Ghosts of the Pacific (10 page)

WE SPENT THE
afternoon on the stern of the ship, dangling
our feet over the side and watching for fins in the water. If
you stared long enough every wave seemed to turn into a
fin. The fog had disappeared. Under the hot sun we shared
a fat, ripe papaya and some pineapple. Mr. Chee told me to
eat lots of papaya, because it was good for damaged tissue. I
should also meditate on how to live a life less dangerous, he
said. I promised to try.

It was pleasant sitting with Cinnamon. She was so strong
and smooth she reminded me of the sub's engine in a way.
But I didn't think she would appreciate the comparison so I
kept it to myself. As we dangled our feet over the side and
stuffed ourselves with sweet papaya, she told me where she
came from and why she joined the circus. Hollie lay beside
me with his head on his paws. He kept one eye closed and
one open, watching the deck.

“I was born in Goa.”

“Where's that?”

“India. It's on the west coast. We were really poor. My
father worked in the fields and my mother made dresses to
sell to tourists. One day my father got bitten by a poisonous
snake. His leg swelled up really badly and he went blind.
Because my father couldn't work anymore my brother and I
started begging for money from tourists. Then one day my
brother went missing.

He was younger than me. Some kids told me they saw
him climb on a ship, so I went looking on that ship. It was
dark. I didn't find him. Before I could get off, the ship started
to move, so I hid. Then I fell asleep. I didn't get off the ship
until it reached Sri Lanka. I was so hungry and thirsty I
thought I was going to die. But I was more afraid of getting
caught. Then I saw this ship. Because it was a circus ship I
thought the people would be friendly to me, and they were.
The first person I saw was Megara. She took me into her
cabin. At first I was afraid of all the snakes, but they are not
poisonous snakes here and they are friendly. And that's how
I joined the circus.”

“But didn't you want to go back home? Didn't you miss
your family?”

“Yes, at first I did. But I never knew how to get back home.
And then the circus became my home. I love the circus. I
wasn't happy in India. We were always so poor. I hardly even
knew my parents because they were always working, and
there were so many of us. My father didn't even remember
my name most of the time. The only one I miss is my brother.
Every day I say a prayer for him and hope that he is all right.
Someday I will find him and bring him here to be in the circus with me. That's why I save my money.”

We sat quietly for a long time. “Did you ever go to school?”

“No.”

“Can you read and write?”

“A little. Megara taught me. I can write my name. I help
paint the signs for the circus. I can say words in seven languages.”

“I hope you find your brother.”

“I will. Someday.”

When darkness fell, the ship came alive. The gangplanks
and passageways lit up with coloured lights and people appeared from out of nowhere and seemed in a hurry to go
somewhere, even though there was nowhere to go.

“Oh! I'm late. I have to practise,” Cinnamon said suddenly.
“Will you stay and watch?”

“Okay. Sure.”

“Great. After, I will take you to meet Megara.”

Hollie and I followed her to one of the holds of the ship.
It was set up with hanging bars, swings, ropes and trampolines. A man and woman were there already, dressed in leotards and swinging from ropes. “You're late, Cinnamon.”

“Sorry.”

She disappeared into a room and came back wearing a
leotard. Although she was slim, she was all muscle. Her muscles showed through her suit. I watched as she took a short
run, jumped into the air, caught a rope and climbed up like
a squirrel. Then, she began swinging back and forth, catching the hands of the other two. They were just warming up.
They held on to ropes with their feet just as well as with their
hands. It was pretty amazing. After a while they switched to
the hanging swings. I was nervous at first because I didn't see
how they could catch each other while they were making
somersaults in the air, but they always did. The older couple
were pretty good at it but there was something special about
Cinnamon. It was as if she could fly. I could have watched her
all day. After a few hours she suddenly dropped in front of
me, sweating and out of breath. “Okay. I'm done. Let's go eat.
I'm starving.”

