The Ship

by Stefan Mani

  Everything goes black for a few seconds and …

  The first officer slams against the black hull of the ship, his mouth gaping and his lungs sucking in air; the briny seawater runs out his nose and his salt-filled eyes open wide. The fingers of his right hand clutch the lowest bar of the railing and the flaming pain in his arm fills his head like a choir of angels.

  He’s hanging on by a thread of his own flesh.

  What a pleasure it is to feel how the steel pulls his body, presses the skin and bones of his fingers, stretches his nerves, muscles, joints and sinews and conjures up suffering.

  Methúsalem swings his body forwards and manages to get both hands on the railing. While the ship rolls to port he hangs there unsupported and half submerged, wriggling like a mouse that’s trying to get out of a galvanised washtub. He grits his teeth and waits for the ship to right itself and roll to starboard. When that finally happens he climbs up to the gunwale, slides under the railing and onto the deck.

  ‘Great God in heaven!’ he cries, crawls on his hands and knees to the stairs and hugs the bottom steps.

  In the infirmary Ási and Big John are standing by the bed of Jónas, who’s blinking and appears to be regaining consciousness.

  They gave him a shot of morphine before they checked him over and attended to his injuries on Friday. His left arm is broken at the wrist, his left ankle is cracked or broken, as is his left knee and probably his hip besides. He’s badly bruised on his back and the back of his neck, but as for any smaller broken bones, or any internal bleeding, they can’t tell.

  The second officer is lying on his back with splints and bandages on his left limbs, a collar bracing his neck and a cold cloth on his forehead.

  ‘Water!’ he whispers, licking dry lips.

  ‘Yes, we’ll help you, mate,’ says Ási removing the wet facecloth that has become warm after only a few minutes on Jónas’s hot forehead.

  John helps the second mate sit up a bit while Ási puts a glass to his lips and helps him sip the cold water.

  ‘There, not too much,’ says Ási and he puts the glass down before drying Jónas’s lips with a clean cloth.

  ‘Don’t overdo it,’ says Big John, letting Jónas sink slowly back down on the bed. ‘You’re pretty seriously injured.’

  ‘What happened?’ asks Ási when Jónas opens his eyes properly and looks around the white-painted room.

  ‘He pushed me,’ says Jónas slowly. ‘He pulled me out and threw me down onto D-deck.’

  ‘Who?’ asks Big John.

  ‘Satan,’ says Jónas with a grimace.

  ‘You could have died, man!’ says Ási, drying sweat off the officer’s forehead.

  ‘He meant to kill me!’ says Jónas with a tearful look at his two mates.

  ‘Why?’ asks John.

  ‘He was threatening me … I knew who he was,’ says Jónas, closing his eyes. ‘But I couldn’t keep quiet any longer … Not after he cut the wires. I had to expose him! That’s why he tried to kill me.’

  ‘Take it easy,’ says Ási, stroking Jónas’s cheek. ‘He’s been locked up.’

  ‘That’s good,’ says Jónas with a weak smile.

  ‘When did he push you over?’ asks John, scratching his beard. ‘After lunch?’

  ‘Yes, I …’ Jónas clears his throat.

  ‘It must have been,’ says Ási, patting Jónas on the head like a little kid. ‘He ate some fish with me and then went up at about twelve-thirty.’

  ‘That doesn’t fit,’ says John with a shake of his head. ‘The guy had told us who he was. So why should he silence Jónas?’

  ‘He just attacked me,’ says Jónas with a sigh.

  ‘The man is obviously insane,’ says Ási, wetting the cloth before again laying it on the second mate’s forehead.

  ‘Yes, but it still doesn’t fit,’ says John, shuffling his feet by the bed. ‘When you went up after lunch we were just about to arrest the guy – if we hadn’t done it already. When did he have time to push you off the deck?’

  Jónas moves his lips as if he’s about to speak, but he doesn’t make a sound until he produces a long, drawn-out moan which at first is reminiscent of mental anguish, but then turns to the familiar sound of physical pain.

  ‘Easy, pal! Easy,’ says Ási, trying to calm the officer. ‘You’ve got broken bones here and there. I’ll give you another shot.’

