My Last Continent: A Novel(46)
Now, standing alone on the beach wondering where he could be, I’m about to call him on the radio. Then I see a Zodiac approaching—it’s him, his sunglasses coated in sea spray.
“About f*cking time,” I say, trying to cover my relief. “Anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to leave a person stranded on an island?”
He only smiles, stopping the Zodiac a few yards from shore. “Get in,” he says.
I wade through water nearly up to my knees, feeling the icy chill against my boots. Keller holds out his hand to help me into the boat. He guns the engine as we leave the beach, hugging the shoreline as he swings around a small, snowcapped hill.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
His back is to me, and I can’t tell what he’s up to. I watch the movement of his shoulders as he guides the boat, his weathered hands on the tiller. It still amazes me that this lawyer-turned-dishwasher knows nearly as much about these birds and these islands as I do.
The bergs rise tens to hundreds of feet above us, their craggy white tops etched with the deep blue of older ice beneath. Below the surface, the ice fans out, turning the water a Caribbean greenish blue. Ahead, on a small, indigo-steeped iceberg, a chinstrap penguin flaps its wings as if waving at us. Then it flops onto its stomach and slides into the depths below.
As I gaze out at the white face of the largest berg, its rime scratched with forked edges revealing the old, dark-blue ice deep within, I wonder if Keller and I might age together as beautifully, whether we can last in a world in which everything is melting, disappearing.
Keller glides into a precipitous, stony landing spot. Above us, a gentoo colony is nestled into the staggered, snow-and moss-covered hills. Keller jumps out into knee-deep water and yanks the Zodiac farther ashore, then holds out his hand for me.
As we climb over the slate-colored rocks toward the base of the hill, he says, “There’s someone I’ve been wanting you to meet.”
He leads me up to the colony, staying clear of the penguin tracks. The penguins let out a chorus of growls as we pass by—the same sound they use to ward off the skuas.
“What have you been doing over here?” I ask.
“Sit down,” he says instead of answering, indicating a large, flat piece of granite. When I sit on the edge, he waves me farther back, so I scoot toward the middle. “Good—right there,” he says.
“What the hell are you up to, Keller?”
“You’ll see.” He sits next to me, and I hold my breath for a moment, realizing how completely alone we are, for the first time so far on this journey—away from the ship, the crew, the passengers, with no eyes on us except the penguins’.
But Keller is looking straight ahead, at the gentoos, almost as if I’m not there. From this height, I can see past the iceberg skyline into the gray-green water beyond. The sun begins to poke through the fog, creating a silvery haze, and its blurred reflection appears on the surface of the water, illuminating the smaller chunks of ice that float like stepping-stones toward the icebergs.
“Nice spot,” I say. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here.”
He smiles and shoves his sunglasses atop his head, as if to get a clearer view. He nods toward the sharp, steel-colored points of the rocks, rising from the hillside like spires. “Like cathedrals, aren’t they?”
As the sounds of the penguins fill my ears, I think of the last time I’d been in a real cathedral, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, during that last Christmas at home. My schedule makes it easy to skip holidays; I’m usually on my way to Antarctica, heading home, or on board. I send cards and gifts for my brother’s kids, and I leave a voice mail when I know they’re at Midnight Mass. The rest of the year, I stay in touch with each of them, separately, via e-mail and birthday phone calls. We live our own lives, and I spend my winters with those whose behaviors I recognize most—the chinstraps, the gentoos, the Adélies.
And Keller. He and I sit on this rock, quiet, right next to each other. After a few minutes, a lone gentoo, a male, emerges from the colony and begins to meander toward us. I watch his bobbing head—black, with two swirls of white above the eyes, flourishes of pale shadow. The marks meet in a thin band on the top of his head and are sprinkled with flecks of white, like spilled salt. He raises his orange bill in the air.
“Here’s the little guy I want you to meet,” Keller says.
I laugh. “You two know each other?”
“I call him Admiral Byrd.”
“Admiral Bird?” It takes me a second, and then I get it. “Oh. After Richard Byrd.”
As the penguin approaches, I remain still. My legs are stretched out in front of me, ankles crossed, and the penguin hops over to the toes of my boots and gives them a few curious pecks.
“I banded him last year,” Keller says. “He just came right up to me, climbed onto my shoes, nipped at the equipment.”
Byrd turns his head to the side to look at both of us. He begins walking around toward the edge of the rock.
“Sit back,” Keller says. “Here, put your legs up.” With his hands on my knees, he guides my legs into another position: thighs parallel with the ground, feet flat, knees slightly apart.
As I’m focusing on my legs, Admiral Byrd is hopping up, stone by stone, and, a moment later, he’s right next to me. He’s about two feet tall, and from where I’m sitting, he looks me in the eye. I notice the metal band at the spot where his left wing meets his body.