Beautiful Wild - Anna Godbersen Page 0,28

ways of holding the interest of Fitzhugh, and now here he was. He was trapped with her in a small boat. Yet she had nothing she wanted to say to him, or to anybody. No one else seemed to want to talk either. If they began talking they would have to admit what a terrible situation they were in.

Late in the day they saw a dark form against the sherbet sky. A distant ship. The others stood, screamed, made crazy motions with their arms. Vida just went on holding on to the rail. They would not be saved. There was no goodness. Everything Vida had counted on her whole life seemed reversed now.

That the sky was blue, for instance. That water could quench thirst. Now she knew that everything was much more complicated. The riot of color that the sky displayed throughout the course of the day sickened her. She was surrounded by water yet her thirst desiccated not only her skin, her mouth, but also her brain, her bones. In a long-ago time aboard the Princess, Sal had insisted the ocean was a wonder. He didn’t now. He watched the sky, the waves, what mysterious forms swam below them, as though reading an ancient text, and said almost nothing.

Fitzhugh said things. He said them in his sure and jocular way, as though this too was another adventure in a string of adventures. We’ll catch up to that ship, he said. Another will be along soon. But Vida did not listen much. She did not believe in him anymore. Like the twenty-odd others, crowded onto the benches of the boat, she huddled and stared downward, but really at nothing, not entertaining much hope, just waiting for a fate she did not dare imagine. They were only bodies now, and had lost their standing in the world of men along with their luggage and their futures. The big ship in the distance was absorbed by the falling night, and they were alone again.

Now that the storm had passed, the dark curtain of the sky was pierced with a million stars. It might have been beautiful, Vida thought, although she no longer put much stock in beauty. Sleep seemed like one of many luxuries Vida had taken for granted in her old life and would never know again. But she must have slept, because she woke up with an ache in her neck and her chin slumped on her shoulder, and saw that it was light again, the very beginning of morning, and heard the anxious murmuring of all the others. A little life came into Vida’s limbs, but she tried to be reasonable, and not to allow anything as ridiculous as hope to enter her thoughts. The others were craning, gripping the rails. At the rear of the boat Fitzhugh and Sal were using the remaining two oars to row as hard as they could.

“What is it?” she asked one of the mothers.

“Mr. Farrar’s man saw a gull,” she replied.

“So?”

Her son, who had not said a thing during their trial, flexed his brow as though wondering if Vida were serious. “You only see birds near shore.”

“Right, of course.”

The mother resisted returning Vida’s gaze, and Vida thought she understood why—if their eyes met they would surely shine with excitement, and if they allowed themselves to become excited over nothing, the disappointment would break their spirits permanently.

Nine

The endless horizon was endless no more. At first it seemed a kind of mirage, but slowly and steadily it became more real, even as Vida blinked, shook her head to get the stars from her eyes, even as she forgot to breathe. The others had gone silent. There was only the heave of the oars, the splash and ripple of the sea, the labored sighs of the two men at the stern. As they pulled, as the floor of the boat went up and down with the water, Vida felt her blood move again, felt the wind on her face, and she was surprised by the conviction that they must reach that bit of land growing ever larger before their eyes.

There, contrary to the direness of her heart, was an island. An island! An island with a rocky promontory, crowned with palms, toward which flew the birds that promised other forms of life. Beyond the beach rose green peaks. She gazed and gazed at it. She was afraid to look away, afraid it might disappear.

So—she did still want to live after all.

The waves bore them into