Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [120]
The bus was quick, and soon a strip of blue revealed itself. We pulled into a small dock. The sun poured onto the water like melted butter. The air seemed different there, somehow. Costas and I walked down to the water—quietly, as if we might wake something. We looked down and saw fish as big as watermelons. Trees circled the riverbank, and the leaves hung heavy with sunlight, casting a spell on the water.
She has been here, I thought. I could feel her presence. I imagined Mary leaving Rain Village so many years before, her tears falling in the water, the memory of William burned into her heart and breast. She would have walked from the riverboat to the dock and into the world for the first time. Right here. Soon Juan Galindo would find her, changing everything from that day forward.
I looked at Costas, my eyes filling with tears. “It feels like we’re at the end of the world,” I whispered. As if we were about to step off it. I thought of Mauro and the trapeze, of circus lights and glitter and the elephants’ swaying trunks, the tigers’ soft fur, the crazy banners and colors of the sideshow, the sawdust and cotton candy and miles of faces staring up at us with astonished, blissful expressions, and wondered once again what I was doing in this huge, lonesome expanse where time seemed to have stopped. The rain seeped through my shirt, ran down my skin.
“I know,” he said, grabbing my hand. His touch comforted me. I hadn’t realized how rigid and tense I was.
When a boat appeared down the narrow path of the river, it seemed like a mirage. It shimmered through the leaves and rose straight up into the sky.
We stood together and watched the boat approach. It pulled to a stop with a heavy, wheezing groan, sank from our weight when we stepped on the deck. The captain took our bags and fare quietly before heading back to the helm. The few other passengers didn’t seem to pay us much mind.
I don’t know what kind of journey it was, really, that brought Costas and me to Rain Village. It did not feel like we were traveling the way a boat travels through the water; rather, we seemed to move the way a dream passes from loss to memory. I was inside the vision I’d had, when I’d first seen her, and Mary’s voice whispered in my ear. Was I a child again, listening to one of her stories? I sat on the deck of the riverboat, leaning my back against the railing, and the wood under my hands felt like the planks that made up the floor of Mercy Library.
The rain pattered against our skin, onto the deck and the water. The air was so delicate. Looking above me, I saw the rain lit up by the sun, and the leaves overhead were like petals, almost translucent with the sun coming down through them. I looked over at Costas, watched him change the film in his camera, lift the camera to his face. He’s documenting this, I realized then. He wants to get it all down. I thought of Mary standing in Mercy Library, surrounded by files and books.
We moved slowly down the river, watching the plants and trees and water, and then, in the distance, we saw people waiting on the shoreline. A burst of color in the melancholy landscape.
“Rain Village,” I whispered. I climbed up on the railing and held the top rail with my hands.
As we approached, I saw that the people were wearing shiny hats that kept the rain off their faces. I glanced at the other passengers, saw a woman with long hair so black it was like a pool of ink I’d dip a quill into, standing along the railing, waving. She glanced at me and smiled. I smiled back, then tilted my face up to let the mist of rain coat my face.
The boat bobbed on the water as we anchored at the bank, and the fish thumped against the sides of the boat. “Look at them,” Costas whispered, pointing.
The captain helped me down from the boat; my hand reached for the railing and my skirt grazed the water as