Chapter Twenty-one
"How like herrings and onions our vices are
in the morning after we have committed them."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
At daybreak, they arose wordlessly and dressed. The temperature had not warmed in the night, but Nadia's clothes had dried by the fire. They made their way back to the jungle to look for their friends, and the fog had finally lifted. As a soldier, Sayid had learned something about tracking, but certainly not in the jungle, and he was no expert. He did the best he could. The tracks criss-crossed each other and ran in circles; it was clear the others had been as confused as he and Nadia.
At mid-day, they stopped to eat. They still had not said anything to each other, except what was absolutely necessary—things like "This way," "Quiet now," "Here is another print," and the like.
Sayid sat carving a piece of fruit with his knife, concentrating on making rings, as though it were imperative that each one be equally even before he sliced it off and ate. When he reached the last bit of flesh, he threw the pit behind himself, and then he lifted his eyes halfway from the ground, not quite looking at her. "Nadia," he said. "I heard you crying last night."
Nadia just took a long sip from her canteen.
"I do not wish you to think I do not care for you," he said. "But to surrender to such a longing…what could it gain us? You would have hated me in the morning." When she did not answer, he continued, "I cannot erode my conscience. I did that once, until it grew almost too dull to feel. You were the one who shook it awake. If I were to let it slumber again…if I were to become such a man for you, would you love me?"
"No."
"Then you understand why nothing can ever happen between us."
She screwed the top back onto her canteen and set it on the ground. She looked into his eyes. "I was not crying because of anything you did to me, Sayid. I was crying because of what I tried to do to you, to Nasser, and to myself."
He lowered his eyes back to the ground.
"Do you think I consider myself guiltless?" she asked. "Do you think it was easy for me to solicit you?" She stood and slung the canteen across her back. She had lost her pack and her gun beneath the ice. She would have to rely on Sayid, and for more than her life. "It was not as if I did not struggle, too. My passion was stronger than my will. It still is. So you must be strong for both of us, because if you were to come to me --"
"Nadia, do not tell me that. Do not tell me that."
"Well," she said, beginning to move, "we have larger things to worry about than our temptations." She glanced around the jungle. "Such as how to find our friends. And how to find our way."
"We may never find our way," he said, but he wasn't talking about making it out of the jungle.
---
At last, they found the rest of their group, all except Steve. No one could explain what had separated them. Ana said she thought Sayid had let go of her hand; Sayid thought she had been torn from his. The other seven had followed the sounds of their voices, but they had ended up retracing their own steps. At last, they had found their way back in the direction they had come, to a warmer part of the jungle, where the fog had lifted, and they had made camp.
"What happened to your gear?" Locke asked Nadia. Nadia told them about the ice.
"Ice? On a tropical island?" asked Marcus. He glanced about for answers, but the rest of the party only shrugged. "You're all being rather nonchalant about this," he said.
"We've been here for awhile," said Kate. "We've seen things."
"When we were coming back," said Sayid, as though offering an explanation to Marcus, "the temperature changed abruptly, but when we retraced our steps, it was cold again. It was almost as if that part of the island was artificially…that is, like a walk-in freezer."
"That makes even less sense," said Marcus.
"Less sense than what?" asked Sayid.
"Than…something that would make more sense." The priest smiled wearily. Now he too shrugged. The party prepared to walk on.
"So," said Sawyer, drawing up beside Sayid with a wink. "I guess that sleeping bag came in handy."
Sayid leveled a withering gaze at him, and Sawyer's smirk actually wavered. He even blinked. If he had meant to follow his first suggestion with a litany of innuendos, they now faded from his lips. He walked away from Sayid.
The group continued to search for Steve and Tracey, but they had no success. When at last they admitted defeat and determined to return, the mood was gloomy. No one spoke for the first half of the hike back to camp, but eventually, voices began to rise in the air, and a partial sense of normality returned to the group.
Locke made his way up beside Nadia. Sayid walked some distance behind them, beside a silent Ana. He saw Locke smile at Nadia and ask, "So, how did you first meet Sayid? Were your families friends?"
Nadia shook her head. "Our families did not move in the same circles. But Sayid and I did attend the same school as children."
"So you've known him ever since he was a child?"
"Yes."
Locke ran a hand across his bald head. "It's hard for me to imagine Sayid as a child," he said. "What was he like?" And then, glancing back behind him, Locke smiled tightly and said, "We're talking about you."
"I am aware," Sayid replied.
Nadia did not look back. She did, however, answer Locke's question. "Much like he is now. Intelligent. Intense. Conscientious."
"So he wasn't the class clown?"
Nadia shook her head. Perhaps she smiled. Sayid could not see. "I think he was the class brain," she said. "He excelled at mathematical equations. He read a lot."
Locke and Nadia now began to discuss hunting, Nadia asking the occasional question, which, much to Locke's obvious delight, gave him an opportunity to instruct and expound.
Sayid let his mind wander, losing the thread of their conversation. He found himself studying the ground. From beside him, Ana suddenly spoke. She did not sound exactly sympathetic, but she didn't sound demanding either. "What's wrong with you?"
He glanced up at her. "Wrong with me?"
"We're all upset we didn't find them. But you seem to be taking it very hard."
Sayid just shook his head.
"At least we tried," Ana said. "You know, 'The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again…who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.'"
"What is that?" Sayid asked. "A poem?"
"Teddy Roosevelt," she replied. "You know, American president?"
"I have heard of him, yes."
Ana sort of bobbed her head. "Yeah," she said. "When I was a kid, he used to be my idol."
"Teddy Roosevelt?" Sayid asked, raising an eyebrow.
Ana smiled. "I know. When I was growing up, most girls wanted to be Wonder Woman or Princess Lea. Only I wanted to be Teddy Roosevelt. I used to read all these biographies of him, books on the Rough Riders, that kind of thing." She shrugged. "I loved the things he said too, like that part about timid souls. My favorite line of his, though, is 'Speak softly but carry a big stick.'"
Sayid smiled. "Well, you have mastered the big stick part anyway."
Ana laughed. He'd never heard her sound like that before—light hearted, almost feminine. "I'm working on the speaking softly part."
"You can master that with time and practice," he assured her.
"You think so?"
"I do."
She turned to him. "Thanks, Sayid. I respect your opinion, you know."
He looked a little stunned by the admission, but he seemed pleased by it. They both fell silent again and remained so for the rest of the journey.
When the nine at last drew into camp, they were forced to face the rest of the survivors with the news that not only had they not found the one they sought, but they had lost another on the way.