Immortal Water

by Norman Brian Van

  With a wail the boy collapsed, bone bruised or broken, it did not matter. Then the Aragonese was at Juan Ponce again, aiming for his face, thrusting perfectly just missing an eye, his blade carving a six inch scar on the left side of Juan Ponce’s skull. Juan Ponce rolled in the dust in the direction he’d been pivoting and sprang to his feet out of range.

  He arose with blood pouring from his wound. But the Andalusian was on the ground grasping his crippled knee, having forgotten all else in his pain. Still the Aragonese, who had brought blood, was more confident and once again advanced. He’d forgotten he was alone this time. His blade was parried and his elbow smashed by the steel crest of the morion coming up under his offensive thrust. His hand went numb. His blade flew like an arrow out of his hand. His eyes followed it as he screamed in pain.

  Juan Ponce did not miss a second time. He split the boy’s face as he slammed his sword’s pommel into it: breaking the nose, smashing the cheekbone, dropping the boy like a stone to the dust.

  In twenty seconds it was over.

  The trainers returned and saw what had happened. They helped the boys to the surgeon: the Andalusian screaming epithets at the boy who had beaten and shamed him; the Aragonese prince, unconscious. He had, after that, never been seen again at Don Pedro’s court. It was clear he’d been scarred for the rest of his life.

  Juan Ponce had sought help from another instructor to bandage his head. He’d refused to leave the yard. He’d felt everyone’s eyes upon him as he sat quietly while the dressing had been applied. When he rose, steadily, to toe the line for his next training run, only an instructor would stand against him.

  No one had ever challenged Juan Ponce de Leon to combat again.

  And the old man drifted off to sleep, smiling.

  16

  A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.

  —LONGFELLOW

  Winter — The Present

  Christmas morning is chaos.

  Justin bounces into their bedroom announcing: “Santa’s been here! Santa’s been here!” He is gone before Ross attains consciousness. Then, stumbling into the living room, Ross watches his grandson being restrained by a bleary-eyed Anne. Emily starts the coffee. She spills sugar on the floor. Robert is juicing oranges, the whang of the juicer driving like sleet into Ross’ brain. Ross reaches into the tree for the candy cane Santa boot. It promptly slips through his hand to the floor. The canes sprinkle down among the presents. He steps on one. It crunches merrily, shattering into a thousand shards.

  “Shit!” Ross curses half under his breath.

  “Grampa said the poop word!” Justin exclaims.

  “Ross!” Emily says.

  “Grampa said the poop word!” the child shouts with glee.

  “Justin!” his mother says.

  The boy begins laughing uproariously. Ross is embarrassed, flustered by the noise and confusion, unable to gain equilibrium. He mutters an apology directed at Anne only to find her stifling a laugh. Robert is grinning slyly.

  “Grampa’s a little under the weather this morning, I’d say,” he says, chuckling.

  Interesting how time changes things.

  Robbie blurted out “cunt” one particular day. He was eight years old. Ross wondered where children learned such things. He had told the boy not to use that word. To his surprise his son repeated it almost disdainfully. Ross warned him again. He said it again. Ross took him quickly over his knee. Three quick whacks. The boy cried. He said the other boys said it. Ross told him he was not other boys.

  Where did I learn it?

  Ross vaguely recalls a cedar copse, a group of boys passing an illicit cigar and that singular, meaningless, sexless word passed along with it, steaming out of young mouths with the smoke. Ross had been older than Robbie. He had known better by then not to speak the secret words of boys to his father.

  Now I give them to my grandson.

  “Let’s open the presents!” Emily says. She has coffee and muffins on a tray. She glances at Ross quizzically. He forces himself up and out of his weird reverie. He shoves his humiliation aside, wondering why he has overreacted.

  “I meant ‘poop’,” he says.

