They walked faster, smelling salt in the air. When they reached the ocean the continent drew itself up. For the last few kilometers the path climbed a narrow peninsula, the land rising to make a last stand against the sea. No one talked as they walked; it was all uphill.
A stone cross marked the spot where the path ended, and all around it were the remains of little fires where pilgrims had burned their boots. Long before the Christians claimed it for their own, Father Malloy said, Finisterre had been a site of pagan worship, the westernmost point of all the known world. Past the horizon was the land of eternal youth, the place where the sun turned around. Rumor of it had traveled as far away as Ireland, and when the Romans arrived a century or so before the birth of Christ they stood on that bit of rock and watched the sun fall into the sea and named the place the End of the Earth.
The German couple took pictures of the ocean. Magdalena set down the shoebox and the others took off their packs and climbed down the rocks to a radio tower hung with pieces of clothing. Old shirts and worn-out socks flapped like flags, some of them recent, some of them threadbare from the wind. Brit and Olaf tied their parkas there, Father Malloy left his knee brace, and the Filipino nun took out an old felt hat no one had known she’d been carrying and fastened it around the metal bars with safety pins.
The sea was a long way below them. Waves hit against walls of rock and pieces of things got caught against the cliffs. Whole trees, parts of ships, and plastic drums collected there, wearing themselves to roundedness in water churned the color of milk.
“Where is the place where the bodies wash up?” Magdalena asked Father Malloy. He didn’t know exactly, so after everyone had had their picture taken they picked up their packs again and followed the path down toward the town of Finisterre, past the statue of the Virgin that was said to grow real fingernails and, occasionally, perspire. Signs pointed them to the harbor and then along an old pilgrim path until they came to a place where the land seemed to have forgotten its fight against the ocean. It bowed to it instead, creating a stretch of sandy beach.
When they got to the water they all waded right in, not even bothering to take off their shoes and socks. And when their hot swollen feet had been cooled and felt somehow lighter than they had in days, in spite of being waterlogged, they headed toward the snack bar where the Norwegians had promised to buy everyone paella.
Magdalena stayed in the water, waving to say that she’d be along soon. Her feet had calluses like silver coins and nothing had ever felt as good as the ocean on her skin. She held the shoebox over her head to keep it out of the spray, then realized that was stupid—what did it matter now if it got a little wet? She opened the box and tried to untie the plastic bag inside, but the knot was too tight. She tore it open with her fingernails and took out a handful of ashes. The dust stuck to her wet hands and she accidentally tossed the first bit into the wind. Finally she waded in until the water was up to her chest and dumped out the whole bag, including at least one cigarette butt that must have gotten swept up off the floor of the station in Paris. The ashes eddied around her, the heavier pieces sinking while the rest made a skim on the water and stuck to her arms.
A wave came and took the ashes with it. Magdalena held on to her glasses as the water lifted her up, drenching her hair. She had a sudden memory of Lina in the rain, spinning with open arms in the middle of an empty street. Lina with Magdalena’s mother’s mascara running down her face, shouting for Magdalena to come, then spinning again with her eyes closed, her hands open to the rain. The empty shoebox was soaked through. Magdalena crushed it flat and waded back to shore. She wrung the water out of her shirt and moved the bag with her clothes higher up on the sand, because the tide was coming in.
There was a place where the beach was sandy, and farther along there were rocks. The sea hit against them, spraying up then washing over and down, crashing and receding. Like breathing, Magdalena thought. She looked to see if the ashes had washed up with the waves, but they were gone.
The beach stretched on, a pale line of sand tracing the shore as it curved to the east. Pebbles gathered around Magdalena’s feet each time the waves rolled out. In among them was a shell, not a scallop but just an ordinary shell whose edges had been worn away. She tossed it out and it washed back again, settling like a pale toenail on her foot.
Another wave rolled in and Magdalena saw the body. Then the wave went out and it was gone; Magdalena wasn’t even sure she’d really seen it. Another wave and it appeared again. A rabbit, made supple like a sack by the pounding of the sea.
With the next wave it was gone, then another and the rabbit washed up again, farther down the beach. Gone and back again, a little farther on. Magdalena followed. The next wave came and lifted the body, fanning its fur. It was so much a part of the movement of the water that it didn’t seem dead. It was just a body, after life.
The rabbit rested on the sand for a moment, but as Magdalena came to it another wave washed it away. Gone and back, then gone again, farther down the beach each time until the snack bar was just a tiny dot behind her. The body settled for a moment between some rocks, but before Magdalena could get to it the waves pulled it under again.
A moment later it reappeared at the place where the beach narrowed. Far in the distance now, someone had come out of the snack bar and was calling her name. Probably Brit, telling her not to leave her bag lying on the beach like that. Magdalena pretended not to hear, and watched as the water folded and unfolded the body, tumbling the rabbit until it was sleek and boneless, its fur washed new by the sea.
“Magdute!” her mother had called from the kitchen when they first moved into the new apartment after Magdalena’s father died. “Magdute, look!” her mother had said, and with an “Ouf!” she lifted Magdalena up to see the stain on the ceiling in the shape of a rabbit: a sign of springtime, of new life and ordinary things.
“Magdalena!” the person on the beach shouted—it wasn’t Brit. It was a man’s voice, but the sun was in her eyes, it was hard to see. He wasn’t tall enough to be Olaf or round enough to be Father Malloy. A wave crashed, and the rabbit went under again. “Magdalena!” The person was coming toward her.