I watched the steam rise and dissipate, along with my shallow breath in the cooling air. Had this man come to tell me only that the one existing link between myself and the world outside was now no more?
‘Did you know my father?’ I asked, for it seemed that he had told me all that he had to say.
’Not well,’ he answered. There followed a pause, then he added: ’But I’m sure he will be greatly missed.’
I nodded again, suppressing the almost overwhelming and totally shameful urge to laugh out loud. I knew well enough to ascertain that this last remark was one of condolence, but why should he feel the need for such formalities when the deceased had been and always would be a stranger to me? I heard Eqingaleq give a loud snort, presumably for the same reasons, and I shot him a stern glare, admittedly more for my own sake – that by feigning offence I might conceal from him my sense of detachment. He was not to be fooled, and only stuck out his tongue in response.
My visitor roused himself as if to indicate that our meeting had come to an end. But he did not rise, and instead said quietly: ’I am leaving in five days’ time: for England. I will be attending your father’s funeral... If you would like to pay your respects, I may be able to get you passage on the ship.’ His cold blue eyes met mine, yet I had no ready answer for such an unexpected proposal. The silence that followed was long and uncomfortable. His gaze lingered for longer than I would have liked as he studied the strangeness of my own eyes, curiously, warily, as did so many others. Even those who were laying their own eyes upon my cursed ones for the hundredth time.
As I had given no indication that I might respond, the grey-haired man with the beaked nose promptly stood up, thanked me for the coffee – though he had not touched a drop – offered his stilted condolences once more, and took his leave. I watched him trudge away down the road, hunched over, keeping his gaze on the ground. The sun had gradually, prematurely, sunk below the mountains, and the surrounding houses rose as hazy shadows around the man’s solitary figure. The lights from those houses which were occupied spilled from the windows and caused a morphing shadow to play about the man’s feet: a sharp-beaked, web-footed shadow with great white wings.
I shivered. Sun had forsaken those beneath her and would not return for some time. I retreated into the house, reluctantly, as needs must. I lit the lamp and sat for a long while in thought. Outside the evening was still and quiet, and the only sound I could hear was that of Eqingaleq sharpening his bone carving knife, a habit of his during the long winter evenings. I do not know that I thought of anything in particular. My head was filled with the voices of thousands of years, the wilderness of the ice fields and the ancient strength of the mountains. I imagined the deep eyes of the seal, the unfocused eyes of my mother, the richness of the ocean and the unknown emptiness that lay beyond. And my own eyes: one dark, like the eyes of my people and my ancestors; the other pale blue, almost colourless, its pupil a mere pinprick in a pool of shallow water. This was a signpost to my mixed heritage and the curse that ran in my blood, which had branded me an outcast from the moment of my birth...
...You’d thought yourself an orphan anyway, said Eqingaleq, as he ran a bony finger down the length of the knife blade, testing its sharpness.
An orphan. I leapt to my feet, donned my parka and mended kamiks. I blew out the lamp, burst into the open air and set off at a run down the hill towards the harbour. There were few people about; the town appeared to sleep now that the children had ceased their play and were hidden indoors. Their calls, cries and laughter had been replaced by the forlorn howling of the dogs chained up outside many of the houses beside dilapidated sleds or the skeletons of those which once had been functional. A cruel wind had begun to blow, bringing with it the fresh smell of salt water.
A chill ran down the length of my spine as I stood looking up at the dark, towering bulk of the supply ship, the company’s logo tattooed on its side. There shone no lights around this now deserted place. The ship waited, empty and silent, and the sea wind whistled around its shadow.
In the semi-darkness a raven alighted on an abandoned crate. It ruffled its great wings, cocked its head at me and emitted a low croak which sailed upon the wind. The Doctor’s house! Of course, where else would the man be staying? I set off urgently in this direction, my legs stiff from the cold. Eqingaleq, still in his raven form, soared like a demonic shadow some way ahead to be sure I would not lose my way, though even in the dark my memory served me well.
The house was distinctive for it stood highest atop the hill. It was a grand red-painted house outside which the Danish flag could be seen always, waving and dancing in the breeze or rippling furiously in the frequent winds.
My hammering upon the door was answered by the Doctor. I saw on his winter-pale face a look of mild, questioning surprise as he opened the door. I announced somewhat hastily that I urgently required to speak to the man with a beak instead of a nose. The surprise turned to bemusement, though eventually he appeared to ascertain my meaning and so disappeared inside. The door having been left ajar there could be heard the sound of what seemed like many murmured voices, the lively chink of glasses and the occasional ripple of laughter. The light which spilled out onto the doorstep was warm and welcoming and seemed to belong to a different world than the one in which I stood now, shivering in cold and in anticipation. Eqingaleq, once more in his human form and evidently gripped by an insatiable curiosity, crept with silent feet to the crack in the door and peered in. I hissed at him in nervous irritation. He only looked at me humorously, then winked, and the glow from inside the house illuminated his crooked, painted face and danced in his deep, black eyes. As he curled his fingers around the edge of the door, ready to slowly ease it open, it was flung suddenly aside and the light spilled blindingly onto the doorstep. Eqingaleq yelped in surprise and hid himself in my shadow.
