The Ship

by Stefan Mani

  The black van gets closer and Jón Karl can see the shape of Óðin’s head behind the dirty windscreen. Jón Karl’s thoughts turn to the gun and he flexes the fingers of his right hand, but they are as stiff as frozen lobster tails.

  It’s now or …

  Jón Karl turns around, tosses his duffel bag behind Rúnar, places his left foot on the gunwale and grabs the outstretched hand of the bosun, who pulls him aboard through a gate in the railing.

  ‘Fucking windy!’ Rúnar shouts through the chilling howl.

  What might their destination be? Isafjörður? Or Amsterdam? Doesn’t make much difference. Jón Karl will be leaving the ship at the next port, and if it turns out to be a foreign port he’ll phone Lilja and get her to wire him money for the airfare home.

  ‘Come on, I’ll take you to your cabin,’ Rúnar calls out, walking ahead of him up an iron staircase and behind the bridge on the starboard side to enter B-deck, where the kitchen, fuse room and a toilet are, along with two dining or mess halls – one for the officers, one for the seamen.

  ‘Everybody’s on board,’ says Sæli into the intercom and then waits for an answer.

  ‘Cast off the bowline,’ the captain, Guðmundur, calls back through the static.

  ‘Cast off the bowline,’ Sæli repeats as he carries out the order. He stoops under the ever-increasing wind, half closes his eyes against the salt spray, loosens the forward hawser from the bollard and throws the heavy loop in the water to be heaved on board.

  ‘Bowline ready!’

  Óðin steps out of the black van and watches Sæli cast off astern and then jump aboard the ship, which drifts slowly away and then sails west out onto the turbulent waters of Hvalfjörður.

  The sea churns behind the giant ship and the heavy beat of the main engine echoes like a toneless drum over the deep fjord.

  The last thing Óðin R Elsuson sees before the freighter disappears into the dark of the stormy night is the name that is painted on the black stern: Per se.

  ‘May you sail straight down to hell!’

  He spits out a cold cigar end and scratches his nose absentmindedly before getting back in the van, which is purring in neutral and rocking back and forth like a boat on the quay.

  VII

  Fresh or high-gale winds are expected in the waters of Breiðafjörður and Faxaflói Bay …

  Guðmundur Berndsen, captain of the freighter Per se, sits alone at the kitchen table in his home, drinking black coffee and looking out the window as he turns the envelope on the table and listens to the weather report on a small radio. But his mind is wandering and the soothing voice of the meteorologist goes in one ear and out the other.

  It’s not as if the weather matters for him: his ship is so big you can sail it in any weather – if the captain is capable and bold, that is. And after thirty years at the helm, Guðmundur Berndsen is an old hand. It’s his habit, however, to check the weather before leaving harbour, if only to prepare himself mentally for the long separation from his wife and family, and to make the connection between his mind and the open sea that is waiting for him, enveloped in silence and mystery, both seductive and dangerous, a massive great heart that rises and falls in a cold breast, luring him like a lonely mistress.

  And, just like a mistress, the open sea has come between Guðmundur and his wife, Hrafnhildur. The separation – which used to be like fuel to the fire of love and longing – has become a desert where nothing can live; little by little passionate goodbyes have changed into embarrassed silences, and excitement at meeting again has become bitter foreboding that coils itself around their hearts like a snake, poisons their blood with doubt and gnaws at the foundations of their marriage, which is on the verge of collapse.

  It isn’t, however, the sea that separates them but death; the death of their daughter, in fact. The sea is just a symbol of the dark wasteland that death has left behind in their lives in exchange for the lost girl child. The dark wasteland that has, since that day, kept them apart, whether they sleep in the same bed or on different continents.

  They already have a son, who was born when Hrafnhildur was nineteen and Guðmundur twenty-two. He left home around the age of twenty, to learn to tame and train horses in Vienna, half a year before his sister came stillborn into the world. His interest in Vienna had come from his mother, who loved opera and had always intended to go there herself to study singing. That never came about, but her son made his dream come true; since then thirteen years have gone by. He now lives in Austria, with his wife and son, but Guðmundur and Hrafnhildur live alone in a two-storey detached house and share the silence, the sorrow and the dark wasteland.

