Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
—Helen Keller
Chapter 1. Santorini, Greece
1
The headline would read "DEATH BY ASS." The newsprint already blazed across my imagination: text bold, black, and all caps. I would have preferred less brevity and more dash. Maybe "Local Man Succumbs to Killer Foreign Ass." Astonishingly, Mom saw this one coming. She always warned me I would die some horrible, unforeseen death if I dared leave my native Iowa. Or the house. I thought she was just being overprotective, yet here I was, thirty years and six thousand miles away, proving her right.
Twenty minutes ago things were going fine. Romantic, even. Not the good kind of romance—another item on Mom's list of Dangerous Don'ts—but the kind of romance that only the sea can invoke, a sea plied by ships of tall sails and peopled with men of courage, curiosity, lust for life. I had once counted myself among their number.
Nine hundred feet below, cool mist lazed atop the gently lapping waters of the Aegean, pulsing to the sea's mysterious, ancient rhythm. Between us and hazy, smoking Fire Island lolled a small yacht, sails furled, barely seen but for a mast piercing the shroud. The mist did not blanket so much as bunch at the cliff's base, perhaps afraid to near that rumbling heap of ash and molten rock rising from the center of the sunken caldera. And fear it should. Such were the still restless remains of a destroyer: the very volcano that in one angry outcry slaughtered the entire Minoan civilization—even as it gave birth to the legend of Atlantis.
Had Poseidon himself been looking from that steaming rock, across his cerulean home and up above the cowering mist, past the satisfying contrast of chestnut brown cliffs, he would have delighted at the shock of whitewashed cottages and sky blue doors. The tiny geometries of man spread liberally atop the brown: thick and wavy like frosting smeared carelessly atop a cupcake, clumps bunching high in some areas, in others threatening to tumble over the steep sides in a sticky white avalanche. Spread, as it were, by the hand of the gods born of this land millennia ago. Long ago the gods destroyed the men living here, even as long ago men destroyed the gods. Man himself was responsible now for the wonder of Santorini.
"And a fine job he has done," my tall companion agreed.
I hadn't meant to speak such wonders of time aloud, being loathe to sound like a poet and stuff. He adjusted his eyeglasses and smiled in his slight, Dutch manner. "The gods were capricious, were they not? But man muddles through and, sometimes, wonders happen."
"Man muddles all right," I agreed, rather petulantly. I had been petulant a lot lately. Ardin lowered his sizable camera to better regard me. Considering what I knew of him, this was a large expression.
"You don't sound very American," he observed.
I dismissed any implied question with a chuckle and said, "I'm just getting a little tired of muddling."
"Aren't we all," Ardin agreed, hefting his camera once more.
He leaned his tall, lanky frame forward, into the wind. After a few crisp clicks, Ardin used the telephoto lens to illustrate the magnitude of the panorama before us: a broken ring of thousand-foot rock rising from a vastness of sea and sky, the point of merging blues indeterminate. "Look at that down there. If you can't appreciate that, you can't appreciate anything."
"I'll appreciate getting down there without dying," I commented drily, clutching tightly to the horn of my saddle. Beneath me, my mount shifted. This nameless beast, who was to be my ride down the nearly vertical cliffs of Santorini, puffed and fussed as much as nearby Fire Island. This was my first mule ride, and I was both surprised and intimidated by the power this humble animal exuded. I felt no safer than had I been straddling the raw power of the volcano. I hoped my beast of burden was not as capricious as the gods.
"If you can drive on American highways," Ardin quipped in his direct, Dutch manner, "surely you can handle a one mulepower vehicle."
My reply was a snort and a smart remark. "Don't you mean one asspower? It's okay. I'm used to flying by the seat of my pants."
"I can't drive!" trilled a voice behind us. "Can we walk?"
I turned in my creaking saddle to view our third companion. A delicate young Asian man clung to his saddle fearfully, skinny knees shifting along the beast's flanks in search of better purchase. With bone-white knuckles gripping the saddle horn, he had difficulty keeping his hair out of his eyes. He shook his head feverishly to keep too-long bangs clear.
"Time to learn," Ardin stated blandly.
That was the umpteenth time Ardin had said such that day, and I noted the rigid Dutchman had not even bothered to turn and look at our fretting companion. Though his posture indicated otherwise, I sensed Ardin sighing and drooping somewhat whenever our charge spoke. Waryo, an Indonesian assigned to replace Ardin as ship's photographer, acted precisely like the large eyed village boy far from home that he was. But his whimpering became simpering sometimes, leaving us to wonder whether he was merely naive or being coy. If the latter, he exhibited it in a most unusual manner.
