Anne Korkeakivi - Shining Sea

“He doesn’t mean literally,” Ghislaine says.

“I can’t tell you how it happened. He never said one word about his experience,” Rufus says. “But I can say, Katie, that you can’t live very well.”

“He died three years ago, right about when you met Ghislaine,” he guesses. So this was the catalyst that made Rufus hook onto Ghislaine’s talk of the peace-seeking French windsurfer.

“Yes,” Rufus says. “Two weeks before, actually.”

“And your father fought in World War II?” he says.

“Everyone in Great Britain fought during World War II. London, Birmingham, Bristol, Plymouth, Southampton. We were bombed, after all. Glasgow, too.”

“The Huguenots protected the Jews in France when no one else did,” Ghislaine says. “My father was part of the Resistance.”

He thinks of the tin canteen his mother gave him, the one he still carries, the only thing he has of his father. And his mother handing it over to him, that indefatigable determination she had. That faith that somehow he could grow up to be as good a man. “Everyone everywhere was involved, I guess.”

And then the black curtain is upon them. There’s so much water he can barely open his eyes. His ears flood, the space down his neck into his jacket. He grabs his hood, pulls it tight. He opens his mouth for just a moment, and it fills with water. It slides down his jaw onto his chest despite his rain jacket. It batters his back and shoulders. It pounds his half-gloved hands, making the oars slippery. The sea swells, molten, almost as confused as they. It plays with them, throwing the boat up and down.

“Row,” Rufus yells over the din of the rain. “Row.”

He pulls as hard as he can, trying to keep his grip in the torrent. The rain is so heavy it’s hard to find the edge of the sea, to tell where the surface starts. “Fuck.”

He can’t seem to find purchase with his oars. The water starts to break up into smaller pieces; waves toss the boat, a toy between their white-capped fingers, roiling his stomach. He doesn’t have time to lean over the boat to vomit and throws up onto his own knees, still pushing, still trying to fight back the ocean. In the madness of the deluge, its thickness, all he can make out is the shine of Ghislaine’s slicker and the white of Katie’s forehead as she leans forward and back, forward and back, bailing bucket after bucket of water, not even attempting to wield the steering oar.

It’s not wind. It is Rufus shouting: “Can you see it? Katie, can you see it? Can you see Rathlin?”

But Katie either can’t or won’t stop to answer. Or doesn’t hear Rufus over the noise. She is nearly out of her seat, bailing as fast as her arms allow her. The water is rising at their feet, and most of it is coming straight from the sky and not over the sides of the boat. He has never felt rain like this. It’s like being beaten not with pebbles or stones but with metal bars. It slams down on his neck and back and arms, choking him, beating at his face and arms and shoulders.

A huge jolt, and suddenly he is in the sea.

The cold shock of the water knocks his breath away. And the pressure is enormous, the weight of his boots, his pants, the water, everything pulling him down. He flails against the ocean. He pumps his arms, grabs on to the only solid object around him, squeezes as hard as his gloved hands allow him.

“Grab the boat!” Ghislaine shrieks. “Not me! The boat!”

The currach is there, in front of them, about three feet away, bobbing in the torment. It’s right side up, not capsized, solitary and empty as though laden now with ghostly passengers. Why isn’t he in it? Why isn’t Ghislaine? A wave wallops him, blinding him again. Ghislaine is moving through the water, away from him, toward the currach, and he fights his way forward after her, reaching the currach, grabbing for the rim of the boat. Water pours down his face; he peers through it into Ghislaine’s face. Each with a hand on the edge, wordless, they spin their heads around in the chaos to find the others.

Water slaps him against the boat. He clutches on.

There is Eamon.

Just behind Eamon, Rufus.

A swell slams Eamon and Rufus against him and Ghislaine. His head hits hard, by the prow. He shakes it back and forth, clearing his ears. Somehow, Eamon manages to get hold of the boat’s rope.

“Are you all right?” Rufus shouts. “Are you hurt?”

Another swell pushes them together. They are debris, tiny specks in a cold, angry ocean. The rain is still coming down in torrents; there is water everywhere, above his body and below, in his eyes, his ears, his clothing. Grabbing on to the cord and then pulling his way to the prow of the boat for ballast, he kicks off his rubber boots. They sink below him, into the void. His body is already starting to go numb; he can hardly feel his freed toes.

Ghislaine pushes past him and takes hold of Rufus. “Je t’aime!” she shouts, panting. Even drenched, her eyes are visibly filled with tears.

Rufus reaches for her through the water. “We’re going to be okay! We’re going to be okay! As long as we don’t lose the boat and don’t lose each other.”

Through the seething water, the four of them look at each other.

Rufus swirls around, shouting. “Katie!”

He has already pushed off from the boat. Treading water, he scans the horizon. A mountain of swell lifts him up and then down; at the peak, he catches a flash of white, a flash of gold. He fights his way through the undersea world, giving in to being tossed over and under. Again he sees the white. The rain is still blinding, as confusing as the sea. His mouth fills with water, and his throat. He chokes, coughs, spits, forcing the sea out of his body. Another swell, and there she is, her arms grappling with the heave of the sea, her back to him, her head turning desperately left and right, away from the currach, searching.

“This way!” he shouts.

It’s a miracle, but Katie hears him. They crawl through the water toward each other until their bodies collide. He wraps an arm around her torso, paddling with the other just enough to keep his nose above the water.

“I lost the fuckin’ boat,” she gasps.

He straps her in close to him, hugging her against the sea, a misplaced convulsive desire to laugh rocking his body. “It’s behind us,” he says. He swivels them to face the direction he’s come from. But there is nothing but water and gray. Rain pummels the sea’s surface, creating a viscous screen. He squints, lets one hand free of Katie long enough to wipe his eyes. He scans in every direction. Water.

“It’s gone.”

Swells lift them up and drop them. “Don’t let go,” he shouts. He can no longer feel his legs in the freezing water. He wraps both his arms around Katie, pumping with unfelt limbs. Together, they form an egg in the sea, their humanness the embryo, lost amidst the waves.

“ Find it,” she says, grasping his shoulders, squinting into the miasma.

He squints, too; first here, then there, then there. The rain is still heavy, flooding his face; the sea choppy now, large, spiky peaks. His eyes are leaking water, his own or the sea’s — there is so much salt they sting. The only sure thing he can make out is Katie’s face, even whiter, now bluer.

“For Christ’s sake,” she shouts. “Find it! Do you want to die?”

His body is becoming less and less his body by the instant. Is this what death is like? Is this it? Soon his arms will no longer belong to him. His hands will have stiffened. He will let go of Katie, let go of the waves, let go of his fight. He will float, carried along by his life jacket, until he feels nothing at all, swept farther and farther out into the Atlantic, becoming nothing, finally, definitively, nothing at all.