Come to the Edge_ A Memoir - Christina Haag [103]
The next morning, he takes me to the cliffs. The sun’s out, and he wants to orient me. My sense of direction is usually good, but the island has me turned around. We drive up Moshup Trail. Gray heads of houses nestle in the scrub, and as we near the top, I can see the lighthouse—one I know from postcards—and its faint beam hoops over us. “Gay Head Light,” he says. Outside the car, it’s cold. The souvenir shops are boarded shut, but there’s the smell of salt, and I can almost hear the phantom linger of wind chimes and seashell mobiles. I push my hands into the silky pockets of my coat as he strides ahead. He nods to one of the shacks and smiles. “Great chili fries.”
We reach the promontory, the very western edge of the island. The sky is as bright as water. It was called Gay Head then, all of it—the land, the township, the cliffs below. But years later, when I returned after his death, it would be known by another name, an older one—Aquinnah—for the Wampanoag people who have lived here for thousands of years and who, in summer, run the shops and sell the chili fries. In legend, a giant named Moshup created the channels and islands by dragging his toe across the land. He lived in his den in the cliffs and caught whales with his bare hands. Until the white man came, he taught his people to fish and plant, and he watched over them. Some say that he still does—that when the fog drifts in, he’s there.
I lean against the railing, with the windy sea below, and he tells me these stories. And in my new coat, I’m hoping I look something like the French Lieutenant’s Woman. The wrong color, I know, and there’s no hood, but that’s the idea anyway.
“There’s Cuttyhunk.” He points, his arm on my shoulder; the other holds my waist. “Nashawena, then Pasque. Naushon’s the long one.” Except for Cuttyhunk, these are all private islands and mostly deserted. Then he turns in the opposite direction—south toward Squibnocket Pond and his mother’s beach. I follow his gaze to an island on its own some miles off. “That’s Nomans Land.” Nomans, I repeat after him, and decide I like that one best.
When it’s warmer, we will sail to Cuttyhunk. When the leaves are tipped with red, we will hike on Naushon. We’ll camp for a night on Nomans, a moonless sky and the Milky Way arched above our small tent.
We get a late start. On our approach to Nomans at sunset, his mother’s Seacraft threatens to run aground near some old pilings, and I swim ashore with our gear piled on my head. It takes three trips. Then I watch from the beach as he dives with a knife in his teeth and after many tries succeeds in anchoring the boat. Damaged, he says, but afloat. That night, we roast bluefish, corn, and potatoes and drink wine under the stars.
In the morning, I hear engines. I nudge him awake. Outside the tent, mongrel seagulls peck at the singed tinfoil around the campfire. I look up. A plane is buzzing low. Now, in daylight, a large sign with DANGER painted in black letters glares at me. He’d told me it was illegal to land here but neglected to say that while a third of the island is a bird sanctuary, the rest is a navy bombing practice site. As I scramble, cursing, for the boat, I can hear him: “Don’t stress, this is the bird side!” Later, his mother will berate him, and not only for the injury to the boat. “But you were with Christina,” she keeps saying, to remind him that I was there, in harm’s way, alongside him.
And one August morning—it may be the last summer we’re together—we will kayak to the back end of Nashawena, hide the boat in the brush from the caretaker, and climb to the headlands, where the sheep are. We’ll sit in the scratchy grass flecked with blue chicory and look out over Vineyard Sound, and he’ll tell me the names he likes.