8. 62°12′9″S, 58°56′43″W
ON MY FIRST trip to the farthest south I emailed Father a few photos—“penguins & son,” “frosty morning mood,” “sea meets sky,” “land of ocean”—using the address of the director of the assisted living home, with the request she show them to him on her computer. His reaction was predictably gruff: how disappointing you didn’t just vanish into the unknown. If this Internet business can stretch its tentacles that far then there’s no place left on the planet where a person can really be alone. I should have thought twice before clicking send, given Father’s general outlook. When he looks beyond the horizon he’s not longing to find Atlantis, he doesn’t dream of crossing the desert to Timbuktu or discovering Shangri-La — all he wants is the peace and quiet of a solitary hike. He couldn’t possibly understand why I get antsy if I miss my routine fix on the website of the European Space Agency (by way of the WLAN connection on Deck 4) where I track the breakup of the Antarctic Ice Shelf. I know it’s proceeding at a pretty fast clip, so why do I have to keep verifying the fact? I still haven’t told my father anything about King George Island, otherwise his notion of the virgin icescape would be trampled on by boots both moon and military. Even as Expedition Leader I can’t keep us from landing here, we couldn’t put in at Elephant Island because of wind speeds exceeding 56 miles per hour, so we don’t have any other option. King George Island is 90 percent ice, 10 percent research stations and penguin colonies, that’s how I would have to describe it to him, the stations are a few decades old, the colonies have been here for 30,000 years. The island counts as a spearhead of human settlement because it houses the only hotel in the Antarctic, the Estrella Polar (except the hotel has closed down and Polaris can’t possibly be seen from these latitudes), as well as a military outpost for the Chilean Air Force, which can also be used as a jumping-on point by impatient ecotourists who contrive to bypass the Drake Passage. The landscape is infested with research stations. Every country that wants a say in the future of the Antarctic, I would explain to Father, has to maintain a permanent station, and the most economic place to do that is King George Island. Russia, China, Korea, Poland, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Germany are all vying for the Antarctic Cup. The bases are close together, which would hardly seem to foster any sense of scientific rigor, while at the same time feeding the suspicion there’s more rummy than research going on, that people are just biding their time waiting for the day they’re allowed to drill for oil and not just ice (at present all truly groundbreaking research is being conducted deep in the ocean or far inland, during the summer the field teams are always on the go, camping out on the ice). Every now and then we visit Chile’s Eduardo Frei Station. The sight of the settlement rising from the shore, the makeshift buildings — bank, post office, store, school and hospital — delights the passengers, it’s practically a normal village, there are women and children, it flies the national flag, issues its own stamps, and sends newly minted Chilean citizens into the world who with every cry for their mother’s breast advance their country’s claim to the Antarctic peninsula. How is it possible that neither the Soviets nor the Americans have launched a highly pregnant woman into space just so she could give birth to the first extraorbital baby and thereby establish a legitimate claim to the solar system, the galaxy and the universe itself? I would tell Father that we’re avoiding the Russian station Bellinghausen on account of the many derelict oil drums, the wreckage and scrap iron that litter the shore, exposing the true legacy of the human race: rusty garbage. But there’s also a colony of chinstrap penguins, we put in close to that, the calls of the black-and-white-uniformed animals merge with that of the red-uniformed humans into a kind of high-pitched cacophony as the extraterrestrials land, equipped with curiosity but lacking a common tongue. But the chinstraps may be more used to such intrusions than we think, as El Albatros explains, between the launch of one Zodiac and the arrival of another: evidently they’re equally unable to communicate with the gentoo penguins who stray into their colony, it’s not even certain the chinstraps notice the interlopers. But the passengers do notice the natives, they savor every minute they are allotted with the penguins, we have to insist loudly and urgently when it’s time to go back. As the passengers come ashore I stand with one leg in the water next to a metal stepstool that allows them to take hold of my arm and land on relatively dry ground while I mumble polite mantras — even if after two hours in the freezing water I’m ready to chase off every Antarctic tourist with a savage grimace and a primal scream. A stream of phosphorescence streaks through the water, I steady the Zodiac, a spritely Swede climbs in and shows me his drawing of a penguin with its beak pointed skyward, a few strokes, the barest approximation, a large inflatable assault craft rushes past full of soldiers, the Chilean flag painted on the side of the bow, it comes dangerously close before veering away, leaving a wake that causes me to lose my grip on the dinghy, and then makes land not far from us, right in the middle of a large flock of penguins who reluctantly waddle apart. The first soldier jumps off and immediately lights a cigarette. He takes a few steps inland and stands right in the middle of the colony, his posture relaxed, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Our passengers, whom we have diligently schooled to keep the proper distance and the appropriate demeanor, stare in disbelief. “Take over,” I say to Jeremy and set off in the direction of the soldier. “Wait a minute,” says Jeremy. “What are you doing?” I call out. The soldier looks at me blankly. I point to his cigarette, and with unmistakable gestures demand that he stop smoking. He ignores me completely, turns to his comrades and smirks, this look-at-me smirk that makes me turn white with rage, I start screaming bits of Spanish, I run up to him, shouting at him to stop, and grab him by the arm. With a single unexpectedly violent motion he shakes me off, I tumble a few steps, then try to lunge at him but fall clumsily to the ground, my face lands in the mud. He takes his pistol out of the holster, releases the safety and points it at me. Suddenly Beate and El Albatros are at my side, they both try to reason with the soldier, in Spanish, they hoist me to my feet and hold me firmly between them, as if they wanted to prove to the soldier what little threat I pose, I stare at the man, shaking, he looks at me with disdain and turns away. El Albatros holds me tight while Beate distracts the passengers who have quickly surrounded us, forming a colony of humans. I stand there without moving for some time, and finally El Albatros decides it’s ok to let go of me. The soldiers have turned their backs to us, they are already marching off, no one can say where to or to what purpose, a few wisps of smoke curl into the air, and I wonder where those cigarettes will be ground beneath their boots. Only now does my body feel the fear and at the same time I am euphoric, a lump rises in my throat and simultaneously disappears.