Letters To My Mother Read online

  “You did an excellent job,” he said, gathering the papers in a pile. “Of course, I knew you would. Shall we go?”

  We were apparently going somewhere together, to the HUB I presumed. He removed his lab coat, put some books in a briefcase, and we left the office.

  After my conversation with Frank, I expected to feel uneasy with Dr. Rosenau. I looked at him and said to myself he’s married, you know he’s married, and it didn’t make any difference at all. Nothing in our relationship had changed; we walked to the student union building laughing and chatting with the intimacy of old friends.

  “I see you managed to untangle your hair,” he observed as we sat down to our strawberry shortcake and coffee.

  “Yes, but it took me almost an hour, though. You were right about covering my head.” I was on the verge of adding that next time I’d bring a scarf, when I remembered there might not be a “next time,” and my remark would sound presumptuous.

  “I wasn’t exaggerating last Saturday when I told you how much I enjoyed the sailing,” I said instead. “In fact, I had such a wonderful time that I’m going to join the University Sailing Club. Did you know they offer sailing lessons for beginners?”

  Dr. Rosenau frowned slightly. “Yes, I’m familiar with their program. You’re serious about learning how to sail?”

  “Absolutely! I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to be the first woman to sail around the world solo. I think a few lessons are in order before I cast off.”

  Dr. Rosenau stared out the window for a moment and then turned his attention back to me. “The sailing club program here is a good one, but the instruction is focused on racing and dinghy sailing, rather than handling a keelboat or cruising. Kate, if you’re really interested in learning to sail, I can teach you, on Sturmvogel.”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded. Surely I had heard wrong. “I beg your pardon,” I stammered.

  He smiled. “I asked if you’d like me to teach you to sail, on Sturmvogel.”

  “I … I hardly know what to say. Do you mean it? I’d love to, but … I know you like to sail alone. I don’t want to intrude on your privacy.”

  “You won’t be intruding; on the contrary, I’ll be glad to have your company. Honestly, I don’t sail alone out of preference. I need to warn you, though,” he added, “I’m considered an extremely demanding teacher.”

  I studied him closely, wondering if his words concealed a hidden agenda, but if they did, I couldn’t detect it in his face.

  “Seamanship encompasses so much more than simply steering a boat straight. A competent sailor has to know how to handle his boat in heavy weather, how to anchor, how to read nautical charts, how to tie knots; boat handling requires a myriad of skills. Also, since you’re planning to sail around the world alone you’ll need to learn celestial navigation. What do you say?”

  “Well … thank you … yes … I appreciate your offer …. truly.” I could have kicked myself for my tepid response. What I really wanted to do was jump up and down shouting “yes! yes! yes!”

  “Shall I pick you up tomorrow morning at nine?”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “Be sure to dress warmly,” he cautioned. “Do you remember telling me last week I should invite you again when the weather’s so bad that no one else will go out with me? I think you’re going to be put to the test. The weatherman’s predicting rain late in the afternoon and it’s certain to be chilly.”

  Saturday morning dawned cold and overcast, with a slight breeze from the south. I waited for Dr. Rosenau in the driveway to spare him the inevitable stares at the reception desk, and he pulled up outside Blaine Hall promptly at nine. He was alone in the car and I wondered if he’d invited Frank to come with us.

  As we drove through the marina gate, I couldn’t contain my curiosity any longer. “Is Frank coming?”

  “No, this is a private lesson. Did you want me to invite him?”

  I shook my head. “I know I’m going to make mistakes, so I’d rather not have an audience.”

  When we reached the boat, Dr. Rosenau began his instruction immediately, and before we pulled away from the dock I’d learned the name of every visible part on Sturmvogel, how to hoist and furl the sails, and how to operate the outboard. Once on the water he was equally unrelenting; we tacked and jibed for two hours around the buoys, executing each maneuver until he was satisfied. We talked very little and when we did, it was only about sailing.

