by Stefan Mani
South.
Guðmundur stares out the salt-caked windows and thinks about only what he sees.
There’s a yellow haze over the weather deck, a briny mist that swirls like dry ice on a rock band’s stage, obscuring everything.
‘This storm has been raised by magic,’ murmurs Guðmundur Berndsen, blinking, his eyes bloodshot, dry and swollen after staring for so long.
‘Good morning,’ says Methúsalem as he enters the bridge. The captain looks at his watch for the first time in hours and sees that it’s twenty-three minutes past six.
‘You’re late,’ says Guðmundur, getting out of the chair. He then grabs one of the knobs on the instrument panel to keep from falling when the ship suddenly rolls to port, with the attendant creaks and shockwaves.
Methúsalem holds onto a side table by the chart room and makes his way over the carpeted floor of the bridge. As the ship rights itself the men both seize the opportunity to reach the middle of the bridge without bumping into or knocking each other over.
Guðmundur gets a grip by the chart room and Methúsalem climbs into the captain’s chair.
‘The autopilot’s on,’ says Guðmundur.
‘So I see.’
The men don’t look directly at each other, but each is well aware of the uncomfortable nearness of the other.
Guðmundur is angry that Methúsalem went behind his back and challenged him, and he’s sorry to have hit him with the stock of his gun – really sorry.
Methúsalem is about to lose his mind with fear. He’s afraid of the gun that’s waiting for him in his cabin because he knows he’ll use it.
The only thing he’s not sure of is whether he’ll use it against himself or someone else.
He has a vision of putting the barrel in his mouth, closing his eyes and pulling the trigger.
And that vision frightens him – frightens him terribly.
But he also has a vision of aiming the barrel at Guðmundur’s head and then slowly and surely pulling the sensitive trigger and enjoying his ultimate power with hate in his eyes and a devilish smile on his lips.
And this vision is driving him crazy.
‘I’m having a little meeting in my cabin at two o’clock,’ says Guðmundur as he takes hold of the doorknob to go into the corridor. ‘Me, you, Rúnar and John.’
‘All right,’ says Methúsalem, sinking into the leather chair as the ship lifts itself.
‘We have to bury the hatchet,’ says Guðmundur, opening the door. ‘We can’t go on like this.’
‘I know,’ says Methúsalem, looking over his shoulder. At the same moment the ship drops down and he lifts up from the chair.
For just a moment they look each other in the eye and for that instant they feel the companionship of shipmates, captain and first officer, comrades in seas calm and stormy.
It’s going to be all right, thinks Guðmundur. We’ll talk, sort things out and shake hands.
It’s going to be all right, thinks Methúsalem. I’ll just throw the fucking gun in the sea. Won’t I?
Then the ship slams into a wave so hard that Methúsalem almost flies out of the chair, the door closes with a slam, Guðmundur loses hold of the knob and falls to his knees.
Boom, boom, boom …
The noise is such you’d think the ship was breaking in two, and it rolls so powerfully to port that it’s hard not to believe that the movement will continue and the ship capsize within seconds.
The men in the bridge have seen and heard all these things before, though; they know their ship and don’t doubt all will be well, which is why they don’t even bother to give a sigh of relief when the gigantic hull quietly emerges from the breaker and slowly rights itself, like a whale surfacing.
‘See you, then,’ says Guðmundur before he gets up and again opens the door.
‘Okay,’ says Methúsalem, grabbing hold of the chair’s arms as the ship pitches down off yet another wave, like a roller-coaster car starting down the steepest slope.
The captain leaves the bridge and closes the door; the first officer sits motionless in the captain’s chair and stares out the salt-encrusted windows of the bridge.
Over the weather deck floats a yellow haze.
XXV
Christ, but he can’t be bothered with this!
Methúsalem knocks twice on the door of the captain’s cabin.
His face aches, he’s tired, hungry and sleepy after his eight-hour stint in the bridge, and he can’t be bothered to sit down and talk about something that was meant to replace meaningless yakking.
