THE FERRYMAN

"I have been told by countless people (though I find it hard to believe) that Brittia, lying opposite the source of the Rhine and inhabited by Angles, Friesians and Britons, is the home of dead souls. At night the inhabitants on the coast row the dead across the sea to Brittia. For this task they avoid paying taxes to the Franks.”  – Procopius of Caeseria, 500-565 AD

I ASKED the soldiers and I asked the shopkeepers, I asked the fishermen and the net makers, I asked the brick makers and the carters, the reed gatherers and the herdsmen; I asked the priests and the law makers. Some of them laughed at me, some threw fish at me; many shook their heads and turned their backs on me. Some demanded money. A few said they had heard the tales of boats taking the souls of the departed, following the dying sun west across the water to the island of dead. But nobody could tell me who the ferryman was or where I might find him.

Then, on the fourth day, a boy tugged at my tunic and led me from the settlements, across the marshes of frogs and snakes, of motionless herons and mewling gulls, to a hut by a brackish inlet where a barge thick with pitch was tied. Its sails were furled and its silhouette was sharpened by the sun that was sinking through the mist to the end of the sky where it met the end of the sea. The hut was a gloomy space, lit by a lamp that smelled of fish oil. On loose reeds crawling with insects sat a figure of unimaginable age, whose voice was high and insistent, like a gnat. The whites of his eyes were fresh and clear, his lips were wet and his face was hairless. His garment was woven of sheep’s wool and a leather helmet was tight about his head, hiding whatever hair he might have had. The boy stood beside him, and I asked if this was the ferryman who took the souls of the dead to their resting place across the water. Before he gave me a reply, the figure held up his hand for money. The palm was soft and white, and looked as if it had never hauled on a rope or been blistered by an oar. Perhaps he, too, was a boy, though he had no teeth. Perhaps he was a hundred years old and had not aged, or had aged and was now aging backwards. I sat before him, and took coins from my purse. He gripped them tightly in his white fist for a moment, then his hand moved up to his eyes and his fingers opened like the petals of a flower at dawn. A thin thumb and index finger picked up the coins one at a time and put them into his mouth to test with a press of his gums. After testing them all, he gave a satisfied sigh, allowing them to drop into his lap, and in his dry, scraping voice he began to tell me about the journey with the souls. It took several days, he said, depending on their temper, if they encouraged a sweet wind or threw up a storm. Sometimes, if a tempest did not abate, or if the boat was becalmed for more than three days, he would throw the souls into the thick soup of sea and leave them to their own devices, to hitch themselves to the teaming beasts that flowed with the tides, which would sweep them up the estuary of a turbulent river. This was the entrance to the island, the passage towards the beginning of nothing, which is the end of everything. But if all went well, said the ferrymen, he would carry them there himself, travelling several miles up the broad estuary beyond the marshes, where the current began to subside and the banks were green with willows and grasses, with meadow flowers that were always in sunshine. It was both purgatory and paradise, depending on the eyes of the dead, for this was where all the souls of the world ended their days. I told the ferryman that I wanted to know if he had taken my father across the water, and I gave his name and said where he came from. He looked heavenwards, studying for a while the hole in the roof of the hut through which smoke escaped, and stroking his thin, vulnerable throat. When a hand stretched out for further payment, I gave him more coins and he told me to describe my father’s soul. This was not easy, I said, for I had not seen him for thirty years, since I had left to find my fortune in the sun, but as I recalled, it was in the shape of a pear, being thinner at the top, and wider at the bottom, by which I meant that there were many things in his past, though he always seemed settled in his thinking; also that the skin of the pear was rough and unwelcoming to the touch, and the flesh was not juicy or sweet, and could be bitter. Bruises and scars that had been caused by other souls had healed over, though they had left an uneven shape. The seeds were withered and the stalk was short. My father’s soul smelled of the fungus of the fruit, of damp dust, though in my memory it was firm and not rotten or over-ripe. I also felt I should mention the fact that my father always swore that he was never a boy but came into the world as a puppy dog. As I came to the end of my description, the ferryman closed his eyes and rocked backwards and forwards, and began an incomprehensible incantation. The sanguine walls of his pulsating cheeks made his mouth seem like a vast cave, growing wider and deeper, and I began to think it might have become the entrance to the underworld. The voice flew across the agitated tongue growing louder until the name of my father came out with such a wild and alien sound that I thought his soul had been summoned back from over the water, and was suddenly ejected into the air before me. Smoke from the fire danced wildly. The lamp light trembled. I stepped backwards, fearful, wondering in whose presence I was now standing. The ferryman fell silent and pitched forwards, his head tipping towards his lap, his right hand grasping the coins in a fist so tight that his knuckles shone.  I walked all around the hut, calling my father’s name, but there was no response, no other disturbance.  The boy who had brought me now stood by the doorway, perhaps hoping I would leave. But I sat and waited for an hour, until sun was dropping towards the land of the dead, but the ferryman did not move, though I continued to ask him to tell me if he had taken my father to the other side. I did not want to meet his soul now, I said. I only wanted to know if he had passed this way. If he was dead, I would abandon my search for him, and tell him what I had to say when it came to my turn to be ferried across the water, when we would meet soul to soul. If he were still living, I would continue to look for him, so that one day I might embrace the man I never knew how to love.