That Savage Water (11 page)

One of the older men first recognized it, the circular leaf roundel of the Royal Canadian Air Force. He confirmed with a few of his friends whose opinion he knew counted for something: The fuselage of a F4F Wildcat, completely intact but for the tip of the left wing.

The men pondered a while and then surmised that after running out of fuel the pilot had crashed onto an ice shelf sometime during the end of the war. After three decades of snow had compressed into ice, the chunk had broken off the shelf and floated the entire plane in its crystal case into Rankin. When the melt would allow, the villagers would drag the plane free of the ice and tow it to shore.

Do you think the pilot froze too? – a child with a maroon scarf wondered.

I hope there's something valuable inside – said another.

Connor remembered the story as being one that his granddad had enjoyed telling him time and again. As a kid, Connor couldn't get enough of it. He had pictured the iceberg in the moonlight as a towering black void with a tail fin. Once, he'd even dreamt he'd swum out, climbed to the top of it and stared at the pilot's pale, frozen face. He'd woken and wondered what other gifts might be delivered by icebergs.

Connor dried his hair and then the mirror with the motel's bleach-roughened towel. There was something about the look of the man staring back at him in the fog-wiped reflection that made him move the fingers of his right hand to his mouth and chew their nails to the quick. He hated the habit but it did something to soften the purr of anxiety that had started in the pit of his gut since Jan had called him from the police station. Jan's pickup was just pulling into the space in front of the motel room when Connor finally left the bathroom. He pulled on his boxers and huddled behind the door out of the cold as Jan stepped in. His lips were drawn into his mouth and he brought his cigarette inside without a second thought.

The police said they would try to follow the trail – Jan said – but the males move quickly. There's no use going out to hunt for the body.

Jan stood with the smoking cigarette down at his side. He felt strange suddenly being indoors now, a sense of confinement that began to work its way across his body like the surface of a lake whose water was beginning to freeze.

That's a really shitty thing – Connor said – Do you want to go out and grab a beer or something? Do you want to sit?

Yeah, thanks – Jan took a drag from his smoke and sat on the edge of the mattress – I mean, I've heard of them getting at people before. Just didn't think I'd see it.

Still holding his damp towel, Connor sat on the bed beside Jan. It made Connor uncomfortable watching another man in the moments following something like this. Selfishly, it was more that he didn't like how he looked trying to comfort someone than it was that the other was suffering. Those were the parts of people Connor didn't really care to know about and he stared in silence at bed sheets and their pairs of legs lined up in a row. His bare thighs were the kind of pale that reminded him of when he was a boy and at summer's end his crotch would be white in the shape of his swim trunks. He imagined the polar bear's jaw clamping onto the leg's large muscle, tearing off a chunk with a sudden twist of its massive head.

You destroyed your fingers – Jan said – What were you aiming for? Bone?

Must have been – Connor studied the nubs of his nails – Just an old habit rearing. Do you feel better at least? It's a wake-up, I guess. That's what hits you most.

I saw it from the hill – Jan said – the thing eating the guy alive out there. And I was watching it while it happened, thinking it was something different.

You did what you could so don't feel bad. Take a shower if you want – Connor wrapped his arm around Jan, pulling his body closer – I'll join you in a minute if you want me to take your mind off it.

Although Connor wanted the normal, impish Jan back, the perturbed look in the man's eyes sparked something inside Connor as close to the pain of love as he'd ever felt. It was a feeling like red smithereens landing inside of him, hot iron. His hand rasped the whiskers on Jan's chin as he moved his face in to kiss him.

Jan's body tightened – Stop, I just need a moment…

Come here then – Connor pulled Jan down to the bed.

The iron feeling had started to sear through him, a metal poker with a blazing orange tip. It was as though he'd been encased in ice his entire life and whatever was inside him had melted through it, exposing its nerve to the air.

Give it a break – Jan said – Not now. I said I need a minute.

Connor felt the force of Jan's hands push back against his shoulders but the burning feeling wouldn't let him stop finding contact with Jan's skin.