In the beginning was the word, but the words ‘let’s mutiny’ are now past their use-by date.
They brought guns aboard so they wouldn’t have to talk. They were aiming for action, not words.
Weren’t they?
But their actions had turned to dust, more or less. They had gone too fast, too far, and maybe given up too easily when they met resistance. By placing a ‘bad apple’ on the ship the owners had managed to create an atmosphere of suspicion and confusion, weakening the solidarity of the crew.
All the energy of the mutineering faction had been spent on finding and then restraining that dangerous foreign body, which had also meant the plans of the gang of five had been revealed sooner than they’d wanted.
While that terrorist was on the loose the mutineering faction couldn’t concentrate on the interests of the crew, and once the terrorist had been overpowered those interests were overshadowed by the fact that there were mutineers.
Their adversaries had manoeuvred them into the position of ending on fool’s mate, whatever they did or didn’t do. They’re a piece of work, those fucking owners, that’s for sure!
Secrecy had been their trump card and now it had been knocked out of their hands. Once they lost the mask of the anonymous rebel, men were embarrassed when faced with the authority they had meant to overthrow.
An awed respect for the captain runs in seamen’s blood.
John refuses to kill the engines and Rúnar, Sæli and Ási have gone soft.
The mutiny was stillborn. The company has won. The lay-offs are coming.
Aren’t they?
‘Come in!’
Methúsalem opens the door, breathes in through flared nostrils and walks, with spine erect, into the cabin.
He intends to listen with an open mind to what the captain has to say but he is also determined not to be steamrollered.
It’s one thing to lose, another to be humiliated in front of witnesses.
‘Have a seat,’ says the captain to the first mate, pointing to the couch, where John and Rúnar are sitting, near the wall.
‘What’s happened to your face, man?’ says Rúnar when he sees the bloodstained bandage on Methúsalem’s right cheek.
‘It’s nothing,’ Methúsalem mutters, taking a seat on the couch closer to the door. ‘I just cut myself.’
‘That looks bad,’ says John, who’s sitting in the middle to Rúnar’s right and Methúsalem’s left.
‘It’ll mend before I marry.’ Methúsalem offers the old saying as he touches the hardening bandage with his right fingertips. His swollen face twitches.
‘Comrades,’ says Guðmundur Berndsen with a slight cough. He stands, balancing, in front of the table, his hands locked together behind his back. Skuggi sits behind him, his head on one side.
The three men go silent and watch the captain, who lifts his chin and stares intently at the wall above their heads while he speaks, as if he’s addressing a huge crowd – or no one at all.
‘All I’m asking is that we work in peace until we get to Suriname,’ he says and leans forward some thirty degrees to compensate for the ship’s movement. ‘The minute we dock I will phone home and speak to the company director. I will ask him about the alleged lay-offs and if they are, in fact, planned I will demand that he reconsider that decision.’
Guðmundur lowers his chin and looks at each of the three men in turn, as if emphasising his words by means of person
al contact and authoritative silence.
Is he telling the truth? Yes. He is going to phone home and attempt to have the decision to lay off the whole crew reversed, or at least postponed.
Does he expect to succeed? No. He has himself already resigned from the company, so his word and opinion no longer have any influence.
At best they would listen to him for the sake of courtesy; at worst they would take revenge for his meddling by breaking his termination contract or putting off his pension payments for a few years.
He is simply buying himself peace – possibly at a high price.
‘What if they refuse?’ asks Methúsalem.
‘Then I refuse to load the ship,’ Guðmundur replies immediately.
‘But what if they threaten to fire you too?’ says Methúsalem, leaning back into the couch. He can feel something hard behind the cushion.
‘Then I resign on the spot,’ says Guðmundur firmly.
‘And abandon the ship?’ Methúsalem shoves his right hand behind the cushion to find out what’s poking into his back.
‘Yes,’ says Guðmundur with a nod. He has now told so many lies that his face is red and his temples damp with sweat.
