My Last Continent (7 page)

He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “Britt and I tried to make the marriage work. She couldn't move on—or didn't want to. We didn't last much more than a year. After she left, I tried
to immerse myself in work.” He looks down into his beer. “When we were together, when Ally was alive, the days always seemed too short—there was never enough time to fit it all in. Then, all of a sudden, every day was endless. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. I wanted to escape—like Britt had, I guess. But she only went as far as Vermont.”

He takes in a breath. “I started reading about the explorers, you know, wondering whether there was any uncharted territory left. Even by the time I decided to leave the country, I didn't really know where I would go. I didn't have a plan.” He pauses, and a small, sad smile emerges on his face. “Looking back, I guess I did know. I remember the day I went into my boss's office and handed over my resignation,” he says. “I told him, ‘I am just going outside and may be some time.' ”

I know, of course, that these were the last words of Captain Lawrence Oates, who died along with Robert Scott and the rest of the expedition team on their return from the South Pole. Knowing he was near death anyhow and a liability to his party, Oates walked out of his tent and onto the ice. No one ever saw him again.

Eventually I tell Keller about Dennis, and he's not surprised; he'd known all along. “I remember reading about it,” he says, “and seeing your picture. I thought about how alike we were, even though I'd never met you before.”

“Alike how?”

“Abandoned,” he says.

Antarctica gets her icy claws into a certain type of person, I've realized over the years, and I can see now that Keller is one of them. Now that he's caught, he'll return again and again, and he'll learn that no one back home can quite un
derstand what brings him here—the impulse to return to the ice; to these waddling, tuxedo-feathered creatures; to the hours-long fiery sunsets; to the soothing wild peace of this place—and he'll eventually build his life around Antarctica because he'll feel unfit to live anywhere else.

That night, we leave the bar as usual, and my heartbeat stutters as we're about to part because I notice the way his eyes are latched to mine. But though his gaze lingers for a moment, he offers only his usual good-bye: a quick wave and a quicker smile.

The next afternoon, we hike up to a ridge overlooking the Ross Ice Shelf—a massive, flat blanket of ice stretching out into the ocean. Though it's the size of France and hundreds of feet thick, it looks as thin as a wafer from high up, and about as fragile. From here we have a good view of a large Adélie colony. I watch a smile spread across Keller's face as he studies them through the binoculars. “I love their faces,” he says. “Those eyes.”

Adélies have completely black heads, and the tiny white feathers surrounding their glossy black eyes give them a wide-eyed, startled look. Compared to the emperors, the Adélies are tiny; making little huffing noises, they walk with their wings sticking out, feet wide, heads high, looking almost comical, whereas the emperors always look so serious, their wings down at their sides, their heads lowered.

“They might be my favorite species,” I admit, “if I had to choose.”

He lowers his binoculars, then reaches out to touch my sunburned cheek, and that's when he kisses me. It happens quickly—his hand at the back of my neck, the spontaneous
meeting of lips—and then time slows and nearly stops, and suddenly my body feels as wet and limpid as melting ice.

Sex at McMurdo happens in stolen moments; it's furtive and quiet, thanks to too-close living quarters, roommates, thin walls. I don't know how many days blur together between that first kiss and the first night we spend in my dorm, but finally, after an aeon of helpless and constantly rising desire, we sneak out of an all-staff party and crowd into the narrow bunk in my room, ravishing each other like sex-starved teenagers, which is also typical of McMurdo residents.

Afterwards, as the bass traveling on the wind from a distant building echoes the thumping of our hearts, in the arid heat of the room, sweat evaporating from our skin, it seems we could be anywhere—but at the same time, I realize this is the only place where our sudden relationship could feel as familiar to me as the icy, moonlike terrain surrounding us outside the room's tiny windows.

In the weeks that follow, we steal time whenever we can—when my roommate is in the field, when Keller's is at work; it becomes difficult, at other times, to think of anything else. When we come in from the field, we have to peel off so many layers I think we'll never find skin, until there it is, burning under our hands, dry and hot, two deserts finding water.

