Mertens
THE SHIP DROPPED anchor in a deep channel as close as it could get to Lutine without running aground. The crew launched the rigid inflatable boat down the slipway ramp, Mertens and his partner, Lubbers, onboard, the only two men going ashore. Polypropylene bags were stacked in the bottom.
They picked up the paddles and rowed toward the sandbank, stopping when the boat scraped bottom. Mertens glanced over his shoulder at the ship sailing toward Wexalia. The major cleanup effort was focused on the beaches on the North Sea side of the island.
Mertens didn’t know whether he was lucky or unlucky to be assigned to the cleanup operation on the desolate sandbank, especially with only Lubbers for company, a taciturn man twenty years his senior. Even if Lubbers had been inclined to talk, the raw wind made conversation impossible. The ship would return an hour before sundown, giving them until half past three to fill the bags. At least his asshole boss wouldn’t be around to breathe down his neck.
“We’ll have to wade the rest of the way,” Mertens shouted, and laid his paddle on top of the polypropylene bags.
Lubbers nodded, indicating he understood.
Their feet sank in the thick mud to the top edge of their boots. Lubbers cursed—expletives seemed to be the only words in his vocabulary. When they reached Lutine, they hauled the boat onto solid sand.
Mertens’ lips were numb. He scanned the sandbank. Although it was a nature reserve, there were no trees or buildings to break the wind. The cold stung his face, snatched his breath away. The captain had mentioned a bird-watchers stand, but it must have been felled by the wind and washed away. During the storm, the sandbank had been underwater for the first time in recorded memory.
Two days before, a cargo ship underway to Germany had hit rough water to the north of Wexalia. Some two hundred containers plunged overboard, their contents littering the island’s beach and the neighboring sandbanks. Sports shoes, lightbulbs, pink plastic toys, Styrofoam packing material. Valuable cargo had become junk. Each high tide washed up more junk.
Lubbers’s bulbous nose glowed red.
“There’s one way to keep warm.” Mertens had to shout in order to hear his own voice.
“Collect wood and build a campfire?”
“Ha ha,” Mertens said, surprised Lubbers could talk, let alone say something remotely witty. He turned a three sixty. He couldn’t distinguish the point where the gray sky ended and the muddy sea began. It was disorienting as hell.
“Let’s get to work. We’ll be sweating in no time.”
Mertens scooped up debris and filled the bags.
Gulls swooped down, the first sign of life if he didn’t count Lubbers. The flock pecked at the Styrofoam packing material that was littering the sand.
Stupid birds. They’ll make themselves sick. Maybe die.
He ran at them, waved his arms, tried to shoo them away. Squawking, they scattered but regrouped as soon as he stopped.
Hopeless.
Mertens went back to work. He picked up a sports shoe and checked to see if it was his size. Too small. He stuffed it into the bag.
Once the bag was full, he threw it on top of the growing pile next to the boat. His back ached, and he glanced at his watch. They had been working nonstop for longer than two hours. No wonder he was hungry.
“Lubbers! Lunch!” He waved his arms to attract the other man’s attention.
Lubbers dropped the bag he was filling and made his way toward Mertens, leaning into the wind, his hair blowing straight back, revealing a deep receding hairline. There was no escaping the wind.
Mertens said, “Let’s eat on top of that slope. At least we’ll have a view.”
Retrieving their lunch boxes from the boat, they climbed to the highest point on the sandbank, which was only slightly higher than the lowest point, and sat with their asses in the sand. Mertens made out Wexalia to the northwest and the mainland to the south. Both land masses were light gray shadows on the darker sea.
Several yards away, two gulls pecked at something in a depression. Probably loot left behind by the tide. Mertens poured coffee into the cup of his thermos. The coffee was strong and hot. It tasted heavenly, and the heat warmed him. He started to offer the rest to Lubbers, changed his mind, and decided to save it for later. Mertens closed his lunch box and pushed himself up, his legs gone stiff, reminding him of his old man fetching a beer from the fridge. Lubbers chomped on an apple and stared into space. He hadn’t said a word during their break.
Mertens strolled over to the spot where the gulls were congregated. They took wing, then settled a few yards away and watched Mertens stoop down.
At first glance, he saw a scattering of twigs and sticks. Peering closer, he thought they might be bones. Old. Stained brownish black. Not polished white. They were too large to be from a bird. Maybe a dead seal? He pulled on his gloves, squatted, and dug his fingers into the sand, uncovering a swatch of rotting fabric. What the hell? He kept digging until he uncovered a bone that was dome-shaped. The top of a skull? He should stop, leave things be, call his boss, and alert the coast guard, but he didn’t want to make a fool of himself or get fired for wasting everyone’s time. The remains might belong to an animal. He carved a small trench around the skull, exposing it on all sides, and lifted it carefully with both hands. At the sight of a matted lock of long hair, his stomach heaved. The skull slipped from his hands back into the hole. The hair was worse than the bones.
“Lubbers,” he yelled. “You need to see this.”