Alone

by Gerard d'Aboville

  On the other hand, the prices at the Riverside were quite reasonable, in a country where prices in general approached the astronomical.

  Anyway, all this was of little importance, since we would be staying at the hotel only for a few days at the most.

  The shakedown cruise had gone well, and the only items remaining to be verified were the radio and telex.

  I had outfitted Sector with two complementary types of communication. The radio, which was similar to the one I had used crossing the Atlantic eleven years before, enabled me to communicate with ham radio operators as well as with maritime stations that maintained phone communication among naval vessels of all kinds.

  Radio contact with both of these groups was as essential as it was seductive, but it had two drawbacks. For one, the radio used a fair amount of electricity, especially considering the rather complicated calling procedure before you could make contact with the outside world. The other drawback was the chance nature of wavelengths, which obliged the sender to juggle frequencies that varied according to one’s position at sea, the time of day, and so forth. It would therefore be impossible to establish contact with any certainty, and the contacts that were made could be cut off at any time.

  This was where the telex came in. It came equipped with a mini-computer on which one could both write and receive messages. Its antenna was designed to be kept in the “up” position at all times, but, given the constant risk of capsizing, I intended to lower it after every use. The telex would send a message to a satellite, which would relay it to the nearest station on earth, and from there it could be retransmitted anywhere in the world.

  That apparatus had the dual advantage of reducing to a minimum the length of a transmission, thereby consuming only a small amount of electricity, and of not requiring someone on the other end to receive the message at the time it was sent. I was counting on the telex to serve as backup to my radio contacts in the event that for any reason I couldn’t get through.

  The beauty of having the two systems — radio and telex — on board was that they were completely independent from each other. Both systems had been tested in France and found satisfactory. Not so here in the Far East. Try as we would, we could not get either system to work.

  No longer any question of leaving in two days — it was back to the drawing board!

  June 23

  Upon arriving this morning at the boat, I realized how foolish I had been to blurt out a departure date at the press conference. I had denied a dozen times over that I had ever set such a firm date, but no one seemed to believe me. Everybody was there: the sponsor’s representative, the television crews, the photographers, and — worst of all — the Japanese officials who had left Tokyo at the crack of dawn to make sure they didn’t miss the historic event. Poor Bruno was surrounded, fielding a veritable barrage of questions. But the key, constant refrain was:

  “When, please, will the departure take place?”

  At the entrance to the port, an orchestra and a troupe of dancers awaited the solemn moment. The mayor of Choshi was present; he handed me a good luck banner, the central motif of which was a fish, and gave a short speech, which he then translated into perfect French. An admirer from Saudi Arabia, who had taken his vacation to be here expressly for the occasion, gave me a copy of the Koran. Though I didn’t read or speak a word of Arabic, he assured me it would stand me in good stead because of the volume’s “great symbolic virtues.” Allah Akbar!

  The most original gift was that given by the president of the Choshi Yacht Club (which consisted, as far as I could make out, of three stout craft). It was a telephone calling card, which I was to keep with me throughout my trip and guard with my life. When I arrived in America, I was to present it with his compliments to his opposite number in the United States, which, I presumed, meant the president of the yacht club of whatever American port I put in to.

  In short, it was a festivity fully worthy of the occasion, with the one exception that the occasion being celebrated would unfortunately not be taking place.

  How could I explain to that august gathering that both my instruments of communication, usually so dependable, were for all intents and purposes worthless, and that without them there was no way I could put out to sea?

  The manufacturer of the nonfunctioning telex was French, which presented an immediate problem because of the time difference between France and Japan. We had to place our calls at night, knowing that we would never find anyone in the Paris office outside working hours. Our various efforts to make contact were highly comical, except none of us was laughing. While I tried to get through by telex from the boat, Christopher would dash off to a phone booth a kilometer away and place a call through the international operator. When he finally did get through, the manufacturer invariably declared that he had not received any telex, would then suggest trying another procedure, et cetera. Christopher would then return to the boat, attempt to implement the suggestion, try to transmit again, then dash back to the phone booth. Several nights were spent in this vain endeavor.

  We also had a few fun moments with the radio. The French importer from whom we had bought the equipment had of his own volition suggested a number of technical improvements that could enhance the instrument’s capabilities — modifications that in my estimation were indispensable. When all our efforts in Choshi to make the radio function properly failed, we called the importer in France. His answers were evasive. Then he had a revelation: the radio was of Japanese origin, so to make it work, or at least find out what was wrong with it, all we had to do was contact the local representative of the company. Simple as shooting fish in a barrel!

  Seeing a ray of hope on the horizon, we got in contact with the local technician. Once we explained the nature of the problem, he acted as though he had just been struck with some form of local paralysis. The risk was just too great. The very notion that he might be held responsible for our project’s failure was more than he could bear. He bowed respectfully before the problem and vanished into the night.

  We now had no choice but to take the instrument to Tokyo, to the headquarters of the company that had made it. A careful preoperative examination revealed that the original product had been modified after it had left the factory. Bad omen. The Japanese engineer put in a call to the French importer. Had modifications been made on the instrument?

