My Father, His Son

by Reidar Jonsson

  I could not do it. My teeth wobbled and seemed dangerously close to flying out in the jungle.

  “Are you crazy? You and I can’t use first names between us,” Eight said, grinning. “I’m the captain and you’re just an ordinary seaman.”

  “But we’re drinking together —”

  “Are we? Are you going to sit there and tell me off? If you do, I’ll put you ashore right here. I don’t drink with my crew. Especially not in the middle of the jungle. When you’re away from civilization, you’ve got to be more formal. Get it?”

  I giggled.

  “No. But sir, you may call me Ingemar anyway. Otherwise there are too many Johanssons in a small boat. Johansson the First and Johansson the Second. That’s silly. And Johansson Junior only works if you’re a millionaire.”

  It sounded reasonable. Eight asked why I had giggled.

  I told my little joke. When I was little and read about civilization for the first time, I took it to be “civil station.” For a long time I wondered where that civil station might be.

  Things change. If you don’t get wiser with the years, at least you get more humble. You become able to laugh at your own stupidity. For example, moments ago I was panic-stricken at the thought that I may become like my father. But while I was telling Eight about my childhood’s civil station, I was desperately trying to get the cap off the beer bottle. And then, there I was, big as life, drinking beer from a bottle. I couldn’t understand how that had come about.

  We were merry as brothers when Johansson came splashing back. His face never showed any expression, but it is entirely possible that at this moment he looked just a tad surprised. All three of us went on as if nothing unusual had happened. At Johansson’s suggestion, we cut up a sack and fixed a sunshade. Most of the time we could keep underneath the trees, but at times we had to travel in the middle of the river. There could be a sudden sandbank, a few pieces of timber at a strange angle, an enormous tree that had crashed down. After an eventless hour, Johansson was sweating rivers, the way he had done before. Eight pulled out a beer, bit off the cap, and held it out toward him.

  “Do you want one or do you have to go to the toilet?”

  Johansson had never acquired the habit of saying “thank you,” nor did he ever display exaggerated joy or enthusiasm. But had we killed the engine and listened hard, there might have been a muttered “thanks” deep down in his throat.

  I dared ask how far away the tugboat was.

  “Thirteen beers,” said Eight.

  That was straightforward enough. We would have to spend the night on the river then.

  “Is there anything else to drink besides beer?” I asked.

  “No. But that wouldn’t make it go any faster.”

  Eight laughed wholeheartedly at his own joke. Johansson punctuated with his laughter that could break stone. Soon enough I sat far astern, steering, while the two of them revived old memories. The engine crackled bravely. I wanted to know and hear what the two of them were hollering about, but in the noise it was impossible.

  I was left to my own ponderings.

  But nobody can think all the time, as my brother used to say. It turns into brooding. I was sleepy from the beer and sank gratefully into an emptiness that matched the monotonous shoreline. Here and there the river forked. We were supposed to stay in the main furrow. Eight threw a bottle of beer in each fork of the river, timing which bottle traveled the quickest. Neither Johansson nor I saw any reason to criticize that method.

  As the hours rolled on, all three of us became rather loud. We sang some songs. Our repertoire was rather one-sided. Johansson turned out to have an extremely pleasant baritone voice. Eight was so surprised by it that he stopped the engine. My father was covered with drying mud up over his knees, his now-dry shorts flapped in a gust of wind, the beer belly protruded like an enormous resonant box below his rib cage, the white shirt was drenched with sweat, and the raggedy straw hat was held in his outstretched hand as if he expected monkeys to throw him tributes of bananas. We drifted slowly along the river Niger and his audience of two was listening to his songs. He sang “Indian Love Song” and I could have been struck dead since that happened to be my parents’ favorite song.

  But I was not.

  Eight started up the engine and magically brought out some delicacies from the tightly packed crates. We kept moving straight into Africa, almost like the last survivors of something. But as such, we had full stomachs and were content, even happy.

