If only they had a rifle.
Make landfall and stay for days on end, as long as it takes, until the creature grows weary. But with Madie who’d shout that they have to get going… with deserted hills where there is nothing to eat, not even roots. The father shudders, scans the horizon. Hopes for an island. They’ve seen three in two days, a sign they are in an area of higher altitude. He was hoping some of these islands might still be inhabited. Find help, food, a few indications about their route. But the land is dying from salt water and abandonment, people have sought refuge further away. Yesterday they saw the head of a statue above water, incongruous in the middle of the sea, a solitary statue, nothing else.
“Do you think there was a city here?” asked Liam.
Pata nodded. He recognized the stone face of Joseph, he couldn’t be sure but it seemed probable, which would mean they were in the region of Vallone, where the statues had been put up twenty years earlier—there should also have been the one of Mary with the child in her arms, but Mary is smaller, so she’s surely below the water now, forever, so small, or knocked over—Vallone, thinks the father suddenly, so they must have drifted south, they’ll have to change course. Saying nothing, he adjusted his rowing. Behind them, the creature rippled to follow them, the only one who noticed the boat’s new direction.
The little girls’ restrained tears hover in the air, they sniffle and sob, Madie calms them with a gesture. On land she would have kept them busy with a game. The first one who brings me a. The first one who finds—a blue flower, a round stone, a forked stick. How many flies on that spot of sunlight, how many ricochets on the water when you toss a flat pebble. But what can she give them, here on this boat? Water, water, and more water. The number of planks it took to build the boat, the color of the oars? Who cares. Even the game of Happy Families: they can’t stand the sight of it, they’re sickened by all the times they’ve played since leaving home, storms interrupt them. The mother feels as if a drill were piercing through her flesh, this image of the little girls crying, silently, and there’s nothing she can do, just ignore them so she won’t burst into tears herself, tears of rage, turn away not to see, clench her fists; these cursed days that never end.
“There.”
Pata points to something the mother cannot see, a shadow on the horizon, she squints. An island. She says it, to be sure.
“An island?”
He smiles.
“Yes.”
The children stir, suddenly excited.
“Are we going there?”
“Are we going to get off?”
“Is there food there?”
Don’t know. Matteo, at the oars, rows even harder. Just pray it isn’t a mirage, thinks the mother, gazing at his tense face.
“When will we be there?” asks Sidonie.
“Another hour.”
“Is it long, an hour?”
“Yes,” says the mother.
“No,” says the father.
But it is Madie who is right: even the final minutes seem to last forever. And for what? A place of loose stones, a sort of callus emerging from the sea. A plateau, several hundred yards square, brambles, dead bushes, then nothing. I don’t believe it, sighs the father, as he brings the boat gently ashore.
Sidonie, Emily, and Matteo, too: after ten days of rocking on the water, when they step out on land they fall down. They get up, walk unsteadily, fall again. They start laughing.
“I feel dizzy,” says Emily, ecstatic.
“It’s weird,” murmurs Sidonie.
Matteo runs sideways, his arms spread like a bird’s wings. His legs stiff and painful. He says, I’ve got pins and needles.
Madie waves to bring them together.
“Come on, let’s tour the place.”
Tour, honestly? They can see the island from where they are. We’ll count our steps. The little ones try. Fifty-four, fifty-five. It’s hard. In her mother’s arms, Marion squirms this way and that to see where they are going. Suddenly they start with surprise. Blackberries, blackberries! The brambles are covered with them. Even Pata trots over and gives a cry. They’re everywhere. The mother hurriedly rummages for a bowl, while the children stuff themselves with everything they can reach. They are covered in scratches and stains; it doesn’t matter.
“Don’t eat the red ones, they’ll make you sick,” warns Pata. “They’re not ripe yet.”
They eat the red ones.
Madie slaps their hands.
“Leave some, we have to have some for tomorrow.”
They don’t stop. They laugh. She fills the bowl and keeps them from reaching into it, kicking them away if need be, scolding them halfheartedly. Their mouths and cheeks are purple. Pata has gone to find some dead wood to build a fire, hoping to find other treasures—but the island offers nothing more than a carpet of moss, where they sit and stare at the flames, their bellies happy, their eyes riveted on the potatoes waiting to be buried in the embers; their mouths are already watering.
Afterwards they lie on the ground, astonished not to have to bend their legs or share the space. Madie motions that they should get up but Pata holds her back, the kids are overwhelmed with fatigue, as is he, and the mother.
Let them sleep.
He wants to stay overnight; Madie refuses. She’ll be patient, the time it takes for a nap, she looks at their faint smiles, hears their breathing—including the father’s, he has collapsed on his side and begins to snore when she stops kicking him gently with her toe, and finally Madie too succumbs, curls around the baby and falls asleep, all seven of them lying in a circle around the dead fire, seven survivors looking like neatly laid out corpses, and the warm gray air lulls them until the end of the afternoon.
-
But they had to go back to sea, and the next day their bellies were just as empty as when they landed on the island; the blackberries were long gone, the potatoes a sad memory. This time, they have nothing left. Madie took some moss and a few twigs, what are you doing, scolded Pata, you’re not going to make them eat grass now are you. He is relying on the approaching mountains, imminent landfall—and yet, as far as the eye can see there is nothing but water, and at times he loses heart. He saw one or two hills so far off their route that he didn’t say anything; they would have wasted hours. A wager: if there was nothing but loose stones, the father had been right. If there were trees, fruit, berries, his decision to keep going had been disastrous. But he’ll never know. It’s better this way. No regrets. Just hunger.
And the little girls whining and chanting, I’m hungry, I’m hungry. It breaks his heart. He’s always been so proud of feeding his family, even during the difficult years, when he lost his job because the factory closed. Madie’s little salary had not been enough, and so while waiting for better days, Pata did piecework, never mind what they offered him, field work, gardening, household maintenance, trimming hedges, driving old ladies on errands, which hardly paid for the gas he used, even cleaning house. The eleven of them weren’t exactly fat but they managed. They never got the impression they would die of hunger, whereas now… A hair’s breadth. The father glances at the baby sleeping in her mother’s arms. That’s good. Marion cried for two solid hours, she doesn’t understand, can’t accept. So then Emily and Sidonie started up, so what, who could tell whether it was better to shout at them to shut up—it’s not as if they were starving them on purpose!—or to let them go on, even join in, because there’s no solution, and there’s this constant temptation to turn around, but after eleven days it would be madness to turn around. A stupid idea; exhaustion is turning him into a moron. And besides, he knows.