The night, a single strigoi devouring the world.
At times, I wonder whether a concrete fear is better, whether that swath of deadly night lowering upon us is preferable to the ineffable nothing gnawing at our nerves.
To the strange certainty that we have left a door open somewhere, an unwitting invitation to whatever awaits outside, stalking us.
I recall the successive snows of winter, creaking on the roofs, ever promising, whispering to the child I was then of how the wide sky was collapsing upon our house. The neighbor who lost a finger to the gelid cold, the knowledge that to become lost in the snow meant the surety of splintering, of shattering like a glass full of blood.
Before a blizzard, I should look upon the dark earth for what seemed the last time, before the punctillated pattern of white made it something else entirely. Such helplessness in seeing the warm, familiar, kindly autumn world swallowed bit by bit.
On the deck of the Demeter, looking out upon the sea and the non-existent strigoi, I felt everything disappear under a snowfall that no one else perceived. Without yet knowing why, I was certain that, somehow, Winter had embarked with us.
By the fifth day, the routines and behaviors we must perform daily are fully established. The dogged watches, crew assignments, navigational charts for the hours we must spend on board.
Tour the ship again, survey the ropes that secure the cargo, the sterile load in our hold. Fifty boxes of earth. In the permits, someone has scrawled “for scientific experiments” as sufficient justification. Our schooner was hired to carry solely these. There will be no port that interrupts the trip from Bulgaria to England.
The forecastle and sterncastle, occupied by crew and officers. The sailors have already hidden a bit of their rations there, oil has been spilled inadvertently on the deck, their clothes have surrendered to the ineluctable march of disorder.
On my table, the papers will multiply. The instruments for dead reckoning will hide among them. The heavy stench of smoke and liquor will permeate every nook along with the spicy aroma of the food that Arghezi prepares, stirred by the constant comings and goings to follow orders and ease the tedium.
Today, when darkness brings no sleep, stories will be told, false memories of non-existent women desperately offering themselves to the men of the Demeter.
The First Mate will be discussed for the first time, while someone peers at the bruises raised by Vlahutza’s handspike. Rancor will ferment from this moment on.
At night, the furtive sounds will begin, self-caresses that seek to slake desire.
Routines I must miss.
My position keeps me from approaching them when they eat, from listening to their slow anecdotes in the dim light, from remaining within the forecastle with the constant flood of their scent.
I am the Captain, Lord of this house while at sea. And there is the First Mate to remind me and frown when I talk more with any of the men.
It is not my role to speak: I am master to them all, momentary slaves of port pay.
But they are not mine.
I also have a master: the owners of the Demeter. Their offices in Russia, where rest documents in which I swear to avoid problems, where my slaves could denounce me should I give in to my appetites.
I must carry out my own routines.
Serve the food to the officers in their cabins; be the daily host of my Second Mate.
Knowing that Vlahutza hates those moments, I do not oblige him to join us. Therefore, is he my First Officer: It is his wont to walk the bridge and govern the ship while I eat, for surely while there is a Master up there, my presence is not required.
Arghez. I shall take rations to him, or he will descend later to eat alone, with no more company than the ship rats and the waves just beyond the wood.
The cook disappears after serving the food. Muresh relaxes while pouring wine into a glass and I tell myself that it is strange to be alone with him.
I look him in the eye and almost manage to smile. I slice away the best cut of meat (warm blood, steaming seasoned crust, the tenderness of a little fat) and serve it as though it were a favor he cannot comprehend.
Many times, when I go back out to the bridge, Vlahutza glances pointedly at his watch.
So much time to finish so little food?
How to explain that time matters not when our mouths and guts are full of meat and wine?
We revel in the simple communion of the senses.
The delicate taste that blossoms when biting the meat, the dry aroma of the drink, the feel of one’s tongue gliding through one’s mouth, the satisfied sound of one’s body feeding.
Gluttony is a capital sin, one I can understand each afternoon, every time I give a bit of my food to the Second Mate, an added pleasure to serve as host.
Intimacy, bodies finding satisfaction together, never touching but united in the common act.
Just Muresh and I. Sharing that simple daily meal. Intimate, nigh-on conjugal, as though such moments brought us closer in some fashion. Then I can almost pretend that I have spent the night with the man I feed, that we rest from our pleasure with the pleasure of breaking bread.
If, to feel that intimacy, it suffices that we be isolated from the rest of the crew, what then does it mean that we nine men of the Demeter have separated ourselves from the world?
What does being alone in the middle of the ocean make us?
“The coasts of Turkey, sir,” says Muresh, when dawn shows us the horizon broken by a line of land.
I observe the entrance to the Bosphorus Strait with such attention that the Second Mate looks again for something new. But he finds only the felucca of Turkish customs maneuvering to reach our ship.
I order the First Mate to reduce speed.
I touch the bag hidden in my clothes, the coins arranged since the start of our voyage for the taxes we must pay for the greater glory of Sultan Abdul-Hamid II. And the obligatory bribe.
