Page 11 of A Girl, Unbroken
It was pointless to consider who from the former crew, other than Sparta, had wanted to get rid of me, but my thoughts kept circling the topic. I often came back to Ilias because of his size, but Pan swore to me that his twin would never have harmed a hair on my head for his sake alone. Ilias knew how much Panliked me. And they usually agreed, and when Pan liked someone, Ilias agreed and vice versa.
Basically, it could have been anyone, but the hobbits were ruled out—they were much too small. There was no point in thinking about it.
It took at least three weeks for us to settle in. We searched the surrounding shacks, some of which were scattered far and wide on the promontory, for anything we could use. We found a few patchwork blankets, matches, worn-out mattresses, half a sack of pasta, a sack of rice, some “canned food”—as Icarus disparagingly called it—and a change of clothes. Nathan even found a pair of old ankle-high lace-up boots for me, but in size seven, which was two sizes too big for me.
“My goodness, Will! No one has such tiny Cinderella feet! Can’t something be normal about you?” he commented, half amused, half annoyed, but we managed with the knitted socks we had found in the rickety hut.
Nathan had taken out the motorboat on the second day, taking only Icarus with him. When they returned six hours later, they had used his last dollars to load the boat with missing supplies: more canned food, fruit and fresh vegetables, flour and spices, gas for the stove, needed tools, sanitary pads and tampons, a charger for Nathan’s cell phone, and a generator that could be cranked to generate electricity. They also had some fever-reducing medicine and antibiotics.
On the one hand, it was scary that the coastal towns were apparently not that far away—after all, Isaac could search for us there—but on the other hand, it was convenient. At least now I had sanitary pads and tampons in case, even if my period had not been a problem up to that point. They were irregular anyway, maybe three times a year, a phenomenon that Dr.Moore said was related to my psyche. But that had always been just fine by me.
The next morning, the men set off in the motorboat to find out if they had reception anywhere in the area. They wanted to check for messages and incoming calls. Naturally, they also wanted to contact Isaac, but no one would admit it, I just thought so.
As they were all traveling together, there was no danger of someone hitting me with a piece of driftwood behind me—if I could believe Nathan. I was supposed to keep an eye on the basin since he wanted to go with the others to the east side near the floating forest. If necessary, I was to run there and shout loudly.
I watched the men go down to the dock and climb into the boat. Nathan was wearing black as always, looking like a shadow in the misty air. Sparta, on the other hand, was pale, ghost-like next to the shadowy Nathan. Nathan had told me yesterday that he had fungal pneumonia due to his immune deficiency. Many people he knew had ultimately died from such an infection. Or from a harmless cold. Both eventually led to high fever. Organ failure. Death. For some, it was quicker, for others, it dragged on painfully. I didn’t want to imagine what it would be like if Sparta died here. Troy and Icarus looked like carefree students next to him. Icarus wore a wide, colorful coat that we had found on a porch and truly looked like a magician. Troy had thrown on a brown poncho from the rickety hut and a cowboy hat sat on his head. They were constantly teasing each other out of boredom, Troy, however, continued not to speak to Sparta and avoided him.
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 thehumidity. 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 pushedthe thought away. I was here, no more Daddy’s favorite. The hematoma still shimmered on my face, which was now glowing green.Evergreenwas 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…”
