“Good. Then the Greene family can please make your way to the boats. We sail in half an hour.” He checked his digital watch. “Oh. Ten minutes. Because of the tide.”
We walked out of the tent onto the concrete slip. A rubber dinghy with a solid-wooden floor was moored in just a few feet of water, its massive outboard motor raised to avoid the rocks. An identical orange boat came scudding over the sea toward us, and I realized that the dinghy would ferry us to a much bigger ship that was moored offshore. Despite Larsen’s reassurances, I glanced along the beach at the helicopters, but they were hidden behind the stanchions of a dilapidated wooden jetty. The concrete slipway nestled in its lee.
“We need two boats as you are so many.” Dr. Larsen surveyed all the boys. “Where did you get all these children?”
In an instant, the dreamy state induced by the white tent and its serene inhabitants lifted, and a familiar tension returned. We were still waiting for Jack and Kofi, and hopefully Woody and the other two boys. They could be at the abbey, waiting for us. Or on their way.
“There are more boys,” I told him. “We have to wait—”
“Larsen?” It was the angel, calling from the tent. She said something to him in Norwegian, her head tilted toward Joni.
“It’s your friend, one moment.” He carried his bulk nimbly up the slipway.
“Sister-in-law,” I said, pointlessly.
The dinghy pulled up to the slipway. The driver, who was probably a decade younger than I, had ragged stubble that deepened the creases of a face that had seen it all before. He came onto the concrete and hunkered down next to the first group of schoolboys, speaking quietly until they rose to their feet and followed him into the boat. He threw life jackets onto their laps; “It will get choppy,” he said. He turned and called me to get in.
“I have to wait to speak to Larsen,” I said. I put my good arm around my children. They weren’t going anywhere without me.
“We don’t have long,” he told me, but went over to the next group of boys and led them into the dinghy.
I counted the boys in the boat. The Wild Things were all there. And I had my four kids. Joni was in deep conversation with Dr. Larsen and the female doctor in the tent. So where is Lola? I looked up the slipway to the tent and beyond. Along the coastline, a smoking hillside marked our rendezvous point with Jack. Where the fuck is Lola?
I herded the children back up the slipway. Behind me, the sputter of an outboard engine as the dinghy full of schoolboys pushed off.
“Joni?” I called to her.
She turned, and her face was brimming with tears.
“What happened? Where’s Lola?” I grabbed Joni’s arm, but she was intent on the young doctor, thanking her over and over until the woman moved away, busying herself with packing up supplies.
“She goes first.” Dr. Larsen waved Joni ahead. And to his colleague, “Radio the ship. Clear a berth.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Joni glided past: a sleepwalker. Her body moved away from me, but her eyes locked on to mine, her head rotating weirdly, like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Her mouth opened and she said, “I’m pregnant, Marlene. I’m pregnant.”
“That’s—” I said. “Congratulations.”
And she floated down the slipway toward the dinghy.
“And she could lose it if she doesn’t get treatment.” Dr. Larsen was throwing boxes of gear onto a trolley. “So we go now.”
“But what about Lola? And the other boys?” I followed Larsen, catching one of the boxes as it slipped. My kids bobbed along in my wake.
“The tide is going out.” He stopped and looked me in the eye. “We have only five minutes. You got yourself lucky we are still here.”
“We can’t go without Lola.”
Dr. Larsen released his breath in a quick sigh that seemed too delicate for a man of his scale. “Is she here?”
I scanned the empty tent, the desolate street beyond. Obviously, she wasn’t, but I jerked my head about, as though she might appear from nowhere. I asked Charlie. Maggie? They hadn’t seen her, either.
“I’m sorry, then we leave now.” Dr. Larsen called a command, a brusque seal bark, to the driver of the second dinghy, who pulled the ropes tighter to hold the rocking boat steady against the slipway. “The hospital ship is full. And the tide—”
“But there are more refugees. We have to go and find Lola and the boys.”
“My other patients need urgent attention—your sister-in-law included. The ship must leave now for Oslo. This is the last transfer.” With that, he pushed the trolley to the edge, and the driver hauled the plastic boxes on board, stacking them under the wooden seat where Joni sat, huddled inside her life jacket. Larsen stepped in next and turned to offer a hand to us. Maggie jumped on and scooted next to Joni. Then the boys. Larsen nodded at me and pulled life jackets out of a locker. I stepped onto the heaving boat.
Joni smiled and looked along the seat next to her—taking in the four young ones. She glanced behind her into the prow of the boat: empty. She turned and looked out to sea, toward the hospital ship, as though she might see Lola there. She turned back to me.
“Marlene? Did—”
“Lola’s not here, Joni. We don’t know where she is.”
Water slapped against the rubber hull.
Joni stood just as a wave rolled the boat. She staggered to keep her balance, ending up with her knees bent, one hand on the seat behind her and the other on her stomach. I had a sudden vision of her heavily pregnant. Dr. Larsen stepped in to take her by the elbow and make her sit.
“I have to find her.” Joni’s voice was shrill.
“Severe anemia can lead to premature birth or even miscarriage. Your baby is at risk—” Larsen tried, but Joni grabbed him by both arms and hauled him down toward her face. Pencils fell from his jacket pocket and tumbled across the floor.
“My daughter is at risk!” She shook him once by the arms, and then turned her face into his chest and started to cry.
A slow chill crept up my veins, blown in on the salt air, drenching me in cold sweat. I looked at my own children, safe and warm in blankets. At Joni carrying her unborn child, who should surely be given a chance. Somewhere else, somewhere cold and dangerous, were Lola, my niece; Jack and Kofi, good boys who’d helped us; and Woody, whom I had promised to protect. Two others, whose names would be forgotten.
Around us, the sea had grown dark, layers upon layers of gray dragged this way and that. Joni’s screams drifted away, like a gull’s cries. “Lola. I won’t leave her. I’ll go after her.” My mouth filled with a marine tang that was pure and lonely.
“No, Joni,” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to look at my children as I stepped off the boat. “I’ll go after her.”
Chapter Twenty-Six