Tramp Traders on the Graveyard Atoll
FROM THE JOURNAL OF P.F. CHESTERFIELD:
March Three, Eighteen Thirty-Three
Well, Wyndham — you anachronistic fool, you worshipper of dead ideas — you cannot expel me, for I withdraw myself from your Academy of dust. A sour good-bye to my supposed friends who were the first to gossip. And a farewell to England, this pedantic empire and self-righteous thief of tea leaves. Trust this, the lot of you, I am glad to go. More than glad to trade it all for precarious adventure. This afternoon, after my expulsion, I wandered to the docks where Captain Longbaugh of the Ahasver, a tramp trader swollen with miscellany and beholden to no manifest but the sea, offered me a position. A Londoner by birth and respecter of books, the Captain is certain my education will prove valuable. It is only my darling Essa that will be missed. My Moorish Queen fated to toil in outhouses and scrub on her knees and suffer as a chambermaid to that mawkish owl who pays her a farthing for a pound’s work. I do love my Essa, more than any poem or parable, but worlds are not merely places on a map and we can never live as two lovers in any of them. The name Chesterfield has become a label of public mockery, and I believe I can restore it out on the breaking waves of the ocean’s vast mystery. Do not wish me well, for I expect to endure the full corridor of life and return to this boorish rainstorm of a city with legends in my blood.
May One, Eighteen Thirty-Three
Adventure is not the name for this. While scrubbing the poop deck I think of others too vulgar to quill. Let me say, simply, it has not been quite what I expected. Indeed, my crew-mates have lived robust lives and witnessed the world, yet fisticuffs and fallings-out and whoring in queer ports seems all we’re suited for. I thought they’d drink rum and sing songs, but it’s mostly wood alcohol and browbeating, an argument that began at birth and will continue until all but one of us is dead. Still: slide the crates, haggle in hand gestures, stare down brooding squalls, float days in windless sea counting birds as symbols of God and man.
Nor have I been welcomed among the crew. Although I know a quid worth of tandoori when I see it and can scramble up the mast quick as any, none but the flinty Captain Longbaugh respects an educated man. They steal from me at night and sell me my own breeches on credit, pull out my chair as I sit to eat my gruel. But I see a way through it, in their clamor for titillating stories. To punctuate this galling boredom they each crave tales of war and maidens and drunken mistakes perpetuated. This my education should serve. Yet the stakes are dauntingly high, this is no longer an English library, and we are not poseurs smoking pipes and reciting poems. We are a slim cut above pirates. To survive this jaunt with all of my teeth, I must find an elegant story to tell some evening — though, thus far, I’ve stammered and cowered and failed on every count.
June 3, Eighteen Thirty-Three
Mornings on this brigantine are forfeited to the bodily stink of the crew and my clumsy dismount from the hammock, the boards creaking as though the Ahasver is rubbing its hands together for a long day at odds.
At dawn, I shook off the night’s rest and walked along the gunwale. Near the bridge, I saw the Captain — his deep maroon vestiture faded to pink by sun and salt — talking to his two first mates (I must confess that the hierarchy onboard is as anarchic as our trade and I do not know whether rank is based on Longbaugh’s affection or skill on the sail — perhaps the latter breeds the former): Brawley — who wears sleeves only at port and his ‘Russia hat’ when cold, like a silver fur cap on a bronzed flesh bottle — and Fang, a bearded Oriental twenty hands tall with an accent so convoluted he seems originated not from one country but rather a kind of fog that enwraps the globe. They were gazing off the bow and whispering in frustrated admittance that we were lost, as I’ve suspected for days now. Sea and sea and sea I’d woke to look out on three dawns running. But this! Forgetting myself, I blurted out:
“What is that?”
The Captain turned to me, as though some curious child had wandered into the affairs of men, and then looked out again over the water. He nearly quoted Homer: “‘When we had passed the rocks, with Skylar and beautiful Char-bade-us, we reached the noble island of the sun god’’” and smiled with long experience.
Brawley grunted and shoved me the telescope. A few hundred fathoms out, a rocky atoll and the carrion of what looked to be a rowboat.
