Far From The Sea We Know (28 page)

“So we just stop asking questions and stay
groovy?”

“No, you wait and what you really need comes
and feeds out of your hands like a small bird. Patience. Truth
isn’t an answer, it’s a call, a heart with a beat, and you can’t
just go tearing that out of the world. There are consequences. Fear
runs us all, Penny, but it’s the last thing we’ll give up. Instead
we clutch at it like a life preserver when really it’s a death
stone dragging us down to darkness.”

“Yes, ” she said, “but fear has a
purpose.”

“Sure, even a
sliver
of truth gets
in, we’re dazzled, then panicked and we slam the door shut, all
safe in the comfort of our fake little world. That’s what happened
to Jack. He fell because he saw too much and too little. He fought
the wave, when he should have let go. You do that, and the big
waves lift you up. Effortlessly.”

“Too many metaphors for me.”

“You can’t lift yourself. It’s no more
complicated than knowing something to be this and not that.
Recognition. Look here.”

Dirk reached into his shirt pocket and
carefully pulled out a downy feather. He held it between his thumb
and index fingernails and brought it up to the light.

“This fell into my hands this morning from
the sky. I looked up and I swear I saw an albatross. That doesn’t
mean much to you, but to me, it meant everything there ever was, or
will be. I could take years trying to explain it all, but it would
still be thin soup. Whether they admit it or not, everyone wants to
be connected, but we settle instead for something else. Sex, drugs,
our enormous collection of whatever. Or religion, science, art, our
name in print—it’s all the same—once maybe it inspired, then it’s a
substitute for some peak moment we had, then just a glimmer of a
glimmer, trying to get it back and feeling fortunate having just a
memory of that beautiful moment now and then. Sounds arrogant, but
what’s real is more than the truth. Truth is overrated.”

“But you said before that Ripler resisted
the truth, so which is it?”

“I don’t have a word for ‘beyond truth,’
which is really what I’m trying to say. No, I can’t say it, so
‘point to’ is the best I can do. Why not take a look? Jack’s
survival instinct—the survival of his
sense
of the person he
thought himself to be—was just too strong. His flaw.”

“There’s more ‘flaw’ than Jack at this
point.”

Dirk stopped smiling, and he seemed to look
somewhere inside himself, his eyes fluttering, almost completely
closed. When he opened them, he was staring intently into hers.
“His lies are now his truth and though the root be bitter, the
fruit is sweet and attractive in its first corruption. Take
heed.”

His eyes rolled back and then, thankfully,
closed, but only for a few seconds. When they snapped open again,
he was smiling like a schoolboy. “Did I speak?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No. Not a word.” Then he laughed as if he
couldn’t care less. “Guess it was meant for your ears alone.”

She waited, but he seemed to have nothing
more to add.

“Listen,” she finally said. “I spoke with
Lorraine not long ago. She’s…compelling, I will say that, and
somehow changed, maybe even transformed in some way I can’t
understand. But do you really think it makes sense to marry someone
who might come back down to earth at any moment and suddenly feel
the need again for a six-pack of mascara and a spray-on tan? There
is no reason to believe that how she is now will last. Or how you
are, for that matter. And what about your career?”

“I’m going home, done with the sea. Needed
elsewhere. It’s clear to us, just like an exit on the interstate,
here’s where we get off. ‘Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
and the hunter home from the hill.’ Masefield, I think.”

“Stephenson. Robert Louis. Same guy who
wrote
Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde
. A good one for you,
maybe.”

“Not me. Jack, maybe.” His smile was still
bright enough to toast bread. “I could have gone the same way as
him if things had been a little different. After the whales circled
us, and I was trying to pull Lorraine in, I saw it all in an
instant, but I just felt so sad. I don’t know why. The world
crumbled, the stars fell out of the sky. I wanted to die. Love’s
the way we die sometimes. It was Lorraine who pulled me through. It
happened so fast and lasted so long. Without her, I don’t know what
would have happened.”

He let out a few slow breaths and ended with
a quiet laugh tinged with sadness.

