Lifeboat

In every direction the only sight was a skulking blue ocean, a silver mercury one day, a crystal blue the next. The only sound was the water slapping against the thirty feet of open boat. The only taste salt, the only smell fear. I marveled at how the sky dictated the color. Water is almost clear, I thought. It’s only the sky that gives it color; the sky is like an artist painting the sea. The sea has no knowledge of who paints it.

It had been twenty-one days since our steamer floundered, New Year's Eve, 1890. There were eight of us and we'd had no rain. That afternoon we'd sighted a gray misted curtain to the south. Lagi and I were trying to will it to turn towards us, our eyes closed into the distant squall, when the girl joined us.

“Lagi, I can smell the rain,” the girl said. “If anyone can, I bet it's you who can wish the rain here.” She wore her red hair tied back with a white scarf and was not yet twenty. Her parents had died in the water the night of the sinking.

The girl, whose name was Amy, was also the only girl who survived. She had made a place in the bow, and in the first weeks Lagi had brought her daily portions: water, some salt beef, cheese, and mostly biscuits. I had noticed that many times he also gave her his portion.

Lagi opened his eyes and smiled as if thinking of long ago in his young life. “My tinamatua tele, my grandmother in Samoa, could bring rain. She could move clouds with her mind.”

“What about the other boys?” Amy asked. There were two others from Samoa who had worked in the galley. With Lagi, the three of them carved out something of an island where they stayed in the center of the boat. 

“They can’t call rain. Only my tinamatua tele.” Lagi leaned his head back and breathed in the earth smell from the squall through his young man's beard. His long black hair trailed behind him. “Why are you on the boat Edward?”

I opened my eyes. “I dropped out of university to travel the world and told my mother and father I would only do something to write about, or write about what I did.”

Lagi smiled squarely into my face. “You’re an idiot!” 

The three of us fell into laughter, louder than the teasing called for.

Later, the pain, which ate on me like a starved cobra in my stomach, came back. But I knew the snake's eyes held something else. Blame. But why? I couldn't remember the ship sinking. These memories lurked in a dark place.

***

In a place that could be anywhere, two stood in a white room. 

“The lack of water may beat them,” Calandra said. She sipped from a silver chalice.

Yiorgos, who was standing at the bar, was nervously fiddling with his hands, wearing a blue tunic, the mark of an apprentice. “I hope they get enough rain to keep them alive. They are always dying. I don’t like them dying.”

Calandra examined her red nails. Her robe was a saffron yellow flowing around her. “We can die also Yiorgos. The dying is part of it. You know that very well.”

Yiorgos slugged his drink. “I think you like people dying.”

Calandra shrugged. “I envy them, if you want to know the truth.”

***

Three men on the boat decided they would be the unelected leaders. Max, a vigorous man with a black goatee and hard-set wide mouth gave the orders. I imagined him as a square-jawed ship captain with cold blue eyes. He directed his men to take the oars out of the rowlocks. They'd built a kind of barrier in the stern along with three wooden crates they'd salvaged from the ship. Privacy, he’d said.

***

Yiorgos’ thoughts interrupted Calandra.

Calandra abruptly turned to Yiorgos as if she'd forgotten he was there. A galaxy of stars was behind her showing through a clear wall. “I’m sorry. I was thinking of how they make choices, how they take risks. What it feels like.”

“The choices and risks are what makes it exciting, don’t you think?” Yiorgos glanced at the infinite space where the nebulae swirled in blues and pinks, and then back to Calandra. What was she thinking, this woman who can live forever, but still die?

“Is it better to live forever?” Calandra asked, with her silken and silent voice.

***

We had given up on the fishing, but the one fish struck the line on the twenty-second day, coming as a quick shadow when we checked the hook. It was large, three feet, silver, with a pink cast down its length. The slick line ran out with a whizzing sound through Lagi’s hands and cut into his palm, the blood oozing. I grabbed the line from behind him and flipped it around my back letting my body take the drag. This went on for over an hour, me playing the line so it wouldn’t break, Lagi helping to pull the fish a few feet at a time to the boat. We struck a rhythm together, let out the line, drag it in. The fish finally appeared, motionless in the water. Lagi wrapped his white shirt around the mid-section to lift it and the limp fish tumbled onto the floor of the deck.

“We’ll be cutting that up,” Max said, standing above us, a flare gun by his side.

Lagi eyed the gun. “We can do it.”

Max laughed from his gut. “No. You won't.” He motioned his men to take Lagi’s knife. The three men carried the fish to the stern.

***

“This is not a surprise,” Yiorgos said.

Calandra looked sharply at him. “You’re the optimist. Why do you think they took the fish?”

