by Chris Thrall
Longer than the Titanic, almost twice as wide and two hundred and thirty thousand tons fully loaded, the cargo ship lived up to her name, but with the depth of her keel restricted to allow passage through some of the world’s shallower waterways, safety concerns had been raised.
Alfonso did not need to know the contents of the forty-foot-long metal boxes, only how heavy each one was, information radioed through by the chief rigger on the dockside to allow for weight considerations and counter balancing. He wasn’t keen on stacking the containers six high – not out of concern the additional stress on the lashings could see cargo spill overboard in heavy seas, but because getting them lined up so their lugs interlocked involved painstaking effort.
Alfonso was determined to get away on time to play in a card game on the other side of town. Poker was his only real vice – at times too much of a vice, the surplus of his hard-earned salary not always finding its way back to his wife and children in the village of Jimenez on the island of Mindanao. However, when loading and off-loading thousands of television sets and other high-value goods onto ships every day, and with contacts in customs and dockyard security, there were other ways for the crane operator to supplement his minimal wage.
On this occasion Alfonso was too eager to shut down his crane, for he had not informed the deck crew of several containers high up in the stack far exceeding their declared weight. Unbeknown to him, four of them housed industrial-sized diesel engines on pallets that were not properly secured. Two other containers suffered from structural fatigue, and due to an error in communication a number of missing twistlocks had gone unnoticed.
One of the last containers Alfonso lowered into place, SIDU307007-9, carried high-definition Hitachi television sets destined for the United States via the Suez Canal and Europe.
- 47 -
“That’s it . . . Back this way . . . A bit more . . . Good job, funny face!”
Under Hans’ patient tuition, Jessica reversed Future into a berth in Cape Verde’s Porto Grande Marina on the island of São Vicente.
“I have not gotta funny face, Papa!”
“Oh yes you have! And you’ve got spaghetti legs and a mushroom nose!”
“Naughty Papa!”
Summoning all her strength she smacked his backside, Hans dropping to the cockpit floor as if hit by a linebacker from the Chicago Bears.
As far as bonding with his daughter was concerned and coming to terms with the loss of Mom and JJ, Hans felt the trip had beaten all his expectations. He knew he would support this delightful and intelligent creature until the end of his days. Although she was too young to understand the events in full, Hans was proud of her remarkable maturity and handling of the situation. Obviously she was confused and threw the occasional tantrum, but unlike most kids her age, yet to develop empathy and self-reflection, Jessica was always forthcoming with an apology, giving Hans the opportunity to talk things through and come to an understanding. What Jessica didn’t know was that ten months earlier, when Hans had pulled his Beretta out of the drawer, having downed a bottle of bourbon, she had been his reason for living then.
“Come on, shipmate. Let’s tie this baby up and go exploring.”
“Aye aye, naughty Papa!”
While Penny went to check her email and use the laundry, Hans and Jessica took a boat tour around a collection of vintage sailing ships sitting at anchor in the harbor. Immaculately restored, the tall riggers were the oceangoing greyhounds of their day, capable of crossing the Atlantic full to brimming with trade goods in record time. With their monstrous size, miles of rigging and striking black-and-white-painted timbers, the century-old schooners and brigantines were the stuff of literary and movie legend.
“See the spars right at the top, honey?”
“Uh-huh.” Jessica stared upwards, dwarfed by the towering mast carved, unbeknown to them, from native Maine spruce.
“In the olden days the sailors would have to climb up there, even in real bad storms, to unfurl the topsails.”
“What if they fell off, Papa?”
“Oh . . . if they fell off . . .” Hans paused, catching the vacant look in his daughter’s eyes.
The slightest suggestion of death sent Jessica into a trancelike state, her traumatized mind attempting to make sense of something most adults struggle to understand. He wondered how to explain to a damaged seven-year-old the consequences of falling onto the deck from such a height or, equally as bad, into the sea. Back then the majority of sailors couldn’t swim, and it was not as if these gargantuan sailboats could turn on a dime to pick them up if they did stay afloat.
