She was, in fact, very proud of herself. The Tasman Sea was roaring on one side, the expansive blue interrupted only by an island she knew to be Sleeping Seal Rock. To the other side, the bush-clad mountain. So far, it was exactly as she’d pictured it—she had seen Vincent’s photos, after all, and had since done research.
Everything had gone as planned. She’d slid out of the bus at the tourist stop near the waterfall while the group of raincoat-clad tourists went looking at eels under a bridge, and she’d left a note and a tip on the driver’s seat when he was in the bathroom. I’m Sandra, the American with the ponytail and bright-red jacket. I’ve met a friend here in Ki and won’t be joining you for the rest of the tour. Thank you. That would be enough. They didn’t really have a record of her; she’d not needed to show her passport, since this was a homegrown, low-key tourist operation run by one guy in a van recommended on an off-the-beaten-track website called New Zealand Underground.
She shifted her backpack. Already, her shoulders ached, but not as badly as the day dropping off water in the Arizona desert, though surely some of the tweaks in her back were still from that excursion. It had been just a few days ago, but it somehow seemed a lifetime ago—and it also seemed a lifetime since she had flossed. Already her gums felt swollen. How fast the feral descended! How very needy the human body was! She ran her tongue up and down the back of her teeth as she walked in the wet sand.
The crashing of the sea seemed to increase, the drizzle increased, and the shrouded feeling increased. Now she was at the end of the beach facing a wall of black rocks being slammed by waves, and so she turned right so as to make her way through the brush, and with that turn, the Sea Creature predictably roared into her throat. She patted her heart as she would a little child, comforting herself. The first two keys, she’d had a moment of tightness too; now that she knew what to expect, she wasn’t fazed by this leap of anxiety.
“There, there, Thumper, chill,” she told herself, and sat in a small cave in the black rocks. She was exhausted and wet and her face was being hit by a strong wind, but she shifted her pack off and leaned against it. Both she and the large backpack were covered in a cheap green raincoat—two green lumps—waiting for the quiet Break-in Hour. She squinted against wind and sand to take in the tops of waves caught in the wind, spraying backward as they rolled forward, two contradictory motions. As someone who’d only rarely seen the sea, she was awed, and aware of her awe. Beginner’s mind. Child’s eyes.
She now closed her eyes, so as to protect them from the grit and sand blasting her, and conjured an image of Vincent. He’d been a wwoofer here—a “willing worker on organic farms,” a common phrase here, though she’d never heard it in America. During their early dating, it had been all he’d talked about—it was a seminal time during their limerent phase and thus had sunk itself deeply into the neurons of her brain. Ten years ago, when they were still a strong couple, she’d started putting away money. It had been her secret plan. To bring him here once again. When the marriage had started to fade and her bitterness at his isolation grew, the savings account got turned into Powell’s tuition, which frankly seemed like a better investment.
What a horrible thing to think. But she had thought it, and it still seemed true. And she was equally proud that thus far, she’d not needed to use any of her savings. The expenses of Colorado and Arizona had been covered by saved tip money, and New Zealand had been paid for by pawning some of Vincent’s things—weather stations, telescopes, microscopes, stamp collections—and spending that money was something she didn’t feel bad about. They were things that took him away from her, and she’d used them to bring him back. Back to her old dreams, back to the place that had once meant so much to him. She put her wet face in her wet hands. She’d made it. Even if she flew home tomorrow, getting here felt like a monumental expedition.
—
The crepuscular hour arrived—crepuscular being her word of the day—and so Ammalie heaved on her pack and trudged across dunes of marram grass and across a cracked paved road and up a muddy and slick dirt road that ended at the empty and dark community center. To the left of the glass building was another sunken, hidden dirt road—or what used to be a road—that snaked up into the forest and led to the shack. This is what she’d been looking for. She started walking with a wandering gait. If anyone asked her, she’d say she was a tourist, was just poking around in the rain—Oh, she was sorry, was this a private driveway? It was getting dark, she’d lost her way, it was so misty out, she was just tramping and was all turned around! Silly middle-aged woman! Silly jet lag, silly American!
But no one was around. Once she reached the forest, or bush, or jungle, or whatever it was called here, she turned on her headlamp and picked her way on a muddy path that was turning into a small creek. Then she saw the little house. It was dark enough that anyone inside would have turned on a light by now, and it was raining hard enough that it was impossible to see any of the statues or figurines, but she knew it was the right place. She was shivering now, and so she slid off her backpack, opened the front zipper, and searched for her ring of keys.
Which is when it hit her.
My god, she’d left them. With Rita. She’d left her extra unnecessary belongings, including the set of keys, in a box with Rita!
“I have no key,” she said to the front door. “No key. No key. No key.” She kept repeating it in order to understand it, and then started laughing hysterically. Oh, she’d been so confident, so sure of herself. And here she was in a jungle in New Zealand at night in the rain with no keys! She laughed until her side hurt and she had to bend over, and then, using the headlamp, she started picking up rocks and pots or anything that might hide a key. There was a multitude of various items; the possibilities were endless.
