The embryo’s organs and body parts move around almost like drifting continents, entering various stages of evolution. If it’s a boy, what will become the testicles lie almost next to the heart. Gradually, as the embryo develops, the testicles slowly move down to where they belong. They need to be as cold as possible. In most fish, which are cold-blooded and have a constant temperature, this isn’t important, so the gonads stay next to the heart.
Our ancestors came up on land, but we still have a lot of ocean inside us. The same muscles and nerves that enable us to swallow and speak were developed in the sea. Sharks and other fish use them to move their gills. Sharks and humans—Greenland sharks and us—have similar structures of neural pathways from the brain. Our kidneys and the interior of our ears are also souvenirs from our past in the ocean. Our arms and legs have developed from fish fins. Along with most animals and birds, we have quite a lot in common with fish.23
I don’t tell my fiancée that we’re going to have a fish, and of course we’re not. But the creationists are right when they deny that we are descended from monkeys. Like the monkeys and all life on earth, we came from the sea. We are rebuilt fish.
35
Almost a week passes. Hugo and I are still unable to go out on the water, so I find myself simply hanging around. In my idleness I start to wonder what the hell we’re really doing. And it’s possible, since he has so much to do, that Hugo is starting to wonder what the hell I’m doing. We snap a bit at each other. Maybe we can’t see much meaning in the whole project anymore. After all, he lives here and does what he does, while I keep coming to visit, though without considering myself to be a guest. Each time I return it feels as if I were gone for only a day. I feel like I slip right into place when I’m with Hugo and Mette, as if I’ve been silently adopted. But on some level I’m an intruder. I go in and out of their personal lives, bringing along my own habits, both good and bad. Even though Aasjord Station is considerably larger than many castles, the habitable part is no bigger than a small apartment. There’s no such thing as an invisible guest. For good reasons the Arabs and many other people have a proverb that goes like this: After three days, guests, like fish, begin to stink.
There’s no end in sight for Hugo and Mette in terms of the work they need to get done—carpentry and construction, permits and all sorts of arrangements—and I’m unable to offer them any real help. One day I hosed down the forecourt and wharf, when they weren’t even dirty. And apparently I’ll never learn to shut the stubborn door properly behind me, letting the heat escape along with Skrubbi the dog.
Hugo and I rarely argue, but it has happened before. Once it was over some minor issue, and I think both of us realized how trivial it was after the fact, but we had definitely insulted each other. Because of that “minor issue,” we didn’t speak to each other for two years.
—
Who ever said that minor issues aren’t important? After wandering around the island these past few days, I end up feeling depressed and generally dissatisfied about several things in my life. I wish I had completed many more work assignments. Is it even possible to call what we’re doing on Skrova “work”? And how many times am I going to fly to Bodø and disrupt Mette and Hugo’s established routines?
One day I ask him bluntly: “Why do you really want to catch a Greenland shark?”
Hugo freezes and looks at me, his expression wary. “My father told me about lots of sea creatures when I was a boy, but it was the stories about the Greenland shark that stayed with me. The shark was so mysterious and creepy.”
“But—”
“It’s been at least thirty years since I started thinking about catching a Greenland shark by using the old methods. But now this project of ours has stripped the idea of all spontaneity. I’m doing it for my own sake—not so someone can read about it or so I’ll be able to talk about it. For me, it’s enough to see the shark. To experience the excitement when the shark comes up from the deep. And now that we’ve started this whole thing, there’s no use stopping. We have to finish it. Sooner or later, that shark is going to come up.”
In the Old Norse poem “The Lay of Hymir” (dedicated to the exploits of the giant Hymir and included in the Poetic Edda), there is a superhuman story about fishing. Hymir and Thor, the second most powerful god of Norse mythology, decide to go on a fishing expedition. For bait they use the head of an ox. The tale takes a dramatic turn when none other than the Midgard Serpent latches onto the hook. The Midgard Serpent, also known as Jörmundgandr, is not a fish but the sea serpent that grew so big it encircled the entire world (Midgard) and was able to bite its own tail. Thor and the serpent fight a fierce battle, but as thunder resounds in the sky, Thor hauls to the surface the ether-breathing Midgard Serpent. Thor gives a triumphant cry, but by then Hymir has had enough and he cuts the line before the serpent can be killed.
