Desire Provoked

by Tracy Daugherty

  Adams sets the journal down. He shivers, lights the kerosene lamp, pulls on his parka. He can smell his breath. Fumes from the lamp warm his throat.

  He picks up the journal again: “Theise things the sea casteth forth upon the shoare, to supplie unreasonable creatures on the fruitless land, the country being altogether destitute of necessaries wherewithal a man might be preserved in time of winter.”

  Something’s tearing the hull. He gets up, explores the hold, but cannot locate the noise. It seems general, throughout the area belowdecks. The following morning, when he reports to the ship’s skipper, he’s given the standard line: “You’ll get used to the noises at sea.”

  “Here is a book you might enjoy,” Than tells Adams. They are sitting in Than’s cabin, sipping tea.

  Adams picks up the book. The Philosophy of Hegel. He thinks of Jurgen and laughs. “Why?” he says.

  “For Hegel, Reason is the generating principle of the universe. A philosophy compatible with your thoughts.”

  “Maybe.” Adams smiles.

  “In Vietnam men sometimes hold hands in public—it’s part of friendship, an accepted custom. Americans can never get used to that. It unsettles them. This book.” He taps Hegel. “Affected me the same way. My introduction to the West.”

  Adams laughs. “If you’re going to practice science here, Than, you’ll have to adopt a Western bias. You’ll have to trust objective methods.”

  “I do. But there are problems with that.”

  “Like what?”

  He thinks for a moment. “Let’s say that you and I are walking down a street and we see—what? A television antenna on a building, all right? How tall is it? From a distance of two kilometers it appears to have one height. If we move closer, it appears to be taller.”

  “So we measure it.”

  “With a notched tape, standing next to it. Is that an accurate measure?”

  “I see what you’re saying,” Adams interrupts. “What gives the tape authority?”

  “Exactly. Our standards are someone’s invention. How tall is the antenna? One meter. What is one meter? The length of this tape. What is the length of this tape? The height of the antenna.”

  “But we agree on the standards.”

  “Still, they exclude a wide range of perceptions. We know our own knowing, that’s all. Interpretation is all we have.”

  Adams shakes his head. “I interpret from the growling in my stomach that I’d rather eat than talk.”

  Than laughs. “It’s getting late, isn’t it?”

  They rise. “There’s something about the fog and the cold,” Adams says. “Turns you inward.”

  “Where you find the center.”

  Sea stories: after supper several members of the crew leave the galley, walk up the companionway stairs, and stand on the poop deck, smoking. “Sailing alone does funny things to a man,” says one. “I tried it once. Eight days out to sea, I heard voices saying, ‘Go back to land.’”

  “You know the story of Joshua Slocum, don’t you?”

  The crewmen nod.

  “We don’t,” Carol says.

  “Slocum was a down-and-out sail captain, couldn’t find no work ‘cause the steamer’s so popular. He sets out on an old oyster sloop named Spray, aimin’ to be the first man to sail around the world by himself.”

  “He done it, too,” says the first speaker.

  “Yeah, but three days out to sea he got the cramps. He’d been eatin’ plums and cheese. So he goes below, sits there sick at his stomach, and finally falls asleep. When he wakes up, he can feel 01’ Spray heaving into the wind. He crawls up top and there’s an old man with a red cap at the helm. He says he’s the captain of the Pinta and he’s come to guide the ship. Then he lays into Slocum for mixing plum with cheese. ‘White cheese is never safe unless you know where it comes from,’ he says. Slocum faints again, and the next day he sees he’s still on course. To the end of his life he claimed what he saw was real. ‘I’s grateful to the old pilot,’ he said, ‘but I wondered why the hell he didn’t take in the jib.’”

  After two weeks at sea, Adams has become a meteorologist of sorts. Though the ship receives broadcasts from the United States National Weather Service, he prefers to make his own predictions. He listens to weather broadcasts on the AM band, sketches maps from day to day, noting cold fronts, warm fronts, high and low pressure systems, wind direction, and tern-perature changes. Using this data, combined with fog readings, Adams has learned to spot weather trends and is quite proud of himself, though the crew laughs at his enthusiasm.

