Джойс Оутс - Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars

Once settled inside the dinghy Hugo seems to feel better. Tries to joke to his fellow Frigate s about being clumsy, taking a chance on a rock that turned out to be loose, most stupid mistake a hiker can make. Another time he checks his camera—thank God it wasn’t broken.

Jessalyn’s heart is suffused with sympathy for Hugo, the experienced hiker who has had an accident, the swaggering (aging?) male who has lost his balance and his composure in front of witnesses. From her shoulder bag she takes fresh tissues, to press against the wound, a series of abrasions just below the knee that continue bleeding, though not so profusely as before.

A stream of blood down Hugo’s leg, glistening in the thick dark hairs of his leg, seeping into his rubberized hiking sandals.

Poor Hugo!—Jessalyn would embrace him, weep over him, but he would be mortified by such a display, and she dares not become emotional in such a public place.

The dinghy will drop Hector and the others on the island of Puerto Ayora but continue on to the Esmeralda, so that the ship’s doctor can examine the afflicted man. Hugo exclaims wonderingly—it happened so quickly! A rock had come loose on the trail, his attention was distracted, he’d lost his balance and, in falling, tried to prevent the camera from being smashed… Yes, I know, Jessalyn murmurs, holding his hand as one might hold a boy’s hand. (Which boy? Bold brash Thom, of course.) Hugo is disappointed to have cut the day short yet relieved that he has been brought back to the Esmeralda— he wouldn’t have been able to continue in the condition he’s in.

Back at the Esmeralda Hugo makes an effort to be good-natured, stoic. He allows the ship’s doctor to sterilize and bandage the wounds, that are shallow; he allows Jessalyn to fuss over him, kiss him. She assures him, as others had: the rocks were slippery from the rain, the trail was steep. She assures him: she loves him, he has made her so very happy.

Drowsy with painkillers Hugo drifts off to sleep in the semi-darkened cabin. Soon he is snoring, in uneven gasps. Jessalyn sits on the edge of the lumpy bed, holding his hand; her fingers through his, though he is unaware of her. They are wearing matching wedding bands! How strange this seems, somehow reassuring. There is this bond between them, then—is there? Neither would abandon the other on a volcanic-lava island in the Pacific.

The Ecuadorian silver rings are quite elegant in their simplicity. Hers is just slightly loose, Hugo’s fits snugly. It would not surprise Jessalyn to learn that Hugo has a wedding band or two in a drawer somewhere at his house.

Jessalyn wonders about the tact of wearing her old rings on her right hand. Surely, someone will notice, and comment dryly? But the rings are too precious to her to put away. The engagement ring with its small square-cut diamond which Whitey had purchased for her, at an age much younger than their youngest son is now…

Jessalyn thinks, she cannot bear another loss. Hugo had only slipped and fallen, bruised and battered a knee, indeed it is nothing serious (the doctor has said) but she remains badly shaken. Her heart is beating erratically, as it had beat (she recalls now) when the news had come, Whitey had been hospitalized with a (suspected) stroke.

If something happens to Hugo she will swallow all the pills she can acquire, as soon as she can. As she’d failed to do when Whitey had died, out of cowardice and confusion.

She had failed to save Whitey. Failed to keep Whitey from dying. With this man, she must not fail.

This man is so precious to her, it’s as if her beating heart were exposed to the air. She has not felt so vulnerable since the children were very young. Each baby, so vulnerable! The soft spots on the infant’s head, how terrifying! She’d been afflicted by horrific fantasies of the newest baby falling and by some bizarre fluke striking a soft spot of the skull, piercing the thin bone… Fontanelle . The very word had been frightening to her, she can hardly bring herself to recall it now.

But the babies had not fallen, in quite that way. Numerous falls over the years but none lethal. In fact, the babies had done very well for themselves, considering their fontanelle- vulnerable beginnings. Even Virgil, the most accident-prone of the children, had never seriously injured himself. And the mother had forgotten, in time. The mother had simply forgotten. Blessed forgetfulness, that wipes away the fears that so cripple us.

BEAUTIFUL!—the melting-red tropical sun is beginning to sink beyond the horizon, that seems very distant, thousands of miles away.

With the sinking of the sun there emerges an astonishing luminosity of clouds, minute cloud patterns that appear sculpted. Those dream-images that rush beneath our eyelids in the early stage of sleep and leave us hypnotized.

Since Hugo’s fall that morning he has been unusually quiet. He is abashed, chagrined. Wants to laugh at himself—wounded macho pride. Indeed, wounded Hispanic-male macho pride.

Slept for two hours (sweaty, twitchy sleep) then dragged himself to the ship’s library, leaning on a walking stick. (Of course, Jessalyn accompanied him.) Since the fall Hugo breathes more audibly than usual, wincing as he walks. But he insists that the pain is abating, it’s mostly a swelling, a lurid bruise the size of a tennis ball his fingers can’t resist touching, stroking.

The ship’s doctor was reasonably sure that there is no actual break or fracture in the complicated bones of his knee: Hugo will know definitely when they leave the Galápagos and return to civilization, to a medical center where he can have the knee X-rayed. Until then it is only reasonable to stay off the leg as much as possible, to walk sparingly and always with a cane, in fact two canes.

Not “canes”—walking sticks, Hugo insists. There is a distinction!

Gloomily Hugo says, “A premonition of the future.”

It is not quite the accurate term, is it?— premonition ? Poor Hugo, Jessalyn squeezes his hand, to indicate that he is exaggerating, it is really nothing, cheer up!

So the wife will cheer up the gloomy husband. As the husband will cheer up the gloomy wife.

(But no: Jessalyn is resolved never to be gloomy . Or to give that impression, for who wants a gloomy wife ?)

Since the wedding they have been discussing where they will live when they return to Hammond. Hugo believes (strongly) that it would be best for them to acquire a new residence, a new property, to sell their old houses (maybe) and start a new household together; for always in Jessalyn’s house on Old Farm Road he would be a visitor, a guest; he would not feel at ease, and she would not be able to think of him as her husband . Still less is it likely that they could live in Hugo’s ramshackle house on Cayuga Road, with the shifting population of tenants and the offices of Liberation Ministries; except of course, Hugo’s studio is there, and he does not want to move his studio.

Jessalyn says, of course she understands. Hugo has had that studio for decades, he should not move if he does not want to move.

Jessalyn does not want to move out of her house, not just yet. Jessalyn feels just a slight prick of panic at this possibility— No! Whitey would not understand.

It is Whitey she would be leaving behind. Hugo is quite right, to understand that the deceased husband prevails in the house, and will never fade away. Yet, Hugo can’t bring himself to utter this claim.

The house on Old Farm Road is so large, very reasonably others could live there, with Jessalyn (and with Hugo). A halfway house it could be. Not all of the house but part of the downstairs. There are eight or nine bedrooms. Certainly there is space for at least one of the unjustly incarcerated men freed by the Liberators, ideal for this purpose would be a guest suite with a door opening at the rear of the house… When Jessalyn first mentions this possibility to Hugo he says it’s a very good idea, very generous of her, but in the next breath he adds, “Your children will be upset, however. They will never allow it.” Jessalyn tries not to be annoyed by Hugo’s conflation— your children . He should know very well by now that only the elder three are prejudiced against him, the youngest two are fond of him and are surely happy that he and Jessalyn have married.