My Last Continent (14 page)

I did enjoy school, in a nerdy sort of way—I embraced Science Club and the library's book club rather than sports or social events. And it wasn't until my junior year in high school that I finally made a good friend, Alec. It happened
after he'd been seen kissing a guy in a car somewhere in the Central West End; back then, Clayton, Missouri, wasn't ready for that sort of scandal. His conservative parents almost sent him to one of those so-called reform schools for him to be “cured,” but the guidance counselor at school managed to talk them out of it.

I saw Alec sitting alone in the cafeteria a few days later, and I sat down next to him. He gave me a weary look and said, “What do you want?”

“Fuck 'em,” I said. “One day you'll leave here and none of this will matter. We both will.”

On weekends Alec and I would park over by the airport to watch the planes take off and land. When his popularity rebounded after everyone mellowed out, Alec enveloped me into his circle of friends, and he made my last two years of high school more bearable—weekends at Cardinals games, nights at the Steak 'n Shake, jogging in Shaw Park. After graduation he moved to New York. We're still close, though we rarely have an opportunity to see each other. I've always admired Alec for living the life he'd dreamed of having. He married his partner of four years, a poet he'd met through the publishing house where he worked, and eventually moved to the suburbs with his husband and their two adopted daughters.

About thirty feet away, I notice a Zodiac heading toward the shore, piloted by an orange-jacketed crew member I don't recognize. I think of the
Australis
and reach for my radio—no more than one tourist vessel is allowed to come ashore at a time, and whoever this is will have to back off—but as I'm about to call Glenn, I stop. There's something familiar about the driver, and I start walking toward the landing, holding my breath.

I see the red bandanna as he swings himself over the side of the inflatable and begins to pull it up on the sand, not far from the makeshift hot tub where Thom looks up from taking photos of the wading passengers. As soon as Keller's feet hit the ground, Thom's face breaks into a smile, and I watch the two of them shake hands and slap each other's backs. And by the time Keller turns around, I'm right there, my arms around his neck even before he has a chance to speak.

“This is an illegal landing, you know,” I whisper into his ear. His shaggy hair whips against my face in the wind, carrying the scent of the sea.

“You going to report me?”

“Maybe.” I pull back to look at him, at the spreading grin creasing his face, which is thinner than when I last saw him, but also, somehow, more relaxed.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “You can't land all those passengers, can you?”

He shakes his head. “We've got a few VIPs who paid big bucks for a special landing,” he says. “Group of ten. We'll bring them over later tonight. But when I heard the
Cormorant
was here, I couldn't miss the chance to see you.”

“You're crazy, you know that?” I say. “You'll get fired. Again.”

He kisses me. “It'll be worth it.”

I look around—a few yards away, Kate is still in the hot tub with two other passengers, and Thom is stowing equipment in a Zodiac. The beach is otherwise empty; for the moment, I'm free.

I grab Keller's hand, and we make our way inland, toward relative privacy behind a large rusted oilcan where, about
twenty feet away, a chinstrap penguin stands alone. We're not exactly out of sight here, but we're out of earshot, and the penguin is the only one watching us.

“I'm sorry I—” I begin.

He puts a chilly finger to my lips. “I don't have much time here,” he says, “so let's not waste it.”

He pulls something from his pocket, then reaches for my hand. He turns my palm upward and lays the object down in my beat-up glove.

At first I can't tell what it is, exactly—it looks like a thick, tarnished, silvery ring with some kind of engraving—but when I hold it up and look closely, I recognize it. The penguin tag I'd given him, completely transformed.

On the outside of the narrowed band are six numbers and the word
Argentina
. On the top is a raised setting into which is nestled a ruddy stone, barely larger than the face of a pencil eraser; the white streaks veining the layers of pink resemble the wave of a mountain range.

“It's Argentina's national stone,” Keller says, “
rodocrosita
. Nothing fancy,” he adds, “but somehow I didn't think you'd want a big diamond from Tiffany's.”

I look from the ring to Keller's face.

