The saskiad, p.25
The Saskiad, page 25
Monica and Marie are both ninth graders. Saskia never misses an opportunity to talk with them in the opium den. Both girls have tumbling masses of just-out-of-bed brown hair. All the face lard and eye goop is perhaps an attempt to give their small pale chinless faces a ghost of a chance of competing with the storm systems swirling around them. "You were so weird last year," Monica says. "I mean, no offense or anything."
"A phase." Saskia shrugs. "You know how it is."
That, by the way, is an excellent all-purpose comment whenever you can't think of anything else to say, because no one ever answers, "No, I don't know how it is." The Captain has a corresponding phrase, which he uses whenever his mind goes blank during trivial high-society balls and meetings with the stupid Admiralty: "Your Excellency is too kind."
Marie has a pocket-sized tape player which she fetches out of her turquoise leatherette purse and puts on the radiator in the den so that they can make up their faces to the head-bashing beat of Satanic Silk, her and Monica's favorite group. The lead singer, Andy Devereux (compared to whom Marie and Monica have crew cuts), just got married to some Hollywood bombshell and Marie is achingly sure the woman is going to stomp on Andy's heart. The cover story of this month's Pulse is all about how she still has a thing for Brian De-mondo, the drummer for The Queen's Hangmen, who is currently on trial for beating a fan into a coma.
I had a girl
a sex machine
but she wouldn't shut up
so I pulled her plug
now conversation's easy
she nods at everything I say
hey hey hey
(backup vocals:)
You should try it toooo . . . !
Thus Andy. Monica and Marie dance in the area between the stalls and the sinks, doing a kind of front and back jig-step with a wave from butt to shoulder and heads snapping right and left. Their gum snaps, too, as they chew rhythmically, frown, and droop their lips like Jo. "Woah, woah, woah!" Saskia tries imitating it and throws in a couple of leg-lift twirls, courtesy of the Naked Reconciliation Dance. "You're pretty good," Monica nods. She crosses her wrists as if she were handcuffed, bobs her jean-squeezed butt far out behind her, and bites her lip, "Oh, oh, oh!"
Monica is Bob Roszak's girlfriend. Saskia has an uneasy feeling they do some pretty voksen things together. She glimpsed Bob kissing her behind the dumpster and came away with the vivid impression that Monica's shirt was unbuttoned. That image fluoresced in her mind for days. But she knows they haven't done It, because Monica mentioned one day, while teasing her bangs, that Bob wanted her "to go all the way" but she wasn't sure.
"Do you love him?" Marie asked.
"Sure I love him."
"Well that's all that counts."
They all nodded. But Saskia wasn't sure whether Marie's statement constituted a yes or a no vote.
Saskia draws the line at smoking cigarettes or hemp. There was a big debate about this in Infiltration 101 — whether, if the Mission would otherwise be imperiled, it would be acceptable to go so blatantly against the Way. Saskia successfully argued that in nearly all cases you can extricate yourself from the dilemma. To Monica and Marie she says, "Don't you care about what that's doing to your lungs? I smoked like a factory last year and it got so I couldn't walk up the stairs without sounding like I was going to hawk up a hairball."
"Oh gross!"
"Saskia!"
"Not for me, no thanks. I'm on the wagon." She dips a finger into an unguent and rubs black pain-of-the-world under her eyes. Long ago she wondered if refusing to smoke was barnish or more voksen than smoking. Now she doesn't bother to wonder, she makes it more voksen. That's what it means to become the center. It's your gravitational field, you make your own rules.
"Yeah," Marie says, sighing on a smoke stream. "You're right,
but. . ." She shrugs. "The way I look at it is, life's a bitch and then you die."
"Fair enough, girl," Saskia says.
"I didn't know you smoked last year," Monica says.
"All the time! In the woods."
"Didn't you use to be friends with Jane Sing?"
Saskia hesitates. "Yeah."
"She seems like a real dweeb to me."
Saskia is putting together a Novamundian-Phaiakian dictionary, as an aid for other operatives. "Dweeb" apparently means a person who is not as thoroughly despicable as a "scuz" or a "scag," but who, by virtue of blatantly uncool behavior, is well outside the circle of conceivable acquaintances, in the darkness beyond the penumbra in which "dinks" dimly dwell. "Oh," Saskia says, speaking honeyed words, "Jane's not so bad. She's kind of weird, that's all."
