Veracity (54 page)

Yet why? Why is it that peace is something so difficult to achieve? I think of the few times I've experienced something close to it, and realize that it's never been a distinct feeling or insight. I don't really know what it was, but I know that it was there, beneath the surface. Which I think is an accurate description, because I've often had the suspicion that peace was an entity imbedded inside of things, that it was within the overwhelming complexities of nature; in the atoms of chemicals and the structures of plants, in the pulsing of creatures' organs, the interconnectedness of everything that has lived, in the relationship of time to those beings, and to geology, to the asteroids crashing into the earth's surface, and in the gravity that pulled those asteroids into our atmosphere, in the sun, in the wobbling orbits of the planets, the spinning galaxies, in the composition of the universe itself. I had the notion that one couldn't point their finger at peace, couldn't touch it, but that it also wasn't all that abstract. And I still hold to this. I'm convinced that it's something here, now, something that is both around me and inside of me, and not nearly as indistinct as I'm describing it. I think it's something palpable; and for some reason, I'm convinced of this.

I look down at a few of the plants growing under the shade of the trees, their leaves fanning out to catch the little bit of light that happens to make its way through the branches above, and these plants suddenly strike me as exceptional. I have the sensation that there's something here, something all around me, a kind of secret, which I might have been able to uncover had I had more time, or been more dedicated. Maybe I was on my way to uncovering it while I was living on the terrace, before people came back into my life. Though, maybe not.

I think of all that I'd learned from my experience with the raven, all the tranquility and simplicity that I felt. I was surrounded with beauty, and I think I was growing inside of it, flourishing even. But none of this can alter the fact that it only takes a few severe conditions for us to instantaneously regress back to our natural ugliness. Whereas the previous day I'd been walking quietly through the fruit trees, feeling that I somehow fit, that I'd become kind, even beneficent, the first few minutes of the following day would find me willing rocks to pummel the existence from people who had been my friends, hoping with all of my being that they would be injured, even wishing them to suffer - and probably with the same intensity as they are wishing me to suffer now.

Maybe, though I feel like I was so close to some kind of understanding of peace, I had always been far from it. And perhaps this is because so little of it exists inside us that we can never actually experience it. Perhaps what I experienced on the terrace and in my childhood was merely a heightened appreciation of its ideal, a romantic admiration of its possibility. And now I'm smiling, because even if it was, I'm glad to have at least felt that much.

I focus on the dull green of the plants again, and am suddenly filled with contentment to have had this day. I wouldn't have traded it for anything. And I should feel fortunate that I still have some time to look closer at my surroundings, to mull over the details of the trees and rocks that are...

The sound of a twig snapping in the distance stops me. I'm listening for something else. And there it is again. Only this time, it's a larger stick that breaks. It's not an animal. I can hear distinct footsteps.

45

Now I can hear leaves rustling as well, but it doesn't sound like the whole crew. I'm sure that all of them walking through the underbrush would make more noise than this. Yes, I think it's only one. But one is enough. And maybe they've planned it this way, for everyone to have their own turn.

I'm trembling, I'm so afraid. I am so completely afraid!

He's getting closer. He must be able to see me. He's approaching from the front, probably on purpose, hoping to savour every moment of my mental anguish. He'll probably sharpen his knife in front of me. Or dull it.

I want to scream.

No. I can't. I won't give them the satisfaction. I refuse. I just have to keep looking at the plants between the trees, and try to stay calm. I have to stay calm. I have to stay calm.

I can't stay calm. My breathing is already out of control.

Whoever it is has stopped walking. He's a little distance in front of me. I can feel his eyes on me. He seems to be waiting for me to look up at him. I'm trying not to. But I don't think I can stop myself. I have to look; I have to see who it is. I raise my head.

