The Whaler

by Ines Thorn

  “Do you have anything else to wear?” Zelda asked.

  “In my s-sea chest.” Maren’s teeth chattered harder.

  “Well, you can’t expect me to go down there and get it. You’ll just have to wear some of my things. Now take off those wet clothes.”

  Maren obeyed, glad to get the soiled, sour-smelling garments off of her body.

  “There’s a pitcher and basin with warm water over there, and the soap is next to it. Help yourself while I find something for you to wear.”

  Maren did as she was asked, relieved to be able to wash properly again. She enjoyed the warm water and the gently perfumed rose-scented soap, and when Zelda helped her wash her hair, she almost felt human again.

  “There, put that on.” Zelda pointed at a dress that was spread out on the bed.

  “That?” Maren spluttered. She went closer and rubbed the soft fabric between her fingers. She’d never felt anything so fine. Not even the most elegant formal wear on Sylt had been so soft. “What kind of material is this?”

  Zelda shrugged. “Velvet,” she said curtly. “A suitor from Genoa brought it to me.” She said it as though it were nothing special, but Maren couldn’t stop running her hands over the material.

  “Do you plan to stand around half-naked much longer?” Zelda inquired.

  Maren quickly slipped into the dress, but the bodice was much too big for her. She glanced at Zelda’s breasts, which were twice the size of her own. She tried to lace the stays as tightly as possible, but she still felt half-naked.

  Then she brushed her hair, set her sailor’s cap on her head, and turned to leave. “I think I’m needed in the kitchen. Jakob will be waiting for me.”

  Zelda nodded, smiled, and pointed to the cap. “You certainly can’t go wearing that thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “The cap doesn’t match the dress,” Zelda explained, as though it were the most normal thing in the world. “Here, take the bonnet if you don’t want to wear your hair loose.” She handed Maren a bonnet made of delicate lace, but Maren shook her head.

  “I’ll just ruin the dress and the bonnet. Sparks fly in the kitchen. It might get a few burn holes and stains.”

  Zelda waved off her concern. “Keep the dress! I have enough dresses. I only brought that one so I’d have something to trade with if we meet people on the coast of the Arctic sea.”

  Maren nodded and thanked Zelda with a curtsy. “I’ll repay you somehow, I promise. As soon as I can.”

  “It’s not worth mentioning,” Zelda said. But Maren had already noticed Zelda wasn’t pleased that Maren had been given access to the captain’s cabin.

  That evening, Maren was about to return to her berth below deck, but Zelda grabbed her by the arm as she passed. “The captain has ordered that as of tonight you must sleep in our cabin.”

  Maren’s forehead creased. “Why?”

  “Well, I think he doesn’t want to leave you alone with all the men again. Last night they got you drunk. Who knows what they’ll think of next?”

  Maren nodded, uncomfortable about being so close to the captain. That morning she had seen a completely different side of him, but sharing a cabin with him and his lover was far too intimate for her. Still, she didn’t dare argue, so she went to the cabin with Zelda.

  Zelda pointed to two straw pallets stacked against the wall, covered with a blanket along with a feather quilt and a pillow. “That’s where you’ll sleep. I hope you’re happy with it.”

  “Happy? It’s the most wonderful bed I’ve ever seen,” she cried. Of course that was an exaggeration, but at that moment it was true for her.

  “You can lie down now,” Zelda said, and although she’d spoken kindly, Maren heard it as an order. “The captain and I will sit in the wardroom for a while.”

  Maren nodded and lay down as Zelda left the cabin. The wardroom. Maren knew that was where the officers, mates, harpooners, and blubber cutters dined and drank. The rest of the crew ate wherever they could find a place: on an overturned bucket on deck, on the bare planks, simply standing, or below deck in their berths or hammocks. She herself had never been in the wardroom, but those who had rhapsodized about its grandeur.

  She instantly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. But in the middle of the night, she was awakened by a noise. It sounded like moaning, and Maren wondered if she should get up and see who was in pain.

  It was Zelda’s voice; she recognized it. The whimpering and panting sounded absolutely dreadful, but then she heard the rough voice of the captain.