"Kind of," Marie sneers. "She's from another planet."
"She still follows me around. I haven't got the heart to tell her to buzz off." Saskia is finished.
"Let's see," Monica says. She and Marie put their heads together. "It's funny. I never would've thought last year you were pretty. I mean, no offense or anything. You look real nice."
"Yeah," Marie chimes in. "You look real good." They snap their gum as if to add exclamation points. Saskia is planning in her next report to urge clemency for these two.
8
At the point in autumn when the leaves seem to burn on the maple trees, when every night Saskia hears geese wong-king south again, there dawns a day when Lila is done, a celebratory sunny day, a Sunday, on which Thomas puts down his tools to rest. She sits upright on a sling in the garage, her hull egg-smooth and eco-green, her gunnels and benches refinished, her name in newly white letters across the stern.
Jane and Saskia and the crew and Thomas carry her out into the cool sunshine, Thomas barking orders to watch the bow and lift the stern higher. They struggle with her through the high grass down to the water's edge, where a floating dock that has been in pieces in the barn for years (Saskia always wondered what those pallets were) has been reassembled by Thomas, and while he and Jane wade wincing into the cold water, Saskia and the crew scuttle onto the dock, bending lower until Lila touches the surface, lightens, floats. She rocks gently, li-la, li-la. Thomas and Jane run in to change into dry clothes, and then Thomas brings down the rudder under his arm, and after that the mast on his shoulder. Lauren lugs the sails. Thomas takes Lauren on a guided tour of the boat, explaining how he solved this problem or that, how he replaced this piece with that other one, how he saved time by this process and money by that one. As he talks, he hoists the mast until it drops into its block, attaches a yardarm, and hooks various wires around the gunnels. He slips the rudder into a holding thingy at the stern and does some complicated tying and tugging with ropes and sails. Then stands for a moment, surveying his perfect creation.
"Where's my crew?" he calls. Saskia and Jane start forward. He waves them back. "The others first. Quentin! Mim! Austin! Shannon!" Boing, boing, boing, boing. The four heads pop up in order, the bodies come running. Saskia had no idea what a tight crew was. Thomas hands them in. "Are we ready?"
"Aye aye!"
He pulls from an inner pocket a bottle that sparkles in the light. He kneels next to Mim in the bow. "Spring water," he explains to the enthralled crowd. He leans out over the bow, intoning, "I rechristen you Lila," and pours the pure bubbly onto the eco-green. "Cast off!"
Jane and Saskia undo the ropes and throw them aboard, Thomas pushes off and waggles the rudder, Lila noses away from the dock. Thomas hauls on a rope and with a slithering shiver the mainsail rises like a finger pointing heavenward, Look! It catches the north wind and presto! is impregnated by it. The yardarm swings, Lila heels and accelerates. On the dock, the girls applaud.
Lauren turns to go back to the garden. "There's some squash I absolutely have to get in. You'll call me when he comes back to get us?"
"Sure."
Jane and Saskia watch her go. "She's mellowed out a lot," Saskia observes.
"You think so? I think she's gotten worse."
"You're just jealous."
Jane guffaws. "Of what?"
"If you don't know, I'm certainly not going to tell you."
Of course they are still friends. But it is strange having a friend you can't think of much to say to. That particular problem has not improved one iota since "the morning after" by the river of ichor. If anything, it has gotten worse, since Jane is now cheating on Lauren. Saskia's moral disapproval hangs between them like a silent black cloud.
They sit in the grass. Jane pulls a tall blade and chews on it. They both watch Lila in the distance. When Jane comes to Wholeworld for the weekend, Friday afternoon is taken up with homework and Saturday is filled first with the Farmers' Market and then with various cleaning assignments. On Sunday an awkward time or two is unavoidable, but Thomas invariably rescues the girls by taking them together into the barn, where they sit in the hay and listen to him. Saskia watches his hands, hums with his voice. When she leaves she usually helps Lauren in the garden. "Where's Jane?" Lauren asks.
"Taking a nap."
Lauren smirks. "Again?"
