The Time of the Titans

Chapter 8: The Storm

When I was sitting in the small rowing boat with grandfather, I thought about the island in the middle of the lake. Fishing was boring to a boy of six. It mainly consisted of waiting, and while waiting, grandfather insisted on total quiet. For any word, any movement from my part, I received a cranky stare. Why did adults want the company of kids if they then wished them to cease all presence? We were supposed to exist in their lives, but only as a concept. A concept that entailed responsibility. Yet to be considered well-mannered, we had to avoid presence. Be quiet. Be invisible. Not get excited about anything – except when the adults got excited. Then we should play along and pretend we appreciated the experience.

I played along. Trying to avoid any sigh, any question, any change of position that would frighten away grandfather's precious fish – the ones I'd later pretend to be excited about, though they ceased to be exciting to me the moment they died. I'd rather have them released back to the lake, but for grandfather, fishing only for fun would have equalled waste of time, so he had to pretend, and I had to play along, that the catch would actually be useful at mother's kitchen. I knew, of course, that mother hated the fish. She would dutifully prepare every fish, but she'd always make me feel that was on my guilt, as grandfather did it just for me. I should feel grateful. At least seem so. Mother hawkishly prowled for any sign of ingratitude in me. Like a sigh, or a question. I would keep hearing about such a slip for years after.

I would not wish for the nightly rowing trips to end. But it would be my secret that I wasn't excited about fishing. I was excited about the island. It was my own secret place. The only place in my infant's life my mother never entered. She checked and searched through my room every day, often several times a day, for anything that could be used to increase my guilt. Like a drawing. Or a picture I'd cut from a newspaper – somehow if I took something from a newspaper mother had already thrown in the rubbish bin, that turned the newspaper valuable to her again, she'd certainly need exactly the article my clipping had ruined.

So I played along. During the fishing, I'd spend the time of silence thinking about my island. Filling it with mysterious caves, gullies, forest hides. Elves or goblins I might meet. I knew the few paths by heart. In summer, there were sheep on the island, but never a person. None, except grandfather and me. Yet I imagined the very places where I'd meet friendly elves or hide from hideous goblins. Sometimes they switched sides, the goblins becoming my friends and the elves becoming jealous. Invariably, I should beware the pirates, who were grown-up and bad to me. If they caught me, that is.

At the end of every night's fishing, grandfather rowed us to the island. We had a walk there, in the strange blue light of the northern summer night. To be more specific, I had the walks. There had been a time when grandfather had walked with me, but later he just sat on a big stone, smoked a pipe, and waited for me to make my round, to greet my imaginary friends. After all, they were the only friends I had offline. Grandfather knew that I knew the island by heart, and he'd never ask. That was the best. The best part of the lake and the island.

Still after grandfather's death, mother believed we only went to the middle of the lake and never landed. Never ever landed. That's how the island stayed mine, even after I couldn't go there anymore because grandfather was gone forever.

*   *   *

About the plan to find the island, my colleagues didn't trust me much, and I never got a chance to convince Moom Lala about the plan, because it was already on the next week's expedition that my fate was parted from most of the others. Most, not all. Namely, it was the first time my little excursion would be attended by three other human adults instead of the usual one or two.

One of them was Mary Darling, whose worries I overcame with plentiful heroic words and seeming invincibility. She ushered in a flock of nine little girls, ten years old. The girls were giggling in excitement about the underwater excursion that was about to set off. They hoped to see dolphins and little mermaids, but I had to disappoint them by telling neither creature had been observed at any of the expeditions done so far. Mermaids, in fact, never existed – they were the products of the marvellous thing called human imagination. Humans of the seas. But perhaps these little girls themselves were mermaids as they lived in the sea-bound city of Atlantis and travelled to the bottom of the sea with the Nautilus.