Thor later meets the Midgard Serpent again during the apocalypse called Ragnarok in Norse mythology. I won’t spoil the story by telling you who won, but the event is known as the twilight of the gods, after all.
—
One afternoon Hugo and I drive the short distance to the western tip of Skrova, almost out to Elling Carlsen’s old lighthouse. There we see some cormorants spreading their plumage, flapping their wings. Hugo says that’s a clear sign it’s going to rain tomorrow. I think that’s just superstition, so I bet him a thousand kroner that it won’t rain. He refuses to take the bet and seems a little annoyed. Maybe he suspects that I’ve checked the weather forecast, which of course I have. The next day, as predicted, there’s not a drop of rain and hardly a cloud anywhere in all of Nordland.
Usually, when a question arises and we both think we know the answer, we behave very respectfully and one of us will ask: Can I go first? Okay, the other person then replies. But now we merely blurt out the answers, trying to beat the other person to the punch. Even when we start talking about food, conflict is in the air. Hugo accuses me of liking stew—as if that says it all—because it’s what I’ve twice ordered from the store in Svolvær.
The tension rises in the middle of one of the Inspector Derrick TV shows that Hugo watches every afternoon. Maybe he wants to practice his German, or maybe he enjoys being mentally transported back to the same Germany he was living in during the 1970s. In the TV show, all the interiors and attitudes from those days are still intact. Hugo once ended up sitting right across from Horst Tappert, the actor who plays Derrick, at a dinner for artists on the island of Tranøy, just across Vestfjorden, where the German “friend of Norway” owned a house. Hugo found the actor to be a very engaging and courteous man. I point out that under no circumstances could the fictional Derrick be described in the same way. The inspector usually teeters on the border between moralizing common sense and scornful derision, which is also the case when it comes to his colleagues. He is ingratiating toward anyone from the upper classes, and he considers all Italians to be scoundrels from the second he meets them. Over the course of the 281 episodes in the TV series, Derrick has only two girlfriends. And after a short time, both women disappear without a trace. God knows what happened to them, but Derrick is on my list of suspects. The only reason I suggest that the oh-so-proper Inspector Derrick really is a deranged pervert is to provoke Hugo. A storm is slowly brewing. There may even be a fierce gale in the offing.
—
The next morning I’m sitting in Hugo’s living room, writing an article on deadline. He’s working on a painting in the next room. It’s a commissioned piece depicting three famous islands—Ellefsnyken, Trenyken, and Hernyken—in the municipality of Røst. The islands are formidable mountain formations jutting up from the ocean. Hugo was supposed to have finished the painting several months ago, and in a few days an acquaintance is planning to take it to Røst. Someone who was born out there is going to hang the painting on his living-room wall. Hugo doesn’t normally do naturalistic paintings, but a friend of his has commissioned this work, so he realizes that the mountains, at least, need to be
recognizable.
Hugo is struggling because the mountains are so symmetrical and perfectly formed that it’s almost too much of a good thing. Two of the mountains, which are side by side, are often compared to a woman’s breasts. Next to them is a sharp peak. The sketches that Hugo has done look a bit forced. The light is often distorted out there, and it’s difficult for an artist to depict the light as it reflects off the water and strikes the slopes. So Hugo keeps rubbing out what he has painted, trying to adjust the effect of the shadows and nuances. In the evening it looks great, but in daylight it has a glaring effect that robs the painting of all depth. When I first arrived, Hugo immediately asked me what I thought of the piece, and he seemed relieved when I confirmed his own opinion. I wasn’t able to pinpoint any specific problems, but my impression was that the painting failed to meet his usual standard. In fact, as it looked now, it might almost be mistaken for the work of an amateur. And I’ve never thought that about any of his previous paintings.
