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Lighthouse keepers don’t usually choose their job for simple reasons. Poverty might be one, dreaming of an adventurous life another, but those dreamers quit after a year and leave the island with their dreams and health shattered. Tartaglia didn’t consider himself a dreamer and hadn’t chosen that life; he was a convict, a criminal.
His choices were either a death sentence or a lifetime working in a lighthouse. He chose life.
When lighthouse keepers couldn’t take their families along, they lived isolated from the world, alone on top of a rock, sending boats a guiding light through night and storms. Already as a child, Tartaglia had observed many shipwrecks near Snezhnaya’s tempestuous and rocky shores. Most of the coast froze in winter, and icebergs drifted afar, only whale hunters desperate enough to take to the sea. In summer, the weather was unpredictable, and windstorms were frequent.
A keeper’s most important task on top of that purgatory was to never let the flame die.
Maintaining and cleaning the Fresnel lens and its mercury bath was tedious work. It could almost constantly rotate by itself, but Tartaglia had to check the float regularly and make repairs inside and outside the building. There were nights he could barely get a blink of sleep.
The high waves sometimes reached the neck of the lighthouse during the worst storms. The wind howled, the water crashed, a terrible, deafening noise. Tartaglia’s only companions through such maddening hours were the letters of his little brother, the only one unaware of his crimes, and the roar of the sea pummeling the small island.
Teucer was Tartaglia’s youngest brother, the last one to write letters. All the others had gone mute. He didn’t know his big brother was a criminal and thought lighthouse keeping was the coolest job on earth. He’d asked Tartaglia if he’d seen narwhals up close, or freak waves, or pirates, or mermaids. Tartaglia had seen most of those, except a mermaid. He made up a story about one to entertain his little brother.
Loneliness kicked in when he was almost exhausted. The howl of the wind rang in his ears, and on calmer nights, it sounded like a plea, a song. He had to wake up every few hours and make sure the light was still rotating, his imagination going wild because of his exhaustion. Sailors believed in mermaids for a reason. They were alone at sea, with waves crashing around their boat, seagulls crying, and an upcoming storm rumbling far away, and they knew their lives depended on the weather. Months at sea and weeks isolated on a rock could drive a man insane. Tartaglia was strong-headed. He lived there for over a year.
Teucer’s letters stopped coming. He must have heard what Tartaglia had done, or people told him what an evil big brother he had. Tartaglia kept writing about the mermaid and pirates but received no reply. He was dead to them.
As loneliness became unbearable, Tartaglia started talking to the sea, replying to its howls with hums and songs at night. It had been more than a year, and his only visitor came to distribute his food rations but never his much-awaited letters. Itto, the boatman, offered him to bring some wine on his next tour, and he agreed. The bottle became his ally.
Humans didn’t like Tartaglia, so he saluted the seagulls and greeted the full moon. He built stone mounds and called them monuments to the drowned. Sometimes, he believed he heard the sea reply to his chants and poems with its own hums. It was grateful; it loved him.
After checking the mercury bath for the third time that day, Tartaglia went out for a stroll. He’d walk back and forth on the island, fished at the coast. He’d seen many kinds of fish before, crabs sometimes, always a bottle sitting at his side. This time, there was a long silhouette in the deep water, perhaps a narwhal, but narwhals weren’t so thin and had what looked like arms.
Intrigued, Tartaglia looked for it every morning at the end of the island, closest to the water. Perhaps he’d have something incredible to tell Teucer about. The creature was elusive, but Tartaglia perdured. He set up a small trap, filling it with shimmering coins. For some reason, he was convinced fish were attracted by shiny things.
There it was, the magical creature, holding his coins between its hands! Tartaglia called to the mermaid, asked for its name. It was called “Zhongli,” he could tell, without even hearing its voice. He laughed like a madman. The sea had replied to him, breaking waves sounding like words. That name was so lovely.
Tartaglia started spending his free time writing to Teucer about his fabulous encounter and returned to visit Zhongli every day the tide allowed it. The mermaid became his best friend. It told him about the world around them, about how there were horses with necks as long as trees, flying carpets, and pink elephants. Reading his writings over, it sounded insane, but mermaids were magical creatures. If a mermaid existed, then why not horses with necks as long as trees?
Maybe if he captured an image of the creature, Teucer would talk to him again. That opportunity never came.
One night, Tartaglia became anxious; the waves were crashing against the lighthouse again, higher than ever. Hurricanes were rare in the region, but the windstorm was exceptional. He could barely stand on the gallery without holding the railing. The flame had to keep going, but Tartaglia stood there, exposed to the wind and sprayed with water. He didn’t care as much about the light as for his only friend.
The spotlight hit a long, dark silhouette. The mermaid was struggling in the high waves, its long body carried and dragged by the waves. Tartaglia ran to the lens and tried to guide it away from the shore, away from his lighthouse. He’d have done anything so it wouldn’t crash against a cliff. The sea looked like a monster, a snake with several heads, throwing his only dear friend near to its death.
If the lighthouse burned down fast enough, perhaps it would scare the snake, Tartaglia thought. He took his cigarette lighter, a bedsheet and put fire to his room. Then, he ran down the stairs and went outside.
The mermaid was waiting for him; he was going to leave with his dear Zhongli! They could live together in the sea forever, the lighthouse be damned! It was burning, the mercury bath exploded on top, and Tartaglia laughed like a madman. The snake let go of his lover.
“Take me away, love! Free me from this prison!” he yelled before a freak wave struck and the sea swallowed him whole.
A narwhal’s horn peeked out of the waves as it followed its lover.