The worst: Sometimes in dreams he became his father, arrested by the German bastards for a son escaped to the Resistance. Tortured how? As if him becoming Father could share or lessen the pain that he almost wished for. What had been done? A hardy, jovial man turned frail and silent even after liberation, who patted his son—granted a too-short leave from the Quartermaster corps to return home—on the cheek and within weeks slipped into death. Joining Mother, whose cause of death no one could tell him.
Neighbors in the village even tried to prevent him from examining Father’s body. But not before he’d seen and touched, weeping, the long blackened stripes welted on Father’s back. Some so thick they merged. And saw the right leg with terrible scars and a hollow indentation below the knee. No wonder Father had never undressed before anybody, had walked bent with a cane! And all for a son still alive and healthy.
Thank God he’d gotten to kill some of the bastards! Yet the German guard he’d choked to death with his bare hands would cough and rattle sometimes in his dreams, so that he woke to the same sounds in his own throat. It was only the ones shot from afar that played no part in his nightmares.
One day on the water, he and Cousin Nels were busy bringing aboard the salmon they called cohos. He himself stood at the gutting table, awash in fish blood that covered his gloves and apron, cheerful and still pleasantly groggy from the hjemmebrent the night before, although wishing that fish blood wasn’t so red as to remind him of other things. Suddenly Nels muttered in Norwegian, “Quick. Take my line here, gaff this one fish coming up. Don’t pull any more, just clean what you’ve got. I must go down to the cabin fast.” In seconds he’d hung his oilskin coat on the hook by the cabin, and without taking time to draw water and slosh off his boots, he had disappeared below.
They were fishing part of Chatham Strait in sight of the troller run by the mysterious Jones Henry. There, nearby and looming motionless, was a black-hulled ship. From it moved a white boat rowed by four men with long oars, steered by a fifth man working an oar attached astern like a rudder. Nels seemed frightened at this. Pirates?
The pulling boat moved alongside that of Jones Henry, who threw it a line. The man astern climbed onto Jones’s troller along with one of the other oarsmen. Swede called down the information to his cousin.
“Ja, ja I saw,” snapped Nels. “Coast Guard coming for inspection. Just clean the fish. Pretend that’s all we’re doing.”
“Government? This is the government coming? What are they going to do? Is it wrong that we’re here fishing?”
“Fish. Fish. Sure. We fish till they come bother us.” A few minutes later Nels emerged on deck, holding a bucketful of greasy water with hands that were now equally greasy. “Where are they now? I don’t see them.”
“Only on the other side of us, where you can’t see.”
“Current. Must be sure. Here, take the bucket, don’t spill, don’t spill!” Nels fumbled around in haste. “What floats a little?” He grabbed a half-worn rubber glove from the gutting table, hurried astern around their gear, dropped it in the water, and watched it move away slowly. “Okay, so, anyhow, current now moves from us both, so okay.” He reached out with a gaff to retrieve the glove, but it filled with water and sank. “Devil! Well, hand around the bucket. Don’t spill!” He poured the bucket’s contents out in a slow oily stream and the current bore it away.
“Nels! Is the government coming to hurt us?”
“Not now anymore. Just coming to inspect. Last time they found oil in my bilge and wrote a report. Ten dollar fine! Even though it wasn’t enough to start a fire, like they said. But back just then, only a little time before, it was Trygve Jenson’s troller exploded and killed him, poor guy. So it wasn’t good for a bilge floating even a little bit of oil. Maybe still.”
“But you cleaned there just since I’ve been with you.”
“So. Just to be sure. I don’t want to tell Helga I must pay another fine.” A half hour later the Coast Guard boat cast off from Henry Jones’s troller and moved to theirs. Swede watched the four men pulling in unison at the oars. Just like the training in England for the Resistance. It hadn’t been so bad, he could now admit, to dip an oar blade into the sea and pull against the water’s pressure, over and over like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, creating a swift whish of motion against the hull. The men here, in lifejackets with a thick collar that puffed around their faces, did not seem to be enjoying themselves the way he remembered of himself. All business. The same went for the man standing with such a frown at the tiller oar, his ruddy face marked by thick black eyebrows.
