Finding Atlantis - 8. Chapter 8

Dawn glided silently over the sea, the red-gold light staining the boat and the two boys who slept entangled on the deck. The light woke Aleksi, who was facing that way, and he simply wrapped himself closer around the other. Krilla murmured at the movement and opened one eye.

“Good morning,” Alek smiled at him.

Krilla smiled back and sat up. He looked down at the two of them, golden and tangled and sticky.

“We need a wash.”

“We need a bath.”

Krilla stood up.

“Now why would you bother with a bath when you’ve got the sea?” He hopped up on the railing and dived straight into the clear water of the bay. He came up shivering.

“Cold?” Alek leaned on the rail and watched Krilla ducked himself a few times, scrubbing at his abdomen and legs.

“Are you coming in or what?”

“Fine, fine.” Alek swung his legs over the rail and let himself drop into the water, much calmer than he had been on the previous day, “Krilla it’s damn freezing!” Alek swum around a bit to try and warm himself up and wasn’t too surprised when Krilla vanished below the waves only to come up right next to him. Alek trod water uncertainly.

“Last night,” Krilla said, his voice low, “I-”

“Don’t say you wished it had never happened!” Alek knew he sounded desperate.

“Whoa, whoa,” Krilla put a hand on his chest and grinned, “I think, you should spend more nights on my ship.”

Aleksi grinned back.

“Come on,” Krilla said, “Back on the boat. We have to go back this morning now that the wind’s up.”

They set sail not five minutes later, still naked and dripping. Aleksi went below to find breakfast, returning with a canteen of fresh water and a hunk of slightly stale bread each.

“Do you ever eat anything but fish?” He asked, munching away, sitting by the tiller so he could watch Krilla’s naked form wander around the stern, adjusting things.

“Not if I can help it.” He grinned and ruffled the foreigner’s hair. It was easy out here, away from people and prying eyes, to be open with this boy, this new and beautiful thing. You’re falling fast Krilla, he told himself sternly. You know this could all go very badly. He ignored himself, but as the inhabited islands drew closer he fetched their shorts and they both got dressed rather reluctantly.

The harbour was a blinding stripe of white across the edge of the sea. It was still ridiculously early, the sun would have only dawned for the inhabitants of Kas a scant few minutes previous. Tamil was just arriving on the dock when La Belle Mere bumped the little jetty softly and Krilla jumped ashore. Aleksi threw him the ropes and watched carefully how he cast on and twisted the rope, learning.

“Good morning Tamil,” Krilla said in his brightest voice, “You only just up?”

“I’m not even awake,” Tamil said, smiling, “Ah, Aleksi. How nice to see you again.”

“You too Mr. Shad,” Alek came ashore, wincing a little at the rough ground, trying not to let it show, “Thank you again for dinner the other day.”

“Our pleasure. We’ll have to hold dinner on the ship again sometime.” He turned to Krilla, who was running his fingers through his hair, lacking a comb, “Krilla, Aziz was asking after you, he wants to know if you’ll lend a hand on the Aikaterine today, we have a full boat to take out.”

Krilla looked between Aleksi and Tamil for a moment.

“Sure, would make a nice change. When will he be down?”

“Say an hour? I must get into the office. I’ll see you boys later.”

Alek raised an eyebrow.

“You’re going away?”

“Just for the day,” Krilla smiled at him, “We can’t be too obvious here Alek. This is still a very conservative country.”

“I know,” Alek pouted and Krilla thought he might die right there on the spot, “When am I going to see you again?”

“Tomorrow,” He pressed his hand into Aleksi’s briefly, “I promise.”

Aleksi looked at the little roll of bank notes in his hand.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like you sleeping out in the hills and not eating. Go check in to the little hotel round the corner from the café we ate at. They’ll give you a nice room. And eat something OK?”

“OK.”

Krilla smiled.

“I have to go fetch Aziz now. See you tomorrow.”

Aleksi watched him jog off up the hill and vanish around the corner. He sighed, grabbed his pack from the deck of La Belle Mere and went to go find the little hotel.

*

Aziz was eating breakfast at the kitchen table when Krilla arrived. Instantly a plate of food was put down in front of him.

“Good morning Aika.”

“Good morning Krilla,” she smiled at him, “Now eat you skinny little devil.”

Krilla bent his head obediently over his breakfast. Aika swept out of the kitchen, singing old Turkish songs to herself, ready to get all her other sons out of bed. Aziz watched Krilla and frowned.

“You look happy. Very happy.”

Krilla nodded.

“What happened?”

“Aleksi.”