"I see you hanging around with Monica and Marie," Jane says, breaking the silence. She works the blade of grass around in her mouth. I'm oral, she said once. I'm terrible!
"Yeah."
"So . . ." Jane tries to speak nonchalantly. "How are they?"
"OK." They go back to watching Lila. She has turned and appears to be heading back toward the dock.
"So do you talk about me? With Monica and Marie?" Would Jane rather hear "yes" or "no"? "No," Saskia guesses.
"Good." Jane spits out the blade and pulls another, begins to chomp on it. "They don't like me."
"You think?"
"I know. They think I'm a scag."
"No." A dweeb, actually.
"And you really like them? What do you talk about?"
Saskia shrugs. "Just things."
Jane throws away the blade and gets up, buries her hands in her pockets, returns to the dock. You can see how awkward it is.
Lila is coasting in, the sail dropping to be hugged by Austin and Shannon, Mim jumping from the bow to the dock to secure the rope. "Next!" Thomas calls.
"I steered!" Quentin says to Saskia as she comes onto the dock.
"And he did a great job," Thomas adds.
"Why couldn't I steer?" Austin asks.
"Next time." Thomas waves Saskia and Jane forward. "Where's Lauren?"
"She went back to the garden." Jane says. "I don't know why."
"She told me to get her," Saskia says.
"She can't wait around for ten minutes?"
"I guess not."
Thomas frowns. "The best way to appreciate a well-made boat is to watch her sail. I wish J could stay on the dock and watch her."
"Yeah, Lila looked really nice," Saskia says.
"We stayed right here," Jane chimes in.
"Someone go get Lauren, then," Thomas grumbles. Saskia turns. "No, forget her. We'll go without her."
"I think she wants to go, though."
"If she won't wait for me, why should I twaddle my thumbs waiting
for her? Come on, get in." He waves them forward. "Sit there. Jane, you sit there." He shoves off. "What is she doing in the garden?"
"She said she had to get some squash in," Saskia says.
"Oh, the squash!" He bounces a palm off his forehead. "Well that explains it. Everyone knows the sky falls if you don't get the squash in." He throws a lever next to the centerboard trunk amidships and the centerboard drops like a guillotine. He yanks on a rope and hauls the sail up by its neck. It bloats like a corpse in the breeze. They head toward the opposite shore in gelatinous silence. "Can you tell how well she's sailing?" Thomas says abruptly.
"Sure," Saskia says.
"Can you? Do you know anything about sailing?"
"A little, I guess."
"How can you tell?" Lila is so different from the Captain's boats. She has no poop, no waist, no foremast or mizzenmast or topsails or topgallants or royals. The Captain talks about an overloaded boat feeling sluggish. It's very bad if a cargo shifts. Or if the cargo is rice and it gets wet. Lee shores are also a major problem.
"What about you, Jane? Do you know anything about sailing?"
He didn't give Saskia enough time! "Not really," Jane says, copping out.
"So as far as you girls are concerned, we could be out here in a bathtub, am I right?"
"A bathtub would sink," Saskia says.
"Would it?"
"It's made out of metal."
"And an oil tanker isn't?"
"Urn . . ."
"Forget it."
"I think she rides in the water really well," Saskia ventures.
"Where did you pick up that phrase?"
Why isn't Jane saying anything? Why is Jane sitting like a bump on a log letting Saskia get in all the trouble? "She's . . . you know . . . she's got the wind in her face and she's not slipping back." Oh brother! How stupid can you get?
"As it happens, you're right." Relief. Saskia doesn't make the mistake of saying any more. "Boom coming over," Thomas says. Saskia is busy wondering what that means when she looks up to see the yardarm zeroing in on her forehead. Thomas catches it. "Duck!" She ducks. "You say you know something about sailing and you don't even know what a boom is."
The farther Lila gets from shore the faster she goes, and as Thomas pulls on a rope she heels farther and farther over. Saskia is on the downward side and the water rushes by inches from her shoulders. "Lean out!" Thomas says to Jane. Jane leans out. "Farther!" Jane sits on the gunnel and hooks her toes under the lip of the trunk. They ride like that for a while, Saskia getting wet below, Jane fluttering like a flag above.