‘And us at the same time, then?’ asks Methúsalem, his face splitting into a grin because he has made the captain talk himself into a corner. But his humourless grin changes suddenly to a look of fear when his reaching fingers feel rounded glass behind the cushion.
‘What?’ says Guðmundur, blinking. Damn it! He’d been over this conversation in his head time after time, forwards and backwards, and practised answers to every conceivable and inconceivable question, yet he had allowed that fucker Methúsalem to trick him like that.
Silence.
Methúsalem can’t think clearly. He feels the flask with his right hand and listens to the liquid gurgling inside the thick glass, or inside his head – he’s not sure. He sees double, smells the alcohol and moves his swollen tongue around his dry mouth.
‘Methúsalem?’ says Big John, gently nudging the first mate.
‘Yes?’ Methúsalem presses his back even tighter against the cushions, jamming the flask and his hand against the back of the couch.
‘You asked whether he would abandon us, the crew,’ says John as he watches Methúsalem turn alternately red and pale.
Silence.
‘It won’t come to that,’ says Guðmundur, clearing his throat.
‘How can you be sure?’ asks Rúnar.
Guðmundur says something; Methúsalem sees his lips moving, but he can’t hear what he’s saying.
The only thing he can hear is his own heartbeat, echoing like drum beats inside his empty head.
Boom, boom, boom …
He pulls the flask out from under the cushion and slides it under his waistband at the back. Then he untucks his shirt and hides the flask with the shirt.
Is it vodka? Rum? Gin? Whiskey? Cognac?
Cognac. He’s certain it’s cognac.
‘Methúsalem?’
Silence.
‘I just want to say one thing before I leave this company,’ says Methúsalem, standing up from the couch. ‘I’m satisfied with what’s been said here. Guðmundur is a good man and I trust his word absolutely. That’s all I have to say.’
Methúsalem has hardly finished speaking when the ship is hit by a heavy breaker. Guðmundur loses his balance and ends up flat on the floor, and John and Rúnar are lifted from the couch, their thighs hitting the edge of the table, then they thump down hard on their bottoms to the floor between the couch and the table.
Methúsalem, on the other hand, doesn’t move. He stands steady on both legs, his back to the door, and watches his crewmates get tossed around the cabin. He’s wearing a foolish, puzzled expression, as if he can’t understand why they’re acting like that.
You’d think the first officer was suspended in some kind of vacuum beyond the natural laws of our world.
After the meeting in his cabin, Ási takes Guðmundur a message that Jónas wants to see him. The captain asks Rúnar to assume his watch in the bridge while he quickly goes down to see the second officer in the infirmary.
‘How’re you feeling?’ asks Guðmundur, taking a seat on a stool by the bed of his second mate, who looks and acts totally miserable.
‘Well, I’m in agony. The drugs have some effect on the pain, but –’
‘You wanted to see me?’
‘Yes,’ says Jónas, closing his eyes and lying back on the sweaty pillow. ‘I’m worried about the situation on board.’
‘You’re not the only one. But I just had a good meeting with the crew, and the way things stand now —’
‘I want you to stake out the ship,’ Jónas interrupts, opening his eyes again. ‘I want you to put a man down to guard the engine room and another out here in the corridor. I’m afraid that —’
‘But haven’t they already captured the saboteur?’ says the captain with a scowl.
‘Yeah. Maybe. But you never know. I don’t trust anyone, Guðmundur. Except you, of course. And I certainly don’t trust Methúsalem Sigurðsson, to tell you the truth.’
‘It’s exactly these suspicions that I’m trying to get rid of.’ Guðmundur takes a deep breath to calm the anger boiling inside him. ‘We simply can’t have all this friction, and men plotting behind closed doors.’
‘Yes, but —’
‘Who am I supposed to put on guard, if nobody’s to be trusted?’ asks the captain, raising his voice. ‘And who’s supposed to steer the ship if everyone’s on guard all over the place?’
