Bacacay

by Witold Gombrowicz

  “I confess that I imagined life on board to be completely different. But it’s a quagmire. There’s no breeze. I was hoping for the salty smell of the sea and of the open spaces and so on, so much healthier than the stifling smells of land; whereas I see that things are cramped here—cramped, intrusive, and in addition there’s some kind of apery. Above all there’s not an ounce of tact. The day before yesterday, not wishing to continue a conversation with Clarke, I returned to my cabin; but some large insect, I believe a scorpion, crawled out of a crack in the floor, stared at me for a while, wiggling its feelers, and then out of the blue it rolled into a ball and injected into itself all the venom in its abdomen—in this way committing suicide. I’ve heard that this is a common occurrence among such hymenoptera. But why did he come to my cabin to do it? Could he not have managed in the crack? I pretended not to see. On land, too, one sometimes sees dogs or horses, but there’s more discretion, and no one will crawl out specially to someone else just to show them.

  “I wish we would just arrive in Valparaiso as quickly as possible. Will we ever arrive in Valparaiso, though? I don’t know; though perhaps this is normal and anticipated in our travel schedule—I know nothing about the constellations and I don’t know how to use a sextant or compass, but if the stars (as it would seem) are unfavorable, and even apishly malicious in some way, and we’ve entered the undesirable sign of Aries or Capricorn, then in my opinion the captain and Smith are too forward and are taking too many liberties. I was always afraid of that officer’s nautical imagination —paying no attention to anything, only holding things by the throat in bachelor fashion—a bachelor’s imagination and a bachelor’s way of traveling. At times one needs to quiet down and wait it out. One needs to know when and what. It’s cramped here, just like in a box, and some scandal could result; I don’t like the look of the sailors’ faces, though I only see their backs.”

  Having written this I burned the paper as quickly as I could over the candle. Then I took a sheet of paper and added:

  “Yes, I don’t like the look of the sailors’ faces, though I only see their backs. Their backs, naturally, are meek and timorous, as backs usually are, but in the evenings, through the floor of my cabin, I hear beneath the deck a flat, persistent buzzing, akin to the hum of a nest of insects. This buzzing comes from the sailors. And so Smith keeps them by the throat by day, but not at night. Are they snoring? Are they talking? And if they’re talking, what could they be talking about, and are they not by any chance gossiping overmuch, as can happen on long sea voyages? For it’s possible that out of boredom they’re spinning one another some endless tall tales that don’t contain a word of truth. After all, as Smith reminded me—they’re globetrotters, old stagers of the quayside; and they’re bound to have heard a thing or two in their lives. I knew a fellow like that—he used to recount with great glee that he once heard from a barber in Tokyo about a gentleman who was ‘very well dressed, and must have been from the upper crust,’ who cautioned his manicurist ‘not to cut my fingernails too short, or I won’t be able to pick my nose.’ There’s an example of their attitude to intelligence. It’s only things like that they can grasp—nothing more. And they’re prepared to talk about it for hours on end, always with the same repulsive, sarcastic sneer.”

  I burned this paper too—yet that did not mean I didn’t put into action my resolution concerning Clarke and Smith. I kept my distance from them, and when I saw them on one side of the brig I moved to the other. It was worse, I will not deny it, when one of them was on one side of the ship and the other on the other side. In the meantime a sea wind had blown up, but instead of coming from the side or from behind, it began to blow softly right from the bow. The Banbury did not move backward, but it was all unspeakably irritating—low waves were slapping against its nose.

  To make matters worse, it turned out that Thompson really did have a mouth like a snout—seeing this, I couldn’t hold back (I blame myself for this rashness) and asked: “Thompson, why do you do it? Surely that’s not the right way, Thompson.” He was a strapping fellow, tall, broad-shouldered, with a weather-beaten face, a hairy chest, earrings in his ears and short bangs on his forehead —they were too short in relation to the rest of his figure. He looked around to check that no one else was nearby, came up very close to me, and said, sticking out his lips: “Me, I like it, sir.”