  Justin insists on distributing gifts. Emily helps him by reading the names on the cards. When everyone has a pile, Justin’s twice the size of the others, he can no longer restrain himself. He tears off the wrappings with gleeful abandon. He is beside himself with excitement. Emily starts taking pictures, the flash from the camera punctuates every present: Justin with his new flutter board, Justin munching a candy cane, Justin hugging his teddy bear, kissing mommy, standing on his head, flash, flash, and Ross knows this is Emily grasping life. The boy offers it in abundance. He wants a close up shot of his nose. Emily takes it.

  Flash.

  One strange element interferes with the opening of the presents. There is one for Ross which he opens, to find a picture of Darlene, a seductive Darlene pouting out at him, in a small plastic frame. He quickly conceals the gift, looks for a card, and finds none with the wrapping. He recalls Colin’s warning, then rejoins the family in their celebration ... just a touch disturbed.

  Later Jimmy and Maggie come over for brunch. They bring Justin a gift, an inflatable pelican water ring. Robert blows it up. Justin is delighted. He wants to go swimming. Jimmy tells him he can see real pelicans at the beach. A brief discussion over the dishes and soon everyone piles into the car with Ross who, confused even more by this sudden change in plans, drives thirty miles to Indian Rocks Beach.

  The weather is humid but a breeze from the Gulf tempers it. The sand is hot on their feet. They spread beach towels and set up folding chairs. All down the long, curving golden strand they can see other holiday revellers setting up for the afternoon, patches of people outside the hotels and condos that stretch away into the distance, lost eventually in the haze. The surf laps softly against the shore. The air smells of the sea, a faint odour of flotsam interspersed with freshness.

  For Justin this is the best Christmas present. Pelicans wing by mere inches above the waves. Justin laughs and holds up his inflatable toy. They are not attracted. They glide below clouds of seagulls as the gulls descend in search of food. Justin chases the gulls and they flock up and away from him, peeling around above his head only to land again behind him. Justin runs at the sea rushing down with the retreating surf then scampering back, chased by a new wave coming in. Ross thinks of the sandpiper on Sanibel Island.

  The joy of his grandson infects him and soon he and Robert take Justin into the water. Ross pushes the boy out over the waves on his new flutter board. But it isn’t the same somehow as with Robert. The sea is alien to the boy. He grasps the board with a fearful tension. The water is cold. Very soon Justin shivers and wants to go back in to shore. He wants to be carried. His face looks past his father’s shoulder as Robert holds him above the water. His eyes are wide with concern. Ross asks him what is wrong.

  “Too big,” he says.

  “What’s too big? The waves?” Ross asks.

  “Everything,” the boy says.

  On shore Anne dries him off. He is quiet. He looks out at the sea with different eyes. Ross tries to recall when he first met the sea but the memory is lost. After a while Justin joins him, climbing into his lap as he sits in a chair.

  “How old is the water, grampa?” he asks. The question stuns Ross. He pauses a moment, looking out at the waves.

  How does one measure timelessness?

  Justin tugs his arm, demanding an answer.

  “Well, in a way,” Ross says, “the sea isn’t old. It’s new with each wave. But in another way it’s very old because the waves have travelled so far. The sea kind of changes but really it doesn’t ever get old. Not like us.”

  “It’s scary.”

  How does one explain the sea lives in us all?

  Emily has brought a plastic bucket and shovel. Justin wants to build a castle. Ross helps him. They dig a moat and pack wet sand i
nto the bucket and turn it over to make the towers and Emily shapes the walls which connect them and soon they have built their citadel. Ross is proud of it. Even when Justin loses interest, Ross continues. It has been years since he’s built a sandcastle. Emily takes another picture. Justin tries to fill the moat with seawater from his bucket. The water seeps down through the sand too quickly. Justin begins throwing buckets of water down on the castle. Each gush splashes a tower and melts it. Justin laughs. Ross asks him to stop, quietly, but the boy has discovered the joy of destruction and wades in with his feet exploding walls and bridges and precious towers with every kick. The castle is reduced to ruins. Ross feels helpless. Each blow to the sand reverberates in him. He cannot comprehend why this should pierce him so deeply.