  Hrafnhildur studied singing in Iceland and sang in a great many opera productions, besides giving solo concerts and singing duets on various occasions. She delighted in singing and music generally, so neither the uncertain revenue nor the irregular working hours diminished the pleasure it gave her to entertain people. After losing the baby she stopped singing altogether for several years, until a pastor and a psychologist supported her husband’s exhortations to take up singing again so she could renew her contacts with other people and the pleasure that singing had always given her.

  So Hrafnhildur did start singing again, but on her own terms. Grief had her in its grip, and from the first day she allowed her beautiful soprano voice to be heard again, she sang only at funerals. Clothed in her long black dress, she was surrounded by such a holy aura that the loveliest churches paled beside her and the hardest men broke down and cried like babies. There, in the presence of death and sorrowful mourners, Hrafnhildur found a new role in life. In the middle of the dark wasteland life awoke in her like the smile on the lips of a dying man, like a blossom that opens for the last time.

  Guðmundur was happy to see his wife leave the sanctuary of their home to sing for people again, but soon regretted having pushed her to do so. Instead of helping her deal with her sorrow, singing allowed her to wallow in it even more. She was as sad as before; sadder, if anything. When Guðmundur came back from a long sea trip the house would be dark, the windows shut, the air stuffy and no sign of life. He would often arrive to stand, unmoving, and listen to the silence, his wife’s name stuck in his throat like a potato. Then Hrafnhildur would float past him like a ghost, in that long black dress, made up like a corpse.

  Guðmundur hates the black dress, that well-tailored death veil that hides his wife’s body, sucks all the energy and light out of her, turns her into a zombie and makes her avoid him, and him avoid her. He believes that Hrafnhildur could stop singing in funerals and master her grief, but that she doesn’t want to. Guðmundur reasons that she is addicted to grief, a slave to her own sorrow.

  And Guðmundur is addicted to the sea, an old sailor who can’t get in tune with life, himself and existence unless the world is rocking under his feet and infinity facing him in every direction. Distance is his eternal embrace, loss his most passionate love and intense homesickness the force that maintains a balance in his life. But Hrafnhildur finds this difficult to understand.

  Probably they both would just like to make peace with their own fates and each other, but they have remained silent for too long, and nothing is as heavy as long silence.

  They long to talk; the words are in the air but they can’t open their mouths – or, at any rate, their hearts.

  It’s been like this for nine years.

  Nine years.

  Guðmundur sighs and lightly taps the envelope on the table with his finger. Then he takes a sip of his long-cold coffee and looks out the window, distracted.

  He isn’t looking out the window, though – rather, at his reflection in the dark glass. He is face to face with a bearded, half-bald old man in his sixties, but looking as if he retired years ago.

  Guðmundur smiles weakly, turning his eyes into narrow slits that sink into the wrinkled, leathery skin.

  There was a time when he seriously considered leaving Hrafnhildur, bringing to an end the long season of cold, dark and
silence that was their marriage. Breaking the ice, the silence and the vows he had made in the presence of God and men. Demanding a divorce, moving out of the house and starting again.

  That was two years ago. At that time he had come to hate Hrafnhildur. But the hate gradually changed to pity, pity to shame and shame to self-contempt.

  Starting again?

  He was an ugly old sea-dog, doomed to die alone and abandoned in some basement bedsit where his body would rot for weeks before the neighbours came to investigate the smell.

  But it wasn’t his fear of lovelessness, loneliness and death that made Guðmundur abandon all ideas of divorce; he wasn’t that selfish and petty. No, it was love that defeated his doubt, the tediousness, the hatred and the shame. Love for the woman he had married and vowed to love and honour, in sickness and in health. Love for the woman who had accepted him, a self-important young ship’s mate who had nothing to offer her but those very vows.

  He loves Hrafnhildur and longs to express his love, renew the vows and the wedding night. He longs to begin anew, with her. He longs to embrace her, kiss her passionately and never let her go. But life isn’t that simple.