  When twilight hit, we anchored between bulky tree roots. It would have been impossible to get to terra firma, but Eight insisted stubbornly on fixing us something warm to eat. He pumped up the small spirit stove and soon had a cozy flame going. We never put any food in the kettle, however. Too many flying things dashed straight toward the point of light. Soon the pot was filled to the brim. Johansson was of the opinion that the unappetizing mess could be eaten, that is if all those flying insects were boiled in whiskey. He only said that to give himself an excuse to unroll the overalls and bring out a bottle. Eight gave up and was scraping insects out of the pot. He turned off the spirit stove and the jungle startled us with a black wave of hellish shrieks. I, who earlier had been certain that the jungle was silent like an Egyptian mummy, was acutely aware that we were the silence. We carried it with us like an iron ring. What was frightening and unknown was us.

  In spite of all the boxes, cases, and sacks, we managed to clear three spaces for sleeping. It was not comfortable, but I was able to fall asleep. And as usual I kept one eye and one ear awake. I was looking out for small black snakes ready to drop from the trees. I thought of Eight’s warning. People disappearing in the river. But most of all, my sleep kept being interrupted by Eight and Johansson, who were finishing the whiskey.

  They had sailed together at a time when Eight had all his fingers and Johansson could in my imagination still be the father who saved us from all things bad and scary. Whatever I thought and felt about Johansson, I was intrigued to find out more about him. A part of me was hoping to discover mitigating circumstances. I would never find out anything in a talk between the two of us. He was perhaps a totally different person in the company of men who shared his experiences?

  My expectations were not in vain.

  Eight and Johansson gulped whiskey and kept talking and spluttering throughout the night, like two old sailors. The alcohol was dissolving their hard protective shells; the velvety black of the night was lifting off the lids. They turned sentimental and cried a little over their wasted lives. They felt immensely sorry for themselves and were soon arguing over which one was most deserving of pity. All the tiny life forms in the jungle fell silent as their voices increased in volume. Suddenly they remembered me.

  “Quiet. You’ll wake up the boy,” said Johansson.

  Eight agreed. The small insects resumed their concert, recovering lost territory. A hairy small wing, as from a moth, caressed my cheek. I wanted to slap it away but held myself back. They had finally arrived at a fascinating subject of conversation, namely me.

  “Strange boy, by the way,” Eight said. “We call him the Strangler. He nearly did strangle a Negro in Monrovia. A thief. Strong as the devil. But sensitive. You can’t joke with him the way you do with other guys. He’s probably a little mad. He drives me crazy. It’s as if he keeps watching you. Like a warden. Like some kind of insect.”

  “I lost my shoes once in Monrovia,” said Johansson, as always unwilling to let me get the better of him.

  “So I took up watch by the gangplank. Finally my shoes came walking up, bringing with them a promising young lad. ‘Hello, my shoes,’ I said and pulled the lad down to the engine room. He learned never to steal shoes from me again.”

  “Did you cut off his feet?”

  “Everybody isn’t as crazy as you.”

  Eight fell silent. But after a few thoughtful drafts from the bottle, he picked up where he had left off without losing a beat.

  “Strange guy. I think he has probl
ems. We had an idiot who jumped overboard the other day. Things like that happen. People die. It’s as if he can’t grasp that.”

  “Who? The idiot?”

  “Your boy. You ought to talk to him. Try to help him.”

  “How?”

  “How the hell would I know? I’m not his father. You’re his dad. That’s what fathers are for. Aren’t they?”

  “What?”

  Eight sighed. I sympathized with him. He was having the same experience I had. It’s difficult to trick sympathy out of a piece of hard rock.

  Except for the constant chirping of the jungle, everything was quiet. Obviously Johansson was lying there thinking of Eight’s words because suddenly his voice floated through the darkness. He sounded several years younger, almost like a misunderstood child.

  “But how do you know?”

  “Know what?” Eight asked.

  “That you’re not his father.”

  Eight laughed, a dry neigh, like an old horse.

  “That’s your problem!”