  “Come, open for me. I know exactly what you need.”

  “Yes, you do know,” Zelda answered. Then her moaning became louder. The bedstead shook rhythmically, and it sounded as though two naked bodies were falling on each other.

  Maren sat up and peered into the darkness at them, and after a while, she could make out Zelda’s slender body twisting under the captain’s. In that moment, she understood. The two of them were doing what only married people should do, what she herself had done just once with Thies. Maren felt a wave of shame and indignation. But there was another feeling. A tingling between her legs. Just there, where . . . She groaned softly and turned over to face the wall, the blanket clamped firmly between her thighs. She squeezed her eyelids tightly shut. But then she became too warm. She would have liked to shake off the blankets to cool her overheated body, but she didn’t dare to do that either. What was wrong with her? And why did the captain’s quiet, hoarse laughter send a shiver down her back? And why did she suddenly hate Zelda as deeply as she’d otherwise only hated Grit? She wanted to stuff that seductive laugh and sultry moaning right back down her throat.

  She lay there that way for a long time, with a burning lap and overheated limbs, until she finally heard the captain’s snoring, became calmer, and slowly found sleep.

  CHAPTER 17

  The days began to blend into one another. Every morning, Maren got up and went to Jakob in the galley and worked until her back and feet hurt, her hands were rough and dry, and her eyes stung from the smoke. Then she got her meal and devoured it while sitting on a coil of rope or an overturned bucket on deck. When it rained, she pulled an old piece of sailcloth over her head. In the evening, after all the galley work was done, she returned to the captain’s cabin. Some mornings she was so nauseated she could barely keep down the piece of dry hardtack she was given for breakfast. In the galley, too, she felt more and more unwell from day to day. She couldn’t bear the smell of sauerkraut without having to be sick. She became nauseated when cutting salt pork, but now when she cut onions, her mouth watered.

  Jakob observed all this with skepticism. “It doesn’t seem right,” he said. “You should’ve gotten over being seasick by now. It’s usually that way, in any case.” He scratched his chin. “Well,” he said quietly, more to himself than to her, “but the others were all men. Who knows how women react to seasickness?” He gave her a rag dipped in vinegar to place on her neck, but that made her feel worse.

  Jakob shrugged. “I’m sorry that you’re not feeling well, but I can’t do without your help. At least, not until we’ve reached the whaling grounds.”

  “Don’t worry,” Maren replied. “I’m not sick. I’m doing fine. I feel healthy. Maybe I just need to get used to the food here on board. And the sea air.” She continued to work efficiently, but every evening she was desperately tired, so tired that her bones hurt.

  As soon as she lay down on her pallet in the captain’s cabin, she closed her eyes tightly so she’d be deeply asleep by the time the captain and Zelda came in. She didn’t want to hear what the two of them were doing—but at the same time, she didn’t want to miss a moan. Every time she listened to their amorous play, her body began to glow. Blood flowed hotly through her veins and pulsed in her arteries, her heart pounded swiftly, and her mouth became dry. She felt a pleasant tingling between her legs that lingered long after the captain and Zelda had fallen asleep.

  Tonight she lay awake again with her eyes squeeze
d shut as they entered the cabin. Maren heard Zelda giggle.

  “Quiet. We’ll wake her,” the captain ordered.

  “Why must we always take heed not to wake her? Why is she sleeping in our cabin? I thought it was just for one night, but she’s been with us so long I can’t enjoy myself anymore. It’s time for her to go back below deck.”

  “No.” His voice was harsh and stern.

  “Why not?”

  “I explained that to you already. She’s not safe there.”

  “So she’s to live with us in the cabin for the entire voyage? Why did you bring her anyway?”

  Maren breathed as flatly and quietly as she could. She didn’t know why she was suddenly so nervous, but she was desperate to hear the captain’s answer.

  “She’s under my protection,” he growled. “You don’t need to know any more than that.”

