Ási puts down the pails, opens the cold larder by pulling on a long handle and walks in. On the shelves are 200 litre-cartons of milk, a hundred of buttermilk, ten litres of cream and 200 cartons of yoghurt; a case of butter and two of margarine; a hundred kilograms of eggs; ten litres of cod liver oil; twenty kilos of cheese spread; ten litres of mayonnaise; ten loaves of bread and twenty cakes; a shelf-metre of coffee and a case of tea; 100 litres of fruit juice and an equal amount of fizzy drinks; two cases of biscuits; sacks of potatoes, swedes, carrots, onions and other vegetables, and cases of fruit, as well as ten kinds of cold meats, dried fish, salt fish, a number of boiled meats and a barrel of salted lamb.
The dry-goods storeroom contains flour, sugar, sacks of meal; milk and egg powder in ten-litre pails; several cases of cereal and dried fruits; many shelf-metres of tinned foods in huge tins; cooking oil by the litre, spices in jars, dried vegetables in sacks, soup stock, and vitamins. In the walk-in freezer there are over 300 kilograms of lamb, beef and pork; thirty chickens; two ox tongues and 400 kilos of fish; fifty loaves of bread, fifty cakes, various sausages in large packages and twenty kilos of ice-cream in four flavours.
Ási closes the cold larder and taps all the heat, frost and humidity gauges, which show him that everything is as it should be in these important rooms. When he turns around he finds himself facing Stoker – Óli Johnsen, the second engineer, who is on his way up after fetching his bedding and towels from the laundry room, which is to starboard on the upper deck.
Stoker is around fifty, short and dark. He has something approaching a hump on his back, his hands are reminiscent of a bird’s claws and there is a lot of dirt under his long, ugly nails. He nose is hooked and his teeth either yellow, brown or not there; his mouth has long been frozen in a sarcastic grimace; his beard is black, long and untrimmed, and over the years his staring eyes have turned into hellish lumps of coal.
‘Is it true what they say?’ asks Stoker, leering at Ási. ‘Is your old lady there in the freezer, chopped up and packed in burlap?’
‘You bet, pal!’ Ási answers, laughing. ‘And one of her thighs is what we’re having for Sunday dinner.’
‘Ha-ha, yep, I thought so, Ási, you bloody sadist,’ says Stoker merrily, trying to look straight into the eyes of Ási, who swiftly avoids those black holes. ‘I wouldn’t put it past you! This I know: you are destined for a seat at the head table down below.’
‘I’ll lend you some shampoo, mate, when you take a bath,’ says Ási in his light tenor voice, trotting light-footed up the steps ahead of the Stoker.
Not all the crew are so slick at avoiding the traps set by the Stoker, this evil-smelling scoundrel who is never happier than when people get angry at him and who tries to get rid of evil through evil temper.
Up in the bridge it’s dark except for the soft lights from the gauges in the instrument panel and the red light on the coffee pot on the starboard side.
Guðmundur pours fresh coffee into a mug and strolls out to the starboard bridge wing, from where he has a view of the dimly lit quay.
‘Everyone’s on board!’ calls Sæli through the intercom.
‘Cast off the bowline,’ says the captain into the microphone attached to the lapel of his parka.
‘Cast off the bowline!’ echoes Sæli.
Down in the engine room John has started the main engine that’s idling heavily, heating up.
‘Bowline ready!’
‘Cast off astern,’ says the captain into the microphone as he steers the ship’s bow away from the quay with the electrically powered bow engine.
‘Cast off astern!’ echoes Sæli.
Guðmundur picks up the phone in the bridge and dials the engine room.
‘Stern ready!’
‘Slow ahead,’ says the captain on the phone.
‘Slow ahead,’ echoes the chief engineer.
The propeller starts turning at the back of the ship and the captain steers its heavy bulk out into the fjord. Once he has the ship straightened out, he phones the engine room again.
‘Full steam ahead!’
‘Full steam ahead!’ the chief engineer repeats and then carries out the order.
When the engine has reached its top revolutions and the ship is travelling at full speed, over thirteen knots, the captain reports their departure and destination to the harbour authorities.
‘Echo, Lima, Whiskey, Quebec, 2, calling coastal station.’ Guðmundur carefully enunciates the call sign for the Per se.
‘Echo, Lima, Whiskey, Quebec, 2,’ comes the reply. ‘Coastal station here, over.’
‘Leaving Grundartangi for Suriname,’ says Guðmundur. ‘Over.’
‘Leaving Grundartangi for Suriname,’ the coastal station repeats. ‘Over and out.’
Guðmundur sits down in the captain’s chair and takes a sip of the black coffee. He has a faraway expression as he stares through the window, where the pitch-black of the ocean welcomes him with open arms.
The ship makes its way out of the fjord, rises slowly on a heavy wave and then drops down at the front. The blow pulses back along the ship and all the way up to the bridge; the wave breaks and white foam splashes over the weather deck and pours out of the chutes on the sides.
The ship rises and falls, the wave breaks and the blow pulses back along the ship.
Boom, boom, boom…
Again and again, and forever again.
VIII
The Per se sails at full steam towards the south, with the dark blue of the Atlantic Ocean rough and unending in every direction, and black clouds, thunder and lightning in attendance. As the ship meets the heavy waves of the open sea it rises slowly then drops slowly but purposefully down at the front. The blow pulses back along the ship and all the way up to the bridge; the wave breaks and white foam splashes over the weather deck and pours in frothing rivulets out of the chutes on the sides.
The ship rises and falls, the wave breaks and the blow pulses back along the ship.
Boom, boom, boom…
Again and again, and forever again.
In through a square ship’s window comes a flash of white, throwing a cold light on the fittings of a cabin on the starboard side of D-deck. Then everything goes black once again and thunder rumbles in the distance. The rain beats against the window, which is not completely closed and lets in the water through a narrow chink. Outside the howling wind competes with the so-called blowers on the boat deck – air intakes that suck oxygen into the engine room. Inside the cabin the air-conditioning system hums, pumping warm, oily-smelling air into the ship’s living spaces.
Another flash of lightning and everything turns white. A staring, ghostly face floats in the air; there is dark and muttering thunder; the ship rises and falls, the wave breaks and the blow pulses back along the ship and through the bones of men. It echoes in the head of Jón Karl, who is tossing in his bed, writhing in pain and moving his swollen tongue around his parched mouth.
He has a fever and he doesn’t know where he is. The only thing he knows is that his bed is floating somewhere out to sea. Sometimes it changes into a small boat or a bathtub. There is movement under his doona, but it is hard to discern the creature’s outline. Jón Karl lifts up the doona but the creature darts into a black hole. He is dizzy and his head, heavy as lead, falls onto the sweaty pillow as the doona slides off the bed and sinks down in the dark.
There is no wind, the sky is clear and blue, and there is nothing to be heard except the gurgle of the sea. Jón Karl closes his eyes; he smells salt, wet wood and sunshine. Nothing happens until the ship bumps into a small buoy.