He’s drifting farther away. I lean out as far as I can, but something hard knocks against my ear. The lookout bell.
You ninny goat! Quickly, I grab the clapper and ring it.
Clang-clang! Clang-clang!
Jamie’s head turns toward the sound. Finally he spots me and begins to swim.
I gather the drifting cable and wind it as best I can around my arm. Then I throw it hard. It goes wide, but at least it lands closer to him than he lies from me. He lunges toward it.
Working together, I haul him arm over arm toward me, while he kicks, speeding our progress. Soon, he scrabbles aboard, panting and shivering.
As soon as he’s able to speak again, he gasps, “We have to clear out. Once the boat sinks, the water will suck us under. Look for something we can use.”
From our vantage point, I spy bits of debris roiling about, along with a few people still bobbing around in their life belts. The collapsible has been pushed far to port, so far that it’s barely a fingernail on the horizon. The ocean is a moving stage of props that don’t belong: tablecloths, trays, broken posts. I point to a large piece of furniture. “There?”
“Good, let’s go.”
“But what if it’s not—”
“It’ll do. Smartly, now!”
We launch ourselves from the crow’s nest. The water seems to have warmed a few degrees, perhaps a gift from the falling smokestack, but still it stabs my skin with a thousand needles.
After an endless swim, we finally reach the raft, which turns out to be a chaise longue, of all things. Its cushions have floated away, leaving only its wooden platform and single raised end. We latch on to the foot of it and use it as a kickboard.
“Kick!” Jamie orders, though my legs are so stiff, I’m not sure I can bend my knees. “Kick, you goat.”
“Who you calling goat? You’re the goat.”
“No, you’re the goat. Stubborn as all get-out. Kick!”
“Pig trotter.”
“Cod belly.”
“Pigeon egg.”
“Stop wasting your breath,” he pants. His legs, which are longer and more powerful than mine, slow to meet my pace so we don’t go in circles.
A keening starts up, growing sharper and more frantic by the moment.
“Don’t look,” Jamie says. “Keep kicking, and don’t look.”
A vision of the shrewd-eyed Reverend Prigg, thundering on about how God saves the righteous, inserts itself into my head. But if that’s truly the case, why are those people—most lowly immigrants just like us—screaming so loud, I swear even the stars pale at the cry?
Another metallic shriek and corresponding crash sends out more waves. It must be the second smokestack, fallen just like the first. That means there are two left. Only two.
I close my eyes and focus on kicking.
There were four of us when I took my first breath—Mum, Ba, Jamie, and me. The number four sounds like death, but Ba roasted a pair of suckling pigs to celebrate our birth. After Mum got her first taste, she declared she’d bear Ba another set of twins just to have that special dish again. There were four, and now there are two.
Before the impact of the second smokestack finishes vibrating through my bones, another sound starts up, this one even more terrible. Metal screeches, accompanied by the clamor of wood, tile, glass, and steel, all being thrown together. It sounds as if a giant pair of hands has taken ahold of the ship and twisted her in the middle, slowly breaking her apart. Everything in me comes to a crashing halt—muscle, blood, breath.
With our cheeks pressed to the board, Jamie and I stare at each other in horror. For the first time, I notice that his cheek is smeared with something red, and a bump has appeared on the side of his head.
“Jamie, you’re bleeding.”
“Something hit me when that first smokestack went down. Don’t worry, I’ve been applying ice.”
“Not funny. You need medical attention.”
“I’ll be sure to call an ambulance as soon as I find the telephone.”
The lights flicker out, and I hear myself whimper. This time, they don’t turn back on.
Then the giant hands become fists that pound the ocean like a thirsty man calling for drinks. Water begins swirling around us, sucking us backward.
Jamie begins to kick again.
“I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” I gasp.
“Yes . . . can . . . a little farther.”
I move my legs, wondering if it’s possible to freeze mid-kick. I focus on counting—yut-yee-som, yut-yee-som—over and over again in my head.
The screams had tapered off, but they begin anew, as if everyone still aboard that doomed ship has taken a collective breath, filling their lungs for a fresh wave of torture.
I know I shouldn’t, but I peek.
Without her electric lights, the Titanic forms a black outline against the starlit sky. But everything’s gone pear-shaped, and for a moment, I wonder if my head is twisted on wrong.
The ship lies at a steep angle, her back half poking up like a duck that’s bobbed under the surface to snatch a fish. The last two smokestacks have broken off, gone like the others, committed to the sea. People brace themselves on whatever they can—benches, rails, even ventilator shafts. But that doomed elevator will only move in only one direction now. If they don’t step off in time, those riding it will be sucked under, the air squeezed out of them.
Jamie looks back, too, his kicking ceasing as well. “Bloody hell.” His voice is barely a whisper.
I say a prayer for the Johnnies. For the peaceful Tao and the stubborn Fong. For the cheerful Olly and the sweet and salty Wink. For the romantic Ming Lai and the faithful Drummer. And most of all, for the complicated Bo, who made a promise to me that I worry he cannot keep. Let this nightmare be over soon, and may all wake in the finest first-class sheets, whether on this earth or in heaven.
The Titanic, or what remains of her, begins to sink, her giant propellers putting me in mind of a windup toy. At first chugging down slowly, she picks up speed as she plunges. Final screams erupt and burst, as useless as the flares that were launched from the bow.
Then a black hood is slipped over the stern, and the outraged cries abruptly halt. The ocean roils and gurgles as it devours the ship. Four big explosions shake the water, and the unmistakable sounds of a boat being crushed breach the surface.
We feel ourselves being pulled back toward the wreck, like a saucer on a tablecloth.
As if by reflex, we begin to kick once more. We kick with all the jelly left in our jars, powering forward as if heaven is closing her gates right in front of us, and the flames of hell are licking our behinds.