“Something began to happen with Lorraine and
the whale on the day the chopper went down. She just went all the
way in. I know she seemed a little crazy at first, till she found
her legs, but that’s just a side effect.”

He suddenly stared at Penny, his face solemn
and his eyes wide. “Same with me.”

He held the stare a few more moments then
started to laugh, his face cracking into an ingenuous grin.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist! It’s just that I
know I can’t explain it to you. If I try to understand, I can’t,
either, but I don’t care anymore. Because it’s a poor small thing,
you know, to just
understand
.” He sighed. “‘Not be looking,
but
seeing
.’ Sorry, can’t remember who said that. Maybe I
did.”

She didn’t answer, didn’t say anything. It
was gobbledygook, but something about the way he was speaking was
drawing her in. There was a kind of divine madness about it
all.

He went on anyway. “It’s as if she’s more me
than I am. Lorraine. Everything she says to me, every look, every
gesture, I get completely. Beyond knowledge. Knowledge is cheap,
the mind is cheap. You have no idea how sure that is, how much the
difference is between thinking about something, even knowing
something for sure—knowing even better than your own hand—and
totally
being
it.”

She waited for more, but he just stood
facing her, radiating a strange kind of vitality. She said, “Dirk,
you seem so convinced,” and almost bit her tongue for stating the
obvious, and sure enough, it set him off again.

“An example,” he said. “We’re forward at the
bow, Lorraine and I, just leaning on the rail, our faces in the
wind, when she shook her head, just slightly, but I knew exactly
what she meant.”

“Well, that’s touching, but couldn’t that be
imagination?”

“No, wait. You see, I acted on it. I said,
‘Our children will still have all of this.’ I meant the sea, still
living, and as it would be, coming back from where it is now, and
becoming so much more.” He waved his hand slowly across the horizon
as if it were all his to command. “I said, ‘It’s not too late,’ and
she indicated to me that I was right. It’s beyond understanding, I
can’t really explain it correctly. She’s become more me than I am,
really. And the thing is, she sees what’s coming, what will be. In
that moment, it was perfect, she didn’t miss a beat. It was all
sorts of subtle shifts, changes of balance, her eyes, the way she
moved, the way she breathed. No. Was breathed. Everything so rich
and clear. It’s as if I can read her completely, but more like I
become her. I’m telling you, this is real. We’ll have two children,
both girls. I even know their names.”

“You decided on names already?”

“No, they came with names. Or will.”

Penny must have been staring a little too
long.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Just be
ready.”

“Dirk, I really do wish you both the best.
Got to get some sleep.”

She walked off before he could say anything
else, but he did anyway.

“One of them is named Penelope, after you,”
he called after her. “You’ll know why, someday.”

She quickened her step.

Penny entered her cabin, shut the hatch, and
slowly let out her breath. She fell down on her bunk and rolled
into the bed covers.

Too tired to sleep. Where was Matthew, she
wondered? No, wait. He would come back one day from his lofty
contentment. Just wait him out. Someday, it could work. Even if
they weren’t together all the time, it could work. Maybe the only
way. The precariousness of it all would be their binding force,
their pledge of return. Apart together, a life of farewells and
reunions. Wasn’t everything like that, really? Too tired to
sleep…

Morning came, and the sun soon burned
through the mist in golden silence. Even out here, part of that
haze was air pollution, but today Penny didn’t care. Matthew was
still away somewhere.

After a quick breakfast, she went back to
her cabin to get her laundry. The rest of the morning she spent
washing clothes and straightening out her gear, making some notes,
putting things in order. After a while, she lay down on the bunk
for a quick break.

When she awoke, almost two hours had
disappeared forever. She dabbed a little water from her drinking
bottle into her eyes, rubbing them gently. It was just the letdown
from the intensity of the last week. Could use more sleep, but for
now, coffee would have to do.

As she headed out, she ran into Becka, her
face distraught.

“What’s up?” Penny asked her.