“Exactly! That’s precisely the problem,” Hugo replied. He was not being sarcastic. He could see the problems with this piece better than I could.
The iconic and symmetric mountains rise up from the sea, side by side. Sometimes you simply have to accept that nature looks unnatural. The horizon is supposed to continue into infinity, which requires an illusion of unfathomable depth in the sky, and that can quickly lend the painting unintended religious overtones, and if this is exaggerated…I can see why Hugo is struggling.
But why does he have to turn up the radio so fucking loud? I turn down the volume every time he goes out for a short break. I can’t write with that inane torrent of newscasts in the background, interrupted by dreary hit songs and ballad singers from the north. I have a deadline too. Or to be more accurate: I had a deadline. Now I’m working overtime on an article that has to go to print. Why can’t Hugo put on that headset he’s always wearing? He probably left it somewhere in the building.
Of course, this is his home, and I’m just a guest. But I’m also a friend. So when I’m trying to finish writing an article, isn’t it okay for me to behave more like a friend than a guest, out of self-defense, so to speak? I notice that Hugo notices he’s getting on my nerves. It’s a red flag. Maybe even a convenient distraction from his own misery over those damn mountains, since he seems to be spending most of his time rubbing out what he’d already painted. Well, okay. Letting the meaningless chatter on the radio play in the background may be part of Hugo’s creative process, at least at this stage of his work. Maybe the presence of a disruptive element allows him to push aside all other distractions, enabling him to work freely in some sort of jazzy way.
Every chance I get, meaning whenever he leaves the room, I turn down the volume almost as low as it will go. But Hugo always notices when he comes back, and he turns it up. We may be heading for a confrontation, which is the last thing I want, but the radio is driving me nuts. I can hardly write even a sentence or formulate a single clear thought.
The danger is that the situation could lead to a “discussion,” which would constitute a total breakdown of the level of concentration I need to mobilize right now. So I try to make myself as uncommunicative as possible by sitting with my back turned, like a deaf shellfish. I don’t answer when Hugo says something, and I hope that the back of my neck is radiating so much negative energy that he’ll leave me alone. This tactic is risky, because it could easily provoke him, and that might serve to exacerbate the situation. We probably have twenty thousand square feet of space at our disposal in the building, which ought to be enough to keep out of each other’s hair. But I need an Internet connection to check on some information before sending my text, and it only works here in the living room. The fact that the sun is shining on long, gleaming swells outside doesn’t help our mood. We could have been out there fishing instead of sitting indoors, with each of us battling a deadline. If we had a boat, that is.
After I’ve turned down the radio for the third time, Hugo returns and starts to talk to me, addressing me in a way that forces me to reply. We’re approaching what’s called the fallbrestet, meaning the high-water mark of annoyance. If I don’t watch out, he’ll probably throw me out of the house. Then at least he can have some peace and quiet. Hugo asks me why I keep turning down the radio when he likes to have it on when he’s working. And besides, who am I to talk about disruptions? Wasn’t I the one who kept playing the same song over and over in the gallery last summer while he was hanging up paintings? For him, that process demands silence and an intense amount of concentration.
This is news to me. Apparently he gave me hint after hint about how nice it would be to work in silence, but I just kept playing my music. And several times I put on the same tune. Now he tells me that he’s still allergic to the guitar riffs that start off that particular song. Why didn’t he simply ask me to turn it off, the same way I’m begging him now? He claims he did.
I keep my mouth shut and retreat into my shellfish pose. I can tell he’s close to losing his temper, but his sense of decency prevents him from throwing me out.
After several hours we both manage to meet our deadlines, and without allowing the situation to escalate into melodrama. By altering the previous image and creating softer transitions, and by changing the direction of the sunlight, Hugo successfully finishes his painting.