Under the days' perpetual sunlight, we compile data, we eat and talk, we pack up and hurry back for his shift in the galley. Late one afternoon, when he has the day off, we stretch out in the blinding light, hands folded together, my head on his shoulder, and we listen to the whistling of the wind across the ice and the cries of the birds. I savor the utter silence under those sounds; there is nothing else to hear—none of
the usual white noise of life on other continents, no human sounds at all—and Keller and I, too, are silent. It feels as if our own humanness has dissolved, as if we have no need to communicate other than by breath and touch. And I feel the chill that has always seemed a constant and necessary part of me finally begin to thaw.

AS I DRESS
in the dark, what seemed like a good idea earlier now seems silly, impractical. I fumble to find my sunglasses and hear my roommate turn over in her bunk, and I'm thinking about taking off my cold-weather gear and getting back into bed myself.

I tiptoe to the door and, in the ray of light from the hall, I glance back at my roommate—still asleep, thick orange earplugs filling her ears, a slumber mask over her eyes—and slip out of the room.

At Keller's dorm, I knock quietly, hoping his roommate doesn't answer. I wait, then knock again, wondering if I've overestimated us, to be so certain he'll welcome a middle-of-the-night surprise wake-up call, that he'll be willing to sacrifice one of the more precious resources of McMurdo summers: sleep.

Finally the door cracks open, and he stands there blinking as the hall's fluorescent lights hit his eyes.

“Get your coat,” I whisper.

He shuts the door and a few moments later opens it again, fully dressed. We slink through the dorm. Outside, we shade our eyes from the nighttime sun, still high in the sky and
obscured by a veil of wispy clouds. It's about twenty degrees out, maybe colder.

I love that Keller hasn't asked a single question about where we're going, why he's out in the broad daylight of three in the morning. He's just letting me lead the way.

We walk toward Hut Point, a little more than three hundred yards away. The land under our boots is black and white, volcanic earth and frost. The ice-snagged waters of McMurdo Sound stretch out in front of us—and before that: a plain, weathered square building.

The hut that Keller has been so eager to see was built in 1902 for Scott's
Discovery
expedition. For months it's been closed and locked to all but the conservation team that's finishing its restoration—except for tonight.

I dig into my jacket and pull out a key. I let it dangle between us.

His still-sleepy face breaks into a smile. “How'd you get that?”

“I'm well connected.”

He grins, and I hand him the key.

Under the awning Keller pulls off his hat, pushing his sunglasses up over his head. He unlocks the door, and we step inside, standing still as we wait for our eyes to adjust to the dim light coming in through the building's small, high windows.

I watch as Keller walks carefully through the hut. I follow his eyes around the soot-blackened room: boxes and tins of oatmeal and cocoa, biscuits and herring; rusted frying pans on the brick stove; shelves scattered with cups and plates, bottles and bowls; oil-smudged trousers hanging on a line, a
dog harness from a beam. A pile of dark, oozing seal blubber drips with oil; seal carcasses hang, well preserved, on one of the walls. A large box labeled
LAMP OIL
reads,
SCOTT'S ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION
1910—
one of several other parties that once inhabited this place.

It's eerily noiseless—the hum of the station gone, no penguins outside, no petrels above. Instead of the diesel fumes of the station, we breathe in the thick, musty flavors of hundred-year-old burnt blubber and the dusty artifacts of men whose time here was both celebratory and desperate.

Keller knows not to touch anything, and he moves as little as possible, taking in everything he can. I hadn't thought to bring a camera with me—but then I realize, in all our time together, I've never once seen him take a photograph.

“Remember the lost men?” Keller asks.

“You'll have to be more specific.”

“The Ross Sea Party,” he says. “They were right here—in this room—never knowing they'd devoted their lives to a lost cause.”

“They knew the risks.” In 1915, ten men from the Ross Sea Party, the group Shackleton had tasked with laying supply depots for his
Endurance
expedition, had gotten stranded when their ship lost its moorings and drifted. Not knowing that Shackleton's crew had been forced to abandon their own ship, the men kept going, completing their mission, but three of them didn't survive.

