“Kotikokura, we must be ready for anything. Tie about you this belt, within which are hidden many precious stones. I shall do likewise with this belt. If we are shipwrecked, and survive, our jewels will buy us a cheerful welcome.”
The storm continued its mad career. All my efforts to save the boat were fruitless.
“In a few moments, Kotikokura, we shall have to battle against the waves. If this is to be the end, let it be.”
Kotikokura wept. “Ca-ta-pha! Ca-ta-pha!”
I embraced him. Then we leaped into the angry sea to escape the wreckage of our ship. We struggled with the ocean, bruising alike our dignity and our skin.
“Don’t give up, Kotikokura!” I shouted from time to time.
“Ca-ta-pha!” he replied.
“Keep your head up, Kotikokura.”
“Ca-ta-pha.”
At times, very near each other, at times barely within hearing distance, we battled against the waves that showed no mercy.
“Kotikokura,” I whispered. “Kotikokura.”
Was it merely my own imagination, or did I hear him answer: “Ca-ta-pha. Ca-ta-pha.”
“Ko-ti-ko– —”
The waters were quiet and still like a bed of feathers.
“Kot– —”
XXXIX: SOFT HANDS—“WHERE IS KOTIKOKURA?”—ULRICA ONCE MORE—A HUSBAND WADES TO SHORE—“FAREWELL”
A SOFT hand caressed my forehead.
I looked up. I saw a young woman, with long braids the color of flax, and light blue eyes.
“Ulrica!” I whispered.
“I am Ulrica. How did you know my name?”
“Ulrica!” I whispered again, and closed my eyes. I tried to understand where I was, and how I happened to have gotten there. Slowly, painfully, I reconstructed my boat, the storm, the shipwreck. And who was this woman? Ulrica? Who was Ulrica? Oh, yes…my beloved…long, long ago…on the Rhine…my vineyards… But what was she doing here? Where was I? Was it really Ulrica? And Kotikokura…where was he? What had happened to him? I opened my eyes. The young woman was sitting near my bed, holding a cup out of which rose a thin vapor, delicately scented.
“Drink.”
I drank, breathed deeply, and stood up.
“Are you really Ulrica?”
“I am.”
“Where is Kotikokura?”
“Who is Kotikokura?”
“My friend…my brother.”
She patted my hand, and said very softly: “Everything will be all right, you will see. Don’t exert yourself too much.”
“Don’t be afraid, Ulrica. I am already well. Kotikokura is not a creature of my imagination. He is a real person. I understand everything now. I was shipwrecked, was I not?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Kotikokura was with me. We swam for a long while, and suddenly as I was about to lose consciousness, I felt someone or something lift me out of the water. I was saved! But life will be worth very little if my dear friend was drowned.”
“Perhaps he was saved also. When you get well enough to walk about, we shall look for him.”
I kissed her hand. “Why are you so good to me, Ulrica?”
“Should we not be good to those who suffer? Our Lord Jesus Christ commands us to love our neighbors.”
I was in a Christian home, and in a Christian country.
“Blessed be His name,” I piously added.
“I am so happy that you are a Christian, and not a Mohammedan,” Ulrica exclaimed. Her language was a mixture of the Barbarian language of the first Ulrica and Latin.
“And what is your name?” she asked.
“Cartaphilus.”
I inquired everywhere for Kotikokura. No one seemed to have seen another sailor who was saved on the day of the great storm. If I remained alive, could he drown? Were we not of the same blood? Was not my fate his? Was he perhaps at the bottom of the ocean, in constant agony, yet unable to die? Was he a prisoner of the monsters of the sea? If Kotikokura was not drowned, he was somewhere among men, and I was happy to think that I had given him enough precious stones to make him wealthy for centuries.
Ulrica and I were sitting on the verandah looking at the sea.
“Ulrica, who are you indeed?”
She looked at me, astonished.
“I am Ulrica.”
“Of course. But who is Ulrica?”
She looked at me again.
“No, no,—don’t be worried. I am very well. I must have given you much trouble.”
“No, Cartaphilus.”
“You are kinder to me than a mother.”
“Is not woman always the mother?”
“I have traveled all over the world, Ulrica, and have read the books of many nations, while you have been here your entire life watching the sea and helping people in distress. And yet, we have reached the same conclusion. Is it not strange?”
“Why should it be strange, Cartaphilus? What can one see in other lands…but the earth, the water, the sky…and men and women?”
“How true.”
“And is not God everywhere…and do not all people worship Jesus?”
“All people, Ulrica?”
“All except the Moors. But our King will convert them or kill them.”
“Who is our king, Ulrica?”
“Charles—the great Charles.”
“How do you know these things?”
“My husband, who was a sailor like yourself and had traveled everywhere, told me how Charles, after conquering all of Europe, was conquered himself by Jesus.”
“Your husband is dead, Ulrica?”
She nodded.
We remained silent for a while. The sea splashed the rock lazily, as if playing with it.
“The sea hides a man for years sometimes, and suddenly washes him back to his home. Your husband may return.”
She shook her head.
‘Just like the other—Ulrica,’ I thought. ‘Is this her reincarnation? Is she Asi-ma and Lydia too?’
“Did you love your husband much, Ulrica?”
She sighed, and claiming that she had to take care of the cooking, begged me to excuse her.
Did she love me?
“Ulrica, I shall tell you a story.”
“You tell such wonderful stories, Cartaphilus. They do not seem to be stories at all…but truth.”
I related my love for Asi-ma, and then for the other Ulrica. She wept. I caressed her hands.
“Ulrica died because of love…”
She nodded. “Always.”
Ulrica’s love and tenderness consoled me a little for the loss of Kotikokura. Meanwhile, I gathered information about the political and religious conditions of the country, and planned my new attack. I broached the matter of travel to Ulrica, but like the other Ulrica, she obstinately refused to leave her place of birth. I was becoming restless. ‘What does it matter, Cartaphilus?’ I asked myself again and again, ‘if you spend a quarter of a century in this spot, with Ulrica? Be compassionate, have mercy, be a man, not a god!’
The desire to leave beat against my brain as an impatient stallion paws the ground. Vaguely the thought of abandoning Ulrica shaped itself in my brain. One evening, as I was telling Ulrica a story, playing with her hair which she had unfolded upon my knees—someone knocked at the door. Ulrica asked who it was.
“Open, Ulrica,—it is I, your husband!”
She staggered to the door, like a person who has received a heavy blow on the head.
A man, tall, gaunt and unshaven, appeared on the threshold.
“Ulrica!” he exclaimed, but stopped short on seeing me.
“Who is that man?” he shouted.
Ulrica did not answer. She groped her way to the wall, and hid her face against it.
“So that’s it! Your husband fights the king’s wars while you are another man’s bedfellow.” “She thought you were dead, sir.” “What of that? A whore’s a whore—” “You misjudge, sir. She is faithful—” “Faithful?” He laughed, and turned Ulrica about, pulling her by the hair.
“Can you swear by Holy Writ that you are faithful to me?”
She remained silent, her head bent upon her chest.