“It’s a shipwreck, pardner,” Fang said, or something of the like. “Pray tell, what would your Shakespeare feller say aboot that?”
June 3, Eighteen Thirty-Three (Continued)
Of course, it was my job to row a few scouts ashore. It was I and Brawley — who demanded I do the work so he could mock my naivete on the oars — Fang, the three grey-eyed Tunisians in their skirts, and Herbert the German whose shorn head is tattooed to portray a demon’s face when he contemplates the ground.
It was a meager rock, shored-up coral that had dried to dirt, just two hundred paces across with no flora or fauna, and perfectly flat save where the center dimpled upward and a post had been drive as the sole architecture. The clutter of wood was indeed a shipwreck, though most of the wood had been burned or lost. Herbert discovered a skeleton placed carefully on its back, with the hands cross-wise on its chest, a shirt of bird-feathers that had been wind-whipped down to the rachides, and a necklace of tiny shells lacing the vertebrae. Fang poked at the skull with his enormous toe.
We soon found further remains, the first a child curled-up on its side with a hole in the cranium. And then another, wearing the last greyish wool of a uniform overcoat, another lying face-down with its bones in disarray as though picked over by birds. Then another. And another. Thirteen skulls in all, in every imaginable repose. A gruesome scene, it would have been, had they still bore skin and eyeballs and hair. Further looking found the things they lived with: a lantern, a cooking pot sitting in the center of a black stain, fine hand tools made of bone.
Brawley slapped the back of my head with a laugh and sent me rowing to the Ahasver for Longbaugh and the rest. Fang toured them through the findings, little more to say than: “here are some bones” and “there is the wood.” After a short time, the crew fell into games. Herbert set a skull on his bare head and proceeded to spook the Tunisians. Fang held a femur priapic and gyrated his hips at the sea. Tooley, a pixie-sized Scotsman with a single tooth, made a crude instrument from some poor Dutchman’s ribs but the only sound was bone on bone. Longbaugh let this all persist and spent long pauses rubbing his chin. At the one skeleton properly laid, a woman we all assumed, he waved me over and asked for my thoughts regarding her and this island.
I shan’t forget how he looked at me, sincerely and with worry about death and the unknown. What was left of the woman was striking: the sallow yellow of the beads, the long grey bones that must have been delicate fingers. The Captain needed some explanation for this, to ease his mind, and once again I failed to intrigue or entertain.
“I couldn’t tell you, sir,” I replied.
“Well, you ought to be able to say something meritorious. Have you looked at the ship? Did you see the chains?”
“Aye, sir. A slaver she must have been.”
As dusk muddied the sky, the Captain ordered us to enjoy an evening of rest on the graveyard atoll. He had a fire built and circled it with his first mates and then dispatched the Tunisians to catch the crew’s dinner. Those of us not in Longbaugh’s fold found another spot fifty paces off to make our hearth and merriment. As we feasted, I tried to follow the song of the men: a jaunty narrative which all were called upon to append with a verse in turn. When it came to me, I could find no words. I over-thought, it seems, and wanted to sing something sparkling and smart. Instead, I choked over the first syllable and Herbert mocked my stutter to great acclaim. I tried to laugh it off, though it felt like pins in my heart. In back-handed consolation, Tooley handed me a jug of his concoction, raw alcohol spiced with nutmeg and sweetened with cane sugar.
“Mighty fine tonic, huh?” he said, chuckling. I winked at him as I took a burning sip. “Surely you’ll find a verse or two within it.”
I soon became the center of their song, P.F. the flailing, witless dandy doomed to misadventure by his inexperience. It was not unlike my last lunch at the Academy. My disgrace, you must understand, was thorough. Every man I had once called friend shared in the barbs and I bore them the best I could, sitting there at the long cafe table — out of pride or cowardice, I cannot be sure — as they asked me the crudest things: whether my dear Essa growled in our bed, whether she ate meat raw, if her private hair was as coarse and woolly as that on her head. They only embarrassed themselves. As if any one of them understood love.