  You don’t need to know any more than that? Maren thought. Hadn’t Boyse told his lover that he had intended to marry Maren? No, obviously not. And now that she knew Zelda a bit better, she knew that it wouldn’t make her friendlier if she found out. But why hadn’t Boyse said anything? Was he so ashamed of her rejection? But why? He had Zelda, and he had been with her for a long time. Why hadn’t he married her?

  “I thought I was somewhat more to you than a harbor whore,” Zelda complained, her voice unusually emotional.

  Maren heard Boyse swallow. “I like you; you know that. And I’ve always treated you well. But you don’t have the rights of a wife.”

  His words were calm, almost kind, but Maren shrank away from them as from the crack of a whip, even though they hadn’t been intended for her.

  She could feel Zelda stiffen. Then the woman spun around so fast that her skirts swished. “Well, then, you don’t need me here,” she said, and she left the cabin.

  Maren carefully opened one eye. She saw Boyse standing in the middle of the cabin, scratching his neck. Then he glanced toward her, and she quickly closed her eyes. A little later, she finally fell asleep.

  It got colder every day, even though it was the end of May. They had been traveling for over three months toward their destination, the waters between Greenland and Newfoundland. The blows of coopers’ hammers as they built barrels to hold the whale blubber had been echoing through the ship all day. Harpooners and blubber cutters sharpened harpoons and flensing knives with huge whetstones, smiths forged harpoon tips in glowing fires, and sailors made space on deck to process the blubber, while the ship’s boys mended sails and scrubbed planks. Everyone had his tasks, and Captain Boyse saw to it that they were done properly.

  The closer they came to the expanse between the seventy-fourth and seventy-seventh degrees of latitude, the faster life on board changed. They practiced for the whale hunt even though it was so cold that water froze overnight in buckets on deck and frost stiffened the sails so that they rattled loudly. The captain had already chosen the whaleboat crews that would leave the brig to go on the hunt. Every whaleboat had a harpooner, four oarsmen, and a boatheader to steer the boat and lead the crew.

  They practiced again and again. First, they practiced lowering the whaleboats from the brig, then boarding, steering, and the motions of the hunt. The harpooner cast harpoons, and the sailors practiced pulling the unimaginably huge whale back to the mother ship. Then it was left to the blubber cutters, the try cookers (the men who rendered the blubber into whale oil in the huge try-pots), ship’s boys, and everyone else aboard the brig. The blubber cutters would stand atop the whale to flense it, and helpers would sit in a small boat nearby to hand them tools. Others waited on deck to cut the blubber into smaller pieces as quickly as possible and stow it in barrels. They practiced until the boatheaders were satisfied with their crews and Captain Boyse could find no fault with their work either.

  Some got injured during practice and had to be replaced. And so it happened that young Raik became part of a whaleboat crew. His job as cabin boy was filled by a galley drudge, and, thanks to the rotation of tasks, Maren ended up as part of the team helping the blubber cutters. As long as she was only practicing, Maren found the work fun. She didn’t have to hunch over all the time anymore, and her back and feet no longer ached so terribly. The men she worked with sang bawdy sea shanties and made jokes.

  Captain Boyse watched the sea carefully. He stood at the rail for hours on end, watching his crew practicing, and staring at the water. Every now and then, he lowered a bucket down to the sea, filled it, and pulled it up. Then he sniffed the water and even stuck a finger in to taste it.

  “What’s he doing?” Maren asked.

  “The captain is looking for krill,” an experienced blubber cutter replied.

  “What’s krill?”

  “It’s what whales eat. When the sea has a certain color, smell, and taste, it means there is krill in it. And where there’s krill, there are whales.”

  “Is there krill here now?”

  The blubber cutter bent over the rail. “It’s not enough for a whale yet, but it won’t be much longer.”

  Two days passed. Two days during which the men, clad in warm coats and caps against the cold, stood on deck and gazed at the sea, stretching gray as lead before them. Occasionally, they passed icebergs or saw another ship on the horizon. Few spoke. They sometimes pointed into the distance when they thought they’d seen something moving and believed it might be a whale. But so far, it hadn’t been.

