The Whaler

by Ines Thorn

  Maren ambled over the deck, her hands bracing her sore back, and held her face to the sharp sunlight.

  “Be careful,” Jakob the cook warned her. “Smear a little butter on your skin. The sun here will burn you very fast.”

  But Maren laughed, shook her head, and went to find Raik. “Are you excited about the whales too?” she asked.

  “Of course. Everyone is.”

  “But aren’t you afraid of the hunt?”

  Raik shook his head. “I want to be a boatheader someday. It’ll be easier if I distinguish myself by showing courage and bravery now. Besides, my family needs the money.” Raik came from Amrum, the island closest to Sylt. Maren knew that his father was dead and his mother alone with his four younger siblings. Now he was the provider for his family. And she? Was she not the provider for her family? Wasn’t she here to pay off her family’s debts? Her father was dead too. And she, too, was now responsible.

  Finally, after hour upon hour of waiting, the lad in the crow’s nest cried out with excitement. “Thar she blows! She blows!”

  The sky was strewn with thick clouds that promised rain or snow. The wind blew briskly, but too weakly to be a storm. It was glorious whaling weather.

  Everyone who wasn’t working on something vital ran up on deck and gazed in the direction the lookout had indicated. It was true. On the horizon, a black mountain rose out of the waves and sprayed a gigantic spout of water into the air.

  “There!” the sailors cried. “And there!” The spout appeared again and again. “There’s an entire pod of them!” the men declared.

  Captain Boyse was standing ready on the deck. “Prepare to lower the whaleboats!” he cried.

  Maren stood at the rail, and Zelda stood beside her, seemingly harboring no grudge against her.

  The brig slowly approached the gigantic creatures. Whaleboats were lowered, and the harpooners stood ready with their harpoons in hand and shouted orders to the oarsmen.

  “Lay into your oarlocks, you fiends! Pull the oars! Dead ahead!”

  Maren watched in fascination. She’d never seen such immense animals in her entire life. One was just rising up out of the water. She noted the grayish-black coloring of the creature, the huge head with the arched lower lip that was higher than a man was tall, and the white area under the animal’s mouth. The massive tail flukes whipped the water into high swells, making the whaleboats rock dangerously. But nothing happened. The boats slowly closed in on the whales, and the whales glided unhurriedly through the water. Every now and then, they blew spouts into the air, rose up, and dove down again. The crew had been practicing for this moment for weeks.

  Maren glanced at Zelda, remembering her nighttime conversation with the captain. Was Zelda waiting for Boyse to propose? Did she love him? She must, otherwise she wouldn’t have given herself to him so shamelessly and joyously in the darkness of the cabin. She opened her mouth to ask, but suddenly the captain hurried past behind her. He glanced at Maren, and his dark eyes pierced her. Boyse’s look was a silent question: Could he trust her? Maren nodded almost imperceptibly. As much as she wanted to know whether Zelda loved the captain, she wanted him to trust her more. She almost had to laugh at the thought of it. She, the lowliest of all the sailors, was the captain’s confidante.

  She wouldn’t mind if he didn’t hate her anymore. But she wasn’t completely certain that he didn’t. Of course, she’d noticed that the captain’s eyes followed her as soon as they encountered each other. But his gaze, which smoldered like a dark fire, was inscrutable. Was it a look of annoyance? Or of—oh, no, she didn’t want to think about it.

  Someone shouted from one of the whaleboats. “See the huge one there? That would be a feast! Straight ahead!”

  The waves had grown higher and were now topped with whitecaps. In comparison, the whaleboats looked no larger than nutshells in the distance. They rode up the crests of the waves, and just when it looked like the sea had swallowed them, they reappeared in the trough before the next swell. The oarsmen bent low and pulled on their oars, while the harpooners stood straight and true as though anchored in position and held their harpoons ready.

  The first two whaleboats set their sails as they approached the whales, coming so close they had to maneuver around the huge gray tail flukes. The boats flew through the water, and Maren was amazed at how the harpooners managed to remain upright and keep shouting their orders to the boatheaders over the sound of the foaming, roiling sea.