  “Now then, Thompson,” I said hurriedly. “Here’s five shillings for tobacco, Thompson.” Thompson closed the paw into which I had slipped the money and said:

  “That won’t be of any use.”

  “I expect it’s boring for you on board, Thompson,” I said benevolently.

  “I’ll say it’s boring,” groaned Thompson. “It’s hard to stand it, sir. I have to go to bed at nine like a good little babby, sir, and in the daytime I have to sing songs. The captain and the lieutenant are too strict, sir. I can’t enjoy myself—I can’t have fun—I’m dying, sir. Once I was ruddy, I was red as fire, sir, I was in good shape, and now I’m pale and exhausted—I’m going to hell, sir, I’m going to waste, sir.”

  I brought him out some milk in a bowl, which he lapped up.

  “That will do you good, Thompson. Milk is white, and that’s the best thing for redness—I’ll leave you a bowl like this outside my cabin door every day. Milk and lots of fruit. But for the love of God, don’t make a scandal, Thompson. Try to hold out till Valparaiso. The ship is slowing down, but the captain told me that soon a favorable wind will be blowing. Please, please though—no funny business, Thompson; here’s five shillings more.”

  We were still at 76 degrees latitude, a good 450 miles southwest of the Canary Islands—though no canaries were to be seen. Those small, golden-feathered birds were obviously afraid of excessive distances; they preferred to hop from branch to branch in a dappled grove of tropical trees, where their chatter rang out much more loudly than at sea. These are not sea birds but land birds. The wind was blowing lightly yet constantly, right into the bow of the ship; small waves were making small flicks over and again, and little mild white clouds were passing in single file across the violet sky.

  Thompson must have spread the word that I had given him a few shillings—for in the afternoon, I was approached amidships by the mate—a large, fat, asthmatic man with drooping, puddingy cheeks and a bug-eyed, pale, exhausted gaze. He complained of boredom and said that he had dirty feet—that this tormented him, and he asked for a few shillings. When I upbraided him sternly, he declared more quietly:

  “All right, all right. Life’s like that. I know. I’m forty-seven, and I’ve never had clean feet—never, it just wasn’t possible. Other people can have clean feet, but not me—never—it’s a dog’s life for me. One thing or another always gets in the way and it’s not possible—and when it’s possible you don’t feel like it. In fact, I feel I want to—but I don’t feel like it and”—he added dully—“I’ve found other ways, here”—he tapped his forehead with a shrewd expression, staring at me. I quickly gave him five shillings for beer and advised him to at least powder his feet—it’s practical and takes less time. I asked him not to tell anyone that I had given money. But he obviously couldn’t help himself. One of the sailors, whose name I did not know, whispered supposedly to himself as he passed by, looking around to check that no one was listening:

  “Nasturtiums.”

  I gave him a few shillings too. Hmm ... I was beginning to be seriously worried, for in my view the crew was becoming too importunate. Not two days had passed since my conversation with Thompson, yet the notebook in which I recorded my daily expenditures was black with a series of new entries. It looked almost as if the crew had found some poems of mine under my pillow, but I had no poems, for after all I had clambered onto the Banbury from a motor launch, without any luggage.

  Thompson for “I like it” and snout: 10 s.

  Mate for feet: 5 s.

  X for nasturtiums: 2 s.

  Stevens for certain tomatoes and buds: 5 s.

  Buster f
or bashfulness: 5 s.

  Dick for small vegetable patch tended with trowel amid tall reed stems: 1 s. 6 d.

  O’Brien for huge milk cows grazing on meadow full of round pebbles: 3 s. (Meant to give less, but he knew about “Primrose” too.)

  O’Brien again for ladle, with recommendation that he refrain until Valparaiso. (NB he refuses; says he ran with blood again yesterday. For this another 6 d. extra.)

  To carry forward: 31 s. 6 d.

