Sunrise with Seamonsters (62 page)

I had been rowing through Nantucket Sound. It is a reasonably safe stretch of water near the shore; but a few miles out it is another story entirely. It has been called the most dangerous water on the New England coast. There are shoals, tidal streams, stiff winds, sudden fogs. They are bad, but worse are the currents. The tide ebbs to the west and floods to the east—twelve separate charts in the Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book are needed to demonstrate the complex changes and velocity in the currents, and at their worst they surge at four knots, creating little maelstroms as they swirl past the deep holes in the floor of the Sound. It is like a wide wind-swept river, which flows wildly, changing direction every six hours; and the most unpredictable part lies just between Cape Cod and the northwest coast of Martha's Vineyard where, a bit lower down, the current has proven such a ship-swallower the waters are known as The Graveyard.

I decided to row across it in my skiff.

What had most impressed me about offshore rowing was how alienating it could be. It really was like leading a double life: there was no connection between being in the rowboat and being on the Cape, and it was always somewhat disturbing to go ashore. There was a pleasing secrecy in rowing this boat—or boating in general. It only seems like a conspicuous recreation; in fact, boating is a private passion—you are hidden on the ocean, which may be why boat owners are independent, stubborn, finicky, and famous for doing exactly as they please. There are few sea-going socialists.

I had never tried to explain my trip to anyone. It could not be rationalized; it could only be stated. I said what I was doing but not why.
Must be good exercise,
people said. And then, when I discovered that things were different out here, and unrelated to life on land, I decided to keep it a secret. I began to understand the weekend sailor, the odd opinionated boat owner, the person urgent to set sail; I think I even began to understand those idiot kids in their motorboats. We were all keeping the same secret.

But in
Goldeneye
I believed I felt it more keenly: I was nearer the water's surface, I was victimized more by the weather and the tides, I was moving under my own steam. These were all crucial factors in rowing across Nantucket Sound, where if I did not make careful calculations I would probably fail.

From the Eldridge Tide Table I determined that, for an hour or so, four times a day, there was no current in the Sound. My idea was to find a day when this slack period occurred in the early morning, and then rush across, from Falmouth Harbor to Vineyard Haven. If the wind was light and visibility fairly good, and if I rowed fast, there would be no problem. A certain amount of luck was required, but that imponderable made it for me a more interesting proposition.

I chose the fourth of September, the Sunday before Labor Day: Eldridge showed it to be just right from the point of view of the current, and the day seemed appropriate—it was regarded on the Cape as the last gasp of summer. The forecast was good—sunshine and light breezes. I was not confident about succeeding, but I knew that I would never have a better chance; conditions were as near to ideal as possible. Consequently, I decided to take my son Marcel with me. I liked his company, and he was strong enough to help with the rowing. If we made it he could take some of the credit; if we failed, I would take all the blame.

We left Falmouth Harbor in the early morning. It was a mile to the harbor mouth, where the breeze was just enough to stir the bottom half of the American flag on the flagpole there. Once past the jetty it was too rough for the long oars and the sliding seat. I put in the extra thwarts, handed Marcel a pair of oars, and using the two rowing stations we headed into the mist.

The Vineyard was hidden in the haze of a hot summer's morning. We pulled, talking a little at first, but in a short time fell silent. It was hard rowing, it took total concentration; and we were both nervous—but each of us was at pains to conceal it from the other. The waves regularly hit us on the starboard side, and the spray on Marcel's back dried to white smudges of salt. Now the Cape shore had a veil of mist across it, and out of it came the ferry
Island Queen
with a bone in its teeth. It was just astern of us and then it changed direction. I knew it was headed for Oak Bluffs, so I could guess where Vineyard Haven was, in the mist.

About an hour after leaving Falmouth Harbor we were rowing in the black water of the Sound, and neither the Cape nor the Vineyard was visible. In this misty isolation I felt a foolish thrill that was both terror and pleasure. I stopped rowing in order to savor it. Marcel said, "We'd better hurry." Another hour and we were off West Chop Lighthouse—the Vineyard had become gradually visible, like a photographic image developing on paper in a tray of water, acquiring outlines, then solidity,
and finally color. A cabin cruiser went slapping past, and the bow of
Goldeneye
hit a four-foot curbstone of water, and we were drenched. But we had almost made it; and sheltered by the Vineyard, the water was flat enough for my long oars and my sliding seat. Marcel curled up on the stern locker and went to sleep as I rowed the two and a half miles to the head of Vineyard Haven harbor.