  Finally, a whale rose so near to the bow of the brig that his spout sprayed the deck. Maren cried out, but not because she got wet. She cried out because the whale was so huge, the most unimaginably gigantic creature that she had ever seen.

  “Look, look!” she shouted, tugging excitedly on Zelda’s sleeve. The animal, a bowhead whale, was a good twenty yards long and had gray flukes that were almost as big as one of the whaleboats.

  The whaleboats circled the creature, and the harpooners threw their harpoons, which hissed through the air. One of the harpoons tore off its line, and the harpooner cursed loudly. The harpooner in the second whaleboat missed his mark, but the third harpoon sank deeply into the flesh of the gigantic animal. Blood flowed, and the sea turned red. The whale twisted wildly and the boat rocked, but the harpooners held the lines. Then the whale pulled away, towing the whaleboats behind it like hapless toys. Shouts went from boat to boat, and Boyse stood at the rail and shouted orders, which were swallowed by the sound of the churning sea.

  Maren had her hands in front of her mouth. She didn’t know whether her heart was breaking for the gigantic creature or she was afraid for the men. Zelda stood next to her, pale and tense. More harpoons flew through the air, stopping the whale’s escape. Blood spurted from its body. The rest of the whaleboats had surrounded the injured animal, and more and more harpoons were thrown. The whale reared up in one last effort to escape, and then it became calmer. Two whaleboats closed in. Maren held her breath. And then it happened. The whale struck out with its gigantic tail and hit the narrow stern of one of the boats, which pitched dangerously. But the other boats were already there. The harpooners struck their killing blows, and finally the animal was still and silent in the blood-red sea.

  “The poor creature!” Maren truly felt pity for the whale. Tears pooled in her eyes, but Zelda grabbed her sleeve.

  “This is no time to start sniveling. You should be thinking about the fact that every dead animal means hard coin for you.” She turned around and disappeared below deck.

  Maren wiped away her tears. Zelda was right, but the death of the whale still affected her deeply. Such a huge animal—the king of the ocean! Hunted and killed by humans who weren’t even a tenth the size. She sighed and gazed over at Boyse, who stood a few paces from her, looking very pleased. The oarsmen in the whaleboats were towing the dead creature through the sea toward them, leaving a wide trail of blood. They approached slowly, and Maren could see that the oarsmen were reaching the end of their strength.

  Finally, they managed to bring the carcass astern the brig. They secured it, and the rest of the crew’s work began. The harpooners boarded, their eyes glowing with the satisfaction of a successful hunt. Boyse clapped them on the shoulders, and they nodded silently and went about coiling their lines and cleaning their harpoons, while the others drew the gigantic carcass alongside and tied it to the starboard side of the ship.

  The blubber cutters descended, walking along the whale as though it were a boardwalk. They began by cutting giant “blanket pieces” of blubber. With block and tackle, the crew hoisted the blubber directly onto the deck of the brig. There, another team carved the huge pieces into smaller ones and stowed them in barrels.

  Everyone aboard the Rán was busy, and Maren, emptying a bucket of peelings from the galley over the rail, paused for a moment to watch. Zelda stood next to her, but she wasn’t half as impressed as Maren was. Maren’s curiosity didn’t last long, though, because the smell of the blubber nauseated her. She felt so sick that she had to throw
up over the rail several times. Zelda stroked her back, filled a cup from the drinking-water barrel on deck, and handed it to her.

  “Move on, womenfolk! You’re standing in the way there!” the head blubber cutter said, glaring in annoyance at both of them. “Go below deck or somewhere else!”

  Zelda took Maren by the arm and led her to the center of the ship, directly under one of the masts.

  “Tell me, do you have a suitor?”

  “A suitor? What makes you say that?” Maren realized that during the last few weeks, she’d spent less and less time thinking about Thies. Yes, she missed him, especially during the hours when she had a little time for herself. But her mental picture of him was already fading a little, and she hadn’t smelled his scent in so long that she could barely remember it. She wondered if he missed her.

