Moishe and the three shiksas rowing furiously against the waves.
Where were they going?
The women were paddling to that most venerable and storied of places.
Away. A new world in this New World.
And their blind parrot knew no more where he was going than a windcock.
Did I know?
Takeh, of course: with Moishe.
Nu, some maven wrote that a book is a dictionary out of order. You ask me, it’s the dictionary that’s farmisht. It’s a story out of order. Like when the Spanish took apart the great stones of Los Indios’ temples and remade them into their houses.
And this I know: I follow Moishe.
Why? The stones of my parrot heart. Rebuilt.
The susurration and rhythmic plash of the paddles. The kvetching of the breeze. We rowed in silence. Our journey was our words.
“And then what happened?”
We’d search for our crew who had the map, then find the books and the Fountain. This goal had imprinted itself on our empty insides. Both hope and hopelessness abhor a vacuum.
The ocean rose and fell, a sullen companion that said nothing of the future.
And intermittently, the air-raid siren of the nudnik parrot sounded: “Oy vey iz mir. Oy vey iz mir. Ich hob dich. Ich hob dich.” Each phrase a doppelg?nger of itself and thus a twin irritation.
I should have left both its eyes and ripped out its tongue.
Now that we all travelled as equals, Moishe assumed his role as captain, scanning the horizon, steering the canoe from its stern, choosing which “away” was our destination.
I noticed something low in the water ahead of us, bobbing up and down with a kind of dopey and water-logged optimism. Moishe decided to investigate.
It was his old friend, the barrel in which he had spent several intimate if directionless days. Lidless, it was driftwood.
But it seemed a fated encounter, and so Moishe hauled it into the canoe, even though there was little unclaimed land in the craft and the barrel could no longer pursue its chosen career effectively. We were squeezed between various provisions that the women had brought from the island. Melons. Coconuts. Small sacks of cassava bread and tobacco. Spanish swords. Dried fish. Wineskin-like bladders filled with fresh water. A bottle that winked its green glass eye at Moishe. Drink me, it said. And he did, making a Shabbos-less kiddush with rum.
It was days without land. Between the four who paddled, two watches were established. While some slept, some wished for sleep. We shared food.
Then, on the starboard horizon: land. On the larboard: a ship.
We gazed at both intently, trying to read their indistinct shapes.
As we rowed closer: “My Yiddishe clipper,” Moishe exclaimed. We recognized the flag: a bloodshot eye radiating over an unfinished pyramid.
Nu, Pharoah, we’d like to stay and finish the job, but what with these plagues and all, the working conditions for slaves have really deteriorated.
Moishe gazed at the boat and sighed. “My ship of mutinous bastard chamooleh fools.”
Chapter Five
Moishe explained his plan.
Shmuntsing, mysticism, and banditry most often occur under the black chuppah of night. And, as with such things, stealth was important, so we waited until after dark. Moishe gave such a look to the parrot that even such a shlepper as that moronic cloaca-shtreimel knew to be silent. As soon as we were in the lee shadow of the boat, Moishe quietly lowered the barrel into the still water and we once again climbed in as if it were a high-gunwaled dory, a floating womb.
“Zayt gezunt. Be well,” Moishe whispered to the women.
“Zay gezunt,” they replied and rowed into the darkness, dipping the paddles tentatively into the water.
On deck, all was darkness, sleep or inattention.
We paddled up close to the hull, an infant elephant nuzzled against the flank of its vast and sighing mother. Shh. Sleep, mama, sleep.
The ship’s hull was scarred with patches where cannonball or shallows had broken its skin. Until the ship was properly careened and the broad planks replaced, its sides were a Harlequinade of repairs. We searched for such a pockmark, small as two fingers, then Moishe worked at it with the blade of a Spanish dirk until he had reopened the wound.
A hole in the side of the hull.
He had brought the rum-bottle stuffed with a damp shmatte ripped from his ragged and swamp-ripe clothes. Now he would make fire.
In the middle of the sea, it is as simple to procure fire as it is fresh water. Both are possible if you have them already.