I declined the starter — egg mayonnaise with grated vegetables on a lettuce leaf — taking the opportunity to go over the opening of my speech instead. Although I can, without recourse to notes, deliver lengthy impromptu lectures on the relationship between fish consumption and culture, this evening’s effort had to be rather better than that. After all, this was not my usual audience — the regulars at the Café Sommerfugl — no, this time my lecture was to be delivered on board the flagship of the Kronos fleet, the MS Elizabet Jung-Olsen, a ship named after the grandmother of my young friend, the late Hermann. Born and brought up in a fishing station on the west coast of Jutland, a fisherman’s wife to the end, daughter of Dogger Bank, Madame Elizabet had raised her son Magnus on a diet of nothing but seafood and Hermann had often remembered her with warmth and respect in his letters to the journal.
But to my consternation, the mate was sitting over his dinner at the high table when I arrived, his wooden muse lying on the napkin in his lap. Apparently my fellow passengers could not bear to be deprived of his ridiculous ‘anecdotes’. When he became aware of me the captain stood up, bowed briefly and silently motioned me to sit at his side, but the rest were so absorbed in the story that they paid me no more attention than a puff of wind. Mate Caeneus did admittedly break off for a moment as I took my seat (this evening we were colleagues) but his silence might just as well have indicated a dramatic pause at a climactic moment of the story as the intention to show me any respect. I was rather hurt by this but as I had encountered a similar reception in the months immediately after the war, I preserved an impassive demeanour, clasped my hands on my stomach and listened out of one ear. I kept the other tuned to the galley door as it would soon be time for the fish stew.
Caeneus was describing the dealings of one of his shipmates, a man by the name of Polydeuces, with a full-grown monkey who belonged to the third woman he took on Lemnos:
‘The woman used to dress the monkey in children’s clothes and called it Thekkus after her former husband. It had been accustomed to having its mistress to itself for so long that when Polydeuces became a regular visitor to their bedchamber the animal went mad from jealousy and did everything in its power to persecute the interloper. The hero of the sea had to poleaxe the monkey every time he made love to the woman, or the creature would spring on to his back and try to tear out his jugular.
‘In his battles with this shaggy, ill-tempered adversary, Polydeuces enjoyed the advantage of being one of the foremost boxers in the crew, as was subsequently revealed when we continued on our voyage and our way was blocked by Amicus, King of Brecia, who had the custom of knocking unconscious those who sought shelter from the winds in the bays of his land or went ashore there in search of water. As this was after Heracles had left us, Polydeuces volunteered to meet the king in single combat. Where King Amicus became maddened like a bull, Polydeuces, the son of Leda, was nimble as a swan’s wing. So Polydeuces triumphed in his bouts with both Amicus and Thekkus, for it is precisely this combination of agility and strength that is required when subduing vicious monkeys.’
The second mate continued with his story of a sailor who gets into fights with a monkey, a story that every mariner seems to have in his repertoire; why, I don’t know. Perhaps it’s an indication of the kind of audience they are used to? The present one was certainly amused — dear me, yes.
Caeneus went on:
‘Perhaps you noticed that I said the monkey belonged to Polydeuces’ third woman. For that is what she was, and only the third in a row of altogether twenty-seven sisters of Lemnos who made use of his manhood during the nine months or so that the Argonauts were guests in their land.
‘Yes, after the revelry in the palace of Queen Hypsipyle had lasted the equivalent of a lunar month, we awoke one morning to find the court ladies armed and ordering us roughly to our feet with a loud clashing of weapons. We thought at first that this was a game, that they intended to incite us to perform morning feats of love by dressing up as battle-thirsty Amazons, but anyone who tried to grab a slim ankle or caress a soft buttock instantly had his blood let with the point of a spear. No, this was no game inspired by the goddess born of the foaming waves on the shores of Cyprus, this was in deadly earnest; our handmaidens had been transformed into shield maidens.
‘To an accompaniment of harsh yells and evil threats from the women, we ordinary seamen of the many-nailed galley were forced to scramble to our feet and driven half-dressed and unwashed through the palace, through colonnades and passageways, right out beyond the encircling walls — and, please excuse my sailor’s language:
‘There we stood like idiots with our dicks in our hands.
‘As we began to find our bearings a low growling rose from the men: how dare they treat heroes in such a manner? Could it be part of a greater and more dastardly plot? And what had become of Jason and those who remained in the palace? Had the perfidious termagants murdered them in their sleep and were they now planning to send us without captain or helmsman out on to the barren sea where our ship would founder like an insignificant louse in the blue beard of mighty Poseidon?
‘Thus the Argonauts grumbled to each other as they girded their loins and rubbed the sleep from their eyes or combed their tangled manes with their fingers. Our displeasure did not last long, however, for Jason now appeared on the balcony of Queen Hypsipyle’s chamber and raised his hand, at which we fell silent.
‘“Comrades, it may appear to you that the hospitality of Lemnos has faltered, but things are not as they seem. Our task here is far from over: behold!”
‘He pointed to the city behind us.
‘The troop turned and at first we could see nothing but the street up which we had marched so boldly only a few weeks before, which ran from the palace down the hill to the wealthier citizens’ quarter where it formed a gully between the houses and continued through the soldiers’ and artists’ quarter to the marketplace, across the marketplace and through the quarter of the artisans and common people, before winding through the paupers’ quarter, after which it narrowed to an alley with hardly room to pass, known in everyday speech as the She-wolf Alley — from where it was but a short walk down to the harbour and our vessel, the Argo. But even as the return route was revealed to us, we noticed a menacing movement in the shadows beside the gully mouth close by.
‘Something huge and protean lurked there, something that seemed not to know whether to pounce or retreat — but was inclined to pounce. One moment its movements resembled a field of corn that sways in unison before the wind, the next it was chaotic, resembling nothing so much as an argument between the Hydra’s seven quarrelling heads. As we groped in vain for our weapons, we were reminded of our defenceless state: we would have to tackle this thing with our bare hands.
‘Captain Jason, standing on the balcony with Queen Hypsipyle at his side, laughed provokingly and tapped his nose. Then, as if a spell had lifted from the crew of the Argo, our senses were unblocked and we smelt again the stench that our lovers in the palace had formerly emitted, only now it emanated from the creature confronting us. The veil was stripped from our eyes and we found ourselves faced with ninety desperate women lurking in the shade of one of the buildings.
‘These were the finer ladies of Lemnos. They awaited us, silent and implacable — like the first steep hill in the path of a marathon runner.’
When Mate Caeneus had finished, he shovelled down his food and went out to attend to his duties, while Captain Alfredson tapped his glass and announced to his fellow diners that now Mr Haraldsson from Iceland was going to deliver an enlightening talk on an important topical issue. At these words the purser’s lady friend made to rise from the table (on the pretext that she had to help her husband with the stocktaking), but the captain made it clear with a sharp glance that this could wait and she was to show me the courtesy of staying put during my edifying lecture. She obeyed, though in a put-upon manner. From looking at ‘her husband’, the purser, moreover, we could tell that this fictional Wednesday evening stock count had taken him as much by surprise as the rest of us.