The rain, without warning, came down wildly, in sheets. She went from being wet to soaked. She moved her backpack under the eave of the house and then stripped herself naked, leaving her bits of clothing with the pack. No one was going to show up now, and if a jeep or some sturdy car did, she’d see the headlights coming for a good long while, and by god, who cared that it was raining! She’d swim in the air! She could either resist the cold or she could just be cold, be in the cold, and after all, it wasn’t that cold, it was nearly summer here! Everything was so glory-hell fucked that she ran in a small circle, naked, and took a rain shower, the first of her life, using a little bar of soap with enough pooled water in her palms and splashed them against her crotch and then just stood, arms out. She was a wild creature. Wild and homeless.
For many minutes, she did nothing. Just tilted her head up toward the rain, slowly circling to take in the house, the bush, the clouds, the way rain slid off the roof, the way it slid down the palm fronds, the way it slid down her outstretched arms. Then she walked to the front door and pulled and it…slid open. She laughed some more and looked closely at the door. What once had been a lock was now so rusty that it did not seem to serve as a lock at all. Well, this was not Chicago. This was a small community in New Zealand and locks were perhaps not required.
She called out. “Hullo? Hullo?”
There was, of course, no answer. She stepped in, making a puddle almost immediately, and now guilty of not only that, but also of breaking and entering, and in a foreign country, no less. She stood naked save for the headlamp, and then caught sight of herself. There she was, reflected in a window with the last light of the day, her dim pear-shaped outline wavering in the wavy glass. Empyreal. One-eyed, like Cyclops, her headlamp beam shining bright. “I’m Odysseus,” she said, pulling a travel towel and dry clothes from her pack. Didn’t Odysseus have a dog too? Didn’t he hear the Sirens, just as she had heard the birds? She felt ferocious and strong and wet and naked, and the hazy woman staring back at her looked beautiful. You got nothing on me, Odie, she said aloud, and then snorted at the truth of it.
She looked around for Fluffiest Red before realizing that of course her sleeping bag wasn’t there. She felt a pang—it had, after all, been her primary bedding for the last two months, and was it crazy to say she’d developed a relationship with it? Then she climbed into the one bed in the back of the house, a bed she knew Vincent had once had sex in, and the knowledge of this made her smile. She knew he’d stayed down in the community center with the other wwoofers, but he had told her about this shack-house and how he’d used it with his lover, pilfering a key for a place to make love, not yet knowing that Ammalie was pregnant nor knowing that their relationship would solidify. She and Vincent had been a fling and in their early twenties, after all—both of them had declared it such before his departure—and it was not until his return that they came together and decided to create a relationship that involved hope for the future.
She was starving, but somehow the craving had dissipated into a low ache that she could ignore. If there was one thing this adventure had taught her about hunger, it was that it came in waves, and if you waited for the wave to pass, you’d be fine. Exhaustion was the stronger pull, so she nestled into the blankets and put her head on a flat musty pillow and fell asleep to the sound of rain and thundering sea.
—
A wailing siren blared and she immediately thought Air raid and Where’s my Survival Bucket? and Earthquake or tsunami—store water! and the Sea Creature leapt into her throat and threatened to suffocate her. She pawed at the blanket and sheets, untangling herself so she could sit up. It was so dark, pelting down rain, and she was so alone.
Then she realized the blaring was far away, on the other edge of the beach, and she had a vague memory of Vincent talking about startling sirens, how they most often signaled a car crash and were a call for the volunteer rescue brigade. That’s how New Zealand worked. She plonked back down on the pillow and listened. Once the siren stopped, the only noise was loud rain and distant but roaring waves. No one was here; no one was coming for her.
She had an odd sensation in her lungs and throat she couldn’t quite place until she realized yet again the feeling was called humid—so much more humid than Colorado or Arizona; her nostrils and her skin and her lungs felt oxygenated and hydrated. Her scalp did not itch. Her lips did not need lip balm. Her eyes did not need eyedrops.
But she was damp-cold, so she sat up, dug around in her backpack for a sweater, pulled it on, then pulled a blanket around her, put heat packs in her socks and a wool hat on her head, briefly tracing the scar, still bumpy on her scalp. In the dark, she got up and tiptoed to the kitchen. It was a regular kitchen—stove, sink, dish rack, although all much older and different sizes than in the States. There was pasta in the cupboard—There will always be pasta in a cupboard! Humans are so predictable! she thought—and by the light of her headlamp, she boiled a pot of water and cooked it, ate it, and then slept again.
She woke in the afternoon to a hot flash and a tui bird. She knew it immediately because of the call, very much like R2-D2 or a rusty hinge. She’d listened to sounds of New Zealand birds on her phone while in Arizona, but had never heard one in person. It had been one of her great wishes to do so. She smiled, deeply satisfied, and waited the hot flash out. From the bed, she was looking out a glass door at the tops of the pohutukawa trees—another thing she’d researched—which were still glittering and dripping with wet. The house was built on a hillside, with a car park underneath, which meant she was high up, like a bird among the curvy branches that swayed up and down, each branch its own trampoline, bouncing mildly in different directions.