  To the above reckoning I appended the following note: “I pay because it’s mine. If it weren’t mine, I would not pay. I shouldn’t have rubbed shoulders with that character (Thompson)—now they all keep approaching me, one after another. There’s nothing worse than entering into contact with riff-raff who prattle without thinking and fawn idiotically, solely in order to extract money. I’m sure that among themselves they make fun of the fact they managed to tap the passenger, and that they repeat the same words in a vulgar manner—roaring with laughter and holding their bellies. I’m curious, though, where they got those words from. It has to be admitted there’s a blatant lack of discretion on board; in this respect I could hold it against not just the seamen but also the ship’s pipes, which enact some sort of bizarre flourishes, including my own. The men ape and twist, and turn everything instantly into such filth or foolishness that one has to blush.

  “The situation requires immense tact. The captain possesses too much nautical imagination, and Smith knows how to give a warm handshake—so much so it’s even pleasant. At any moment they could throw me overboard. When I set off I was forgetting the absolute power of a captain, and that’s an important point that should not be forgotten. I also forgot that at sea there are only men (I’m not referring to the large passenger steamers). They’re all men, and the sock came at the right time. As for the crew, it’s composed of old stagers, older than I thought even, and one needs to temporize with them, because for them nothing is sacred—they’re like fraternity boys or soldiers in their barracks. You can see it by looking at them. It’s just as well that Smith has them by the throat. Today, as I stood in the bows I saw an unfamiliar animal the size and shape of an anteater, which slipped out a long tongue narrow as a tape and tried to use it to lick a piece of wood that was floating a few meters away—and so I went to the stern, but there in turn there was a host of oysters—and these snails are swallowed live and perish torn from their shells in the dark cavity of the stomach. No one can be more consumed alive than they are, and they are afraid of nothing so much as of lemon. (To be afraid of lemon!) At that point I turned from the sea and looked in the direction of the deck, but here one of the deckhands put down his brush, raised his leg, and scratched himself on the heel, exactly like a little doggie relieving itself behind a bush. In the end I locked myself in my cabin once again for several hours, ostensibly because of the damp. There is a need for immense tact; one should not be surprised at anything, one should show no surprise, surprise would be entirely out of place, since everything is this way—everything is this way, and I have no grounds for surprise, and if they throw me overboard I’ll go without surprise—surprise in such circumstances would without a doubt be a huge impropriety, a glaring lack of tact. In any case one must be circumspect and avoid disputes and move very cautiously, since boredom is pressing down and the sun is burning. I wish, I wish we would arrive in Valparaiso—alas, the wind is blowing against us.

  “The order, discipline, and cleanliness on this ship are a thin membrane that could burst at any second and is ever more likely to do so.”

  After writing this I burned the paper. Before long it transpired that my concerns were well founded—and I had been wrong to hand out money to the sailors, since this had a provocative and emboldening effect on them. One takes money and then—ever onward, now with money in one’s pocket! (Once, a long time ago now, I gave out caramels in the same way, and with no better consequences.) —One day, strolling astern, on the boards of the deck I noticed a human eye. No one was around except for a sailor standing by the helm and chewing gum; the whole deck was bathed in subtropical sunshine and criss-crossed by a bluish network of shadows from the rigging of the foremast. I asked the helmsman:

  “Whose eye is that?”

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Did it fall out, or was it removed?”

  “I didn’t see, sir. It’s been lying there since this morning. I’d have picked it up and put it in a box, but I’m not allowed to leave the helm.”

  “Over there by the rail,” I said, “there’s another eye. But a different one. Belonging to a different person. Have Barnes pick them up when he leaves the helm.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I continued my interrupted walk, debating whether to tell the captain and Smith—the latter had appeared on the steps of the forward hatch.

  “There’s a human eye on the deck over there.”

  He pricked up his ears. “I’ll be f ... sp .... Where? Is it one of a pair?”

  “Do you think, lieutenant, that it fell out, or that it was removed from someone?”

