The Interpreter

  After Klaipeda, the only place left on the list was Tallinn: the last stage of my journey, the dead end of the maze in which I was lost. I was trying to escape the maelstrom for which I was headed, but I knew there was no way out. I thought back to the mysterious house on Perkelos Gatve, and a shudder ran down my spine; perhaps Burke had been murdered, and his murderer was now hot on my trail. I looked around me at the houses, the blocks of flats, the unlit windows, and imagined a gun pointing in my direction, an eye patiently seeking me out in the crosshairs. No, my death was never going to be that easy; the diabolical captain of my fate would never have been satisfied with so little. Almost reassured, I went back to the hotel with the intention of trying to get some sleep before making a decision. I told the man at the reception desk that I was leaving; I didn’t want to admit as much to myself, but I knew I would be going on to Tallinn. I paid the bill and went up to my room; as I pushed the door open, I saw something on the floor. It was a picture postcard of Klaipeda; on the back, in spidery, nervous writing, was one word: Toompea.

  I pushed the door closed with my foot and paced up and down the room, scrutinising the postcard down to the last detail: it was a view of the harbour, the very same one I could see from my own window. I peered out through the rain-streaked glass: the bay, the aquarium, the landing stages, the seafront. All that was missing on the postcard was the ship. Smoke was now pouring from both funnels and I could make out the dim outlines of the queue of cars driving up the gangway and into the hold, their headlights reflected in the puddles. Suddenly the sun burst through the clouds and the coppery sunlight lit up the side of the ship. Toompea, I read on its riveted sheet metal, and at that moment the hooter sounded again, as though it were hailing my discovery. I rushed downstairs without even bothering to take my luggage.

  ‘The ship!’ I shouted in the direction of the porter, making him jump. ‘The Toompea, when does it leave?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘And where’s it headed for?’

  ‘Tallinn!’

  I hurtled towards the quay at breakneck speed, dashing across the road between the honking cars and through the passenger terminal until at last I found myself beside the ship. The anchor chain was being weighed with a deafening clang, the ropes were being lifted from the moorings, but the gangway was still open. The sailor on duty didn’t play hard to get: he pocketed the wad of dollars I offered him, and a few minutes later I was on deck, puffing and panting, watching Klaipeda receding into the distance and finally disappearing altogether, eclipsed by the grey furrows of the sea.

  I stayed holed up in my cabin until late in the afternoon; only when I saw the light fading through the porthole did I dare venture up on deck. The sailor had brought me a travel document stating that I had embarked at Kiel; he had taken down my passport details, and also demanded another few hundred dollars, since he had to square it with the man in the ticket office in order that everything should appear in order. I sat down in the bar on the lower deck, which was quieter than the others. I was hungry, but didn’t dare go to the restaurant; I was afraid that whoever had lured me on board the Toompea might be setting me a trap. I was hoping somehow to recognise my mysterious pursuer before he noticed me. I peered through the glass into the neighbouring restaurant, scrutinising every face, even those of the waiters, while bolting down peanuts to take the edge off my hunger. That night I barricaded myself into my cabin, and set the alarm clock to wake me every hour, at which point I would check the door and even the screws on the porthole.

  The following morning, the sea was calm and bright. It was a peerless June day, white foam was dancing on the tips of the green waves at the ship’s side; people leaned over the handrails, lifting their faces to the warm, light wind. Children were playing, elderly couples were having their photographs taken on the sun-drenched decks; there was a party mood afoot. I too wanted to join that carefree crowd, and went to sit on a bench on the lower deck, out of the wind, from which there was a view of a distant coastline: possibly Latvia, I thought.