“That's exactly what I appreciate about being down here,” Keller says. “You know the risks—the hazards are tangible.” He takes another look around, as if what he's trying to say is written on the time-scarred walls. “Back in Boston, I was living
this so-called normal life, blissfully ignorant of the dangers all around us. That's so much worse. Because when something does happen, you're not prepared for it.”

I move closer, and he pulls me into a long hug, so long I feel as if maybe he's afraid to let go—as if by clinging to me, in this hut, in this faraway place, he can preserve his memories and leave them behind at the same time. I want to assure him that he'll find a balance, that it's the same fine line as going from here to home and back again, but I know he'll learn this soon enough, in his own time.

At last he pulls away, kisses my forehead. “Thank you for this,” he says.

We go back out into the summer night and walk around the other side of the hut, facing the sound. Clean, cold air freezes through my nostrils, carrying the faint scent of ocean and iced rock.

In the water, flat fragments of ice float around like puzzle pieces; in the distance beyond, thin layers of silver glisten over the light blue of large bergs. As a breeze begins to stir, I lean into Keller, a chill biting through my clothes.

He pulls me closer, staring over the top of my head. “Sea leopard,” he whispers, using the explorers' term for the leopard seal that is passing within fifty feet of us, on its way to open water. We watch the seal, a full-grown male, as he propels his sleek gray body forward, focused on the sea ahead.

Then the seal stops and turns his head toward us, sniffing the air, revealing his lighter-gray, speckled underside. He gazes at us, his face like that of a hungry puppy with its wide, whiskered nostrils and huge wet eyes. We're downwind, but
I feel Keller's breath stop halfway through his chest. After a few long moments, the seal turns his head and continues on his way, slipping silently into the water.

Keller exhales, slowly, and I feel his weight settle against me as he relaxes. Though a leopard seal had once hunted a member of Shackleton's
Endurance
party—first on land, then from under the ice—and while they can be highly dangerous, attacks on humans are rare.

I look at Keller, thinking he'd been worried about the seal—and I see he's smiling.

“I could get used to this,” he says.

“To what, exactly? Close encounters with deadly predators? The subzero temperatures? The six-day workweeks?”

“You,” he says. “I could get used to you.”

WITH CONSTANT DAYLIGHT,
time loses its urgency, and it's easy for me to believe we'll be here forever. Yet eventually the sun sets for an hour a day, and then a few more—and soon conversations on the base begin to eddy around the transition from summer to winter season. As our time at McMurdo grows shorter, I can't stop myself from thinking ahead. Real life begins to intrude into every moment. Lying in Keller's bed one afternoon, I tuck my head under his chin. “Where do you live now? Back home, I mean?”

We still don't know some of the very basic facts about each other. Here, none of it matters.

“After the divorce, I got an apartment in Boston,” he says. “When I came here, I put everything in storage.” With my
face against his neck, I feel the vibration of his voice almost more than I hear it.

“I have a cottage in Eugene.” I curl an arm around his chest, wrap a leg around his. “Plenty of room for two, if you wanted to visit. Or stay.”

The moment the words are in the air, I feel myself shrink away from them, anticipating his reaction. I pull the sheet over my bare shoulder, as if this could shield me from hearing anything but yes.

Yet he lifts my chin to look at me, intrigued. “Really?”

“Sure.”

A pensive look crosses his face, and I think of his life before, how rich and full it must've been—and now this: a dorm room with frayed sheets and scratchy, industrial woolen blankets, and ahead only the promise of a storage unit in Boston, or a tiny cottage and a wet Oregon spring.

Then he smiles. “Remind me,” he says, “how long have you lived alone?”

“We're practically living together here. I've spent more time with you than with any non-penguin in years.”

He pulls me up and over until I'm on top of him, looking down at his face. Our weeks here, with long workdays and rationed water, have left him windburned and suntanned, long-haired and scruffy. I lean in close, and he says, “What are we waiting for?”