Aziz’s eyes went wide and round as saucers.

“You should see your face,” Krilla went on conversationally, “I took him out on my boat yesterday and taught him how to swim. And he taught me other things.”

At that moment, Aslan and Yusuf arrived in the kitchen.

“Morning Krilla.” Aslan sat next to him and began eating.

“Hey Kril,” Yusuf patted the blond boy’s shoulder, “What happened to you, deep sea cat wanted to kill you?”

Aziz leaned round to look at the scabbed over fingernail wounds on Krilla’s shoulder and frowned at his friend.

“You coming on the boat today?” Aslan asked, putting down his spoon.

“Yup.”

“Good,” Yusuf stretched, “Maybe that means I won’t have to go.”

Aziz laughed, and clapped him around the side of the head.

“You won’t get away that easy, now eat before Krilla has yours too.”

The boat left on time with a full crew. Murat had been forced by his mother to go to school rather than skip out on the boring day ahead and join his brothers on the boat. So they all ruffled his hair at the corner and left the youngest Shad brother to go inland. The four men walked along the harbour, Aziz wearing his strange leather waistcoat again, Krill barefoot in his linen slacks, Aslan almost smart looking in pale green, and Yusuf looking crisp and happy in his layers of various white.

Krilla left the Shad boys to the meet and greet and went below to get some sleep. He was tired after the previous day’s sailing, though he had rested well in Aleksi’s arms. He was surprised by how much he missed the boy already. Too attached too soon. Yusuf found him, eyes have closed, lying on the bunk.

“C’mon pretty boy,” he said, sitting on the next bench along, “Everyone’s going swimming, you gotta show them up.”

“You got not rights to call me pretty,” Krilla said, “Don’t feel like swimming.”

Yusuf raised a highly sceptical eyebrow.

“Krilla,” he said, patting the older man’s hair, “The day you don’t feel like swimming I expect to find you stone cold dead. Now come on.”

Out in the open air Krilla felt better, the sea was sparkling, dotted with the shapes of, to him, incompetent foreign swimmers, bright blue and welcoming. Waves crashed on the little stone beach. There was a white horse there, one of the denizens of the sea, it reared and swam back along the water for him, breaking against the hull of the boat. Krilla laughed and jumped up onto the guard rail. Aziz let out a whoop. Everyone was watching. Krilla spread his arms and leapt. He entered the water like a fish, arrowing down into the amazing blue. He resurfaced what seemed to the watchers, ages later, hair plastered to his skull. He shone. Krilla whipped around to face the Aikaterine and the three Shad boys still onboard. He let out a cry of triumph and slipped back under the water.

Suddenly he wished, despite his relative freedom here, that he could take hold of Alek’s hands again, place a hand in the small of his back, help him to swim, teach him, murmur encouragements and endearments in his ear to make him blush. He blushed himself under the water, thankful that no one could see, and nearly swam into the slick lycra clad shape of a pale foreigner wearing a snorkel and flippers. He rose above the surface. The girl spat out her snorkel.

“You’re good,” she said evenly, “Race?”

Krilla laughed, turned in the water quick and fast as a hunting shark and was away before she could draw breath. Krilla and Aziz cooked lunch up on the grill, Krilla preparing the fish they’d brought with them with quick competence. Yusuf was left to run the bar and look after everyone while Aslan cooked whatever else they were eating down below. Krilla kept a fillet aside and took bites of the raw juicy fish whenever he felt peckish.

“Krilla?”

“Mmmfh?” said Krilla through half a mouthful of fish.

“I want you to be careful,” Aziz’s voice was hushed, serious, “With Aleksi. He’s not like us Krilla, you don’t know what he might say. Or to whom.”

“Aziz you worry too much,” Krilla spoke quietly too, his gold eyebrows drawn low, “Aleksi isn’t stupid. He’s been in the country long enough to know what he should do.”

“I don’t want to spoil your happiness Kril. Trust me, it’s great to see you smile so much. But can you imagine what my father will say if he finds out. There are no laws that could stop him from banning you to dock at Kas for no real reason. And then there’s Ali.”

“That’s your problem.”

“Krilla!”

“Well it is. You like the girl, she likes you. Just fucking ask her dad already. He likes you well enough, and you’re Turkish. He’ll let you. Dunno why you’ve waited so long really. Dinner’s ready,” Krilla flipped over the last bit of fish and smiled at his friend, “Let’s not worry hmm? See how it goes all by itself?”

“OK. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure.”