  Robert picks the boy up by the wrists and makes airplane noises and swings him around to kick at any remaining towers. Ross stands aside impotent. There is a lump in his throat. He turns and walks into the sea. The sea can’t be broken. He wades deeper and deeper up to his neck, tasting the brine, feeling the lift and ebb of waves, swimming now, revived by the cold womb into which he dives deep. Safe.

  The sea offers freedom, Ross thinks. Each time you swim you seem to lose gravity as you float and fly in its buoyant waters. Each time a sail sets or a prow turns out toward the unbroken horizon, there is hope, not fear, in a mariner. One does not think of rip tides, storm surges, or the awful power of the deep. A sailor thinks of freedom as he leaves the land behind.

  Why can’t I be like the sea?

  It comes to him then that Emily has been taking pictures all day, controlling the camera, not once including herself in a shot. Justin. Always Justin. Ross swims for the shore. He crosses the sand to Emily. She is sitting in a chair, the camera in her lap. He takes the camera.

  “I want to take your picture, Em.”

  “Ross, I’m a mess!”

  “It doesn’t matter. I want to take your picture: you and Robert and Anne with Justin.”

  “I’ll take it!” Jimmy says. “That way you can all be in it.”

  They form their family portrait on the ruins of the castle. They sit in the brown, desolate sand, the sea behind them. Jimmy takes the photo.

  “Isn’t this wonderful!” Maggie exclaims.

  The following week is a full one. At Disneyworld they chase after Justin who seems to want everything at once. In the lines he is cranky, on the rides only wanting the next one and eventually, when the boy eats two hot dogs and develops an upset stomach, Ross decides he needs a break. While Robert and Anne lead Justin off to Fantasyland, he takes Emily shopping down Main Street, U.S.A.

  “That child is spoiled,” he tells her.

  “He’s four years old. He can’t help it.”

  “Robert never behaved like that.”

  “You’re suffering selective memory loss, dear.”

  “But Justin is so ... the boy never considers anyone else!”

  “You’ve been a bit self-absorbed yourself, Ross. I didn’t want to mention it but Robert noticed. He asked me about it. I didn’t know what to tell him.”

  So quickly the tide turns on him, forcing him to look at himself.

  I should share my feelings.

  Let her know how she is loved.

  At their kitchen table his first year of teaching; papers, folders and notebooks cluttered the surface. He had five classes and was trying to set a direction for them, not knowing himself where he was leading them, or even where to begin.

  There is no beginning in history. It seems cyclical, yet it isn’t. History is a Mobius strip always repeating yet never precisely the same. Ross was compelled to select a moment in the chronicle, remove it arbitrarily for study, and then bring it back to the fold. He had the tools but no impetus. He’d thrown his pen down in frustration.

  “I can’t do this!”

  “You’re trying too hard. Take your time,” Emily said, looking up from feeding the baby.

  “These kids know nothing. Really, I don’t think they care. You can’t teach history to people who don’t want to learn it!”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  “This is hopeless.”

  “It’s like carving an elephant, Ross.”

  “What?”

  “Carving an elephant,” she said, smiling.

  “What the hell does that mean?” he said.

  “Carve away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant,” she said, chuckling before going back to feeding Robbie.

  Ross glared down at his mess and seethed. Emily puttered about the kitchen then took Robbie up to bed. Ross muttered and mumbled a while longer, despising her dismissal of his desperate situation. It took some time until it dawned upon him that she had been right with her frivolous metaphor. He had to start somewhere. He could not put it off.

  He began to carve. He looked for the root of each period, something as simple as a date, or an invention, or a school of thought. He searched for commonalities in time. He found characters who exemplified movements. He slowly thickened each folder until five hours later he had roughed out his courses of study. By the time he’d finished Emily was asleep. He went to sleep beside her happy with himself, proud of his skill.

  He’d forgotten about the elephant.

  He thinks he should tell her now. Thank her all these years later.

