The German Numbers Woman

by Alan Sillitoe

  ‘Hardly time.’ He scooped it with the spoon.

  ‘What’s on Radio Four tonight?’

  ‘Can’t say. But there’s something interesting on VHF.’ He plugged in the spare jacks and passed the phones, undecided before she came in as to whether or not he would let her know.

  ‘Can’t hear anything.’

  ‘You will.’ The bad dream voice was unmistakable, he had heard it scores of times, and now they listened to the clear transmission, the demanding tone of a woman who knew that persistence furthered. Howard couldn’t say how long she had been trying, but the voice put him into despair. Once more it came: ‘Pontifex calling Daedalus, can you read me, over. Pontifex calling Daedalus,’ again and again, sometimes with hardly a pause. He wanted the sea to open its green mouth and swallow the woman, which was as much of a miracle as him being here with Judy should it do so.

  He had anticipated, was ready, but Judy flicked at the VHF transmitter switch as if she had been looking over the equipment during his absence from the cabin, and only waiting for the moment. ‘Daedalus calling Pontifex,’ she cried, ‘I hear you, darling.’

  He gripped her wrist and dragged her away, turned the set off. ‘If the chief hears you you’re dead. And so am I. It’s radio silence – until he says so.’

  ‘They can’t stop me.’

  ‘Well, I have. You can listen, but not send.’ Tears fell onto his wrist, and he wondered how long he could hold her. Hysterical, she pushed and dragged. He had no will to fight, though strength and an instinct for survival overrode him. ‘Let’s not argue. Leave her alone. Maybe tomorrow you can talk, or the day after.’

  He caught the rush, and her body pressed hard, as if she had come at him out of irresistible passion instead of loathing. ‘She’ll be gone by then.’

  So he hoped. She’d be out of range. There was nothing more to say, and he again exerted all his strength to stop her reaching the switch, till hearing Waistcoat: ‘What’s going on in here. Is it a lovers’ tiff, or what?’

  ‘You might say so.’

  ‘I heard the bloody racket on the bridge. You can sort your arses out later. Just listen in and get some good news.’ He poked Judy. ‘Piss off to the galley, and earn your keep.’

  She walked away, and Howard stayed round-shouldered at his dials, moving onto shortwave to rid himself of Carla’s voice. Let her yammer into nothingness, pleas bouncing back and meeting no one’s ears but her own – the ultimate in futility. She must have heard Judy’s exalted words, so would go on till her windpipe withered and she stopped for lack of air. Judy was his whatever happened.

  The north Atlantic forecast played its music, a stream of morse not impinging as it should. Misery forced him out of his stillness to go on deck and look, as if he had eyes, seeing grey and tattered cloud pushing them into the hundred mile mouth of the Channel.

  Judy came back, as he had known she would. ‘I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. I’ll only listen. Promise.’

  He felt her shirt wet from tears, unless driving spray had caught her coming along the deck, or she had leaned too far over with the idea of throwing herself in. Sea salt tasted like tears. ‘My boat and its hero is going up-Channel,’ she sang, Ted having given her a glass of icy vodka. ‘I finished it before leaving the galley.’

  ‘I’m not your hero,’ he told her. ‘You wanted me, from the moment you came on board, because I had my hands on the transmitters. I wondered why you were so set on me.’

  ‘That’s not true. Honestly. I never thought she’d be close enough to hear on VHF. In any case it was you who told me about her. I wouldn’t have known for sure, would I? She might be my lover, but you’re my hero for telling me. You’re the odd man out on this damned boat. Just let me listen, and I’ll be happy.’

  Her voice came as if from across the aether, except that now he was close enough to breathe against her cheek. She took his hand warmly, the other on his shoulder. She had come from the Azores with a basket of pineapples, and he could hear her talking.

  He went back to the VHF channel, but she stayed beside him. Carla had given up. Two southward-bound yachties chatted about having a piss-up when their boats got to La Coruña – last man arriving pays the tally. ‘We can try again later,’ he said. ‘If she’s on the same course she may come back around midnight.’