“I love you,” he says. He takes the ring and pulls off my glove. “I figured if we make it legal, you'll finally believe we can find a way to be together.” He slips on the ring.

I hold my hand up so I can get a better look. The tag-turned-ring is both elegant and sturdy against my red, chapped skin—the only piece of jewelry I've ever been given. “I always wanted to wear a penguin tag. It seems only fair, given how many I've doled out.”

He smiles. “I have a jeweler friend in Boston who's a wizard.” He takes my hand. “By the way, you haven't said anything.”

“About your tagging me, you mean? What do you need for your field report? I'm a known-age bird—”

“—who still hasn't chosen a mate.”

I laugh. “Is there a question on the horizon, Mr. Sullivan?”

“Will you marry me, Ms. Gardner?”

I look down at the ring again, then back up at Keller. I press my body against his, my gloveless hand against his neck. “Yes.”

“I came so close to asking you over the phone because I didn't think I'd get a chance to see you,” he says. “I know the timing isn't the best—”

Then I lean back in his arms so I can see his face again. “It couldn't be better,” I say. “There's something I need to tell you.”

Right then, loud voices bark from my radio, and I reach toward my hip so I can turn off the volume. Just for a few more minutes.

But from the corner of my eye I see Thom bursting into a sprint, running toward a gathering crowd near the base of a cliff. Keller sees him, too. “Something's happened,” he says. “We better go.”

“Wait—” But Keller's already racing after Thom, so I follow, pulling my glove back on as I jog over the rough sand. We reach the crowd, and I touch my stomach briefly before looking up at the cliff, which ascends sharply above the black sand.

Nigel, who was supposed to be giving a tour, is near the
top, around what would be the fourth floor of this five-story mountain, and down below, around the second floor, clinging to the rocky surface like a gecko, is Richard.

“What the hell,” I mutter, and, next to me, Thom is shaking his head. Nigel should have known better than to rock-climb with tourists around.

Nigel's not unlike me—here as a historian because it's a way to get to Antarctica. At seventy years old, he's hardy but decidedly old-school, and he's never quite learned that, on these trips, he's no longer an explorer or a researcher but a tour guide, and he needs to set a good example.
He'
s an old dog,
Keller said once, as an excuse, and he was right. Nigel's cracked, leathered face bears the marks of four decades of frostbite and sunburn; his nose is a permanent, unnatural shade of red, and his beard is white with age and sun—I'd once been astonished to see a photo of a young Nigel, black-haired and smooth-faced. When he'd worked for the British Antarctic Survey, he helped restore the survey's research huts across the continent and, later, helped dismantle them. Last winter, he told me how he'd helped dismantle the Station J hut at Prospect Point, clearly conflicted about the orders to take it down. “Tough choice,” he said, “preserving history or preserving the continent.” We've become comrades in conflict as we guide heavy-footed tourists across the ice.

Still, Nigel tends to forget that he is not here on his own, that when he is on the staff of the
Cormorant,
he is being watched at all times—not just by Glenn but by the tourists. And apparently, when he decided to climb up the sheer side of a bluff in plain view of a tour group, he had a copycat, who is now stuck. Richard had made it about twenty feet up, but
now he isn't moving, too high to jump down, and too unstable to keep going up.

Thom is on his radio, telling Glenn what's going on, and in the meantime Keller moves closer to the cliff, shouting up at Richard as Nigel shouts down. Through the grayish haze, a light snow is falling, slickening the rocks that Richard is trying to hold on to with his bare hands and rubber boots. As I get closer, I can see him searching for a better hold, his whole body quivering with the exertion of trying to stay put. The ground twenty feet below him is rocky and rough, and I hope he hasn't looked down.

Nigel's gaze is locked on Richard, and even though Nigel's snow-flecked beard covers most of his face, I can see he is serious, focused.

“Stay where you are,” Keller calls out to Richard. “Don't move.”

But at the sound of Keller's voice, Richard turns, and as he does his balance shifts, and rocks crumble beneath his boots, the stones tumbling down toward us.

“Hang on!” Nigel shouts.