“I guess they made sure not to fall, sweet pea.”
Penny joined them back aboard, smiling with a sparkle in her eyes.
“Hans, are you and Jessie still looking for a crew member to help you cross the Atlantic?”
“Pretty sure we still are.” Hans gave a sideways look.
“Then I’d like to offer my services. The Parisian millionaire’s stock just took a downturn, and he’s put the French Guiana crossing on hold.”
Hans could hardly contain his joy. “What do you think, Jess? Would you like it if Penny sails back to Portland with us?”
“Yay!”
“Yeeeeeee-hah-hah-hah!”
Hans hopped up onto the cockpit cushions and, hanging one hand over his head and scratching his chest with the other, began to sing. “Oh, ooh-be-doo, I wanna be like you-ooh-ooh!”
“I wanna walk like you, talk like you toooo!” the girls chorused.
As the three of them goofed around the cockpit doing the monkey dance from Jessica’s Jungle Book DVD, Hans wondered if the trip could get any better.
- 48 -
On the commuter train to Oyama, Kuro took up his manga comic, but read less than a page before stopping to stare out of the window, daydreaming as apartment buildings and industrial complexes whizzed by.
Kuro had started to question recently whether something might be amiss in his life, since fixating on the mundane backdrop while listening to the hypnotic beat of the tracks was actually more enjoyable than standing on the production line at Hitachi endlessly plugging components into TV motherboards. He felt an overwhelming urge to exit the train at the next stop and go and experience pastures new, but if he committed such a rebellious act his future with the electronics giant would not be a long one.
The young man had aspirations, though. Minakuchi-san had worked his way up from warehouse assistant to become operations manager. Last year he flew his family to Mexico for a vacation – Cancún no less, the epitome of the good life – where they swam with dolphins and saw Koichi Domyato, Japan’s J-pop sensation, strolling hand in hand along the beach with Atsuko Morigachi from the hit soap opera Love Exists.
Kuro had never been abroad, as his mother and father were not adventurous types. His grandfather, Sukiyabashi-san, who lived with the family, had traveled to faraway places, although it was not something he talked about. Known respectfully as Itamae – “Chef” – he had been Japan’s leading sushi master before the Second World War. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese army commissioned Sukiyabashi-san, who, rising to the rank of major, found himself in Burma overseeing construction of the infamous Death Railway.
One time Kuro sneaked into his grandfather’s room to peek at the contents of an aging ammunition canister kept with the modest possessions in his closet. There were sepia-toned photographs of a determined young man and a demure young woman dressed in kimonos and staring solemnly into the lens – the latter, Kuro’s grandmother, killed during an American bombing raid shortly before the war ended, the sortie leveling the restaurant and two square miles of the surrounding area. A set of gold-lacquered hashi – chopsticks – pinned to a base made from cherry tree were the only reminder of Sukiyabashi-san’s glory days as chef supreme, this particular award bestowed upon him by the Fishmongers Guild in 1932.
Particularly moving were hundreds of letters, bunched and tied with brittle string dyed ora
nge using wilted lawn clippings to symbolize romance, each impeccably written in daintily inked characters and with a dried blossom included in its folds. Kuro had thought of the beautiful Aiko, his coworker at the factory.
Yet the most pertinent keepsake in his grandfather’s collection was a yellowing page from Stars and Stripes featuring a photograph taken in the Burmese jungle. A phalanx of Allied soldiers stood to attention in a dusty clearing as a Japanese officer saluted a victorious British colonel, the latter looking down at an exquisite sword held in his upturned hands. A captain from the US Marine Corps stood next to the general, flown in from an aircraft carrier in the Andaman Sea to organize the repatriation of American prisoners of war.
Despite the sword’s military scabbard and remodeled hilt, Kuro knew the katana blade had been in his family for generations, forged from the purest carbon-tempered steel by Yoshi the Sword Maker in 1804.