"For a boat with this draft and beam to be able to sail so close to the wind is remarkable!" Thomas yells above the rush of water. "It shows very fine construction! And we haven't even put up the jib yet!" Saskia nods appreciatively, but doesn't say anything. "We're going to go over to the starboard tack," Thomas predicts. The girls look at each other. Does either one of them know what that means? Larboard is left, starboard is right. Saskia is on the right —
Lila rights herself. Jane almost falls in the water. "Coming about," Thomas says. He does something with ropes and the rudder. Lila swivels. The yardarm hits Saskia in the back of the head. Thomas pushes her head down and hauls it over. The sail flaps leathery wings. Is she seeing stars? She will not cry, she will not. ..
Lila picks up speed. Now Saskia is on the up side. Should she lean out? She looks at Thomas, but he gives no sign. He is staring at the horizon, wrestling with a vision. This is all Lauren's fault. Why couldn't she wait ten lousy minutes on the dock? "Jane, put up the jib." "The what?"
Thomas closes his eyes for a moment. "The jib," he says, controlling himself. "Uh . . ." "The other sail."
Jane jumps and gathers it in her arms. "Sure," she says, crouching. She looks at him, waiting, wide-eyed.
"Get in the bow."
"Uh . . ."
Duh, gee, Jane, even stupid Saskia knows what "bow" means! "The front of the boat!" Saskia says impatiently.
Jane scuttles into the bow.
"Attach the jib to the stay," Thomas says.
Jane fumbles, flustered, with the sail. "Right," she says vaguely. Mere filler. A pathetic attempt to buy time.
"I don't believe this!" Thomas announces to the air around them. The stay must be that wire going to the top of the mast. Saskia wonders if Jane is too dumb to figure it out. "Can't you girls do anything?"
That's not fair! Jane is the one bumbling around in the bow! "The wire, Jane," Saskia says, rolling her eyes. "Jeez!"
"For chrissake, help her out, will you Saskia?"
Saskia goes forward. "Give it here!" She grabs the jib.
"I can do it!" Jane says, pulling it back.
"Obviously, you can't." Saskia tugs on it.
"Yes I can!" Jane gets her long arms around the bundle and hugs it to herself.
"Forget it!" Thomas yells from the stern. He pushes the tiller away from him and Lila turns, ropes slither like snakes, the boom swings out over the water. The wind comes around behind, puts a hand in the middle of Lilas back and shoves. "I'm taking you both back to the dock."
"No!" the girls wail.
"This is ridiculous!"
"It's because Saskia —"
"If Jane didn't—"
"I want to share something, and Lauren can't be bothered, and all you girls can do is fight with each other!" He shakes his head, pondering deeply in his great-hearted spirit.
"It's all Jane's fault!" Saskia says in the Old Speech. "I can do it! We can leave Jane at the dock."
The liquid Old Speech flows over Thomas like a balm, and he answers less angrily. "It's not you, Saskia," he concedes. "Speak in English!" Jane pleads.
"It's not Jane, either. It's my fault. I don't know what's the matter with me. I just need some time alone."
Jane is glancing from one face to the other. "What are you saying about me?" She looks so stupid, not understanding the simplest words. "Speak English!"
"Learn Danish!" Thomas snaps at her. "Until then, shut up!" For a couple of seconds she just looks at him. The corners of her mouth slacken as if she were suffering a stroke and her eyes perform this curious flattening-out maneuver, like marbles floating to the surface of a liquid. Then the liquid spills over. Saskia watches with interest. Such a tall, grown-up girl, the big one-four, and yet here she is, liquefying just the way Saskia sometimes does, when she hides in her room. "Oh God," Thomas groans. "There she goes again." "I can't help it!"
The shore is looming. Thomas raises the centerboard and pulls down the sail. Saskia quite competently gathers it at the boom. Lila bumps against the dock. "So the two of us are going back out?" Saskia asks Thomas in the Old Speech.
"No." He looks at Jane, reddening. "I want you to do something about her." "What?"
He heaves an impatient sigh. "Cheer her up." Saskia wilts. "Aye aye." She takes Jane's hand and steps her out of the boat. Thomas pushes off again, fans the rudder, raises the sail. The water creams in his wake, and he does not look back.
Lauren is striding down the slope. "Saskia! Why didn't you come get me?"