She could see now that the sliding glass door of the bedroom opened onto a small deck so old and saggy that it didn’t look like it would support even a child, but it did support the tui, which landed briefly on a nearby branch, and then the deck railing, shimmering green-black with the strange curled white feather at the throat, which moved as it belted out a string of crazy noises, seemingly just to welcome her, and then flew off. Then another bird, also very conversational, welcomed her, and when she looked it up in the bird book she discovered it was a piwakawaka, a fantail.
Heaven. She was in heaven. Empyreal. No key required. Heaven with Strange Names. Lulu would have loved it.
In the far distance, between branches, she could see little slivers of the sea, both the band of blue that met sky in the far distance and the lines of white breakers hitting the shore with such force.
She got up and walked down the hallway to the kitchen, taking stock. Everything about the house was dated in a delightful way. Turquoise curtains and old paneling, a very thin turquoise carpet that smelled musty. In the fridge, there were plenty of condiments—mayonnaise, salad dressing, some olives stuck in a solidified oil, lemon curd, a bottle of champagne still in the box—but no real food. The cupboard was a mess—spilled spices and a grubby film over everything, and some mice scat, but there were many cans of soup, a bag of rice, boxes of tea, some coffee.
She set the kettle to boil and went to the door. From the deck, she sized up the safety situation: With the window open, she was pretty sure she’d hear a car down at the community center. Someone walking up was the likely scenario, since the driveway was steep and looked like it was only suitable for high-clearance all-terrain vehicles. No one was above her—there was only bush as far as the eye could see. A car door slamming from below—well, that’s the thing she should tune into. If she heard one, she could grab her backpack and dart into the forest, circle back down to the beach, and walk herself right out of town, hitching a ride. Hitchhiking was still done here; she’d seen it done from the bus, and indeed, hitchhiking was one of her goals.
She slipped on shoes and wandered around outside. There was a wooden picnic table, weathered and beaten, and a large rainwater tank to the side of the house, and the house itself had plants growing in the roof guttering, as if it was fitting itself into the jungle. A fenced and seemingly abandoned garden was a tangle, unkempt, and she assumed that anything coming up was volunteer. Among the things she could identify was some asparagus, young and perfect, which she took inside and sizzled in olive oil and added to the rice she’d cooked. She made a cup of tea with Manuka honey and sat down at the damp picnic table with a ratty beach towel below her butt.
From here, she had a view of the sea. The rain was still paused, though the potential hung in the air as thick as the clouds, and she could see the headlights of occasional cars, very far away, on the one road that led to Auckland. She watched them for a moment, and then looked down at the great expanse of water and noticed how the grays shifted over the surface.
“Okay,” she said, breathing out for the first real time since arriving. “You got this. The ultimate righting of one’s karma.”
It was, in fact, supposed to be a place of doing just that—righting karma. Because of Vincent’s continued correspondence with the owner, Nan, she knew its history and current status. Nan had inherited it from her family, who had made their wealth cutting down the now-rare kauri trees. A wealth made from a great environmental wrong. To right her family’s karma, she had turned the place into a residency for artists whose work was dedicated to the earth in some way. This was during summer months; in winter months it was closed up. The first visiting artist was likely slated for February first, but if Ammalie was wrong and the place was already occupied, her backup plan consisted of returning to Auckland.
This vague plan was based on one clear truth: It would really be okay. Maybe her retreat would involve some travel woes, expense, or uncomfortable housing, but she no longer considered those emergencies. She was finally, finally, finally able to go with the flow. It would just be all right. She could handle it. Besides: She had saved a dog, cut wire from a tree, helped a woman on a tough night, helped a man through a dangerous spot, left water in the desert for those who might be thirsty. She deserved a little residency too.
CHAPTER 17
Midday on her second full day—the first she felt awake enough to cogitate or move—Ammalie put on a hoodie that covered her head and sunglasses that covered her face and walked back two miles along the beach into town, enjoying the imprints her feet left in the black sand. The sun was seeping through low-lying puffs, the temperature had warmed considerably, and, as she walked toward the main road, she kept being struck by the strange joy of finding herself in the opposite season from the Northern Hemisphere.
As soon as she entered the only restaurant she’d seen, which simply said Pizza on a modest sign, she smelled fish-and-chips, which is what she ordered from the only person in the place, who was a woman approximately her age but who looked far more interesting. For one thing, she was wearing Lion King leggings and a big black shirt and had a bundle of black hair partly dyed purple pinned in a messy haphazard bun at the top of her head.
As she waited for the food, Ammalie wandered to the deck outside the restaurant, where again she was the only person. She stole the sugar packets, and then, horribly, the salt shaker, putting them all in her pocket, but then put the salt shaker back. What was she doing? Then she wandered inside to the front door, where flyers were pinned to corkboard, and scanned the lost cats and rooms for rent and community-movie-fundraiser night, then finally went back outside to the remotest corner of the deck.
When the woman brought her plate to her outdoor table, she nearly cried with delight. Real fish-and-chips, from fish caught right outside! “Hello. Kia ora. Visiting Ki, love? Welcome,” the woman said, sliding the plate in front of her.
