вавилонский голландец длительный new Babylon Dutch redrafted pt.1
this is the first chapter of the redrafted new Babylon Dutch story,
which i hope makes a little more sense now...
see previous:
http://wytchcroft.livejournal.com/44827.html
http://wytchcroft.livejournal.com/52348.html
chapter one: The ship
There was a part of Mari that felt she had been at sea forever and that the ship, the Seabird, was her whole world. That couldn't be true but time didn’t even seem to make an effort at passing in the normal way, not here, not on this ship. So it was hard to know - it might have been just yesterday - or it might have been years since she first arrived. Certainly she had been a different person then; her manner, expressions, body language and clothing were now utterly changed… even the age she felt herself to be, everything ebbed and flowed and shifted with the Sea and the capricious moods of the vessel.
When she had come aboard, (when HAD she come aboard?), there had been darkness, fog, fear. A blind groping through a world of shadows she was trying to escape, shadows that pursued her, that threatened to engulf and smother her… until she had found the Ship - until she had found herself. Now there was light - a silver white translucence with the glassy ocean reflecting the bright hazy sky, everything was reduced to its shape, an essence, silhouettes and flickering movements. A light, as white and as wide as the flashing smile the girl had as she held the wheel, as she looked out from the rails, as she walked the deck.
But she was fairly certain that wherever she had been before - and whenever that was - she had not behaved as she did now, nor dressed in any way similar. Take for instance her favourite shirt, the one she was wearing. It was a cambric shirt, so the captain said, Mari had no notion of what that might be - but it was hardy and comfortable, especially once she’d torn the sleeves off, it seemed to fit her frame better that way and Mari liked to feel comfortable.
The soft leather trousers she wore were, by now, crudely mended in a dozen places - but even her sewing was beginning to improve. She’d given up trying with her hair, the wind did what it liked with it anyway - so if it was a thatch, it was a thatch, she kept it out of her eyes as best she could with ribbons made from the remains of the shirt and she left it at that.
Who was there that would have an opinion anyway - and why should Mari care about such a thing?
Well, she didn’t.
And she knew instinctively that the ship felt the same way. More than that, the ship had actively encouraged her transformation. The single most important discovery - the key to all the changes in her since - had been finding the ships library, the books… the knowledge in them. Those magic books that could sing, those books that could sprout feathery wings, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and take to the air, become birds, swooping and calling out, filling her head with sound, with vision, with life - new life.
And right now she was stood on the deck, hand on hip, one bare-foot raised, with a book on her head and a bird on her shoulder - or perhaps it was a book on her shoulder and bird on her head, it was hard to say which - and right now she was going to do something drastic - right now she was about to try the traditional sailors Hornpipe jig. She had summoned her courage; she had gathered herself for movement and was about to spring into action - when out of nowhere the ship's Dutch Captain appeared.
He coughed awkwardly and was rewarded with a string of pithy curses that made the man scowl down the length of his nose and out past his beard and away.
“You have been listening to the crew,” he said in his low accented voice, “far too much.”
“Listening?” Mari was offended, “Listening?” offended times two in fact. “I can do more than listen, I can climb rigging as fleet swift as any, and shin up a pole and haul the sails - I can guide the keel and… all that sailor stuff.” Lack of appropriate terminology aside, she waved her callous toughened fingers at him and jutted her face to the light flaunting the tan that the wind had spread across it like varnish. “Ha!” she spat.
Falk clicked his heels together loudly. “Mari!” he barked in his best Captain’s voice.
Taken aback Mari fell silent.
“I have something to say,” Falk put his hands behind his back, looking every inch as wooden as his ship. “You must listen. We are soon reaching a port, a harbour - we will be coming ashore there. Understand?”
“Yes, yes of course.” Mari’s answer was automatic and calm - but her insides felt much less so, they were churning.
Land… they were going to land… to be on land…
She was annoyed with herself for never considering the possibility, not imagining the idea at all - but she started to, at least she began thinking over what she could recall from the books in the Seabird's library, she didn’t seem to have an solid memories of land at all - that’s why she loved the Seabird… as long as the were sailing then everything was ok, it was all of the moment, a continuous now, fresh and new and safe.
She didn’t want to feel unsafe.
“You’ve put me off dancing…” she said sadly.
“For that I am sorry,” said Falk, but he waggled his pipe, “but there may be dancing once we’re ashore.”
Mari squinted at him, “Really?” She wasn’t sure how she felt about that - what sort of dancing and how, and who and would she have to learn and -
“Oh my head,” she said. “I’m going to the helm and feel the wind.”