…Christ, Connor – Jan growled.

Connor moved his body on top of Jan's, pinning him to the bed with the force of his kisses. The more contact he made, the less painful the iron felt. Touching Jan felt like relief, like ice pressed on a burn. His fingers felt around Jan's crotch for the fly of his pants.

Jan suddenly brought the cap of his knee into impact with Connor's groin, a collision that felt soft and solid at the same time. The other man's reaction began as a sharp intake of air that changed into a series of whimpering moans as Connor rolled his body off him and curled at the corner of the bed.

That love could feel as sickening as a kick in the crotch, as a breath that refused to pull its way down into the lungs, was the newest of the sensations Connor lay there trying to make sense of. He opened his eyes again when he felt the blast of cold hit his face, in time to see Jan's silhouette pause at the open door of the room.

I'm sorry – Jan said – Man, I'm sorry.

And in a moment, he was gone.

Diesel fumes spin from exhaust pipes, vaporous tails in the hot morning air. Autos weave past on the street below already lifting sharp odours of cabbage, market peels, baskets woven from wet grasses. Blistering sun pulls sweat to my forehead, that feeling of being lost I always tried for as a kid and only finally succeeded at. Veneer of sand blown from the beach spread over asphalt. Through the palm trees the ocean rolls, spraying salt into the whole nostril mix of things.

Panaji Hotel rooftop waiting for breakfast with Ari.

Goa.

Ari leans over the concrete railing, peers down at the growling traffic. Shoulders brown as the milk coffee at my lips, tan still glistening with edges of red from yesterday's hike to the hill temple. Climbed together in the heat of the day with one water bottle to share until the top, sweat that dripped from his upper lip onto the plastic opening, handing it to me. Now standing beside a nest of electrical wires pinned to the corner of the building, he says – An army truck down there's unloading bags of onions – turns to the table – What are your plans after this?

Probably head to some smaller beaches for a while. Couple of months maybe. Then Mumbai, Jodhpur, Agra, Kathmandu. Tibet, if money doesn't run out.

And Alexis?

Don't know. I'll stay with her most likely. At least until she's better. You really have to go? Bonderam festival starts in a week. Shame not to go all together, we'd have fun for sure…

No, Cam. Can't do that. Manobhava is only initiating disciples for another three days. If I leave tonight, I can just make it to Jaipur in time. A train from here to Mumbai, Mumbai to Bhopal, and should be a few hours to spare when I get to Jaipur.

And if anything goes wrong?

I've got to try, Cam. You know this is important to me.

Alexis' room smells rusty like sick. Daylight filters between cracks in the orange curtains, dusty air-con sitting broken on the window ledge, her in a dirty white tank top sprawled on the mattress, breathing at least. Wooden door to the bathroom is open so walk across the cool tile, check if her water bucket is empty.

Whisper – I'm going to the end of the hall to fill your bucket. Do you want me to bring you anything? – thinking,
damn this is bad timing
, and her so afraid to drink the sadhu's water in the first place, believing it was full of parasites. Had said – This is a really shit idea, Cam. Look at the water. I don't care if he's holy or not – then the sadhu dipping his cup into the basin, holding it out first to Ari, then me, then a family of Indians as we waited for Alexis to decide. The sadhu's dark eyes and beard, loincloth, painted red forehead and Ari looking at him like he was really incarnate, with that full open stare like he wanted to put himself inside the sadhu's body to feel what it was like to actually live that other person, saying as he watched – What little we can get away with. A cup, a bowl, a stick of incense…
Namaste
– Always that guess inside making you wonder –
what if I just left it all?
– if I abandoned myself, joined that bony sadhu on his mat to meditate until the monsoon, gathered my things like a turtle and camped for ten years in solitude beneath the nearest sandalwood tree? Knowing that's the better choice, but that catch: a barb on a catheter.