‘I’m just afraid of more trouble, that’s all,’ Jónas says softly, his voice trembling. ‘You could let Sæli and Rúnar off their normal duties and get them to guard the engine. Then we’d be sure that —’
‘I’m not listening to this rubbish!’ Guðmundur stands up. ‘Why should I put a guard on the engine?’
‘Methúsalem is capable of anything,’ says Jónas, closing his eyes again. ‘I know what he’s like. He hasn’t given up, believe me.’
‘I’ll take care of Methúsalem. You just look after yourself,’ says the captain and he leaves the infirmary.
Why not?
On the table in Methúsalem’s cabin stands a flask of cognac that glitters like gold, like spiritual honey; a shining vessel full of bodily warmth and dreamlike light! This flask is the only good thing in the whole fucking ship – in the whole world, if it comes to that. Methúsalem sits on a folded towel on the damp couch and stares at the flask. He squeezes out some saliva, sticks out a slimy tongue and tries to wet his parched lips.
There are towels on the windowsill, towels on the floor, soaking-wet towels everywhere, and everything is wet and damp and the cabin smells musty, and it’s only a matter of time before this dump becomes uninhabitable due to mould, germs and other horrors.
From the broken window hangs the soaking-wet bedspread like dead flesh keeping the light out but letting the wind in. Everything is as miserable as can be and Methúsalem’s face aches, he’s shivering with cold, he’s hungry, he’s tired, and he feels awful.
In the face of all this horror stands the flask, like the Holy Grail, like a delicate candle flame in a world of darkness, cold and whirlwinds.
A guiding light? An hallucination?
Methúsalem Sigurðsson isn’t certain what he should do, but he knows what he has to do. He has to have one swig of cognac, if only to get some warmth round his heart and dull his headache, reduce the pain a little. He already feels better just thinking about it, so there’s nothing for it but to take a swig to make the thought a reality, not let it vanish like some fucking figment of his imagination.
Why should he lose out on feeling better when his only prospect is discomfort? Discomfort is an exception to the natural condition while comfort is the natural condition.
‘I need a glass,’ murmurs Methúsalem as he stands up from the couch.
‘I need a glass!’ What was the question?
He has n
either decided to have a drink nor deny himself one, but he needs a glass because he knows that he will have a drink, without really being conscious of knowing it.
The first officer goes into the bathroom, where a glass in a copper stand on the wall by the sink holds a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste.
He puts the toothbrush and tube in the sink and washes the glass with hot water, then rinses it with cold.
The glass is clear, middle sized, with a heavy bottom.
He dries the glass with a clean towel but stops rubbing the smooth glass with the white cotton when he suddenly remembers the psychiatric drugs he washes down twice a day with a sip of cold water from this same glass.
Damn it! Did he take a pill this morning? Or last night? When did he last take a pill? Was it yesterday morning? Or the day before yesterday? Or the day before that? Has he stopped taking the drugs? Is he so forgetful? Or is his short-term memory letting him down? Is he taking the drugs without remembering?
Methúsalem puts down the glass, opens the cupboard above the sink and takes out the package of pills.
Lithium citrate – a drug for bipolar disorder, 500 mg, take one twice a day, five aluminium sheets in a pack, twenty pills per sheet, a total of 100 pills.
Eight pills are gone from the first sheet but the other four are untouched.
Eight pills, four days. When did he begin on this package – two days before they left? Four?
Lithium citrate is a strong psychiatric drug which is meant to prevent extreme wave action in your head, a sort of chemical Jesus that calms the storm of thoughts, evens out the difference between hyperactivity and depression and, thus, creates a kind of calm in the oceans of the mind.
This spiritual calm takes its toll, however. Common side effects are nausea, diarrhoea, frequent urination, thirst and endless fucking tiredness, not to mention the humiliation of having to take psychiatric drugs like some nutcase or madman.
‘Fucking poison!’
Methúsalem quickly washes the pills down the drain, one after another, and then places the empty package back in the cupboard, as if to cover up his ‘crime’ or deceive someone.