They ate with their paying customers this time, Aslan having made an inordinate amount of food. Krilla still had some of his raw fish and gulped that down while Yusuf stared, a piece of aubergine partway to his mouth. They were pestered with questions, and Krilla found himself sitting next to the girl who had spoken to him earlier.

“Why wouldn’t you race me?” she must have been just younger than him, but slim and slightly curvy for all that. Her shape, half hidden under a brightly patterned sarong, didn’t interest Krilla in the slightest. Nor did the unsettling way she leant close to him.

“Because you’d have lost by miles.”

“I’m a champion swimmer back home.”

“I live here.” Krilla answered shortly and busied himself with his fish.

“But you’re not Turkish.”

“Oh is that right?” Krilla spoke the native language, but his tone could not be mistaken, “I live here, I work here and my friends are here. What part of me isn’t Turkish?”

She looked rather taken aback, turned away, and made herself not look at him again.

“Krilla that was mean,” Aslan said softly, “You didn’t have to be so rude.”

“You heard her. Even Ali can’t out swim me.”

“A shark couldn’t out-swim you Kril,” Yusuf said, grinning.

“Still.” Aslan looked put out, “You could have just been polite.”

Krilla murmured half an apology and went back to eating.

*

There were still a few hours of hot daylight left when they put into the harbour. Krilla had stood on the tip of the prow all the way back. Aleksi was not on the dock when they’d pulled in. Had not been on or around La Belle Mere when he’d got there. Krilla had sulked on the deck for a while, but the sun was turning the sea gold, so he’d raised the sails and pulled up the anchor and set the tiller for the open sea. By the time a figure appeared on the dockside looking for him, Krilla was too far out to sea to spot him and continued to sail into the bronze and red sky.

It was full dark before the wind dropped and Krilla stopped sailing. He was way out now and it would take him easily half the day to reach the mainland again. Here he was, right on the edge of the great warm sea. He let his sleeping lanyard fall into the water, but didn’t tie it yet. The boat was secure and the sails were tucked away for the night. There was nothing to fear up above. In the deep indigo sea, Krilla let out his fins. The action was like truly breathing again, like taking in that desperate breath that would save your life. His gills filtered the water and he rejoiced for the freedom he felt as he sank further down below the waves. He swam strongly for the bottom of the sea.

The beach was empty, beautiful and serene, the sea above was inky black, the sand was pale as the moon. Krilla lay on the sand and curled his fingers into the earth. How strange that he should dive into the sea only to seek out the land. There was something hard beneath his fingers. Krilla dug it out, seeing with sense other than sight this far down where there was no light.

It was a box. Bigger than his hand and intricately made. A puzzle box adorned with a motif of fish in blue stone. The box was white and gold. This was not human made. Krilla recognised the basic design. This was one of the relics of the great days of his people. They had been here. He opened it with a series of pushes and clicks. Inside was a little model of a shark made of the same blue stone with gold eyes, and a carving in pale jade of a delicate sea flower and a bracelet made of the same materials as the box, big enough to fit a man’s hand. Krilla closed the box and stroked it thoughtfully. He would give the bracelet to Aleksi. A symbol of his people, a people who were, by and large, long dead. A symbol of what? His love? Krilla shook his head in the dark, he shouldn’t use words like that so soon. He swam back to the surface. He slept on the boat that night after all, curled in his hammock, holding the box close to his chest.

The wind picked up long before dawn, setting the little boat creaking and rocking on the surface of the sea. Krilla was woken by the braying of the horses. The creature was white and foamy, fully formed, standing half out of the water, its mane continually shedding drops of sea in the light of the sinking moon.

“Why are you here?” Krilla drew his blanket around him like a cloak, the box held in one hand. His voice was stern in his native tongue, worried.

Lord of the Waters, the steed said in its many voiced liquid tones, We come to bid you greeting from another.

“Another?”

Yes Master of the Deep. Another of your great race has come to these waters. He bade us tell you of his presence.

“Did he give his name?”

Yes Sire.

“Tell it to me!”

He told us Sire, that you would already know. The steed was fading back into the waters now, its shape dissolving, the presence galloping off to the shore.

“Wait!” Krilla called out, too late, “Wait!”

The wind picked up his hair and tugged at him playfully, it caused the ropes to slap against the mast. Fine then, he would sail back. Krilla hauled up the main sail, which billowed obediently and began to tug at the anchor. He got that up and they were underway, all three sails full of strong wind. The white horses could not always be trusted, for their messages were often confused on the journey. Perhaps they were wrong.