But the parallels ‘tween the bonfire and that penultimate day do not end there. Just as Wyndham sent down a respected professor to escort me to his office, Captain Longbaugh stepped into our fire-circle with two more spitted fish, large as Easter hams. He passed them down to much fanfare, one of the Tunisians even catching his espadrilles on fire as he danced through the coals.
“A fine meal for those at sea,” Longbaugh said. “But more than our gullets could capacitate.”
But, as Wyndham’s underling had done, Longbaugh tapped me on the shoulder to loose me from the mock and revelry. His words so familiar:
“Much things we’d like to discuss with you, young Chesterfield.”
And as on that day, my humiliation became fear. Up in Wyndham’s dim office, the lord of our Academy sat with his shoulders slumped in fatherly disappointment. I had been habitually lying about an illness, some foul infection or another, so that I could rest through the morning sessions after sleep-less nights with my Essa down in the slums. But on that morning, an informant had witnessed me slinking back into the dormitory and, of course, reported my dishonesty to Wyndham. It only took him a few hours to tap into the rumor-mill and discover the common gossip about me. For nearly an hour, I was scolded for corrupting my fellows — they think of those like Essa as something other than children of God, you see — and disgracing the institution. Finally, I was called a liar and my name was scratched from the rolls. Writing this now, I realize that was the moment I began to loathe myself for my imagination, for thinking I could raconteur my way around scandal. I must have promised, somewhere deep within, to never again make such a leap.
With this cruel lesson in authority, I expected some similar inquisition from the Captain. Not expulsion, certainly, but a blackguarding, a calling-out and cross-examination.
“You don’t quite fit in amongst them, do you?” Longbaugh said as I sat across the fire from him, Brawley to my left and Fang to my right.
“Aye, the boys have little use for lily-livered whelps, do they?” Brawley said.
The Captain put up a hand to quell this and Brawley cracked his knuckles.
“I just mean, sir, that Chesterfield here. Well, he hardly pulls his weight, does he?”
“That’s preposterous,” I argued. Drunk, indeed, but the truth scarcely closer to my lips. “I’m up before the rest of the crew, save you gentleman, and I’ve learned quickly, by my estimate. I don’t complain or argue, I scarcely drink . . .”
“Captain didn’t bring you aboard so you could swab the decks in respectable time,” Brawley said.
“Shht. Shhhht. P.F. will not disappoint us, gentlemen. I can tell you that.”
“Sir, if I might then ask,” I said, all about the fire they looked at me. “What did you bring me aboard for?”
The Captain scrutinized the fire with squinted eyes and bit his lip:
“Tell me, Chesterfield, what do you make of this atoll? We’ve been discussing askance arrival, the three of us, and no conjuration seems adequate.”
I held a laugh at the Captain’s high-aiming language, and the question struck me fiercely: does he always speak this way? Or does he hope to impress me, the lowly learned tar?
“Aye,” Fang said. “You’re an educated sod. Tell us what you make of the bones and fixins’.”
I hesitated, trying my best to put on a thoughtful air as I withdrew my tobacco pouch to work a cigarette. In drunkenness, I’ve found, men can redeem themselves or affix forever the stamp of a fool. I thought of Essa, even gave a small prayer to her for strength and wit. All they ask for is a yarn: “She was a Dutch slaver. My guess is we’re only a few hundred leagues off that savage coast. They must have been shipwrecked here and made their best to get along.”
“We’re not dolts, Chesterfield,” Brawley said, and snatched the tobacco pouch from my lap. “The Captain asks what you make of how they lived, what did they — ”
“The little one,” the Captain interrupted. “What do you make of the child?”
I stuttered trying to find an entry point, looking into the dark beyond the reach of the fire and feeling her out there somewhere.
“The boy was born on this island.”
“Born here you say?”
And thus I’d found a thread to pull. Licking the cigarette, I launched in:
“Yes. The woman you see laid-out like an Egyptian. She was his mother, gave birth to him at the island’s highest point.”
Brawley tossed the pouch back. It struck me on the forehead and fell into my lap.
“She was the only slave to survive that fateful night. The child’s father, though a Dutchman . . . his bones are not to be found amongst these.”
“How did they wreck?” Fang said.
