The boat is so heavy that the water is level with the gunwale when there’s a swell. Madie wishes they could go faster, the ocean oppresses her, getting her hands wet, she places them in her lap. Her legs hurt, she turns from left to right to shift her weight. The little girls stand next to her and fidget, feeling numb.
“Careful,” says Madie.
“When will we get there?” chimes Lotte.
“I need to have a wee-wee,” moans Sidonie.
So the mother takes the little girl and holds her up over the side of the boat, terrified that some clumsiness might make her let go. But the little girl laughs out loud, bare-bottomed, wriggling, chirping and gurgling when a little wave splashes her. Stop it, says Madie, panicking, do you think it’s easy to keep hold of you, the boat leans to one side. And then the others grow impatient.
“Me too, me too!”
And one by one the mother removes their undies, faint with fear, while they giggle and wiggle, Again! shouts Sidonie when they’ve all had a turn, but this time Madie looks at her sternly.
“No, you don’t need to go anymore.”
They sit back down, time passes slowly when there’s nothing to do. Madie brought a deck of Happy Families and for a while they play, sometimes distracted by the movement of the water, or a sound they think they hear. Because Madie is stunned by the silence around them, only the breath of the wind fills the air, and the oars dipping in and out of the water at regular intervals, and the boys’ labored breathing—over there beyond their belongings and their supplies, Madie knows from those sounds that they are still pulling hard. From time to time they let the boat drift to rest their arms for a few minutes, and the seepage of the wind wraps itself around them like a frightening mist, a sort of faraway chant, and the mother listens as closely as she can, she’s already white, oh she doesn’t like this dull whistling, it’s not honest, it’s not clear.
When Sidonie lets out a cry, she gives a start.
“Look at the fish!”
Madie turns her head, dubious. The long undulating back circling around the boat makes her raise her eyebrows, a huge creature, four or six feet from head to tail, she can feel a shiver run through her arms. They’ve all seen it, the boys stood up on the other side of their pile of belongings when they heard Sidonie, and the boat rocks, and Pata ordering them to sit back down doesn’t help matters, because he too has stood up to have a look, and his eyes meet Madie’s, and she whispers, “What is it, what is that thing?”
He shrugs, but goes on rowing. Only the mother notices the slight loss of rhythm to his gestures, a kind of hesitation or precaution, yes, that’s it, the father is being careful, eventually he keeps one oar in the air and orders Liam to do likewise. The boat glides soundlessly, slow and solid. Beneath the water, the beast follows, flashing black in their wake. It is following them, that much is sure.
“But what does it want?” cries the mother, trembling, suddenly alarmed.
The father raises his hand imperiously: Sshh. Motions to Liam. They give a stroke of the oars, just once. The boat moves forward. The excited children ask questions all at the same time, looking to one side and then the other, searching the surface of the water with their shining eyes, and the mother would like to scold them, to scream but don’t you know it’s dangerous? Yes, to argue with them, very loudly, it would do her good, it would chase away her fear for a few moments.
“Enough!” orders Pata, exasperated.
They sit down, confused. The mother’s throat feels as tight as if someone were trying to strangle her. She senses the imperceptible wave of the beast swimming beneath the boat, brushing it with the top of its back and making an infinitesimal twisting motion, it can be nothing else, the sea around them is smooth, not a ripple, just this tiny, terrifying displacement of the water which goes with them and will not leave them; the father does not dare paddle. Gradually the boat slows and stops. What shall we do, murmurs the mother. Silence, all of them. Liam, Matteo and the father stare out at the water.
“There it is!” exclaims Matteo.
“It?”
“The monster!”
Madie shudders. To her it seems that the boat is rocking harder and harder. And the father is doing nothing! What is the point of standing there motionless if it’s just to be food for the fish, you might as well row for all you’re worth, maybe the beast will get fed up, maybe it will go back to its lair without disturbing them—but for that to happen, Pata has to regain his wits, instead of this panicky, immobile stare, so Madie suddenly cries out:
“Get a move on, what are you waiting for!”
They all give a start, it is as if she has roused them from a wicked spell, she spreads her arms wide in urgency.
“Row! Row!”
Liam plunges his oar into the water at the same time as his father, twisting his torso in an effort that elicits a grunt. They encourage him, loudly, Go on, go on. The inertia of the heavily laden craft is enough to drive the mother crazy, she leans forward as if that could help them pick up speed, her jaws clenched fit to break her teeth, if she had a whip, god knows she would use it right then, and she pulls Lotte and Marion closer, her babies, her treasures. The beast cannot be seen for the strokes of the oars and the waves they make, the spray everywhere, the creature is invisible or has slipped away, the mother begins laughing, it’s her nerves, she’s laughing with tears in her eyes, and she stammers, “It’s gone now, isn’t it?”
And then she sees it gliding behind them. Its dark spine is catching up with them, keeping pace by the port side of the boat. The father stops rowing, undecided. At that moment the mother sees in his gaze that he is tempted to strike the animal, to make it flee or to hurt it, she can sense it even in the oar as it trembles for a fraction of a second in the father’s hand, at the same time that she realizes how big the animal is and how great the risk; should it get angry, it could surely capsize them with a single lunge—and half rising from her seat, with a shrill cry the mother warns them:
“No!”
In that same instant, Liam and the father thrust their oars into the sea, propelling the boat ever further, ever harder. Madie loses her balance and almost falls in the water, catching herself on the ropes strung around the gunwale, with Marion in her arms. No one noticed, except Emily and Sidonie, who don’t have the reflex to cry out; they are alone in the stern, the mother and her daughters. They are cut off by the pile of supplies and blankets from the rest of the family, from Liam and the father at the oars, and Matteo keeping watch at the bow. If something should happen to them, no one would realize. She’s not even sure the sound of them falling overboard would drown out the splashing of the oars. The time to cry out and the beast would be upon them. A few seconds of struggle, red water all around them, and the father would hear too late. The mother sits back down, tries to erase the vision. Swears that if they find an island she will make them all get out so they can move the supplies to the stern of the boat. Never mind, this business of ballast. She feels so far away that her voice would not carry beyond the supplies.
“I think we’re all right now,” says the father.
The mother stares into the opaque black water, sees no trace of the beast, neither shadow nor movement.
“We’re all right,” says the father again.
Yes, maybe it went deeper. To follow them without their knowing. To wait for a moment when they’re not as vigilant, when they’re tired, or night has fallen, there are a thousand ways to outsmart them. The mother thinks again of its strange shape, an animal she has never seen, a stranger to this sea where they have fished all kinds of sea creatures over the years. A beast that the drowned land sent packing, scudded through the water from who knows where, obliged to adapt to an unfamiliar place. Or a little fish, grown gigantic with the miraculous abundance of food and habitat? Matteo is right: a monster. And once again, the mother hopes the father, too, is right, when he says it has gone away.