—
That same evening we start discussing something I’ve written, something he says lacks precision. What exactly he’s referring to isn’t important, but it has to do with northern Norway. I respond by demanding he display greater precision in his art, especially in his abstract paintings. And how precise are our actions out on the water? For instance, the triangulations we use. They’re actually so imprecise that a little fog thirty miles away can make our points of orientation invisible. And besides, the strength of the current in Vestfjorden has fooled us many times. The line and bait disappear, even though we think they’re lying nice and easy on the bottom. Yet before we know it, they’re on their way north to Bear Island.
“What is precision in the art of painting?” I ask.
“Precision in the art of painting?!” Hugo exclaims.
I know that precision is not a central concept in his work.
“So maybe it has to do with the opposite of precision?” I go on.
“No, that’s not it at all. It’s not about precision, so it’s not about the opposite of precision, either. It has to do with something totally different.”
In the ensuing discussion I say that he worries too much about what we’re going to do when we actually get a Greenland shark on the hook. We should be thinking more about whether we’ll ever catch one at all. The way Hugo talks, it’s more like a practical task that has to be carried out. Yet we both know there’s more to it than that. The motive for this hunt of ours has a dark side. It may be taking place on a smooth surface that reflects the clouds, but underneath are hidden skerries and rocks, and visibility is limited. Clay and sediment are being whirled up from the bottom by what we describe as a monster.
In the real light, meaning in daylight out on the fjord, our “mission” shines with meaning. Yet it has clearly become an obsession, and we’ve invested a lot of ego into the project. We can’t give up until we’re looking into the whites of a Greenland shark’s eyes, which of course will be obscured by a couple of long, dangling parasites.
—
What kind of idiotic, murderous mission have we embarked on? Is it a matter of satisfying our own curiosity? Of confronting our own fear? Of a hunting instinct that requires us to bring down the biggest prey we theoretically can manage, a sort of big-game hunt at sea? Is the myth of the monster slumbering in the deep an innate part of us, genetically inherited from the days when humans were prey for now-extinct predators, back when saber-toothed tigers dragged us half dead into caves to devour us in the dark? The battle between us and the crocodiles, hauling us down to their underwater lairs and tearing us to shreds? When I think about it, the rotating
technique of the Greenland shark is actually reminiscent of the crocodile’s.
We won the contest by acquiring a couple of extra pounds of cerebral matter, a jellylike gray substance that is on the brink of understanding almost everything, including how our own consciousness works. Yet the inheritance from our past is still present as a sort of deep memory. Why are the nature shows that Hugo watches on TV so full of beasts, with an ominous American voice-over that tries to fool us into believing someone is about to be swallowed by a horrifying monster?
Wasps are far more dangerous to humans than sharks. Globally sharks kill a total of ten to twenty people a year. During the same time frame, we kill about seventy-three million sharks. In spite of this, we consider the shark to be the dangerous predator. Hugo and I are not blind to the irony.
Every time a shark attacks a person, the news spreads around the world. People picture a cold-blooded murderer with lifeless eyes striking suddenly and silently, killing for the sheer pleasure of it. A jaw with several rows of a razor-sharp teeth shoots up through the water column to seize hold of the arm, leg, or waist of an unsuspecting swimmer. Fresh blood colors the sea red, and after a brief, unequal battle, the shark swims into the deep as it gulps down a body part or two. We fear the fact that they don’t fear us.
Sharks will never win a popularity contest. Pandas, cats, puppies, dolphins, and baby chimpanzees are at one end of the spectrum. Sharks are at the very end of the other. Today, whenever a shark attacks someone, the incident is like an echo of a distant, primordial time when we didn’t yet dominate the world with our superior technology. In a matter of seconds, our control over the world is wiped out. Suddenly we are not the one who kills but the one getting killed. The likelihood that this would happen to someone is almost nonexistent. But we fear landing down there in the cold deep, surrounded by creatures that will devour every last scrap of us, until everything about us totally disappears.
Shark Drunk Page 23