  We heard the captain’s voice from the upper gangway:

  “Has something happened, Mr. Smith? Why did you curse?”

  “Those ... dr ... da ...” Smith replied angrily, “Those ... ba ... pr ... they’re starting to play the eye game.”

  “Do you mean to tell me,” I asked, “that out of boredom the sailors have invented a game that involves one of them catching a second unawares and trying to poke the other man’s eye out with his thumb—more or less the way schoolboys trip one another up?”

  The captain’s voice rang out from above:

  “Don’t forget, Mr. Smith, that independent of the punishment the guilty party should eat the eye that was poked out. Nautical customs require it.”

  “Damnation,” swore the lieutenant. “Once they’ve begun there’ll be no peace. One time, in the waters of the southern Pacific, while we were becalmed we lost three-quarters of the eyes of the entire crew in this way. They’re scared to death of it, but once they begin they can’t stop themselves. I’ll show them—now then, good gentlemen—they’ll remember me, they’ll remember me, those good gen ... en ... gen ...”

  “It’s more along the lines of tickling,” I said. “A schoolboy is terrified of tickling and for that reason he can’t refrain from tickling his chum; then the chum starts tickling and an all-around tickling commences.”

  “I’ll tickle them,” muttered Smith, seething and roughly patting his pockets. I merely added sadly and almost painfully: “I’m sorry. It’s a flimsily attached organ, a sphere inserted into a socket in a person, nothing more.”

  I went to my cabin, lay on my bunk, and wrote with my finger on the wall: “A fine business.—Now Smith will tickle them, and they’ll tickle Smith in return. It’s much worse than I suspected. It seems to be dreary and foolish, but it’s growing ever more pressing and more cramped—these are already personal provocations —things are dangerous. I’m like a sheep among wolves, like an ass in the lions’ den. It’ll be necessary after all to have a serious talk with Clarke.”

  An opportunity to talk arose that very evening on the bridge. Clarke was leaning on the rail and conferring with the lieutenant; both wore extremely concerned and disgruntled expressions. They were evidently discussing the situation, since I heard Clarke saying: “Yes, but if things go on like this, there may be a shortage of eyes. Something must have stirred them up—someone must have roused them—they’d never have started of their own accord. Now there’ll be no peace.

  “Who stirred them up?” he roared, waxing angry.

  The sea was pellucid—the setting sun had not yet managed to sink below the horizon, yet darkness was already enveloping the waters with great rapidity. Storks appeared in the sky, on their annual journey from northern Scotland to the eastern shores of Brazil. These familiar birds are in the greatest trouble when, at the time of their departure, their young are not sufficiently practiced in t
he art of flying—on the one hand a powerful migratory instinct drives them to sea, whereas on the other hand an equally powerful maternal instinct binds them to the poor juvenile fledglings—at such times they emit terrifying cries.

  “The eye is almost the most sensitive organ of the body,” I mentioned after a short pause. “It’s very easy to remove an eye.” I added further that on the subject of the eye I was particularly sensitive. “Personally I can’t stand it even when someone shoots a straw at my eye. It seems that the crew is a little restless. It seems that things are a little cramped or uncomfortable for them, that they’re lacking something—could they not be calmed down a little?”

  “Now this one!” shouted Clarke rudely, in the unexpected voice of a man with more important problems. “Dammit. Have you lost your spine? At times you give the impression of being a bold mariner, and at others you look like a weepy woman.”

  He was most irate.

  “The crew has gone mad, and you’re wasting our time. What are you—a woman?”

  “No, I’m not,” I replied resentfully. “But if women get involved in all this, things will be even worse. I only want to mention that I know a conspiracy is being hatched on board.”

  “A conspiracy?” he exclaimed in astonishment.

  “A general conspiracy is being hatched,” I said reluctantly. “There is without doubt a conspiracy, though it appears there is not; everything is scheming and plotting behind our backs. I know in advance how it will end. It will end very badly.”