Lucretia der Schmetterling

For the deckhands,

The skippers,

Captain

And crew.

Who belong in the waves.

I'm one of you.

I've always believed that immobility comes with culture. That once something is established, practiced, and settles itself into the folds of a peoples' mind, they forget to see. They become blind to their wrongs, and the lucky ones, just the lucky ones, realise. They grope around in their consciences for a light switch. Something to cure the darkness. Eventually, they all give up. They cannot separate themselves from something running through their veins.

That's how they end up here. Milky-eyed philosophers with legs made for the land and high-arched smiles. They want to see. They leave soon enough, hands red-raw and scars in the usual places.

Optimism.

Here the air is thick with salt and the tang of fish blood. The pontoon is pale from the sun, warped, furry in the same way as mango hairs. Pacific gulls croon softly. Silvereyes don't make sound. Their chests swell and fall in a sad way.

Grieving something.

Or someone.

The reef is marred with a triangle where Batavia ran aground. Burnished coins are furrowed into the stag coral like splinters, irritating pieces of history that ruined these islands forever. Some are still stained red with the Batavia's memory.

Batavia lodged itself in more than a reef.

I was named when I was fifteen; Lucretia for the girl who sparked a mutiny aboard it, and der Schmetterling for "the butterfly". It is not my real name, but it's the name I go by to my father's deckhands. Lucretia the Butterfly.

Teach them how to tie a knot.

Libra bobbed lazily in Geraldton port. The water was covered in thick, pearlescent oil, and seagulls, coated in sludge, cawed and cried and nibbled their feathers indignantly. It was a large, shabby boat; the cabin was stuffed with old spray-jackets stiff with salt and smelled of socks. Libra's top deck had upholstered seats, peeling and slashed with mis-aimed fishing hooks, and brown foam spilling out of their wounds. The deck below was spattered with squid-ink and petrol. I sat on the top deck and looked down on three young men who crouched on the bow.

The first was a tall and narrow man named Bill.

Bill was twenty one. He had a wavy quality about him; balancing splay-footed on boats for a year had left him slightly bow-legged, and his eyes were the same colour as the green-bottomed sand holes where squid lived. Bill was under the impression, (whose impression this was, I have no idea) that the more body hair he had, the more attractive he was. Once, he set fire to an old striped sofa when smoking a joint. He played saxophone like the music came to him as easily as the breath to his lungs.

Of course, that breath never came easily through a cannabis-tarnished throat.

'Teach them how to tie a knot, I'm going down to the cabin,' Bill called.

I slid down the windshield and onto the bow. A boy with quaveringly upright fair-hair sat and dangled his two-toned legs over either side of a cleat. He jutted his jaw out. Wire-rimmed glasses rested contentedly on the bridge of his nose.

Another, larger man smiled broadly. He held out a hand full of splinters and shook mine enthusiastically.

'We are new deckhands. I am Mich, my bruzzer, Moritz. Good to meet you.'

He had an accent heavy with pine trees and felt. German. His brother, Moritz, looked around and smiled a very white, high-arched smile. He didn't speak.

Moritz had a strange air of incongruence. His eyes were blue, and not like the ocean. It seemed he had spent his life staring at a watercolour sky just before it rained, and when it did, its colours ran like ink, out of the sky and into his eyes. A weak, pre-rain sun had damaged them, and as a result, he squinted despite his glasses. He could take something doomed and make it beautiful. His legs were short and thick, made for stable footing and not the sharp coral that was the closest thing to ground at the Abrolhos, and his fingers seemingly tied themselves up in mooring knots. He lolled around on Libra like an angular metaphor.

He didn't belong.

Libra gave an almighty shudder and I swung, headfirst, over the railing. Before my brain had processed what had happened and let out a scream, my knees clamp around the railing and a hollow, metallic thud cracked over my head. The pain was dizzying. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, my heart felt lodged in my throat somewhere, something warm trickled through my hair, a ringing sound filled my ears...

'Copped a nice one, hey?'

'Right over ze head, blood everywhere.'

'Lucky she didn't break anything, Jesso would kill us. I'm already down as the deckie who set the couch on fire.'

The visitor's shack swam into focus. The place was instantly recognisable, it smelled of alcohol, stale cannabis, and what I lay on was badly singed. My head pounded. I sat up gingerly and yawned. It was dark outside.

'You don't want to be known as the Germans who brain-damaged the captain's daughter. Not a good look.'

Bill's teeth gleamed in the dim light.

I rose heavily to my feet, swaying like waves in the wind. It was tern season, and the window facing the far side of the island was obscured by a feathery mass of roosting birds.

Terns are the embodiment of the wind. Lithe and hollow, straight-lined and with two long feathers that taper down from their legs and whip out behind them in flight. Monochrome except for tiny, gleaming red beaks. They glide smoothly on upcurrents and know the wind as well as themselves. They dance with it like an old friend. Familiar in the same way as the shape of a lover's mouth. A white, even smile with high-arched gums. The same way as the pattern in a lover's eyes. Furrowing narrow heads into narrow necks, they sleep.

Bill flopped onto the seat I had just vacated with an ominous creaking, splintering sound. He spoke into the cushions.

'Jesso's over the other side of the island.'

The island was shaped like a horseshoe, with a silty, brilliant blue-green lagoon in the middle. It was easier to swim across than trek around the crumbling, ankle-breaking coral, despite curious seals and the odd octopus.

'What is your name, girl?'

Bill answered before I could. 'Lucretia. She's Lucretia.'

Mich smiled. 'Very nice to meet, you, Lucretia.'

His brother spoke for the first time.

'Ja, Lucretia der Schmetterling.'

He smiled his high-arched smile.