To the stern-faced general in the photograph, the sword represented humility in defeat, but to Kuro’s grandfather it signified the death of a samurai and eternal shame and dishonor. Beneath the aging snapshot, the caption read, “Following the Japanese surrender in Burma, Major Sukiyabashi, Imperial Army, offers his sword to Colonel J. C. Douglas, 14th Army, as Captain J. J. Larsson, US Marine Corps, looks on.”
- 49 -
Penny stoked the embers and threw more driftwood on the fire. The flames twisted and curled, leaping like sprites into the night, ravishing the tinder-dry logs, which crackled, popped and wheezed as the ocean crashed on the beach. Jessica lay asleep on a blanket unfurled on the powdery yellow sand, the amber glow dancing across her face, emphasizing the child’s perfect form.
“Look at her, Hans,” Penny whispered. “She’s so beautiful.”
“Exhausted too.”
Hans took a gulp of rum from the bottle and washed it down with beer.
“That was probably the skinny-dipping.” Penny elbowed him in the ribs. “If there’s such a thing as utopia, this must be it.”
“Agreed.” Hans kissed the top of her head as she lay against him. “But with a fire like that, I think it’s you Tarzan, me Jane.”
“A girl’s gotta know her stuff, Jane.”
“I loved those movies as a kid. You’re probably too young to remember.”
“I think we just got the cartoon.”
“Saturday mornings . . . in black and white.” Hans smiled in the darkness. “Johnny Weissmuller. Hell, he was my hero.”
“Johnny . . . ?”
“Weissmuller – a German immigrant. Real good swimmer. Won five Olympic golds, so MGM signed him to play the part. Man!”
“What?”
“Ah, he was just the greatest role model a kid could have – handsome, muscular, fearless and loyal, and boy could he swim! Used to do these underwater sequences in crystal-clear African rivers. So beautiful – the scenery, sunken logs and weeds and gigantic fish. Tarzan and Jane would swim along holding their breath like they didn’t have a care in the world. And there’d always be a crocodile attack. Tarzan loved all the animals except crocodiles. Used to stab them with his bush knife – especially when they tried to eat Jane.”
“He kind of reminds me of someone.” Penny wriggled against Hans’ chest.
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are.”
“No, I’m serious when I say I developed a love of the water from this guy. When I snorkeled off Maine looking for lobster and crab and spearing fish, I was Tarzan. I wanted to live like him.”
“Hans, I don’t think a girl’s ever told you this, but you do live like him! Don’t you see it? You got a daughter who thinks you can do no wrong – you’d fight crocodiles for her. Anybody can see that.”
“It’s funny, because you know the best thing about this guy?”
“He . . . cooked a wicked jungle omelet?” Penny noticed a slight slur in Hans’ speech.
“Ha, no. He had an adopted son, called him Boy. Tarzan loved this kid – would do anything for him – and the kid loved Tarzan. It was like the meaning of life playing out before your eyes. Hell, I woulda named my son Tarzan.”
“Why didn’t y—?” Penny froze.
Hans kissed her cheek. “He was named after his great grandpa. Jacob Johan Larsson. If there was ever a real-life Tarzan, he was it.”
“Go on.” Penny felt like reaching for another beer but didn’t want to ruin the moment.
“He was an officer in the Marine Corps. Fought in the Far East campaign and Korea. Real character. Always up at five and out running along the shore. Swam in the sea every day without fail. I asked him why once and he said, ‘It makes me feel good, son.’”
“Sounds more of a father figure.”
“And the rest, Penny. I stayed with him a lot as a kid – kinda beat being at home. He lived to eighty-three. Doctors said he woulda lasted longer if it wasn’t for the liquor.”
“He liked a drink?”
“Up at dawn and the first thing he did was take a shot of rum.” Hans lifted the bottle and swirled the inch of amber liquid around. “He was old school. Marine Corps! No such thing as an alcohol problem. Nothing you can’t fix with jogging pants and a good ol’ sweat session.”
“Did he want you to join the military?”
“No, just the opposite. He’d have these reunions. Like every year his old Marine buddies would turn up at the house. They’d spoil me rotten, tell me stories about my grandpa’s heroics, like the time he carried one of his injured corporals twelve miles back to base at the Chosin Reservoir.”
