Viator Read online

  Eight

  “…What the fuck’s wrong with you…”

  The morning following the first snowfall, a light snow that sugared the tops of the fir boughs and the boulders along the shore and left the decks slick, Wilander, sitting in the officers’ mess, phoned Jochanan Lunde to make his report, and when the old man asked if anything out of the ordinary had occurred, Wilander related the tale of his months aboard Viator, omitting nothing, inflecting each incident with a kind of venomous relish (You want out of the ordinary? Take a bite of this!) that, he thought, might have been brought on by his long repression of it—he told Lunde about the recurring dreams, the ropy flying creatures that dominated them, about Mortensen’s apocryphal admonitions, about the maps that appeared on the walls, about the wiccara and the qwazil, about the blazing lights and the groans that issued from the heart of the forest (a phenomenon repeated on three occasions thusfar), and he further related his thoughts and feelings about these matters, his ongoing invention of a history and ecology to suit Cape Lorraine and the Iron Shore, his idée fixe that Viator’s journey might not have not ended. And after the old man failed to offer an immediate response, other than to mutter a curse in Swedish, not a wicked curse, but a profane word used in astonishment, Wilander asked Lunde to explain why he had sent them to live onboard the ship, saying that he refused to believe that they were doing preliminary work for a salvage operation.

  Lunde kept silent a few seconds longer and then said, I don’t wish to talk about this. Perhaps we can touch on it next time.

  —Why not now?

  —I have business to attend. But keep me informed, will you? It might be helpful for you to call more frequently. Every few days or so. Now…are you set with supplies?

  —We have food and water for three months. We could stand to lay in some more gas for the generator. It’ll take longer to order once winter’s here.

  —Very well. Order it. And call me. Call me Friday. From now on why don’t you call every Friday as well as Mondays?

  At this juncture, Wilander, after months of worrying that the old man might become angry and terminate them, caught something in Lunde’s voice, an undercurrent of excitement breaking through his stern manner, that made him realize that he, not his employer, held the upper hand. You’re not hearing me, he said. I want to know what’s going on.

  —I beg your pardon?

  —With Viator. I want to know what’s happening to us.

  —You’re not making sense. How can I help you with that? I’m not there with you.

  —Yeah, you’ve said that before. But you were Viator’s captain. You were aboard when she ran aground. That’s what I want to hear about.

  —How did you learn this? Lunde asked.

  —Don’t worry about it. Just tell me what went on.

  Flustered, Lunde said, It’s not in my interests to discuss the subject. I’m not permitted to, uh…There are legal issues, you see. I’m not…

  —Let me be clear. If you won’t talk to me, I’ll pull the crew off the ship.

  Lunde fell silent again and, afraid that his bluff would be called, because he wasn’t certain that he could pull himself off the ship, let alone the others, or that he could even find them all, because it had been a week since he’d seen Mortensen and several days since he’d seen Halmus, Wilander decided that the wisest course was to raise his own bluff and said, I’ll pull them off today. I may not be able to move Nygaard. And Mortensen may resist. But neither of those guys is capable of making reports. Nygaard’s a borderline idiot and Mortensen’s turned into John the fucking Baptist. And that’s what this is about, isn’t it? The reports? You need somebody to tell you what’s going on. There’s something about Viator you want to know. You must be desperate to know it. Why else spend so much money and effort to send us here?

  —I can’t tell you anything, Lunde said weakly. You’ve already gone past…

  Wilander waited for him to continue; finally, to prompt him, he asked, Past what?

  —Maybe I know enough. Lunde’s breath came ragged. Maybe it’s time to end this.

  —If you think you know anything, Wilander said, I want to hear about it.

  Lunde chuckled. I know I’m not just a crazy old man. That’s more than I expected.

  Wilander was dismayed by the chuckle—it implied that Lunde was looking from a remote, whimsical perspective upon a situation that he, Wilander, found deadly serious and far from remote. Do you want me to pull the crew? he asked. Or are you going to explain things to me?

  —You may be disappointed with what I have to say. You’ve told me far more than I can tell you. But…why not? Hang on. I need to speak with my secretary. Muffled voices; papers rustling; a woman’s laugh. All right. I’m back.

  —I’m waiting.

  —I was with Viator less than a year, Lunde said after a substantial pause. The company had promised me a new tanker, but there was a labor dispute. The tanker’s construction was delayed. They gave me Viator as a temporary command. At the time she serviced a route between Yokohama and Magadan in Siberia…and on occasion down to Vladivostok. She was seaworthy, but in constant need of refitting and not long after I came aboard they decided to scrap her. The crew was Russian, mostly. They disembarked at Magadan, and five of us, five officers, a skeleton crew, were ordered to take her to Panama, where she would be broken. We were a few days…

  —Five officers? Were they of Scandinavian blood, like the five of us?

  —They were Swedish, Lunde said. The company’s Swedish. The majority of officers are Swedish.

  —What in God’s name are you up to?

  —You asked to hear my story. Now let me tell it. I’ll explain as much as I’m able. Lunde made the sort of mild complaint that old men tend to make when they shift in their chairs and then went on: A few days out into the Bering Sea, we encountered a storm. It was nothing special. The sort of blow one expects in those latitudes. But we had no weight. Our cargo consisted of two small crates. Gifts from a company official to friends in Panama. That was all. The sea tossed us about as if Viator were a rowboat. On one occasion we nearly capsized. Then the engines failed, and it was a miracle we stayed afloat. If the winds had lasted an hour or two longer, I doubt we could have survived. Ulghren, my engineer, did an inspection. He told me that with two or three days, he could have the engines running. I consulted with my superiors, they consulted with theirs. It was decided that we would make repairs and continue our voyage south. Should another emergency arise, they would send rescue. Despite Ulghren’s estimate, the repairs took more than a week. Eleven days, to be exact. He found it necessary to fabricate parts. The weather was holding. There seemed no cause for alarm. But during that time, things changed.

