He’s got the place all wrong. He got a call. Jerry was living in Washington, D.C. then. He said “Dad called with some very bad news. He didn’t have the heart to tell you himself, so he asked me to.” “But I just saw him and he looked fine. An hour ago, for dinner, he and Mom.” “And he didn’t say anything? You didn’t pick up on how they both looked?” “Nothing. We talked about what I was doing, her work, some big tooth he suddenly had the strength to extract today, baseball, etcetera.” “Maybe because they knew I’d call you later. It’s Alex, his ship. It’s way overdue. We think it went down. They do — the authorities, the shipping company, the Coast Guard, everyone. Hit by an iceberg, knocked over by a bad storm, ship simply splitting in half, they don’t know. But it hasn’t transmitted or answered any radio signals or been sighted or anything like that for eight days. It’s a little too unusual. There was something like the worst storm in ten years in the area his ship would have been in seven days ago. Sometimes these small old freighters can go a couple of days without being able to make known their positions. Their signals or receivers aren’t strong enough sometimes or its frequency interferences or whatever they’re called, and caused by God knows what, besides their shitty equipment. But never this long. There were also what one guy I spoke to called A-grade distress signals the night of that tremendous storm…”
He read about it in the papers. He would have liked to. Liked to have read that the ship was found, or all the men were found alive in lifeboats, ship down. Didn’t happen. He imagines Alex going down. Ship splits in two, he’s sleeping, water’s in his cabin, tries to get out, ship’s mostly underwater by now, it happens very fast, he struggles, slips, lights are going on and off, he tries swimming to the door, gives up, water in his lungs, can’t keep himself from swallowing too much, doesn’t give up, tries keeping his chin above water, stands on a berth, a washstand, grabs a chain strung along the ceiling and pulls himself up, but the water fills up the cabin almost to the ceiling, he holds his breath, maybe the room will burst and the water all at once will gush out, some pain, suffocation, he’s dead. Eyes closed, his head bobs against the ceiling a few times, then his body rolls over when the half of the ship he’s in does. He sinks. Fish are already inside.
Alex was the only passenger on the freighter. His father’s patient called his son in England and asked as a favor to the man who’s treated his family’s teeth for forty years if he could take Alex aboard free. Alex was in London then, wanted to get back home, had little money, could have borrowed plane or ocean liner fare from his parents or Jerry, wanted the experience of being on a freighter during a long crossing. Though he got free passage, he asked to work without pay at any job the captain wanted him to. He’ll clean latrines, even, he said in his last letter to Howard. Anything the lowest-grade seaman does, just to get the full feel of it and perhaps seaman’s papers for a paid trip later. He was a newsman turned fiction writer. Two months after the ship disappeared a parcel of manuscripts arrived at their parents’ apartment from England by surface mail. Maybe the manuscripts he didn’t much care about. Maybe the ones he cared most about he took with him on the ship. Howard read the stories and vignettes soon after and then some of them every three or four years till about ten years ago. He never found them very good, but Alex was just starting. Two diaries and some oriental figurines in the parcel also, and lots of letters from his parents, brothers, friends. He’d traveled around the world. Saved up for three years to do it. Did it for a year. A prostitute in a dilapidated hut in a small village outside Bangkok. Why’s that experience come to mind first? It was in a letter to Howard, not the diaries. He searched the diaries for it, thinking an elaboration of it might be interesting, revealing, sexually exciting. She was fourteen years old. That made Alex sad. She asked him to marry her. She said she’d be devoted, would learn to cook and make love American, bear him many children if he wanted, all boys if he wanted (she knew how), would return to grade school. He gave her his silver ID bracelet, pleaded with her to give up prostitution. Then he did it a third time with her the same day and came back the next. Talk about hypocrisy! he said. What’s the trick of turning a customer into a suitor? he asked. But one who’ll be good to her and an adequate provider. If he knew, he’d give it to her. Sent her a pearl necklace from Manila. If he got a venereal disease from her he’d worry more about her than himself. He might go back for her before he leaves for India, or send for her once he gets back to America, and maybe even marry her when she comes of age. Keep this between them just in case it does happen. Taught English to Malaysian businessmen for a month. Met two old men in New Guinea — Canadians — who were living the primitive jungle life. They were good friends of his till they tried to drug and rape him. He’s afraid he had to kick them both in the balls to get out of there and then steal their canoe to get back to town. Fell in love with a witch. Read Proust’s Remembrances in five nearly sleepless days, an experience that’s left him dreaming of the books every night for the last six weeks. A Goan fortuneteller told him his trip would end badly. He said to go home by plane, don’t sail. Remind him when the time comes, for the man wouldn’t take any money. Had a fifteen-year-old girl in Nairobi. What can he tell Howard? — he likes young girls. It’s more than just the way their hair blows and breasts point and bellybuttons dimple and thighs are so even. Maybe it’s because of all the girls who barely let him pet them when he was a teenager. Rode a camel through part of the Sahara. Ate lizard, locusts, grasshoppers, grubs. Never felt very Jewish before till he started hitting all the old synagogues and Jewish cemeteries he could find in the Orient and Middle East. Wait’ll he gets to Poland and Prague and also tries to look the old families up. He’s afraid it’s converted him, but not to the point of wearing a skullcap. Hitchhiked with a sixteen-year-old sabra through Turkey and Yugoslavia, though she might have been younger. When she had to go back she said she thinks he got her pregnant — her device wasn’t put in right a few times, she was so new at it. He told her he’s heard that one before, but if she has the baby and the calendrical configurations fix it as his, or just if she still says it is, he’ll love and provide for it, adopt it if she wishes and take it to America with or without her or emigrate to Israel if she prefers, marry her if that’s what she wants — she’s quite striking and clever and potentially very artistic and smart. He’s written what he thinks is fairly decent work recently, he said in his last letter. He’s glad he’s found something he wants to do for the next twenty to thirty years, has Howard?
He’s on the deck. It’s his watch. Suddenly there’s a crash. Bells, sirens. Someone’s shouting orders that you have to put your ear to his mouth to hear. They’ve only minutes. Lots of running around, tying shoelaces and vests. Lifeboats are unhitched. It’s late in November. The 27th, 28th. Three days past Ireland. Can’t see five feet in front of him because of the rain. They get in two boats. Both are overloaded. Should be a third, but that davit was empty when they sailed. His turns over when it hits the water. He tries swimming to it. Water’s too cold and rough. His head’s splitting, as if he cracked it on something, but it’s the icy water. Tries to tread to stay above it. No control over his legs. Arms feel gone. The flag was Panamanian. Ship was owned by Greeks. Captain was American. Most of the crew’s families and the captain’s lived in the same Havana housing project. Other lifeboat hit the water well. But something happened. Nobody was found. Only a single life preserver with the ship’s name. The Ardy. Arty. Ardie. One of those. Something close. Preserver washed up on the Irish coast two weeks later. Doesn’t mean the ship sank, authorities said. Preservers come loose from ships plenty of times in heavy storms and sometimes are thrown off by drunken or angry seamen. And there was definitely a heavy storm at the time. Even preservers from the Queen get washed ashore. Even a lifeboat from the Queen a couple of times and once even a tender, if that’s what it’s called. He emerges from a wave and tries to take a deep breath. He couldn’t take in much. Feels frozen all over. His chest’s killing him. Knows he’s going to die but can’t fathom it. Can’t fathom it. Now that’s rich. Think like that some more. Great distraction. Die laughing. Scream some more. Other lifeboat may be right over there. Tries to scream. Maybe he did. Can’t hear much with the wind and waves. Tries again. Blacks out. Bobs around awhile, once even bumping into another body.