My Last Continent: A Novel(21)
Then the seal stops and turns his head toward us, sniffing the air, revealing his lighter-gray, speckled underside. He gazes at us, his face like that of a hungry puppy with its wide, whiskered nostrils and huge wet eyes. We’re downwind, but I feel Keller’s breath stop halfway through his chest. After a few long moments, the seal turns his head and continues on his way, slipping silently into the water.
Keller exhales, slowly, and I feel his weight settle against me as he relaxes. Though a leopard seal had once hunted a member of Shackleton’s Endurance party—first on land, then from under the ice—and while they can be highly dangerous, attacks on humans are rare.
I look at Keller, thinking he’d been worried about the seal—and I see he’s smiling.
“I could get used to this,” he says.
“To what, exactly? Close encounters with deadly predators? The subzero temperatures? The six-day workweeks?”
“You,” he says. “I could get used to you.”
WITH CONSTANT DAYLIGHT, time loses its urgency, and it’s easy for me to believe we’ll be here forever. Yet eventually the sun sets for an hour a day, and then a few more—and soon conversations on the base begin to eddy around the transition from summer to winter season. As our time at McMurdo grows shorter, I can’t stop myself from thinking ahead. Real life begins to intrude into every moment. Lying in Keller’s bed one afternoon, I tuck my head under his chin. “Where do you live now? Back home, I mean?”
We still don’t know some of the very basic facts about each other. Here, none of it matters.
“After the divorce, I got an apartment in Boston,” he says. “When I came here, I put everything in storage.” With my face against his neck, I feel the vibration of his voice almost more than I hear it.
“I have a cottage in Eugene.” I curl an arm around his chest, wrap a leg around his. “Plenty of room for two, if you wanted to visit. Or stay.”
The moment the words are in the air, I feel myself shrink away from them, anticipating his reaction. I pull the sheet over my bare shoulder, as if this could shield me from hearing anything but yes.
Yet he lifts my chin to look at me, intrigued. “Really?”
“Sure.”
A pensive look crosses his face, and I think of his life before, how rich and full it must’ve been—and now this: a dorm room with frayed sheets and scratchy, industrial woolen blankets, and ahead only the promise of a storage unit in Boston, or a tiny cottage and a wet Oregon spring.
Then he smiles. “Remind me,” he says, “how long have you lived alone?”
“We’re practically living together here. I’ve spent more time with you than with any non-penguin in years.”
He pulls me up and over until I’m on top of him, looking down at his face. Our weeks here, with long workdays and rationed water, have left him windburned and suntanned, long-haired and scruffy. I lean in close, and he says, “What are we waiting for?”
WE DON’T TALK much about it after that day. I don’t think about what Keller might do for work in Oregon, about the fact that he’d only recently begun a whole new life. All I can think about is him coming back with me—the first time I’ve been able to bring home something I needed, a part of the place that always seems to make me whole.
The last days in Antarctica before heading Stateside usually make me jittery, but this time it’s Keller who’s on edge during our final week at the station.
“It’s always hard to leave,” I assure him. “But we’ll be back.”
“I know you will,” he says. “You’ve got a career. I’m just a dishwasher. And everyone wants to be a dishwasher in Antarctica.”
He’s right; the competition for the most menial jobs at McMurdo is astounding. “But you got here,” I say. “You’ve proven yourself. They’ll want you back.”
Our last days are busy—I’m gathering my final bits of data and wrapping up the project; Keller, as well as working in the galley, has been filling in for Harry Donovan, one of the maintenance guys, who’s been sick. We’re spending less and less time together, which doesn’t concern me because soon we’ll have nothing but time. We’re among the last of the summer staff still here—already the base is shrinking down, getting closer to its winter size of two hundred. In six more weeks, the sun will set and not rise again for four months.
When I see Keller at Bag Drag, at the Movement Control Center from where we’ll load our bags onto the Terra Bus headed for the airfield, the place is overstuffed with people, cold-weather gear, and luggage—amid all this, Keller looks strangely empty-handed. It’s not unusual for flights to be delayed or canceled, but I have a sinking feeling that’s not the case. I lower my bags and look around. “Where’s your stuff?”
He hasn’t spoken, hasn’t moved; he’s just watching me.
“Deb,” he says.
His tone, low and cautious, causes my chest to tighten, and I don’t want him to say anything more. With my foot, I slide my duffel toward him. “Help me with my bag.”
But he doesn’t move. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” he says, “so I’m just going to say it. I’m staying. For the winter.”
I sling my laptop bag over my shoulder, keeping my eyes on the floor. I’m afraid to look up at him, as if seeing his face will make what he’s telling me real. For the moment, it’s all just words in the air.