  ‘She’ll be going south. I’ve lost her.’

  ‘She didn’t sound as if she wanted to lose you.’

  ‘I’ll never hear her again. Or see her.’

  He couldn’t believe Fate would be so good to him. ‘We’ll try, anyway. I don’t want you to think I haven’t given her a fair go.’

  ‘I’m tired of it all. She doesn’t want me, anyway. She only wants me because she thinks I’m available at the moment. I know her. She once left me sitting outside a café in Greece, to follow another woman, and came back half an hour later because the woman told her to get lost or she would call the police. She told me as if it was a joke. Loyalty was a funny notion to her, but I believed in it – though maybe that was because I was in love. She told me she was in love with me, but that didn’t mean she had to be faithful, she said. I was a fool to think it meant anything. The only time I’m not burning in hell is when I’m talking to you.’

  Love, he well knew, is mostly anguish, which either burns itself out, or goes on till no love is left. Or the light may stay constant, shine with enduring affection, but even then it’s a dead end, though what better way is there of being alive?

  He tried the radio again, but the yachties were still trading backslaps and guffaws. ‘At least they’re happy,’ she said, and he saw her smile.

  ‘How did a nice woman like you come to work on boats such as this?’ She didn’t suffer while talking. ‘Sounds a strange career, though it must be a long story.’

  ‘Not too long. I’m twenty-eight, and it sometimes feels I’ve been alive forever. My father’s a farmer, owns a lot of land in Lincolnshire, and there were five of us, all girls. I wasn’t the sort of university or agricultural college type, not like the others, so I did secretarial. I dropped out, and went to some cookery place, believe it or not. I worked in a restaurant, till I got thrown out. I won’t say why. Other places took me on, and I did all right. I met this chap who told me he was a sailor. He was rich, and had a yacht as big as this. We lived together. He had a flat in London and a house on the coast in Devon, and we sailed all over the Med. He was a bully though. He saw me talking to another skipper, in a bar in Corfu, and when we got back to the boat he knocked me about. That was only the first time. But one day I gave him a mouthful, and slammed him back. He went down like a skittle, right? Poor bloke! I didn’t know my strength, and he didn’t know what hit him. I was crying with happiness, but was terrified at the same time. He just lay there, moaning. Must have cracked his head as he went down. I threw a bucket of water over him, and when he began to stir I ran. Never saw him again. I bummed around, and just before my money ran out got work on another yacht, no strings attached this time. After a year or two I met Carla.

  ‘Carry on from there, if you like. I roamed around a bit. Some boats smuggled, some didn’t. The last I worked on did, so I got known by this lot, and worked for them. I even learned how to navigate, and switch the radio on and off. All summer I was talking to Carla, whenever I felt like it. It’s the only life I know, and I like it, so I suppose I’ll go on doing it.’

  She talked as if disembodied, nothing happening around her, and almost, he thought, as if no one was listening. ‘You’d be better off giving up the sea.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Get back on dry land and stay there.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder. I’ve done plenty to live on for the rest of my life. I’d like an income, really, and a nice house. I’ve got a bit saved, but not enough. My father wants me to live in a cottage near the farm. Don’t know that I shall. Wouldn’t like to be an old maid with a cat.’

  Such dreams might be too late, everyone on the boat fini
shed, doomed. ‘This is my one and only trip,’ he said.

  ‘Seems you’re not exactly made for life as a mariner.’

  ‘Is anybody? I came on board to meet you, and hear your voice.’

  ‘It’s sometimes hard to believe you can’t see.’

  ‘I don’t need to. I see you more clearly than you think. I know you’re beautiful, for instance.’

  ‘I’m a mess, is all I know, inside and out. But thanks anyway.’