  ‘I’ll look in on you around noon,’ mutters Big John and starts to head for the door.

  ‘Have you spoken to Methúsalem?’ Ási says as he unpacks a fresh syringe.

  ‘No. Why?’ asks John, looking away.

  ‘Haven’t we dropped the plan of killing the engines?’ asks Ási, fishing a fresh needle out of a tin box. ‘I mean, what with the weather and —’

  ‘Ási!’ says John, stomping his foot and nodding his head towards Jónas, who’s breathing fast and open mouthed and appears to be asleep.

  ‘Oh, sorry!’ says Ási quietly, putting the needle on the syringe. ‘What I meant to say was something sort of general about engines and maintenance and things like that, not —’

  ‘Ási?’ says John, opening the door.

  ‘What?’ asks Ási, waving the empty syringe.

  ‘I’m off.’

  ‘Would you mind making me some coffee?’ Ási says as he draws the morphine solution into the syringe.

  ‘Yeah, no bother,’ murmurs John and he hurries out before Ási sticks the needle in his patient.

  Out in the corridor John runs across Methúsalem, who has just come in, soaking wet.

  ‘Look at you, man!’ says Big John, staring open mouthed at his shipmate. ‘What’ve you been doing?’

  ‘Just checking the weather,’ Methúsalem says, snuffling rain and seawater up his nose. His face is red and his left cheek swollen after the captain’s punch. His left eye is sinking into his head, the skin on his cheekbone is blue-black and the teeth in his upper gum ache.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be up in the bridge by now?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m on my way up.’ Methúsalem pulls the hood of his raincoat off his soaking head. ‘I’m just going to hang up my wet-weather gear downstairs.’

  ‘Do that,’ says John and steps into the mess. Then he stops and calls to the first officer.

  ‘Hey, Methúsalem!’

  ‘Yes?’ Methúsalem turns around on the staircase leading down to A-deck.

  ‘This foolishness is all over, isn’t it?’ asks Big John with a scowl.

  ‘What foolishness?’ asks Methúsalem, his salt-reddened eyes wide.

  ‘All that gun shit,’ says John with a hefty cough. ‘Now we change course and try to make friends with the Old Man – right?’

  ‘I guess so,’ mutters Methúsalem, avoiding the chief engineer’s accusing look.

  ‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ says John, sighing. ‘But from now on I’m not taking part in any fucking mess-ups! If we get laid off, then we protest it in the traditional and legal way and fight for our rights with the help of the union. Understood?’

  ‘Yeah, understood,’ says Methúsalem, his head hanging. He carries on down the stairs and Big John disappears into the mess.

  After hanging up his gear down in the storeroom and turning his boots upside down on the boot stand, Methúsalem makes his way up the stairs, his feet soaking, his thighs, back and chest all wet.

  He’ll have to put on some dry clothes before he relieves the captain on the bridge.

  Methúsalem Sigurðsson’s steps are heavy and he looks nothing like his usual forceful self. He is, after all, weighed down by thoughts as dark as the storm that rages around the ship.

  Only ten minutes ago he was hanging by one hand over the side of a ship in a raging sea, looking death in the eye; faced with his final hour, he realised something.

  Without his job he would die.

  During shore time he lies in bed in an alcoholic blackout, floating through the widths of oblivion and nightmares. When he comes to he reaches for the glass on th
e bedside table and knocks back its contents. Then he staggers out to the kitchen and makes another drink.

  Vodka and Coke, half and half.

  And knocks back its contents. Then all that’s left is to make another drink and stagger back to the bedroom with it before he loses consciousness again.

  When he wakes up he reaches for the glass and knocks back its contents.

  Sometimes he has to piss. Sometimes he has to puke. But mostly he just wakes up, drinks and makes another drink.

  And then he falls into oblivion once again:

  Boom, boom, boom …

  Until three days before the next tour. Then bells ring in his head. Then it’s time to sober up.

  And so he pukes and t hen he weeps. Then he enters a true hell that seems never-ending: shaking, cramps, hallucinations, chills and a temporary insanity whose roots keep reaching deeper.