  Lunde coughed and had difficulty in clearing his throat. This happened so long ago, he said. It’s difficult to know how memory has transformed events. As I recall, the change was seamless. There were no moments of recognition when I said to myself, Aha! This is what’s going on! It all happened so quickly, much more quickly than it’s happened with you. Yet it was gradual. I noticed the changes, of course. The shifts in behavior, the differences in the way I thought. They seemed odd, these things. Odd enough to comment upon, but not anything I needed to be concerned about. Initially the men became secretive. I became secretive. And I began to have dreams. This is where our stories have the closest correspondence. My dreams were very like yours, except the flying things…I saw them as well, but they made me think of microscopic life. Like the creatures I observed under a microscope when I was a student.

  —I recall thinking that myself, Wilander said. It was how they moved. It looked sometimes as if they were swimming, not flying.

  —Swimmers, yes. That’s how I perceived them. But the most compelling change was the sense I had—the sense we all had—of a subtle presence. I suspected that something had come to us during the storm. Nothing so ordinary as a ghost. Something not so easily describable. At times this feeling rose to the level of a frisson, but
for the most part it was just something I was aware of, something disturbing in the back of my mind. Like a word you’re seeking, one you can’t quite put a finger on. Ulghren claimed the presence was Viator. Viator was alive, he claimed. Spekke and Ottendahl, my first and second mates, sided with him. Since they’d been assisting with repairs, I assumed Ulghren had influenced their opinions. And Kameus…

  —You said you were secretive, all of you—yet you discussed what was happening?

  —We had sailed together for almost a year. Kameus and I…Peter Kameus. He was my radio officer for almost eight years. So, yes, we discussed it. That was our training, our habit. But we discussed it superficially. We did not speak everything we thought. Not by a long shot. And as I was about to say, Kameus, my friend, my best friend…he deferred to me, he sided with me. But eventually I discovered that he had been paying lip service to my opinion.

  —The point I’m making, Wilander said, is whatever the similarity between our stories, there’s one major dissimilarity. You discussed what was happening among yourselves and we’ve done very little of that.

  —It’s as I said. We were a crew, conditioned to work together. If I could have recruited Swedish merchant officers to live aboard Viator, I would have done so. I hoped to recreate the conditions of the voyage as closely as possible. As things stood, I was forced to recruit five strangers. Men who had suffered psychological damage due to their homelessness and were conditioned to be distrustful. That you discuss the matter less than we did is hardly surprising. In retrospect, I think I may have been overly exacting. I think I could have put anyone aboard Viator. Their racial heritage, the number of men—I doubt these things were crucial.

  Seething, Wilander said, A moment ago, when you said you weren’t just a crazy old man…What the fuck’s wrong with you? What gave you the right to use us?

  —For twenty years I’ve been obsessed with what happened to Viator. I will admit to…

  —I don’t give a damn about your obsession. You had no right to make us part of an experiment.

  —I won’t deny it. But stop a moment! Think! Mortensen and Nygaard would not have seen the winter if I hadn’t intervened in their lives. As for the rest of you, look at yourself. When you came into the office, you had nothing.

  —No, no, no! Wilander said. Don’t try to paint yourself as Saint Lunde. That’s not going to fly.

  —You had nothing, Lunde insisted. No prospects, no money, no friends. No hope. How much longer would you have lasted if I hadn’t extended a hand? Another year? Two? Tell me how I’ve injured you.

  —I don’t know how. That’s the problem. That’s what we’re talking about.

  —Well, let’s talk about it, then. I’ll finish my story. That addresses your problem. After that we can discuss these other issues.

  Wilander left his chair, too angry to speak, annoyed by Lunde’s patronizing calm, and went to stand in the outer door of the mess. The day had grown bright and still, the air crisp, the firs were etched against the light. He stepped out onto the deck and walked toward the stern.

  —Hello? Lunde said.

  —Go ahead. Tell your story.

  —Very well. Where was I?

  —Repairing the engines. Discussing things.

  —That’s right. Yes. Lunde coughed again, a delicate cough this time, like punctuation. Our discussions were informal. If I was on the bridge with Spekke, say, the subject would come up. When I went to the engine room to check on the repairs, Ulghren and Ottendahl might mention it. Yet we never sat down to hash things out. We didn’t talk at all when we were off-duty—off-duty, the men hid in their cabins. There was no more socializing. No drinking, no chatting. Nevertheless, the discussions, such as they were, grew heated. And it became apparent that our thoughts concerning Viator were developing along similar lines. The central thought, the one we agreed upon, was that Viator did not wish to die. What we failed to agree upon, however, was what should be done about this. On that matter, there was no consensus. Kameus, for instance, believed Viator had her own purposes and that we were interfering in them. An outsider would have thought us insane. But…Well, you’ve experienced life aboard Viator. You understand how the insane can come to seem rational. Whenever I was alone, on the bridge or in my cabin, I plotted courses north and east from our position. I did not rely on the master charts; I made my own. Another officer would not have been able to read them—I coded their referents, wanting to keep them private. They expressed Viator’s will. She guided my hand as I drew. I knew her mind. I believed all this implicitly, although I tried to doubt it. It terrified me. If true, it was beyond my ability to understand. If false, I was crazy. And yet I also felt…blessed. I knew something remarkable was taking place, something that I could characterize generally, but couldn’t put a precise name to.