We clipped along under our unfurled sails, their bellies full with the breeze, and soon the city of Honolulu was just a dark smudge on the thin gold band of the shoreline. Then I realized Slate and I were both watching the shore as it receded, so I turned to face the sea, and the sight of the open horizon was as heady as the salt wind.
After Blake had gone, I had placed the map we’d be using—the map Joss had sold me, the ancient, crumbling piece of paper, probably among the very first pieces of paper ever made—on the wide drafting table. I’d unfolded it carefully, teasing it apart; it was stamped in faded red at the bottom and brushed with quick, bold strokes of ink in choppy handwriting.
As Joss had promised, the map did indeed depict the tomb of Emperor Qin, who had died in the second century B.C. The Chinese historian Sima Qian had described it in his historical opus, the Shiji.
After his death, and just before all he built had crumbled, Emperor Qin had been buried in a massive underground complex underneath Mount Li in Xianyang. He rested in a representation of his palace placed in the center of a scale model of China itself, with rolling hills cast of bronze, mountains assembled out of fine cut stone, and rivers and seas of mercury. Along with the rich clothes, fine jewels, and masterly weapons with which most prestigious persons were buried during that era, Emperor Qin was guarded in death by some eight thousand terra-cotta warriors. They were what had caught my interest.
As Joss had mentioned, the legend said that in the lofty vault of the tomb, these warriors had sprung to attention to serve the emperor in his afterlife, along with the various terra-cotta acrobats, jugglers, musicians, and concubines. This clay court was rounded out by a coterie of living attendants who’d been sealed up with the emperor as a reward for being his most favored.
I gazed at the familiar handwriting. When Joss had sold me this map, she’d said it had come from a dying woman. Suddenly I was appalled that I’d considered throwing the leather case into the sea.
After I laid the old map down on the table, I covered it with a sheet of glass to protect it from the sea air, or from coffee spills. Then, following my internal script, I cleared the cabin of cups and plates and put away all the books on the shelves, secure behind their rails. But most importantly, Slate and I sat together, he in the attitude of a Buddha, cross-legged, and I with my knees drawn up to my chin. This wasn’t our typical exchange, however, where I told him all I’d learned about the legend and era we were visiting and he listened. Instead, it was my father teaching me.
He was, as usual, an abysmal teacher, and soon enough I found myself shaking my head. “What do you mean, you just let go?”
“Once you know where you’re going, and you’re sure it’s there, you have to let go of where you’re from. You look straight forward, you keep the land ahead in sight, and you don’t look back.”
“Literally or metaphorically?”
“Both. Once you sight your shore, you keep an eye on it. But you’ll never see it if you’re still in port.”
“Running away and running to.”
“Sort of, yeah.”
I frowned at him, but he seemed in earnest. Furthermore, he had no reason to lie; I’d shown him the map and he’d admitted he had no chance of Navigating there. My father knew almost nothing about ancient China; he had never read the Shiji. “How did you learn?” I said then. “Who taught you?”
“I . . . no one.” He sounded surprised at the question. “I taught myself.”
“How?”
He ran his hand through his dark blond hair, and for a moment, I saw lines of blue ink on his scalp. “I . . . tripped.”
I made a face. “I should have known.”
“No. I really—I fell. I was on the stairs. Maybe it was a little of both. I was at the library.”
“New York Public?”
“With the lions, yeah. I used to go there when my—Christ, it was ages ago—when my own parents . . . they hated each other. Fought all the time. I would go to the library and . . . It was different back then. 1981. The librarians didn’t watch too close.” His jaw worked as he searched for words, but I stayed quiet, waiting—he spoke so rarely about his past.
“I found an old—it was in a storage room—an old map, one of those architect drawings of the library from when it was being built, 1903, I think. There were photos too. I must have been staring at it for hours. It was very real in my head. When I was leaving, I fell down the stairs, and there was a moment I could see the picture of Fifth Avenue—no concrete—and when I landed it was facedown in the mud. It was an accident, that first time. All I really wanted was to be somewhere else.”
His eyes were faraway, as though he could see that elsewhere from where he sat. In the silence I heard the gentle lapping of the water against the hull. “If you can go on foot . . . why did you build a ship?”
“It’s a safe space, no matter where I go. And I can bring everyone I need with me.” He sighed. “It was easier back then. Nowadays . . . I don’t know where I’d go without you.”