Our eyes meet right away, and I'm completely surprised to see him. I could have imagined any one of them coming first, but not Mikkel. I'd imagined him distancing himself from it all, whittling a stick out of earshot while they had their fun. But instead he's here, and this somehow reassures me. I breathe out an enormous amount of air from the top of my lungs, and feel drained once I've done this. I find it odd, but nevertheless appropriate that a grin should come to my face. He grins back, apparently also finding the moment odd. Our eyes stay fixed on each other as he comes a bit closer.

Because this is Mikkel, and I certainly couldn't picture him torturing me, I have no idea what's going to happen, and I'm even more curious when I recognize something like sympathy in his expression as he looks over my body. "Are you in pain?" he asks. His words are quiet, sincere.

I've forgotten the spell that Mikkel puts on people, the one that makes you want to win his respect. But it's important to remember that he's part of the crew, and that he's almost certainly come here on behalf of them. And so I open my mouth to lie, to give him some tale about the agony I don't really feel, even stopping to think about the tone of voice that would suit a suffering man. But I abandon this idea at the last second, only because nothing I could say would fool him anyway. "Well... well, to be honest, not really. I'm mostly numb; as much as that must disappoint you."

Mikkel snickers, shakes his head. "Shit, Joshua. Is that what you think - that I wanted this? That I'm finally, perfectly...
happy
seeing you like this?" He pauses, apparently thinking about what to say next, but I don't let him say it.

"Tell me, what should I think? My bones are broken; I can't do anything, any harm, yet you've still tied me to a tree. Do you understand what that implies? I'm tied to a tree, Mikkel. I mean - that's a pretty deliberate action. It's hard to accidentally tie people to trees. So, as the leader, if you didn't
want
this, I wouldn't be here. I'd be dead. And you know that."

His voice is quiet, and he speaks to the ground, "Yeah, well... that might be true. But... it's not that simple." He kicks at a rock that's imbedded in the soil. The rock doesn't move.

"It hasn't been easy, you know. None of it -
nothing
has been easy. And
you
, you haven't exactly been..." he waves his hand through the air at a loss for words and never completes the sentence. Instead, he shakes his head, turns around, and takes a few steps away from me. I know that he wants to tell me everything, stories about the crew's hardships, stories about his own, but Mikkel knows that words have a tendency to either magnify or belittle, and he's looking for the ones that do neither. I admire that, and wait for quite a while before he speaks.

"When we woke up that morning - after you'd escaped - none of us were really surprised at what happened to Knut and Toivo. In fact, I think most of us thought they deserved it. I mean - you did what you had to do, and I can respect that. But... with Onni..." Mikkel pauses. My stomach churns at the mere mention of that name. I'd always been so removed from the reality of his dying, or at least the particulars of it. I want to interrupt him; I want to stop him from even beginning. I want him to listen to how ashamed and regretful I was, how sorry I am. And I want that to be enough, even though it wouldn't be. But I stop before I say anything. I am the perpetrator here, and I know that everything that comes out of my mouth will either sound insensitive or hypocritical. No. It isn't my turn to speak. It's my turn to listen. I owe Onni at least that; in fact, I owe everyone that.

I watch the back of Mikkel's head as he begins. "You should know, he told us over and over again that you didn't mean to cut him, that it was all an accident. But to be really honest with you, on a ship, with no chance of outside help, the questions of how, or why, or if it was intentional or not, don't really matter. What mattered was that his stomach was slashed open. That's all... and that we had to deal with it.

"For the first couple of days, I actually thought it might heal. We did everything we could think of for him, took shifts keeping the wound clean, propping him up, making him comfortable. You should have seen the crew. They were great; so concerned, so eager to help. And I think it was the fact that we were all so focused on it, so intent on bringing him back to health, that really pulled us together. We were dedicated to it; every one of us wanted it so badly. But... still, despite everything we did, despite how careful we were, and after boiling and disinfecting
everything
that
ever
touched him... the infection still came. Little by little, he got worse... and likewise for his pain."

Mikkel turns his head as if wanting to look at me but doesn't.

