After several hundred yards they stopped and Hart tethered the boat to another ice island. They crawled into the bottom of the boat and covered themselves with a blanket and tarp. A light snow was falling and it dusted the covering. They kissed wearily in their cocoon and cupped like spoons, Greta nested into Owen. Then they slept. For the first time in weeks, dark dreams did not plague them.
The pair woke stiff but somewhat recovered, crawling out from under the tarp like burrowing animals. Hart looked around. The panorama was gray, water the color of lead. The ice was dull under a ceiling of cloud. He'd no idea what time it was, or even what day it was. Time had stopped, or become irrelevant. Atropos Island continued to thunder, the volcanic plume bulging under the overcast like a sagging belly. Mist fogged the distant glaciers and flakes of snow spat at them in lazy fashion. Everywhere Hart looked there was utter emptiness, a land and seascape absolutely vacuumed of life, of warmth, of history. They were in a frozen limbo and the only sound in all that chilly vastness was the drum of their own pumping blood, the only sparks of heat the ones each carried in their core. All that mattered in the end, he realized, was each other.
"I feel like we're the last living things on earth," he told her.
She was biting off a piece of bread, her eyes shining. To have awakened this morning was like awakening from her terrible dream. She'd never felt such relief.
"No, Owen. The sea is still alive. Look." She pointed.
There was a hiss. A cloud of rank vapor, evidence of another huge beating heart, puffed above the water. The surface roiled as the small hillock of a whale's back appeared. Then it submerged again and the tail broke the surface, waving. Beckoning them to the sea.
"It's a good sign," she promised. "That despite all the kilometers ahead we're going to make it."
Hart unhooked the boat from the ice and they began to row, following the whale. Slowly they worked out of the pack ice that clung to the island.
As they neared the open ocean the wind began to pick up. They hoisted the sail and huddled for warmth in the stern, the lifeboat taking on an easy motion as it slid up and down the swells. An iceberg passed by on the starboard side and they saw penguins standing on it. Yes, there was life after all.
"How far to land?" she asked.
"About four thousand kilometers to Africa."
"My God." The impossibility was obvious.
"We have to try."
They sailed on. Strangely, their mood was not despair but contentment. They were alone and with each other. It was enough. The sea was gray, the swells cresting with foam but not yet threatening to overpower their little boat. Seabirds appeared and began trailing them, riding the wind in long, looping circles. The overcast broke and a tantalizing rift of blue showed through. Behind, the island began to look simply like a gigantic dark cloud.
Hours passed. Greta dozed in Owen's arms, lulled by the roll of the sea. Then she lazily came awake again, watching the water. It was hypnotic, swells marking a timeless rhythm. She squinted, her gaze caught on something that broke the pattern. Something above the surface. Something hard. "My God. Is that a ship?" She pointed.
He followed her arm eagerly, then looked uneasy. "I think it's the submarine. I think it's the U-4501."
"No." She put her arms around him. "This is too much."
He studied the craft. "It would be. Except it isn't trying to intercept us, I think."
"Hasn't it spotted us? Should we drop the sail to hide?"
"No," he said, now more puzzled than alarmed. "That's not it. The sub isn't trying to do anything. I think it's dead."
"Dead?"
"Plague." He aimed for the vessel.
The U-boat was wallowing sluggishly, drifting as if it had lost all power. The main deck was awash, only the conning tower clear of the sea. It rocked back and forth like a lonely buoy.
"I don't see anybody," Greta said quietly.
Owen hove to and then watched the submarine for a while in grim wonder. "No," he replied. "I suspect there's no one to see. It's a ghost ship now, like the Bergen."
"So I really killed them. I'm looking at their tomb."
"No, they killed themselves."
She crossed herself. He turned the rudder and began sailing away.
"The conning tower looks like it's slowly sinking," she judged, staring after the disappearing U-boat.
"Maybe Freiwald's taking her to the bottom. Maybe there's a leak."
"So it's really over, isn't it?"
"That part is."
They sailed on, the day getting late. They took turns eating and steering, catching snatches of sleep. Both felt immensely tired. The euphoria of escape was wearing off and life's insistence at worrying about the next danger was pecking persistently at their mood. Night fell, a cloudy one as dark as the cave, and then the gray dawn revealed mostly empty ocean. A few icebergs drifted miles from their position but the island was lost below the southern horizon.
"I want to talk about our future," Greta said. "A future that will keep my spirits up."
"All right." Hart thought a moment. "What kind of house shall we have?"
"A sunny one," she said promptly. "With a tree, and a table under the tree. Not big, like I had in Berlin. But bright."
He laughed. "It sounds affordable. And what kind of car?"
"Do ordinary people really have cars in America?"
"Yes, some of them. You need one. The country's big."
"Well then, I want one of those too. But not black. A happy color."
"Like in a children's book?"
"Exactly."
The clouds parted briefly and for a while the horizon sparkled. Then the weather closed again and the wind began to rise ominously. The tiny boat was like a leaf on a prairie, the sea slowly building and breaking white. The sky was darkening. Hart shortened sail.
"They call this latitude the Furious Fifties," he said. "Now we'll see why."
The boat was beginning to toboggan down one side of the swells and climb laboriously up the next, the wind singing in the rigging. Spray breaking across the prow began to wet them. It would be a long second night.
Greta looked across the cold seascape, her hair blowing past her cheeks with a sad, faraway look that reminded the pilot of their days on the Schwabenland. He wondered what her picture of America was, and what she would think of it if they ever got there. The boat rolled steeply and she shifted her body automatically to help balance. A streak of foam hissed away from their stern. She began to bail, barely keeping pace with the rain of spray.
"We're not going to make it, are we, Owen?" she asked finally when she rested. "We could never make it. Like you said."
He was looking out across the water, his eyes narrow, his mouth in its half smile of concentration. "I was wrong. We'll make it."
"Ah, the optimistic American." She couldn't help smiling. "You don't give up easily, do you?"
"Not anymore."
"And how do you know that we'll make it, Mr. Hart?"
"Well, for one thing, we've only got three thousand and nine hundred kilometers to go. Much less if you count in nautical miles."
She laughed. "I hadn't realized we were so close!"
"And for another thing, you have an angel on your shoulder."
"Oh really?" She turned to look. "Very small, I think. But that's what your Eskimo friend promised, yes?"