Chapter 3 #3
Pan had become quiet, probably because he was worried about Ilias.
He had recently started wearing a dark green bandana that he had knotted from a moth-eaten shirtsleeve, which tamed his curls that stuck out in all directions due to the humidity.
He looked at me and I smiled cautiously, raised my hand timidly, and waved.
He often watched me, so often that it sometimes made me uncomfortable, but I said nothing because I didn’t want to offend him.
After all, he had knocked Maury out instead of me and I would be grateful for that until the end of my days.
When I could no longer see the boat, I fetched water from the Atchafalaya with a bucket with no handle and undressed, bathing myself on the dock with our invaluable soap.
Everything here was precious: the toiletries, every drop of drinking water, and every piece of clothing.
I had never seen anything like it and I had to be careful not to be too wasteful with things.
After I had laboriously washed my long hair, I climbed the creaky steps to the hut.
For a moment, I looked out over the wide basin.
Wisps of mist wandered over the water and hundreds of pelicans frolicked in the lake, silently dipping their beaks into the water.
No sign of a strange motorboat. Apart from a faint gurgling of the water, it was quiet, but my heart was still beating rapidly.
We are at the end of the world and the bayous are a maze of waterways.
Tracking someone here is harder than finding a needle in a haystack , Nathan had said.
Back in the cabin, I searched for something suitable to wear, but all I could find were my old thermal pants and hoodie, which were far too warm here for ninety degrees.
To avoid walking around naked, I pulled on the hoodie, slipped into a pair of Nathan’s underpants, and my boots, then walked across the headland overgrown with reeds and shrubs, hoping to find clothes in my size in one of the tiny shacks.
The narrow island was not particularly large.
It took about half an hour to get from our hut at one end to the other.
It took about five minutes to walk across the width.
Depending on where you were, you needed less.
So the piece of land had to be about three miles long and half a mile wide.
I was still tense. After the first few yards, I glanced nervously back at the dock, but there was only the boat. I could have used it to get to the other shacks, but I didn’t know how to row.
The first four one-room huts that were nearby were a bitter disappointment, but we had already inspected everything.
But, in the fifth, where Sparta had been searching exclusively, I discovered a real treasure.
I found an old mirror and a dilapidated chest with girls’ and women’s clothing.
To my delight, there were even matching underpants, a violet-blue summer dress, and black knee-length trousers.
The latter was made of a delicate fabric, just right for this oppressive heat and constant humidity.
Happy with my loot, I loaded myself up with the clothes, put the mirror on top, and hurried back, always keeping my eyes on the ground so I didn’t step on a snake or miss an alligator.
The alligators here were much smaller than those on the Mississippi, a different subspecies, Nathan had explained, and they didn’t attack people either, nevertheless, I still found them scary.
I hated crocodiles and I hated alligators. I simply wasn’t a fan of reptiles.
In the hut, I looked out all the windows, but Nathan and the others were nowhere to be seen.
All the better: time for girly stuff! First, I washed my new clothes by hand, wrung them out, and hung them on our makeshift clothesline in the sleeping area; I wanted to try on the black pants and a lavender-blue shirt right away.
I quickly slipped into the freshly laundered clothes, put the mirror on a waist-high dresser, and looked at myself.
I liked the pants, and even though the translucent material was still wet, the style was easy to see.
Below my knees, they were tighter thanks to a wide elastic band so that the narrow lace border opened downward like a flower.
Girlish. Dad would like it, just like the dress on my nineteenth birthday.
I pushed the thought away. I was here, no more Daddy’s favorite.
The hematoma still shimmered on my face, which was now glowing green.
Evergreen was the oil paint that matched it.
Reluctantly, I pushed back my hair and my eyes fell on the blunt scissors that Nathan had found and stuck in an old vase.
Mechanically, I pulled them out and began to cut my long hair below my chin strand by strand.
I could have cried. I had no idea why I was doing it, but it seemed important to me, like something I had to do in order to move forward.
When the last strand fell to the floor, I looked into the mirror, transfixed.
I was frightened, but I didn’t know why.
Maybe because Dad had loved my long hair so much?
Did I want to break away from him in this way?
Why even do that? I still wasn’t sure if I believed he was guilty or if it was merely a misunderstanding.
And the question was: even if he was guilty, did that automatically mean that I was no longer allowed to love him and had to break away from him?
On impulse, I turned, jumped down the stairs two at a time, and aimlessly raced across the narrow headland in my still-wet clothes without thinking about anything.
I jumped over old junk, ran until I could hardly breathe, and then collapsed on the swaying dock of a hidden little house.
For minutes, I lay on my back on the wood staring up at the sky, unable to see anything.
All I could feel was the peaceful rocking beneath me, like being cradled in gentle arms. Lukewarm drops fell on my face.
The torrential Louisiana rain was coming.
I remained lying there even when the drops grew increasingly numerous, even when it was pouring down like buckets. My clothes were still wet anyway.
I lay there for a while and felt the monotonous pattering on my body. At some point, I realized that I was talking to myself, words that I hadn’t known I knew. They had a rhythm that just flowed out of me as if a dam had broken.
You are my everything, my day and my night, my celestial star and my earth. You are my yesterday and tomorrow. My now. My eternity .
I repeated them like a prayer over and over until a call tore me out of the trance. I bolted upright.
My heart was pounding. For a split second, I imagined it was Isaac and his armed men, but he surely wouldn’t be calling me, more like sneaking up. I rose as quietly as I could. I was still confused by the memory of the words as I ran back to the shack on the dock.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” I called out softly and walked around the porch to get to land.
Nathan appeared in front of me as if he had grown out of the ground and grabbed me by the shoulders, pressing me against the shack like he had done at sea.