“For the same reason as always.” Yiorgos gestured to the stars around them, the infinite pinpoints of light folding in on themselves, curving in galaxies . “Almost all of those are no more than cave paintings. This one here with the boat? You and I both know. What? Two hundred years if they’re lucky?”

Calandra laughed. “So says the optimist!”

“A realist.” Yiorgos spoke under his breath, mumbling.

***

From the center of the boat, we watched as the three men gathered in the stern, concentrating on their cutting. They soon had the fish sliced up and one man packed the meat into plastic bags they’d found in the survival box. The head, tail, and entrails they threw into the ocean, pools of pink, the shredded remains drifting on the surface of the calm water. The two Samoans in Lagi’s group carefully dragged their fingers through the water and filtered what flesh they could as it drifted by. Then they squeezed out the salted liquid and dropped small pieces of pink-blooded fish meat into their mouths.

Amy stepped over the benches. “Something needs to be done,” she said. She pushed her red hair over her ears, trying to keep it controlled.

Crossing the decking, Lagi approached. “What do you think we should do? They can’t just get away with it.”

Amy tilted her head in the sun to get an angle to see beyond Max’s barrier. “Get them to share,” she said to no one, and then plopped back down on the bench, her face downcast.

I took a deep breath, exhaled, and stepped across the footings to the wall the men had built. “What are you going to do with the fish?”

“Eat it,” Max said. The other two laughed and stared at me with smirking expressions.

My stomach burned. “That’s not right Max. You said so yourself. If you cut, the other picks.”

“We need to save it. Who knows how long till a rescue.”

The man taking a bite of the fish smiled at me, his eyes taunting.

I raised my voice and choked out, “But you are eating it. He’s eating a piece right now.”

Max noticed his man. “Stop that Hank. Can’t you see the boy has a problem with you eating?” He faced me. “I tell you what. No one eats and then everyone gets a share in the morning.”

Max turned away and I stood looking at the three men a long time. Then I turned and went back to Lagi and Amy.

“Isn’t it the law of the sea or something?” Amy said. “It’s a lifeboat. We’re supposed to share equally. Equally right?”

Lagi’s eyes riveted on Amy, but then turned kind. He asked softly, “Where you been all your life?”

***

Calandra tapped her finger in the air at Yiorgos like a symphony conductor calling for violins. “There you go Yirorgos. You have to admire the naivety.”

Yiorgos was concentrating on his drink. “What if they all had that? Naivety I mean.”

Calandra let her hands fall to her side like the music had just ended. “Now YOU’RE being naive.”

***

As the sun dropped on the western horizon, the last edge of the fired yellow crescent appeared to abandon the day. Soon the sun’s remaining tip above the edge of the earth sent a bright flare, like a signal from a star. Now, with Lagi and Amy, the three of us were together on the bench facing the sunset. Maybe because of the sunset, or maybe thinking of her parents, or maybe both, Amy started to silently cry.

Lagi saw her crying. “If you could eat, what would it be for you, Amy?” 

“My father could make barbecue ribs,” Amy said. “Beef ribs on an open flame. With this sweet sauce melted down the sides, and brown onions. My father would hold the half eaten rib and point it at me." Amy's eyes were shining and she lowered her voice and dipped her chin to imitate her father. "'Amy, my love. Someday I show you how to cook ribs. It's all in the heat.'" She laughed, remembering. And then in her voice, "What about you Lagi?”

“Barbecue? You don’t know anything. We would stay up all night slow roasting a pig. My aiga family, especially my brother and I, would turn it, the fat would sizzle. That’s barbecue.”

I was not thinking of home or my parents. I was not thinking of my past life at all. I was only thinking of thirst and hunger and how much it hurt and how much I wanted the three of us to live. And then I thought of the likelihood of death, and I could taste the barbecue, and could feel the sun, and I could savor each moment of seeing the pink sky against the sparkling ocean. I would so miss living, and now with so little time left, it was all the more beautiful.

Putting my arm around Amy, we warmed each other. Lagi soon slid over and put his arm around me. We were waiting. Finally, thinking myself a fool, I said, “They’re not going to give us any fish. Ever. They have the strength, the gun, and now the knife. We only have the hard tack and it's nearly gone.”

No one said anything, but Amy was no longer tense. She ripped off the bottom of the white shirt tail of her blouse beneath her jacket and took Lagi’s hand. Seeing what she was doing, I helped her wrap his palm where the fish line had cut clean and deep.

And then land the next day, the twenty-ninth.

In the west, what we first thought were clouds grew into what were clearly mountains. All of a sudden we’d made it. Coleridge had it right though. 'Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.' I laughed out loud.