"If you can't handle your saddle, Yoyo," Ardin continued, still not looking at the Indonesian, "Be reassured by the presence of an actual American cowboy."
Yoyo looked to me longingly for guidance and comfort. I snorted louder than my mule.
When the three of us had departed our ship to enjoy the port of Santorini, we had left the marina via funicular. Ascending to the city so far above was a matter of minutes by mechanical means. But going back we opted for something more... romantic. Despite my recent drop into apathy, I still found the desire to do what the locals had done since antiquity: making the nine-hundred foot traverse on muleback. I would have felt guilty letting the animals labor through the ascent—courtesy of my Catholic upbringing which imbued a sense of guilt over everything—and had therefore suggested we only ride the animals down. Yoyo agreed, if only in order to postpone an action he feared. Ardin, descendent of more practical stock, just shrugged at our foibles.
Dug into the overhanging edge of the cliffs was a corral. It smelled of animals steaming in the late June heat. We had descended an ancient stone ramp and into the striped shade under a roof of unpainted wooden slats. The shadows were not particularly deep, but the outside sunshine was bright enough that our eyes adjusted slowly. We approached several dozen quiet mules, most napping on their feet, a few watching us with large, brown eyes. The flicking of long ears and longer tails was the only movement in this lazy, warm place, barring the occasional snort or shaking head. After a while we found their keeper hidden among them, also mule napping.
The bored Greek came alive when he spied our approach. He rushed over, scraping a sweaty hand through thinning, wind-blown hair, and gleefully took our money. Then he promptly returned to sleeping on his feet.
"No instructions in the seat-back in front of us," I groused. "I have to endure being taught how to use a seatbelt every damn flight of my life, but when first dealing with live transportation, I'm on my own."
We waded into the mass of shifting animals, each man seeking his preferred mount. All were dressed in the same worn saddles atop fraying blankets. Yoyo held his arms in so close as to hug himself, terrified of touching a flank. Selecting our animals at random, we struggled into the saddles. This was a new maneuver for me, but my decent height aided the ascent. Ardin, taller than me at nearly six foot four, had no difficulties whatsoever. Alas, Yoyo was a comical tangle of extremities flashing over the wide barrel of his mount's body.
"In the deserts and ghost towns of Nevada I've seen lots of wild burros," I observed. "And they look just like this. So are these burros or mules? I always pictured donkeys thinner, for some reason. And what the hell is an ass?"
Yoyo exploded into hysterical giggles. Ardin and I both creaked in our saddles to give him dubious looks. Yoyo clammed up. No doubt his nerves were making him giddy. I just hoped he didn't pass out!
To our right rose a wall some twenty feet high, capped by buildings no doubt boasting a whitewashed balcony like every other building on Santorini. Before us dropped the only path, snaking downward at an alarming angle before curving out of sight. It was so steep, in fact, that the road was actually a series of steps. To our left, separated by only a three-foot stone wall, the land sheered away.
"No reins," Ardin noted.
Ardin looked ludicrous atop his mule. In his practical, worn travel clothes and hat he would have cut an impressive figure—almost Indiana Jones-esque—had he been on horseback. Instead, his feet extended far below the useless stirrups and his long, lanky form swayed above the bulk of animal like a lone reed buckled by the wind. Had he a lance, Ardin could have been Don Quixote; a whimpering, Asian Sancho Panza trailing uselessly behind.
"How we start these?" Yoyo asked. His English was not accented so much as broken. He was hesitant to use it and frequently omitted words, but when he did speak his delicate voice rang crystal clear and with excellent pronunciation. Ardin, on the other hand, spoke the superb English of a Dutchman. Next to him, even my native tongue sounded lethargic.
Ardin slapped his mule firmly on the rump and the entire herd began to shift in an organic, pulsing wave. The mass of animal flesh elongated until eventually one third of the nearly three dozen mules broke free of the corral and began descending. Those joining us without riders looked bored, perhaps wanted some exercise, or possibly a change of view. There were only two places in the lives of these animals: top or bottom, with one road between. Two shaggy, happy dogs also joined our procession. The clops of hoof upon stone were softly muffled. It was surprising to see such a large mass moving so quietly.
The quiet did not last long.
