We didn’t talk. I wanted to, wanted to know everything about her. Wanted to hear everything. But we couldn’t talk. Because Lou was sleeping quietly. We could only lie here. Beneath each other, on top of each other. And I wanted to gasp. Howl. Scream. But I was as quiet as I could be.

While I hoped the hole would shrink.

While I hated that the hole shrank.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Signe

Chapter Twenty-Three

Signe

No wind. I turn on the engine, sailing at a low rpm. I can hear better then, stand tall, stretch, but I can’t see much.

At the narrowest point in the strait between Dover and Calais, 33.1 kilometers. France on the port side, England astern, I stay close to the British coastline to avoid the ferry traffic. It feels like the land along the shore is closing in on me. The fog seeps in—from England, of course, the homeland of the fog.

England, England, there you are again. I’ve never been back, have avoided the country—the odor of deep-fried food, cigarette smoke, the taste of brick, the eyes of the receptionist, I am not going there either, not ever, not even if I need a port of refuge. I would rather founder.

There is a tunnel under the canal. It’s inconceivable—every hour hundreds of people travel by train beneath me, with millions of liters of water over their heads. To think that they dare, those who every day board a train and willingly and knowingly allow themselves to be transported under the seabed. There is no other place more claustrophobic or tomb-like.

The mist grows heavier and heavier—clouds that love the land, Daddy said. He liked the fog, but the fog here . . . now . . . I get to my feet, my visibility obscured, the sea evaporating before me, behind me. I can no longer see the sky.

It is dark, a peculiar, gray darkness. I turn on the lanterns, but it doesn’t help much. I do it mostly just to have done it. I use the foghorn, its faint howl swallowed up by the air thick with moisture: one long and two short blasts, one long, two short.

But I know my position, I have the compass. If I just continue on exactly the same course, sounding the foghorn, I will be safe.

I cling to the helm, my knuckles whiten, my eyes on the compass needle. It is completely silent, as in a vacuum, as in outer space. The moisture in the air prevents the sound waves from traveling. I try the foghorn again, but the sound is so weak, almost nothing.

I keep going on the same course, maintaining a low speed, three knots. At this speed it will take several hours to pass the Strait of Dover, but I don’t dare try to go any faster.