The Weight of Water (24 page)

He pulled my wrists down so that they were at my side. Anethe came into the room. Evan let go of me. She was still in her
nightdress, and her hair was braided in a single plait down her back. She was sleepy still, and her eyes were half closed.
“Good morning, Maren,” she said pleasantly, seemingly oblivious to her husband’s posture or the tears on my cheeks, and I
thought, not for the first time, that Anethe must be short-sighted, and I then recalled several other times in the past few
weeks when I had seen her squinting.

Anethe went to her husband and coiled herself into his embrace so that though she was facing me, his arms were wrapped around
her. Evan, unwilling to look at me any longer, bent his head into her hair.

I could not speak, and for a moment, I could not move. I felt raw, as though my flesh had torn, as though a wild dog had taken
me in his teeth, sunk his teeth into me, and had pulled and tugged until the flesh and gristle had come away from the bone.

“I must go,” Evan said quickly to Anethe, giving her one last quick embrace about the shoulders. “I must collect the nets.”

And without a glance in my direction, he took his jacket from the chair and left the room. I knew then that Evan would take
great pains never to be left alone in a room again with me.

I turned around and brought my fists close in to my breast. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to contain the rage and longing
within me so that no unwanted sound would slip through my lips. I heard Anethe walk her husband to the door. Evan would take
the nets, I knew, to Louis Wagner’s room to mend them, even though it was colder in there. When I heard Anethe come back to
where I was standing, I made myself relax my eyelids and put my hands on the back of a chair. I was trembling.

“Maren,” Anethe said behind me, reaching up to tuck a stray lock of hair into my bun. The touch sent a shiver through my back
and down my legs. “I am hopelessly naughty for sleeping so late, but do you think you could forgive me and let me have some
of the sausage and cheese from yesterday’s dinner for my breakfast?”

I stepped away from her and, with methodical movements, long practiced, long rehearsed, went to the stove, and slowly lifted
the kettle up and slowly set it down again upon the fire.

For six weeks during the period that Evan and Anethe lived with John and me, Louis Wagner was with us, and for most of this
time he was well and working on the
Clara Bella.
But one day, when the men were still going out, Louis remained behind. He was, he said, experiencing a sudden return of the
rheumatism. I know now, of course, that this was a ruse, and I am sorry to have to report here that the inappropriate attraction
Louis felt for Anethe had not abated with time, but rather had intensified. And this was due, in part, to the fact that Anethe
had taken pity on Louis, fearing for his poverty and loneliness and his inability to get a wife, and had shown him some mild
affection in the way of people who are so content with their lot that they have happiness in excess of their needs and thus
can share the bounty with others. I believe that Louis, not having had this form of attention, and certainly not from such
a lady as Anethe, mistook the young woman’s kindness for flirtation and sought to make the most of that advantage. So it happened
that on the day that he pretended ill and I had gone to see if he would sit up to take some porridge, he asked me if I would
send Anethe forthwith into his chamber in order that she might read to him, and thus divert his attention from his “sore joints.”
I did see, in Anethe’s face, the smallest hesitation when I suggested this, as she had never attended to a man other than
her husband in the privacy of his room, and had never nursed the sick, but I imagine that she thought that if I was so willing
to be alone with Louis there could be no harm in it. She took a book out of the front door of our kitchen and into the apartment
in which Louis was lying.

I do not believe she was in his room for more than ten minutes before I heard a small exclamation, a sound that a woman will
make when she is suddenly surprised, and then a muffled but distinctly distressed cry. As there was no noise from Louis, the
first thought I had was that the man had fallen out of his bed. I had been on my knees with a dustpan, cleaning the ashes
from the stove, and was halfway to my feet when there was a loud thump as though a shoulder had hit the wall that separated
Louis’s apartment from the kitchen of our own. There was a second bump and then another unintelligible word. I set down the
dustpan on the table, wiped my hands on a cloth and called to Anethe through the wall. Before I could wonder at a lack of
response, however, I heard the door of Louis’s apartment open, and presently Anethe was in our kitchen.