  I thought back to my father’s worn joke about being nice to all children since you never know which ones are your own. As far back as I can remember, I have heard him say that. A joke that had decomposed like finely ground chalk and fallen flat at our feet. We only coughed, dryly and with effort, when he told the same joke for the thousandth time.

  “Yeah, it’s true.” Johansson chuckled. “It’s so sad that one has to laugh.”

  What?

  I wanted to crawl over and shake him. What?! What is it that’s so sad?

  “The boy has problems. That’s true. But imagine if I’m not his father? One never knows.”

  “What the hell are you saying?” Eight coughed and dropped the whiskey bottle.

  I was now more intrigued and started thinking. Why should Johansson not be my father? Sure, he had been largely absent, but still, he was my father. In the tales told of myself as a baby, I hear me cough a lot. I was born with bronchitis and a lot of curls. Everybody except my mother adores me. She is so weak that she has to concentrate mainly on hanging on to the slender thread of life. I bring peace to the world; I bring summer and warmth, although I am conceived in the icy cold of war. My maternal grandmother takes care of me. Sure, I’m coughing like a grown man, but I’m a child and everybody loves me.

  That’s how it was. At least in the beginning.

  One must never joke about such things.

  I have proof. I have a witness. My maternal grandmother has told me time and time again about my arrival into the world. Like a wonderful fairy tale to counteract all the misery! That is how she always spoke of my entrance. In the middle of the tale, she will also relate the story of the refugees who came to the school that was turned into a camp. First from Poland, then from Germany and Denmark and the Netherlands and … and about little children who cried and clung. And about a small child who had been chloroformed so that the Germans would not take it. And about the mother who was dead. And about how nobody wanted it. And in the middle of all this misery, there I showed up with curly hair and so frail that everybody fought over who would care for me! Everybody loved me. My mother too.

  I can hear every word. How Grandma emphasized all that was terrible, how the words almost grew out of her mouth in capital letters.

  There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in Grandma’s eyes, whatever Johansson might imagine here in the jungle. I put my fingers in my ears and decided not to listen. A whole eternity went by. I did not remove my fingers from my ears until dawn.

  Could it not have been just a dream?

  I rolled right over the edge of the boat and into the water to rinse the uneasy feeling off. When I surfaced, Johansson was looking over the edge. He rolled into the river too, and suddenly there was a snorting hippopotamus beside me. A hundred years ago he swam with me on his back across a lake. The mixture of fear, joy, and pride made me almost suffocate from laughter. Now I was able to swim on my own. I let myself sink into the dark river water and imagined an enormous propeller blade splitting my skull. Then the water flushing in, cleaning out the mass of gelatin that housed my memory. And I did not exist anymore.

  Everything was a game. But there are things one simply cannot understand. Death. It is an immovable immensity that nobody is able to describe. You can’t just go and pay death a visit and return home to tell about it.

  I snorted up to the surface and swallowed a piece of life.

  Then it was Eight’s turn to plunge in. There he was, paddling around and not a bit afraid of crocodiles. We were again floating peacefully on the Niger’s broad back. The nightly conversation seemed to have left no trace.

  We were off again.

  Our wet clothes dried quickly in the heat. Eight boiled coffee on the spirit stove. There were a few pints of water aboard despite Eight’s negative answer to my question of the previous night. Johansson drank his breakfast beer, no doubt to give him courage in case he decided to speak to me about life.

  I would have liked to assure him that it wasn’t necessary. Both of us were sitting, silent as clouds, while the day was wearing on. The engine sputtered and Eight looked as if he knew where we were going. The magical singing of yesterday was not repeated although Johansson systematically kept swallowing beer.

  Toward the afternoon we arrived at our destination. An iron gray sky pressed against the miserable huts, the wounded, scrubby beach, and the rust-spotted tugboat. Except for a few mangy hens pecking down at the river’s edge and some small black pigs that took one look at us and ran off squealing, the village looked deserted. Along the riverbank, big pieces of timber were chained together in long rows, ready to be towed down to Sapele.

