She took a deep breath and started walking towards the sea with her eyes closed. When she passed the last stones and felt the sand under her feet she looked at the horizon. The last bits of white mist were dissolving above the water. The surface of the sea was completely smooth. She did not disturb it with a heavy step, she melted into it with a slow movement and broke the stillness stretching out to where the sea touched the sky.
Suddenly she heard a voice in her head, more a feeling than a voice.
Darkness, loneliness, fear, Mama!
Without stopping, she sent him a message:
“Be quiet, lie there and wait. They will come and then you will get up.”
The sensation passed. How many more times would he have to nearly wake up in all those years of waiting? All alone? Buried? Melted?
The water covered the top of her dress, surrounded her neck, drowned her mouth, eyes, head. She did not stop walking.
She could picture herself all puffed up with decay, floating towards her home, into the warmer seas and their stronger currents and she let go.
For ever.
1
“You’ll die tonight, guys!”
Max smiled the smile of an experienced sinner who had not only survived Sodom and Gomorra but had long ago surpassed it. As usual, the smile moved via Samo to Alfonz’s awkward attempt and even Raf made the effort but so belatedly that he decided to get up, mumbling something about going to the toilet and walking off down the deck with quick steps.
In the narrow passage between the restaurant and outer rail of the ferry he slowed down, glanced back — no, they could not see him — and did not even look at the door leading to the toilets. There was no sign, just the unmistakable smell. A few metres further along, another door gaped open. By the state of the door hinges he could tell that it had not been closed for a long time. He stopped in front of the dark opening and looked down the metal staircase. A smell of heat and petrol wafted up to him. After a moment’s hesitation he went down towards the part of the ferry he had not yet seen.
They had been going for three hours now and according to the timetable they were due to dock in an hour and thirty-five minutes. So far they had arrived on time at all three islands which were now far behind and it was safe to assume that there would be no delay. Raf looked away from his watch and paid attention to the stairs. On some of them there were large drops of some unknown liquid. It did not smell, just looked disgusting. The drops appeared in regular intervals, as if they had been spilled from a bucket, carried by an uncertain hand.
The belly of the ferry had almost completely emptied on the largest, best known island — the second stop — just over an hour ago. They had leant over the rail at the front, observing the unruly chaos of the vehicles making their way on to dry land. The stop was for half an hour, and at the beginning it looked as if most of that time would be taken up by the drivers hooting impatiently at a confused holidaymaker who could not get his car, caravan and, after a while, even himself turned in the right direction. Because of all the swearing and honking behind him he became more and more agitated and confused and therefore moved further and further away from his goal. Luckily, some of the bystanders started giving him advice, but of course, strongly disagreed with one another, and it all nearly ended in a fight. With the attention turned away from him, the unfortunate caravan owner finally managed to collect himself and drove off. His advisors did not even notice his departure and after a while were unable to notice it, as by this time they had forgotten what the argument was about.
This event was the only entertaining part of that day and it could not overcome Raf’s feeling of unease. He should not have come. He had no valid reason for these thoughts, which gripped him with a renewed strength in the darkness surrounded by the noise of the engines. When he was seven, a schoolfriend had come to ask him to play one afternoon. He rang the bell at the entrance, Raf looked down from the fifth floor and immediately agreed. On the way to the door of their flat, he was suddenly overcome by such tiredness that he could only just drag himself to bed and he fell onto it, falling asleep before his head even hit the pillow. His friend probably rang the bell a few more times, but Raf did not hear it. He was later woken by shouting and crying echoing down the corridor. In a daze, he got up to see what was going on. His friend had gone to the railway lines and climbed onto the roof of a train standing on a side track. The electric wires had sucked him up and fried him. After a few years of never thinking about the incident, two very vivid images came to him while he was alone under that deck. A father with a red-skinned son in his arms. And his friend in an open coffin, with face powder literally caked all over him. Which made him think of what had happened to open coffins, blessings and mourning since then? The whole class had gone to bless that boy, but when a few years later, at grammar school, a mountaineering schoolfriend died, condolences were sent by post and at the funeral there was just an urn with ashes which could have contained anything.
Raf shivered — on the way to a week’s holiday he was thinking such morbid thoughts.
He stepped over to a motorcycle parked nearby and looked at the shiny Japanese miracle. He allowed himself a short burst of envy. Only six months had passed since a girl he had been in love with had rejected him, saying she was only interested in men with motorbikes. Raf was well aware that a motorbike was one of those things that a man sometimes had to do without and that, anyway, it all depended on the season, but at the same time he also knew that that was just pure reasoning, which had nothing to do with the matters of the heart.
He sighed deeply and walked over to the raised bow door. He could see the sea splashing at the side and from time to time a few drops came inside. No dry land could be seen. Somewhere above, seagulls were circling. One of them dived quickly and grabbed something in the air before it fell into the sea.
Someone on the deck must be feeding the gulls. Raf smiled. He turned and walked the length of the ferry. There was only one vehicle left, a delivery van, which got off at every stop, unloaded and drove back on. The driver was asleep in his cabin and the noise of his hoarse snoring was escaping through the window in irregular intervals.
The same thing every day, thought Raf. What a job! He just managed to get round all the islands in his eight hours and that was it. In his old age he would be able to say that he had spent his life on the sea but his grandchildren would wonder why he was so pale.
Raf turned his head towards the high ceiling and slowly looked around the large room. When they had first set off, it looked as if it was suffocating with all the vehicles. And then, after each stop, there was less metal and technology and more room and peace and quiet. As if they were not just journeying away, but backwards in time too.
Raf went back up using the staircase opposite the one he had come down. Soon after the first turn in the stairs he tripped, nearly touching the metal with his nose but still managing somehow to steady himself. He sighed slowly:
“Jesus!” just like every other time he tripped.
He was getting fed up of his friends ridiculing his clumsiness and he was relieved that there were no witnesses this time.
Once back on deck, he was blinded by the sun and when he finally opened his eyes the first thing he saw was the motorbike owner. He was not wearing a helmet or a leather suit — he noticed those two identifiers only later, rolled and fastened to the rucksack and squashed under the bench — but had long blonde hair, a thick moustache and a tattoo of an eagle on his upper arm. He was sunbathing with his eyes closed but Raf was not fooled into believing he was asleep. Or was it that these muscular men, like Samo, slept in a special way, without relaxing their muscles?
He turned towards the bow and his (former) schoolfriends, who were still hidden by the middle part of the ferry and touched something soft with his left hand. Grease! Green grease on the ends of his fingers. They must have freshly greased the winch and judging by the large quantity of the stuff it was meant to last forever. Raf rubbed his fingers against the fence until they stopped sticking to one another. He looked at the traces of the stuff on the metal rail and realised he had set a trap which would sooner or later be sprung by someone. He did not have a tissue or a handkerchief. He made himself small and turned towards the stern. He was not in a hurry to return to