  “Do you have one or not?” Zelda insisted.

  “Yes, I do. We’re engaged. We’ll be married in November.”

  “I thought so.” Zelda regarded Maren as though her words had changed everything. “And he let you go off with these whalers alone?”

  Maren shrugged. She realized that she was annoyed at Thies, angry at him for sending her to Greenland. Well, he hadn’t really sent her; he hadn’t even known her plans. But he probably wouldn’t have tried to stop her if he’d known. Or was she being unfair? What could he have done? He had his mother and sister to care for. He should have gone to the mainland to get a loan, Maren thought, and she was suddenly so upset at Thies that she groaned. No, he never should have let her go! He should have gone with Captain Boyse in her place. And if Boyse hadn’t wanted him, then he should have . . . Oh, she didn’t know. She knew that her anger wasn’t fair, but at the moment, she felt lonely and abandoned. But what could Thies have actually done? He’d tried to get hired on a ship but hadn’t been successful. Yes, she was irritated, but she didn’t want to make Thies look bad in front of Zelda.

  “We had no choice,” she explained. “I have debts with the captain, and I’m here to work them off.”

  “Really?” Zelda narrowed her eyes as though that was impossible for her to believe. “Boyse brought you because of your debts?”

  Maren nodded, and Zelda’s eyebrows pulled together in consternation. “Is there anything else between you and the captain?”

  “No. We’ve known each other for a long time, but that’s not any wonder because we’re both from Sylt.” Maren didn’t know herself why she didn’t tell Zelda about Boyse’s marriage proposal.

  “And he knows about your fiancé too?”

  “Yes, he knows him. Thies is also a sailor. Last winter he studied with Boyse for his officer’s commission.”

  “And the captain still didn’t want to have him aboard his ship?”

  “No.”

  Maren stared stubbornly at the blubber cutters, who were making a huge amount of noise with their shouting and cursing, but she couldn’t avoid Zelda’s question that way.

  “So you have a fiancé with an officer’s commission, and you’re still here to work off your debts?”

  The way Zelda said it, it sounded cruel, as though Thies had sent her on this journey purposefully. But it hadn’t happened like that. But then, how had it happened?

  “It’s none of your concern,” Maren finally said, sounding a little petulant. “Stop asking questions! I don’t know anything about you either. Not even why you’re here on this ship.”

  For a while neither woman spoke, the silence between them broken only by the cursing of the blubber cutters. Behind them, men were cutting the blanket pieces apart with huge knives and layering smaller pieces into the barrels. Their arms and hands dripped with blood, and the smell of the dead animal hung over the Rán like a cloud.

  Then Zelda put a hand on Maren’s arm. “You’re right. I shouldn’t ask you. And if you’d really like to know why I’m here, I’d be glad to tell you.”

  Maren shook her head. What use was it? Nothing tied her to Zelda. She didn’t care if she was here or somewhere else.

  “Why are you here?” she heard herself ask.

  Zelda sighed, and all at once, her face became earnest. “I’m growing old, you know. As a whore, you’re only desired as long as you’re young. Two years ago, I bought the house in Amsterdam, and I can afford to let my girls do the work alone. I still feel too young to retire, but there are weeks when I earn next to nothing. Boyse offered to take me on the trip and pay me for it. He’s never done that before, even though we’ve known each other for a long time. Sometimes I think he did it out of pity, you know?”

  “Boyse? Pity? Never!” Maren shook her head.

  Zelda shrugged. “I could hardly believe it either, but he paid me, and now I’m here.”

  The women were silent again. Maren stole a glance at Zelda from the side. She noticed a few wrinkles around her eyes. Her hair, too, had a few strands of gray mixed in. She appeared young with the kohl around her eyes, her red cheeks, the ribbons in her hair, and her tight bodice. But she wasn’t. Not anymore.

  Suddenly Maren felt pity for Zelda. Maren would return to the island, marry, bear children, and have a respectable life. She would never be rich, but it didn’t matter. Thies and she were destined for each other, and that alone was enough for happiness.

