The Plover: A Novel (17 page)

*   *   *

Sure, things went wrong. Sure they did. Declan hurt his back jumping into the hold and it hurt so bad for two days that he lay in his bunk and cried. The rudder pin broke for no reason at all. Pipa got so sick that her lips and fingers turned blue and she threw up until there was nothing left to throw up but air. The gull sheared off suddenly and was gone for two days, leaving the boat curiously naked. The patch on the hole from the storm worked itself off an eighth of an inch and had to be jiggered back into place with a great deal of sweating and cursing. The engine cover cracked in half one afternoon for no reason at all. Piko crushed a finger working on the hull patch and his finger tripled in size and turned purple and when finally in frustration he listened to Taromauri’s advice and trailed it in the sea for an hour to reduce swelling, a giant trevally made a run at it and very nearly nipped it off, and when Piko made a grab at the fish’s tail on the off chance of free meat he lost his balance and fell in and it took half an hour for Taromauri to turn the boat around and retrieve him. One tank of water unaccountably went bad. One volume of Burke’s collected speeches, from 1790, the year he and his dear friend Fox fought bitterly and their friendship died, unaccountably rotted. The two
kiore
rats found and ate all the snails, reducing the passenger list by four. The tiny warbler,
bokikokiko,
the eighth passenger, emerged cautiously from under the water tank and discovered that her right wing did not at all answer the bell when called upon for flight. One afternoon the ocean boiled into a series of sickening swells so irregular and relentless that everyone aboard threw up, including the rats and the warbler. One morning there came an unaccountable dark hour in which all four human creatures lay abed afflicted with despair, and wondering why in heaven’s name they were sentenced to this voyage, and when they would ever escape this tiny wooden prison, and under what unimaginable circumstances had they arrived in this bleak and sterile predicament, and when they would ever see or smell or touch or knead or walk upon or kneel upon or embrace or scrabble in or paw or even bless me gobble the sweet thick rich black holy soil of the earth which was the antidote and medicine and angel to the faithless unsturdy demonic sea. Even the two island rats, with memories as thin as smoke, had vague memories of another life that might have been on land; and it was Pipa who plunged deepest, remembering the shiver of alder, the moist of moss, the sting of sorrel on the tongue, the red shout of elderberries, the whir of winter wrens, the nodding of foxglove flowers, the depth of duff at the foot of the biggest firs and cedars and hemlocks and spruces; there were some trees near their house when she was little with duff so deep she could crawl in and cover herself with it like a blanket; and once, she remembered, she dug down into the sea of brown needles and found a rabbit warren, which she followed until she found the nest, with nine tiny creatures no bigger than her thumb; and as she stared at them, so new they had no hair, one opened its eyes for the first time ever; and she wondered after that for a long time what that new creature thought he saw, when he opened his eyes and saw her face like a planet above him; and when she told that story to her mother her mother said why, darling, whatever that little rabbit thought he was seeing, that’s another one of your names, whatever word popped into his head when he saw you and you saw him, that’s your name in
his
world, sure we have names in other worlds, wouldn’t it be cool to know all your names in all the other worlds? Maybe that’s your work, my little button, you’ll be the greatest translator that ever was, the greatest name catcher ever. That could be. That could most certainly be.

*   *   *

But the darkness passed and on they went, the days brilliant and the nights more so. Piko, in an expansive scientific mood, one sunset, as all the
Plover
’s passengers, including the rats and the warbler, gaped at the indescribable colors of the sky:

Of course, the air is an ocean also, he said. Of course it is. It weighs five quadrillion tons, did you know that? And it heats and cools, expands and contracts, it’s always in motion. It has currents and layers and secret places where no one has ever been yet although someday. It has currents with names like the ocean does. Currents that have been steady so long we slapped labels on them. Sirocco, chinook, monsoon, knik, matanuska, pruga, stikine, taku, aajej, arifi, beshabar, datoo, ghibli, haboob, harmattan, imbat, khamsin, nafhat, simoom. Typhoons and cyclones, tornados and hurricanes, storms and squalls. The air carries water like the water carries air. Maybe they are lovers, you know what I mean? Air has a little hydrogen and lots of oxygen and water has lots of hydrogen and a little oxygen. Mostly air is nitrogen, though. You know where nitrogen comes from? The
stars
. Isn’t that cool? What you breathe used to be
inside stars
. Makes you feel a little taller, hey? And there’s air in the ocean, of course. Also in every creature in the ocean. Every being has air in it like transparent blood. Way down below us there are beings with air in them. Dragonfish and anglerfish and flashlight fish and lanternfish and viperfish.
Miles
down there. And there are other beings down there no one ever saw yet or even
imagined
. But they have air in them. We know
that
. If you don’t have any air in you, you’re dead. We know
that
. One oceanographer friend of mine, her theory was that air was born from water, that billions of years ago sunlight and lightning bolts jazzed water vapor and made gases, which eventually grew up and became air, which then went into business with water and dirt. That could be. No one knows. Although if anyone would know
she
would know. She was one electric being, that one. She used to remind us all the time that we were mostly made of saltwater. Babies are made of more water than older people, she would say, so her theory is that we all came from the ocean, and babies remember this better, and we forget as we get older. We dry up. Another theory she had was that we went from water to air to dirt as we aged, that we started as mostly water and then became mostly hot air and then ended up aiding and abetting dirt, this was the contract water and air and dirt had agreed on, billions of years ago. That could be. No one knows. Although if anyone would know,
she
would know. Just before she died she asked us to make sure she went back to the ocean when she died, she didn’t want to help out dirt, so after she died we took her out on the boat and gave her back. Beautiful day. Two men and one woman helped me lower her into the ocean and it seemed to us that she weighed about four ounces, that she was mostly air, and we were a little worried she wouldn’t sink, you know, and that we would have to tie weights on her to sink her, but she sank down gently and didn’t come back up, and later the woman who was with us said it was like the ocean was inviting in a dear friend, which I guess it was. She was one electric soul, that one. Yes she was.

*   *   *

Pipa hears this from her chair and is fascinated by the words dragonfish and anglerfish and flashlight fish and lanternfish and viperfish and she sends her big soul down to find them. Down and down and down. The light changing as she goes. She did this more often in water than air. It was hard to do it on land. She had tried but couldn’t get her soul past soil. Stone was impenetrable but air and water were friendlier. Air was almost
too
friendly, though, and you had to be careful to keep your soul together because it could get too big too fast and you could lose yourself. This had happened before and it was terrifying and the first time it happened it took days to get herself back together, three days during which her parents thought she was in a coma but she was retrieving herself. Water was best. You could travel through water but stay coherent. She wondered if other people and animals and insects did this too but no one talked about it. Maybe this is what the Jesus man did in the tomb for three days. Maybe he lost his big soul and had to be silent and dark to get it back again. She arrives on the seafloor and bounces along among coral and caves. In one cave there is a soul ancient beyond reckoning but she does not know what kind of soul it is. The ancient soul is startled to feel her young soul, having never felt a child’s soul before. She stays with the ancient soul for a while and they feel each other out. The ancient soul is confused and fascinated. For more years than it can remember the souls that it encountered belonged to beings that were either good to eat or not good to eat. That was the law of the world into which it was born: eat or do not eat, be aggressive or be afraid. Pipa is a different law. Also her soul does not wrap her being. Her being is elsewhere. How could that be? Pipa is a different law. The ancient soul brings its being out of its cave. It has not been this curious and startled for more years than it can remember. The other beings on the reef flee the scene at the speed of terror. The ancient being stretches and blinks and slides along the seafloor like a vast shadow. Pipa’s soul goes along for the ride. The ancient being is so large that the waves on the surface of the sea are shivered. No one notices except Declan who notices everything about the sea. He notices a vast swatch of darker water for a while and then the darker water lightens and Pipa opens her eyes and sees her father grinning and she wants to say Papa you wouldn’t
believe
what I just did but tonight her mouth has decided to sound like the warbler on board so she burbles and whistles and Piko laughs and rubs her legs and tickles her and cups her face in his hands and kisses her forehead nine times, one kiss for every year you have been the most beautiful amazing girl in the whole history of the world, Pip Pip. I hope you know how much I love you. I know you can hear me in there and I love you more than there are stars and songs in the sky. Yes yes yes Pip Pip Pip. He unbuckles her from her chair in the stern and folds her into his chest and Taromauri reaches over and touches her left cheek and Declan reaches over and tickles her right foot and Piko says
bedtime for bonita
and Pipa whistles and the warbler, delighted to hear her own language, answers at length from under the water tank.