One plait to the side of Anethe’s head had pulled loose from its knot and was hanging in a long U at her shoulder. On the
bodice of her blouse, a starched, white garment with narrow smocked sleeves, was a dirty smudge, as though a hand had ground
itself in. The top button of her collar was missing. She was breathless and held her hand to her waist.

“Louis,” she said, and put her other hand to the wall to steady herself.

The color had quite left Anethe’s face, and I saw that her beauty was truly in her coloring and animation, for without both
she looked gaunt and anemic. I confess I was riveted by the contrast of the dirty smudge on the white breast of her blouse,
and I suppose because I am not at all a demonstrative person I found it difficult to speak some comfort to her. It was as
though any word I might say to her would sound false and thus be worse than no word at all, and for some reason I cannot now
articulate, I was in an odd state of paralysis. And though it shames me deeply, I must confess that I think I might actually
have begun to smile in that awful inappropriate way one does when one hears terribly bad news, and the smile just seems automatically,
without will, to come to one’s lips. I reproach myself greatly for this behavior, of course, and think how easy it might have
been to go to my sister-in-law and put my arms around her and console her, or at least help to put behind her the absurd and
almost laughable advances of the man next door, but as I say, I was frozen to the spot and able only to utter her name.

“Anethe,” I said.

Whereupon the blood left her head altogether, and she fell down in a wondrous sort of collapse that I am sorry to say struck
me as somewhat comical in nature, the knees buckling, the arms fluttering out sideways as if she would try to fly, and it
was only once she was on the ground that I was able to unlock my limbs and move toward her and raise her head up and in that
way help her back to consciousness.

When I had her in her bed, and she had nearly recovered her color, we spoke finally about Louis and about the fearful rage
that this incident might provoke in Evan, and it was decided then and there between us that I would not tell my brother, but
rather would suggest to my husband that there had been some disappearances of beer and honey and candles in the household
for which I could not account, and that without raising a fuss I thought it might be wise to terminate our boarder’s lease.

Unfortunately, however, I was not present at Louis Wagner’s dismissal and, as a consequence, John did not quite heed or remember
my precise advice, and said to Louis that because I had missed certain household items it might be better for Louis to look
elsewhere for lodgings. Louis denied these charges vigorously and demanded to see me, but John, of course believing his wife
and not his boarder, stood firm and told Louis that he would be leaving the next day. The following morning, as Louis was
preparing to board Emil Ingerbretson’s schooner for the passage into Portsmouth, I remained in the kitchen, as I did not want
an unpleasant confrontation, but just before sailing Louis came up from the cove and sought me out. I heard a noise and turned
to see him standing in the open door. He did not speak a word, but merely stared at me with a look so fixed and knowing I
grew warm and uncomfortable under his gaze. “Louis,” I began, but could not go on, although the expression on his face seemed
to dare me to speak. Truthfully, I could think of nothing I could say to him that would not make the situation worse. He smiled
slowly at me then and closed the door.

Thus it was that Louis Wagner left Smutty Nose.

I
THINK ABOUT
the weight of water, its scientific properties. A cubic foot of water weighs 62.4 pounds. Seawater is 3.5 percent heavier
than freshwater; that is, for every 1,000 pounds of seawater, 35 of those will be salt. The weight of water causes pressure
to increase with depth. The pressure one mile down into the ocean is 2,300 pounds per square inch.

What moment was it that I might have altered? What point in time was it that I might have moved one way instead of another,
had one thought instead of another? When I think about what happened on the boat, and it was a time that was so brief — how
long? four minutes? eight? certainly not even ten — the events unfold with excruciating lethargy. In the beginning, I will
need to see the scene repeatedly. I will hunt for details I have missed before, savor tiny nuances. I will want to be left
alone in a dark room so that I will not be interrupted. But after a time, I will not be able to stop the loop. And each time
the loop plays itself, I will see I have a chance, a choice.

Thomas pulls me by the arms up onto the deck. He tries to wipe the rain from his eyes with his sleeve. “Where have you been?”
he asks.

“Where’s Billie?”

“Down below.”

“It was my last chance to get any pictures.”