“Bet he got a medal for that.”
“He had medals all right.”
Hans stopped talking and took a swig of rum.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
They listened to the sound of waves raking the beach and spits coming from the fire.
“The reunions,” Hans continued, “always started the same. Busting out the beers and ‘Hey, what about the time we took that ridge?’ or such and such a place. And loads of ‘Oorah!’ Then as the evening went on it would be ‘Do you remember Hanson . . . and Kowolski . . . and Bradsell?’ and the tears would start.”
That’s so sad.” Penny locked fingers with his.
“Grown men crying like babies.”
“Hans, it’s . . . just awful.”
“One time, after his buddies left I heard my grandpa weeping, so I went into his room. He just hugged me – like really hugged me. Then he pulled an old trunk full of military paraphernalia from under his bed and handed me this sword – a Japanese sword. I remember it like yesterday: seeing my reflection in the buffed steel, little clouds scrolling down it, so sharp after forty years my grandpa made sure I didn’t touch the blade. He asked me what I saw. I said, ‘A sword, Grandpa.’ He said, ‘I watched Colonel Douglas take this from a Jap at a camp in Burma – men suffering all kind of hideous diseases, festering wounds, animal bites and malnutrition so bad you could circle their thighs with your thumb and forefinger.’”
Penny shuddered. Her late grandfather served in the war as a civil engineer on the London docks, but other than stepping over the body of a dead firefighter during the Blitz, he certainly hadn’t experienced such trauma.
“He said, ‘That sword is every life ever ruined by war, son. Souls so haunted they can’t never be repaired. Old men seeing faces of dead comrades in their sleep, laughing and acting the fool, then blown to smithereens, guts wrapped around trees. That Jap officer, he was this sword. Losing it was worse than losing his legs – and for what, son?”
“Wow, heavy stuff for a kid.”
“Yeah, but the crazy thing is, somewhere over there in Japan there’s probably a grandson telling the other side of the story.”
- 50 -
When they met Al Mohzerer outside Old Man Ali’s carpet shop, the majority of the hashish still sat under the tarp on the pickup’s cargo bed. Driving through the city’s hectic traffic, Al Mohzerer gripped the steering wheel like a maniac, hunching forward and scowli
ng at the other road users. Unusually stressed, he maintained his normal silence and let the truck’s horn do the talking.
Without warning the boss wrenched the wheel over, leaving the thoroughfare to shoot up a slip road marked “Harbor.”
A feeling of dread descended on the boys.
Al Mohzerer must have a contact in the port authority.
Their exploits were about to be exposed.
Ahmed pictured the scene in his mind: the Grower bundling them into an office, men in uniform sat around leering. “Yes, these are the boys, sayyid. They’ve been coming here every month to learn about sailing and making a damn nuisance of themselves.”
The young Moroccan racked his brain trying to remember if either of them had mentioned their escape plan to any of the yacht crews they had met. He felt sure he hadn’t but couldn’t be certain about Mohamed. You idiot! he cursed silently, his mind in turmoil, not for a moment considering Mohamed was thinking the same thing.
In the small of his back, Ahmed could feel his sheath knife. The second Al Mohzerer tried to get smart with them he would whip it out and stab it into the Grower’s neck as fast as humanly possible and not stop stabbing until the life drained from the evil pig’s eyes.
He began nudging Mohamed, but his friend did not acknowledge him, and Ahmed worried the little fool was oblivious to their predicament.
Unbeknown to Ahmed, Mohamed was all too aware their lives might be about to end. He was just petrified their hawklike boss would spot any signal passed between them and remained frozen in his seat.
Approaching the harbor office, they both felt certain this was it, but Al Mohzerer drove right past without so much as a glance, his eyes fixed on the far end of the T-shaped dock. He pulled to a stop a foot from the edge of the concrete, yanked the parking brake and cut the engine. Then the Grower got out, lit a cigarette and began staring out to sea.