  Dr. Rosenau never made me feel foolish, though I often did foolish things, such as wrapping the jib sheet the wrong way around the winch or pushing the tiller toward the sails when I wanted to jibe. He gave praise sparingly, but if I did something well, he told me, and I redoubled my efforts. He was right; he was a very demanding teacher.

  As if by consensus, we avoided touching one another. Unlike the previous week’s sail when Frank was aboard, if Dr. Rosenau wanted me to move the tiller, he told me rather than putting his hand on mine. When we shifted positions in the cockpit, we moved as cautiously as two porcupines, careful to maintain a buffer of circumspection between us. Frank would approve, I thought.

  We’d been practicing for several hours when Dr. Rosenau suddenly seized one of the kapok cushions from the seat and hurled it into the water. “Man Overboard!” He sat back, folded his arms and looked at me. I knew he expected me to turn around and retrieve the cushion as if it were a person who’d fallen into the water, so I noted the compass heading and prepared to jibe. I held the tiller between my legs and hauled in on the mainsheet as fast as I could until the boom was nearly overhead, then eased the tiller to port and controlled the swing of the boom as it passed to the other side. The jib needed releasing, and I looked at Dr. Rosenau.

  He shook his head. “You’re all alone; that’s me back there in the water praying you’ll pick me up.”

  I put the tiller between my knees again, let go on the starboard jib sheet and started pulling on the other side, using my teeth as well as my hands. By the time I had the boat settled on the reciprocal course of our original heading, the cushion was a couple hundred yards downwind of us and barely visible, though Sturmvogel was gaining fast. We bore down on the cushion and passed it; I shoved the tiller to port without sheeting the sails and Sturmvogel turned slowly, losing way. That was the moment I was waiting for; as the cushion drifted toward the hull, I grabbed the boat hook, reached over the coaming, and skewered the cushion through a loop on the side, hoisting it triumphantly into the cockpit.

  “One minute and thirty-five seconds. Bravo!” Dr. Rosenau applauded. “Let’s see if I survived.” He picked up the cushion and held it to his ear. “Thready pulse and probably hypothermic. Aren’t you going to give me artificial respiration?”

  I couldn’t resist the opening. “Which kind, chest compression or mouth to mouth?”

  He gave me a sidelong glance and laughed. “I may really be tempted to jump overboard if you give me a choice like that.” He leaned over the side and wrung out the cushion. “Do you realize it’s almost two o’clock? I haven’t eaten since six this morning and I’m starving; how about you?”

  Dr. Rosenau went below to get the roast beef sandwiches and while we ate, he told me about his sailing experiences in college. He had a friend whose father owned a sixty foot yacht, Arabesque, which he raced along the Pacific Coast, and when one of the regular crew broke his leg shortly before a race to Ensenada, the owner invited Dr. Rosenau to take his place. The trip to Mexico was the first of many he made on the large wooden ketch, on voyages which took him as far as Acapulco and Hawaii for up to three months at a time. He told me about sailing through schools of gray whales off Baja California, of steering the boat at night under a canopy of stars, of lazy days in the tropics where he spent his off-watch hours sprawled on deck in swimming trunks, reading Dickens and Thackeray. Dr. Rosenau’s enthusiasm for sailing was infectious and I listened to him spellbound; if he’d proposed a trip around the world, I would have accepted without a second thought.

  W
e started back to the marina about five, after another short practice session. Dr. Rosenau was below making coffee and I was steering, when I noticed a white sloop sailing toward us. The helmsman seemed to be alone, and beneath the down-turned brim of a sailor’s hat, I made out the ruddy face of an elderly man. His boat approached us at an angle, and then sheered off to windward, converging with Sturmvogel until our hulls were less than ten feet apart. The skipper hailed me and I waved tentatively back, petrified we were going to collide. He leaned over the side.

  “Is David aboard?” he shouted.

  I nodded and called below. “Dr. Rosenau, someone’s out here who wants to speak to you; someone on a sailboat.”

  Dr. Rosenau poked his head out of the companionway and waved. Rive Gauche, the white sloop, nosed toward Sturmvogel from time to time while the two men chatted, until finally the other skipper raised his hand in farewell and his boat slipped behind us and to leeward, giving us sea room at last.