The beak-nosed man peered down at me, once more appearing the tall dark stranger for the light by which he was backed. I hastily declared, lest I lose my nerve, that I would like to take him up on his offer, that I would accept passage to England and that I sought to attend my father’s funeral. I assured him that I had a passport, one that I had obtained a year or two ago with the intention of travelling to Denmark. I had not had the courage to embark on the trip, but of course I kept this bit to myself.
Again there was silence while he observed me down the bridge of his nose, apparently in cold calculation: not so much as a smile touched his lips.
’I can pay my way,’ I blurted out, fearful that my acceptance of the offer might have come too late. I could feel Eqingaleq’s imploring eyes upon me, but in determination I kept my own gaze fixed upon the man in the doorway. I wished that I could better see his face so that I might remember where I had seen it before.
’We leave on Saturday morning,’ he said coldly, ’at nine o’clock. Don’t be late.’ With that he gave a curt nod and, before I had the chance to proffer my thanks, or indeed to question, he abruptly closed the door.
The night time returned. I began to shuffle in the direction of home. My urgent task having been brought to a spectacularly non-dramatic close, my adrenaline began now to dissipate, and the cold and the dark set in once more. I found myself shivering to the bone. Now was the time for doubt.
Pay our way?! Eqingaleq hissed in my ear. With what, exactly?
My teeth chattered in my jaw like live things. We can sell the dogs, I said.
We both knew we would not be needing them, wherever the beaked man might take us.
3
Rasmus
1948
Snapshots of his childhood sanctuary under the stairs and those books which he had coveted with all the passion of his soul came to him uninvited but not altogether unwelcome, as he sought sleep on that first night crossing the North Atlantic.
He had taken the book with him into his customary hiding place under the stairs. Here he would sit for hours, relishing each turn of the page with fingers that trembled with excitement and
the fear of discovery. He traced the words with his fingers, fixed his torch on the grainy images and drawings. There were heavy-bearded men dressed in skins against the cold, icebergs as big as houses, dogs pulling sleds, tents in the wilderness…
In those stolen moments, the cupboard under the stairs transformed into a vast glacier, hundreds of miles thick, and the polar winds swept across with such force they could knock a man from his feet. He would pull his scarf tighter about his neck (he took care to make sure this necessary item remained stashed with the books – props were essential). As he pored over the book on his lap he would imagine he were Adolphus Greely, famous polar explorer stranded in the icy wilderness of Ellesmere Island for years on end; or Sir John Franklin, who had vanished from the face of the earth in his attempts to discover the Northwest Passage to the continent. Some said that Franklin and his men had resorted to cannibalism in the face of starvation. This was the part of the tale he had liked the most as a boy: the hardships of those who dared venture so far north.
Sometimes, in the winter, he woke to find his home town covered by a thick blanket of snow. On those days he was Robert Peary, making a heroic first attempt to reach the geographic North Pole; sometimes the snow would still fall during his expedition, and he must brave blizzards and sub-zero temperatures. Frostbite and starvation were constant threats, but always he reached the top of the world. Planting his homemade flag, he allowed himself to picture the day when he, too, would be known for his feats of Arctic exploration. Charles Rasmus Stewart, weather-beaten face set with grey stubble and ringed by a fur hood, looking at the camera with weary eyes that had seen things of which others could only dream, or horrors one could only hope to forget. Just like Peary.
The ship tossed like a sailing boat on the fierce swell of the sea. The wind that blew that evening was already infused with an iciness that made the tips of his fingers tingle with excitement. As he stood up on the deck, the fog had lifted from his senses and his spirit had soared with the seagulls that trailed the laden ship. Strangely, this time it was not Peary whose image he saw before him, but that of Knud Rasmussen, an explorer who did not discover, but learned; and did not conquer, but stayed. That was what Rasmus longed for now: to learn from the people of the Arctic, those whom he most admired. He wanted to learn not only how to survive, but how to live in this place that lay so close to the world’s end.
Once he arrived in east Greenland he would stay, for a few months at least, in the settlement that was named Angmagssalik, before undertaking the journey to Greenland’s west coast. To stay first in Angmagssalik, he had foreseen, was essential: he must learn to drive the dogs in the native way, the huskies that would pull the sledge across the ice cap to the opposite coast. This was the only way to travel in the glacial wilderness. He would require skin clothing too, and to further his knowledge of navigation even in the most adverse weather conditions.
Rasmus shivered with the thrill of adventure and anticipation: his first polar expedition. He had spent a good many years planning the journey, but he had dreamed of it his entire life. The advent of the war had of course brought his ambitions to a temporary halt – a regrettable turn of events, yet it had given him the chance, at least, to build up his survival skills and brush up on his navigational expertise. The fantasising and planning of this – as then hypothetical – expedition had kept him going through even the most challenging obstacles of his wartime career.