The old ceremony. Receive the officers. Hand over the documents they will review with suspicion, the brief review of the Demeter, the discovery of some detail that will make our old schooner a danger to other ships sailing to the Marmara Sea, the fact that they at last forgive us magnanimously this defect and allow us to continue, the farewell in which I give them additional coin. Never a bribe, only a recognition of their generosity.
A ceremony that will occupy us nearly the entire day.
The chief of the men who board us is Captain Melih and when he sees our flag, he mentions, quite matter-of-factly, that his father was killed by a Russian, during the war.
I mentally add a few more coins to the bribe.
He glances around as though he could glean our intentions from our mere appearance. I look at my crew; there is nary a suspicious thing about them.
Mayhap Abranoff’s tired appearance as he, like his Captain, has not slept well these last few nights. Or the familiarity with which Petrofsky and Acketz stand close together. Or the serious mien of Vlahutza.
He asks me to accompany him below to survey the cargo.
He has a couple of his men go down first, then he follows, a lamp in one hand and a pistol in the other. It is not a firm, self-confident gesture, like that of Varna’s Tziganes.
In the hold, there are only the boxes and a few dead gray rats on the floor. Naught else.
The Turk looks at me accusingly, as though I had put those small corpses there just to make him uncomfortable.
I must treat the rats as an unimportant curiosity; otherwise, the baksheesh will be unusually large. And we did not bring enough money to afford it.
I pick one up with indifference and examine it briefly.
“Old rats,” I say, tossing it into a corner, not letting disgust cloud my face, for the animal seems a bag devoid of weight, drained, internal organs gnawed. A shell.
Alongside Captain Melih, I examin
e the boxes we are transporting.
Wood: sturdy and well-assembled.
Too much so.
Only at that moment do I realize the strange construction of the crates. Valuable wood, with a triple row of nails ensuring it will not come apart for any reason.
No simple packaging, shipping containers; I should almost classify them as furniture, built with precision, with a particular purpose in mind.
There is no defect, except a small crack running the length of some lids.
While the Turks count the boxes, I run my fingers along the tiny imperfection.
It is akin to caressing skin: firm, soft, rounded ... I consider it again. Too precise; an idealized drawing of a crack.
Without knowing why, I close my eyes, draw the crack upon my palm, letting the feel of it travel the lines of my hand. It is difficult, soft ... I trace it and the motion makes it easier to form an image of it ….
I carry that image between my fingers, transport it to another crack, a different crate with another imperfection. I touch the new lid, resting my hand upon it, closing my eyes.
The cracks are identical, as if sketched upon the wood itself, without any variation.
Not a defect. Put there deliberately.
Someone hid the precise purpose of that drawing by disguising it. But to what end? It is too small to serve as ventilation. As tiny as the path of the worms inside an apple. I imagine them wriggling their way out of the box, joining together under my palm to form a rat, its fur a million white worms squirming, blinking a million blind eyes.
A rat like the one waiting under my sheets, every night.
Something infinitely small grazes my hand, digging into the whorls of my fingertips, humid and agile like some infinitesimal tongue ….
With a shout, I jerk my hand away from the box. Melih looks up from a document and walks toward me. He can confiscate the cargo, my ship, hold us in this place for as long as he deems necessary, lock us in the schooner with these boxes for months entire.
Not expecting the effort it requires, I shake my hand with a gesture of pain. Although I can still perceive something viscous on my fingertips, I bring it to my lips ….
A splinter.
As though unconscious of his stare, I dig with my teeth for a non-existent fragment stuck in my skin. After I feign its extraction, I sigh, bored, and look around.
Melih continues reading the permits, reviewing the stamps.
There is nothing unusual. Not there, at least.
At 4:00 pm, we receive the order to continue our course. I write in the log with a firm gesture: All correct.
I do not believe so.
Not when my palm retains the stink of some creature’s rancid saliva.
Not when I recall that Mikhail would kiss me like that, before biting my flesh hard, because after pleasure, all that remains is to experience pain.
Not when I recognize in my palm the dead stench of the rat that awaits me, erect in my dreams.
Vlahutza watches me lean overboard, vomiting a yellow fear that is lost in the waters of the Bosphorus.
I feel it slide over me, without haste, with a majestic slowness. I am conquered territory, the skin of my neck shuddering at the feel of whatever it is that grazes the base of my throat, gliding quickly over my chest, touching it with absolute freedom.
I open my eyes without knowing where I am, who I am. I see the ceiling, can feel the heat of the sun on the wood. The weight of heat on the bridge.
Objects that I have not secured drift across surfaces, whispering as they slide.
Muffled by distance, the mast thrums as it cuts the air. Easy to imagine the swollen sails.
There are no clothes on my body; at some point during my dream, I must have pulled free of them without realizing it.
I touch my skin and something more.
I look at the tips of my fingers, wet.
That awakened me: the feeling of sweat as it slowly seeped from my pores, leaving its path of salt on my body.
Liquid skin, living oil.
We have left the route of ice, until we cross the Bay of Biscay, a couple of days from England and the end of our trip.
Meanwhile, we are in the heat, the dry breeze that clings to our flesh. No more icy mists or gray seas. Under us lies the green and the slow evaporation of the waters.