It was fully morning by the time he got back to the harbour, the sun climbing high in the sky, and he was tired. La Belle Mere ground with a painful noise against the jetty as he let her hit it too hard, not dropping sail soon enough. Krilla looked around the harbour with wild eyes. Aleksi was there, sitting cross legged on the wall, twisting something between his fingers. He stood up when Krilla appeared on the prow and came forward. Krilla let out a deep sigh and retreated back into the shadows. Aleksi took the mooring rope and cast the boat on as fast and secure as Krilla would have done before he leapt aboard. He didn’t need to be shown anything twice.

“Krilla?”

Krilla was sitting in the shadows of the companionway, out of view of the main harbour. His eyes were closed.

“I missed you,” he said simply and reached out a blind hand for the foreign boy. Aleksi went to sit near him on the deck.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I found you something.” Krilla opened sea-blue eyes and smiled, “What’s that you’ve got there?”

Aleksi held up a twisted knotted strand of various blue threads.

“I made it for you.” He reached out and tied it loosely around Krilla throat, “To match your eyes.”

Krilla fingered the threads nervously and was surprised when his voice caught in his throat.

“Thank you…” He held out the bracelet, gold and white and blue, “Presents from the deep.”

Aleksi’s smile was worth all the bad dreams in the world.

They went ashore to the little café on the street and ate a meal that wasn’t quite lunch and wasn’t quite breakfast. Krilla chewed his food thoughtfully, as though it took a lot of energy to do so. Aleksi watched him, smiling happily away to himself, his new bracelet secured around his wrist. Neither of them spoke, or made any attempts to. Every few mouthfuls, one or other of the pair would look up, catch the other’s eye, and blush into their plate. A comfortable silence. Krilla watched the way Alek moved, the certain movements of his hands, the careful way he held his tea glass, not wanting to drop it, not wanting to burn his fingers. He loved the shadows across his throat and the motion as he swallowed. Then Aleksi caught him looking and it was his turn to blush.

Krilla ordered more drinks and various food stuffs and it was a quiet day so the little old lady who ran the place didn’t seem to mind. And anyway she knew Krilla, was a second aunt or something to Tamil, but everyone was related to everyone in Kas, so that didn’t matter. She sat and spoke to them a while when she bought their tea. Her English was bad and slow so she spoke Turkish to Krilla and was surprised when Aleksi answered a few of her questions. When she had gone Krilla smiled at his new friend.

“So did you use the money I gave you?”

“Yes.” Alek grinned at him, “I went to the market and bought threads to make your necklace. Don’t worry, I checked into the hotel, just two nights, spent most of yesterday in bed, getting all my sleep. I sold my sandals, they were still good.”

For the first time Krilla glanced at Aleksi’s feet under the table, dirty and a little red with a patch of scuffed dry blood.

“You didn’t notice? Figures.” Alek touched his hand quickly, almost guiltily, “Thought if I didn’t need them on boats and you weren’t gonna let me sleep in the olives anymore I wouldn’t really need them.”

“I’m not paying for you to room in the hotel every night,” Krilla said, and had the pleasure of seeing Alek go pale and scared, “You can damn well stay on the boat when I take it out.”

Alek beamed.

“Hoy Krilla!” Aziz was coming toward them from the direction of the market, holding in one hand a massive canvas bag overflowing with vegetables and cloth. Krilla waved him over.

“Been shopping?” he asked and Aziz toed off his sandals and sat down at the end of their little table. Tea appeared in front of him as if by magic.

“Yeah, for mum. No boat out today and I didn’t feel much like working with dad. Aslan’s doing that mostly anyway. I think he’s going to take up the new patrol job that’s come free now Savas has retired.” He took a piece of melon from the dish in the middle of the table, “We could do with a permanent extra on board during the tourist season Krilla. You’re good at the job.”

“Can’t Aziz, not for a whole season, can’t leave my lovely boat now can I?”

“Think about it?”

“Give the job to Alek,” Krilla said, “He needs the money and he learns fast. He’ll have good sea legs by this time tomorrow.”

Alek smiled nervously. Slightly lost in the speed of the conversation.

“Krilla! He can’t do it like you. No offence Alek.”

“His English is better than either of ours. Anyway, Murat stops school soon, he’ll be available all summer.”

“We take the boat out everyday in season, we can’t all work seven days a week.”

“Fish trade is good Aziz, plus its money not going out of your family.”

“Kril,” Aziz began, then took a breath, “We’ll talk about this later.”

