What Lot's Wife Saw (43 page)

“Hey, throw me a rope so that I can climb aboard, too!” I heard the impatient Priest from below.

I found a coil of thick rope, made one end fast to the railing and heaved the other over the side. The Priest immediately started to pull himself up. He jumped over and stood next to me. He looked around him at the deck, the shining black gear, the engraved stanchions, the sturdy new ropes, the maze of halyards and lanyards, shrouds with rungs tightly knotted at regular intervals. The delicately curved bridge with a sharp cornice running along it boasted an impressive wheel with spokes like the rays of a life-giving sun. The anchor lay contentedly nestled in its chain just inside the bulwark with not a hint of rust along its length. The Priest murmured that the ship was so beautiful that the Doctor might be right after all and we were dreaming it.

We heard strangled cries from alongside. We leant over the railing and we saw him gesticulating. He begged us not to leave him all alone down there – if we intended to stay on board then we’d have to get him up as well. We both tied ourselves to the rope and hauled away with all our might to get him up, not just because he was overweight but also because he was a deadweight; he did nothing at all to help. We hauled him over by his armpits and dropped him onto the deck. On his hands and knees he looked around him in awe. The romantic beauty of his surroundings overwhelmed him.

“Where are we?” he inquired hesitantly.

“In some bygone age, by the look of it,” I answered, and pointed out the moist scuppers. The Doctor dipped his fingers and smelt them, whereas the Priest lay flat and shoved his nose straight into it.

“I haven’t drawn such a breath in twenty years. This smells of the deep blue ocean, of pure, precious water.”

“Are we losing our minds, then? That’s it, we are going mad,” the Doctor exclaimed.

“I don’t know, Fabrizio, I truly don’t, but for the first time I can remember, I am no longer afraid,” I said with remarkably clear mind and a steady voice.

Perhaps we were in a time warp, like those Einstein had predicted, but my heart was feeling younger. Fear flew like an annoying bird out of my system and vanished. I was being liberated, and the sensation was very pleasant. Blissful!

The Doctor was still scrabbling about on the wooden deck, enjoying its warmth and beauty. He squirmed in ecstasy.

“Why can’t I die here, at this very moment,” he called out in joy.

We lay down next to him and gazed up at the masts thrusting majestically towards infinity. The stifling cloud of fumes prevented these proud masts from piercing a blue sky. I was mortally offended.

“Let’s go up to the bridge, find the captain’s charts and see where it’s been,” suggested the Priest.

We climbed to the bridge, stroked the gleaming wheel and immersed ourselves in maps, charts and instruments. The smell of the iodine of the blue sea was stronger in this enclosed space. The Priest pulled the door shut behind us to keep the noxious stench of the violet earth outside. Here we were in the Mediterranean, on our beloved peninsulas, occupying the bodies of our youth.

We found the echo-sounder, useless in the violet sea and moved on to the theodolite, used to measure the sun’s azimuth, but that too was useless as the fumes deflect the sun’s rays and distort any reading. We lifted the leather lid of the compass but were disheartened by the needle’s wild swinging, doubtless to the tune of the magnetic violet salt. We tried the sextant, worked the astrolabe, opened and closed the telescope, peered at the dromometer. None of these were any use in this sea. The Priest flipped the hourglass and watched the grains of sand jostle to get through the narrow opening.

“This ship is trapped in the wrong place and the wrong time.”

“Or we are,” Fabrizio said quietly.

We stood over the naval charts and saw just what we expected: our inundated peninsulas portrayed exactly as we remembered them, as if there had been no Overflow. Anyone who used these as a guide today would get totally lost as they wouldn’t be able to find Europe, Africa or Asia. The ship had been trapped because its instruments were useless in the Colony’s waters and its charts useless outside of them.

There were compasses, rulers and pencils on the table but no evidence – calculations, lines or position points – that they had been used to plot or record a course. They were all in mint condition. Dr Fabrizio burst into tears. He lamented that this beautiful vessel, flawless, faultless and blameless though it was, was doomed to rot here, assaulted by the violet frost which would scour the wood, shred the sails and rust the metals. This was a crime which we were allowing to happen, as if it had nothing to do with us.