  This gave our French colleague a readymade out. “If the radio isn’t working, it’s probably because of the modifications made specifically at Monsieur d’Aboville’s request. I should add that we strongly advised him against making those modifications.”

  That was all the Japanese manufacturer needed to hear. Relieving the radio of all its carefully structured modifications, he returned it to us in its pristine state. The only problem was, in its pristine state the radio still didn’t work.

  Christopher was beside himself. In despair, he telephoned an expert someone had touted to him, a certain Mr, Takedo, with whom he made an appointment for that same afternoon. Punctual to a fault, Christopher showed up at Mr. Takedo’s workplace only to find that he, too, had mysteriously disappeared. Subsequently, in talking to one of our suppliers, we learned what had happened: apparently, the main office had called all its retailers and ordered them not to make any effort to repair the mad Frenchman’s radio. Poor Mr. Takedo, overwhelmed with remorse at the idea that he would not be able to honor our appointment, had preferred to vanish into the woodwork rather than face us with the bad news.

  As for our fearless importer back home, his backside well covered, I wondered if he realized that because of him we were working around the clock, that he had immobilized eight of his compatriots by his dereliction of duty, and that my chances of leaving under any reasonably acceptable conditions were practically nil?

  June 26

  As I emerged from the Riverside Hotel in the morning, I had an unexpected and totally pleasant surprise: my cousin François was standing there to greet me.

  François, looking for all th
e world like a gentleman farmer — and more gentleman than farmer in this instance — was almost like a brother to me. I say “almost” because I already have five brothers and adding one more might have been more than the family could bear. I was delighted to see him: his mere presence gave my morale a much-needed boost. Together with the faithful and indefatigable Bruno and Christopher, he was part of the hardcore group of old friends who I knew could help combat the case of demoralization that was already threatening to decimate our ranks.

  Hastily sworn in as our de facto chief of protocol, François departed posthaste on a diplomatic mission to the French embassy in Tokyo. There he had the good fortune to meet the military attache, Commander Blanvillain, to whom he related the sad story of our radio and telex.

  Blanvillain was not only aware of our project but a staunch supporter; he told François he would do everything in his power to help. True to his word, the next day he dispatched an embassy communications specialist, Georges de Marrez, to examine our equipment and see if he could come up with a solution. The minute he arrived, he went to work on the recalcitrant telex machine. Watching de Marrez work was inspirational. If I told you he was stubborn — no, tenacious — take my word for it. We tried everything. We took the whole thing apart, piece by piece, and put it back together again. I even went so far as to move the boat to different points in the Choshi port, to counteract a hypothetical electrical line or antenna that might be interfering with our transmission.

  Yet afternoon merged into evening, evening into night, and still no success. By morning, I had made up my mind: either we would find another telex or I would leave without one. With each passing day, I was exchanging one day of summer navigation for an extra day of winter navigation that I would have to endure at the end of the crossing. When the incessant rain finally let up a bit, giving me hope that the better weather might hold up for several days, I made up my mind to leave in two days’ time, that is, on June 30.

  June 30

  This morning, the final straw. And sickening to boot. The strong easterly winds had blown an awful conglomeration of filth and garbage into the boat basin: every sort of debris imaginable — countless dead fish, bits and pieces of fishing nets, plastic bags — all held together by a thick layer of greasy, fetid foam. The choppy waves in the port had borne the stinking mass into the inner basin and coated (Sector’s hull, which was unrecognizable. The cockpit had become unusable, as had the mooring lines. In fact, everything we touched immediately became polluted. Even the ladder from the dock down into the boat was covered with the awful slime.

  I sat down on the dock beside Bruno, who had slept on board the previous night, and contemplated the disaster. We looked up to discover that our camera crew, alert to any new situation, was assiduously shooting the scene. Poor Laurent, our director: I, who have a hard time under ordinary conditions keeping myself upbeat in front of the camera, had to be the worst of subjects now. All I could come up with, in a weak show of black humor, was: “It’s a shame you can’t film the smell.”

  For, in addition to the greasy substance itself, the harbor was filled with a sewerlike stench that impregnated our clothes, our hair, even our skin.

  And yet, we had to get on with it. Georges had managed to repair the radio, which seemed to be working fine. As for the telex, the hell with it! We lifted Sector out of the water in order to rid it of its stinking outer growth. Its hull had earlier been treated with an antifouling paint to keep marine vegetation from attaching itself and growing there, which would have slowed my progress. The delicate problem was that to remove the foul matter we had to scrub, and scrub hard, but in doing so we had to be careful not to scrape off the antifouling paint. As for the gear, we cleaned it by resorting to the products normally reserved for scrubbing toilets; nothing less seemed to have an effect.