“Christ.”

“We started back the minute it began to rain.” My voice sounds strained and thin, even to myself.

“The wind came up half an hour ago,” Thomas says accusingly.

“The other boat has already left. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Billie’s all right?”

Thomas combs his hair off his forehead with the fingers of both hands. “I can’t get her to put her life jacket on.”

“And Adaline?” I ask.

He massages the bridge of his nose. “She’s lying down,” he says.

Rich hoists himself onto the deck from the dinghy. I notice that Thomas does not extend a hand to his brother. Rich drags
the dinghy line to the stern.

“Tom,” Rich calls, again using the boyhood nickname. “Take this line.”

Thomas makes his way to the stern, and takes the rope from Rich, and it is then that I notice that Thomas is shaking. Rich
sees it too.

“Go inside,” Rich says to Thomas quietly. “Put on dry clothes and a sweater. The foul-weather gear is under the bunks in the
forward cabin. You, too” he adds, looking at the quickly and then away. He ties the line in his hand to a cleat. “I’ll go
down and listen to what NOAA has to say. How long ago did the other boat leave?”

“About fifteen minutes,” Thomas answers.

“Did she say where she was headed?”

“Little Harbor.”

As if in answer to Rich’s doubts, the Morgan shudders deep in her hull from the hard bang of a wave. I can feel the stern
skid sideways in the water, like a car on ice. The rain is dark, and I can barely make out the shape of the islands around
us. The sea is lead colored, but boisterous.

I go below to find Billie huddled in her berth. She has her face turned away. I touch her on the shoulder, and she snaps her
head around, as though she were raw all over.

I lie down beside her. Gently, I rub her shoulder and her arm. “Daddy was right,” I say softly. “You have to put your life
jacket on. It’s a law, Billie, and there isn’t anything we can do about it.”

Invoking parental helplessness before a higher authority has usually worked with Billie, as when I tell her that the police
will stop me if she doesn’t put on her seat belt in a car. The door to the forward cabin is shut. Thomas knocks and enters
simultaneously, a gesture that catches my breath. I can see a slim form lying on the left side of the V berth. A head rises.
Thomas shuts the door.

My sneakers make squelching sounds on the teak floor grate. I kick them off, and they thwack against a galley cabinet. I strip
off my sweatshirt and shorts and underwear and pull from my duffel bag a pair of jeans and a cotton sweater. Billie, hearing
the unexpected bumps of the sneakers, rolls over in her berth and looks up at her naked and shivering mother.

“Can’t I wear an orange one?” she asks.

“No, those are for adults. Only yours will fit you.” I peer down at the life vest, with its Sesame Street motif, on the table.

Thomas opens the door of the forward cabin. I am struggling awkwardly with jeans on wet skin. Rich swings down from the deck.
Instinctively, I turn my back.

Thomas drops a muddle of navy and yellow foul-weather gear onto the teak table. “There’s a small one here,” he says and holds
it up. “I think it will fit Billie.”

“Oh, Daddy, can I have it?” Billie asks, holding out her arms.

I wrestle with my sweater. I bend to Thomas’s duffel bag and take out a dry shirt, a sweater, and a pair of khakis. I hold
them out to him. I look at Thomas’s face, which has gone white and looks old.

As the trial, Mr. Yeaton for the prosecution asked “Mary S. Hontvet” how long she had known Louis Wagner. She answered that
he had boarded with her for seven months the previous year, beginning in the spring.

“When did he leave, get through boarding with you?” Mr. Yeaton asked.

“He went into Portsmouth about November,” Maren answered.

“What room did he occupy in your house?”

“He had the easterly end of the house, he had a big room there.”

“Where did he keep his clothes?”

“He kept his clothes in a little bed-room there hanging up. He had oil skin hanging up in my entry, when he had been out fishing,
he took his oil skin off and hung it up in the entry, entry coming into my kitchen.”

“Entry in your part?’

“Yes.”

Mr. Yeaton then asked what was in Louis Wagner’s room.

Maren answered: “He had his bed there, and one big trunk, which belonged to my sister Karen.”