  How do you carve away the inevitable?

  The departure is hard on Emily. Her distress goes unnoticed by all but Ross. He knows her too well. Her walk is missing its animation and there is an unsettling slope to her shoulders. He wonders what she is thinking. He hasn’t the courage to ask.

  When it is time to leave, when the car is packed and Jimmie and Maggie have said their goodbyes and Ross has the car keys in hand, Emily balks. She stands at the car door looking down into the back seat at Robert and Justin and Anne. She seems to have turned to stone.

  “I’m not going,” she says flatly.

  “What’s wrong, mom?” Robert says.

  From across the car roof, Ross watches her fight to maintain her composure. She has raised her face above the car window so no one will notice. In her eyes he can see hysteria. They implore him wordlessly, desperately, to help her. But he is struck by the dread within her and does nothing. Robert tries to get out of the car. Then Ross watches his wife transform her face into a smiling mask. Robert’s head appears above the car roof and she grasps him on either side of his face holding him back while simultaneously receiving him. She places her lips to his in a lingering kiss and that kiss is the most loving thing Ross has ever witnessed. It is at once a lie and the truth, maternal yet passionate, intimate but distant. A gift only a mother can offer. And then Emily nudges her son back down into the car. He offers no resistance. He is a child again.

  “I’m fine, Robbie. I just don’t want to make a scene at the airport.”

  “I love you, mom,” he says.

  “I love you, gramma!” Justin says.

  “And I love you all,” Emily says. “Take care of my boys, Anne.”

  Anne has tears in her eyes. She says nothing.

  “Anyway,” Emily says, lightening her voice, “somebody’s got to clean up. I don’t want to face the dishes later. Ross, get in the car. It’s time to go.”

  “See you at home, gramma!” Justin shouts.

  Ross turns the radio off. The tires hum beneath him. The sun sets behind him and there are long shadows reaching across the pavement. He feels hollow and strange. No one said a word on the way to the airport and now there is no one to say anything at all.

  He should have known. He’d known it was coming and yet had done nothing. And then when she had needed him most, right then, in her face that anguish and panic and grief, right then, eyes shimmering, pleading for him to do something, anything, right then, right there, he’d failed her.

  He drives through saffron twilight. By the time he gets home it is dark. He pulls into the driveway and notices the Christmas tree no longer stands in the front window. When he enters he
sees the decorations are gone. Things have been put away.

  Emily sits in a chair; small, in a chair. He breathes out, seeing she is safe, realising he has not taken a breath since he got out of the car. She smiles absently at him.

  “I’m sorry, about earlier,” he murmurs abjectly.

  She isn’t listening.

  “When I was cleaning while you were gone I had the strangest feeling,” she says, almost as if he were not there at all. “I felt as I picked up the decorations and put them away in their boxes, I felt I was putting myself away too, so things would be tidy. The oddest sensation ...”

  “Em ...”

  “Yes?”

  “Emily?”

  “It’s alright,” she says. “It’s alright.”

  Six weeks later she is gone.

  17

  Friends who set forth at our side, Falter, are lost in the storm.

  We, we only, are left!

  —ARNOLD

  Spring — The Past

  Juan Ponce had slept a few hours. As he awoke, quivering from a dream, he felt the witch beside him in the dark. Her hair was in his face; coiled like snakes about his face. The cabin rocked a little and he could hear the creaking of the caravel underway at last. He wanted to sleep but his mind could not settle. He knew better than to try.

  There are times in life when a man feels his age: the sudden back spasm, the ache of old wounds, the need to rise in the night just to piss. What is life but the path toward death? The young never feel it unless it comes unexpectedly in a friend’s or a parent’s untimely demise, or a sickness which threatens to take them off. Only then do they sense their destination but, as youth will, they soon forget. It is later, with the inexorable clawing at each part of life, that having become aged, they arrive at the knowledge of their mortality. Yet even the old learn to live with it. They must. Otherwise it would drive them mad.