A white bird alights on my head, the glacier hides behind its threshold, it calves into the ocean, loud, alive, seagulls flutter above the glacier and disappear, the clouds are tiny, a wave rears up and crashes, spewing spray from the crest high into the air to form a lacy burial shroud, albatrosses plunge from the sky like falling rocks, while blind hope gets caught in the mounting mesh of mist.
Let us dream beneath golden stars, this is a dead end, you don’t seem to want to understand, in this neighborhood there are nothing but dead ends, secret dreams beneath green trees. At gunpoint (and where did he get the pistol?) he forced all those still aboard the Hansen including the captain into a life boat, then he set off, yes these days steering a cruise ship is as easy as moving a joystick, there’s no doubt he’s reached open sea by now. Let us dance to mandolins, we are all as innocent as the subsidies we receive, now the stage is bare, dance beneath golden stars. Would you please tell us your name? Paulina Rizal. And your occupation? Waitress on the MS Hansen. How long have you known Zeno Hintermeier? Four years. How were you acquainted? We were friends. What kind of friends? Just friends, not accomplices. Were you in a relationship with him? No, we hadn’t promised ourselves anything. Did he mention what he was planning to do? No. He didn’t warn you? He talked a lot, they were just words, nothing but words. I’m sorry for coming so late, my appointment lasted longer than anticipated, no, I missed it, what did you say? Yes, no, no, I’m listening, I was only distracted for a moment, there’s a white pigeon fluttering around here. He’s headed straight north, the fighter pilots can’t attack the ship, they can only observe it, it will have to be boarded, there’s no other solution. There’s hope for you yet, little gifts can do a lot to nudge a friendship along, come take me by the hand and lead me off to fairyland. He was a buzzkill, a nutcase, but at least one with convictions. You wouldn’t understand him. Don’t underestimate us. You wouldn’t understand him, you’d have to change completely in order to understand him. In the past everything had to be stored, stay tuned for our flirt tip of the week, at times the glacial surface calls to mind a coral reef, and so it goes without a pause BREAKING NEWS PHANTOM SHIP REACHES THE ATLANTIC BREAKING NEWS PHANTOM SHIP REACHES THE ATLANTIC and now for something completely different
10. 62°35′0″S, 59°56′30″W
IT’S TRUE, Mrs. Morgenthau’s mishap could have been prevented if I’d been less negligent, if skuas didn’t swipe penguin eggs, if I hadn’t suggested we put in at Half Moon Island, a crooked stretch of land shaped like a crescent moon, with four evenly distributed hills and masses of chinstrap penguins, in good weather an easy jaunt, with a glorious view of the Livingston Island peaks, a small strip of terra firma perfectly suited to my taste, overwhelmingly white with a few black stony patches, in one place a forked cliff of granite next to an inclined rhombus, a formation I never tire of looking at, and even if the weather was changeable during the day, there was no compelling reason to forego the landing, on the contrary, the capricious light seeping through the heavy black clouds made the island seem as if it had been fashioned in some fit of euphoria. Despite our advice the passengers seldom manage to stay in one place so they can actually observe the animals, preferring instead to run around and follow the penguins every which way across the snow, cameras at the ready, with the praiseworthy exception of Mrs. Morgenthau, who stood at the edge of the colony keeping the prescribed distance and watched enraptured as a mother or father penguin warmed their eggs, “The second egg really is smaller” I heard her mumble, like many of the passengers Mrs. Morgenthau enjoyed comparing what she’d learned in the lecture with the reality (in the words of our ornithologist El Albatros: the second egg is really just a backup, that’s why it’s smaller, just like an emergency parachute is smaller). If she’d been less attentive, less reverent, she wouldn’t have felt such a kinship with the brooding penguins and would not have intervened in this idyll, whose peace was disturbed only by skuas hunting for eggs, an instinctual behavior I hardly noticed anymore, in contrast to Mrs. Morgenthau, who had fixed her attentive gaze on an especially aggressive raptor, an ugly, fat, mean bird, as she told me later, she felt a palpable aversion to the skua and was getting all worked up, it had even frightened her a little, as laughable as this sounds it’s the truth, that explains what happened next. All this might have been avoided if I had reacted more quickly, if I’d been more focused, if a different