I let out an “oof!” because he had frightened me, but at the same time, everything inside me felt electrified because he looked hopping mad. Really breathless.
“Never do that again! Never again! Do you understand?” He looked down at me from above, his hair dripping, his eyes dark, and then he kissed me.
Not tenderly. Not carefully. Not tentatively like a stranger who doesn’t know the other, but full of blind desire.
Full of hot anger, angry with himself but also with me.
With himself because he couldn’t deal with his feelings and with me because I triggered them in him.
That was exactly how it felt, but I didn’t care.
A dark, sweet shiver of excitement and happiness ran over my damp skin and down my back to my toes.
I had never felt anything like it. It was like I was caught in a vortex and I wanted him to never stop kissing me no matter how angry he was with himself.
As if he sensed the last thought, he paused and backed away, not letting go of my shoulders. “Don’t ever go that far from the cabin again without telling us,” he blurted out angrily. “For a moment, I was afraid Isaac had…”
“But I thought…”
He kissed me again, smothering my question with his mouth and tongue.
He tasted of this mystical landscape, of adventure and foreignness, a taste that intoxicated me deeply.
At some point, he let go and I put my hands under his rain-soaked t-shirt, running my hands over his hot, damp skin, the hard muscles, and the many names of the dead.
I felt the rough wood of the hut against which he was pressing me.
Everything blurred; the many questions in my mind, my flickering thoughts, and every memory.
The next time he backed away, there was a strange sparkle in his sea-gray eyes. Maybe men looked at women like that when they wanted to sleep with them. I didn’t know, I had no experience. Tense, I clutched his t-shirt in my hands and felt my heart pounding in my throat.
“Nathan?” I whispered with burning lips on which I could still taste him. “What is this between us?”
He looked at me as if spellbound, then slowly raised his hands and gently stroked my face with his fingers from my forehead to my temples down to my chin, and back up again, completely in sync.
He seemed lost, so far away. “I never wanted to fall in love. I never wanted to love anyone again. It has only brought me unhappiness,” he said roughly.
“Tous ceux qu’il aime meurent.”
His hands tugged at my hair between my chin and shoulder, a brief recognition of the change without words. “Yes.” His voice sounded heavy, rough, and throaty. “Everyone I love dies, it’s always been like that. An eternal curse.”
“Your brother is still alive,” I said. “He’s still with you.”
He tugged at my hair again. He was silent.
And his long silence was my answer. I finally understood.
That was the missing piece of the puzzle that I had been missing.
“Isaac…he’s sick too…dying?” I whispered, stunned.
That was where Isaac’s miserable hatred for me came from, that personal touch I always felt.
Nathan took a step back and suddenly seemed withdrawn. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
And I want to kiss you , but the wish was childish at that moment. “Nathan, talk to me,” I begged, hoping to sound urgent enough. “I’m here and I’m not dying.”
“But one day you’ll go and I can’t bear to lose anyone again. One day you’ll die too.” He said the last part angrily as if it were my fault.
“But…everyone dies at some point.”
He looked at me, and for a split second, his face was devoid of shielding, harboring his sadness and all his grief without anger.
Now he looked neither warlike nor a pirate, just a lonely boy who didn’t understand the world.
“But I can’t take it anymore. Do you understand?
Next time it will destroy me and leave nothing of me behind.
” He pressed his lips together and the defenseless moment was over.
As he stood there, it seemed as if only his anger at the unjust world could hold him together, as if he would fall apart if he let go.
My heart ached when I saw him like that.
“I promise I won’t die. Not in front of you,” I said with a smile even though it was stupid.
Immediately, he clenched his hands. “Promises are sacred. You have to be able to keep them, but yours is impossible.”
“Nathan, all I want is…” For you to kiss me.
For you to love me. For us to be together.
At least, for the time I’m trapped here .
I wanted to tell him all of that, but I couldn’t when I realized he was so miserable.
He was shaking and I was afraid that he would withdraw again, reject me, or treat me badly just to protect himself.
“I’m sorry about Isaac,” I said quietly even if I only felt sorry for Nathan himself.
“How long…” I stopped when I saw his lightless gaze. His eyelids fluttered.
“He still has time. Maybe six months, maybe a year. None of the others know.” He suddenly turned, jumped from the wooden porch to the ground, and offered me his hand so I could climb down easier.
“Is that why you did it?” I asked.
Nathan let go of me and marched straight through the thicket as if he was not afraid of poisonous snakes or giant spiders.
“Did what?” He didn’t even turn to me.
I quickly climbed over a fallen branch. “Take me hostage. Because your brother is dying. Is that why you went along with it?”
He still didn’t stop and that suddenly made me mad. “Damn it, Nathan, I’m talking to you!”
He moved even faster. He was doing it again!
First, he literally attacked me with his affection and then pushed me away with both hands.
I was so sick of it even though he had his reasons.
I also had reasons why I wanted him to love me!
And he owed me something. I was stuck here because of him and his brother!
He and Isaac were to blame for me doubting Dad and almost drowning in a fishing net.
On top of that, he had tied me up and mocked me.
Why did I feel so drawn to him in the first place?
Because of a single summer in my childhood—a few words between colorful lights, broken glass, and rays of sunlight?
I didn’t know and that annoyed me even more.
And being angry was better than admitting my disappointment.
Out of carelessness, I stumbled over an old abandoned pipe.
I caught myself, but something scraped my leg, it was sharp and hot, so I automatically screamed.
“Willa?” Nathan, who was several yards further, turned around.
Yes, of course! Now you react! You only admit your feelings to yourself any time you are afraid for me!
The stinging pain in my leg brought tears to my eyes. “I think a coral snake bit me!”