A cabin.
On his way to the bridge he runs across that Rúnar who picked him up in the Jeep and brought him aboard the ship. Rúnar is coming out of one of the E-deck cabins, holding a dismantled shotgun. He’s nervous and jumpy when he sees Jón Karl, who is experienced enough to know when to act as if you haven’t noticed something someone else clearly doesn’t want you to see.
‘What?… Who?’ says Rúnar, backing against the closed cabin door and trying to hide the gun behind his back.
‘Evening,’ says Jón Karl expressionlessly and then carries on climbing the steep stairs.
Just as well to be armed and ready for anything on this bloody ship, where men sneak around with dismantled guns when they think no-one’s looking.
Jón Karl doesn’t spend much thought on the bosun’s skulking, though. He expects others not to concern themselves with him and what he’s up to – whether under the cover of darkness or not – so he doesn’t concern himself with others, as long as they keep themselves to themselves and don’t mess with him.
At the top of the stairwell, up on G-deck, there are three doors. Directly ahead is a door with a window, leading to the landing of the iron steps on the outside of the wheelhouse; at the back, on the right, is the toilet and on the left is the door to the bridge.
Before opening the door to the bridge, Jón Karl steps out onto the landing behind the wheelhouse. Wide eyed, he looks over the edge of a swaying cliff and lets the wind and rain refresh him. The sea is deeply dark and rough, boiling and churning behind the stern, and in the distance lightning illuminates the black-clouded darkness, oppressive in its immensity. Jón Karl’s legs shift under him, so he teeters and grabs an ice-cold iron rod to keep from falling, and then backs through the door and shuts the howl of the wind outside.
In the bridge there’s not a soul to be seen. He hears nothing but the low clicks in some instruments and the creaking of the fittings. If it weren’t for the yellow-and-green lights in the navigation instruments, he may just as well have been on a ghost ship.
‘Hello?’ calls Jón Karl, walking past the map room on the starboard side and in to the centre of the bridge, where an empty captain’s chair on a high swivel foot moves slightly back and forth with the rolling of the ship.
No answer.
‘Jónas?’
‘Jónas doesn’t come on till three o’clock,’ says a voice behind Jón Karl; the door closes with a soft click. ‘And you’re not supposed to come until four.’
Jón Karl turns to look searchingly at the chief mate, who returns the stare with suspicion.
‘What time is it now?’
‘Twenty-five to one,’ says Methúsalem, looking at his watch. He walks quickly past Jón Karl and clocks in on the dead man’s bell, a simple device about the size of a garage door opener.
Not good having no watch…
‘Yeah, okay… I’ll just go and…’ says Jón Karl, but he stops talking when his legs start to give way under him. His eyes roll up and he reaches out to grasp something to keep his body from falling.
‘What the hell!’ Methúsalem charges across and grabs Jón Karl in his arms before he falls flat on his face. Jón Karl clutches the chief mate’s arm, then he lays his head and shoulders against the chief mate’s chest, draws a deep breath and manages to regain his feet.
‘Are you…?’ asks Methúsalem, loosening his hold a little.
‘I’m… fine,’ says Jón Karl and calmly stands up without, however, immediately letting go of the chief mate’s arm. ‘I can’t think what…’
‘I expect you’ll recover,’ says Methúsalem dryly, loosening his arm from the seaman’s grip. ‘Just go lie down until your watch.’
‘Yeah, I’ll do that.’ Jón Karl takes a deep breath. ‘It’s just seasickness or something.’
‘No sea legs,’ mutters the chief mate, opening the door for Jón Karl and waiting for him to leave the bridge. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he says more loudly. ‘Good night.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Jón Karl smiles weakly.
Methúsalem shakes his head as he closes the door behind the seaman, who is still unsteady on his feet and grasps the railing with both hands as he walks backwards down the steep staircase.
‘Fool!’ says Jón Karl down on F-deck, laughing quietly. He pulls the chief mate’s gold watch out of his waistband, slaps the strap around his left wrist and examines the diamond-studded white-gold dial before he continues on his way.
Rolex. Not bad. But he prefers Breitling himself.
On D-deck he stops and deliberates about what to do: carry on all the way down to the kitchen on B-deck and see whether he finds anything edible, or return to his cabin and sleep until his watch comes up.
But before Jón Karl can choose one of these options, an unexpected third turns up. Through the doorway of a cabin on the starboard side wafts a faint aroma that makes Jón Karl forget both hunger and fatigue. It’s the sweet, heavy spicy smell of first-class oil of hashish that somebody is mixing with tobacco.
The third option is this: should he knock on the cabin door and refuse to leave until the occupant shares some of this, the strongest product from cannabis sativa, the one and only hashish plant?
Yes!
Jón Karl knocks on the door – three soft blows with a bent forefinger.
No answer.
So he knocks again – three determined blows with two bent fingers.
Then three with a clenched fist.
Then finally there’s an answer.
The door opens a tiny crack and half the face of the first engineer appears in it.
‘What?’
‘Let me in,’ says Jón Karl with the voice and attitude of a man who knows what he wants and isn’t about to listen to any objections. ‘I’m going to join you in a pipe.’
XIV
‘Nobody ever comes in here,’ says Stoker as he lets Jón Karl in to the dimly lit room, which is a mirror image of the cabin on the port side.
‘Right,’ Jón Karl says curtly, taking a good look at this wretched shipmate of his who is dark, skinny and hairy, with a lump on his back and a bald spot on the back of his head, and all shiny with grease – his own and the ship’s. He stinks like a dog, is quick and antsy in his movements, and seems to be wearing nothing but a brown bathrobe. In his earlobes are holes but no rings, and through his smelly beard Jón Karl can just see an irritating skeleton grin and, above that, nervous raven eyes.
‘You’re like some homeless halfwit!’ says Jón Karl, wrinkling his nose. ‘What do you think you gain by looking and smelling like a beggar?’
‘I’ve got other things to think about,’ growls Stoker, looking sideways at Jón Karl like an abused dog at a new master. ‘You’d be the new guy.’
‘Or something.’
Jón Karl looks around the cabin. On the table he sees dozens of books – some open, all with notes or clippings sticking out of them every which way. There are various small objects in amongst the books, including a hashish pipe, but the most remarkable thing is a black tin canister full of black candles and candle ends. Its lid is in the middle of the table with five black candles burning on it, stuck on with blobs of melted black wax.
These flickering candle flames are the only source of light in Stoker’s cabin.
On the unmade bed is an old, worn leather case full of books, magazines and odd bits of paper, and above the bed hangs a picture which provides the only decoration in the cabin. It’s an elaborate pencil drawing that has an old-fashioned look about it, framed with thick matting and a carved wooden frame. The drawing is a portrait of some kind of monster or being that is also a man. It is dressed in the clothes of an upper-class Victorian but the head is like an octopus: bald, with neither nose nor mouth but wearing a long beard that resembles soft tentacles. The small black eyes look without doubt or fear into the eyes of the viewer, who can’t help but admire the arrogant demeanour of this aberration that crosses its arms in the manner of a dictator and isn’t the least ashamed either of its ridiculous head or the misshapen hands like long seal’s flippers that hang out of its sleeves.