When the man with the prominent eyebrows came aboard, he was polite, although he held himself with the authority of one in charge. He was older than the others and wore a khaki shirt and billed hat while the others wore blue denim and white sailor caps.
“Check your documents, sir,” he growled without preamble, and after a glance at the papers Nels handed him, said, “Okay now, let’s see your lifejackets.” From under his bunk, Nels produced two floppy vests of cork strips sewn into canvas. “Yeah. Regs say that’s okay. But you know and I do, those things might float you, but they won’t keep you from freezing to death in this water. Give you five minutes if you’re lucky. The padded ones like this on me, they might just keep you warm long enough to make it to shore.”
“Ja, ja I see,” said Nels dutifully. “T’ing is, I don’t fall over. Har har.”
“Yeah, we both know that too.”
One of the oarsmen peered from deck into the cabin. “Running lights all check out, chief.”
“Okay then. Last thing on the list. Let’s see your bilge.”
“I think that you will find it very clean,” said Nels. He pulled up the deck board with a flourish. A mere puddle of dark water sloshed against the boat’s strakes. The chief shone down a flashlight and then dipped a finger into it. “Just like I figured it would be. So that completes things. Keep fishing.”
“You see. Vas very clean the bilge, ja?”
“That’s ’cause you flushed it five minutes ago, cuz,” the chief said in good humor. “You think from the ship they didn’t have binoculars to watch you dump it? Then they walkie-talkied me. Like I said, good luck fishing and don’t fall overboard.” He nodded to Swede. “You too.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Swede. Yes, I do like Americans, he thought, not for the first time. They do business, but they can laugh.
Well, so maybe he’d decided to hold onto the nickname Swede for no reason greater than to irritate Helga. Just the same, he’d already changed his good Norsk family name “Skovkus” to one of indeterminate nationality: “Scorden.” (What the hell let ’em guess!) In this way, people in America could stop stumbling over it. Now that wartime commitments had ended, he meant to be American all the way. Worked daily to hone American English from the British version he’d determinedly taught himself while in England with the Resistance. To get along in the world, you must leave no room for apologies.
Most important over here, don’t pretend at divided nationality. Don’t, even when vouched for by well-meaning cousins, bunch yourself with the heavily accented Norwegians who had no intention of improving their skills in the language of their adoption, so complacent were they over their damn heroism. He had encountered it first in Seattle, now in Ketchikan, and he was told it was worse in Petersburg—where they had first arrived. He wasn’t going to be a half-country patriot who kept one leg here in the States to make money, without ever removing the other leg from the old country. If somebody wanted to make something of that, Swede Scorden stood ready.
It was right of Cousin Nels on Mother’s side to help him over the first hurdle. An okay guy, Nels, as Americans would put it. But come on, Nels, no more bragging to strangers of a cousin who fought the German bastards. So did every Viking son who was able.
With all this in mind, Swede was grateful enough to work aboard his cousin’s boat temporarily. Hard work was always good. But he knew, from growing up with a father who
owned a fish plant, that while any strong man could pull oars or work nets and lines if need be, the real adventure for him would lie not in rugged labor, but in the buying and selling of fish. Most important then: crewing on the boat enabled him to observe the practices of the fish plant when they delivered each day. There was no question that fishermen were not free to roam the cannery premises. They brought in their catch, perhaps might climb to the wharf to sign a fish ticket rather than have it passed down, but then they were expected to move quickly from the pier and make room for other boats. No lingering allowed. Then the boats proceeded down the Narrows to the city pier at Thomas Basin where they tied together in their own community of fishermen.