We tried to figure out what kind of ship we were dealing with. There was no armament, not even gunports, so it wasn’t a warship. It looked commercial, perhaps a clipper, but when we went down into the holds we found them too small, so that ruled cargo out. It was too large and sleek to have been built for leisure, the accommodation was spartan, so that left the unlikely purpose of racing. It had no cabins only a large common room area that looked like a library. Apart from a number of books it had sparse furniture and no beds, pillows or blankets that we could see. The crew must have been condemned to sleeplessness, keeping that wide-eyed mermaid company through the night.

Montenegro pulled out the leather-bound volumes, hoping to find some evidence that would point to the country of origin and, perhaps, its purpose. Most of them were classics, unfortunately printed in their original languages – Verne, Hugo, Dante, Cervantes, Dickens – so they shed no light on the nationality of their readers. It was more like a collector’s library. In the corner of the common room there was an old piano. Fabrizio trembled from emotion as he lifted the lid and then sat down to play a tarantella but the violet frost had already done its work by untuning the wires and the Italian, his skin crawling with horror, slammed the lid back down. He covered his face with his hands.

“I would lay down my life to return this ship to the blue sea.”

“Would it be that our lives could be that highly priced!” whispered Montenegro in despair.

“But my body screams for this sacrifice! Never has anything been more worthy of it!” he bowed his head, and inconsolably hit it quite hard on the piano. “Why is there no God listening, or Devil, to accept this pact!”

Our prayers were hollowly answered by the muteness of the strangled, motionless sea and of the deserted cove. No God or Devil would stoop so low as to release such a perfect vessel in exchange for something we had demeaned to such a negligible value. Gods and Devils are more demanding than that.

We slid down the rope we’d tied to the gunwale and left the ship. We trudged back towards habitation without speaking or daring to look behind us. We’d finally realised why only we six from all the colonists could see the Black Ship. No one else deserved such a cruel punishment.

CAPTAIN DRAKE

… I reached the top of the ridge. I lifted my lantern and tried to make out the floor of the inlet but it wouldn’t penetrate the darkness. Siccouane whispered that I was lucky to have come at night for, had it been day, I would have already fainted from the beauty of the Black Ship. He lent a helping hand to Regina and led her up to join us. Judge Bateau also appeared, wiping the sweat off his brow.

“Do we have a long way to go, Siccouane?” he asked, out of breath.

“We’re here. As soon as we descend the incline we will fetch up against it.”

“I can’t see the tip of my nose,” Regina complained.

“It isn’t the Black Ship’s fault that the Colony has no sky!” Siccouane said fervently. “It was built to sail under the stars and moon, not in the filth of the Dead Sea.”

The Secretary spoke so tenderly about the Black Ship that I suspected that he was going round the bend faster than I was. I watched him step off the top of the sand dune and tumble downwards. He called out to us to follow him down. To keep my hands free, I held the lantern between my teeth. I made sure that my pistol was holstered and sat down gingerly on the sloping side. I used my arms to propel me in a sliding motion. My whole body ached from the desert ordeals, my bones creaked and lanced me with pain with every movement.

The lights of the Colony weren’t visible from this side of the bay so the darkness was so absolute that the light of our lanterns petered out before even reaching the ground we stood on. I slid down in pitch darkness. I felt that I was descending to Hades in the Stygian Gloom.

After a short time my body informed me that my surroundings had become horizontal so I knew I must have reached the bottom. A strange smell reached my nostrils. I should know what it was but it just eluded me. Siccouane announced triumphantly that we were lucky that the water in the scuppers hadn’t all evaporated and that we smelled the iodine of the blue sea.

Iodine, indeed, that was what I was smelling. My heart soared, I found myself transported to the coast around Antalya.

Siccouane lifted his lantern and revealed the hull, which was black and framed by darkness.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I present IEREMOI!”

“Who?”

“That’s how the Priest said the ship’s name is pronounced – it’s Greek, although he hasn’t produced an explanation for that Latin R amongst the Greek letters.”

I cautiously approached the hull and rapped it with my knuckles. I heard the resonant, warm sound of gorgeous wood, like the deep neigh of a wild horse in anguish at being fenced in. Do they actually still build such vessels? The ships of the Consortium were made of lightweight plastic so that they could ride high on the sea, but this one here boasted a heavyweight construction so that it could plough solidly through the oceans, like two lovers entwined, one in another.