  It looked so dismal that even our engine throttled and remained silent as if out of pure consideration. Who wants to crackle and purr with life in such a valley of tears?

  Eight swore at the engine. He saw a week-long return trip looming in front of him if we must depend only on the current. But Johansson promised to examine our engine too as soon as the tugboat was ready.

  We moored, stepped up on the rickety wooden bridge, and headed toward the tugboat. In spite of its miserable exterior, it seemed to offer the most inhabitable place for a Dane. Then we heard a sharp crack, like that of a shot being fired, and a splinter of wood flew off right in front of our feet. We stopped. I don’t think anyone of us had enough energy to be frightened. Johansson had at least ten bottles of Tuborg beer in his swollen stomach and was feeling immortal. Eight was a captain and as such had become used to people scraping their feet when he moved forward. As for myself, I felt only curiosity. When we left Sapele, the radio had not transmitted any news of a war being declared by the Danes against Sweden. Why would the Dane lie there and practice target shooting at us? We had after all come here to help him.

  “Hello?!”

  Johansson did the yelling. He held a Tuborg in his hand, still unopened, and he was waving it in the friendliest of gestures. The shot sliced the bottle neck and beer sprayed all over us. Now we knew without doubt that the Dane had to be insane to have shot at Denmark’s national symbol. We were rather upset. Johansson sat down on the bridge in amazement and stared at the remnants of the bottle. Eight retreated a bit, and I jumped into the water without further ado. The time had come to take this Dane seriously.

  When I emerged, I found myself in the middle of an old Tarzan movie where what seems a deserted village moments ago has, from one minute to the other, spear-carrying and threatening warriors appearing everywhere. There were enough people here crowded around the miserable huts for at least fourteen Tarzan movies. But these didn’t seem too threatening. Large and small, old and young, bare chests in every imaginable size and for any taste, beautiful and ugly, toothless and with sparkling big smiles. Some of the smiling ones helped me up at the slippery river edge. They were laughing and yelling. Obviously everybody was happy to see that something finally was happening. From the long and mixed-up palaver, we understood that they felt responsible for the Dane. He
had locked himself up in the tugboat several weeks ago. Something was wrong with him and not with the tugboat, consequently there was no guarantee that Johansson’s tools were the right thing for what was needing repair.

  We unloaded the boat.

  Then, like the rest of the village, we sat down to wait. If the Dane had barricaded himself in the tugboat several weeks ago, his provisions had to be running out, Eight reasoned and explained his view of the situation.

  “We’re dealing with a madman who respects neither life nor death.”

  A perfect description of Eight himself.

  I had to simulate an attack of coughing. I could not afford to laugh and have my ears elongated by Eight’s hard stumpy pinches. Johansson had not yet said a word. On his side, we have quite a few Danes in the family, and that a Dane would shoot at him was probably perplexing.

  “In either case we can’t leave tonight. But we’ll overpower him at dawn and get that damn timber hauled down. We have to load it. We have a responsibility. Imagine if Europe’s furniture factories came to a stop. Leaving people standing there without furniture. The Dane’s going to be conquered, dead or alive. He should be locked up somewhere.”

  Eight was getting all fired up. In my mind’s eye I could see him use those clubs he called hands to smash the Dane beyond recognition.

  “Sure,” I said. “But where? And how?” “What?!” bellowed Eight.

  “Besides he’s a captain. What gives us the right to overpower a captain?” I continued.

  I had no desire to sneak up on the bridge and die with the early light of dawn pouring through large gunshot holes in me. I had had my share of adventures in West Africa. The next boat I signed on would be a small barge in an inland lake in Sweden. Sweet water and jolly peasants. It would be the closest thing to a vacation. I agreed with the sailors who declared West Africa as being the world’s asshole. It took men like Eight and Johansson to like it here. They were crazy. If they wanted to wage a war with the Dane, they would have to do it without me.

  Eight boiled over.

  “What did I say?” he shouted. “You’re his father! You talk to him!”