Fill bucket from the faucet at end of the hallway, window open out onto the street with sacks of onions being unloaded. Tiny lizard – a soft translucent comma above the tap – then a Sikh man with blue turban stepping out of his room with his bucket. Smell of his oily beard in the heat, like wet coins, wet cardboard. Don't know if I could convince Ari to stay, with the time it takes to get to Jaipur and him feeling all fervently reborn since meeting one of Manobhava's disciples on Miramar beach, a French kid named Gilles whose eyes had said anything but trust me. Alexis and I swimming in the tumble-brown surf while the cattle chewed their cud under the palm trees, Ari standing waist-deep in the shallows with the French kid, saying – This is so interesting, because I've been hoping to find someone who knew a guru. Manobhava, you say, is a good teacher? I'm looking for someone with deep integrity, an open soul… – like a wound or a jar, I wondered. Open shifts into various forms.

Sikh man tilts his enormous beard at the tap, me walking back to Alexis' room with full, sloshing bucket. Don't know if I blame the sadhu entirely, Ari and I both fine after drinking his sanctified water. The mind projects what we already believe. Then her telling that awful news about her failed attempt and Ari saying – Now, that's what I'd have done. Nothing like bumming through India to help you forget your own misery – And Alexis with that look of wanting to say,
shut up, you can't possibly know anything about it
, so I said – Just the next thing. After something like that, just have to do the next, normal thing – That was in Varca where we first met, Alexis' hair in tattered red dreads, pupils black and open, and the sense that she had wandered away from something horrible and was trying her hardest not to remember where it was.

Ari puts on sunglasses – That French kid, Gilles. Such a young guy but he knew so much. It's amazing! He went to Manobhava's ashram in Jaipur at seventeen, left his whole life back in France and said he never looked back.

Is that what he did.

I'm serious, Cam. If he can do it, why shouldn't we? You and I both know this is how we should live. It's just a matter of finding the balls to take the first step.

Thinking,
that's fine for you to say
, then suddenly being hit with such a surge of jealousy that I look away because I know what this is all about, and then with the nerve to talk of finding the balls.
That's fine for you to say.

Indian man, slim with black moustache, brings breakfast plates and sets them on the table. Bead of sweat polishes his jaw on its way down from his brown temple; hesitant smile apologizes for bad English – Okay everything, sir?

Then Ari says he wants another cup of coffee and the man backing away from the table like he's been told by his boss this is how you serve them, no matter what they ask for.

See that? That's the problem right there! We've captured him. I'd get my own goddamn coffee but these structures are in place to prevent me from doing it. I'm talking about leaving all this behind. Manobhava's teachings will take us this direction. I want you to come, Cam. Why not come?

What about Alexis?

I don't know why you take such responsibility for her. Honestly, Cam, she'll be alright. India is full of sick people. Shitty thing, though I'd have run the same way if I was her. But this is about something bigger, Cam. It's a question of priorities.

Priorities. That widening tower built too fragile at the base, tapering outward into a precipice, vertigo, adrenaline of overhang, threatening crack.

It's what you do when someone's sick, Ari. Would be the same for you. But I'm happy for you, I'm sure Manobhava's what you're looking for.

Man with moustache sets coffee on the table.

Well, anyways – slips feet out of his sandals – There's no convincing me otherwise. I'm leaving for Jaipur tonight.

Our bare feet on the concrete nearly touching, rumble of army truck below on the street, that constant friction where our insides meet weather, senses, chances to abandon for good our lives boxed up in storage rooms, everything planned on going back to, vanished.

Not vanished.
Deserted.

How long are you planning to stay there?

A year. Maybe two. I don't know. There's no point staying for less than that. Transforming yourself the way Manobhava teaches isn't some spectator sport. I know how much you like to dip your feet in to gauge the temperature.

You can't blame me for being cautious.

That's it! That's your weakness, you finally admit it. As much as I admire you for everything else, you're too damn cautious.

Precipice. Flailing hooves grasp for purchase on the crumbling rock edge, whole herds falling through mid-air. A shower of wool sprays over the cliff side.