Colum McCann - Everything in This Country Must

Einam, said the old man.

Pardon me?

Let’s go.

Shall I put on the spray guard?

The old man laughed and said: Skirt. I told you yesterday. It’s called a skirt.

Shall I put it on?

Yes.

The boy looked behind his shoulder, pulled the spray skirt over his head and then lifted the kayak.

Instead of dropping the boat from the pier they went to the beach, kicked off their shoes and socks, and waded into shallow water. A drizzle had begun and the beach was empty. The boy got into the kayak and the old man stood waist-deep in the water beside him. He showed the boy how to right the boat if it ever overturned, by tucking his head in toward the boat, swishing out the paddle underwater, and snapping his hip upward, thereby rolling the boat right side up. It was very difficult, he said, with a double boat, but it was good to practice. If the worst came to the worst, the old man said, he could simply remove the spray skirt and hold on to the floating boat and hope the tide would carry him in.

Suddenly the old man tipped the boat and the boy went over in the water. He flailed around a moment and tried to bring his paddle up, but couldn’t. The boy yanked the front of the spray skirt, and for a moment he was all commotion underwater and then he rose, spluttering and spewing. The old man leaned down and grabbed the boy under the armpits.

For fuck sake.

Pardon me?

Why did you do that?

Get in the boat.

I can’t. Fuck sake. I’m soaking.

Get in, said the old man. I’ll hold it.

Fuck sake.

He coughed up some seawater and spat it out and exaggerated his shiver.

Get in, said the old man, as he patiently tilted the boat in the air and dumped most of the water out. He did it with ease and then he steadied the boat and the boy climbed in again. He had to throw his leg over the side of the boat, making him feel vulnerable and stupid. His trousers were soaked and heavy. He felt the old man’s hand on the small of his back and he wriggled away from the touch. When he finally got into the boat, his bare feet touched the water that was still in the well.

I’m fucking freezing.

The old man said nothing.

This is stupid.

It took an age to get the spray skirt adjusted once more and immediately the old man tipped the boat a second time.

The boy didn’t even try to right the kayak with his paddle. He ripped at the spray skirt and came up spluttering once more. He stared at the old man, pushed the boat away, and threw the paddle after it. He was about to take the spray skirt off when the old man started laughing. The boy watched. The old man’s head was thrown back in the air and his mouth was open and his eyes were closed.

What’re you laughing at?

I’m laughing because it’s funny.

I’d like to see you get dumped.

Would you?

Aye.

Would you really?

I would, aye.

The old man dropped himself backward in the water and he was submerged for a second and his cap floated on the surface. The boy reached for the cap and handed it to him when he came back up. Both of them began chuckling and the boy thought that they must have been a curious sight, out in the shallows of the sea, he and an old man, dripping wet, laughing.

After a while the old man clasped his side and breathed heavily and shook his head back and forth, then put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, gave one final snortle, and said: Get in the boat.

Fair enough.

This time, he said, swish the paddle out properly.

Okay.

And no bad language please.

* * *

EACH DAY THEY WENT OUT in the boat as his uncle weakened farther. The town seemed small from the water, tucked down in the hollow between the headlands, fringed by the beach. In the distance the mountains contorted the blacktop roads to their liking. Beyond the mountains, the sky was cool and azure and serene. The whole scene, thought the boy, could have been taken for a postcard.

He and the old man remained in the harbor, going from buoy to buoy, sometimes nudging up against large boats, learning how to maneuver the kayak, guiding it in circles, making figures of eight, once or twice riding the waves in toward shore.

Birds pinwheeled above them and sometimes the old man pretended to talk to them, sounding curious caws and screeches that made the boy chuckle.

At lunchtime the old woman came out to the pier to watch, bringing them sandwiches and milk. They ate together on the pier, legs dangling over the water. He discovered that their names were Vytis and Rasa. When they spoke it was mostly in Lithuanian but the boy didn’t mind; he felt as if he were in another country anyway, and after a while he began to recognize certain words that came up constantly between them— berniukas, duoshele, miela, pietus —although he wasn’t quite sure what they meant. After lunch they took to the boat again for an hour or so. The old man didn’t wear a watch but he said he could tell the time from the local church bells, and he sometimes even anticipated their toll. He said he liked to be home early and that the finest thing about life was an afternoon nap, it was his favorite moment of the day, to draw the curtains and drift away into odd dreams.

While the old couple slept, the boy would hose down the kayak and then make his way back toward the caravan. He often dipped into the town’s dustbins to find a newspaper and he checked the horoscopes — one afternoon he decided that his uncle’s birthday must have fallen in Scorpio, since the newspaper said that there was difficulty now, but with a planet about to enter the sphere, all would suddenly become calm.

His mother was delighted by his kayaking and she said if he kept it up she would increase his pocket money, so that one day he might be able to buy his own boat. He took the extra money and immediately ran back down to town and spent it all in the video arcade.

On the fourth morning, he and the old man went beyond the harbor, careful when crossing the meeting of currents, out into the moving corduroy of sea waves.

The boy was excited by the distance that was put between him and the town. He cawed at birds in the air. Farther out, the horizon seemed vast and flattened by a pale blue sky. They paddled for an hour with their backs to the town, and the sea remained calm.

While they were floating, the boy half turned his body in the kayak. I want to tell you something, he said. You see this here black armband?

Yes?

He stuttered and found his throat going dry. Eventually he told the old man all about his uncle, and they paddled for an hour without saying another word.

He felt as if the whole harbor was weighted down with implication, that each splash of the water had a meaning, and as the silence took on a greater weight he thought that the Lithuanian would have something wise to say but as they brought the kayak in toward the pier the old man simply cleared his throat and lowered his voice and said that he was sorry, that it was a sad story, that he too had been unhappy as a boy for a reason that no longer mattered, that his joy now was in simple things that needed no memory.

* * *

AT MASS HE WAS SURPRISED that some older people recognized her from when she was a girl. They smiled and declared she looked like a teenager, which made him shiver with embarrassment. He created a gulf between them by putting the hymnal on the seat. His mother had made him wear a clean blue shirt with a button-down collar, and on purpose he let the tail of it hang out from his trousers. During the sermon she tried to tuck it in but he pushed her hand away and she just smiled at him.