Adrift (28 page)

I raise myself onto the hard wooden thwarts and rock to one side until I find some flesh on my rear to cushion my pelvis. The men haul the raft aboard the bow, put the helm over, and rev the engine. I nearly fall over backward as we take off.
Ducky
lifts off. The fishermen stop
Clemence,
and I show them where to pull
Ducky's
plugs. Several gallons of water spurt out of the open valve on the bottom tube while
Ducky
collapses over the bow like a huge black amoeba. She too deserves a rest.

We take off again in island style, with the forty-five-horse Evinrude wide open. The rapid forward progress feels so strange. Waves come up and we rip down them, cleaving the thick water and peeling it to both sides of the boat. We carve a watery line from the Atlantic into the Caribbean. As the boat rolls, the sea blasts by only a few inches from the gunwale. I hope these guys know what they're doing.

Clemence
is rustic. The emergency sail is a piece of canvas wrapped around a long stripped sapling. A steel blade, its butt wrapped with cloth and tape, is sheathed in the joints between the boat's planking and frames. The reserve gas tank is a fifteen-gallon plastic jug. When gas runs low, the cap of the jug is pried loose with a piece of rusty rod. The captain, Jules Paquet, sticks a tube in his mouth and sucks fuel up from the reserve. He whips the end out of his mouth and jams it into the engine's tank as he spits a mouthful of gas overboard. We tear off again for a few minutes before the engine quits. Captain Jules pulls the cover off of the Evinrude and begins to diddle with it.

Jules's brother, Jean-Louis, sits beside me. The brothers have sharp noses and dancing eyes. They look Egyptian. Jean-Louis's hair is short, but Jules's is a thick bush that surrounds his head like a halo. Jean-Louis's wide smile is broken amidships by a tiny black cave of missing front teeth. My own smile may never subside.

Paulinus Williams sits behind me. His broad round muscles seem cast in polished iron. His skin is so black that in shadow it's difficult to distinguish his features. His teeth flash as he speaks to me in English while the others discuss the engine in hobbling Creole. Paulinus reassures me. "It is not far to go, maybe one hour."

Clemence
jumps into action again. I ask Paulinus what the mountainous island off our bow and beyond this flat one is.

"Guadeloupe is the island there. This one is Marie Galante. Named it is for the ship of Columbus."

So I have gone one better than Guadeloupe. I have landed on the tiny island farthest to the east in the chain, hardly big enough to show up on my chart.

Paulinus yells over the roar of the engine. "You are very lucky. We do not fish on the east of Marie Galante. Only today. We come around and see birds very far away. They fly so far out to sea. We do not fish so far away. But today we decide to go. When we get close we see something. We think that maybe it be a barrel. We go, thinking maybe the dorado swim there. When we get there it is not a barrel. It is you."

As we round Marie Galante to the north, Jules steers
Clemence
close to shore so that she slips down the surge that cracks upon the ancient coral cliffs and then sweeps back out against the incoming swell. The waves blast skyward against the cliffs made by the death of billions of tiny coral animals. The walls are shot full of deep caverns, which echo the boom of Neptune's knock on Mother Earth's door. I envision
Ducky
and me grinding up onto the cliffs, scrambling to grab hold of a small shelf of safety, being beaten down and then dragged off the razor rock.

I begin to sing a favorite song of mine, "Summertime." Now the livin' is so easy. I think of my jumping fish. And on the island the sugar cane will be growing high. I feel free—free enough to spread my wings and reach for the sky. My voice booms out but is lost in the roar of
Clemence
splitting the water and rushing down the waves. Jean-Louis smiles at me and tells me I sing well. Probably not, but I've never felt so in tune with the words. Oh yeah, easy livin!

The perfume of flowers and grass blows off the island and wafts into my nostrils. I feel as if I'm seeing colors, hearing sounds, and smelling land for the first time. I am emerging from the womb again. The horrible memories of my voyage may haunt me forever, but they are already eased by the ecstasy of a new life and the kindness of these men. For seventy-six days I teetered on the edge of life, afraid to let go, afraid that my own atoms and energy and essence would be lost to my grasp and be used by the universe in whatever way it pleased. Steven Callahan lost without trace.