  In the afternoon the light changed, the blue of the sea became more intense and a strong wind got up. The crowd on deck thinned out and most people drifted off inside; through the glass I could see small family groups seated in front of cups of steaming chocolate. Only a few couples were now left in the deckchairs. I too went inside. Wandering around along the upper decks, I found myself in the corridors outside the first-class cabins; I checked the swimmers jumping off the diving boards in the swimming pool, ambled around among the fruit machines in the casino, where elderly ladies, their handbags clutched close to their chests, were stubbornly sending coloured images whirring in the hopes of seeing a flood of coins suddenly pouring out of the chrome funnels. But I had absolutely no pointer as to which of these unknown faces might be that of the man who had drawn me aboard the Toompea and, without such knowledge, I might be walking straight into the fatal trap which would be my undoing. I couldn’t imagine what form my death would take – whether I too would be transfixed by a narwhal’s tusk, charred to a cinder in the boilers in the engine room or drowned at sea, my body mauled by the propellers. At all events, I’d had enough of waiting, so I resigned myself to the idea of revealing myself; that was the only way to make something happen. I went into the restaurant and sat down at a table in the middle; I ate my meal slowly, peering round me in search of a face, a glance. I chose fine wines and complicated dishes, requiring the attentions of several waiters; to prolong my stay, I also ordered coffee, liqueurs and cigars. Smoke and alcohol caused my mind to glaze over; I was so tired that I could hardly see. But I carried on studying the room, staring so blatantly at my fellow diners that I alarmed the ladies and puzzled the men in their blue suits. Finally, hoisting myself wearily out of my seat, I decided to go out on deck again, choosing a sunny spot in the bows, where the wind was at its strongest, and the waters were severed majestically by the prow of the great ship as it made its way eastwards. On the deck below me a sailor was rolling up some ropes; seagulls were hovering patiently in search of food. People were starting to come out again; children were playing, women were sunbathing in deckchairs, their eyes screwed up against the sun.

  Suddenly a girl ran towards the handrail, shouting as she did so. The sailor dropped his rope and looked out to sea, shielding his eyes with his hand. I too got up to cast a look over the expanse of glittering water: some distance from the ship, in a strip of sea that looked calmer than the rest, I saw a shoal of narwhals darting in and out of the darker water, their long tusks glittering fiercely, like a barrier of gigantic thorns slung over the sea; they were ducking, then re-emerging, perfectly aligned. I noticed another shoal, nearer the horizon, swimming slowly in serried ranks, their tusks all pointed in the same direction, as though engaged in some mass migration, their backs glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. Some were lighter in colour, almost white; others were black, with leathery, lumpy noses.

  At that moment the hooter sounded, and the ship slowed down and began to roll; the loudspeakers gave out the alarm signal and the red lights in front of the doors leading to the cabins began to flash. Sailors rushed out on deck and began loosening the ropes of a lifeboat. I stood aside to get out of their way and went to join a group of people leaning against the railings; it was then that I realised that I was the only person looking at the narwhals. The crowd around me were pointing at something in the other direction; I screwed up my eyes and looked out to sea in the direction of their pointing fingers.

  ‘Man overboard!’ a sailor shouted.

  Amidst the glare, some ten metres from the ship, I caught sight of something floating – something that looked distinctly sinister. Life jackets were thrown out and the lifeboat was lowered into the water. All eyes were on the blurred shape bobbing on the surface. Sailors with harpoons climbed down into the boat but soon started shaking their heads and waving their oars in the direction of the ship. The dripping lifeboat was hauled up again, and a hideously bloated body was laid out on the dec
k amidst a now silent crowd. Two nurses with a resuscitator appeared and applied it to the man’s chest; his body quivered, his arms twitched and his knees shook, but the nurses exchanged gloomy glances. After a couple more attempts they put their resuscitator back in its case. They were about to cover him with plastic sheeting when I pushed my way forward through the silent crowd and stared in horror at the corpse.

  ‘I know that man!’

  Seized with a sudden fit of dizziness, I almost fell; a sailor caught me and sat me down on a nearby bench. Someone undid my shirt and gave me some smelling salts.

  ‘Barnung’s his name, Herbert Barnung,’ I murmured, before passing out.

  When I came to, I found myself in a first-aid post in Tallinn harbour; a worried-looking doctor was taking my blood pressure. He shook his head and said something to a nurse seated at the other side of my camp bed.