“Good idea,” said Falk, “I have many tasks to do myself.” He turned and walked away.
Mari made her way forward along the deck until she found the door that lead to the stairs that lead to the bridge that lead to the helm that lead to the wheel and after that there was simply the wildness of the wind and the tumbling ocean and the feel of the ship pulling forwards.
………………….
And there was never silence - no ship ever falls truly silent and the Seabird was no ordinary vessel. The wind sang through the rigging and between the sails, and the ship sang back with the creaking of boards, the jingle of a bell, the opening and closing of doors, the sound of the hull, the sounds of metal and wood, at times there was a breathy sound from funnels at full steam, and some times the pulse of an engine, Mari might hear sailors jauntily entertaining themselves or else yelling to one another as they climbed the many ropes and poles and there would be splashes as depths were sounded, voices carried back by the wind ,”…fathoms Captain.”
……………..
Evening brought a pale stream of stars like fish glittering silver as they moved across the sky between the last purple waves of cloud. In another break to routine Captain Falk had invited Mari to join him for dinner.
There was a state-room quite elegant, albeit sparsely decorated, wide tables hidden under the felts of white cloths, there were bowls of fruit and a glass of wine for each of them. Mari saw the chef appear, (or maybe it was the chef’s assistant, Mari rarely recognised anybody onboard except Falk,) balancing carefully, and with a tray and more bowls, this time with steaming soup inside them.
Eating, like so many other things on the Seabird, was often a slightly mysterious event - either because the food seemed to prepare itself (most often when Mari was raiding the kitchen for breakfast) or because the ship was swaying and actually getting at the food was hard, or - as now -and especially in company, if you didn’t concentrate you found the food had simply vanished and you had only a satisfied belly to tell you that you weren’t in fact still hungry and waiting.
Mari looked down at the fish on her plate and wished she’d paid more attention to the soup.
"And indeed", Falk was saying, "some of my crew have served their time and their voyage is at an end, their contracts fulfilled. I must let them off. It is the Law.” He caught her expression. “Yes Mari there are still laws, rules, regulations - even I, even the Seabird is governed by them.”
Mari said nothing, just pursed her lips.
Falk sighed, he wasn’t very good at being reassuring, he rarely looked at Mari as a surrogate daughter, or if he did she had never noticed - and it wasn’t something she would encourage. Still…
“Perhaps you’ll think it beautiful,” the Captain sounded as unsure of himself as he felt, “there are those who find it so.”
Mari was playing with her food as if scrying for a vision there upon her plate. “What is this island anyway?” she asked without looking up.
The Captain shrugged. “Well it has been claimed by almost every nation and given so many names, I don’t know all of them and I don’t think you will have heard of any of them - or have the books taught you even that?”
Mari shook her head. “No, I don’t think so - I…” her voice trailed off.
“What?”
“Well, it’s just - I was wondering, or sometimes, sometimes I get the feeling that…”
“Yes?”
“Well, I mean, here..." Mari waved a bare arm out towards the room and beyond, "a place where books can be birds and birds can be books..." She leant forward earnestly. "It's just that - well, then is the ship, is the Seabird really just another book? Are we in the pages of a book?”
The Dutchman looked suddenly pained. “Some might have it so…” he said softly, staring off into the distance as he did so. “The moving finger writes and having done so moves on and writes no more.”
Mari looked pained herself. “Is that philosophy?”
Falk laughed. “It is a little early in the day for… philosophy, but well, perhaps you are right at that. Yes, maybe you are right, well, but who can say? Who can say? Truth after all…” a smile tugged at the rarely used muscles cornering his mouth, “… is stranger than fiction.”
“And a stitch in time saves nine!”
“The proof of the pudding is in the eating…”
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!” Mari stopped, “I’m not sure what a gander is…” she admitted.
“Ignorance is bliss!” Falk was happy to score a final point.
“Ok, ok,” Mari was shaking helplessly, “you win! I give up!”
And the state-room was filled with their laughter.
………………………………
But later, and yet again Mari would find herself that night curled in the woollen arms of her blankets as she woke from dreaming, dreams that left their mark on her as clear as a bruise, her flesh would be numb, whilst her eyes would be glazed and the delicate lids swollen as by a blow.
It seemed so unfair that her bright life should be darkened in such a way, it was cruel, and her only defence was the book she kept by her pillow - it sang to her from upon its cushion, as it lay within its cage, fluttering its feathers and flicking its tail, flapping its pages over one by one, the soft sounds, so reassuring, lulling her finally into an untroubled and restful slumber.
………………………………
next - the island