A strange formation, like an amphitheater, looms before us. Hoya Grande. A large cavern formed and the roof fell in, leaving a tall thin tower of coral open to the sky, and on one side, through the arched aperture, open to the Atlantic.

We round the island and proceed along the leeward west coast. The sea is as flat as a board, the day warm and alive with light and color. A long beach comes into view. Bushy trees and palms shade the small huts and houses clustered under them. It's the village of St. Louis. A number of people are gathered under an unwalled roof held up by corner posts. They quickly notice us. Some stop chatting, others lay down the fish that they are trading. What is that big black blob slung over the bow of
Clemence?
And who is the skinny, bearded white man, nearly as dark as Jules and Jean-Louis, but with sun-frosted hair and snowy brows? Some begin to make their way toward the place where we will land, first slowly, then at a quickened pace.

I look down at the dorados for the last time. Twelve of their kind, twelve triggerfish, four flyers, three birds, and a few pounds of barnacles, crabs, and assorted oceanic booty have kept me alive. Nine ships did not see me. A dozen sharks tested me. Now it is done, finally over, finished. My feelings are as confused as they were that night when I lost
Solo.
It has been so long since I had any reason to be happy that I don't quite know how to handle it.
Clemences
bow turns and she scrapes in the sand. I whisper to my fish, "Thank you, my friends. Thank you and good-by."

People trickle down to the beach. Giggling children run up and then stop, eyes wide. The fishermen yell at me to be still, but I make my way forward and swing one leg over the gunwale. I scoot forward so that I'm in shallower water—it would be pretty stupid to fall off and drown six feet from the shore—and lower myself onto what I know is soft white sand, but what feels like a concrete highway swaying in a major earthquake. My eyes seem to be bouncing around like pinballs. I take a step forward and let go of
Clemence.
My head reels. The ground leaps up and crashes against my knees. As my head swings down to hit the beach, two strong men grab my arms from each side and jerk me up to my feet. They lift me up so that my feet barely touch the ground and carry me away I go through the motions of walking. We pass small tin-walled houses with cleanly cut and brightly painted gingerbread trim. Fish traps are scattered about. Chickens run clucking out of our way We pass under a shady tree and out onto black pavement An entourage follows now On the first corner we come to is a tall yellow building sprouting flags and emblems The islanders sit me down in a folding metal chair on a shaded porch Everyone talks at once in a jumble of Creole and French Finally they get my name and begin making phone calls. I'm left in peace for a moment.

A hundred people press close to the porch. I look at them, unbelieving. It is over. It hits me like a ton of bricks. There are wide eyes, curious eyes, worried eyes, weeping eyes. My own fill with tears, which I try to choke down. I reach through a tangle of arms and grasp the ice-cold ginger beer that is being thrust toward me. These people do not know me. We don't even have a common language. How can they ever know what each step through my hell was like? Yet I have the overwhelming feeling that we belong to one another, that in this moment we see life as one. In their eyes there is a reflection of my own fate. The paths of our lives are separate, but the essence of our lives is together.

I cannot see back to the beach. There, my friends remain in the bottom of
Clemence.
I'll never forget how they flew into the arms of the fishermen, the color and power of their glistening flight. I wonder if out beyond the beach, in the clear blue water, two emerald fish are looking for a new school with whom they will swim, carrying the tale of how simple fish taught a man the intricate mystery that comes with each moment of life.

A
VOLKSWAGEN VAN
pulls up in front of the porch. The local constable and a few other men help me inside and we roar off toward the windward side of the island. Everyone is jovial and talkative. I haven't got the vaguest idea what they are saying. One man keeps motioning for me to guzzle my ginger beer. I can't tell him that in the last twelve hours I've had more to drink than I normally consumed in a week in the raft, so I make signs to him and chant, "Slowly, slowly." He nods. Besides, I love holding the cold, wet bottle.