The desire to conquer the harsh Arctic landscape, just as those explorers who had gone before him had done, was his life’s ambition; yet he was driven first and foremost by an emotion so strong it almost frightened him. He wanted to become one with the Arctic wilderness. He wanted to become one of the people who called it their home.
His companions on this journey across the Greenland ice cap were to be two old friends – or one old friend and an acquaintance, at least.
Rasmus and Snorri had both studied at the Royal School of Military Survey as young men. Though British-born, Snorri’s mother was from Iceland – the almost-Arctic, in Rasmus’s eyes. Rasmus was intrigued by the man’s matrilineal heritage; and Snorri, in turn, was soon won over by his new friend’s boundless enthusiasm for the northern climes. They had become firm friends. Snorri was good-humoured, his manner calm and relaxed. The gentle tone of his voice could put anyone at ease. Rasmus could not think of a more suitable companion during months of isolation in the seemingly endless polar wilderness.
If only, he thought, he could say the same about the third member of the party: the man known as Birdie.
4
Malik
1973
For days I twisted and turned in a bed of sea-sickness, moaning and awaiting a drawn-out death. Surely this suffering was a punishment, administered to the vagrant, uncaring one who had left his home. The ship leapt upon the waves, jerking from side to side as though the very ocean tried to drag it into its depths. It lolled and rocked at the foundations, and my body protested violently. This was not the natural rhythm of the waves and water below a well-crafted kayak; the ocean shook us to the very bones, attempting to hurl us back to whence we had come – for one should not intrude who does not have the right.
I had taken a very rushed leave of my home town, unsure almost to the last minute of the path I would take, or the one which would be handed to me. I was anxious also that I might anyway be refused passage on the ship. Eventually, however, encouraged by Eqingaleq, I had knocked on all those doors which had been opened to me during my short life. I had thrown my heart wide open yet kept the explanations to a minimum. Last of all I had said goodbye to my daughter. She was still much too young to comprehend that I was leaving, yet I could go nowhere without first seeing her and embracing her, for I did not know when again I would be near her. To my shame I could not stop the hot tears that sprang to my eyes, and I held her close until her mother impatiently remarked that my leaving was my own decision and no right did I have to seek sympathy. I did not tell her that the decision did not feel like my own, but that of a force far stronger than myself. I could not deny my blood.
Every detail of my hasty departure was hurled about my head with the perpetual rocking and jerking of the ship. Pictures and memories replayed themselves over and over again with obsessive clarity, until in my sickness they became distorted. Then I saw instead the demonic white faces of bears, the open beaks and beady eyes of birds, and the twisted features of the spirits, laughing and chanting. Then there came into view the crooked countenance of Eqingaleq: his large, flat nosed pushed to one side, broken and misshapen, stealing the symmetry from his face. His dark, ancestral eyes were as old as the land and as deep as the sea: kind, wise and troubled. The painted black lines on his skin drew his face into changing patterns, up into the nest of his wiry black hair.
We had reached land again, he wished to tell me. My relief was to be short-lived, however, as I remembered we had arrived only in Denmark. From here we must endure a second sea journey to England, our destination.
That night as we left Denmark I found myself, in a trance-like state of unconsciousness, face to face with the Mother of the Sea. I was unsure as to whether or not I had desired to behold her; and embarrassed for I did not know why I had come. Knowingly she looked upon me, her long, raven-black hair reaching out like fingers of seaweed in each and every direction. Her eyes revealed a knowledge of centuries. And in a voice saturated with the rushing of waves she told me only that I should tread carefully, that the gull’s wings can be folded and hidden away so that only he who dares to look closely can perceive them.
I listened, for surely she should know: she who was courted by no other than a gull who disguised himself as a man. Wearing eye goggles fashioned from bone, set with a slit before each eye, he was able to see yet his watery eyes remained hidden, concealing the truth of his species. He approached her father and asked if he might have her hand in marriage, for so much did he admire her human beauty. The request was accepted, the marriage was made. Soon after the g
irl, along with her parents and brother as was the custom, moved to the home of the suitor, on an island off the shoreline. But once the bride beheld her new husband’s hideous, watery eyes she knew him for what he was. The family fled, clambering into a boat and beginning to row back to the mainland. Yet the gull unfolded his great white wings and pursued them over the stormy sea. The girl’s father, fearing for his own safety, grabbed hold of his daughter and threw her overboard, that the gull might reclaim her and be content. She caught onto the sides of the boat and desperately clung on, but one by one the old man cut off her fingers. When they had all been severed she sank to the ocean bed, where still she lies. Her fingers became seals, walruses and narwhal. These creatures she keeps entangled within her long, greasy hair, until such time as the shaman, visiting her from his community, consoles her and washes the centuries of accumulated salt and mud from her locks. Only when this has been done will she release the animals back into the sea, to the skill of the hunter and the use of the people.
To her, surely, I must listen.
The Seagulls Laughter Page 2