***

Yiorgos leaned back. “The decision now is for Max to make. Is it aways the same?” 

“You seem frustrated, Yiorgos?” Calandra had caught the flash in Yiorgos’ eyes.

“I am frustrated. And angry. Why couldn’t that Max decide killing was too much? Say to himself, ‘Sure, I took the fish. But I’m not going to kill anybody. I just don’t have it in me. In anyone.’

Calandra stood behind Yiorgos and gently pressed his shoulders. “Because it doesn’t work that way, Yiorgos. Again, you know that. Haven’t you learned anything?” 

***

Dawn came and Max stood high on the stern, his face red in the morning sun. He called loud enough for everyone to hear. “We need everyone to listen up!”

Most of us were so weak we struggled to stand.

“My men are telling me we have traitors on the boat. These traitors might lie about the fish. You see how it is, right?”

Without hesitating, one man approached the first Samoan boy in the middle of the boat. He looked the weakest, his eyes bloodshot, his lips cracked. But he put his arm up knowing what was coming with the last of his energy. Max’s man raised the knife tight in his fist. Rolling him over the man pulled the boy’s head back. The knife moved to the boy’s throat.

Lagi leaped from the bench and was on him and then both of them were tumbling over the side and into the water and in a rolling boil the two fought and the man struck out slashing Lagi in the face. Lagi reached for him and like a bear held the man tight with the last of his strength. They both went down and the water closed over them.

Max yelled at the other man. They both lifted the other boy who was thin-boned and dragged him to the gunwale. Lifting his legs, they moved him over the side.

I remembered the black horror of New Year’s Eve. The panic on board the ship, the mad rush, the boats capsizing in the storm, and then the begging for our boat. Max struck out with an oar to beat a couple whose daughter I'd met on the ship. The father died with a bloody slash on his forehead, his wet hair stringing across his white head. The mother struggled in the cold waves and her eyes became confused when the oar pushed her away. There were more screams in the water while I did nothing, and then silence. Their daughter, Amy, climbed into our boat, collapsing on the deck.

Standing on the bench to gain height, I fell into Max using my body weight to take us both off the boat. And now we were in the water and I felt Max holding me down with his arms wrapped around my shoulders. I threw my elbows up to break his grip and I came to the surface gasping and coughing water and then he lunged and held me down. My lungs burned and I opened my mouth to take a breath of what I knew would be water.

Without knowing how, my arms were free. I rose to the surface and sucked in the air, gasping. And there in front of me Amy was on Max’s back in the churning water. She had him around the torso with her legs and rode him kicking under her weight. At last, with him taking one last gulp of choking air, she held him down.

Seeing I was too weak to swim to the lifeboat, Amy put one hand beneath my arm and helped me. Collapsing onto the deck I landed next to Lagi. We lay there together.

“Lagi, this is the thirtieth day,” I said. “I only feel rain on my face.”

***

“So she saved them.” Yiorgos had a broad grin on his face.

Calandra was at the door but looked back. “Yes, and also they saved each other. Happy now?” 

“Why not?” Yiorgos faced Calandra squarely. “Why shouldn’t I be happy?” He turned and poured another drink, then muttered into the bar. “You seem bored, Calandra. Never satisfied.”

Calandra heard this as her thoughts prepared to move on, but then she hesitated. “Bored Yiorgos? I am bored. Millions of their years we are ahead. They think us gods, but we are not gods. We can die just as they. But they will soon be able to live forever themselves. And then where will they be? Risk, Yiorgos. The risk of dying will be too great when they can live forever. So they won’t take risk. And by not taking risk they won't live. Ironic, don’t you think?”

Yiorgos spilled his drink as he turned, the silver liquid splashing on the floor. He’d never seen Calandra so depressed. He appealed to his mentor. “But after they can live forever we can move on. This is only one world. We’ll find others who take risks.

Calandra’s eyes sparked. “Move on? An empty pursuit, don’t you think? An endless cycle of putting in place… what? These THINGS we have made who have complicated systems, each one an impossible ecosystem of bones and flesh and DNA. A thing which thinks and asks questions. Questions like where did they come from and where will they go and who are they and what’s important? And here WE are. Bored, forever living, left only with an amusement of wondering what these things we created will do. What risks THEY will take. Yes. I’m bored.” 

Yiorgos stepped back, surprised by the outburst. “But they’ll begin creating.”

Calandra paused, pleased with her student. “Yes. If they survive the 200 years, what we created may very well become the creators. The cycle continues Yiorgos.” She turned to go.

“I loved how they both helped with his cut palm.”

Calandra stopped short of the door and laughed. “You’re learning Yiorgos. Things like that may save us all; and I don’t mean from dying. I loved it too.”