"So, we decided to head to the closest land. I'm not sure what we thought we were going to accomplish with that - maybe we thought we'd find the shore littered with medical supplies and somehow save Onni with a few clean bandages - I don't really know. But looking back, I think it was probably just
something
, we had to try and do
something
for him, and there was clearly nothing we could do for him on the ship." Mikkel finally turns to me. He has a painful smile on his face. "We just headed to a coast, to some
random
shore. Can you believe that? After all the trouble the Elders went through to find us the safest point to disembark, after everything they'd weighed out, what did we do? We ignored it. It was a stupid move.

"We didn't have detailed charts of the coastline we came to, only a few large scale maps that confirmed that there weren't any ports nearby, but also indicated a few beacons, which of course didn't function anymore, and were probably only there in the first place to hazard ships away from the area. Yet, when we sighted the coast, everyone was jumping up and down on the deck. We thought we'd made it, thought we were safe. I mean - we knew it wasn't going to be an ideal coastline in terms of landing, but we thought we'd at least be able to find some way of getting close enough to shore to access it. And who really knows, we might have, if we'd even made it through the first night. We got hung up on a shoal just after dark, and the ship started taking on water right away.

"One of the first things we did was start the engine to try and drag us off, which, I'm sure you can imagine, only caused more damage. We stayed there for days, hoping that maybe a swell or the tide would lift us off, hoping to at least get within swimming distance, but nothing happened. You have to remember that you took the only raft, and without it, it seemed hopeless.

"So... helping Onni wasn't exactly the most important thing anymore; we had to worry about surviving, and that was all we worried about. Besides, he was only going to get worse, and there wasn't anything we could do about it. And soon, he'd stopped sleeping, stopped talking, stopped listening, he just sat there and stared ahead, groaning to himself with these long, airy moans. It was unbearable.

"So... eventually..." Mikkel stops for a moment. He's staring into the trees, and keeps this glazed expression as he speaks, his voice distant. "Eventually we had a meeting. We decided that the only chance we had was to inflate every plastic bag on the ship and try to swim ashore, which obviously meant leaving Onni behind. We timed it so that we'd swim with the tide, and we put a few light essentials inside the inflated bags, like maps and some clothing, and tied the knives to our bodies. Everything was prepared, and one by one, we said goodbye to him, even though he didn't hear us. I'm sure he wasn't taking anything in at that point. He was just... blank, staring forward, groaning.

"The crew were getting ready on deck. They were quiet. Everything was quiet. I was the last one to say goodbye to him. But after I did, I found that I couldn't walk out of the room. I couldn't just leave him like that, Joshua. He was in so much pain, and who knows how many days he would've suffered; what he would've gone through - and alone?" Mikkel looks at the base of a tree, pursing his lips shut, trying to stop them from trembling. He doesn't cry, but his words are quavering. "He bled a lot."

Silence. There is nothing to say, nothing that could even start to fill in the hollow space that is inside us both; that unimaginable void that was created by taking the life from someone we loved. I understand how Mikkel had suffered, and for this, I want to utter the words 'I'm sorry', but find I can't; I choke on their appalling inadequacy. I can't think of anything appropriate to say, and realize that
nothing
is appropriate at this moment, that everything falls short, every feeling, every word, every certainty of remorse; even the silence seems tactless, clumsy, and I'm relieved when Mikkel finally breaks it.

"When I came on deck, the crew looked at the blood on my clothes, but they didn't say anything; nor have any of us mentioned it since. Instead, we all just jumped into the water and started swimming for our lives. It was all there was left to do.

"It took us most of the day, and for quite a while during the swim, I really thought we wouldn't make it. By halfway we were spent, and when we stopped, we became desperate and fought for the larger bags to rest on. Sometimes the fighting was so charged I thought they were going to draw their knives. Most of the bags burst during the struggles, and we lost almost all of the maps and clothing. We nearly lost Niels, too. We were almost there, but he couldn't swim anymore, and every one of us left him for dead, except Aimil, who somehow managed to help him through the last little bit.