Nick Gevers - Other Earths

“It’s in the nature of an experiment,” I said. “I can assure you that you won’t be harmed or humiliated in any way.”

“A literary experiment?”

“You might say.”

“You know, I didn’t intend to seek the position,” she said. “I was just …intrigued. But I must admit, having Thomas Cradle on my resum’ would do wonders for my self-esteem.” She had a deep drink of her gin-and-tonic. “If the position is offered, I do have two conditions. One you’ve already spoken to—I’m not into pain. Short of sea urchins and safety pins, I’m your girl. I believe you can expect me, given a modicum of compatibility, to perform my duties with relish.”

“And the second condition?”

“Instead of leaping into the fire, as it were, I’d prefer we took some time to become comfortable with one another. Give it a day or two. Will that be a problem?”

“Not at all.”

One of the Cambodian men bought us fresh drinks. He spoke no English, but Lucy chatted him up in his own tongue and then explained that his friend had received a promotion, and he would like us to join them in a toast. We complied, and, after bows and prayerful gestures all around, I asked if she had studied Cambodian.

“I pick up languages quickly. One of my many gifts.” She gave another lopsided smile. “I do have some bad habits I should mention. I tend to run on about things. Talk too much. Just tell me to stuff it. People have been telling me that since I was a child. And I’m a vegetarian, though I have been known to eat fish. I’m picky about what I consume.”

“My cook’s big on veggies,” I said. “Too much so for my tastes.”

“You have a cook?”

“A Vietnamese kid. Deng. He’s crew and cook. The pilot’s an old guy in his sixties. Lan. He speaks decent American, but he doesn’t talk to me much …not so far, anyway.”

“La-de-da!” said Lucy. “Next you’ll be telling me you have your own private ocean.”

A breeze stirred the placid surface of the river, but it had no effect on the humidity in the restaurant.

“There’s one thing more,” Lucy said. “I’m afraid it may erase whatever good opinion you’ve formed of me, but I can’t compromise. I smoke two pipes of opium a day. One at noon, and one before sleeping. Sometimes more, if the quality’s not good.” She paused and, a glum note in her voice, said, “The quality is usually good in these parts.”

“You have an adequate supply on hand?”

She seemed surprised by this response, unaware that her confession had put her into the lead for the job. “I’ve enough for the week, I think.”

“Is opium the actual reason you want to extend your trip?” I asked.

“It’s part of it. I won’t lie to you. I recognize I’ll have to quit before I return to London. But it’s not the main reason.”

Another backpacker, a short woman with frizzy blond hair, entered and, after peering about, approached the bartender. I signaled him to send her away. Lucy pretended not to notice.

“Would you like to see the boat?” I asked.

An alarmed look crossed her face, and I thought that this must be a major step for her, that despite her worldliness she was not accustomed to giving her trust so freely. But then she smiled and nodded vigorously.

“Yes, please,” she said.

The sun was beginning to set as I rowed out to the Undine , moored some thirty yards from shore. A high bank of solid-looking bluish gray cloud rose from the eastern horizon, its leading edge ruffled and fluted like that of an immense seashell, a godly mollusk dominating the sky; fragments of dirty pink cloud drifted beneath, resembling frayed morsels of flesh that might have been torn from the creature that once inhabited the shell, floating in an aqua medium. The river had turned slate colored, and the houseboat, with its cabin of varnished, unpainted boards and the devilish eyes painted on the bow to keep spirits at bay, looked surreal from a distance, like a new home uprooted and set adrift on a native barge, its perfect, watery reflection an impressionist trick. Lan sat cross-legged in the bow. So unchanging was his expression, his wizened features appeared carved from tawny wood, his gray thatch of hair lifting in the breeze. Deng, a cheerful, handsome teenager clad in a pair of shorts, scrambled to assist us and lashed the dinghy to the rail. He exchanged a few words in Vietnamese with Lucy and then asked if we were hungry.

The same breeze that had not had the slightest effect at the bar here drove off the mosquitoes and refreshed the air. We sat in the stern, watching the sunset spread pinks and mauves and reds across the enormous sky, staining hierarchies of cumulus that passed to the south. The lights of Stung Treng, white and yellow, beaded the dusky shore. I heard strains of music, the revving of an engine. Deng brought plates of fish and a kind of ratatouille, and we ate and talked about the French in Southeast Asia, about America’s benighted president (“A grocer’s clerk run amok,” Lucy said of him), about writing and idiot urban planners and Borneo, where she had recently been. She had an edge to her personality, this perhaps due to working with wealthy and eccentric clients, rock stars and actors and such; yet there was a softness underlying that edge, a genteel quality I responded to, possibly because it reminded me of Kim …though this quality in Lucy seemed less a product of repression.

Deng took our plates, and Lucy asked if I had anyone back in the States, a wife or girlfriend. I told her about Kim and said she might meet me in Saigon.

“I suppose that’s where I would leave you,” she said. “Assuming you deem me suitable.” Her mouth thinned. “I probably shouldn’t put this out there, because whenever I show enthusiasm, you become reticent. But this is so wonderful.” Lucy’s gesture embraced the world as seen from the deck of the Undine . “In order to get rid of me, you may have to throw me overboard.” She sat forward in the deck chair. “What are you thinking about?”

I saw no reason to delay—the prospect of spending another day at the Sekong was not an engaging one. “Welcome aboard,” I said.

“Oh, gosh!” She pushed up from the chair and gave me a peck on the lips. “That’s marvelous. Thanks so much.”

We went inside, and I showed her the shower, the galley, and the king-size bed; then I left her to wash up and stood looking out over the river, listening to the loopy cries of lizards, alerted now and again by the plop of a fish. Night had swallowed all but the lights on the shore, and I could no longer make out Lan in the bow. Deng sat on the roof, legs dangling, reading a comic by lantern light. I felt on the brink of something ineluctable and strange, and I suspected it had to do more with Lucy than with the voyage. Kim’s caution notwithstanding, I anticipated losing a piece of my soul to this forthright, tomboyish, opium woman. When I went back down, I found her on the bed, her legs stretched out, toweling her hair, wearing only a pair of panties. It looked as if two-thirds of her length were in her legs. Bikini lines demarked her small, pale breasts. A brass box of some antiquity rested on the sheets beside her.

She came out from beneath the towel and caught me staring. “I know,” she said. “I’m revoltingly thin. I look better when I’ve put on five or six pounds, but I can’t keep weight on when I’m traveling.”

“You know that’s bullshit,” I said. “You look great. Beautiful.”

“I’m scarcely beautiful, but I do have good legs. At least so I’ve been told.” She stared at her legs, pursed her lips as if reappraising them; then she said, “I came all the way from Vientiane today, and I’m exhausted. So if you don’t mind, I’ll indulge my filthy habit earlier than usual this evening.” She patted the box. “It’s awfully bright in here. Can something be done?”