  I breathed a sign of relief. “Your friend took ten years off my life; what on earth was he thinking of, getting so close to us? Could you steer for a few minutes? I’m still shaking.”

  Dr. Rosenau laughed and took the tiller from me. “I suspect Phil was just trying to get a good look at you. You’re certainly Sturmvogel's most attractive skipper to date. You may have thought he was going to hit us, but Phil’s an experienced sailor.”

  “What about me? I’m not.”

  “Oh, I was watching out for us.”

  We sailed for a few minutes in silence. A couple of times I caught him staring at me thoughtfully, but he didn’t seem in the mood for talking.

  “Kate,” Dr. Rosenau said at last, “are you always so formal with me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When Phil came alongside and you called to me down in the cabin, you addressed me as ‘Dr. Rosenau.'”

  “Yes,” I replied, looking away.

  “Don’t you call me David?”

  “Actually, I’ve never addressed you by name; it’s a situation I’ve been trying to avoid. When your friend asked for you, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just go below and pluck your sleeve because he was so close I didn’t dare leave the tiller. I can’t call you by your first name; it’s … so presumptuous.”

  “But I call you Kate.”

  “That’s different. You’re a professor and I’m a student. You’re also my employer.”

  “For God’s sake! Is that how you think of me – as a professor, an employer? What about a friend? It’s the difference in our ages, isn’t it? You’re 19 and I’m 47. I must seem like Methuselah to you.”

  “No you don’t. I never think of you as any particular age.”

  “Well then, how do you think of me?”

  I looked down, too embarrassed to answer.

  “I’m sorry. I have no right to ask you that. Let’s see, if Phil took ten years off your life, that makes me 38 years older than you. Damn that Phil!”

  I started to laugh.

  “Will you do me a favor, forget our professor-student roles and call me David?”

  “Yes, if you want me to.”

  “Yes, David, if you want me to.”

  “Yes, David, if you want me to.” My eyes met his and we smiled at each other.

  “When Phil dropped by, I believe I was preparing coffee; let me get back to work. Are you all right with the tiller now?”

  “Yes…” he looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Yes, David.”

  “Good girl. Practice makes perfect.”

  “You know … David, letting me call you by your first name is rather dangerous.”

  He paused in the companionway. “Why?”

  “Some tribes in Africa believe that knowing a man’s name gives you magical power over him. When a baby’s born, the father whispers the child’s name in his ear so no one else can hear it. The boy’s real name is never spoken aloud.”

  David regarded me gravely as he started down the ladder. “It’s already too late, no matter what you call me.”

  The rain began soon after we finished our coffee. Within a short time my windbreaker was soaked, and although I tried to keep from looking as miserable as I felt, my chattering teeth betrayed me.

  “Can you take the tiller for a couple of minutes?” David asked. “I’m going down to put on my foul weather gear and then you can go below to get out of the rain.” He returned wearing a yellow jacket and pants, a sou’wester, and black boots.

  “Here, drink this”, he said, handing me a cup.

  “What is it?”

  “Brandy.”

  I took the cup with hesitation and drank. The liquor blazed a trail of fire from my throat to my stomach and I began to cough.

  “Now go below and try to get warm. I put some extra blankets on the settee for you. I’ll take over now.”

  I made a meek protest about wanting to do my part, but he gave me a small shove toward the companionway and I went below, too wet and exhausted to resist further. I sat on the starboard settee to remove my soaking tennis shoes and David slipped the hatch boards in place, plunging the cabin into darkness. Reaching for the blankets, I covered myself and lay down, conscious only of the singing of the wind in the rigging and the swish of water along the hull.