And the Captain: “Was it a beast that felled them? I’ve seen rubbery testicles as thick as a mizzen-mast.”
I raised my hand for silence. The story threatened to be lost in their rabble before I could begin, but the questions bade well for their attention.
“If you’ll allow me, I’ll start at the beginning,” I said, lighting my cigarette on our bonfire. “But it’ll benefit the telling for me to have a spot of your drink.”
The men looked at each other, how boyish they can seem, and after a long pause with only the crackle of the fire and the ongoing song behind us, Longbaugh finally nodded to Brawley. A leather flask was produced and handed over.
“The Captain’s secret, you understand.”
I took up the vessel slowly, stitching together their questions into a tale. But as in good dramaturgy, my stalling appeared as flair. I tilted my head back and took a long drink of that golden potion. Above us, all the stars of the universe written majestic there. The effects of the drink dropped anchor before I could even wipe my mouth: translucence, transcendence, the epic waiting to be told. The men were waiting on me as they must have once waited hungrily for their mothers to dole out sweets.
“On that night, the ship had been wandering for days. The sextant, you see, had been broken during a failed uprising of the slaves and the seas had become windless, the water as flat as glass. The child’s father was a deckhand of unremarkable heritage with the common name of Jan. Like many who travel the seas, he had dreams of playing a larger part in the world, but he’d yet to find a foothold. He’d seen one thing on this journey that excited daring in him, however, the dark skin of our revered queen . . . Essa, he called her. One night, with the ship stalled, and the crew idle, Jan roused under a full moon and stole into the ship’s lowest chambers to unlock her chains.”
“The scoundrel!” Fang laughed. “He was f’in to bugger her right there amongst the abbos?”
“Certainly he hoped to, for he’d seen her naked form and dreamt nights of her. She was ample-bosomed, you see, strong-legged, devil-eyed. But in his dreams, he was a member of her people, living in peace under the savannah sun, raising children, living simply. The strange songs she hummed, even as she was chained down and beaten, made a wonderer of our Jan. He thought she’d count him her savior if he freed her for even a moment. But, alas, she believed he’d undone her bondage only to lovelessly plunge her loins.” Here Fang snickered and I grinned at him. Oh, Essa. Forgive me? “She cowered and scrambled over the others and clawed and kicked. A palling problem for Jan, and one he’d never considered in his most unbridled fantasy.”
“Losing himself over a woman,” Brawley said, shaking his head. “He truly was a Dutchman.”
“Aye. And our man tried to re-shackle her, as the mood of rebellion amongst the property had put the captain on alert. Any troublesome slave was to be thrown to the sharks. As they wrestled, Jan heard the hatch open and the chamber flooded with moonlight.”
Longbaugh leaned forward, eyes wide. I stood and began to gesture hugely. Flair, you see, performance.
“But at this moment, a kind of miracle occurred. With a crewman climbing down to administer to the ruckus, something bumped into the hull and the ship listed hard to port. Then hard to starboard. Then she was lifted out of the water and dropped heavily back again.”
“What was it?” Longbaugh asked. “What saved our man?”
“One of the countless beasts of the sea. A kraken with twelve long arms, thick as tree trunks, and a beak as sharp as any tool of man.”
“My God,” Longbaugh said.
“Yes. The ship was pulled under and dashed against rocks. The poor slaves chained to the shattered ship floor sank perilously to the bottom.” I pointed out to the sea. “And there their bones remain. Many of the crewman, floating in the wreckage, were plucked by the beast and popped into its horrible mouth like so many husked nuts.”
“How could any man survive such a calamity?” Brawley jeered.
“This tiny island saved those who proved too much for the beast’s hunger. What remained whole of the ship beached here and Jan, half-drowned, awoke coughing up seawater. For a moment, he believed himself alone and wept under the full moon at the loss of his beloved Essa.”
“But you said . . .”
I raised a hand and drank deep from the flask.