  But he doesn’t give up. He will turn up for work. He’s too proud to sink so low as to give in to Bacchus.

  Until the next shore time, that is.

  More than once he has been hospitalised with alcoholic poisoning and he has kept off the booze for the odd week, the odd month – twice, even, for more than a year. But he’s never really quit drinking. He’s meant to quit; he’s dreamt of quitting; yet he’s never taken that final step of seeking help for his alcohol problem. He has, in fact, never admitted to himself or anyone else that he has a problem.

  He has never stood up, opened his mouth and rolled the heavy words from the mouth of his heart’s cave: ‘My name is Methúsalem Sigurðsson and I am an alcoholic.’

  Why not?

  Maybe he’s too proud to admit to the weakness. Too proud to seek help. But maybe he’s afraid of what’s hidden in the darkness of his heart, of what will reveal itself when the abyss opens wide. Maybe he’s afraid of finding what he’s been fleeing from all these years.

  Emptiness.

  On board the ship Methúsalem Sigurðsson has duties. He has a role to play. He knows what he has to do and how to do it. He is part of a united and organised whole. He is a man chosen to fill a particular space; he cancels out a particular emptiness.

  He is Methúsalem, first officer.

  Without this 4000-tonne iron monster, though, he’s like a cog without a machine. A dead object: useless, of no consequence. Perhaps he, just like the ship he sails in, is a soulless iron monster that has no idea where it came from or where it’s going. Ships have no independent will, and that which has neither will nor thought of any kind has no aim, unless it is directed by someone who thinks and understands, as an arrow is directed by an archer.

  Methúsalem directs the ship he is in but he has no idea who it is who directs him. Is it someone who wants to save him from ruin? Or someone who wants to run him aground?

  Is he the pawn of evil spirits? A favourite of the angels? Or just a ghost ship adrift on the sea of life?

  He doesn’t know.

  And maybe he doesn’t want to know.

  The first mate stops outside his cabin on E-deck and looks at the fingers of his right hand, which, only a few minutes before, grasped the railing and saved him from certain death.

  As if by accident.

  He was face to face with death and survived. That was no accident!

  Someone seems to be watching over him. Someone believes he should live.

  Methúsalem Sigurðsson has been given another chance, and he’s not going to let it slip away. There’s too much at stake.

  This is a question of life or death. Isn’t it time he gave life a go?

  ‘My name is Methúsalem Sigurðsson,’ he says loudly, then clears his throat, ‘and I’m an alcoholic!’

  He smiles crookedly and turns the doorknob, but the door doesn’t move and his right shoulder slams against it.

  ‘What the hell!’

  He puts his weight against the door and pushes hard. The door opens a crack and a moaning draught forces its way out into the corridor.

  Did he leave a window open?

  The wind is whirling around his cabin, blowing things all over. The curtains are torn, there is broken glass on the floor and everything is afloat in rain and seawater.

  Methúsalem squeezes through the doorway and lets go of the door, which slams into its frame.

  ‘What the …’ Methúsalem stares at the window, which gapes above the bed like the mouth of a creature with a bottomless stomach and teeth of triangular shards of glass.

  And the creature hisses and spits wind, sea and rain in the face of the first officer, who half closes his eyes and walks across the wet rug.

  Why is the glass in the window broken?

  Methúsalem pulls the blanket off the wet bed, bunches it together and is about to shove it in the open window when one of the glass triangles comes loose from the window frame and shoots at a rate of knots straight towards him. He barely manages to close his eyes before it embeds itself in his right cheekbone.

  Methúsalem stops still, then touches the splinter of glass that’s sticking out of his face. He can feel blood running down his cheek, but the cold wind directs it to the side, into his right ear and his hair.

  ‘Good God,’ he murmurs, blinking. He bunches the blanket more tightly and shoves the bundle in the window, managing to shut out the wind and rain.

  Silence.

  The wind dies down; the temperature rises; the flying tatters of curtain come to rest; the blood runs under his collar and water drips from the table, shelves and cupboards.