Father’s lilting voice from the old days would come to him when waiting as they or other fishermen delivered. “Be easy, easy,” Father used to cajole, one hand on the boy’s shoulder. Trying to train his son in the business of buying fish. “Watch the scale carefully when those boats deliver. Fishermen are good fellows but they’re full of tricks. Don’t you understand that a net-full raised at once to the scale weighs at least a kilo, maybe two or three kilos more, before all the water and slime drains off? Talk a minute before you write down the weight.”
Good advice and he’d followed it, until he’d trained in the Resistance with fishermen. They were good fellows, strong and generous, able to march without tiring and then to joke quietly in the barracks at night. They’d included him when passing around bottles of hjemmebrent. They’d tell him, mildly, without rancor, “Sure Arnie, you think we don’t know? Fish plants always try to cheat the fishermen. We work all day in cold water. Then you walk out of a warm office and try to cheat us.”
“Sure. And if you sneak us a bad fish and nobody buys it from us, who suffers?” Everybody would then share a laugh.
Trying to learn the ways of the Ketchikan cannery became an agreeable form of the subterfuge he’d learned for survival. He needed first to be tolerated by the dock foreman. After a few days, he asked politely to use the bathroom, then lost his way, with apologies to whomever he saw, in order to view parts of the plant operation. Never touch anything along the way. Never, of course, stop too long at any location so that it looked like he was actually studying the operations. (And boy, oh boy—to use a phrase he’d picked up—how careless they were in keeping the catch fresh. Given charge, he’d sure change some things fast!) Some of the Filipino women in rubber aprons cutting fish murmured as he passed, but he studiously ignored them so as not to draw attention. The Filipino men seemed to have no such curiosity. They kept their eyes on the conveyor belts while their hands sorted fish. They, at least, were efficient. When any of the foremen regarded him, he asked questions so politely that they felt bound to answer rather than challenge his presence. Bit by bit, he became free to wander. Was even allowed to change from gumboots into shoes that made walking easier in the parts of the plant that weren’t streaming with hose water.
Seeing his interest, Nels often said with a friendly shrug, “Sure, see you at de harbor later, I wash down.” Then Swede could pass through the plant into even the storage and office areas before jogging the mile of shore side road to meet Nels at the city pier or back at the house.
Such it was this day. At town’s edge, he passed the few bars in their low frame structures—dark little places despite the neon signs—that were only just beginning to open as the boats were still delivering. He’d visited these only once when some friendly fishermen had insisted on taking him. Then back at the house, Helga had immediately sniffed the alcohol on his breath and delivered a lecture on the money fishermen kept from their families when they went to bars. Nels had listened without interfering, a half smile on his heavy face. Big as the man seemed on his own boat, he appeared much smaller the moment he entered his house. Cousin Nels did not drink alcohol during the week. Not with Helga waiting at home. Only on Saturdays, if the Norwegian community had a dance, Nels once said with a wink. Swede knew he himself would marry some day. But first he would look the woman over hard.
The road passed over the rapid mountain stream that skirted the town. He slowed to glance up at a sturdy boardwalk fronting small houses on pilings. A sign announced this to be Creek Street. The town whores kept the houses and did business there, he knew well enough. But the boldness that enabled him to make his way through the cannery deserted him here. He watched two men from the boats jaunt up the boardwalk to enter the open doors, and he envied their confidence. But he didn’t want grave lectures from Helga, to whom the church dictated in all matters. She thought all unmarried Christian men should remain as deprived as all unmarried Christian women.
Today he made a detour around the boat harbor to walk through the main part of town. Here he slowed to note each bank, store, and building that might contain an office. Even along Main Street, most people wore rough clothing. It was, after all, a hub for fishing boats and logging camps, while barely within sight rose the high burner for the paper mill. Nevertheless, some men did wear suits. These he watched closely, wondering where they came from and went. Entering the largest bank was Miles Jackson, manager at the cannery, where he sat at a desk behind a glass barrier. Swede had watched him whenever possible, but did not yet feel ready to introduce himself. Nevertheless, he nodded and Mr. Jackson, probably not placing him from the boats, was polite enough to return the gesture, albeit with a frown. The man had about him the manner of confident authority. Perhaps this was only because he wore a suit and tie, but just the same.