“An hour passed. The survivors washing up on shore nearly dead. But they were all strong men of the sea, and so they vivified and collected their wits. Jan circled the island shouting for Essa, but it seemed as though she’d met the same fate as the others. Then, as the swollen moon sunk into the ocean, finally, she crawled ashore. Draped in seaweed, hacking foam, yet no catastrophe could detract from her beauty. Jan rushed to her and embraced her on this very spot. Though the inevitable was merely delayed, she knew it was this man alone who’d saved her from doom.”
“The boy was conceived that night?” Longbaugh asked, and I shook my head.
“Even indebted, white men terrified her. By morning, the crew had salvaged some foodstuffs and materials from the wreck. And even though their world had been torn asunder, Essa remained a slave and the men heaped tasks on her. She complied, knowing they’d keep her alive if she proved useful. Moreover, she was adept at gritting her teeth and living off the land.”
Here I took a final swallow of the Captain’s salve and handed the flask to Brawley. I commenced the second act by sitting again, adopting a more solemn tone. Essa, consider this tribute to your coy love.
“To show his affection, Jan attended to her at every chore: boiling water and wringing the still rag, forging charcoal from ship-wood and the men’s leavings, weaving bird feathers into sun-shelters and clothing. Months transpired in this fashion, and the two of them found a rhythm that granted them some scant luxury.”
“On this hellish rock?” Brawley crowed.
“A man with wits can make all the earth his mistress,” I said, from nowhere. Some text I’ve read? “In the sixth month, innumerable storms survived, times of feast and famine, Jan finally learned enough of her language to tell a simple joke and she laughed for the first time in two long seasons. Laughed for hours, her undiminished bosom rising and falling, until the cook-fire snuffed out and darkness fell. She took him by the hand and led him to the spot where she slept.”
“How did they do it?” Fang yelped, standing up and feigning relations from the rear. “Like this, was it?” And then he flung himself to the ground and thrust his hips skyward with an imaginary Essa bouncing atop him. “Or like this?”
“How in hell would Chesterfield know something like that?” Longbaugh snapped. “Don’t be pituitary, Fang.”
I tried to keep my stride. Although dizzy with drink, the tale was now clear to me:
“That night, the child was conceived. Three months passed and the hump of her belly could not be denied. In this brutish false-world, there could be no greater joy for Jan. He’d never known love, and now he was to be a father. Out of devotion, he worked to take her duties for his own. He kept her well-fed and comfortable as another month passed, and another. But as her belly swelled, a member of the crew became angry and unreasonable.”
“The bloody fool was just jealous,” Fang put in. “They all wanted that sweet fruit.”
“Aye, but his jealousy was that of a schoolboy.” Here I stood again and Brawley handed me the perfect cylinder of a fresh cigarette.“His name was Ulf, which to us means ‘Wolf’. He was a man six hands wide if he was a hairsbreadth, and like our Captain his face bore the telling scars of a life daringly led. Though he too lusted for Essa, he was quick to involve far-off morals and scold Jan for diddling a savage. He grew angrier as she grew larger and Jan worried endlessly about the troubles that would arrive on his child’s birth day.
“Nonetheless, the day finally came. And a beautiful boy — a pleasing combination of Jan’s pearlescent white and Essa’s darkness — was born amid the chaos of a spring squall. When she recovered, Jan moved his family to the furthest corner of the island, but Ulf always watched them. As the boy grew, he accosted Jan often, blacking his eyes in brief fisticuffs, or, at night, stealing from their small harvests of fish and destroying their traps. And yet, the boy, Malcolm, grew up curious and strong and Jan took to teaching the child what was worth knowing: mathematics, the rudiments of writing with the few materials on hand. But as he wished to avoid instilling false hopes, or upset the child with notions of a more expansive life, Jan told a litany of noble lies. He crafted a new religion out of whole cloth and detailed it so rigorously he almost believed it himself. Six or seven years now growing old on this island . . .”
“Our Yawn was an orpentatious fellow,” Longbaugh said, emptying the flask. “What was this hearsay of his?”
“Orpentatious indeed. Very insightful Captain. He told the boy that all life came from one of the many shooting stars they’d see on certain nights. That the only land on this earth was their narrow rock and, as the intent of life was to cover the world completely, beasts had crawled from the water and here learned to breathe air and walk like men.”