Coats will be piled up willy-nilly. Clothes will be left open, gaps for breeze and sweat.
Gaps for my eyes, to guess the hidden forms, the occult secret of muscles and desire.
I have slept no more than a couple of hours. But what does it matter if the sun is out?
I dress and go out to the bridge, to the shouts of the First Mate ordering men to survey the knots in the shroud of the main mast.
I can see my men climbing hand over fist, their bare feet anchored in the rigging, which digs into the edges of their heels, whitened by the grip of their toes, a perfect vision of taut muscles.
Vlahutza has also taken off his shoes. Why not? This is our first day of real heat, of new sweat. The beginning of dry lips, sunburned eyelids, and acid sores that will refuse to close, skin afire, but what does it matter right now?
The wind is strong and we can feel the determined momentum of the schooner. All ship surfaces, despite the breeze, are hot. If one rakes one’s hand through one’s hair, one will discover there a feverish shimmer, as if each strand were a loaf of bread fresh from the oven.
Were it not for the humid atmosphere that surrounds us, the heavy mantle of invisible salt and water from which it is impossible to escape, it would not be difficult to imagine ships burning in the dark, riggings full of flame. Embers lending slight illumination to the darkness of the aftermath, smoke an offering to the sun’s unbridled power.
The uniforms of the men guarding the Straits of the Dardanelles gape open and they are thankful for the shade of canvas.
The customs felucca maneuvers toward us. Their swain well knows how to draw more speed from the continuous wind, so we have no need to furl any sails.
The functionaries of the Bosphorus must have telegraphed ahead, revealing how easy it is to get more money from us.
Vlahutza attends to them. I know he will pay the taxes and the bribe with a firm gesture. He will not haggle, nor add some extra coins.
Today, I am off duty. I shall greet the Captain of the Guard, and watch his dark skin glow with sun and sweat.
I lean against the gunwale while they climb the ladder. My men work without excessive effort.
Petrofsky has trouble hoisting a tarp. It is no great weight, but he appears exhausted. His torpid movements give the impression that he feels sick. Without realizing it, as one might push one’s hair away from one’s forehead, he puts his hand to his neck.
I approach him, look up, and I can see traces of exhaustion on his face, dark circles around his eyes, dregs of white nights.
Petrofsky stands still before me with an indolent gesture. I am another inconvenience of a hard day.
I touch his chin with a firm, abrupt gesture. He is one of my men, so this is no caress; I just let my fingers slide toward the jaw hinge, over his sweaty skin. I turn his head, revealing his neck.
An irregular red spot stands out on his flesh.
I still remember how Mikhail would cling to my chest, how I should shiver when his lips wrapped around my nipple, the wet tongue, then the pull when he sucked my flesh with all his might, his cheeks hollowing, his cravings manifest on my skin. What remained was that dark trace where his mouth had not settled, the space between his lips, an imperfect circle, ellipse of dead blood under the skin, a clear sign of the moment in which pain and excitement are one.
Acketz, at the helm, looks at me. When Melih’s men were on board, he did not leave Petrofsky’s side.
There is nothing to say, no relevant order.
V
lahutza might have beat him, leaving fresh blood in various other spots. Or he would have burdened him with more tasks, a punishment for the pleasure no sailor should receive if it interferes with his work.
All I can do is order him to go to sleep for a few hours.
I know I am going to think about that stain, the precise drawing made during pleasure, whether I could put my lips around that cryptic glyph ….
The Turks are already on board. They inspect the sails as if they were looking for something printed on them, but it is not the labyrinth of cables and canvas that attracts their attention. It is easy to guess by their gestures that they search for the source of some smell they dislike.
No schooner is fragrant. The wood rots. The sails mildew. Copper plates slowly corrode, giving off an aroma of dust and iron, of rusty sea. Not to mention the cargo that has spoiled below, a stench that hangs over the hold, lingering above the boxes we transport to England.Mayhap it is that: the odor of black earth in the midst of the sea.
Forest on board, full of dead leaves, fungi and blind worms, of albino life developing hidden from view in the eternal night of the hold.
If there is now an unpleasant stink aboard the Demeter, it has invaded so gradually that there is no way to know how or when.
The customs officers’ work is thorough, counting the boxes and checking our papers, but with great celerity. They want us out of their straits as soon as possible. They do not want our boat in those waters once night falls.
In Russia, we dream of wolves in the midst of the forest. What image does that black earth awaken in the Turks?
A sound. A small splash in the water.
I watch a gray rat run across the deck. Its skin hangs loose on its bones; it has spent so much time hiding that it has not eaten in days.
Quickly, it climbs the wood, scurrying down the bowsprit without stopping. It looks at the felucca that bobs a few yards from the Demeter. It jumps without thinking. Another splash. Faint churning of little limbs. Above the persistent thrum of the sea, it is nigh-on imperceptible unless one knows what is happening. But I do. I saw that first rat rush, guilty, toward the water and the ship that could whisk it away from a certain death.
The Route of Ice and Salt Page 4
