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59 That Was Then Submariner Liz Ahl I am writing blindly. . . —Lt. Dmitry Kolesnikov, in a final letter aboard the Russian submarine Kursk, August 12, 2000 Dive, dive. Each command twice for accuracy and double-confirmation down in here, but not even redundancy can save us now. For months I’ve lived in this nuclear tube, suspended in the ocean’s dark feathers, shut in by tons of the Atlantic. This slow cylinder is crammed full with men and the sleek fingers of missiles. Where shall we point them? The only private space I have is between my ears, tight also, and nuclear, and navigating by the intuitive pings of sonar, of blind man’s bluff. Down here, with my only brothers, we defend the hull, feel our way through fathoms, imagine what the sonar tries to paint for us as it listens. Up top, I’m dizzy in the wide open spaces of our bed, too big for two. That house alone is deeper than the ocean. I misunderstand the wind, the lightness of air; I can’t recall how to measure distance between people. She touches me. 60 A Face to Meet the Faces Eyes shut, I’m down again, in the precise, square feet of my bunk. Of course, I’ll scrawl none of this in the note she may never see. First, the business of how we came to be here, after the explosions killed most of the others. Then, for her, private words, the tender ones she will want to hear. They come easily, even as we lose the lights, two dozen of us nestled into one compartment, some quietly crying, and I fold the paper blindly, press and fold, focusing my fingertips on each crease, as if I could force this message into the future, and into my pocket they go, those easy words. The hard words are the ones I try to cobble together, for myself alone: last scraps of sense and consciousness, final sips of this world as the air thins, as water seeps in and holds us all too tightly. To whom would I speak them if I could? If I manage to fold them into sentences, pocket them deep and safe, would the gentle hand of the one who finally finds me comprehend? I pray he will unfold me as a letter, understanding what I cannot about this dark, ineffable passage, these last, best moments. ...

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