My Last Continent(19)

“Shit,” I say under my breath, and I radio the station. They’ve already restricted travel, and the winds are over fifty knots. We need to get back now.

I call out to Keller, and immediately he’s at my side, helping me load the snowmobile. Within a few minutes we’re ready to go—but the engine won’t start.

I try again, the engine grinding slowly but refusing to turn over.

“Dead battery?” Keller asks. He’s sitting right behind me, his mouth next to my ear, but I can hardly hear him over the wind.

“Could be,” I shout back. “But if it was, I probably wouldn’t get any juice at all.”

We dismount, and it’s then I realize that we don’t have time to troubleshoot, let alone to fix the vehicle. The wind is bracing, my hands so cold I can barely move them, even inside my gloves. When I glance back at Keller, only a few feet away, he’s a blur, his hat and parka coated with snow.

“We need to take shelter,” I say.

“Let me check the battery.”

“Forget it, Keller.” The driving snow is pricking my eyes. “Even if we fix it now, we’re not going to make it back.”

While Antarctic weather is notoriously capricious, I’m annoyed; I can’t believe I let the storm creep up on us this way. Keller is still going on about fixing the Ski-Doo as I pull our survival pack out of its hutch, and I turn and shove it into his chest. “You have no idea what this weather can do,” I shout over the wind. “Get the tent out. Now.”

There’s no time to dig ourselves a trench, which would be the best way to wait out the storm. As it is, we’re barely able to pitch the emergency tent and scurry inside. We’ve got just one extreme-weather sleeping bag and a fleece liner, and I spread them both out over us. Even if the tent weren’t so cramped, the freezing air instinctively draws our bodies close, and without speaking we wrap ourselves up, pulling the fleece to cover us completely, including most of our faces. Despite the protection from the wind and our body heat, it’s probably no more than thirty degrees inside the tent.

“I bet this isn’t what you had in mind when you came to Antarctica,” I say, my voice muffled by the fleece.

“On the contrary,” he says. “This is exactly what I had in mind.”

I turn slightly toward him in the dim light.

“For God’s sake,” I say. “You’re not worried at all, are you?”

He moves his head slightly, and when he speaks I hear a smile in his voice. “I’m impervious to ice.”

This feeling he has—insane, illogical though it is—is one I understand. I’d felt similarly invincible once—at times, my life down here on the continent seemed surreal, a dreamworld in which whatever happened remained separate, protected from real life. It’s a notion that many who come here can relate to, but it lasts only for a brief time.

“You’ve read about the continent’s history, I take it?” I say. “You know how many bad things have happened here.”

“Plenty of miracles, too.”

“Is that what you’re hoping for?”

“Not really,” he says. He pauses, then adds, “Maybe.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know I’m not the first one who’s come here for a change of scenery. Midlife crisis sort of stuff.”

“Definitely not.”

“You wouldn’t have recognized me three years ago,” he says. “I was a lawyer. Married. Nice house outside of Boston. Everything most people want.”

“Everything my mother wanted for me, that’s for sure,” I say. “So what happened?”

A pause, and then he says, “The unthinkable happened.”

He goes quiet. I listen to the rhythm of our breathing, barely audible over the keening of the wind outside. I can tell he is still awake, and I ask, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he says. “You?”

I nod, and we’re close enough that my head nudges against his. We fall silent again, snuggled together like puppies for warmth. As time drifts, I think back on the day’s work, and then I sit up with a start.

“What is it?”

“My notebook,” I say, patting my parka, trying to recall whether I’d stashed it in one of the oversize pockets. “I don’t remember where I put it.”

“It’s in the hutch.”

“Are you sure?”

“I saw you put it away.”

I stare at the opening of the tent, though I know it would be foolish to venture outside. “I hope it hasn’t blown away.”

“It won’t. You secured it tight.”