We passed through another hold, and I saw Mindy, a small,
fat and very friendly elephant. We also saw the two lions. I
was surprised to see that their cages were wide open. René,
the young lion, roared when he saw me, and that frightened
Hollie and me, but Cinnamon said not to pay any attention
to him; it was just for show. “Just act a little scared.” That was
easy. There was also a pony with big, soft, sad eyes. Cinnamon gave her a hug and kiss. The pony seemed very interested in Hollie.

“She used to have a dog partner but . . . he's gone now.”

“The snakes?”

“Yup.”

I shook my head. “How do you live with snakes? That's
crazy!”

“No, it isn't. It's just that certain animals go well together
and certain ones don't. Just like people.”

We stopped in the kitchen. It reminded me a little of
Sheba's kitchen because it smelled good and there were
herbs and spices everywhere. The cook was Pierre, the bald
and burly strongman with the moustache. He was wearing a
heavy frown when we came in, just as in the morning, but
when he scooped up two bowls of soup and laid a plate of
fresh bread in front of us his face burst into a warm smile.

“Thank you, Pierre.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He nodded thoughtfully, raised his chest, stared down his
nose at Cinnamon and sighed. “You're skin and bones. I
don't know how you can fly through the air on so little. Eat
three bowls. Eat a loaf of bread. Put some fat on you!”

He slapped his stomach. That's where most of his muscle
was, it seemed to me. Ziegfried could have picked him up
and carried him over his head. But Cinnamon was right: he
was a lot friendlier at night. He looked at me curiously. “Are
you sailing around the world in that tin can?”

I smiled. “Pretty much, I guess.”

“Well, you'd better find some place to hide before the
typhoon hits.”

“Typhoon? We already had the typhoon.”

Pierre bellowed out a laugh. “No, that was just a storm.
When the typhoon hits, you'll know what a typhoon is. It'll
probably come next week. Stay away from the islands north
of Saipan because they've been rumbling undersea and
Megara says Anatahan's going to blow any time now. And
she knows.”

“Blow?”

“Volcanic eruption. If it blows undersea there'll be a tsunami. Though I suppose you're in a submarine. How deep
can you dive in that thing?”

“Four hundred feet.”

He nodded but looked as though he were already thinking of something else. “Have more soup.”

After supper we went to Megara's cabin. It was in one
corner of the ship, away from everybody else. Cinnamon
knocked and opened the door.

“Should we take our shoes off?”

“No, leave them on.”

I followed her in. Hollie jumped to his feet in the tool bag.

“It's okay, Hollie, it's okay. We won't stay long.”

The room was bigger than a normal cabin. It was lit with
soft light. Megara was standing in the centre. She was short
and stocky and had white hair. At a glance, I had the impression she was what Cinnamon might look like in fifty years,
except that Cinnamon was a lot prettier. Megara was wearing so many snakes I couldn't see her clothes. In the dim
light I noticed something else—movement. The room was
moving with snakes.

Megara opened her arms and Cinnamon went to her and
they hugged.

“My darling,” said Megara. “This is the young man you
told me about?”

“Yes. This is Alfred. Hollie is on his back. He's a dog, but
he's not a pet.”

Megara's eyes lit up. “Oh? Is he food?”

“No! No, he's part of my crew.”

“Is he for sale?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“Would you trade him for a snake?”

“No way! No, thanks.”

“Snakes make wonderful pets.”

An image passed through my mind of snakes slithering all
over my submarine. I felt something bump against me below
the tool bag. I turned and saw a snake sniffing at Hollie. “Go
away,” I said.

“They're just curious,” Megara said. They won't do any
harm. Come, sit with me.”

We went over and sat down on a plush Indian rug. I pulled
Hollie from my back and put him on the floor between my
legs, still in the tool bag. I wouldn't dare open the bag in here.
Cinnamon sat in front of Megara, who began to brush her
hair affectionately. I felt a snake touch lightly on my shoulder
and I gently brushed it away.