  Methúsalem goes into the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror. The glass shard is stuck fast in his cheekbone, poking into the air like a tiny shark’s fin.

  He pulls the glass from the wound. Then he disinfects the wound before closing it with sticking plaster. Once that’s done, he cleans off the dried blood with a warm washcloth.

  ‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ says Methúsalem as he undresses in the bathroom. Luckily, his dirty clothes from the day before are still on the hook on the back of the bathroom door. All his other clothes must be wet or damp, like everything else in the cabin.

  The first officer dries himself with a clean towel, splashes himself with aftershave and dresses hurriedly. He runs a comb through his hair, brushes his teeth and, finally, slips into his shoes before stepping over the bathroom threshold onto the soaking rug.

  Methúsalem looks sadly around his cabin, then sighs and shakes his head, turns round and puts his hand on the cold, wet doorknob.

  The door looks terrible from the inside. It’s soaking wet and covered with glass shards which stick out like spikes.

  Methúsalem opens the door to the corridor, but comes to a halt just inside the threshold when his toes hit something on the floor.

  He looks down and the minute he sees what’s lying there on the wet rug, surrounded by broken glass, strips of seaweed, sand and pebbles, it feels as if his heart stops beating and his blood runs cold.

  There it is. The bolt from the rifle.

  ‘Good God.’

  Guðmundur Berndsen is sitting in the captain’s chair and staring through the salt-encrusted windows of the bridge. He’s put the ship on autopilot and has been sitting there without moving for four hours, since he last stood up to make coffee.

  That coffee has long since turned to overboiled tar without the captain having even tasted it.

  Rúnar turned up for his bridge watch promptly at three in the morning but Guðmundur sent him back down half an hour later. He’s not in the mood to converse or spend time with men who disobey orders, engage in intrigue and take power into their own hands when their superior officer turns his back.

  Over the weather deck floats a yellow haze reminiscent of dry-ice fog. It’s salt spray that takes on this ghostly aura in the beams of the searchlights. The ship rolls, hovers and pitches in turns, so the captain is alternately lifted off his chair, as if weightless, or is pressed into it with so much force he can hardly breathe.

  He doesn’t allow these extremes to disturb him, though,
but steers the ship to the south without having any real idea where it is situated on the globe. While the GPS is dead he knows neither how fast they are sailing nor how far they are drifting off course. Heading south has limited significance in itself if their starting point is uncertain – which it most certainly is.

  Once the storm calms the captain can work out the ship’s position with a sextant, a watch and a calculator, but until then he must keep calm, trust his own judgement and hope for the best.

  Sailing in a violent storm is like flying blind. Little by little what you see baffles your senses until your imagination overpowers what you know.

  His eyes tell the captain that he’s going in circles but the compass says differently: the ship is clearly heading south. If the captain were to abandon reason he would stop believing the compass, insist it was broken and start going in circles himself.

  Guðmundur’s eyes also maintain that the ship is sailing backwards, not forwards. The GPS could correct that misunderstanding within minutes, but without the navigation device the captain has to trust the experience he has gained from earlier battles with the weather in the open sea.

  His guess is that the ship is struggling forwards at about five to eight knots. As to sideways drift, it’s hard to say, but he’s hoping it isn’t more than three knots.

  However, it’s possible that the sideways drift is greater than their forward movement. In that case the distance they have to sail grows by that difference every hour, instead of getting shorter. In that case it would be better to remain in place, tread water in the roaring sea, maintain a kind of deadlock with the storm while it’s raging.

  Guðmundur’s eyes tell him the ship is getting nowhere, and maybe they’re right, but going by the butterflies in his stomach and the dizziness in his head, the ship is flying along on the tops of the waves at three times its top speed.

  The captain no longer knows what to think. He’s come to the conclusion that it’s best not to think at all. When rational thought fails, common sense tells you it’s wisest to stop thinking. Irrational thoughts lead to delusions, mistakes and temporary insanity.

  So long as Guðmundur does nothing, he’ll do no harm either. He’s sailing south and that’s all there is to it. South is all he knows. It’s not much, but it’s so much more than nothing.