The Surfacing (9 page)

She lay on the bed, letting the news take her in its grip, tightening, to a perfect
fit. He could see she wanted to celebrate, but did not dare. It was still too early.
It was still not too late for everything to go back to how it had been before, as
though the ship had never returned to Disko. Determined to keep that possibility
behind her, she kept staring into the far distance, did not dare turn her head. She
had not yet heard the gates clank shut behind her back.

What else did he say? Morgan said.

He asked me how is the father.

And what did you tell him?

I told him you were quite well, as far as I knew.

He wanted to take a bow. Not
a
but
the
father. It put him up on a stage. It gave
him an audience, called for a performance, that would be judged.

DeHaven laid down his cards, and did not dare explain. Morgan stared at them in silence,
with a puzzled look. He seemed not to understand. There seemed to have been some
mistake. There was no appeal possible, of course. Fin de partie, Cabot said, apparently
pleased, because for him there was nothing at stake. But Morgan was physically sickened
and dismayed. This was sudden, unexpected proof of his own mortality.

DeHaven reached wide his arm and gathered all the cards to himself, properly tidied
and stacked, and began to shuffle the deck. He worked devoutly, and neither Cabot
nor Morgan dared interrupt.

She would have made a fine wife for a man, DeHaven said, watching his own hands at
work.

I have a wife, Morgan said.

And still DeHaven was shuffling. For a full minute and more he refused to look up,
as though he did not quite trust his own hands not to fumble or cheat.

Myer wonders if she's not a little mad, DeHaven said.

She hoards it well enough, if she is, Morgan said.

The hands began to share out the cards. The thing was done with a lazy, sinister
proficiency – the movements quick and fluid, but ridiculously precise. Morgan watched
the fingers suspiciously. They did not appear to be under control, but there was
no doubt that this was their proper work. The entire performance – the entire scene
– had been practised to perfection, seemed inevitable.

Afterwards, in his bed, Morgan wrote up his private journal for the day, and refused
to mention her. This morning, he
wrote, we found the canal cleared yesterday afternoon
covered with a kind of thin paste. I invited Myer to come and look at it, but he
declined. Day after day we haul and warp through a thickening stew, and only our
captain seems not to notice the change. He has not the courage to concede defeat,
and there is no greater guarantee, I believe, that we will never reach Beechey. I
now look the thing in the face, with all the serenity I can muster, he wrote. We
are condemned to pass the winter here in the heart of The Pack. With her, he wanted
to write – with everything her presence and condition entailed. Myer, he wrote, insists
there continues fair ground for hope. He says we cannot possibly stay ice-bound until
the searching season had passed. Such appears to be the full reach of our commander's
logic, namely, that matters as they stand do not quite suit his convenience, and
must therefore change. He continues to hope for some unseasonal thaw, or some great
commotion, that will liberate without destroying us. The man has great faults, but
I think I am beginning to be jealous of his tenacity.

23rd August

He was up in the Crow's Nest, scouring again. A little earlier he'd seen something
very like mist to the northwest. Mist meant water, in the normal run of things. They
called it a water-sky. That would be Cape York, according to the charts. But it was
too perfect, and he told no one. It was exactly the thing they were all waiting to
see.

Eighty-five feet below, with sober triumph, Kitty was carrying herself up and down
the deck. Her evening constitutional,
that DeHaven had prescribed. Morgan studied
her through the glass. Of the few dresses she'd brought, this was his favourite –
well cut, and now quite tight. She seemed to have put on a little weight, and every
ounce to her benefit.

She was chatting to Brooks now, and Morgan could hear every word. At first there
were polite, reheated inquiries about where Brooks came from, how long he'd been
at sea, and so on. Morgan was listening zealously, letting her voice do to him whatever
it wanted to do. He let it warm and sway, and didn't resist.

You were never on the
Kronprindsesse
, Brooks told her.

Wasn't I? she said.

No, he said. The
Kronprindsesse
went down off Upernavik, not off Baal's River. Nor
was it the year you came out.