What I had assumed would be a leisurely ride was anything but. The nervous anticipation of climbing atop the mules in the corral was not unlike climbing into the car of a roller coaster, the slow start like rising to the first drop. The descent was sheer terror—and without the assurance of a safety harness. After the first bend the ribbon of wriggling road dropped so steeply, so quickly, I seriously thought we were leaping into the blue abyss. My stomach flipped as the herd recklessly plunged with the curves, seemingly out of control but moving ever downward, ever faster. Yet the 'joy ride' was just beginning.
Yoyo's shriek shattered the quiet. The effect was nothing less than the shot starting a race. The dogs began gamely yipping and nipping at the heels of the mules, which began shoving each other with great heaves of bulk. The chaotic mass plunged along the cliffside at a frantic pace. I had never felt so helpless in all my life. I gripped the saddle horn as my mule rammed his way through the crowd directly towards the cliff edge. I felt like I was driving on sheet ice down a steep hill into traffic: no brakes, no steering wheel. The protective wall barely came to my knees while standing, let alone on muleback. The collision felt nothing short of leaping over. I may have succumbed to an unmanly squeal.
My mule remained at the outside of the road for a while, and there I cruised, uncontrolled, just above the wall. I was given a respite as the majority of animals moved inward, to the cliffside, slamming Ardin and Waryo against the wall. The two men were ground against the rough stone, pressed by the sheer tonnage of mule flesh. Ardin prudently kept his elbows in and quietly endured the mauling of his knees, whereas Yoyo squealed bloody murder and flailed everything flailable. Their mules tried unsuccessfully to push away from the cliff, but seemed unable to do so against the might of the others. After several heart—and extremity—rending moments, the beasts flattened their ears, girded their loins, and surged away from the cliff wall. The herd thundered outward, towards the cliff's edge.
Towards me.
My mount took the crush bodily, ears flattened back and head down. His bulk and momentum were forward. Mine were not. I was nearly jettisoned from the saddle when the impact ripped my hands loose. For one horrific moment I looked straight down, down to the tiny waves breaking upon tiny rocks below—waves and rocks I knew damned good and well were not tiny at all. Both feet remained in the stirrups, just barely, which kept me atop the animal.
I had lived a long time with a swelled sense of adventure. I was a happy-go-lucky guy. But this whole thing was shockingly unsafe. Maybe the Greeks felt selecting the muleback ride over the cheaper funicular was self-censoring, or that people were responsible for their own safety. Maybe they just didn't care about safety because they didn't know anybody who had gone over a cliff. But I did.
My friend Will, a teacher famous for offering new students cans of Spam and using Spam haiku to teach math, had gone over a cliffside trail. He free fell the first thirty feet to land on his head upon solid rock. He then rolled down loose scree and rubble to the bottom of a ravine a hundred feet further. Will's head had broken open, and he lay there for hours with his brain exposed. The final protective layer had not been breached, but his right eye had literally been found on the back of his smashed head. Will's unconscious body was so difficult to extract that even the rescuer lowered from a helicopter broke his own leg in the process.
Will's survival had been a miracle by any standard, let alone his full recovery. Luckily his body had been unscathed, but half a dozen experts had to be flown in to literally reassemble his face. They started with his jaw—the only bone in his head unbroken—and reconstructed from there. They lost count of screws after one hundred. Astonishingly, a few weeks later Will was laughing again. In fact, he was even teasing the doctors about how they 'forgot to use a compass' on his tear duct, which had ballooned because it was reoriented incorrectly and tears didn't release outward. One year later he was back in his math room with his beloved pyramid of Spam on the desk. He had a long, thin scar under his hairline, but no other sign of trauma. He joked that his only worry now was receding hairline.
So Will's story had a happy ending. That mountainside had been nearly two hundred feet. I knew it well: I even used to run along its trail! But this was four times higher. I just hoped that Ardin's mount remained on the inside track. Without stirrups I truly feared for his life.
Several hundred vertical feet were traversed in this white-knuckle, gasp-inducing manner. Then suddenly all motion ceased. The herd came to a gentle halt halfway down the cliff. We panted and glanced about, stunned. The excitement was over. The mules, for their part, seemed completely at ease. Heat rose from their bulk. Flies descended. All was calm. Our thumping hearts and sweaty palms were the only evidence of recent chaos.
Ardin gave his mule a decisive spank, but this time it reacted in much the same way as my ex-wife: looking back at him with an expression that plainly said, 'you wish.'
"What now?" I asked, peering tentatively over the edge of the cliff.
"We wait," Ardin replied, gently probing his camera bag for indications of broken equipment within.
"We walk now?" Yoyo whimpered.
