Castle of Water: A Novel(41)
The first step was to create a foundational boat log of just the right length. Ancient Polynesians would have used basalt adzes for such an undertaking, but Barry had neither the time nor the expertise to fashion advanced Neolithic tools (the Cleveland Museum of Natural History seemed to have guarded such knowledge more carefully). Instead, he picked two points on the log roughly ten feet apart, dug out pits in the sand beneath them, and, with the help of his trusty Bic and some kindling, got two driftwood fires going in just the right spots. It was a process, but eventually the coconut wood began to glow and cinder, and voilà!—after an entire day of careful burning, Barry was able to roll away from the main trunk a ten-foot portion of serviceable lumber.
What to do next? It was Sophie, the experienced designer, who came to the rescue, as Barry was at a loss. After some rather heated deliberation, she convinced him that he needed to shape the basic canoe form and flatten the top before trying to burn out the core. As to how to initiate that, it was also her idea to recruit some of the pumice stones that littered the rocky center of their island and put them to good use as sanders. Employing the ever-versatile Charles Tyrwhitt dress shirt as a tote bag, they gathered half a dozen good-sized stones and went to work—and work it was. The two of them laboring side by side for two straight days yielded little more than a scuffed-up log and four excruciatingly sore arms. But patience is a virtue for a reason, and after a perspiration-filled week of relentless sanding and shaping, the thing was starting to look unmistakably boatlike. The outer palm rings had been ground down to nubs, the soon-to-be bow and stern were slowly gaining some form, and the top was just concave enough to hold a few embers.
Meticulously, with the utmost care, Barry and Sophie laid a wreath of dried fronds and wood shavings along the shallow trough that ran down its middle. Then, with a shared nod and held breath, they lit the line of kindling ablaze and watched the agonizing slowness with which it burned and smoked. The minutes turned to hours, the hours to the better part of a day, but it was working. Holy shit, was it working. The two of them began to jump up and down, as giddy as schoolchildren once it became clear that the fire was eating out the center of the log, turning it to a bone-white ash. The results definitely weren’t pretty, but it was certainly a start.
“It looks like a big coffin,” Sophie proclaimed after Barry had quenched with seawater the last of its smoldering embers.
“Then call me Ishmael, because this coffin’s gonna float.”
Sophie, however, was dubious. “It still needs work.”
“I can sand it and smooth it down some more, but I think it’s pretty good.” Barry eyed his handiwork up and down, giving it an approving thump with the heel of his foot.
“Je ne sais pas. It doesn’t really look stable enough for the ocean.”
“Why are you always so cynical?”
“Pfff. I’m not being cynical, I’m being realistic. I don’t think it’s ready to go out yet.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” Barry wiped his sweaty hands with the dress shirt and tossed it into what he was confident enough to call a boat. “Let’s push it down to the water. It’s time for a test run.”
Sophie shook her head disapprovingly but relented. “Putain. If you say so.”
A short spate of heaves, a brief set of groans, and the crude canoe was committed to a gritty slide down toward the surf.
And Sophie was right. No sooner had the prow kissed the water and Barry pulled himself in than a wave—just a couple footer, not even a big one—tipped the whole kit and caboodle, sending its overeager captain spilling into the foam and its more prudent first mate into fits of laughter.
“I wouldn’t try to circumnavigate the globe just yet, Monsieur Magellan.”
Barry emerged from the water sputtering and coughing, but laughing nonetheless. “Just shut up and help me pull it back in, okay?”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” she answered with a snappy salute, and waded in to assist in dragging the ponderous thing to shore.
Weary from the exertion and the disappointment, the two part-time boatbuilders and full-time castaways sat back on the damp edge of the sand and stared at the beached dugout, which, while flailing about in the surf only moments before, had borne far more resemblance to an unwieldy log than the lithe fishing vessel Barry had envisioned.
“Well, crap.”
“It just needs more work, Barry. I told you that.”
“How is more work going to keep it from tipping over every time a wave comes along?”
“Do you think your stupid Mayflower was built in ten days? You have to get it right. That’s the first rule of design: You don’t put an object into service until it’s finished and you’re sure that it’s ready.”
“Okay. Any ideas?”
Sophie shrugged. “Sure. You need to widen the middle and narrow the front and back to help keep it stable and going in one direction. And you probably should add that thing that the canoes have in the cave.”
Barry cocked a confused eyebrow in her direction. “What?”
“You know, the pictures in the cave, up on the side of the petite montagne.”
“Sophie, what in the hell are you talking about?”
“The paintings of boats inside that little cave where you took me during the cyclone. I thought you’d seen them.”