The Boatmaker Read Free Page B

her cheeks. After a few minutes, she takes off her overcoat, hangs it on a peg on the back of the door, leaves her boots in a corner, pads up the steps in stocking feet. She falls into bed beside her daughter, still wearing her clothes.
    In the morning he is singing. She hears him and thinks she is dreaming, then realizes she is awake. Her daughter is curled into her mother’s body, still asleep. She untangles herself from the sleeping child, gets up, crossesthe landing and stands in the open door. He is sitting up, his brown eyes open, purple half-moons under his eyes. She knows he is not seeing her—or anything in the waking world.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Oh, on land the duck is a clumsy thing
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  A clumsy thing like a pregnant woman
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Waddling from side to side when it walks
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Not made for land, not made for land
    He sings as if he were in a choir, head up and shoulders squared. There is only one church on Small Island, a little wooden building in Harbortown with a small congregation, mostly old women. In the days leading up to Easter, the women congregate to hear the broken-down pastor preach the eternal guilt of the Jews for crucifying Our Lord.
    Small Island is a far-flung possession of the Mainland. The Mainland has been a Christian kingdom for almost a thousand years, since a peasant boy named Vashad converted the king from his pagan gods to faith in Jesus Christ. Vashad had been urged to journey to the capital and convert the king by a flock of shrieking blackbirds whose message only he could understand.
    Every child in the kingdom—from the capital all the way to Small Island—knows the story of Vashad. Butthe woman can’t imagine this man has ever been inside the church in Harbortown. And yet here he is, just as though he were in the choir, singing at the top of his lungs. She can’t imagine how the girl can sleep through it.
    He has a finer voice than she would have thought, rough from smoking and drinking, but clear and tuneful.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  In the water, when the duck is swimming
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  He’s a little less clumsy than on the land
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  But not much better, really, not much better
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Bobbing on the water like a child’s toy
    It’s a folk song from the part of the Mainland where his father’s people come from. She knows the song, though her people come from a completely different part of the Mainland.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  But, oh, when he takes to the sky
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Then the duck is filled with grace, filled with grace
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Because the duck was made for the sky
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  And when he flies, there’s none more graceful
    The verse about the duck taking to the sky, being a thing of grace, comes back again and again. There are many other verses that tell how the duck learns his nature, whohe learns it from and many other things. It is the kind of song that can be made to last for a whole evening—accompanied by fiddle, guitar and bottles. The man sings several verses, his voice growing louder and firmer. She watches, as surprised as if her little girl had suddenly been changed into a beautiful golden dog, barking and licking her leg, asking to be taken out for a run.
    Then his voice begins to slide down and away from good clear singing. It blurs until he is mumbling. His eyes close, and he topples over into fever sleep, his head missing the pillow. She lifts him and slides the pillow under his head. Her hand comes away wet. She tucks the covers under his chin, hoping they aren’t drenched, that he won’t freeze in bed. She doesn’t have the strength to get him up and change the sheets one more time.
    After this strange burst of singing, she begins to feel that despite her anger the doctor was probably right.