“Snakes are curious and very friendly once they become
comfortable with you.”

Megara continued talking but I was struggling to pay attention. It seemed to me that all the snakes in the room were
slowly making their way towards us. They came from the
floor, the walls, even the ceiling. They rolled like waves over
Megara's shoulders, down across her lap and over Cinnamon.
Cinnamon sat silent and peaceful. She was enjoying having
her hair brushed. Megara seemed to have become like a
mother to her. Cinnamon's eyes began to droop. It was warm
in the room. I felt drowsy too. There was something almost
hypnotic about the soft light and movement of snakes. But I
knew I had to stay awake and stay alert.

Cinnamon shifted her position, laid her head upon Megara's lap and continued to stare at me though she was falling asleep. She looked so soft and gentle now with Megara
pulling her long dark hair away from her head and letting it
fall. Cinnamon's hand floated through the air and brushed
gently against the head of a snake that she seemed to know
was there without looking. It seemed strange to me that this
was the same girl that just an hour earlier was spinning
somersaults in the air in the sweaty hold of the ship. Now,
she looked like a girl in a painting. She was so pretty. As
Megara brushed Cinnamon's hair and spoke words to me
that I wasn't really hearing, Cinnamon's eyes shut and she
fell asleep. It was time to go.

I stood up and tried to shake the sleep from my eyes.

“Do you have to go?” said Megara.

“Ummm . . . yes. Yes, we have to . . . uhh, sail tonight.
Would you please tell Cinnamon that we will see her in
Saipan?”

“I will. Please do come. She likes you. She never has anyone her own age to spend time with. And I know her; she
will wait for you every day.”

“I'll come. I promise. Goodbye.”

I took one last look at Megara's eyes. There was definitely
something hypnotic about them. I pulled Hollie onto my
back, went out and closed the door behind me. I was careful
not to let any snakes out.

MR. CHEE HAD
told me to meditate. And I had promised to
try. So, I turned the lights low, lit a candle and sat on a blanket by the observation window. Hollie and Seaweed sat beside me and watched.

First, I practised breathing the way he showed me, which
was pretty much what I always did before I free dived, as it
helped me dive deeper, which was what I was really looking
forward to doing again as soon as my arm was well enough.
It had been such a long time, and I hadn't been able to dive
in the Arctic. I had learned to dive to a hundred feet, but
found I could dive deeper in warmer water than cold, so was
curious to see how deep I could dive in the Pacific. Anyway,
I was supposed to empty my mind and focus on the idea of
living a life less dangerous.

I shut my eyes and tried to empty my mind. Suddenly, I
remembered the polar bear trying to squeeze his nose into
the portal. Whew! That was a close one. Then I remembered
being stuck in the ice for three days. Funny, it had felt like
much longer at the time, like forever. Now, it didn't seem
such a big deal. Imagine what the crew of the Franklin expedition must have gone through.

Concentrate! I told myself. Empty your mind. I breathed
more deeply. The image of the fishing trawler drifted into
my head. I wondered if it had reached bottom yet. Probably.
And the pressure would have crushed the hull together like
a tin can. And the sailors? And the man who had shot me?
Did they drown right away or had they survived for a while
in that lifeboat? What a horrible thing to happen. Was that
really karma, or was that just bad luck? And those waves;
how big did they really get? Stop thinking! Empty your mind.

I breathed deeply, opened my eyes and peeked at the candle. The light reflected off Hollie's eyes. How frightening it
must have been for him to have been chased by that snake.
I imagined the snake sneaking into the sub, so quietly Hollie
wouldn't even have heard it. Snakes are surely the scariest
hunters. Would Hollie have smelled it? Probably he started
barking but nobody heard him. Then Seaweed heard him
and he flew down and started squawking, trying to warn me.
Hollie and Seaweed were fiercely protective of each other, in
spite of their fussiness. The snake would have gone for Hollie,
and Hollie must have jumped out of the way. Then, he ran
to the ladder, which he once had climbed, but couldn't get
up fast enough to escape the snake so he ran into the engine
compartment, and the snake followed . . . Stop thinking!
Empty your mind!