  When I awakened, the noise of the water had ceased and Sturmvogel lay rocking in her berth. Farther down the dock some loose halyards slapped rhythmically against their masts, but Sturmvogel's cabin was still except for the hissing of the stove. David had covered me with a couple of additional blankets. I opened my eyes slightly and saw him sitting on the opposite bunk in his stocking feet, with his back against the bulkhead and his knees drawn up, supporting a book. I squinted through my lashes to peek at him. David. I rolled his name around in my head, savoring the sound of it. He was reading intently; his forehead was slightly creased, and he was tilting the book to catch the flickering light from a kerosene lantern hanging above him. In repose David’s face wore the same expression of brooding intensity I’d noticed on the day we met. I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep. When I awakened again I must have stirred, for he was looking at me.

  “Good evening, sleepyhead,” David said softly. “It’s about time you woke up.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  “Seven-thirty!” I sat up with a start and began to put on my soggy tennis shoes. “I’m awfully sorry I fell asleep the way I did. You must think I’m terribly rude.”

  “I’m the one who owes you an apology. I’m so accustomed to sailing this boat alone that I didn’t realize how tiring the steering was for you. Are you warmer now?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for the blankets. What’s that on the stove?" It looked like David was cooking a flowerpot upside down on one of the burners.

  “A jury-rigged cabin heater, really just a flower pot over a flame. One of these days I’ll buy a proper heater, but in the meantime the pot works well enough. Would you like some hot chocolate?”

  Without waiting for my reply, David spooned cocoa into a mug and added boiling water from a vacuum bottle; he stirred the drink and handed me the cup. The aroma reminded me that dinner at the residence hall was long over and I was acutely hungry. David must have read my thoughts.

  “I’m not going to send you to bed without any supper. Do you like fish?”

  “I love fish.”

  “Great. I know a small restaurant not far from here which serves some of the best seafood in Seattle, so why don’t we have dinner there? Sam’s is unpretentious; we can go as we are.”

  The thought occurred to me that David might have had other plans for the evening and by oversleeping, I’d ruined them. “You don’t need to invite me to dinner. A food cart comes through the dorm every night at ten; I can pick up a corn dog and coffee …”

  David looked surprised. “Don’t you want to have dinner with me?”

  His question took me aback. “Well, yes, of course … I mean I’d love to, but you�
�ve already spent an entire day with me and you were probably planning to do something else afterwards and I’ve spoiled your …”

  David laid his index finger on my lips and shook his head. “Good, that’s settled, then.”

  He reached toward the bookshelf and removed a slim volume. “Before I forget, here’s the book I promised you; I meant to give it to you last week.” He handed me a copy of Le Petit Prince with its droll cover picture of the little prince standing on his asteroid.

  “I hope you enjoy the story,” he said as I thumbed through the book, looking at the illustrations and reading some of the text. I came to a picture of an animal that resembled an electrified Welsh corgi.

  “Is this funny little creature the fox?”

  David nodded. “It’s a fennec, a kind of fox from North Africa, where Saint-Exupéry was a mail pilot. He really did crash in the Sahara, you know, just like the narrator of the story, and the fennecs he encountered in the desert were his inspiration for the fox. They have some at the zoo, delicate animals with silky hair and great bat ears. We should drive to Woodland Park one of these Saturdays when the weather’s so miserable even I won’t sail.”

  David told me more about the restaurant when we left the marina. “Its real name is Hazel’s, though everyone calls the place Sam’s after the owner. Sam used to be a commercial fisherman up in Alaska, but when he lost one of his eyes in an accident a few years ago, he decided to sell the boat – the Hazel M. – and open a restaurant with the proceeds. Sam’s a genuine character; most of his customers are fishermen and you may be the only woman in the room, so be prepared for a few stares. I should also warn you the atmosphere’s not exactly Michelin three stars, but if you like fish you won’t be disappointed; Sam’s a wizard in the kitchen.”

  Sam’s was located on the waterfront, surrounded by all-night coffee shops and hotels for transients. An orange neon sign reading “Hazel’s” flashed on and off above the entrance, alternating with a beer advertisement that featured an illuminated waterfall flowing into a mountain stream. In the window, a pair of dispirited rubber plants clung tenuously to life, flanked by red and white checkered curtains which concealed the interior of the restaurant from the street.