My Last Continent: A Novel(27)
I’d known that, with Thom taking time off, I’d have a new research partner on Petermann, but I’d assumed it would be one of the long-timers from the APP. And then, after six whirlwind days on board the Cormorant, one of the other naturalists escorts Keller and me to the island by Zodiac, with two weeks’ worth of supplies.
As soon as the Cormorant recedes into the Penola Strait, Keller and I work quickly to establish our small camp, pitching all three tents though we know one will remain empty. After a week of pent-up sexual energy on board, we’re both eager to take advantage of being alone, at last. As I lie naked in the tent, my body awakening in the cool air, under Keller’s hands, I realize the extent to which I’d let myself grow numb, forgetting the pleasures to be found in my own skin. The tent is tight and cramped, not unlike our individual sleeping quarters on the Cormorant—but now, rather than the hum of the ship, we hear the sounds of the penguins and waves lapping the bay; rather than dry heated air, the night is alive with a gelid summer mist. It’s effortless, being together again, as if it were days later rather than years, and the emotional scrim that had begun to envelop me falls away again. Keller, too, seems more at peace, as though he has shed the very last of his former self, traces of which I’d seen when we first met. Now he’s only muscle and bone, as if distilled down to his very essence—the part of him I still feel may be just out of my reach.
In the morning, we rise early; it’s a balmy forty degrees, and we work in light jackets, forgoing hats and gloves. Our tasks for the next two weeks include counting birds, eggs, and chicks, as well as weighing a sampling of chicks to contribute to one of our ongoing studies on the connections among penguin populations and factors like climate change, food sources, the fishing industry, local weather, oil spills.
We’ve continued to examine the effects of tourism on the birds. Two hundred years ago, the penguins had the continent all to themselves; now they come into contact with bacteria they have no defenses for. Four years ago, Thom and I tested tourists’ boots as they boarded after a landing and found almost two dozen contaminants. Glenn wasn’t at all happy about our stopping guests from the Zodiacs on their way to lunch, so that was our first and last experiment. And in truth, we can’t blame only tourism; migrating birds bring new toxins, too—we’ve found salmonella and E. coli, West Nile and avian pox. Still, whether it’s climate change or tourism, the only thing not changing is the penguins’ vulnerability. So we keep studying, and I keep wondering what impact our data might have.
Seeing Keller working nearby throughout the long days, sharing our meals, retreating to our tent as dusk settles over the island—all this has given me a sense of optimism I haven’t felt since my early years here. For so long I’ve identified with the continent in its icy despair, the ephemeral nature of its wildness—but I feel newly energized, as if what we accomplish here may make a difference after all.
The weather holds up for nearly our entire stay—it isn’t until the last day that an icy rain begins to fall midafternoon, while we’re still in the midst of the day’s work. The adult penguins are unfazed, going about their business as the raindrops roll off their feathered backs—but the chicks, still covered with dark-gray fluff, can’t shake out the water that sinks into their down, and many of them will freeze to death this year.
Keller and I are both as waterlogged as the chicks when he convinces me it’s time to give in; the temperature is dropping, the rain turning to sleet. We scurry into our tight two-person tent, where Keller takes off his boots and helps me with mine. We toss our dripping jackets into the corner, on top of the boots, as we shiver in the frigid air.
“Lie back,” Keller says. He pushes my shirt up over my shoulders, and I close my eyes, trying to stop my body’s shaking as I feel his mouth on my belly, my breasts, my neck, then holding my breath as he travels downward. With his tongue he limns the angles and curves of my body, filling the hollow places he’d left behind, until new tremors flood through me, washing away all but the two of us, our bodies damp and drying in the wind-rattled tent.
Later, when the rain stops, we hang our clothes to dry outside. I’m quiet, thinking about what comes next. After our return voyage, when the Cormorant docks in Ushuaia, we’ll watch the passengers crowd onto a coach bus bound for the airport, and we’ll have one more night together before Keller himself heads to the airport. Because this is Keller’s first trip with the Cormorant, he’d only been offered one voyage, one assignment at Petermann. He’ll travel from Ushuaia to Santiago to Miami to Boston while I prepare for the next group of passengers to embark. I’ll spend another week on board and two more weeks on Petermann with another naturalist from the APP before heading back to the States myself.
“Don’t worry,” he says, as if reading my mind, as we begin a walk along the edge of the gentoo colony near our camp. “It won’t be like before. We’ll figure things out.”
He stops, looking out over the colony, then raises his hands, as if framing the scene for a photograph. “All this—it reminds me of a word I learned from my grandmother, a long time ago,” he says. “Her parents were German immigrants, and this was back when there was a lot of anti-German feeling in the States, so they distanced themselves from their heritage. My grandmother had always wanted to visit Germany, but she never did—she taught me this German word, fernweh, which doesn’t have an equivalent word in English. It means something like being homesick for a place you’ve never been. She said that was how she felt about Germany, her whole life.” He motions toward the hills, peppered with nesting gentoos. “I finally understand what she meant.”