“What tripe!” Brawley said, but this complaint jocular where others had been harsh.
“Brilliant apothecary for a marooned boy to believe!” the Captain said.
It was then I noticed how far the other fire had dwindled. Herbert, Tooley, and some of the others had wandered nearer our fire to stand quietly and listen. The Captain’s queer compliment could not but raise my standing.
“Aye, and it gave the boy some purpose. To be one of a dozen, and looking like none of them, is a special role indeed. But the Wolf did his best to disrupt Jan’s lessons. He’d contradict instructions as to the alphabet and spelling, give false names for things. He told the boy that any day now a ship would be along to take them back to society, which he painted in grand colors and with beautiful lies.”
“Why didn’t Jan kill this man?” Brawley said. “Crack him over the head with a rock?”
“He would have, perhaps, but Jan wanted the boy to be singular in character and true to the best of men. Leastways, Ulf was a creature of indomitable strength and a cunning for violence. It was vicious times. Only the reasonable minds of Jan’s friends kept Ulf contained as his lust and rage grew.”
“Aye, rules are for the men who need them,” Fang put in, looking to the Captain. “But a decade ‘thout a lass beneath ye will make the best of us desperate.”
“Indeed, Mr. Fang. And they were hardly men anymore, so long removed from comfort and civility. They lived like the crew of a certain ship I see moored there beyond the break.”
Here a pleasant laugh, you see. I smiled a small, reserved smile at my audience and continued:
“In Malcolm’s thirteenth year, a long retired obsession with rescue came back to the Wolf. He began stomping around the island claiming that God had forsaken them for Jan’s dalliance and that any ship that might happen upon them would speed away in disgust at his miscegenation.”
“What’s that mean?” Brawley whispered to the Captain, trying not to interrupt.
“Another word for poor seamanship,” Longbaugh answered. I nearly corrected him, so high did I feel I was beginning to climb, but I was coming to the climax and thought it best to keep the Captain where he was.
“The Wolf’s insanity grew. And he crossed a threshold that put him down among the beasts: he threatened to kill the boy.”
“The bastard,” Longbaugh said, and then covered his mouth in apology. I could feel the rest of the crew behind me, their shifting feet and rustling clothes. No time now to lose hold.
“Jan and the others kept strict eyes on the Wolf. But in a cruel sense of indignity, the true tragedy of this tale was bound up in his threat.”
“He killed the boy?” from both the Captain and Brawley, Fang wringing his hands.
“It’s not a simple sentence that circumscribes it. But our tale is nearly at an end. One morning, a ship appeared on the horizon.”
“But they were not rescued!”
“No man worth his salt could leave them to die simply because — ”
“Aye. They were not rescued. But a boat appeared. The island erupted in jubilation, songs sung they’d nearly forgotten. Recall, this is fourteen years gone by. Several of the men having succumbed to illness or injury, all of them gone greyer and gaunter, and yet the sight of this ship made their long ordeal seem as fleeting as a dream. They piled seaweed on their fire to create a great black plume. The men danced arm-in-arm and waved their rags as though surrendering to the heavens.”
I imitated this for the gathered men, Fang clapping out time for my lanky jig and Brawley laughing. Then I stood stock-still and crouched menacingly, preparing myself to play-act this final scene.
“But the Wolf was terrified, you see. He ran about the island screaming: ‘The boy must die! He must be killed and his body hidden!’ Finally, as the boat crept closer to their island, now virtually afire with the signal blaze, Ulf attacked Malcolm, who was simply squatting in the dirt and drawing the ship with a splinter. He thought it was some strange whale come to whisk them away in its belly, a friendly creature with billowing cheeks and gleaming eyes. Ulf tore away his utensil and tackled him to the ground.”
Brawley yelled out: “Oughta kick the beast in the balls!”
“Aye. And Malcolm did, kicked him with all his boyish might and ran to the other side of the island. But, look around — nowhere to hide, nowhere to flee, and the Wolf staggered after him. Jan was caught up as any in the hailing of their rescue — oh, how he wanted to show his son the world and live somewhere in peace with Essa — Ulf caught the boy and pinned him. He found some discarded piece of the ship and raised it high and slammed it into the boy’s skull. Again and again until he’d broken through and the boy’s blood ran onto the ground.”