  ‘If I said that much about myself at least I’d know I was alive and could see properly. I’m happy now, though it hasn’t always been like that. When you’re blind everything on the outside comes into you, but there’s no room for all of it, so to avoid chaos you have to chop the detritus clear, meaning there’s so much that you don’t see, or can’t afford to let yourself see. After a while a lot of what’s on the outside stops its rush to get in, and from then on you only see what’s essential for your wellbeing. You live in the dark, so what you miss you don’t need anyway. At least that’s what you tell yourself – another piece of survival technique! Strange, me being able to tell you this, because I haven’t been able to tell myself up to now. But I feel a different man to what I was six months ago, because I can let everything rush in that will, though what it means I wouldn’t like to say. I don’t really know, so I expect I’ll just have to wait and see.’

  ‘You are a funny chap. I love it when you tell me things about yourself.’

  ‘I like to hear you talk, whatever you say.’

  ‘I wonder if you’d think so if we’d been living together for five years.’

  ‘You’re a bit young to ask that. I’d give you loyalty, though.’

  ‘I’m sure you would. And I’d treasure it.’

  He thought of Laura – a rare occurrence since leaving her – knowing he couldn’t claim to be loyal at all, because he had no intention of going back, the moral ground cut from under his feet. He was too happy to let the idea disturb him. ‘There’s not much we can do.’

  ‘When I don’t think of Carla, it’s you I love. It was just the sound of her voice that upset me. I haven’t seen her since Malaga, a couple of weeks ago, and it wasn’t so good. I don’t care if I never see her again. She’s given me the run-around ever since I’ve known her. Maybe I like that, as well, and that’s why I love her.’

  He smiled. ‘You mean that if I give you the run-around you’ll begin to love me?’

  ‘Don’t try, darling. I don’t want to stop liking you.’

  The boat was so battered by the waves that he was fearful it would upend any moment and take them on a zig-zag to the bottom, food for the fishes after their brief time. ‘I can’t believe in that sort of thing.’

  ‘Hold me,’ she said. ‘I want someone to hold me.’

  He stroked the back of her neck. She liked the subtle hands of a blind man. In his disability he didn’t see her, so she felt safe. The spark gap between them lit back and forth, blind man’s fingers soothing her anguish. Too much in turmoil to be eased by what he was doing, he only knew he should say nothing for a while. Words distanced people. Sometimes they broke bonds.

  The spine was distinct through her sweater, which he lifted, touching warm flesh. ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’

  Easy to know what she wanted, as he stroked her loose breasts with their soon prominent nipples. She kissed him while his fingers moved in a gentle massage. The band of her slacks was elasticated, and as his hand went down he felt no need to speak, an expert touch lulling her into an ease that made her lose all sense of where she was, or even who was giving such comfort and pleasure. Half asleep, she willed him to descend her seemingly enlarged body so that only moments after his fingers became wet and entered, she cried out, gripping him with harder kisses while he went on stroking till she had finished.

  ‘Oh, that was wonderful, my love. I needed that, from somebody else, but most of all from you. Let’s go to my bunk. I want all of you now.’

  During the night through the morning they passed the submarine training areas, their small craft on the inshore traffic lane, the seascape eerie and silent under a half moon, shadows of tankers and container ships ahead and behind. Waistcoat called on Howard every few minutes, to be told there was only chatter on the aether, which had nothing to do with them.

  ‘He’ll calm down when it’s dark.’ Paul Cinnakle took a rest from tending his engines. Howard, relaxed and easy at the stern, wondered what a man like Cinnakle was doing on such a boat, whom he saw as neatly dressed and knew as quietly spoken, hardly one of the others, though who was similar to anyone else on board? They worked for the ongoing motion of the vessel, each his own well camouflaged rock.

  ‘Night’s better for the chief’s condition,’ Cinnakle said. ‘Better for us, as well. As long as the other boats have lights, we don’t need any. It’s better to be on a dark boat, in more ways than one. When I’ve made my pile with this lot I’ll never go near sea-water again, even if it means living in the middle of Australia. Still, I’m not unhappy, belonging where I do at the moment. As long as I don’t have to look at the perishin’ water. I like engines, and you know why?’

  Howard had to say he didn’t.

  ‘Because they can’t talk. I listen to ’em singing, but when I shout they don’t answer back. Engines are my cup of tea. They sing as they work, and don’t give any lip. I must get below. See you.’