  To top this, a swarm of Japanese photographers had descended on Choshi that morning, which had been announced — once again — as the real departure day. They were kept at a distance by a rope cordon we had set up about thirty feet from the boat. Intent on immortalizing the departure of the mad rower from their shores, they were more than a trifle puzzled by the stem-to-stern scouring that was taking place before them, I thought the scene was self-explanatory, but apparently it was not, and finally I had to go explain to them — trying to keep my frayed temper in check — exactly what had happened. I kept thinking, I’ve been so insanely busy — to no good end, I might add — that I haven’t even had time to make contact with my family, and here I am explaining the obvious to a group of journalists I don’t give a damn about.

  By the end of that trying day, my hands were red and raw from the harsh cleaning products we had used. Not an ideal situation for one who is supposed to start rowing tomorrow.

  During the night, about one o’clock in the morning to be exact, I had a sudden revelation: I realized that I was giving in to an insane desire to leave, to flee. What I was fleeing from, however, was basically my irritation at this interminable waiting period. No, that wasn’t the only reason. Every evening, as the days went by, I pictured myself confronting that increasingly insurmountable obstacle: the October and November storms that I knew were waiting for me on the other side of the ocean.

  I also knew I was worn out; I was not thinking clearly. The weather was still unstable at best. The slight improvement we had just seen was predicted not to last, at least not long enough for me to leave under reasonable, if not optimum, conditions. Chances were, if I left now, the first strong easterly winds that came up would drive me right back onto the Japanese mainland.

  About two in the morning, in a state of panic, I woke up Christopher,

  “Christopher, do you realize my ‘last interview before the departure, ’ that we gave to the television people, is just arriving in Paris? We can’t let it be shown —

  “Hold everything, Christopher. I have to think things out, , , , But I know one thing— I’m not leaving tomorrow.”

  July 5

  I was wiped out. For almost three weeks now we had been struggling to get the boat ready, and I was in a state of total exhaustion.

  Telex still not working, endless formalities, lousy weather, … Every day, more often than not twice a day, Mitsuru accompanied me to the weather bureau for the latest updates. For the past two weeks one low pressure system after another had moved in, interspersed with violent storms and varying winds.

  When I asked the weatherman what he thought the next few days would bring, he smiled and shook his head in a manner that he assumed would be as uncompromising as possible. Again, the constant concern about not making a mistake, but it should be noted that in Japan one’s professional integrity and sense of honor are virtually limitless. One of my Japanese friends, the director of Mobil Oil Japan, in whom I confided the problems I was having trying to get some accurate forecasts, told me a story. A few years ago, some weathermen had announced the arrival of the rainy season, a rather important date in the Japanese calendar. The appointed day came and went without a drop of rain. Ditto the next day, and the day after. In fact, a whole week went by without any sign of rain, at which point two of the meteorologists committed suicide.

  The daily countdown to departure day had ceased. I had the feeling the whole endeavor had gone down the drain. All this time and energy wasted — for nothing!

  By now we had become part of the landscape at the Choshi boat basin in which poor Sector was ensnared. On the dock, a makeshift tent sheltered our equipment from the endless rain. A few visitors continued to show up every day, waiting for their daily briefing. Bruno politely tried to update them, in a mixture of French and English, about the basics of the boat or the trip itself. Which gave birth to something like this:

  “Well, you see, this boat, given its length and its lack of ballast, can obviously capsize. So, when that happens, there is this ingenious system of ballast …”

  The heads would nod in unison.

  “... so, Sector is outfitted with reservoirs, each of which
contains a hundred liters, one to starboard, the other to port. Now then, thanks to this little hand pump, Gerard, who is stationed inside his watertight cabin when the boat has turned over, can fill one or another of these lateral ballast tanks with sea water to throw the boat off balance, as it were, which, in conjunction with the movement of the waves, enables it to right itself. Do you understand?”

  The heads would nod in unison.

  Emboldened by this show of interest, Bruno would continue: “A third ballast tank, situated at the stern of the boat, enables you to control the trim, is that clear? …”

  By now the crowd would have grown, its attention riveted on Bruno’s every word; despite the continued collective motion of the group’s heads there was no assurance anything had gotten through. Nonetheless, Bruno would forge on, as though he were addressing the graduating class of the naval institute.

  “This weight in the stern, together with the two antidrift plates that can be lowered whenever one wants, serve the purpose of keeping the stern facing into the waves in foul weather… . Pretty clever, no?”

  The heads would nod in unison.

  Bruno had become an important fixture in the Choshi boat basin. His many admirers, concerned about his well-being, furtively left sandwiches or mineral water for us on several occasions.

  How Bruno operated with complete success whenever he went into town to run one errand or another, we never knew. What we did know was that he had the neighborhood in his back pocket. Among his conquests was the local hardware store owner, from whom Bruno could get whatever we needed or wanted It was at the hardware store that Bruno met Mrs. Takasse, a French woman married to a Japanese from Choshi. Both Mr. and Mrs. Takasse showered us with countless bounties during that trying period, for which we’ll never forget them. We liked the couple immediately: for one thing, they were the only couple in town who drove a beat-up old car without dying of shame.