It had not been bad—I counted it as a small victory, and I was so heartened by it that I decided to row back after lunch. It was an ignorant decision. I had forgotten about the currents; I didn't know that the rising afternoon winds on the Sound can be devastating; I did not realize how tired we were from the morning trip. And I had thought that West Chop was just another comic Cape name.

I soon learned. The current had begun to run west, and the wind had picked up and was blowing to the east, fringing the three-foot sea with foam. About half a mile off the lighthouse we were powerless to resist the tipping wind, and the current took us into the chop—West Chop. The car ferry
Islander
went by, leaving vast corrugations on the water. We were no longer trying to get across to Falmouth; we were merely trying to stay afloat.

"Know what I think?" I said.

Bam
went another wave, soaking us again.

"That we should turn back," Marcel said.

Immediately we turned the boat, and we rowed as hard as we could; but it was two hours before we were back in the harbor and on a friendly beach. Now the fear was gone, and all that was left of my worry was exhaustion. And the experience of the day was so strange it could only be compared to the abruptness of a nightmare—it was the experience of absurdity and danger, the surrealism of the unknown near home.

The next day the weather report was dire: a gale was expected, small craft warnings, heavy seas. Everything looked fine in Vineyard Haven, but I was unsure about a safe return to the Cape in the skiff. I decided not to risk Marcel's life and sent him back to the mainland on the ferry. As I felt I still had some time to spare, I rowed over to Bill Styron's dock.

He was sitting on the porch of his house with his son Tommy. The sun high in the clear sky exaggerated with brilliance the whiteness of his house and the green of his lawn. We talked awhile over glasses of lemonade. Tommy praised my boat, and I urged him to row around the harbor.

"He works among homeless people in New York—waifs," Styron said, after his son had gone.

Styron is the friendliest of men. He is watchful but unsuspicious, and not in the least severe. He is so human, such an imposing physical presence, it is hard to think of him as literary, or even bookish. He is happy, apparently unmethodical and patient; he takes his time. I think of
him as living a charmed life, having had everything he has ever wanted. Easy-going people who have intelligence are usually merciful: Styron is that way. It gives him tremendous grace.

"I must say," he went on, "I'm fetched by the idea of someone his age who doesn't want to go into banking."

Tommy in
Goldeneye
was dissolved in the intense glitter of the sun on the water. It was a perfect day.

"I've been to France three times since I saw you in Paris," Styron was saying. "I've had my fill of it for a while. One of the times I was on the Film Jury at Cannes. That was a real circus. The Soviet juror wanted to give the prize to Monty Python's
The Meaning of Life.
It seemed to me a silly film. But that's what the English are best at, isn't it? They're good at farce and low comedy. They're through with tragedies, I guess."

I said that to succeed at writing tragedy you had to take yourself pretty seriously, and the English didn't do that anymore. We Americans took ourselves very seriously indeed, which was why tragedy was so common in our novels and plays: it was an aspect of our innocence and our optimism. We were still interested in the texture of our character, still wondering about the future. The English had just about ceased to care. Their cynicism had turned them into bizarre jokesters.

Rose Styron, dressed for tennis, crossed the lawn and walked onto the porch. We talked about bird watching, and India, and Northern Ireland. "Please stay for lunch," Rose said.

I said I had to row to Falmouth: I had set myself that task today.

"We're having
sushi,
" Styron said.

"You must get sick of people dropping in all the time," I said.

"We love it," Rose said. "I encourage people to drop in. Oh, the other day my daughter said, 'Mother! Ricardo Montalban has just climbed up the dock—he's crossing the lawn!' I looked out and saw it was Senator Dodd on the grass!"

"Stay for
sushi,
" Styron said.

But I said I had to go. We all walked down to the dock, as Tommy brought the skiff back.

"Sure you don't want to go to Falmouth?" I said.

"Not today," Styron said. He clapped his hands on his belly. "I'd just be extra weight."