“They’re taking Jack. The Navy. In a
chopper, like the one that brought Lieutenant Chiffrey. They’re
already on the way, but we just found out.”

“Well, the Captain told us at the meeting
last night that was the plan. I can’t pretend I’m sorry to see Jack
go, but the reasoning probably is that moving him in one quick trip
would be less traumatic for him than spending time on another ship
with too many new people, then having to do it again on every other
leg of the journey back. So, he and Mary go first class.”

“He’s going to a Navy hospital.”

Now it was clear. Jack had a way of getting
people to listen, and his talent had certainly not gone unnoticed
by Chiffrey.

“I don’t feel good about this,” Becka said.
“Who knows what they’ll do to him?”

“They must be having a hard time hushing up
the fact that Lorraine and her team never made it back to the
mainland. Plus the loss of their chopper. Keeping Jack out of the
light for a while might be a good idea, even if it is
Chiffrey’s.”

“I’m surprised to hear you say that.”

“It’s a question of
how
the truth
gets told. You know Jack. Even in a private psychiatric hospital,
he would find an audience somehow and the next thing you know, we’d
have people every which way shoving microphones and cameras at us,
asking us about whatever crap Jack puts out. You don’t want that.
Chiffrey’s just trying to keep the lid on.”

“No, he was against sending Jack to the Navy
hospital. He told me. Did what he could, but they went over his
head.”

“And you believed him?”

“In this case, yes.”

“Listen, one of Chiffrey’s most obvious
specialties is damage control. He’s been telling the Captain to be
careful of what we say to people off-ship. Did you know that? All
our communications are being monitored, and they’ll jam our
frequencies if necessary. Chiffrey’s their point man here, for
God’s sake, can’t you see that? Work with him we may have to, but
not get in bed with him. Figuratively speaking,” she quickly
added.

“You’ve been overreacting to him from his
first step onto our deck,” Becka said, as a blush smoldered on her
face.

“No, that came a few minutes later. But so
were you as I remember. And now it’s ‘our’ deck?”

“You don’t have the rights of an heir just
because of who your father is.”

“No, but I don’t like the people who think
they smell blood in the water just because he’s getting on in
years.”

“I have only the highest level of respect
for your father. He was a pioneer in nearly everything that matters
and has done more for marine science than anyone else in the last
fifty years. You will not find one particle of malice from me
toward him, and you are not as observant as you seem to think you
are if you haven’t noticed that.”

“Fine, I believe you. But Jack was your
friend.”

“I had a good working relationship with him.
That does not mean I agreed with him on everything. He just felt we
needed to move on with the times. Hating him seems extreme to
me.”

“I don’t hate Jack. I simply despise
everything he stands for. He was a treacherous infighter, and now
he’s a violent psycho, so I really don’t care where they stash him.
My God, Becka, what did you see in that prancing ninny?”

“Don’t you ever get tired—” Becka
yelled.

“Hey, listen—”

“No, you listen for once!”

Penny waited, ready to answer, but Becka
didn’t say anything. She stood staring as if frozen for seconds
that seemed endless. Then she pushed by and ran off. The look on
her face as she passed was of someone who had lost their most
important possession.

Penny suddenly wanted to get off the ship.
Just leave all the craziness behind. Saddle her mother’s horse,
Akaba, and ride away for a few days. There would probably be extra
room on the helicopter, but she would not want to share a metal box
with a propeller on top with Jack.

The
Valentina
had a flight pad, but
it was meant for a small helicopter, not the Navy Sea Stallion with
auxiliary fuel tanks they were planning to use to transport Jack.
They wanted something big, Chiffrey had explained earlier, so they
could make it all the way to the Navy hospital in one go. The Navy
finally decided to use the flight pad to gently touch down, while
keeping up the throttle. They didn’t want to rattle Ripler any more
than necessary, so they would wheel him out at the last minute,
while the helicopter came in opposite the windward side.

Penny waited to see Jack leave, perhaps just
to be sure he was really gone, like witnessing an execution.
Terrible way to think about it, but true. She’d be happy never to
see or hear about him ever again.