  That’s why we’re here. Howard fumbled a way to his radio post, but paused by the rail, as if he had lost his way, direction topsy-turvy, bearings gone. He stilled his shaking hands, couldn’t think, reason gone overboard. He wanted the reassurance of his radio gear, craved his beloved toys.

  Nothing on the air waves, though there would be soon. Radar was tracking them along the Channel, but they were beyond the twelve-mile limit. If the morse letter had not been taken note of Waistcoat would get the stuff unloaded and away without molestation. It had gone astray. Or perhaps not. He couldn’t yet know. If it hadn’t, a pre-emptive strike was called for, legal or not. Impossible to predict. Hard to care what happened, warm in the arms of Judy whenever they had the chance to be alone. The suppressed anxieties of everyone on board convinced him he was as much a member of the crew as they were, hoping for success with the rest of them. He had once, beyond his own control, gone into an amusement arcade and pushed every coin from his pocket into the one-armed bandit, waiting for the crash and fall of a jackpot – which hadn’t happened.

  In the night they would pass the town where Laura was sleeping. She wouldn’t know, or see them. He was sorry she had suffered such anxiety – if she had, and who could be sure? He wouldn’t go back, but can a blind man take to the road like the Wandering Jew? The wash of the sea made a comforting sound.

  The German Numbers Woman came back, with her hectoring repetitive tone, coded instructions going to no one knew where or to whom, though most likely to say they would never make landfall.

  ‘NEUN – SECHS – FUNF – ACHT – VIER – EINS – NEUN – NEUN – SIEBEN – DREI – SECHS – VIER – DREI – EINS,’ remorselessly on and on.

  He passed an earphone to Judy. ‘Take a listen.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do you make of it?’

  ‘Sounds a nasty piece of work.’

  He laughed. ‘I’m used to her. Heard her for years.’

  ‘You shivered, just then.’

  He had, and not from the cold. Landfall blocked. His sins were too great, he had never atoned, not even thought of it, was responsible for all those members of mankind in all countries over the globe who hadn’t stopped evil and done good in the ages of the past. Landfall in the mind of the German Numbers Woman was a paradise no one deserved. He silenced her, by flipping the needle, unwilling to take on a burden that would always be there.

  Routine weather synopses were typed and handed in, though anyone on board with a ghetto blaster could bring in local stations and hear the forecasts in spoke
n language. He must be sure that it matched his own, nothing more he could do for them, or wanted to, turned back to the radio nevertheless, invisible switches on which his nervous fingers found a kind of reality. She tapped his shoulder. ‘What would your wife say if she knew we were having an affair?’

  The question was soothing, from a more human world. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Course you do! I mean, would she be jealous?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You mean she doesn’t have lovers as well?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘Well, maybe a man never does know – if she wants to hide it. It’s easy to hide it if you want to.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to, though, with you.’ Everything was in the open, nothing hidden, on the boat, so it wouldn’t be when they got off it either.

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell.’

  ‘Flippin’ ’ell!’

  ‘Well, not just like that. But why do you want to know?’

  She laughed. ‘You always do, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I can.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll see her, one day.’

  That, he thought, would be a right meeting and, wanting to alter the topic, said: ‘I haven’t heard anymore from Carla.’

  She leaned over him. ‘I don’t need her anymore. I’ve got you now.’

  Impossible to know how true it was, but her words were honey nevertheless, though if Carla were to magically appear out of the blue and walk along the deck, he didn’t doubt Judy would run to her. He would expect no less. In any case, she might get in touch – who throughout months of listening had become real enough to him – after they had, landed, if and when they did.

  Hope was in the crucible, the future chaos, as far as plans between him and Judy went. All was fantasy. His mind, the only means of sight, grew darker. Everyone on the boat believed in a future, for morale’s sake couldn’t afford not to. Cannister had shaved, smartened himself up for a spot of shore leave, as if still a young and careless rating in the Navy. Cleaver had stopped his jibes about the paucity of cucumber sandwiches, and said how much he was looking forward to: ‘Going down the gangway, with pouch, pipe, purse and prophylactics in my pocket!’