"We'll both row," I said. "It'll take us three hours." I was getting into the boat.

Tommy said, "With him rowing it would take four!"

They waved me off and I rowed, watching them walk down their dock to lunch. It was one o'clock. An hour later I was at the buoy that marked the harbor entrance, and making no progress. I was pushed by the wind, pulled by the current. Within minutes I was in West Chop again, but
much farther out than I had been the day before. I put in the short oars, but the chop was too fierce to row through—I couldn't row at all, I couldn't even steady the boat. The oars were bending and I thought it was likely that I might break one as I fought the current. Some boats passed me, riding high; they glanced at me and moved on. The wind was strong. Another hour went by: three o'clock—I was nowhere, still pulling. The Styrons had finished their lunch, and Bill was writing—he was an afternoon writer. He was working on a series of linked novellas, about the Marines. I thought of him saying, "I'm fetched by the idea..." I had never heard a northerner use that old word in that pleasant way. The waves thudded against my wooden skiff. "Stay for
sushi.
" I'd said no. The Styrons had seen me go and probably said: That seems a good idea.

I was blown aside and tugged towards shore, and it was another hour and a half before I got back to Vineyard Haven. Then I admitted to myself that I had almost been swamped—and it wasn't seamanship but only luck that had prevented it. I might have drowned. I certainly had been frightened: they had been the worst waves I had seen all summer. But there was no link between anything out there among the seamonsters and lunch at the Styrons in this still harbor. It was almost six: I had spent half the day going nowhere. It would be dark soon—this sunset like the last hour of summer light for me.

I fretted in the harbor for a while, and then nerved myself and asked a boat owner for a tow back to the Cape. "I'd be glad to," the man said, and tied
Goldeneye
to his cabin cruiser. I joined him at the wheel and he remarked on the high waves and strong wind. He wasn't bothered. He had a big boat and a deafening diesel engine: we were safe. I had been saved by the sort of boat I had been cursing all summer.

Goldeneye
was crusted with salt again. Everything in it—the charts, the tide tables, my food—was wet and had to be thrown away. I found the boat ramp at Falmouth clogged with rubbish—plastic bottles, some rope, a smooth swollen rat. I winched the boat onto the trailer and headed home.

"Here he comes," Alex crowed. There were ten people in the dining room. "Big dramatic entrance! Look everybody, it's Ishmael! Aw, it was the schooner Hesperus that sailed the wintry sea!'" And then he took me aside. "What the fuck took you so long?" he said. "You were supposed to carve the turkey."

Soon after I went to Africa I began writing what I thought of as Letters from Africa to
The Christian Science Monitor:
"The Edge of the Great Rift," "Burning Grass," "Winter in Africa," "The Cerebral Snapshot," and "State of Emergency" all appeared in that paper. My editor there was a woman who rejoiced in the motto-like name Mrs Silence Buck Bellows. I mentioned in one piece that I taught night-school in the dark—English language lessons at any rate—in order to save lamp-oil; then checks were sent to me by
Monitor
readers—several thousand dollars. We started a scholarship fund with it. When Mrs Bellows turned down a piece I wrote about fishing ("We don't approve of killing fish," she said) I wrote no more for this newspaper.

"Leper Colony" appeared in
Evergreen Review.
"Scenes from a Curfew" was one chapter of a book I wrote about a month-long curfew that was imposed on Kampala, Uganda. The book was never published. A version of this piece was first published in my book
Sinning With Annie
(1972.). "Tarzan is an Expatriate" was published in the Ugandan magazine,
Transition;
it ceased publication when the editor, Rajat Neogy, was jailed for sedition in 1970. "Cowardice" appeared in
Commentary.
"Seven Burmese Days" was published in
The Atlantic
under the title "Burma". "The Killing of Hastings Banda" first appeared in
Esquire;
"A Love-Scene After Work"—thinking out loud about quitting my job in Singapore—in
The North American Review;
the first part of "V. S. Naipaul" appeared in the anthology,
People
(Chatto & Windus, London); the second part in
The Telegraph Magazine
(London); "Kazantzakis' England" in
Encounter
, under the title "You Orientals!", "Malaysia" in the English edition of
Vogue,
and "Hemingway: Lord of the Ring" in
Encounter.