Richard has managed to find a solid piece of rock, and he hugs the cliff, stable for the moment, shoulders ticking upward with each short breath. He's not going to last long, and my own breath begins to shorten as I realize what might happen here. A tourist, dead on our watch. His own fault—but that won't matter. He shouldn't have come here; he doesn't belong. Really, none of us do. As I watch the trembling of his body, his arms and legs straining to keep a hold, it feels suddenly as if it's the ridge itself that's quaking, the island shuddering underneath us—as if this long-dormant volcano is
awakening, ready to reclaim the island, the entire continent, all of us who are doing our part, bit by tiny bit, to destroy it. I feel as if we're poised for disaster, as if the cliffs might break apart at any moment, as if the seas might start to boil, as if we might all be buried in another layer of carcasses, bones over bones—the goddess Gaia's final revenge for all her grievances.

Nigel has climbed up about ten feet, to a small plateau, and he's now on his stomach, lowering a rope toward Richard. Meanwhile, Keller has begun climbing up the side of the cliff toward Richard and is about halfway between him and the ground.

From below, Keller snatches the rope, looping it around his hand. Richard's grip loosens, and his body begins to peel away from the face of the cliff—but Keller reaches out, catching his wrist.

Both men drop, falling fast—and then the rope grows taut, jerking them hard against the side of the cliff. Nigel slides forward on his stomach, his arms bracing against the rocks at the edge as he struggles to keep himself from going over.

Keller is holding on to Richard's wrist with his bare hand, his other hand clinging to the rope, which has to be cutting painfully into his skin.

Nigel lowers the rope at a rapid, almost free-fall pace. Richard scrapes against the jagged wall on the way down. Keller is holding tightly on to Richard, but then his other hand begins to slip. When they are about six feet off the ground, the rope finally, inevitably, rips through Keller's grasp, and the two of them tumble onto the rock- and snow-strewn sand.

“Oh my God.”

I haven't even noticed that Kate has been watching right beside me; she rushes toward Richard, her winter clothes having been quickly donned again, ski pants stuck above her boots, her coat unzipped.

She helps Richard stand up. “Are you okay?” she asks. She sounds more vexed than concerned.

“I think so.”

I kneel next to Keller as he gets to his feet, his hand bloodied and torn. “Oh, no.”

“It's fine,” he says. He takes off his bandanna and wraps it around his hand, blood darkening the fabric.

With Thom now at his side, Richard takes a tentative step, then another. As he looks down at his own body, as if to make sure it's still intact, I see a round beige disk behind his ear—a seasickness patch. He keeps his head lowered for a few moments, looking embarrassed. Finally he turns to look at Keller, and then up at Nigel, who is gingerly making his way down the face of the cliff. He doesn't look at his wife.

“Thanks,” he says in Keller's direction, still not making eye contact. “It didn't look that difficult from the ground.” Then he starts walking toward the boat landing. His shoulders slump, and his gait is hesitant and awkward.

Kate stares after him, her expression incredulous. As Thom hands her Richard's jacket, she glances toward Keller's wrapped-up hand. “I'm so sorry,” she says.

But Keller's eyes are looking past her, and I turn to see Glenn approaching, walking in that rapid, no-nonsense way that means he's pissed off. Nigel is now on the ground, collecting the rope. His hands, too, are scraped and bleeding.

Glenn plants his feet and glares at Keller. “I should have
known. Can you go anywhere on this planet without causing trouble?”

“It's not his fault, Glenn,” Thom says. “Keller and Nigel saved the guy's life.”

“That passenger never should've been up there in the first place.”

“What're we supposed to do, chain them to the beach?” I can't help but come to Nigel's defense. “He snuck up there before Nigel could stop him. We can't control the crazy ones.”

“This doesn't concern you.” Glenn turns his glare on me, then Keller. “I'd like to speak with Nigel,” he says coldly, nodding pointedly at Kate, who I hadn't realized is still standing there, taking in every word.

Thom takes her arm, and Keller and I join them as they begin walking back toward the landing site.

“Is your husband always such a daredevil?” Thom asks Kate.