I shut my eyes again and breathed more deeply. I wondered where we should go next. Saipan, of course, but there
was another place I wanted to visit on the way: Bikini Atoll.
It was the most contaminated place in the world. Dozens of
atomic bombs had been exploded there in the 1940s and
'50s. The first hydrogen bomb was exploded there too and it
was so powerful it had vaporized three islands. They don't
exist anymore. Wow. How does an island vaporize? Bikini
Lagoon is still there though. It's a graveyard for warships
now. Cool. Bikini Atoll is in the Marshall Islands, which is
where Amelia Earhart probably went down. If her plane is
under water, it's probably somewhere in the Marshall
Islands. Hey! Maybe if I try really hard I can find it. I don't
have to worry about ice here . . . Concentrate! Boy, I would
really like to find Amelia Earhart's plane. Concentrate!!
Nah . . . forget it. I can't. I jumped up, blew out the candle
and hit the lights. I couldn't meditate. There were just too
many things to do.

According to my map and compass readings, we were
about twenty-four hundred miles due west of Hawaii, and
the same distance from Japan, in the opposite direction. We
were just two hundred miles west of Wake Island, a tiny
island with an American Air Force and missile base. I figured
it was probably not a good idea to sail any closer than we
already were, even though chances were, with all their sophisticated detection systems, they already knew we were
here and were watching us. So, I set a course, cranked up the
engine, climbed the portal with Hollie and headed due
south towards Bikini Atoll.

The horizon was turning blue. The sky in the Pacific was
different from the sky in the Atlantic or Arctic. It had more
colour than the Atlantic and was bigger than the Arctic. I
didn't know if that were true but it sure felt like it. We saw a
bird. It came out of nowhere in the night sky. We could just
make out its silhouette against the blue. It was flying alone.
How far it must have come. Where would it land? I thought
of Amelia Earhart again. She had been flying these skies
when she went down. It was at night. I read that her plane,
a Lockheed Electra, twin-engine, would only be travelling at
thirty-five miles an hour when it landed on a runway. At
that speed she could easily have survived a landing in the
water. Her plane probably wouldn't have broken apart. But
it would have sunk. Probably it was still in one piece somewhere.

The bird looked so lonely I couldn't stop watching it. Hollie watched it too. Why would one bird fly so far all by itself?

When the sun came up I cut the engine and slowed to a
drift. The water looked inviting. Sometimes the nicest thing
was to dive from the top of the portal into the water. It was
something you should never do in a lake or river or anywhere
with dark water that you couldn't see through, because you
might strike something. Out in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean, where the floor was a couple of miles down, that was
unlikely.

But my arm was too sore to dive or even jump, so I
slipped off the hull a bit clumsily and had an easy swim a
few times around the sub, using just my legs and one arm.
The water was so warm—it was wonderful. I closed my eyes.
Suddenly, my foot struck something and it scared the heck
out of me. I immediately thought of sharks and scrambled
up the side of the sub. I turned around and looked into the
water but didn't see anything. That was weird.

I went inside and peeked at the sonar screen. There was
nothing. Nothing on radar either. Was it a shark? I didn't see
any fins. There would have been fins.

I had to know what it was so I turned on battery power
and slowly motored around in circles. I didn't see anything
from the portal. Then, I got an idea. I went inside and looked
down through the observation window. Sure enough, there
was some kind of dull grey shape there, just hanging in the
water, not really floating and not sinking. I couldn't tell how
big it was or what it was made of. It looked like plastic, but
wouldn't plastic float on the surface?