It was all right to wear rough clothes and do work that kept you wet and sometimes cold, but not for a lifetime, Swede thought—if you could help it. Back home in the fish plant office, his father had always worn a coat and tie. When young Arnie himself was brought into the office after training at the delivery bins, he dressed with like formality. It gave him a comfortable feeling to know that he could still handle fish slime, that a wet life on the water did sometimes give an excitement unmatched within the safe walls on shore. But it was far more satisfying to make decisions that affected more than one boat, to barter and bargain with authority, to refuse and walk away, to manage people rather than be managed himself.
In town there was a single clothing store whose window displayed a suit, instead of the usual heavy checked wool shirts, long red underwear, and high rubber boots. Today, as occasionally before, he entered to walk among the stacks of white shirts and shelves of leather shoes cut low and polished to a shine. Those shoes, unlike the heavy brogans he wore, were not made to walk on wet decks or sluiced concrete floors, but to stand high above on dry flooring.
At last, Swede walked back to the assemblage of masts and hulls in Thomas Basin where the fishing boats were tied. With a halibut opening in progress, the wider schooner slips stood empty, but the slips for small trollers were already packed rail to rail with boats in from the grounds. The forty-foot Gunvor of cousin Nels bobbed second rail to the troller Midnight Sun. There was Nels on deck, still in hip boots, one foot braced on his rail as he chatted with Sven Torgersen of the Midnight Sun. Clouds of smoke rose from both men’s pipes. The two were undoubtedly talking in Norwegian rather than English, and in their regional Vesteralen Norsk at that, not Oslo. Swede stood watching, unnoticed. All of Nels’s gear appeared scrubbed and stowed for the night, so nothing remained there for him to do. A deep, hearty laugh exploded from both men. Part of him wished to share such a laugh. His other half rejected this vestige of the old country. Don’t join them, then, at least not until Nels appeared ready to go home. He looked around. There, tied in another section of the piers away from the Scandinavians was the troller of that American named Jones, or something, whom they’d visited two weeks before and who they had since anchored with now and then; the fellow with that shutdown wall to his face and eyes that Swede himself understood. The man was working on something, under his canopy, out of the rain.
Swede walked down the other float pier with purpose and then stopped. He himself hated intrusion, and this Jones’s boat was moored third ra
il from the pier, making it far more difficult to be casual. Moreover, this Jones had a scowl no more friendly than when they’d first faced each other rail to rail. He’d pulled the visor of his cap down practically to his eyes, while cleaning the disassembled pieces of a wheel. Finally Swede coughed and ventured, “Good evening. You fish good today?”
No answer. Swede, embarrassed for himself, started back the way he’d come.
“Talking to me?”
Swede turned. “Yes.”
“Fish today? Can’t complain. You?”
“Also. Cannot complain.”
“Fuckin’ gurdy here. Got jammed.”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
After a long silence Swede decided he’d intruded enough. As he started away, that Jones growled, “Could mebbe use an extra hand to hold this piece steady.”
“Shall I come there to hold it for you, then?”
“If you got nothing better to do.”
Swede walked carefully over the deck of the first boat by the pier then stepped with greater confidence onto the deck where he’d been invited. The American gestured to the metal part he wanted held and, without speaking, reassembled the wheel.
After the gurdy was returned to its place and secured, Swede ventured, “You are a good fixer. At fixing.”
“Fucked otherwise out here. Need to clean my bilge inside now.” A pause. “Follow if you want.”
They entered the cabin. “Sit there,” the American directed, and pointed to the far edge of the bench.
“Perhaps I shall help you?”
“Nothing to help with. One-man.” A long silence as Jones moved a deck board, reached down with a tin can, and bailed up oily water into a bucket. He finally straightened and wiped grease from his hands. “So they had to drill holes in the oars you pulled. So you wouldn’t break them. Eh? You don’t look that strong.”
WARRIORS Page 14
