Luckily, before the nightmares returned, the hatch popped. Night again, starless this time, and the lights on the deck cut sharp angles into the hold. Vadim was sober and seemed hurried, gruffer, as though embarrassed by the camaraderie they’d shared last time. “I’ve come to tell you we pass Montreal in two days,” he said whispering quickly. “You can get off there. This is the last port call before ocean. Okay?”

Titus said okay. Somewhere in the dark hours alone, he’d lost his conviction to drown. But Montreal seemed as good a place as any to die.

“We are not docking in Montreal, but I know a tugboat man who hauls there. He brings supplies. Booze and other things. He will return you into the harbor.”

Titus thanked him. Vadim looked like he was preparing to go. “Any chance of some more water?” Titus said. “Or even something to eat? These oats are twisting me up.”

Vadim sighed. He put his hands over his face. “You know it is not easy for me to get this water,” he said sharply. “It does not look good carrying jars about. It looks like I am loafing. Or with moonshines.”

Titus told him he could tie it to a string and dip it in the lake. “I’m not picky,” he said.

“This is not the point,” said Vadim wearily, shaking his head. The wheedle of gulls could be heard in the air above the hatch, and for a moment Titus thought he would like to climb out, throttle this silly man, then go swimming.

“Okay,” Vadim said after some consideration, “toss up this jar.”

Vadim caught it and put it under his arm like a football.

“This tugboat, in Montreal,” Vadim said before he shut the hatch, “this is not free. He is my friend, but he must make a living.”

When Titus started digging for his wallet, Vadim shook his head. “There is a man,” Vadim said, shifting his weight and checking over both shoulders. “He is from the center of America somewhere, Ecuador, Panama—who knows. He has a name, but this is not matter to you. It’s a poison on the tongue. He is causing many problems for me. For your friend Vadim. He is a vile man. A nastiness. Like in Bill Shakespeare, or a novel by Charlie Dickens—yes! A man like Sikes.”

Titus nodded. He couldn’t keep his eyes from the empty jar under Vadim’s forearm.

“Well, this man has been stealing from me, Titus. He tells me I owe him money when I do not. He tells me we have made bets that no crew has witnessed. At night he comes to me when I sleep. He whispers that he will cut my a killings tendons. You know these?” Vadim made a slashing motion over the back of his leg.

Again, Titus nodded.

“So this is this thing I need helping with. You see I am small man. I am watchman. I watch. But you are not, Titus. You are a man who does not only watch. Who has seen much bloodshed. I tell this by your face. You have scars. You are a hardness. So, I’m hoping for this. Help this man fall from the boat. That is it. Like Bill Sikes. Give him what is his own. It would save me from so much …” His gaze fixed on the edge of the hatch as he trailed off.

Titus took a breath. “I’m sorry, Vadim,” he said. “You’ve been real helpful. And I appreciate it. But I don’t think—”

“No,” Vadim barked and grabbed the hatch. “I knew this. This is okay. This is my problem. You have your problem and I have mine. These are separations.” He said he would return with the water, then closed the hatch. Later Titus woke to find two jars of water had been tossed down into the hold while he slept. They were murky with green bits spinning in them like tiny meteors.

Maybe it was the sight of his best friend’s blood dripping from the handcart he’d used to transport him or the limited oxygen or some mysterious fumes, but the texture of Titus’s mind had altered. There in the dark hold he watched time pour time down the drain indifferently, lying for hours, unchafed by boredom or unwanted visions. He played chess with old friends and directed theater productions entirely in his head. He remembered whole texts he’d read as a child, enough to recite them backwards. His time in the hold had nearly turned pleasant—empty spaces like a stack of newspapers printed blank, nothing but dates at the top of every page.

He ate oats soaked in one of the jars and reserved the other for drinking. Soon from the scuffing sounds he knew the ship was again in a series of locks. Then for a period anchored. With the engines quiet he heard more voices above, some footfalls, then nothing. In the dead quiet he listened to the rustle and snap of himself blinking.

Then the engines roared again. The ship sounded its foghorn. The boat rocked. After a while he detected a briny scent skulking into the hold. After another day he heard a tapping at the hull. All kinds of clean notes like a glockenspiel: ice, he soon realized. The water in both jars was gone when Vadim came again.

“I’m sorry, Titus,” said Vadim sorrowfully. He was drunk again, his face rosy with blood.

“We’re the sea’s music now, aren’t we, Vadim?”

“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you,” he sobbed. “But you don’t making sense when you speak. It looks like you are taking vacations after all.”

“What about Montreal?” Titus said, elevating his voice, less concerned with his own well-being than a man’s adherence to his word.

“I have job here, you know,” said Vadim. “I had to paint winches. Grease chains. Low work, you must think, Titus, beneath you. But it must be done. And my tugboating friend did not come. It is not all easy for Vadim. He does not get to slumber all day in a soft bed.”

Titus clenched his teeth and once again considered piling up a mound of oats so he could climb out and throttle the man, though now the hatch was even higher. Perhaps Titus was eating his way down.

“But there is another problem,” Vadim said sheepishly. “This man I told you about. The Panamanian. Titus, I told this man about you when I have been drinking. A mistake. I am a talking friend, Titus, my weakness. And now he is going to Visser about you. He said this with his mouth. About how you have stolen your passage and have been eating the cargo. This is not good. He is also a rapist, this man. He boasted to me last night, as though I would applaud?”

“Okay,” said Titus, “get to it.”

“If you don’t deal with him soon, I don’t know if I can come again. Too dangerous for me.”

Titus understood now his position. That he’d rid himself of his desire to die and attained something near peace in the dark hold meant nothing. He would not go unpunished for everything he’d left broken behind him. It seemed fitting now that the price for no longer yearning to cast himself overboard would be to further degrade himself, but he’d already constructed the armored vault in which to put all the vile things he had left to do in his life, and its dragging weight meant there would be no more good days for him, no more comfort or kindness.

“When?” Titus said.

“He is on watch tonight, before me,” said Vadim, his eyes on fire. “I will fetch you when the time is clear.”

Later, a knock came and the hatch opened, and rain fluttered in as Titus heard the slap of feet retreating on the wet deck. Titus had hoarded a large pile of oats that allowed him to grasp the lip of the hatch with two hands and hike himself up.

On the deck, he drew the sweetness of sea air into his body. No stars, only a tin roof of cloud and waves crashing like shunting trains. He removed his work boots and set them beside the hatch, which he closed but did not fasten. He crept in bare feet along the railing in the dark toward the bow of the ship, as rain swept in fizzy sails overhead. He spotted the man: short, but sturdy looking, copper skin like an Indian, smoking, sparing the tiny ember from the spray with a small cave made with his hand. He stood exactly where Titus had weeks before, the morning of the accident, when he nearly plunged himself into Thunder Bay’s harbor, which he’d now left so far behind.