  Guðmundur catches sight of his watch – the gold watch that the shipping company gave him when he turned fifty. It’s twenty-five past eleven, only fifteen minutes until some landlubber from the owner’s office comes to fetch him.

  The bloody idiots! They’re going to give up their lease on the ship and fire the crew. They offered him a job on another ship but he refused it. This coming tour is going to be his last.

  Guðmundur Berndsen stands up from the kitchen table and walks with heavy steps into the master bedroom; he blows air out through his nostrils like a whale and turns the envelope in fingers as broad as a Polish sausage, hairy up to the last joint and rough as driftwood.

  At the end of the bed stands his suitcase. His uniform cap lies on the bed, protected by a plastic bag, as is his captain’s uniform, though its plastic is from the cleaners, while his spit-and-polished shoes are in their own bag by the suitcase. Hrafnhildur has done his packing all these years. She packed for his first tour as captain of a freighter and now she’s packed for his final tour. But she doesn’t know that this is the final tour. He hasn’t the courage to tell her; he’s too superstitious for that. He has never promised that he would come home. A sailor can’t make such promises. A sailor says his final goodbyes to his nearest and dearest every time he sails. After that he trusts God and luck, and celebrates each homecoming as though it were the final homecoming.

  Sailing is dancing with death. And whoever dances with death makes himself no promises about another dance. You simply do not defy death or tempt fate.

  Guðmundur puts the heavy bag down by the front door, lays the plastic-packed uniform over the suitcase, the shoes on the uniform and the cap on top of it all. Now there is nothing left but to say goodbye to his wife, who is lying under a blanket on the living-room couch, watching television.

  ‘Hrafnhildur, love.’

  She stiffens and gasps when he addresses her, as if his voice were locking itself around her throat like an icy hand.

  ‘Yes,’ she says without taking her eyes off the television, where desperate actresses are playing desperate housewives.

  He places his right hand very carefully on her shoulder. She softens and breathes more calmly, because his hand is alive and warm. Guðmundur Berndsen’s hands are always warm. They are big paws that swallow the hands of women and children like the epitome of security.

  Hrafnhildur looks briefly into her husband’s eyes and a feeling awakens in him that he has not experienced for a long time. Suddenly he wants to make love to his wife, merge his flesh and hers, fall with her into love’s hot ecstasy.

  And he knows she wants it too. He can feel it. All he need do is bend down and kiss her on the mouth, hold her hand, whisper words of love in her ear and lead her into the bedroom.

  It’s been such a long time, though. An ocean of oblivion separates them, a deep void of silence, chill and inertia.

  A void that could be dispelled with one word, one touch, one kiss.

  If not now, then when?

  A car honks in the driveway in front of the house. Guðmundur hesitates and Hrafnhildur turns her eyes back to the television.

  Is he here? Damn him, Guðmundur thinks and looks at his watch. He could ask him to come back in an hour. It wouldn’t be the end of the world. What could they do? Fire him?

  ‘I could ask him to …’ Guðmundur starts, but he’s not able to complete the sentence.

  ‘Shouldn’t you just get going?’ says Hrafnhildur, clearing her throat. She’s troubled by these goodbyes. Not that he enjoys them himself.

  ‘I, umm …’ mumbles Guðmundur, turning the envelope in his beefy fingers. ‘I’m going to leave this … with you.’

  Hrafnhildur sits up and looks at the envelope in Guðmundur’s hand with intense fear. What is it? Divorce papers? A diagnosis of illness? A will?

  ‘This is a plane ticket,’ says Guðmundur, staring at the carpet.

  ‘Plane ticket?’ Hrafnhildur’s voice is low.

  ‘I want you to meet me in a fortnight,’ says Guðmundur, then he takes a deep breath. ‘Someone’s coming to relieve me. The company has agreed to it. You can fly down south together, you and Captain Trausti. If you’d like. He’s going to sail home. You remember Trausti?’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘Just think about it, Hrafnhildur, love,’ says Guðmundur, handing her the envelope. ‘We could do something together – go somewhere – anything. You and me. If you want. It’s just …’

  The car honks again.