All the men gasped. Brawley put his grimy thumb between his teeth.
“The son of a bitch,” Longbaugh said, covering his face. “I pray Yawn found some redistribution.”
“Aye. The time for diplomacy had ended. With the boy bleeding at their feet and the rescue ship growing close enough to see the men aboard, Jan and Ulf screamed at one another with all their remaining strength. Essa cried as if in seizure, but then rage overcame her. Her long patience finally broke. She snuck behind the Wolf and looped a length of seaweed ‘round his throat. Jan saw his opportunity and, raising high the same piece of wood that killed his son, he smashed the Wolf’s broad, ogrish nose.”
Shouts of “hooray!” amongst the men.
“Again and again,” I cried, mimicking each strike with a great swing of both arms. “Jan hit him until the Wolf’s face was indistinguishable. Bludgeoned him beyond sense until the beast’s chest rose and fell a final time.”
I stopped, silent except my heavy breathing. Many of the men seemed satisfied with this end, but Longbaugh shushed and spoke through them:
“What of their rescue?”
“Ah, Captain, a savvy audience you provide. In this is the tale’s final heartbreak. With Ulf dead, and Malcolm deader — the blood from their wounds mingling on the island ground, Essa embraced her Jan and they looked out to sea. But the ship, their savior brigantine, had disappeared completely.”
Gasps and declamations among the crew like those that must have rippled through my doomed survivors.
Fang wanted to know if it was a ghost ship, he’d seen one off the American coast and claimed a man could glass right through her.
“No ghost ship,” I continued, the chatter going back to silence at my words. How attentive they truly were despite their drunkenness. “But Fata Morgana, with a name never more appropriate.”
“What’s that?” Brawley whispered to the Captain.
“A disease wrought by whores — ”
“Fata morgana is a mirage. A reflection in the atmosphere that projects images hundreds of miles. It was little more than a kink in the system of the world, and yet it had brought their eon of skimp living across the brink of savagery.”
“And what became of Essa, what became of Yawn?” the Captain asked, sounding well-nigh desperate for closure.
“They held each other and sat weeping until the sun set low and burning in the sky. The next day, Essa would not eat or speak. In a week’s time, Jan, heartbroken in a way few men can imagine, began to fabricate her funeral dress in the method she had taught him.”
“Aye, and there she lays,” Fang said, wiping at his eye and gesturing past the gathering. Herbert clapped a hand to our giant’s shoulder, and even the demon etched on his scalp seemed fraught with melancholy.
“There she lies. Yes. And after she passed, Jan could not go on. He fought off his fellow survivors and waded out into the briny deep with heavy chains about his ankles and stones in his clenched fists. The last thing he saw was this scarred rock — the garden of his greatest joys and desert of his deepest tragedy. The few men left waved to him as he sunk beneath the wash.”
That was the end of my story. The fire had grown low, unnoticed, and I looked from man to man with satisfaction. Each seemed to consider the dying embers, thinking, perhaps, of some lost love or some tender silhouette they’d left behind. Tooley poured the last drops of his tonic to the ground and pitched the container into the sea. I could not but think of my Essa, pining for me in her squalid cell. I will return strong enough this time to fend off the world’s ignorances and wolves, but now I fear I may truly love the sea.
“A grand tale,” Longbaugh said as he stood and extended a hand over the fire. I took it greedily, like a morsel of fruit. “I’m convinced every word of it is true.”
The men sighed, clapped a few soft claps, and began to lay down spare sailcloth and bags of grain to sleep on. Brawley too shook my hand, and Fang gave me a great suffocating embrace. As I laid out, groggy and dry-mouthed, but pleased with that enormous sky woven above me, I heard Longbaugh talking to the Tunisians. They were to sleep in shifts, he told them, for the ship must be watched through the night — lest it disappear like the Fata Morgana. The island fell into snores and, safe in my breeches, I found a dream of Essa in that most hypnotic sound — waves against the shore.