I Am Radar

by Reif Larsen

  Radar opened his mouth to convey his simultaneous terror and joy at seeing them. He wanted to tell them about Otik, about the water in the hold, about the twisting hallway, about seeing his own death.

  “Blow me shivers!” he called out.

  The needle in the room did not flicker. No one paid him any heed. Ivan, hands on the wheel. Akaki, studying his computers. Daneri, staring grimly ahead. It was as if he didn’t exist.

  Radar took hold of a chair, then the bridge console, then made it to the helm.

  “Ivan,” he said. “Ivan. What’s going on?”

  “A squall,” said Ivan. “Big squall. Radar didn’t see it.”

  “Radar never sees it,” said the captain.

  “Radar did see it,” said Akaki.

  “Only once we’re inside the goddamn headwall,” said the captain. “And then radar sees nothing.”

  Radar was briefly confused, until he realized they were referring not to him but to the object of Akaki’s attention. The technology, not the person.

  “How does she feel, Mr. Kovalyov?” the captain said. “Tell me something good.”

  “She’s pushing three, four to starboard. I can hold,” said Ivan, gripping the wheel. “But if wind changes we are buried.”

  The captain nodded. “What’s your height, Mr. Akakievich?”

  “Twelve meters,” said the chief mate. “Fifty-three knots from the north-northeast. Holding. Gusting.”

  “Hijo de puta,” hissed Daneri. He lifted the phone to the engine room and said, “Full ahead, Mr. Piskaryov. Give me more. I want more. We need to cut these down.”

  “There’s a band ahead,” said the chief mate, staring at the radar.

  The captain hung up his phone. “Keep her steady, Mr. Kovalyov. Pull port if you need, but don’t let her get turned. I don’t want to lose one goddamn box, you hear me? Not one goddamn box!”

  “There is a band ahead, captain!” the chief mate said again.

  “I don’t care what you see on that cursed machine!” shouted the captain.

  “I have never seen this,” the chief mate said, almost contemplatively.

  Radar looked out through the windows, across the great deck of the Aleph. The windshield wipers squeaked away, back and forth across the glass—a pathetic show of resistance, given the immensity of the storm that surrounded them. At first he could not see much. The deck lights were all ablaze, but his visibility was still limited by the thrashing rain to a series of glimpses of a huge and unrelenting sea. And then there was a clap of lightning and he saw it all. What before had simply been a series of fantastic rolls and pitches now revealed itself to be a maelstrom of wind and rain and great white-capped waves that rose out of the darkness before crashing wildly against the deck, the stacks of containers lurching and leaning beneath the savagery of the ocean. The ship—once so big in port—now seemed so utterly small and helpless against this raging sea—a slight little dagger of a thing. And then the rain came at them again, pounding against the windows like a volley of bullets, the windshield wipers persisting but doing nothing to dispel the chaos outside. Having glimpsed the magnitude of their foe, Radar saw the odds now swinging back firmly in favor of nature’s eventual triumph, even with a wizard like Ivan at the helm.

  “Dios mío,” said the captain.

  Radar looked up. At first he could make out nothing through the blur of wind and rain. The boat bent toward its bow, and it was as if the great sea had taken a moment to rest, a moment to contemplate the extent of its destruction. And then Radar saw it: a mighty, incomprehensible wall of water rising above them, higher even than the bridge upon which they stood, thirty meters above the Plimsoll. The Aleph, stupefied, helpless to the world, was headed directly for it.

  “Mr. Kovalyov—” the captain hissed.

  “I see it, I see it,” said Ivan. “What do you want? There’s nothing I can do . . .”

  The chief mate looked up from his radar.

  “Mater bozhya,” he whispered.

  The boat churned up the flank of the giant wave, doing its best to climb into the sky, but eventually she lost her momentum, for there was only so much her propeller could manage against the laws of physics. The wave, previously content with existing as a mountain of potentiality, finally lost its patience with the ship. The tremendous cornice of white water at its zenith exploded like a volcano and let loose a thundering avalanche of sea down onto the Aleph’s deck.

