When I tried to stand, my legs were slick and useless. There was a sick, wet feeling in my throat and lungs. And yet I was alive. I ran across the shore until I found the boat that would deliver me—a motorboat with the name The Sea Quill painted on the side.
The sailor averted his eyes upon seeing my partial nudity. “Sorry, miss. There’re clothes for you in the bag. I didn’t know you’d come upon me nekkid, though.”
The sailor started the boat and we headed for New Jersey. “Worried we missed each other,” the sailor said. “I was about to leave.”
In the canvas bag that had been provided for me, I found boys’ clothing—a dress shirt, a newsboy cap, a pair of gray pants with suspenders, and an overcoat—and then I found a large piece of gauze, a pair of round spectacles, a fake ID for one Adam Barnum, some money, a mustache and spirit gum, and finally, a pair of scissors. I put on the clothes first. I twirled my hair into a bun and concealed it under the newsboy cap. It didn’t feel right. I asked the sailor if he had a mirror. He nodded toward the cabin down below. I descended, taking the scissors, the gauze, and the mustache with me.
The illumination in the cabin consisted of a single bulb, and the mirror was only six inches in diameter and pitted from the sea air. Still, it would have to do. I applied the spirit gum to my upper lip and stuck on the mustache. I looked less like myself, but I could still see that my current disguise was unconvincing. The hair would have to go.
I spread out the bag so that it would catch the clippings. I rarely had my hair cut, and I had certainly never cut it myself. I thought of Win’s hands on my head, but only for a second. There was no time for sentimentality. I picked up the scissors and in less than three minutes all I had left was one inch of wavy hair. My skull and neck felt naked and cold. I looked at myself in the mirror. My head looked too round and my eyes too large, and if anything, I looked more babyish. I donned the hat again. The hat, I felt, was going to be key.
In the hat, I did not look like Anya Balanchine. And if I squinted I could even see where I looked a bit like my brother.
I tried on the glasses. Better.
I backed up in an attempt to see more of myself in the tiny mirror.
The clothes were boyish enough, but something was off.
Ah, breasts.
I unbuttoned my shirt so that I could wrap the gauze tight around my chest—the bandage stung against the places where the rocks had lacerated my skin—and then I buttoned myself back in.
I studied myself.
The effect was not awful, but it disturbed me. It might seem silly, but I had spent most of my life as someone people had called pretty. I was no longer “pretty.” I was not even handsome. I was somewhere between homely and ordinary. I thought I would pass as—what was my new name?—Adam Barnum.
I wondered if I should keep this up the whole time I was in Mexico or if I should only try to do this while I was in the process of escaping. I suspected the disguise worked best if you didn’t consider me too closely.
I climbed the ladder back up to the main deck. I threw my hair clippings overboard.
Upon seeing me, the sailor started. He picked up his gun.
“Captain, don’t shoot. It’s just me.”
“My word, I didn’t recognize you! You were such an attractive little thing ten minutes ago and now you’re plain as mud.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I crossed my arms over my chest.
At Newark Bay, there were hundreds of shipping containers and boats. For a second, fatigue set in, and I despaired of being able to find the right ship. But then I remembered Simon Green’s instructions—row three, cargo ship eleven—and I quickly found the shipping vessel that was supposed to take me to Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, on the west coast of Mexico.
Simon Green and I had decided on the shipping vessel for three reasons: (1) because the authorities, if they bothered to look for me, would probably go to the airports, the train stations, or even the passenger-ship docks, (2) because my family had many connections with exporters, which made it easy to find a shipping vessel that would harbor me, and (3) security was notoriously lax on cargo ships—I kept my head down and no one even asked to see Adam Barnum’s ID.
The only problem with this plan was that a passenger on a cargo ship was basically cargo. The first mate pointed me to a room set up in an opened rusty metal container with a cot and a bucket and a box of old-looking fruit—still, it was fruit!—and no windows.
“Not exactly luxury,” she said.
I took in the room. It looked slightly more commodious than the Cellar at Liberty.
The first mate eyed me suspiciously. “Have you no luggage?”
I lowered my voice to what I thought was a plausibly boyish register and informed her that my things had been shipped in advance. They hadn’t, by the way. I was a person without a single possession.
“What takes you to Mexico, Mr. Barnum?”
“I’m a student naturalist. There are more plant species in Oaxaca than anywhere else in the world.” Or so Simon Green had told me.
She nodded. “This boat doesn’t actually have docking privileges in Puerto Escondido,” she told me. “But I’ll have the captain stop the boat and one of my crew will row you the rest of the way there.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“The journey to Oaxaca is about thirty-four hundred nautical miles, and assuming a vessel pace of fourteen knots, we should be there in approximately ten days. Hope you don’t get seasick.”
I had never been on an extensive sea journey so I didn’t yet know if I was prone to seasickness.
“We should depart in about forty-five minutes. Gets pretty boring out there, Mr. Barnum. If you want to come play cards with us, we do Hearts in the captain’s quarters every evening.”
As you might expect, I did not know the rules to Hearts, but I told her I would try to play.
As soon as she was gone, I closed the door to my container and lay down on the cot. Though I was exhausted, I could not sleep. I kept waiting for the sirens that meant I would be discovered and returned to Liberty.
Finally, I heard the ship’s horn. We were leaving! I lay my shorn head on the flat bag of feathers that must have once been a pillow and quickly fell asleep.
VI
I AM AT SEA; BECOME FAR TOO ACQUAINTED WITH THE BUCKET; WISH FOR MY OWN DEATH
FOR THE TEN DAYS OF MY JOURNEY, I did not have opportunity to play Hearts or any other game, aside from a game I affectionately dubbed Race Across the Container to the Bucket. (Yes, readers, I was seasick. I see no need to trouble you with the details except to mention that, once, I threw up so hard I sent my mustache flying across the room.)
This current plague did not allow me to sleep very deeply, but I did have hallucinations or, I suppose, waking dreams. One vision I had revolved around a Christmas pageant that was being staged at Holy Trinity. Scarlet was the female lead, of course. She was dressed like the Virgin Mary and she was holding a baby with Gable Arsley’s face. Win stood by her side, and he was supposed to be Joseph, maybe; I couldn’t tell. He was wearing a hat again and instead of his cane, he had a staff. To one side of him was Natty, carrying a box of Balanchine Special Dark, and next to her was Leo with a pot of coffee and a lion on a leash. Somehow I was the lion. I knew this because of my shorn mane. Natty scratched me between the ears, then offered me a piece of chocolate. “Eat one,” she said. And I did, and a second later, I was awake and running across the room again, to reacquaint myself with the bucket. I had no idea what I was throwing up at this point—I hadn’t eaten much of anything for days. My abdominal muscles hurt and my throat was terribly sore. It was lucky I had cut off all my hair because there was no one to hold it back for me. I was friendless and a fugitive, and I suspected there was no one more dejected and wretched in the whole world than Anya Balanchine.