Page 21 of A Christmas Harbor

Paul opened the book, touching the pages only by their gilded edges. With most tomes this age, the paper would threaten to crumble into dust between his fingers, but these sheets felt thick and firm. He paused on the Gustave Doré illustration at the end of Part the First, captionedI Shot the Albatross. Then he turned the page and read aloud:

“Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.”

“That’s one of my favorite stanzas,” David said. “So simple and yet such a perfect description of the doldrums.”

Did he mean the real doldrums at the equator or the metaphorical ones inside a human soul? Or both? Or was it just Paul’s writer brain making connections where none belonged?

David’s voice turned casual again. “The lack of space on the boat means most of my books are on an e-reader. I kept only a few favorites.”

“I told my realtor here in Annapolis that my new apartment has to have room for books. I said to her, ‘However many books you think is a lot, multiply that by ten, then add another three hundred.’” He checked out the other titles. “Homer’sOdyssey, makes sense.Mutiny on the Bounty, yep. Hmm, Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet—ah, that’s where you got the boat name.”

“Actually, L’Engle and I both took the name from a quote in Song of Solomon.”

“Isn’t that the sexy Bible book, the one people read from at weddings?”

“The same.”

“And what’s the quote?”

“Hang on, I want to get it right.” David squeezed his eyes shut and moved his lips silently. “Something like, ‘Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers drown it.’”

David’s eyes opened and met his, sending a wave of heat leaping over the entirety of Paul’s skin.

“That’s…really nice.” He winced inwardly.Really nice? Worst poetry commentary ever.

Paul turned back to the bookshelf. “What’s this one?” He withdrew a battered green paperback. The wordsRun SilentandRun Deepwere written above and below a photo of a surfaced submarine viewed through binoculars.

“That’s the novel that started it all. I read it when I was nine.”

“I thoughtThe Day Aftermovie started it all.”

“That, too.” David shrugged. “Sometimes it takes more than one nudge to start you down your true path.”

“Sometimes it takes more than ten nudges.” Paul returned the paperback to the shelf, then slid in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” careful to place both books exactly where he’d found them, because screwing up another person’s bookshelf should be a felony. “I used to teach a class on the English Romantics. Blake’s my favorite, but Coleridge is a close second.”

“Do you have a favorite poem by him?”

“Probably ‘Ode on the Departing Year,’ partly because I can relate to the process. See, a newspaper asked Coleridge to write a few lines to publish on New Year’s Day 1797. But then he got a really bad head cold and couldn’t write. So there he was, staring down the barrel of a hard deadline, and he wrote the entire poem in three days over Christmas.”

“I take it you’ve been in that situation?”

“I’ve committed serious neglect—of myself and others—before deadlines. I’m not proud of that. Anyway, the poem is an anti-slavery lament, plus a warning for his country not to join forces with Russia, who’d just invaded France. It was one of the first of his political poems.” Paul stopped himself before he could burrow any deeper into professor mode. “It turned out his remedy for all these problems was to go live on a farm.”

“Be nice if we could all do that.”

“Yeah, no one ever said the Romantics had a solid plan for world peace.” Craving more clues to this man, Paul stooped to look at the bottom shelf. At the center was a painting of what looked like a Hindu god—based on his lemon-yellow halo—chatting to a guy in a chariot pulled by four white horses. A bow and a full quiver of arrows lay on the ground, as if they’d been tossed away. Soldiers were assembled on either side of the chariot, their regiment extending past the edge of the painting. “Are you Hindu?”

“My sister-in-law is. Was. That is, she’s still Hindu, just not my sister-in-law anymore. She gave that to me, sort of as a joke but sort of not.” David pointed to the sullen-looking man in the chariot. “This prince, Arjuna, is torn up about going to war because he has friends and family in the opposing army. He asks advice from his escort, Lord Krishna.” He indicated the deity. “Right after the moment in this painting, Krishna becomes a terrifying manifestation of the god Vishnu—with more arms, eyes, and mouths than Arjuna can count. And Krishna says, ‘Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds.’”

The quote was familiar. “Where have I heard that?” Paul asked.

“Probably from Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Los Alamos lab that made the first atomic weapon. He had read the Bhagavad Gita and said the line came into his head the day he watched the first test. It’s probably his most famous quote.”

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