  There are few sights as impressive as a wave breaking across a ship. It is the truest of force equations, an honest meeting of liquid and solid, where solid is forced to wonder what liquid might do, where solid resists, re-tabulates, converses, barters, prays, and then reemerges triumphant. Or not. Radar sensed such a negotiation only for a split second before the shockwave from the impact shook the bridge and he was tossed like a doll to the floor.

  When he stood up again, he could see nothing through the windows. For an instant, he thought that the boat had simply vanished, that the wave had acted like a giant eraser and banished them from existence, but then he realized that they were still on the ship, and they still existed, so the ship must exist, too. Maybe she had split off and sunk, taking all of her cargo with her? Maybe they were sinking already and they had precious few moments together before the ocean burst through the windows. But no, there she was: with great effort, the outline of the Aleph surfaced from the grim sea like an ancient sea creature heaving itself from the depths. She was still intact. She had made it through.

  “How many boxes?” the captain was yelling.

  The chief mate was at the window, counting, fingers touching fingers.

  “How many boxes are gone, Mr. Akakievich?!”

  “At least fifteen, sir,” he yelled. “Maybe more.”

  Radar peered out into the storm, the green and red bow lights still glimmering through the rain. He could see the patchwork quilt of boxes, so small and vulnerable against the sea. Most were still in place, but he could also see what the first mate was looking at: two stacks in the bow were shorter than the rest and now were tilting dangerously with each swell.

  “Tell me what is gone!” said the captain.

  “I have to check the computers, sir!”

  “Hijo de puta.”

  Ivan was still manning the wheel, his face crooked into the faintest of smiles.

  Radar came up to him. “How did you know how to do it?”

  “I didn’t,” said Ivan. “I never know.”

  Radar looked out across the deck, wet with the sea still churning out thirty-foot waves, though after the monstrosity they had just survived, the rest was child’s play.

  Through the slashing rain, something caught his eye. He blinked. Just past the gunwales, somewhere over the second cargo hold, he could’ve sworn he had seen a horse galloping across the decks, weaving around the stacks of containers. He stared out into the storm but did not see the creature again.

  “Captain,” said Radar, “are any of these containers said to contain horses?”

  • • •

  THE STORM SUBSIDED, though the seas retained their swell for many hours afterwards. Down in Moby-Dikt, the cleanup had begun.

  Otik lay on his cot, dead to the world, while Lars worked furiously to restore order from the chaos. Radar picked up the bow saw and began to help him. The precious bird heads, so carefully looked after, were strewn all over the floor. Many had rolled into dark corners, and it took time to find them. And still some had been lost. They had boarded the boat with 1,387; after the storm, they could find only 1,381. Otik, normally so protective of his heads, only groaned.

  “I want off,” he said. “I want land. I want real land.”

  After three hours, Radar collapsed into his own cot, exhausted. They had done the best they could. Time would tell whether the storm had doomed the show.

  Lars stood by the workbe
nch, swaying, his eyes empty.

  “You should get some sleep,” said Radar.

  “I won’t sleep again,” said Lars.

  “Ever?”

  “In the north, you learn to sleep half the year and then stay awake for six months, like a bear.”

  “Yeah, I’m not quite there yet,” said Radar.

  “You did wonders today,” Lars said suddenly. “We couldn’t do this without you.”

  “Oh? I feel like I’m always in the way.”

  “You’ll see,” said Lars. “Otik doesn’t forget. Things will be different now.”

  6

  They crossed the Atlantic without further incident. On the tenth day, they stopped in Lisbon, where they unloaded—or supposedly unloaded—50,000 pounds of “lubricated materials,” 75,000 pounds of “tractors or tractor equipment,” 20,000 pounds of “explosive and/or non-explosive chemicals,” 33,000 pounds of semiconductors, 25,500 pounds of “potato product,” and 70 tons of flat carbon steel. They took on containers said to contain 1,000 cases of port wine, 10,000 pounds of green olives, 20,000 pounds of leather hide, 2,000 bottles of milk, 15,000 pounds of young wool, 9,000 pounds of “footwear and/or foot apparel,” and a 1976 Mercedes-Benz fire engine.

