I wonder then if he’s been watching me as closely as I’ve watched him.
“Relax,” he says. I feel his hand on my back, and when I lie down, his arm remains around my shoulders. I feel the day’s exertion, finally, take over, draining my body and mind of what little energy is left. I turn toward Keller, and my icy nose meets the warmth of his neck.
I let my breathing slow, but my eyes remain open wide, fixed on the stubble on Keller’s face, on the spot where his earlobe joins the skin of his jaw. I never imagined I’d find myself in a situation like this again—in a tent with another civilian, another amateur—and a part of me is afraid to sleep, afraid to risk waking up alone.
I don’t remember closing my eyes, but I wake hours later to a bright gold glow. For a long moment, I don’t move, savoring the heat of Keller’s body next to mine. When I sit up, he stirs and opens his eyes. The look on his face is one I haven’t seen in a while—sleepy, not quite sure where he is, a hint of a smile as he remembers.
But it’s not me he’s smiling about; he’s looking past me, at the shadow hovering over my shoulder against the backlit tent.
“The snow,” he says. “Look how high those drifts are.”
Outside the tent, the sun is a halo behind thin clouds, and a light wind lifts the snow, surrounding us with sparkling dust.
We have to kick the snow away to step out of the tent, and I’m glad I’d remembered, at the last minute, to bury a flagged pole in the snow near the Ski-Doo, which is now hidden under several feet of snow. I radio the station to check in, let them know we’ll be on our way soon. By the time I turn back, Keller’s uncovered the snowmobile and is bent over the engine.
“I think the spark plugs got iced over when the temps dropped yesterday,” he says, straightening up. “Clean and dry now. Give it a try.”
The engine starts right up. I let it run while I pack our tent. As we head toward the base, with Keller sitting behind me, his arm around my waist, I wish we weren’t on our way back. The cold, exhaustion, and hunger don’t compare to my sudden desire to remain with Keller, away from the busyness of the station.
As we return the snowmobile to the MEC and set off for our dorms, I try not to delude myself into thinking he’s more interested in me than in the birds. In fact, when I see him later and he suggests we meet at the Southern Exposure, one of McMurdo’s bars, he asks if I can bring my notes, if I’d mind sharing them.
And so, over the next couple of weeks, we continue our routine—days counting birds together, nights in the bar after his cafeteria shift. We get to know each other slowly, drink by drink. Once we’re a few beers into the night, the conversation becomes personal. Keller doesn’t like to talk about himself, and I have to fit together his pre-Antarctic life in puzzle pieces. It’s an image that remains with me when I see him each morning—a faded cardboard picture with the seams still visible, the cracks still open.
But I want to put the puzzle together; I want to understand who he is. He’s unlike most men I’ve known, men whose experience here is more academic. Keller seems to go about discovering Antarctica like one of the early-twentieth-century explorers, part fearlessness, part eagerness, and part ambition, as if he’s got something to prove. I’m intrigued, as if I’ve unearthed a new species, one I’m eager to study, bit by bit.
One night I’m gazing at him, trying to picture it—the buttoned-down life he said he’d once lived—this man I’ve never seen in anything but denim, flannel, and Gore-Tex, whose hands are chapped from nights working in the galley and days counting penguins.
“So you were a lawyer, married, house in the suburbs,” I say, wanting the rest of his story. “Kids?”
He says nothing, and something in his face makes me wish I could withdraw the question. I stand up and wobble my way over to the bar to get us another round of drinks. When I return to the table, he’s staring at the wall, at a photo of an emperor colony. Our beers slosh as I put them down on the table, and I tumble into my seat.
Finally he turns to me. “Remember the other day—you told me how penguins that fail to breed will sometimes choose new partners.”
For a long moment, I can’t comprehend what he’s telling me.
“It was our first child,” he says. “Only child.”
He takes a long drink, and I try to remember how many rounds we’ve had. “She died,” he says. “Car accident.”
I don’t know what to say. He is very drunk, and he’s talking far more than he ever has, yet his body remains still, lean and almost statuesque in the chair. “I thought we might try to have another baby,” he says. “But she decided to try another husband.”