guide had taken the easy post near the chinstrap penguin colony at the fateful hour, instead of myself, who, tired after a few hours manning the landing area, had declared a break and was consequently ill prepared for the skua’s nosedive, which I only glimpsed out of the corner of my eye when I heard Mrs. Morgenthau cry out, “It has an egg,” just in time to see the bird land less than three steps away from her, a white egg clutched in its talons. I saw the skua look around for any threats before attempting to crack the shell with its beak, which it never managed to do, because Mrs. Morgenthau fell upon the bird and snatched the egg with a surprisingly nimble movement, then held it carefully in her hands while the defeated bird flew away, leaving her proud of her rescue, if also a little puzzled, as was I, which is why I didn’t react immediately, but only after she’d started heading toward the robbed penguin, who refused to move because it had to protect its second and now only egg. Mrs. Morgenthau reached its nest with the best of intentions, bearing the egg like an offering, bowing before the bird so she could place it as gently as possible in front of the penguin’s abdomen, all I managed was a hasty “Don’t do that!” but in vain, Mrs. Morgenthau felt that she had been chosen to right a wrong, that she had been called to return the egg with future life unscathed to the brooding penguin, an intention that was as noble as it was misguided, because the penguin, faced with an attacking red monstrosity, driven by instinct to protect its remaining egg, opened its beak and bit Mrs. Morgenthau in the left hand, causing her to drop the egg as she screamed in horror and stared at her hand as blood went dripping onto the stone, an amazing amount, I don’t know if she ever felt me grab her arm to check the wound, because she tore away to escape the snapping penguin, then slipped at the first step and went crashing into another penguin, who was guarding eggs of its own and as a result couldn’t get out of the way quickly enough, just as I didn’t react quickly enough to stop her fall, and the helpless bird was buried under Mrs. Morgenthau’s massive upper body, the penguins caught on sooner than I did, the entire colony squawked and squealed into motion as I helped Mrs. Morgenthau up, her parka smeared with bits of egg, I steadied her with one hand and used the other to radio El Albatros before examining her wound — the penguin had bitten deep into the soft flesh between her thumb and forefinger — things wouldn’t have been half so bad if I’d cleaned it right away and prevented an infection, but my backpack was missing the first-aid kit we were always supposed to carry, so that I had no other choice but to staunch the wound with my handkerchief. Below us lay the lifeless penguin, while a harsh chorus of protest erupted from all sides, I was about to suggest we make our way to the dock when a few snow-flakes landed on our hands, I looked up, the weather had shifted, a blizzard was coming on, the wind started howling, visibility was decreasing at a breathless pace, the bridge let us know that in view of the rising katabatic wind, which could easily overturn a boat the size of a Zodiac, it was advisable to stay put on the island, and if necessary pitch the emergency tent and take shelter until the gale had passed and the ship’s horn gave one long and three short blasts. El Albatros showed up as shot-sized hail began to fall and then the storm swallowed everything: peak and glacier, the four hills and the forked granite cliff, the other guides and passengers and even the penguins, now the doctor couldn’t possibly reach us, Mrs. Morgenthau was at the mercy of Half Moon Island, El Albatros inspected her hand and my blood-soaked handkerchief, visibly worried even before he whispered to me using his broken German to keep the diagnosis secret from the patient, the wound had to be disinfected with all urgency, penguins’ beaks are heavily contaminated, the bacteria are highly dangerous for humans (the doctor later told me that because of the extreme conditions, Antarctic viruses and bacteria are extremely resistant), he himself had rushed over without a backpack, since I hadn’t told him I needed a first-aid kit, which is why the doctor is completely right when he says it all could have been prevented, the fact that Mrs. Morgenthau wound up bedridden in the hospital ward on an IV drip, with a fever and a swollen hand, most likely a case of erysipelas, which used to be known as “holy fire,” the only thing certain is that it was a good hour before we managed to bring Mrs. Morgenthau, clearly in shock, and the other passengers on board — leaving behind a dead chinstrap penguin, a few crushed eggs, and a skua who was robbed right out of his beak.