  In the Canary Islands, more containers were exchanged and shifted. Among other things, they dropped off the containers said to contain the milk, the wool, the footwear, and 950 jackhammers. They also dropped off the fire engine, which drove off the docks after sounding its siren, as if in thanks for the safe passage. They picked up 5,000 pounds of live lobster, 22,000 pounds of frozen fish, 30,000 pounds of “cola and diet cola product,” 65,000 pounds of “precious gemstones,” and 14,000 traffic cones. At no point in the loading and unloading did Radar see any evidence of the horse he had glimpsed in the middle of the typhoon.

  They rode the Canary Current down the west coast of Africa, past Senegal, through the turbulent waters of Cape Palmas, and into the Gulf of Guinea, where they stopped briefly in Lagos to pick up five hundred tons of crude oil. Captain Daneri, nervous about pirates, stationed his crew on the gunwales with high-pressure hoses pointed at the sea while he stalked the bridgewings with a rifle in the crook of each arm. As if knowing who they were up against, no pirates elected to appear. The captain looked almost disappointed at the ease with which they slid out of Nigerian waters.

  From Lagos, they crossed the equator, hugging the coast near Gabon so as to mitigate the Angola Gyre working against them. Nearly two weeks after leaving New Jersey, they were forced to anchor just south of Point Noire, next to several Taiwanese oil tankers, while they waited to gain admission into the Congo River.

  Captain Daneri fumed at the delay.

  “The system crumbles,” he muttered into his maté.

  While they waited, the tropical sun sent temperatures in the hold soaring. Otik, who had not fully recovered his strength since the storm, tried halfheartedly to work on the damaged bird heads, but the sweat poured off him in sheets and he soon fell back into bed. Radar noticed that he had lost a considerable amount of weight during their ten days at sea, and his eyes now appeared sunken and dull. Despite his pallor, Otik’s demeanor toward Radar had softened dramatically. Just as Lars had predicted, Otik now approached him with an almost off-putting tenderness, given his previous vitriol.

  “You always remind me of Kermin,” said Otik from his bed. “I miss this man every day.”

  “I shouldn’t have left.”

  “You had to leave, burazeru. You had to come with us.”

  Burazeru. Brother. A word he had heard passed like a secret handshake between two boys while they played soccer on a street in Belgrade. A word he never thought he would hear directed at him. An elusive connection that would always, by definition, exclude him. He was brotherless. Until now.

  Burazeru. His skin prickled.

  “You mean it?” he said.

  “Without you, there can be no show. Ti si dobar covek, Charlie Brown.”

  Even if it was not true, it meant the world to him. For the first time in his life, Radar felt as though he might be on the right path.

  “Otik, when we were back in New Jersey, you said my father wasn’t coming back,” said Radar. “How can you be so sure?”

  “I didn’t know what I was saying, burazeru. It was long night. I was tired.”

  “But what do you think happened to him, really?”

  Otik rubbed his face. “I don’t know.”

  “What is it?” asked Radar.

  Otik sighed. “There is type of puppet tradition in Java called wayang golek,” he said. “They are using wooden rod puppets. Very beautiful. When puppet dies in play, the puppeteer hangs puppet next to stage, on special hook, so audience can see puppet. Puppet is not gone. Puppet is still there.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  But at that moment, they heard a giant explosion outside the boat. Radar ducked.

  “What was that?” said Radar.

  “We are under attack,” said Otik. “They have come for us.”

  “Pirates?” said Radar.

  More thundering booms echoed from outside.

  “What should we do?” Radar whispered.

  With a groan, Otik extricated his body from the bed and hobbled out into the hold. Radar cautiously followed.

  “Where are you going?” asked Radar. “Don’t you think we should stay here?”

  “Let’s go meet these men who will kill us. Let’s shake hands and congratulate,” said Otik, and he started up the stairs.