We walked around it and I admired its sleek lines, built for speed. It must look magnificent, hurtling through the sea with a brisk tail wind. Now it seemed violated by the plethora of poles, struts and beams that surrounded its flanks and kept it trapped. I was reminded of Gulliver who’d been immobilised by a maze of Lilliputian ropes after he’d been washed ashore. Nothing seemed capable of keeping this ship from sailing the high seas. Nothing, apart from the Colony.

Siccouane located the rope they’d left dangling when he’d come there earlier with Montenegro and Fabrizio. He showed us the way up and told us not to worry as the strong rope had been tied securely to the railing. I fixed the lantern to my belt and followed him up, groaning in pain from my maltreated bones. I was too old to scurry up ropes like a recruit, so I was completely bemused by the Secretary’s agility. All around us was thick, impenetrable darkness. We could only just make out our hands so I very much doubted that we would see everything that he had described with such passion: the masts, shrouds, ropes, sails wrapped around elegant spars, and the curved bridge.

My torment came to an end when my hand wrapped itself around the top of the railing and I swung with relief onto the deck. I moved around a bit as my legs felt peculiar. I felt uplifted, not just the weary frame of my body but my whole being, mind and matter. The pain leached out of my bones and evaporated through my skin. My body became so light that I had to check that it still enveloped me. I stretched my back and looked around me in a daze. Either gravity had been reduced up here or I had become suddenly lighter.

Regina and Bateau called that they needed our help, as they couldn’t pull themselves up. We hauled them up one by one. When Regina landed on the deck she froze halfway through her first step and whispered that she felt that her hair was turning brown again.

Siccouane impatiently guided our hands to the scuppers. I dipped my fingers in the moistness, held them under my nose and breathed deeply. My nostrils were flooded with the scent of the long-sunken dream – Antalya, my unfairly lost, beautiful home. My inner being became so deep that it swallowed me up.

I threw the lantern as far away as I could because its smell was masking the fragrance of iodine. Everyone threw theirs as well, and we heard them falling and extinguishing on the sand beneath. There was no sea breeze and the sky was unremittingly dark. The ship was like a diamond that had surfaced in a rubbish tip.

“What’s happening to this ship?” the Judge wondered as he tried to get up, but felt his legs quivering.

Regina lay down flat on the deck to see if she could find the source of the faint vibration. She stuck her ear against the wood and she said in alarm, “It’s moving.”

The Secretary informed us morosely that it was breathing, not moving. It was alive but held captive. It was dying.

The Judge looked at him and hate twisted his features. He lunged and grabbed him by the throat. “You bastard, you brought us here to hear it die?”

Extricating himself, Siccouane answered calmly, “I brought you here because you had to see it.”

“We’re killing it,” Regina lamented.

“We’ve been dead for many years now. I doubt that we can kill anyone anymore, we can’t even kill time!” Bateau ranted in anguish.

“Something so beautiful, so guiltless and defenceless, only we could bring harm to it.” My chest was on fire. I unbuttoned my shirt. I was burning.

The Judge collapsed on the deck. He banged his head against a stanchion and shouted that no one could foresee the harm they caused, they don’t suspect it and life goes on and carries you with it. You don’t realise the consequences of your acts. He said he wasn’t trying to find excuses, his guilt was staring him in the face, but the shockwave of the Overflow had thrown him so far away from the person he’d been that he’d had to become someone else to survive. He’d had no choice but to change into what he was now, and anyone who’d been displaced like him could understand. He inconsolably stroked the wood of the deck and whispered that he was not asking for forgiveness, because he didn’t deserve it, he was only begging to be told what he should do. He was ready to do anything to release the magnificent ship to the deep blue sea.

We all sank to our knees and prayed to our personal gods and to any higher Being who was capable of correcting injustices when they saw them. We were willing to offer our worthless lives to save the innocent ship. Siccouane sighed that Fabrizio had made an identical offer this afternoon but that no one had appeared from the sky to accept the exchange. He wished that it could have been so easy.