  “Have you lain with him yet?” The question took her so much by surprise that Maren gasped.

  “What?”

  “Have you lain with your fiancé?” Zelda repeated her question.

  Maren would have liked to leave, but something in the other woman’s voice made her feel obliged to answer. “Yes. I did. One time, right before we left. One last proof of love, you understand?”

  Zelda nodded. “I understand more than you think. You’re sick almost every morning, and your breasts seem to have grown larger. You’re with child, Maren.”

  Maren stared at her disbelievingly, her eyes wide with terror. “That . . . that can’t be true. You can’t get with child the first . . . first time.”

  But she looked so scared that it was clear she didn’t believe her own words.

  “Well, I don’t know for certain, but all the signs are there. When did you leave Sylt?”

  Maren’s brow wrinkled as she counted back. “It was four months ago. First, we went to Amsterdam, and now we’ve been at sea for weeks and weeks.”

  “That means you’re in your fifth month,” Zelda explained. “As far as I can tell, you’ll have a baby in about four months.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The days and weeks went by in a rush, and the crew caught a whale almost every week. Even though the creatures were slow, they often managed to get away, and the whalers returned to the ship empty-handed. Maren had meanwhile learned more about the animals. She learned that they communicated with each other through sounds, mysterious sounds that made her think of a gathering of witches. They squeaked, whistled, howled, and grunted enough to terrify anyone, and many seamen believed that whales were sea demons, and prayed as soon as they saw a spout of water on the horizon. Once the whaleboats had chased a mother whale and her baby, and then it was Maren who prayed, prayed that both of them would escape the harpooners.

  She also learned what their gigantic “beards” were for. The comblike beard was called baleen and hung on the whale’s upper jaw like a curtain. The animal used it to filter the water, catching the krill in it. The baleen grew between one and four yards long and was used by people to make corset boning, riding crops, umbrellas, walking sticks, and baskets. Once, Maren had touched a piece of baleen and had been amazed. The baleen plates were solid and smooth but also flexible. She remembered the feel of corset boning against her ribs.

  When she wasn’t busy in the kitchen, she helped to cut up the large pieces of blubber and pack them in barrels. On land, the blubber would be rendered into oil, which would be used as fuel for lamps and to manufacture soaps, paints, and gelatin. Blubber was also used aboard the Rán: the leftover scraps were cooked in the try-pots to make enough oil and soap for their own use, and the
seamen rubbed their bodies with the fat to protect their skin against the cold.

  The days flew by, and the nights were shorter than Maren could believe. They went farther and farther north, and as they traveled, the temperatures dropped. Almost every morning now, the drinking water was frozen, and the Rán got closer and closer to the solid Arctic ice pack.

  At the beginning of the voyage, Maren had lost track of the days of the week, and now she barely knew what month it was. Zelda had returned to the captain’s cabin and had hung a curtain made of old sailcloth between Maren’s straw pallet and the bed. Maren didn’t mind at all. Just like she didn’t mind being with child as long as she didn’t have to think about it. According to Zelda, she was now in her seventh month, but thanks to the loose men’s clothing she wore, no one had noticed. She’d made Zelda promise not to tell anyone. But Maren realized that as her time approached, she would no longer be able to hide her condition. What should she do? If she were very lucky, they might reach land in time for the birth. And if she were even luckier, no one would notice her condition until then. But it wasn’t very likely.

  The Rán drew near to the island of Spitsbergen and had almost reached the Hinlopen Strait. The crew, encouraged by Captain Boyse, was in hunting fever. They had not yet filled all the barrels with blubber, and the water still had the color and smell of krill. Now their goal was to take in the best catch that a whaling ship ever had and earn so much money that every man and his family would get through the next winter comfortably. No one could predict how good the conditions would be next year, so they went out in the whaleboats every day. Maren stood in a dinghy and handed the blubber cutters their flensing knives. Almost every time, she got soaked to the bone, and the smell of the whale blood made her nauseated. She often had to bend over the side of the dinghy to throw up. While she was emptying her stomach, she could hear the blubber cutters shouting.