  Radar stared after him, shocked. It seemed less an act of courage than a hopeful attempt at suicide.

  “Wait!” said Radar, following him up the steps. “Wait for me, burazeru!”

  They emerged onto the deck to find that it was already dark. They must have lost track of time. Night came quickly in the tropics, always at the same hour. The Aleph, contrary to what they expected, was not being overrun by a band of marauders. All was calm on her main deck. They heard the sound of guns again, but some distance away. They hurried to the balustrade and peered out across the water. In the moonlight, they could just make out what looked to be an old man-of-war, nestled in a cove, intermittently blasting its guns into the dark, jungled coastline. Each time its cannons fired, the bush would light up, and they watched as shadows of trees trembled and collapsed beneath the onslaught. Yet beyond this little war, the forest was endless, unaffected.

  “What are they doing?” asked Radar.

  “It’s Cabinda,” said Ivan, who appeared next to them at the balustrade with his guitar. “It belongs to Angola, but it is not attached to rest of country. Same old story. The Cabindans want to be their own people, but they cannot escape their motherland.”

  “But why are they shooting?”

  Ivan started to strum his guitar. “Ooo-ooo-ooo, Ju-lia, she split me in two, Ju-lia,” he sang.

  “Would you cut that racket!” The captain’s voice came from above. His head appeared in silhouette over the bridgewing. “Quit that singing! Respect this night. Du calme, du calme.”

  Ivan abruptly fell silent. They were left with only the sound of the man-of-war’s cannons caressing the darkness and the great silence that echoed from the country beyond.

  • • •

  AFTER WAITING THREE DAYS in the open ocean, they were finally given the crackly go-ahead to enter the mouth of the Congo. The Aleph turned, her engines fired, steam was applied to valve, and into the continent she went. At Banana Station, they picked up a pilot to help them run the river, but they were barely three miles upstream when a second transmission came over the wireless, this time from a different man: their permission had been rescinded and they were to turn back at once. It was an inauspicious beginning. Captain Daneri raised an eyebrow, looked at the pilot, and then flipped off the radio.

  “We never heard it,” he said. “If we d
id not hear it, it does not exist.”

  They chugged on. Ivan guided the big ship through a snarl of lush islands that looked untouched by man or beast and around an arcing bend carved from a rise of palisade cliffs. A map of the river lay on the table before him, but he did not consult it, nor did he seek advice from the pilot, who now dozed in a corner. They glided by the old river port of Boma, where they saw a handful of children wave at them from the docks, and then they were passing beneath a large suspension bridge. A truck rumbled across. Such a feat of engineering looked out of place amid all this greenery.

  “The next bridge is two thousand kilometers up the Congo,” Captain Daneri said as they passed underneath its span. “Two thousand kilometers! No bridges for two thousand kilometers! Write a song about that, Mr. Kovalyov. Write a song about Congo, a country of no bridges.”

  On the right, the sad squalor of Matadi slid into view: a town built on the promises of the sea and the betrayal of a nation. Corroded petrochemical tanks, the burned-out chassis of an abandoned truck cab, clusters of dusty red-roofed shacks rising up into the hills. A dog scratched itself on the riverbank, taking no notice of their arrival.

  But arrived they had. Radar stood on the bridgewing, agape at their proximity to what before had only been an idea. This idea had now become a place, though the place felt like a pale imitation of the idea.

  “Welcome to Africa,” said Lars. “It is the beginning of the end.”

  • • •

  “NOW THAT WE ARE HERE,” announced Otik, “I can inform you this was also the worst two weeks of my life.”

  The three of them had been standing on the crumbling docks of Matadi for almost an hour. Before disembarking, they had all donned the bright yellow polyester tracksuit of Kirkenesferda. With one leg in the bottoms, Radar had realized his tracksuit had in fact been meant for his father. He had wanted to disappear then and weep for everything that was and wasn’t anymore. But the other two were already waiting for him, so he zipped up the jacket, put on his graffitied trucker’s hat—which, as fate would have it, was also yellow—and followed them off the ship and down the gangplank.