  When she wasn’t practicing handing flensing knives to the blubber cutters, Maren scrubbed pots and pans in the galley, cut bread into chunks and vegetables into pieces, and watched the sea too. The entire brig seemed to be holding its breath. There was a certain tension in everyone, from the captain to the lowliest ship’s boy. None of them wanted to miss the sighting of the first whale. And even though the wind whipped over their unprotected faces and tore at their coats and hair, and the icy waves cast spray into the air, everyone watched and waited. Captain Boyse had put a ship’s boy into a bosun’s chair and had him hoisted up the mast to the crow’s nest. Every hour he called, “What do you see?”

  “Nothing in sight, Captain,” the boy would reply.

  After three days, the color and smell of the water had grown stronger, and the whalers were growing impatient. It wasn’t just the captain who called to the lookout, but everyone else as well, so the boy didn’t have a moment of peace.

  “It’s time,” the men said to each other and nodded.

  The harpooners checked and rechecked their harpoons and lines, the blubber cutters sharpened their knives, and the officers bent over their charts, observed the stars, and consulted the compass. But nothing happened.

  That evening, Maren was already lying in her bed when the captain entered the cabin. Zelda hadn’t slept there since she’d left in anger, but that didn’t seem to bother Boyse. Now he was lying in his bed, and Maren could hear from his restless, shallow breathing that he was still awake.

  “Will the whales come tomorrow?” she asked. She had let herself become caught up by the men’s enthusiasm for the hunt a long time ago.

  “Maybe,” Boyse answered.

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then they’ll come the next day. Go to sleep now.”

  For a little while, all was quiet, until Maren was overwhelmed by curiosity. “Zelda . . . Is she angry at me?”

  “Why should she be angry?”

  “Because I’m sleeping here, and now she doesn’t come anymore.”

  “Let that be my concern.”

  The captain turned to face the wall to indicate that he wanted to sleep, but Maren continued anyway. She used the cover of darkness to finally ask the question that had been burning in her mind. “Why did you want to marry me if you have Zelda?”

  “That’s none of your concern,” the captain grumbled.

  “Is she . . . I mean . . . Does she also have a debt to you?” Maren had asked the question softly, so she was even more startled when Boyse leapt out of his bed and grabbed her hard by the shoulder.r />
  “Don’t ever say such a thing!” he ordered her. “I would never sleep with a woman just because she owed me something. Zelda is no whore to me, and I’m no whoremonger. Is that clear?”

  Maren nodded apprehensively. She realized that her question had irritated the captain more than she’d expected, but she couldn’t understand why.

  “Please forgive me,” she blurted. “I didn’t realize you were in love with Zelda.”

  This time, the captain grabbed Maren by both shoulders and shook her as though she were a feather bed.

  “I don’t love Zelda. She’s only my bed partner. My affairs are none of your business. Is that clear? Do you understand?”

  Maren swallowed and then nodded. She’d rarely seen Boyse so enraged, and she didn’t understand why her questions seemed so inappropriate to him. After all, he’d asked her only a few months ago if she would be his wife. But since Boyse was already angry, she decided to risk repeating her first question.

  “But if you had Zelda, then why did you want to marry me?” She prepared herself to be shaken again, but surprisingly, the captain remained calm.

  “Zelda isn’t the kind of woman who’s interested in marriage. She loves her freedom too much. We’ve known each other for years, and we like each other. But we’re not in love. A man should feel more than friendship for the woman he marries and wants to have children and a home with.”

  Maren lay still, barely daring to breathe. Did that mean the captain felt something for her? No, that was something she couldn’t possibly imagine.

  She was just opening her mouth to ask when he growled, “Go to sleep now. Your questions are wearing on my patience.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The crew spent two more days in tense expectation. The weather had calmed somewhat, and every now and then, the sun broke through the clouds. The light was clear and so bright it made Maren’s eyes water, and the wind was icy and sharp as needles. Icebergs drifted in the distance, but they were much too small to cause any trouble for the Rán. The men lingered on deck. Some of them whittled gifts for their wives and children. Others slept, and still others smoked their pipes and stared at the water. It was quiet on deck, and only the clattering from the galleys and the rolling of dice tossed on an upturned barrel could be heard.