Stefán Máni - The Ship

‘Christ, what a stink!’ says Satan, holding his nose as foul air streams out of the lifeboat.

‘Water!’ says Jónas hoarsely as Sæli lifts him up.

‘Take it easy!’ says Sæli, dragging the second mate towards the door. ‘You’ll get water.’

‘Got ’im!’ says Satan as he gets a grip on Jónas’s shoulders.

‘He’s dehydrated,’ says Sæli, gripping the second mate’s legs and pulling him, back bent, out the door of the lifeboat, which is lying parallel to the ship, its stern banging by turns against the railing and the side of the ship, depending on just how much the ship lists to starboard.

They choose their moment and manage to heave Jónas onto the weather deck, where they each take an arm and carry him between them into the shade of the wheelhouse.

‘He’s pissed and shit himself, for Christ’s sake,’ mutters Satan with a grimace.

‘Yeah, I know,’ says Sæli softly.

Just before they reach the staircase leading to B-deck, the second mate comes to, opens his swollen eyes and tries to resist.

‘NO, NO, NO! NOT THE SHIP!’ he screams, his voice breaking as he struggles with his shipmates.

‘Stop it, man!’ says Satan, taking a firmer hold on Jónas, who is staring at Satan with terror in his shiny eyes.

A slow, heavy wave tips the ship, then it straightens as it lifts up on the wave.

‘Satan! Look! ’ calls Sæli, twisting around and looking along the weather deck.

‘Oh, fuck. NO!’ screams Satan, letting go of the second mate, who falls forward onto the deck.

As the ship lifts, the lifeboat is sucked under its gigantic hull. Its mooring line snaps under the pressure and the eighteen-man plastic boat disappears in front of their eyes as the ship settles all its weight onto it, thrusting it deep into the water.

‘Oh my God!’ says Sæli, on his knees. ‘I don’t believe…’

A muffled explosion can be heard when the plastic boat caves in underwater, then the sea foams violently as air, petrol and debris shoot up to the surface.

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‘Right, it’s ready, finally,’ says Satan as he places a casserole dish on the table in the seamen’s mess. Then he takes off his oven gloves and sits at the end of the table nearest the door. Captain Guðmundur sits at the other end and Sæli in the middle, to the right of the captain.

‘Have some before it gets cold,’ says Satan, serving himself.

He has dismembered two chickens and thrown them in the pottery casserole along with cabbage, onions and potatoes, and seasoned the whole with salt and pepper before tossing it in the oven and cooking the whole show for three hours.

Silence.

‘It’s time you dropped this fucking gloom,’ says Satan as he shakes the meat off a wing and a thigh. ‘If you don’t start showing some signs of life I’m going to lock you in the freezer with the other stiffs.’

Skuggi is under the table, waiting for Satan to sneak him a bone.

‘Yeah.’

Sæli takes a sip of cold water and Guðmundur serves himself half a chicken breast.

Silence.

‘If we don’t want to go insane then we’ve got to carry on no matter what. Organise each day from A to Z and make sure everyone has plenty to do, that everyone has tasks to complete and so on. That’s what life is like in prison – that’s how men survive there, one day at a time, year after year,’ says Satan, enthusiastically gulping down the bland food. ‘We’ll take shifts in the bridge. We’ve got to watch for ships and shoot up a flare if we see any ships. The engineer’ll look after the engine room. Sæli’ll see to keeping the ship tidy and I’ll do the cooking. There are several things that need to be fixed, like, we could have a go at repairing the communications equipment. I mean, we hardly need a scientific genius to reconnect the aerial for the radio, do we?’

Silence.

Sæli looks at the captain, who is poking at the yellowish chicken breast with his fork.

‘Do we?’ Satan repeats, wiping his mouth.

‘No,’ says Sæli. ‘It’s worth a try.’

‘Of course it’s worth a try!’ says Satan, taking a drink of water.

Silence.

‘Is Jónas in the infirmary?’ asks Guðmundur.

‘Yeah,’ says Satan, nodding. ‘He’s lying there, the bastard.’

‘Unconscious?’ asks the captain.

‘He’s not opening his eyes,’ says Satan with a shrug. ‘He’s probably just ashamed of himself.’

‘Why did he take the boat?’ Sæli says. ‘I just don’t understand it!’

‘But where’s Óli?’ says the captain, looking up. ‘I haven’t seen him since—’

‘I checked in the engine room a while ago,’ says Satan, serving himself more cabbage. ‘He wasn’t there.’

‘Sæli, would you check whether he’s in his cabin?’ says the captain.

‘No problem,’ says Sæli, getting up.

Sæli has no appetite anyway, so he’s sort of relieved to have an excuse to leave the table. The nauseating smell of the overcooked food accompanies him up to C-deck, and the climb doesn’t help. Still, anything’s better than sitting at the table in the mess looking at the colourless chicken floating in its own juices alongside the slimy cabbage.

Up on D-deck he knocks twice before opening the door to the engineer’s cabin.

‘Are you there, Óli?’ asks Sæli, peering into the dark cabin where the close air smells of dirty socks, sweat and something that seems to be rotting. ‘Are you asleep, or dead, or…’

Sæli holds his nose with his right hand and turns on the light switch with his left.

No!

He takes two steps back, eyes wide and glued to the horror that is displayed in the middle of the table, like some work of art. Then he retches and vomits all over the rug.

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‘Do you know who it is?’ says Guðmundur, breathing through a handkerchief and looking at the thing in the engineer’s cabin.

‘Yeah,’ says Satan absentmindedly as he looks round the squalid cabin. ‘That’s the fifth pirate. I asked him to throw the body in the sea but he must have kept that as a souvenir.’

Those empty eyes, that grotesque smile…

On the table sits the pirate’s skull, still with hair on the back of its head and jaw muscles and flesh between its teeth, surrounded by half-burnt black candles.

‘I don’t understand,’ says the captain, shaking his head.

‘You don’t need to understand anything. I’ll throw this in the sea in a minute,’ mutters Satan, walking over to the picture that hangs above the head of the bed. ‘That’s strange.’

‘What’s strange?’ says Guðmundur, looking at Satan, who is staring at the picture and the frame around it.

‘Nothing!’ says Satan with a shake of his head. ‘You just go on out. I’ll clear up in here.’

‘And are you going up to the bridge after?’

‘Yeah, I’ll go up to the bridge.’ Satan takes the picture down off the wall. ‘You guys let me know when you find the engineer. If you find him.’

‘Yeah, we’ll do that,’ says the captain and he hurries out of the smelly cabin.

Strange!

Satan turns the framed picture every which way but there’s no sign of its having been tampered with. All the joints are firm, the glass is in place and the back is covered with faded brown paper.

But, then, how can it be that the pencil drawing is gone from the frame? What used to be a drawing of an octopus man wearing a suit is now nothing at all. Nothing but a sheet of cream-coloured paper, framed in thick matting and a carved wooden frame.