Viator

Feeling creaky in his joints, Wilander stumbled along the passage and came out into light which, though gray, absent all but a tin-colored smear of sun, hurt his eyes, out into blustery weather, snow flurries driven by gusts of wind, and just ahead of the prow, no more than a few feet, a dazzling corona twice the height of the ship, flaring and dwindling, every few seconds opening to reveal a view of another coast, a different view each time, as if Viator were choosing the perfect point of entry onto the Iron Shore, and they were edging forward, inch by painful inch—he could feel the living skin of her tormented by the pressure of rock, accompanied by groans, shrieks, shrill sounds of metal swelling and constricting, pushed through a narrows like no other, and he staggered, caught the rail, peering out into the coronal depths, at Cape Lorraine, at the sweep of the virgin forest, at all the wonders of that new world, and felt life pour through him, Viator’s life and his, they shared a heart, or rather his heart was Viator’s laboring engine, embarked upon a journey to end all journeys. He’d been wrong to picture his life ending in ignominy, wrong in his conjuring of days and nights spent in the forest with the whistlers; he would stay aboard Viator, remain her captain and sail the seas (more than seven by his reckoning), traverse the globe, going from port to port, and once they’d done the tour, once they’d gone from Cape Lorraine to Port Satine—the name came unbidden to his tongue, with a promise attached of wild tropics, talking statues, golden birds, distinguished gentlemen with exotic secrets to convey, enchanted prisoners with whispered tales of worse than life, blind wizards, black princesses, back-stair madonnas who would drain the poisons from a sailor’s flesh with their perfect lips and work their spittle into white beads they sold as remedies—why not another world, another escape, why not go on and on? Ceaselessly, tirelessly. A glorious future was to be theirs, Columbus’ dream of heaven, the voyage of endless discovery. And then Mortensen, Saint Mortensen, a ragged figure, his beard wider than his chest, ran into the bow just as the image of the coast of Mutikelio appeared in the corona, just as fire began to chew iridescent sparks from the prow. He shouted something, but there was too much din too hear, and he smiled, a fiercely enjoining smile, and, turning to the prow, to the light of his salvation, addressing the fire as he might his deliverer, with his arms outspread, he let it wash over him.

The fire continued eating the ship inch by inch, the groaning and shrieking grew louder, and Wilander, aghast at this act of self-immolation, made less certain of his fate, backed away, backed until he could back no more, and sat down heavily in the stern. He thought he should do something, but could think of nothing and so began to weep, to sob as Viator, shuddering violently, launched into an unfathomed sea. As the fire devoured the collapsed winch and reached the verge of the superstructure, he hid his face in his hands and wept. He did not know why he wept—it seemed a matter of convenience that he not know and so he wept for the sadness of not knowing. Then hands were laid on him, soft hands, Arlene’s hands; Arlene and Terry, cluttering his thoughts with their daft fumbling, their clumsy touches. What could they want? He had nothing for them. He doubted their existence, they were ghosts, demons come to tempt him. He pulled away, clambered to his feet, and stood unsteadily, his legs miles long and swaying. They tried to encircle him, to pen him in, and he fended them off with wild swings of his fists, weeping all the while. They spoke words he could not hear, yet knew were entreaties. He glanced at the fire. Forty feet away. He started for it, heard Arlene shout his name, and saw her standing with arms outstretched, face broken with fear. He took a step toward her, intending to console, to remedy, and it seemed in that step were all the steps he had ever taken, all the mis-steps, all the firm first steps, all the steps leading to good and evil, only this one had no ending, no landfall, and he pitched downward, falling into a pool of blackness like a sailor who had mistaken a puddle of rain for the sea.

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