  He is particularly good at predicting winds. At an altitude of three thousand feet, wind direction parallels the prevailing weather system, and on the ocean the wind is two thirds the velocity of high-altitude currents.

  Adams walks out on deck, says casually but confidently, “Wind’s going to pick up tonight.”

  The sailors bundle up and laugh.

  North winds send hail,

  South winds bring rain;

  East winds we bewail,

  West winds blow amain.

  After supper one evening (green beans, roast beef, banana pudding), Adams checks his charts, predicts high winds. That night he is awakened by cats screaming. Shortly afterwards, “Aloft and stow!” He is thrown violently against the hull. He tries to stand, cannot. People yelling from their quarters. Finally he makes it to the door. The crew is running in the hold, water pouring down the companionway. He cannot get his balance. The captain announces that Desire Provoked has hit gale force winds (isn’t it the other way around, Adams wonders). Everyone is ordered to remain belowdecks until further notice. Carol crawls out of her cabin. She huddles with Adams at one end of the hold. She’s sick. Adams grips her waist as she coughs and spits. Than brings her a towel from his cabin.

  The storm continues through the night. The following morning, calm water. Desire Provoked sails limply, tattered, tilted at an angle. The compass is shattered; the Loran-C receiver is out.

  The pilot tells the captain they’re off course.

  “How much?”

  “It’ll take a while to determine our position. Without the Loran it’s largely guesswork. The RDF’s still working—”

  “We’re too far out to receive signals.”

  Desire Provoked drifts for a day and a half. Heavy fog. On the second day an object appears on the horizon. With their instruments out, the crew cannot determine their distance from it. Adams knows that if he can figure the object’s height, and his own height above water, he can calculate the range of visibility between it and him. Using a hand-held compass and a divider, he estimates the object’s height.

  He determines the height of his eye above water, estimates his own range of visibility. Then he adds the two results to determine the approximate distance between the object and the ship. Hastily he sketches a Circle of Position chart (where every object on its circumference is equidistant from the center of the circle). With a sextant he measures vertical angles, smooths his drawing compass across the chart.

  He points to a spot in the ship’s atlas. “We’re here. Not far from where we were.”

  Studying the atlas, he presumes the object to be a lighthouse on the coast of Bear Island. He thumbs through the Light List. The Bear Island lighthouse has a Fixed and Flashing light, red to green.

  “That would explain why we’ve seen no light,” says the captain. “In bad weather, red and green are harder to see than white.”

  Adams also discovers in the Light List that the tower contains a radio beacon. He switches on the RDF and receives a signal. Desire Provoked is, indeed, off the southwest coast of Bear Island, another day from Svalbard.

  “Very impressive,” Than says.

  Adams laughs. “We agreed there’s no true standard of measurement.”

  “In a manner of speaking. But you did determine our position.”

  “Yes.”

  “Logical. Practical.”

  “You won’t mind, then, if I learn what I
can?” Adams smiles.

  “No, no. But be careful.”

  “Too much reading makes you crazy?”

  Than heats a cup of tea. “In 1967, where I lived, it was impossible not to find on certain country roads American mines in the shape of dogshit. It took very clever minds to disguise the bombs, but they failed to realize that there were no dogs in the country. Napalm had driven them away, so the mines fooled no one. All that learning, technology, and effort, and it was in the end exactly what it looked like.”

  From the preliminary information packet Adams received on boarding Desire Provoked: “Svalbard belongs to the Kingdom of Norway. A governor (sysselman) presides over its domestic interests. In December 1975 the total population of Svalbard was 3,431: 1,177 Norwegians and 2,254 Russians, concentrated on Spitsbergen Island.

  “On the west coast of Spitsbergen, the temperature rarely drops below—30 degrees centigrade, and in summer rarely exceeds +10 degrees centigrade.”