A breeze came up from the sea and on it Krilla tasted a tang of salt and a scent that was familiar to him, the deep sea scent of home. He looked down the street toward the harbour. There was a man walking up the road. Walking slowly. He was pale and dressed all in white, the heavy linen falling to the dusty road, covering his head, the sleeves longer than his fingers. Krilla recognised the features, despite their changed form. The sharp nose, the narrow eyes, and the gaze in them he remembered most, the look of utter disgust that had been in that green tinted glow the last time Krilla had ever tried to talk to him. One of his own kind on land. Kinau.

Krilla did not speak as the figure approached them. Kinau’s steps were almost limping, and Krilla could sense, even if he could not see because of all that cloth, that the linen hid the fact that Kinau was not nearly as practiced at changing as he was and he still had elements of his watery form on land. Webbed fingers and toes, and, from the way he walked, his ankle fins in some form. Krilla’s eyes turned hard and cold as sea ice as he neared them, breathing unsteadily.

In any normal situation, Turkish politeness would have had them invite him to sit and take tea with them. But a movement of Krilla’s hand stayed Aziz’s voice as the figure arrived at their table.

“What do you want?” it was not Krilla’s normal tone, it was the voice of a man with a heart full of hate and wanting revenge for pain.

“Krilla my friend,” Kinau’s English was shaky at best, he hadn’t bothered with trying to learn Turkish, “Is that anyway to treat a visitor from home?”

“I haven’t been home for seven years,” Krilla’s eyes narrowed as he spoke, “I thought you might realize this means I don’t want to know anything about it.”

“An old friend begs you to let him sit and talk with you.”

Krilla was on his feet in less than a second. He was not as tall as Kinau, but his anger made up for what he lacked in height.

“You are no friend of mine!”

“We were lovers once,” Kinau said softly. Krilla froze for a moment, time stilled, and then he hit Kinau with all the strength he’d built up over the years, and knocked the other man to the ground.

“Krilla!” Aziz was shocked, “What the-?”

“Shut up!” Krilla snapped without turning. He stood tense still, fists by his sides as Kinau picked himself up, “Get out of here. I hate you, you know that. Go back home Kinau, don’t come near me again.” And with that he turned on his heel and strode off down the street. Aziz stilled Alek with a hand.

“No no my friend,” he said softly, putting down the money for the bill, “Leave him to anger on his own, come with me.”

*

Krilla sat in the light house, watching the mirror spin slowly on its axis around the unlit bulb. Why had that had to happen? His knuckles still stung dully with the force of his punch and he hoped like hell that Aziz and Aleksi hadn’t had the pleasantness to be nice to him, to tell either where he’d gone or involve him in conversation. Kinau should have known better, though perhaps he was banking on a public space not evoking that kind of reaction. Well he’d been wrong. Krilla pulled himself into a corner and sulked.

He remembered the last time he’d seen Kinau with the sort of clarity with which one remembers all the worst moment of life. He’d just woken up, stirred from his pleasant dreams in the sand by the movement beside him. They’d been in the deep reefs, a not so secret tryst in the cold waters. They usually slept afterwards, dreaming in each other’s arms. Kinau had been sitting up, half leaning against a rock, combing little swirls in the sand with his fingers. Krilla had smiled to see him, still feeling the heat and satisfaction deep inside himself, still believing that Kinau felt the same as he did. He’d slipped closer an arm around his lover and felt Kinau go stiff.

“What’s wrong?” He’d tried for an embrace again and had been pushed away. “Kinau?”

“No Krilla. Not now.”

“Why?”

“We can’t keep doing this, Krilla.”

Again the petulant question.

“I’m getting married,” Kinau had said blandly.

“What?”

“Married Krilla. To a girl. You know, live life, have kids.”

“A girl?” Krilla had been incredulous, disbelieving.

“Why so surprised?”

“But…you love me.”

Kinau had turned that gaze on him then, full of disgust, malice, cold annoyance at his presence.

“No. We fuck around and its fun, but we’re too old for kid games now. I’m going to marry Elisani.”

Krilla was almost crying already.

“But…I love you. I thought this meant something.”

“Krilla,” Kinau had been getting up then, dusting off, “You knew this was always just a game, just a female replacement until the right girl came along.”

“Kinau!”

“Sorry you always got the raw end of the deal.” Kinau had been swimming away, swimming away even as he said it. Just a game. Just a replacement.

Krilla had cried lying in the sand. Cried for all the times he’d given himself to Kinau, cried for the loss and the pain and the remembrance of that first time which had been hard and painful and Kinau hadn’t been easy on him but he hadn’t complained because he thought it had meant something. He remembered all those slightly aborted kisses and cried all the harder.

In the lighthouse Krilla dug down deep into his pain and he cried again over his shredded past until the sun went down and the light in the lighthouse sparked into a blaze of white.