I told her about the control panel and the window above it, about the sonar screen and the creaking noise the door made when it closed. “It seems like a lonely place to spend so much time.”
“Lonely,” she repeated, placing the binoculars in her lap. “That’s one thing my husband’s never been afraid of.”
I leaned back on my hands. “So now we just watch the Loch?”
She wiped her cheek with the sleeve of her sweater. “Doesn’t it just look like the kind of thing that could swallow a person up?”
“If he really does see something, I hope the recording equipment works.”
“Oh, god.” She rested a hand against her forehead. “Me too.”
We were quiet for a while. The sun had fully risen, turning the sky into a clear expanse of blue. Sarah passed the binoculars to me, then lay on her back and closed her eyes. Her hair fanned around her head; the light hit the elegant line of her cheekbones. I wished McKay was here to witness her beauty.
I raised the binoculars to my eyes. Up close, the water was choppier, dappled with light. I scanned the Loch, but I didn’t see any sign of the submarine preparing to break through the surface and rise into the open air. I thought back to the night McKay took me to Urquhart Castle. What I had told Sarah, I realized, was not actually true; the submarine hadn’t struck me as a lonely place to be. It was removed, it was its own dimension, and that was what I had liked about being down there — that the whole mess of my life had felt so very far away. I wondered if this same feeling was what kept drawing McKay underwater, if that was, perhaps, the essence of what he and Sarah had been arguing about the morning I interrupted them. I was making things up now, I understood. For all I knew, I could have gotten it all wrong.
I increased the focus on the binoculars, wishing it was possible to see beneath the surface and all the way to the bottom of the Loch. I imagined it was me, not McKay, that was moving through the water in the submarine, the headlights piercing shadows, the interiors of caves. I imagined seeing the lines on the sonar screen shoot up and down, and then discovering the sound wasn’t originating from a particular place, but coming from everywhere, all at once. I imagined the sound passing through the walls of the submarine, a great hum that made the metal shudder, as though the vessel was being shaken like a toy. When a dark something moved in front of the window, the object was too large to identify; I only saw pieces and parts of a giant mass. And it was not fear that I felt, but a wanting. You can’t fear what you seek, McKay had told me on the porch, and I would want to know what the world held. That was one thing I felt sure of. I put down the binoculars and looked at Sarah. Her eyes were still closed. I shut mine, joining her in that darkness.
the rain season
From the only window in my concrete one-room house, I watch a woman drag a pointed stick through the black dirt. I know what she is drawing — the same thing the villagers have been sketching in the ground for the past week, when rumors of disappearances in the forest began to spread. In the mornings, I go out to buy fish and yams and step over their creations: creatures shaped like elephants or hippopotamuses with long tails and claws. Sometimes a horn juts out of the forehead, sometimes not. The month is May, the peak of the rain season. Every afternoon, water rushes over the drawings. Still the woman outside continues, kneeling and hunched, opening the earth with the tip of her stick. She is drawing a legend.
There are only two seasons in the Congo: the dry season and the wet season. The heat is constant, the humidity unrelenting. I never slept naked before coming here, not even with my husband, but now I undress every night before burrowing underneath the white sheets. I sleep little and when I do, I dream of ash, gray mountains that collapse into rivers and flood the streets and seep underneath my door, filling my house with a dark fog. I am sure this has something to do with the fire.
The parish sent me to Africa in December. Father Hughes was reluctant at first, as I had no prior missionary experience and rarely attended Mass with my husband, but, as it would turn out, he was unable to enlist another volunteer for this part of the world. I taught children English and basic arithmetic until the school closed two weeks ago because of the riots and fighting. Elections are approaching, rebel groups wrestling for power. In a recent demonstration, a UN worker and two civilians were killed. I have not been in touch with Father Hughes, despite his requests for updates. I do not know how much longer the parish will continue to send money.
The woman rises, her knees caked with dirt. She strides away, gripping the stick like a spear, her arm flexed as though she’s preparing to hurl it into the distance. When she’s gone, I go outside and examine the drawing, my shadow long and flat against the ground. Her creature is larger than the other renderings I’ve seen, although it lacks the horn. The villagers call it mokele-mbembe, or “one who stops the flow of rivers.” Drawing the monster is supposed to keep it from leaving Lake Tele, which lies several miles beyond the lush perimeter of the jungle.
Expeditions to Lake Tele have unearthed little in the way of evidence. Many years ago, a biologist and an animal trader discovered massive footprints and broad paths of flattened grass. They even photographed mokele-mbembe emerging from the lake, or so the story goes. But after leaving the forest, they boarded a train bound for the southern part of the region and there was an accident. The biologist and animal trader were killed when their car overturned, and the camera was destroyed. The other passengers survived. The cause of the crash was never determined. This is the story the locals tell me when I ask questions about the monster.
I crouch in the dirt and use my index finger to draw a horn just above the snout. I am several feet away from the edge of the jungle; the border is vivid green and heavy with vines and leaves. I reach into my pocket and feel my husband’s coin, round and slick, a smooth silver circle. He brought it back from Spain, where, in his youth, he taught English at an American School. He found it on the floor of the Segovia Cathedral and considered it a sign of good fortune.
The air thickens, a hot wind blows through. I look up at the low, swollen clouds. As I stand and start towards the house, fat raindrops splatter against my arms and fill the indentations in the earth, rubbing away the image.
In the evening, after the rain eases, Oji visits. The knock on my door startles me. While eating dinner, boiled yams straight from the pot, I heard a faraway blast of gunfire. I dropped the spoon and pushed away the pot, stood at the window and tugged on my ponytail. My hair, once thick and long, is thinning; pale strands cling to the shoulders of my shirt.
I find Oji leaning against the wall, dressed in torn khaki shorts and a faded red T-shirt, water dripping from his earlobes and chin. After inviting him inside, I get a towel from the bathroom and mop his face and wiry hair. He is twelve years old, a student of mine. He lives on the outskirts of the village, in the scattering of houses beyond the school and the markets. Both his parents are ill, far beyond recovery.
“Catherine,” he says. “You wear it.”
I pinch the tiny, carved bird hanging from my neck. Oji gave me the necklace after a demonstration in the village square. The carving has been blessed by his grandfather, a medicine man. It is supposed to keep me safe.
“Yes,” I say. “I wear it always.”