I kneeled down at the window and stared at the grey blob.
Should I move on or should I investigate? I looked at Hollie.
He was curious because I was curious. “Okay. I'll investigate.”

I took a twenty-foot length of rope, tied it to the gaff and
threw the gaff over the side. After a few tries I hooked on to
something. I pulled up slowly by leaning back with the rope
over my shoulder, then wrapping the rope around the portal so it wouldn't sink. But whatever it was didn't want to
sink anyway. What on earth was it?

It broke the surface like a chunk of dead, rotted flesh. But
I was right, it was plastic. It was about eight feet long, three
feet wide and maybe four feet deep. It had no markings on
it, nothing to identify it at all. It must have been in the ocean
so long everything had faded. Now it was nothing but a grey
blob. I unhooked it and let it go. But it didn't go anywhere.
I went back inside, shut off the lights and went to bed. I
made a feeble attempt at meditating in bed but fell asleep.

In the early twilight when I woke, we were surrounded by
a sea of plastic.

It must have been garbage dumped out of a ship. There
should have been a law against that—dumping at sea—but
I didn't think there was, although I would sometimes see a
sign posted in harbours prohibiting dumping in the water.
Everywhere around us were plastic bottles, plastic bags,
round plastic, straight plastic, crooked plastic, plastic rope,
plastic netting and on and on. There were also broken pieces
of industrial-looking plastic. Some of it was in large globs
like the piece we found before going to bed, but most of it
was in smaller chunks. Why would a ship dump plastic
garbage into the sea? Oh! Maybe the ship had been caught
in that typhoon and sank. Hmmm. Except that this garbage
was really old and deformed. It looked like it had been in the
water for many, many years.

We motored slowly through the garbage as the twilight
turned darker. I didn't want to run into anything bigger. But
none of the garbage seemed an obstacle to the sub. I couldn't
believe how long the trail lasted. We were still seeing it when
it grew dark. It was so depressing! It reminded me of what
Nanuq, the old Inuit man, had said about the sea dying. I
was glad he couldn't see this. Garbage made the ocean look
like a dump, or like a dead swamp or an industrial lake. I was
glad when the darkness hid it from us. In the morning,
when the sun came up, the sea would be fresh and clean.

It wasn't! I couldn't believe it. The garbage continued forever in all directions. This was scary. What was going on?

I went inside and looked down through the observation
window. The garbage was at least twenty to thirty feet deep.
There were chunks here and there, but there was also a kind
of sludge in the water, like melted ice, except it was plastic.

A little while later there was a really bad smell on the port
side. It was so foul I had to cover my nose. Hollie smelled it
and looked worried. I saw netting in the water. Then, I saw
carcasses. There were turtles, dolphins, sharks and fish all
rotting in the sun. It was a net just like the one I had broken,
but nobody had rescued these creatures. Hugh wasn't here.
There were no transmitters on any of the turtles.

I couldn't get away from the smell. It was so bad I threw
up over the side. Then we passed the area and the air was
fresh again. But the garbage continued. It continued all day.
In the late afternoon we came across another carcass tied up
in part of a net. It was the headless torso and part of the legs
of a man. I stopped the sub, backed up and stared at the
body. If we were back in Canada I would have reported it.
But who would I call here? Who would come all the way out
here for part of a dead body? Nobody. Nobody would care.
As I stared at the corpse I felt that something had changed
inside of me. I didn't know what it was exactly and couldn't
have put it in words, but I didn't feel there was much difference between the plastic garbage and the dead body. I wasn't
sure that was the right way to feel about it but I couldn't
help it. Everything here was dead. Everything was rotting.
What was the difference?

Well, it was a body. It had been somebody. I should have
felt sad for the person. It
was
sad. And yet, it looked like just
another piece of garbage. The garbage really scared me. I
was afraid that Nanuq was right; the sea was dying. The sea
was certainly dying here. We were killing its creatures and
we were dumping our garbage into it. We were killing it.