I almost laugh with the sudden pleasure of this strange, simple thing—sitting with Keller on the ice, sharing a meal among the molting emperors, on a blindingly bright Antarctic day. It’s been so long since I’ve made a connection with someone else. I haven’t been with anyone since Dennis, and even after a year, it hasn’t been difficult; in fact, life’s been a lot simpler. Or maybe I’ve just managed to convince myself of that.
In science, in the natural world, things make sense. Animals act on instinct—of course, they have emotions, personalities; they can be cheeky or manipulative or surprising—but, unlike humans, they don’t cause intentional harm. Humans are a whole different story, and I learned at a young age that, in most people, meanness is more instinctual than kindness. I’d been a boyish kid—tall for my age, with cropped blond hair, a science geek. After being physically kicked out of the girls’ restroom in junior high by girls who were convinced I was a boy, I grew my hair halfway down my back. I wore it that long, usually braided, until just last year, when I chopped it to right below my chin—long enough to look like a female, since I never wear makeup, and to still be able to pull it back and out of the way.
“What is it?” Keller asks. “What’re you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” I say, and he hands me a fork.
“How long have you been with the APP?” he asks.
“About eight, nine years.” I take a bite of salad and rice. “And what about you? What did you do before entering the world of janitorial services?”
He shrugs. “Something a lot less interesting.”
There’s something closed off about the way he speaks, and I don’t ask him anything else. We finish eating, and I get back to work. Despite my earlier vow not to cater to Keller’s schedule, I get everything loaded back into the snowmobile in time to return to the base for his shift.
That night, I lie awake in bed for a long time, despite the exhaustion that sears the space behind my eyes. A lot of people have trouble sleeping at this time of year, thanks to nearly twenty-four-hour daylight, but I know this isn’t the reason.
The next day, Keller’s waiting for me at the MEC again, and he asks if he can help me count the birds.
“Did you bring me lunch?”
He nods.
“All right, then.”
At the colony, I spend more time observing Keller than counting the birds. I watch how carefully he moves among the penguins, clicking their numbers on my counter. I watch his eyes inspect every inch of the carcasses we kneel beside, as I explain how to identify the cause of death. “Only an autopsy can determine if their stomachs are empty,” I tell him, pointing at a thin, hollowed-out body, “but you can see here that this one was in really poor condition. Hardly any body fat at all.”
I become so absorbed in the work that I fail to notice the wind whipping up around us. It isn’t until I feel icy snow pelting my face that I look up and see that there’s no longer a delineation between ice and sky, that the world has gone white.
“Shit,” I say under my breath, and I radio the station. They’ve already restricted travel, and the winds are over fifty knots. We need to get back now.
I call out to Keller, and immediately he’s at my side, helping me load the snowmobile. Within a few minutes we’re ready to go—but the engine won’t start.
I try again, the engine grinding slowly but refusing to turn over.
“Dead battery?” Keller asks. He’s sitting right behind me, his mouth next to my ear, but I can hardly hear him over the wind.
“Could be,” I shout back. “But if it was, I probably wouldn’t get any juice at all.”
We dismount, and it’s then I realize that we don’t have time to troubleshoot, let alone to fix the vehicle. The wind is bracing, my hands so cold I can barely move them, even inside my gloves. When I glance back at Keller, only a few feet away, he’s a blur, his hat and parka coated with snow.
“We need to take shelter,” I say.
“Let me check the battery.”
“Forget it, Keller.” The driving snow is pricking my eyes. “Even if we fix it now, we’re not going to make it back.”
While Antarctic weather is notoriously capricious, I’m annoyed; I can’t believe I let the storm creep up on us this way. Keller is still going on about fixing the Ski-Doo as I pull our survival pack out of its hutch, and I turn and shove it into his chest. “You have no idea what this weather can do,” I shout over the wind. “Get the tent out. Now.”
There’s no time to dig ourselves a trench, which would be the best way to wait out the storm. As it is, we’re barely able to pitch the emergency tent and scurry inside. We’ve got just one extreme-weather sleeping bag and a fleece liner, and I spread them both out over us. Even if the tent weren’t so cramped, the freezing air instinctively draws our bodies close, and without speaking we wrap ourselves up, pulling the fleece to cover us completely, including most of our faces. Despite the protection from the wind and our body heat, it’s probably no more than thirty degrees inside the tent.
“I bet this isn’t what you had in mind when you came to Antarctica,” I say, my voice muffled by the fleece.
“On the contrary,” he says. “This is exactly what I had in mind.”