"You want to be on the road when the herd decides to resume its descent?" Ardin asked tersely, scrutinizing his lenses.
Yoyo's whining promptly quieted to a low mewl. Until a few moments later, that is, when he suddenly cried out in horror, "I broke a nail!"
"Good," Ardin replied tartly. "Now cut the other one."
I was left to ponder that odd rebuke when Ardin suddenly pointed his telephoto lens downward and began snapping photos. I followed his sight and noted the distinctive masts of our cruise ship, hundreds of feet below: our ship, our home, the Wind Surf.
The Wind Surf was an unusual cruise ship, to say the least. She was tiny, compared to the mega-liners that plied the world's seas, but also unique. She was an actual sailing vessel. Or, rather, a hybrid. Unlike the windjammer cruises, wherein guests pay for the privilege of handling the sails, the Surf was a luxury vessel with hydraulic, computer-driven sails unfurling at the touch of a button. She was designed to reach higher speed under sail than under motor propulsion. And was she ever a sight to behold.
"A ship at sea in God's way," Ardin murmured.
"Getting religious now that our lives are on the line?" I remarked rather insensitively.
Ardin answered with a kind expression. "My grandfather used to say, 'Under sail we went to sea God's way, the way God made the oceans and the winds; we were a part of it. Modern motor vessels fight the sea and the wind.'"
"Your grandfather was a sailor, then?" I asked, impressed. "Old school, with sails and all? My father spent four years in the U.S. Navy but was stationed in the middle of the desert in New Mexico, if you can believe that. He only went to sea one day. Of course, he still got a sailor's tattoo."
"Of course," Ardin repeated with a slight grin. "Both my father and grandfather loved being sailors. They loved being a living part of our heritage as the world's great seafarers. My grandfather started on sailing vessels when he was fourteen years old. Some were still hauling cargo as late as the war, but were phased out because they couldn't outrun U-boats."
"Incredible," I said. "I thought the age of sail was gone way, way back."
"Mostly," Ardin agreed. "My grandfather would tell me stories about it. Usually he was even more pragmatic than my father, rarely finding the beauty in anything. But not when it came to life under sail. He would get poetic about how they lived balanced between air and water, one with the elements. Their schedules were as unpredictable as the weather. In good wind they would sometimes sail around the clock, even up to a week. Everyone worked four hour shifts, one off and one on, for twenty four hours a day. Other times it would lay up in a calm for days on end, with nothing to do but wait. Not very practical in a modern business world. But then, there are always seafaring entrepreneurs in Holland. My father was in shipping, too, and wanted me to follow, but I'm artistically inclined. Serving as photographer on the world's largest sailing vessel seemed like a good medium."
"The Wind Surf is the world's largest sailing vessel?" I asked, surprised. Having only met Ardin the day before, I sure was learning a lot from him. A pragmatic artist was someone I wanted to get to know.
"She and her sister Club Med 2," Ardin said. "They displace 15,000 tons. Some of the replicas of big ships look a lot bigger with all their sails aloft, but they are in fact far lower and lighter. Most are less than half the weight, which is actually all that counts."
"Still the biggest ship I saw," Yoyo breathed.
"For being 10,000 kilometers from home," Ardin said drily, "You haven't been around much."
"How about you, Yoyo? Any sailors in your family?"
"No," he answered simply. He did not elaborate.
"I will miss the romance of being under sail," Ardin continued. "I was happy on Wind Surf, but will be happier at home with my wife in Vietnam."
"Your wife is Vietnamese?" I asked, surprised. Ardin's great height must tower over an Asian body! But I understood the burning, consuming desire for something different. It burns hot. It burns out. But I focused on the positive by saying, "That's my favorite thing about working at sea. It breaks down boundaries completely."
"My future wife is foreign," Yoyo popped up.
"Future wife?" I repeated, somewhat dubiously. "That's the phrase I use regarding Angelina Jolie."
Yoyo glanced up and down the steep road, but all was quiet. No stampede seemed eminent, so he awkwardly fished from his pocket a folded, dogeared photo. He reached out across the shifting mules to show me.
"She's gorgeous!" I complimented upon sight of the young vixen. She was a petite Asian with a round face and dark, beautiful eyes.
"She lives in China," Yoyo said, replacing the photo. "We met online."
Ardin tried unsuccessfully to hide a harrumph. Fortunately Yoyo was too preoccupied with saddle maneuvers to hear him.
"And you, Brian?" Yoyo eventually asked.