Indeed, she said. What is your point?

My point is, you were never on a sinking ship. You don't know the first thing about
life in the ice.

My story had its effect, did it not?

It did.

And there was nothing in it that was not true, as to the dangers of the ice?

No.

Well then, what does it matter whether I saw it myself or not? Can you even imagine
how many times I had to listen to the whalers bragging about the like?

From the galley door, Cabot watched her go. He watched her bend through the hatch.
Every stretch, of every stitch. Through the glass, Morgan read the man's face, staring
mournfully at where she'd been. The ramshackle smile he'd used to greet her had long
since fallen away.

24th August

The days were fine, with light winds from the south. These of course packed the ice
tighter still. In the evening, from out on the floe, came the polite pop of ball
against bat. Tonight again, Morgan was practising his French with Cabot. They watched
Petersen coming in. He had rigged himself a harness, was trailing a young seal. He
staggered past, leaving a tattered red thread behind him on the ice.

The liver, fried with bacon, Cabot said. He looked astonished. He closed his eyes
and puckered his lips.

The next day Morgan asked Petersen if he might come along. But the man seemed to
take it as an order, and Morgan was obliged to carry the rope and the grappling hook,
to show it was not so. A mile from the ship, not a seal in sight, Petersen suddenly
stopped and turned to face him. He brought his fist up against Morgan's chest. The
arm jerked and thumped Morgan at the heart. Here, no good, he said. This was the
first lesson, apparently. In the beef, he said, you lose a bullet, you lose a seal.
But here, good. He raised the same hand, index finger extended, and touched the tip
between Morgan's eyes. The gesture was a priestly one, an ordination. The pressure
grew, but Morgan stiffened his neck, refused to cede even an inch. Then, with a jab
of his arm, Petersen sent the ship's second sprawling backward, flailing.

They pushed on farther from the ship than Morgan had ever gone before. Finally, they
squatted down in the lee of a hummock, by a fresh ice-hole. Petersen squatted down
onto his hunkers. He had drawn his knife from his belt, was holding it point and
handle and scraping the flat of the blade over and across the ice, as on a whetstone.
This was a seal's flipper, apparently, scraping out a hole. After two or three minutes
of that, he took up his length of bamboo. He slid one end into the ice-hole, put
the other to his mouth. Much like a spoiled child, he began to whine.

Come on up, Morgan said nicely. Just for a second. Just for a little look. It's a
wonderful world up here.

They waited almost an hour for the first one to appear. The young face was quite
human, even to the tear-filled eyes. Morgan settled his stock, lined his sights,
and pulled the trigger. It seems so easy, he thought, if you have the patience. The
bullet went straight through the head, and it popped like a balloon.

Cabot says the liver can be quite a delicacy, if cooked right, Morgan said.

Petersen stopped what he was at with the grappling hook, and looked around. Cooked?
he said. One day you will eat it raw, if you can get it. All of you.

26th August

They finally gained the sheet of water Myer had taken to calling The Lake. Up in
the yards the sailors were roaring bawdily to each other, like sailors coming into
port. Morgan made a point of timing how long before they touched the ice on the far
side. 110 seconds of sail, he wrote. He had not been counting the seconds up, but
counting them down. He wrote the figure where it belonged. He closed his chronometer,
closed his notebook, and went to the bow to watch. Myer was already dancing about
below.

He watched his captain thrashing at the ice with a steering-oar. The man was a lunatic.
Suddenly, the lunatic disappeared. Where he'd stood just seconds before, there was
now only a dented hat. The men stood looking in silence at that sacred spot. Finally
Brooks bent to lift it up, to see was there anything underneath.

That night Morgan spent the whole of his watch aloft, searching the northern horizon
again, until his eyes were full
of water. He let down the glass, and with the naked
eye saw something the size of the moon branded into the sky. What it was he could
not tell. He came off his watch at four tingling with fatigue. He could not remember
when last he'd had a good, full night's sleep. It was the unfailing light. All day
now he felt as though he'd been drinking strong coffee, and too much of it. His skin
felt shrunken, tight, like the skin of a smaller man.