  ‘The doctor is asking whether you suffer from any illnesses,’ she said stiffly in German. With some difficulty, I sat up.

  ‘No, absolutely not. I have to go now!’ I said, in something of a panic. The less time I spent here, the better, it seemed to me.

  The doctor talked on, this time at length. Looking gravely first at me, then at the nurse, he shook the thermometer and pointed his finger at his blood pressure machine. The nurse just looked at me sadly; all she said was:

  ‘The doctor says you’re very ill!’

  I got down from the camp bed and picked up my clothes from the chair. The doctor unbuttoned his gown and left the room. The nurse put up a screen and sat waiting for me at a small green desk.

  ‘Where is Dr Barnung?’ I asked brusquely.

  The nurse shook her head and looked at me expectantly.

  ‘The drowned man! The one they fished up from the sea!’

  Then the nurse nodded, stood up and took me into the next room, where I found the sailor who had come to my aid, together with an officer from the harbour office.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Better, thank you.’

  ‘All in a day’s work. A drowned man is never a pretty sight!’ he added, perhaps hoping to make me feel better, then went on:

  ‘So, you knew this man?’

  ‘I did. His name is Herbert Barnung. He’s a neurologist – a German citizen, from Munich,’ I replied with bitter certainty.

  The sailor and the man from the harbour office exchanged puzzled looks; passing a plastic package one to the other, they briefly conferred. It was the nurse who spoke next; she took a passport out of the package and handed it to me.

  ‘There must be some mistake, sir. This is the passport we found in his pocket.’

  I opened the sodden document and leafed through it. Under Dr Barnung’s photograph I saw the words: Mirko Stolojan, born Kaliningrad 28 August 1946, which caused me promptly to sit down in the chair again and run my hand over my forehead; seeing me do so, the nurse offered me a glass of water, which I downed in a single swallow, then sat there staring at the two men. The sailor scratched his nose, then gazed into space; the man from the harbour office put the passport back in the folder and shrugged.

  ‘All in a day’s work. A drowned man is never a pretty sight!’ he said again with an embarrassed smile.

  It was only the beginning of August, but Tallinn had the air of a city whose tourist season was drawing to a close. The bus I’d taken from the harbour drove through the outskirts, then into a residential area with a lot of greenery, on the west side of the bay. In the distance I could see the outlines of low, sandy islands, covered with shrubs. The ferries lined up in the harbour were all empty, their gangways cordoned off; on board, a few listless hostesses were sitting around chatting at a table on the empty deck. A quiet sea lay under a clear, cold sky; small waves were lapping against the quay. The low afternoon light was falling on the trunks of the silver birches, and the woods seemed alight with an eerie glow. Beyond the wooden landing stages, amidst sandbanks dotted with thorny plants, a fragile canebrake was bowing silently, ruffled by a light wind blowing from the moss-strewn shore. Seated on the harbour wall, an old man was fishing, the line he held wound around his fingers catching the light like a thread of cobweb underneath a pine tree. On the quay, amidst the orderly tubs of geraniums, an ice-cream seller was polishing the brass fittings of his cart; then he put down his cloth, leaned over the lid and rubbed out strawberry and chocolate from the list of flavours written on the glass. All he had now was vanilla. It was a windy Sunday afternoon, scented with sugar and shoe polish. The sound of a barrel organ wafted in fitfully from the funfair on the narrow strip of pinewood that closed in the bay. My eye was caught by the mirrors of a roundabout glinting in the sun, and I decided to follow the crowd attracted by such merriment.

