Authors: Luke Rhinehart

Long Voyage Back (57 page)

BOOK: Long Voyage Back

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`Save it for the barbecue,' said Neil. 'Save everything good. Tomorrow we'll share every bit of food we have so we can start from scratch.'

`Bit mad, I suppose,' said Philip, still smiling. 'Still, it beats hoarding . . Jim was the official messenger and he spoke first to their little Chilean guide, who nodded and looked pleased and hurried away to tell his friends. But the Dutch were confused and wary. 'You want to share your food with us?' the oldest Dutchman asked, frowning.

`Yes,' said Jim. 'But ... but we only have a little beef. We . . . don't have much else to eat or drink. It's . .

Ìt's what you call "potluck", no?' the Dutchman said, smiling. Ànd "bring your own bottle",' added another, also smiling.

:Yeah, I guess so,' said Jim. 'But you don't have to bring anything . .

`Well, we come,' said the oldest Dutchman. 'We come with much thanks.'

The Rumanians were even more dumbfounded. Jim could sense that they suspected some trap. They had greeted him with their rifles at port arms. They whispered together in Rumanian, glancing at him nervously.

`Why do you do this?' asked the Rumanian ship's captain after he finally understood Jim'

s invitation. 'You have much food?'

`No,' said Jim. 'But . . . we want . . . we decided . . . to share what we have . .

`You want us to share our food too, no?'

Jim frowned. 'We want to share our food with you,' he finally said. 'It seems . . . right to us. That's all.'

`We bring our guns?'

Ì guess so,' Jim replied. 'We don't have any guns.' Àh ... no guns . .

`We'd . . . be honoured if you'd come and eat with us,' Jim repeated.

`Honoured, yes,' echoed the Rumanian, looking puzzled. `Well, maybe we come. We see.'

`Two o'clock,' said Jim.

`Two o'clock, yes. Well . . . And meat, you say. Well .. . M honour . . . yes . . . Maybe we come.'

And so at two o'clock the next afternoon the five Dutch and seven Rumanians and twelve Chileans came. The Dutch and Rumanians approached as warily as if coming to a minefield. The Chileans, already accepting the weirdness of their latest visitors, came fearlessly. The Dutch brought their last flask of Flemish wine and a specially baked loaf of bread - their first in a week. The Rumanians brought a tiny tin - their last - of caviar, and a freshly caught and baked fish. The Chileans brought a basket of corn and some of their homemade wine. No one brought guns.

And they ate. And though each was limited to a small cup of wine and a single cob of corn, and a few bites of tough, stringy meat, they ate happily. And slowly, very slowly, it began to dawn on each of Vagabond's survivors that they might live. For Neil it was the experience of the friendliness of the Chileans and the Dutch and the Rumanians, expressed primarily in exaggerated gestures of delight at the feast and continual smiles, that made him realize that some deep part of him had begun to feel he would be fleeing and on the edge of death forever. Now the act of sharing the treasured bit of Flemish wine with Jacob and his friends, and a pipeful of tobacco with one of the Rumanians, altered his world view. Running, at long last, was over. The Rumanians and Dutch had decided, like those with Vagabond, to remain in the Straits at least through the summer. Although all left in the destroyed city were on starvation rations - Vagabond was now in fact totally out of food - fishing in the Straits was good; there were small animals to be hunted, and spring was now only a few weeks away.

To the north the wars they had fled were presumably continuing. Here, at the bottom of the world, a few survivors had gathered. They still struggled to survive, but now with each other rather than against. It was a small first step on the long voyage back. It was Olly who summed up the new feeling. He came up to Neil and Jeanne after an hour of feasting and mingling and unfolding his monologues with the two dozen strangers, few of whom understood a word he was saying but who laughed giddily anyway. There were tears in his eyes.

Ì been feeling funny,' he said to them, 'and I think I finally figured out what it is . . .' He looked up at them, a laughing skeleton. 'I may have to get used to living again . .

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