"The whole reason I'm at sea was to be with a woman," I replied from habit. While true, there seemed to be a whole lot more to the story now, a whole lot more I didn't want to talk about. I glanced down at the Wind Surf, reflecting on how so very, very tiny it looked. It looked equally tiny even close up. "We were here in Greece together just a week ago. I proposed to her here, in a manner of speaking. She even said yes."
"So she'll be joining you soon, then!" Yoyo exclaimed.
"Ships are no place for couples," I said rather sharply. More softly I explained, "She's vacationing with her parents in Romania."
"Romania?" Ardin repeated with evident surprise. It was perhaps the most emotion I had seen since meeting him.
"Yes," I said. "Transylvania. Beautiful country."
He paused before responding, then politely said, "I'm sure."
I chuckled at his obvious effort at restraint. He looked slightly relieved and added, "There's a Romanian woman on Surf you'll meet soon. She's... something else."
"A more qualified statement has rarely been uttered," I said.
Ardin's face blanched a bit, no doubt recalling an unpleasant memory, before returning to his usual neutrality. "She hates me, so do yourself a favor and don't mention my name."
"Oh? Why is that?"
"I won't give her what she wants," Ardin said simply. His lips quivered into a hint of a smile and he added, "Ask her if she's found her socks yet."
I was about to inquire further, but was distracted by a visitor from above. A shaggy, brown dog of monstrous proportions came running pell-mell down the road, barking furiously. Even before he met up with our herd, the mules decided this was the catalyst for resuming the descent. Onward and downward we spiraled to the Wind Surf.
2
The small tender boat muscled through the waves with noisy purpose. I was pressed against the scratched window because both Ardin and Waryo shared the two-seat bench with me. Such was the lot of crew: we were given the tiny bits of space the passengers didn't want. I stared at the crystalline waters, wondering why their soothing blueness did not soothe. The mist had burned off, letting the sun stab as deep as it cared to. My gaze followed the shimmering spears of light down, down into the darkness. It was very conducive to reflection.
I tried to be as enthusiastic about the Surf as Ardin. I really did. But where he saw a glorious handful of tall masts I saw a measly handful of passenger decks. That's it. Not thirteen decks, each spanning a whopping 120 feet in width, but just six, measuring a mere 66. Ardin was an artist, so money did not concern him much. I was an art dealer, so money concerned me greatly. In my business, bodies equaled money, and Surf didn't carry many. To date I had been modestly successful at my job working on ships. Within a couple months of starting I had been given a ship with 3,000 passengers. Now I got 300.
What was I doing here?
The answer, of course, was that my priority had never been my career and it finally caught up with me. I had come to sea three years ago for one reason: to be with my girlfriend. Ships were her game, so they became mine. She was that magnetic. Bianca was a vivacious and vigorous woman the sun itself set for, seemingly humbled by her excitement at returning to her element of choice, the night. At night she could dance and drink freely, well into the small hours, until exhaustion overcame her. Only then did the sun dare venture back over the world. Bianca's proximity had always been how I gauged my success. Needless to say, my employers had different criteria. I had pushed things too far, too long. Fate finally pushed back, and nobody can out-muscle life.
Suddenly the entrancing light was cut off. I looked up as the shadow of Wind Surf overcame all.
I'd already slaved below decks as a lowly waiter and enjoyed the high life as a three stripe officer, honorary as the rank may have been. What new could Wind Surf teach? Turns out, quite a bit. Crewing the world's largest sailing vessel was a completely new experience. Because she was so small compared to the mega cruise ships—over a thousand officers and crew on those—interaction here with officers was far more often and far more intimate—as were the difficulties among the crew. For the first time my job and personal goals were trumped by my surroundings.
Wind Surf was not merely a floating resort staffed by cheap labor for mass consumption, oh no. She was akin to the fabled sailing life of old. And thusly, perhaps inevitably, she defined my entire outlook as a sailor. I, too, became of the sea.
It didn't start that way, of course. My big ship experiences had to be expunged, a process both painfully fast and thoroughly disheartening. But once freed of stresses regarding my career or my relationship—both obviously now over—once I became of the sea, like the Surf herself, I soared on the wind. I learned new things every single day, about the ship, about the world, about myself. Life was as good as I could possibly imagine it, my highest of highs.
Yet Wind Surf would be my last ship. Our parting was not a good one. It wasn't just the lawsuit that haunted me after leaving, though that ran into five figures. What made my end at sea so heart wrenching was the humiliation, the indignation. The betrayal. The sea lives up to her notoriety as a harsh mistress. I am ever invigorated by her. I am forever haunted by her.