  ‘You’ll phone me, won’t you?’ asks Hrafnhildur. She lies back down, turning her attention to the television.

  ‘I’ll phone.’ Guðmundur stands stock still for a few seconds, then he bends down and gives his wife a clumsy kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Have a good trip,’ Hrafnhildur says without looking up. She widens her eyes and stares at the screen, which turns into a hot mist and fills with salt water, which is the great ocean – the void that draws Guðmundur to it and separates the two of them.

  The emptiness grows larger with each unspoken word, with each touch that isn’t touched, each kiss that isn’t kissed.

  The darkness is like a wall, the car heater blows hot and raindrops slam cold against the windscreen.

  Guðmundur sits in the back seat and watches out the side window as lights and shadows race past. The lights become fewer and fewer, the shadows become longer and eventually there’s unbroken dark.

  ‘It’s getting a bit windy,’ says the driver when they come up out of the tunnel under Hvalfjörður. The headlights shine on the rain that pelts the car; the drops burst in time to the neurotic sound of the wipers.

  ‘Yes,’ says Guðmundur. He can’t wait to be aboard the ship, to cast off and sail away from the house, the lovelessness and the silent pain. But where the pain ends, anxiety takes over.

  Will she come and join him or not?

  Doesn’t matter, maybe, when it comes down to it. This marriage can hardly be saved any more. It would take a miracle to breathe life into something that has been in a coma for so long. Resolve, at the very least. The resolve of both of them to step outside the vicious circle and begin anew.

  But she hadn’t even been able to say goodbye properly. She pretended not to hear him, see him or be aware of him at all. It was almost as if she had already disappeared from his life.

  Left him.

  ‘Have a good trip,’ says the driver cheerfully as he hands Guðmundur a folder containing the cargo papers, work orders, inspection certificates and other documents for the tour.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Guðmundur. He gets out of the car, a black Mercedes-Benz, takes a deep breath of the cool sea air and partially closes his eyes against the cold rain.

  He watches the Mercedes creep away along the wet quay, looking no bigger than a rat alongside the freighter that rises and falls b
y the quay.

  Lamps light up the front of the wheelhouse, the gangway and the weather deck; the generators are going full blast down in the engine room and grey-blue diesel smoke snakes up from the funnel.

  ‘Hi there, Ási!’ Guðmundur calls through to the galley, where the cook, Ási, is listening to the radio as he fills a big plate with cakes and doughnuts. ‘Could you ask John to knock on my door in about an hour?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ answers Ási, without removing the inevitable match from between his teeth. He clicks his heels, puts two fingers to his forehead and winks at the captain, who shakes his rain-drenched head and sets off up the steep staircase with his suitcase and folder in one hand, his uniform, shoes and cap in the other.

  Behind the captain trots the ship’s dog, a medium-sized black animal of uncertain parentage that answers to the name of Skuggi. Skuggi usually stays near the captain, but nobody knows where he spends the nights, because nobody has ever thought about it.

  The captain’s cabin is to starboard on F-deck, called the captain’s deck. On the port side is the cabin of the chief engineer, the second in command. F-deck is on the fifth floor of the wheelhouse, counting B-deck as the ground, or first, floor. At the very top is the bridge or G-deck, where the view is like that from a high-rise balcony, while the A-deck – the so-called main deck – is actually below deck.

  The captain’s cabin isn’t locked. Guðmundur enters and turns on the overhead light by pushing his left elbow against the switch by the door, which closes itself behind him. He puts the suitcase down beside a two-seater sofa, puts the folder on the coffee table, his cap straight onto a wardrobe shelf, the uniform on the rod under the shelf and the shoes on the wardrobe floor. Guðmundur doesn’t wear his uniform unless he has official business ashore in a foreign port.

  He takes off his shoes, socks and jacket and goes into the bathroom, splashes his face with warm water, checks that there’s plenty of soap and paper in the shelves behind the mirror above the sink, sits on the toilet and pees while reminding himself to remember to fetch towels, a facecloth and bedding in the laundry room before he goes to bed.