Marie Galante is rather flat. We pass long stretches of sugar cane fields. Ox carts are piled high with cut cane. I cannot believe how sensitive I am to the smells of the cut vegetation, of the flowers, of the bus. It is as if my nerve endings are plugged into an amplifier. The green fields, the pink and orange roadside flowers, practically vibrate with color. I am awash in stimuli.

We come into town and wheel into the parking lot of the Grand Bourg Hospital. Out of white cinderblock buildings, black nurses in white uniforms scurry up, look me over, and disappear. Some gather and talk. Others poke their heads out of the opened windows and watch. A male Caucasian doctor comes down the steps and over to the van. He speaks English. "I am Dr. Dellanoy. What is wrong with you?"

How does one answer that, precisely? "I'm hungry," I tell him. For a while no one seems to know how to deal with me. It is obvious that I am not an emergency case. I explain to Dr. Dellanoy that I have been adrift for seventy-six days and that I'm dehydrated, starved, and weak, but otherwise O.K. He decides to admit me and calls for a stretcher. This seems unnecessary, but I am coerced to climb aboard. When we get upstairs, the stretcher-bearers have trouble getting around the corners in the narrow hallways and I convince them to let me walk. I have developed such effective sea legs that the solid ground feels unstable. The men help me across a portico and into a room, sit me down on a bed, and drop my bag at the foot of it. An old man rises up from the bed opposite me, an intravenous plugged into his arm. We smile at each other.

Dr. Dellanoy comes in and we discuss my condition. My blood pressure is O.K. I've lost about twenty kilos (forty-four pounds), just under a third of my weight. "We'll put you on intravenous feeding and will add some antibiotics to help clear up those sores," he tells me. "Someone in your condition won't be able to eat anything for quite a while, of course—"

"Hang on!" I interrupt him, horrified. "What's that?"

"Your stomach has shrunk. It may be dangerous for you to eat anything solid for some time."

I quickly, desperately explain to him that although I am a tad thin, I've conscientiously eaten as regularly as I can. I'd offer him some fish sticks, but they're back on the raft, wherever poor
Ducky
is. I also don't like the idea of needles and immobilization. "Can't I try to use my mouth?"

"O.K. We'll see how it goes. We'll give you some antibiotic pills, too," he tells me, and then he leaves.

A white nurse arrives. She's roundish and incredibly cheery, with rosy cheeks and a chirpy French voice. Screwing up her face, she pulls off my T-shirt and makeshift diaper, carries them to the corner with two fingers held high, and drops them. Funny, I don't notice any smell. Except for her—she smells clean. She sets down a porcelain basin full of tepid water and begins to wash me. My sores are tender to the rag and her firm, efficient touch, but she is as gentle as she can be, and as she pats me dry I am immediately relieved. Her merry voice never stops. Other nurses pop in and out and chat, or try to chat, with my nurse, the old man, and me. I've never seen such a vivacious hospital.

From the time I hit the beach, I have slowly wound down. After two and a half months, I finally have no fears and no apprehension. There is nothing to do and nothing I want. There is only total rest. I feel like I'm floating. My blond angel finishes and breezes out.

I lay back on the sheets, clean sheets, dry sheets. I can't remember ever feeling like this before, though I imagine that I might have felt this way at birth. I am as helpless as a baby, and each sensation is so strong that it's like seeing, smelling, and touching for the very first time. Heaven
can
exist on earth.

Soon a young man brings in a tray heaped with food. He pours me a large glass of water. For a moment I stare at it all in disbelief. A glass of water. Such a simple thing, a simple treasure. On the tray is a large piece of French bread, a stuffed squash, some vegetables that I don't recognize, roast beef, ham, yams, and in one corner, of all things, a square of salted fish! I almost laugh, but I eat every morsel. Now everyone who comes in and sees the empty tray stares at
me
in disbelief.