  Harry Schock, the senior geologist, calls a meeting of all scientists aboard ship. They gather in a tiny drawing room near the galley. “All right, listen up,” he says. “Before we get to Svalbard, you need to know some things. There’s a lot of tension between Norway and the Soviet Union. It started in ‘61 when Norway granted American Caltex Oil two hundred prospecting claims based on geological indications, maps, aerial photographs, the works. In ‘63 Arktikugol, a Russian oil company, applied for a claim. They had the same type of evidence, but Norway turned them down. Arktikugol filed a complaint and finally the Department of Industry granted the claim. Otherwise they’d be violating Svalbard’s principle of equal treatment.”

  Before leaving the United States, Adams had requested through a Comtex spokesman oblique and vertical photographs of the Svalbard archipelago. He was told that the Norwegian Polar Institute, in the interests of fair play, no longer made aerial photographs available to foreign commercial interests. His job cannot begin before he sets foot on Spitsbergen.

  Comtex wants him to concentrate on Svalbard’s continental shelf: to explore it with the geologists and prepare contour charts. There are political problems with this, too. At times Norway opens the shelf to commercial exploitation; then, without warning or explanation, the shelf is declared off-limits.

  Adams’ latest information gives him the go-ahead, though he’s warned that tension is high on the island.

  The Norwegians feel undercompensated, and the Russians, who outnumber every other group on the island, do not welcome Comtex.

  In two and a half weeks at sea, Adams has hardly had time to think of home. In private moments, working on his map, he has wondered if the kids are eating junk food, if they’re getting enough sleep. Is Pamela bringing strangers home to bed? He has the sense that his responsibilities are on hold, waiting for him to return.

  He sits on his bunk, unrolls the children’s map, weights one corner with Hegel, and sketches the Island of Reason, surrounded by mist.

  Desire Provoked is scheduled to dock at the southern tip of Spitsbergen Island. From there Adams and the others will fly inland. At the airfield, American, Norwegian, and Soviet officials closely monitor one another’s activities. In addition, Soviet scientific expeditions are allowed to move freely throughout the archipelago; frequently, says Harry Schock, these expeditions are reconnaissance activities, attempts to inspect other nations’ progress in exploring the islands. The Soviets make no secret of their aims, though Norway has warned that surveillance of this type violates Norwegian sovereignty. Schock tells Adams and his colleagues not to resist any such inspection by Soviet “scientists.” “The best way to defuse tension,” he says, “is not to create it in the first place.”

  Adams says good-bye to the sailing crew of Desire Provoked. Among the icy docks with its canvas folded, the ship looks abandoned. Before leaving the harbor, Adams learns that eighteen feet of the inner hull had been sheared by heavy equipment: his noises at night.

  The scientists board a plane for Barentsburg, on the west coast. There they will undergo a briefing and be assigned specific duties.

  The flight is short. Adams, Carol, and Than sit in the rear of the plane with backpacks and equipment, huddling together in their parkas. The land below is a solid white sheet of snow. Mørkitiden, Norwegian winter.

  Barentsburg has no distinguishing features. Hard snow crackles beneath their feet once they leave the permafrost landing site. Adams can see only swirling flakes as he makes his way to a dark green wooden building resembling a barracks. Inside, the scientists are offered coffee and doughnuts, and asked to sit on metal folding chairs facing a raised platform.

  “This looks like an army briefing,” Carol tells Adams. He nods. Even inside the building their breath turns to smoke.

  A man named Pepperstone mounts the platform, asks them to make themselves at home. “Svalbard is not particularly pleasant this time of year,” he says, “but you’ll become accustomed to the conditions.” He is a heavy man with a blond beard. He gestures to his right. “We have a room full of beds back here, along with lavatory facilities. You’ll be spending the night here, then tomorrow morning you’ll be flying to specific locations along the coast to begin your work.”

  Arrangements have been made for Carol to sleep alone in a tiny room. The men will sleep in a large room in metal spring beds placed side by side. Carol’s room is just off the kitchen and the walls are thin. Even if there was more privacy, it is too cold to make love.

  Before supper, Adams shaves (the tap water stays warm for just a few seconds) and changes. He joins his colleagues in a large chilly room. Picnic tables and folding chairs have been arranged in rows. Meat loaf and peas: though the food is warm, it tastes frozen.