On his bunk, he turned his face to the wall, shut his eyes, let slip the moorings,
and begged the current to draw him away. But even with his eyes closed and his back
turned, he could not ignore the light. He could feel it coming for him. This past
week, coming off the middle watch it was always the same. Myer had ordered the hatches
and bull's-eyes all left open, and by the time Morgan lay down a grey mould was already
creeping over the floor. By now it would be creeping up the walls, up the legs of
the bed. By now the rind of light about the cabin door would be grown to a brilliant
thrill. He knew well how it would end. Soon or later the bell would strike, and boots
would march across the deck. He would hear them march down the ladder, and along
the corridor. He would hear the door-handle turn, and the light would come flooding
in.

27th August

Cabot came carrying the breakfast plates to their table. Morgan could see he had
something he wanted to say. Even after they'd finished eating, Morgan and DeHaven
lingered, until Cabot came back to clear up.

Put your goggles, Cabot told them quietly. And come.

He led them back to the edge of The Lake.

Watch, he said.

He took a coin from his pocket, bent low and flung it away. They watched it skip
neatly over the water. The thing was well launched, and the life in it refused to
die. In the end it stuttered and failed, but did not disappear. It lay there on the
surface. Cabot stood grinning, proud. The ripples settled. Morgan crouched down for
a closer look. Beneath the bright veneer, there was young ice.

It was the proof he'd been waiting for. The gates were closing, one by one.

The next evening, DeHaven and Morgan and Kitty went to watch the men skate over The
Lake, where The Lake had been, where the ice was least likely to hold them. They
were playing tickly-benders. The rules were simple. A leader skated over a thin patch
and if he managed to cross without a collapse cried ‘I survive!' The brave followed.
The more men passed over it, the weaker the ice became.

More light than heat, DeHaven liked to say, and he was not wrong.

She touched her boot to the surface, in a half-hearted test.

It's perfectly safe, Morgan said.

Why so are you not out there?

As though to prevent her from falling, he gently took hold of her arm. The grip tightened.
He began to push, to pull. The soles of her boots were scraping along the edge. DeHaven
was smiling. He looked as happy as he'd ever been. She let her legs buckle and let
herself sag, but instantly both men had their arms under her, to lift her up. They
swung her back and forth. She hung weightless at the top of the arc.

She sat panting. Morgan was afraid she was going to cry. They watched her tramping
sullenly back to the ship.

She spends too much time in her cabin, DeHaven said.

She's making herself a whole new set of clothes. What for, I don't know. I haven't
seen the slightest change. Sometimes I wonder if she isn't just pulling our leg.

It won't be long coming, DeHaven said. Eight weeks next week. What he meant was,
it was almost time to examine her again.

I'll take your word for it, Morgan said.

I'm simply going by the dates she's given me, DeHaven said. He was offering Morgan
a chance to contradict, to withdraw.

Morgan made no answer. He refused to regret or protest. It was still far too early
in his mind. There was still too far to go.

Yet when he went later to call her for dinner, the clothes were all laid out on the
bed, on display. They were not all the same size. They were for now, and for later.
They had a story to tell. I see you've been working, he said. And before he could
object she was in her shift, shuffling one of them over her head. It was in the Empire
style, flaring loosely from under the bosom, with plenty of room farther down. She
took a cushion from the bed and slid it up under the dress, paraded her new self
across the cabin, those few little steps, and back again.

29th August

It was mid-afternoon. On the other side of the wall, in their tiny washroom, she
was taking a bath. He could hear the water rattling against the sides of the tub.
It seemed to him he'd not heard the splashing of water in an age, since Disko.

The hatches were open, Cabot had a lump of bear in his oven, and the smell of roasting
rosemary and fat was rampaging through the ship, would ambush her as soon as she
opened the washroom door. In it there was nothing she could
complain of. It was the
smell of Sunday roasts, of Christmas, of home.