*   *   *

Sir, said one of the brothers or cousins on the
Tanets
to Enrique, what is it you are hunting?

What are you talking about? Get back to work.

Sir, clearly you are hunting something and we would like to know what it is.

It’s not your business. Nor are we hunting. We are a cargo ship.

Yes, sir.

Enrique couldn’t tell if this was the Rapanuian or the Rungarungawan. After a day or two he had ceased to care who was whom. He cared about their work. He did not care about their names. He cared about their burl and brawn. He did not care about their empty books or their aversion to metal. He cared about finding the
Plover
. He did not care why he was so intent on finding it. He did not care for introspection. He cared about efficient operation. He cared about control. He cared about money only insofar as money offered control. No money, no control. He cared about loss of control as insult offered. He did not care who offered the insult. He avenged insult to regain control. Control bred efficiency. He did not care to think about his hunger for control. He did not care for reflection. Control bred freedom. He did not even care for his ship. He cared for what the ship allowed. It provided control. He went where he wished to go. He hired whom he wished to hire. He fired whom he wished to fire. When insult was offered in any shape or form whatsoever it was repaid with twice the force. Reputation abetted control. Disguise abetted control. Mobility abetted control. He who was neither here nor there could not be controlled. He had often thought of changing his name serially but as yet saw no need to do so. Those whom he hired called him simply sir or captain. He who had no name or label could not be controlled. He who controlled his words and story controlled time. Controlled violence bred control. The threat or specter or suggestion of violence bred control. The ship with several registrations and names and permits and passes and bills of lading could not be controlled. He stared at his charts and for a moment considered that he did not care overmuch about the crewman Taro, and that Taro’s departure from the
Tanets
did not actually affect or diminish his control of the ship and its commerce, and that in fact he had replaced Taro with two crewmen who together equaled the proximate labors of Taro and Something Somethingivi
ć
for slightly less money than he had paid the last two crewmen, and that in fact his intent pursuit of the green boat with the red sail might in a sense be a distraction and therefore a reduction or diminution of his control of matters; but then some slow rage rose in him that
his
ship had been offended,
his
crewman taken or persuaded to abscond,
his
will flouted, and he bent grimly over his charts. Where would they go, where would they hide, where would they flee?

*   *   *

There’s a little island that way where I think we should put in for a while, said Declan. Fresh water, villages, even a little airport if we want to turn the boat into a plane. Also fresh fish. Also I bet there are pigs to be had. Me personally I could use a roaring pork dinner. With fresh coffee. And fruit. And cigars. And fresh coffee. And cigars.

And the name of the island is…? said Piko.

Actually I think it has about eighty names. I think it changes names every three years. It’s like a law there or something. The guy who first told me about it called it Torino, but he was from Italy. Another guy I knew called it Manhattan, and then a scalloper I know called it Eel Island because he said there was a lake there with eels in it but I don’t know if that’s true. I heard there was a lady who called it Betsy Island but I don’t know if that’s true. I do know there’s freshwater there though. Guys who fished this far south would stop there for water because it rains like hell on this island and there’s plenty of water. Also pigs.