  “I feel like I’ve been drafted,” Carol says.

  “They’re very organized,” Than agrees.

  “I expected more of a welcome.”

  “It must be hard to get anything done here,” Adams says. “They’ve got to be all business.” Still, he too is a little disappointed in the barrenness of the place, the brief formality of their welcome.

  After supper members of the expedition line up to call their families on radiotelephones.

  “Jack has probably fallen in love with one of those women who sell turquoise bracelets on Guadalupe Street,” Carol says. “I’ll be a voice from his past.”

  Adams notes that he has not been enough to make her forget about Jack. She squeezes his hand.

  When Adams finally gets a turn, he radios Pamela’s house. The kids are asleep. He’d forgotten all about the time difference. “I’m sorry if I woke you,” he says.

  “That’s all right. So you made it okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “Cold. Nothing but snow.”

  “Prettier than Alaska?”

  “Nowhere near.”

  Waves of static. “I remember when you went to Alaska. It’s exciting to get postcards from faraway places.”

  Adams nods, realizes she can’t see him.

  “We were just married. I missed you.”

  “I miss the kids,” Adams tells her.

  A long pause. “Have you met anybody interesting,” Pamela asks.

  “No.”

  “I’m meeting all sorts of interesting people through the galleries. A sculptor from San Francisco’s in town this week.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “I sold a new piece. The moon. On a coat hanger. In a closet.”

  “Congratulations.” The line squeaks. “They’re going to cut me off soon. Are the kids all right?”

  “Deidre’s got a dance recital next Sunday. And Toby’s been pretty calm.”

  “Tell them I love them.”

  “I will.”

  “I have to go now.”

  “All right. Sam?”

  “Yes?”

  “They miss you, too.”

  Fitful sleep. The room is cold, the bed hard, the pillow too soft. For extra support he places The P
hilosophy of Hegel under his head. He lies awake listening to the wind scratch the wire-and-glass windows.

  Carol’s in the next room. He can’t help feeling that their attachment is temporary, dependent on the circumstances, yet when the other men look at her he feels possessive.

  He misses Jill.

  Forty-one years old. Incredible.

  He clutches his legs to his chest and tries to sleep.

  The following morning the scientists are divided into groups and flown to designated points along the coast to begin exploratory work. Than is scheduled to fly to a valley forty-five miles west of Barentsburg. “See you here in a few weeks,” he says.

  “By then I’ll have mastered Hegel.”

  Adams and Carol are flown to the same spot—a site near Ny-Alesund, northwest of Barentsburg. There are only a few temporary buildings—a generating plant, a fuel depot, a maintenance shop, and three plastic bubbles, geodesic domes. Behind the bubbles, two metal tunnels, like corrugated sewer pipe, large enough to shelter six horses.

  “The company’s too cheap to give us snowmobiles,” says one of the scouting engineers. He has been here two weeks. “A horse is handy if you’re traveling more’n a mile.”

  Carol’s assigned to check a series of core samples that the drilling engineers have already collected. The men are obviously delighted to see her, and she stays close to Adams.

  Adams must go up in a Cessna to take some aerial photographs. The sky is overcast, thick at intervals, and condensation forms on the windows of the cockpit. The pilot says, “That’s it for now.”

  When they try again in the afternoon, the same conditions prevail. Adams can’t see a thing out the cockpit window. A sudden change in pressure jolts the plane. Adams’ stomach turns over. When the-pilot lands, the craft skids several yards, spinning sideways on a sheet of ice. Adams opens the door, steps unsteadily onto the snow.

  “I’ve had several offers already,” Carol tells Adams. They are sitting inside a plastic bubble, warming themselves by a portable heater. The plastic wriggles with the wind. “These two guys hung around looking over my shoulder while I worked. I barely got anything done.” She picks up a small leather bag. “They gave me some pot. I don’t have the stomach for it anymore, but it’s better than beer and I gotta have something out here. Want some?” She rolls a cigarette, lights it, inhales, and offers it to Adams. He takes it from her.