supposed to help his mother through her grief while not comprehending her grief at all. She’d been so desperate about how she would have to live alone.

  She’d never really ever recovered. She moved into an apartment. She took up quilting. Still, she was not the same. Even her smile was wan and weak. He visited her often, he and Emily. Emily and she would talk together. He did not know how to talk to his mother, or rather, did not know quite what to say. Just two years later she too had died. The hospital had called it pulmonary embolism. Ross had called it what it was ... a broken heart.

  When he arrives home he finds Emily asleep on the couch in the family room. She is beautiful, the signs of her illness vanished in the softness of her sleeping face. She has lit a fire. The room smells of wood smoke and potpourri. He reads the paper in the chair beside her. Occasionally he glances at her, remembering how she had been: the strangely conservative teenager, yet with a streak of saucy sexiness so attractive to him. That unique girl appears in brief flashes: the smile which would light her face, her hair tumbling in auburn waves, the way her eyes widened faintly, just a little more blue, when he’d told her he loved her. Even as she became older she’d retained her vitality. He had always thought of her as healthy, always thought somehow he would be the first to go. And now this terrible thing has come and he will be left without her.

  He thinks of her smiling in pictures. She’d kept the photos and scrapbooks of their life together. Ross was the history teacher, Emily the historian. Even when it had been hard, when the money was tight and Robert had come unexpectedly; still she’d made things seem easy. And now when again they will not be easy, he thinks, it will be my turn: an old man with his strength gone.

  Why do I think of this now?

  He cannot fathom a future beyond Emily. It is too dreadful to contemplate. He finally comprehends his mother; after twelve years he shares something with her he had not known before. He is just a little amazed at how life repeats in very small ways. He reads the quote of the day in the paper. He has read it each day for years, often writing it on the blackboard at school for his students to ponder. They’d made fun of him, but he’d kept it up. He felt it built character.

  This day it reads:

  “For Age, with stealing steps,

  Hath clawed me with his clutch.”

  And he knew it was the truth.

  3

  Old men have more regard for expediency than for honour.

  —ARISTOTLE

  Spring — The Past

  Start of the night watch. Sailors in their red caps had gathered for supper, their wooden bowls filled with caldareta, fish stew. They ate heartily and watched as the boatswain doused the hot coals in the pewter brazier. Steam rose about them in clouds turned tangerine by the last rays of the sun. The hammocks where they would sleep were scattered about the deck, not hung up yet for the night. They took their meals to their mats as dusk loomed about them. On the after deck an apprentice turned the sand glass, calling the hour.

  Juan Ponce de Leon looked over his ship from high in the stern castle. A
t first his gaze fell on the mainmast: its great sail spread, hanging limp in the breezeless dusk. Down the deck crowded with bales and barrels and men, twilight thickened. Amidships where the bombards rested some sailors had gathered. He heard the strains of a lute and considered the irony of such soft music amidst iron cannon. Even now he was losing sight of them. It always amazed him how quickly it grew dark in this new world. Behind him the watch leader lit the signal lantern. He noticed across the darkening sea a pinpoint of light where the lantern of his ship’s sister glowed. And then came the watch leader’s deep-throated shout.

  “Good watch, starboard lookout!”

  “Bright green!” came the reply.

  “Port lookout, good watch!”

  “Bright red, sir!”

  In a moment the bow announced: “Bright top!” and the routine was completed. It would continue like this all night at each turn of the glass. It did not disturb the other sailors. Rather it comforted them hearing the ancient chorus, knowing their comrades kept the good watch. The hard voices of men can sometimes seem soothing, Juan Ponce contemplated. This is a good ship, he thought, and good men I have chosen.

  He was the metaphor of his ships. Though of noble blood he did not, somehow, fit the part. Rather, he was the weathered lines of a seaman, the brazed skin of the labourer, the soldier’s sinews and grim scars, the grey closecropped hair of a monk. His clothing was practical. In the evening warmth he’d discarded his doublet leaving only a linen shirt, unlaced at the neck, and economic buckskin hose. Round his right shoulder was slung a thick leather belt and from it, at his left hip, hung the tool of his trade. In an age of earrings and jewelled fingers this man wore only a silver cross and Toledo steel at his side.

  He was fifty-two years of age. Thirty-five of them had been spent fighting: against the Moors in Isabella’s great Reconquista in Spain, then under Ferdinand among these islands against the native Taino and Carib. Now he knew he would fight again: the Calusa. He had a new king now, Charles. He had lived through three rulers, fought for them, conquered new lands for them, and in return they had given him — nothing.