  At the entrance, a cluster of coloured balloons were swaying in the wind; a child grabbed at the balloon seller’s wrist and pulled on the string of one of them, looking beseechingly towards his mother. A girl was handing out blue paper flags; now every family was sporting one, slipped into their caps, attached to their rucksacks or fixed to a pushchair. I followed the crowd of jostling children, who were constantly tripping each other up as they paused to pull up their sagging socks, jumping around and dropping sweets from their bursting pockets. Once inside, I was enclasped in a damp warmth; there was a smell of chlorine and sodden wood. The uproar from the floor below rose and fell in volume as though those who were making it were cheering on the runners of some unseen race. Up here, people were scurrying between two barriers, moving in the direction of the ticket office. I stared blankly at the writing above the various windows, noticed a green light flashing on and off. I proffered a banknote to the woman at the till and took my ticket, allowing myself to be jostled by the crowd in the direction of a blue glass door. Such was the crush that I couldn’t see anything directly in front of me, but beyond the door, which led into a large circular room surrounded by banked-up steps like a stadium, I could see the glimmer of water reflected on the ceiling; I realised that I had ended up in a covered swimming pool, where some competition was being held, and I was just about to turn tail in disappointment when my attention was caught by a board with coloured writing on it. As I gazed uncomprehendingly at the odd letters of that unknown language, I had the sudden feeling that in fact they contained something that was known to me. I stepped forward for a better view and read, in fine Gothic letters:

  Vancouver

  San Diego

  Papeete

  Vladivostok

  Pusan

  Taipei

  Surabaya

  Durban

  Eilat

  Constanta

  Odessa

  Klaipeda

  Tallinn

  Elbowing shocked mothers out of my path, and being roundly insulted in return as they tried to shield their delicate offspring from my violent advance, I now turned round and carried on with my attempt to approach the pool; I received rabbit punches, someone grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, but my devilishly sharp elbows got the better of them. I stumbled, and got back on my feet; dragging myself along the wall, I found myself at last beside the pool.

  And there he was, standing on a dais in the middle of it; waiting until everyone had fallen absolutely silent, he slowly raised his arms, threw back his head and uttered a long whistling sound, almost a howl, which rang out in the air for a few moments, setting my eardrums pulsing, then subsided into a quieter gurgling sound, only to rise again into a cheerful twitter. At that same moment, four dolphins leapt out of the water and swam towards him, flapping their flat tails; raising their snouts, their mouths half-open as though they were laughing, they answered him with that same whistle. The interpreter lowered his arms again, and the gurgling became a deep growl; the dolphins fell silent and sank back into the water, propelling themselves off to the four corners of the pool with quick flicks of the tail, their dorsal fins flashing along the surface of the water, then executing a quick tour of the water before once more arranging themselves around the dais, ra
ising themselves on their tails. Encircling the interpreter in their hypnotic dance, they opened and shut their mouths, waving their pectoral fins and shaking their sides, their eyes on the now silent man. Motionless, chin lowered, he himself was beginning to look like one of them: his chest seemed marked by the same yellowish, keel-like ridges as their own, his calves were puckered with the same grey stalk-like structures as those which swelled out at the base of their caudal fins. Almost as one, the four creatures emitted a low, moaning sound, then slid silently to the bottom of the pool; the interpreter raised his arms again, puffed out his hairless chest and let out four different-sounding whistles, jerking his head in each of the four directions as he did so. He was staring into the middle distance, his mouth pursed and his neck as swollen as that of a snake about to strike, stretching out his fingers and lifting his elbows slightly, as though about to take flight. The people on the stands were gazing at him in silent amazement. I sniffed the air, awaiting the usual bitter stench, which did indeed soon envelop me; strangely, though, I noted that it was no longer one of wood and resin, but rather of brackish seaweed, of the insides of dead shells, of the cold depths of the ocean; the smell of the narwhals from Klaipeda, of the yellow mud inside the wreck in Odessa. After a few moments, one by one the dorsal fins reappeared on the surface, and the creatures again started leaping up in front of the dais, their movements perfectly in time with the interpreter’s whistles. They dived down again, and after swimming around for a while they lined up on one side of the pool, turning their impenetrable black eyes towards the stands. Heedless of the frantic applause, the interpreter was still staring into space with a haunted expression on his face, arching his shoulders and moving his mouth as though it were a beak. It was then that he caught sight of me, clinging to a railing, paralysed by fear. He leaned forwards on the dais and waved his fist in my direction, shouting out triumphantly: