Ilija Trojanow - The Lamentations of Zeno

The pianist is waiting for me, very impatient. He always acts as though he’s bothered by my mere presence, but whenever I’m late he looks around to see where I might be, and if I keep him waiting longer he asks Erman the bartender for my whereabouts. After dinner we digest the day. I function as his discursive GPS, by referencing my own position in contrast to his, he is able to determine his coordinates. I ask if the Falklands make him feel a flash of patriotic pride, but he refuses to be baited. “The only beautiful women on this godforsaken island,” he answers, “are the Thai ladies in the souvenir shop.” Far from wasting his thirty years aboard cruise ships on touristic nonsense, the pianist has undertaken an extensive study of womanhood in a variety of habitats. As far as he’s concerned, women who hail from distant lands are the last wilderness on earth (when we’re alone he regales me with ribaldries that would certainly elicit an indignant huff from Mrs. Morgenthau). Like all connoisseurs he appreciates the uncommon, the unusual, the outlandish. If he ever retires — and I doubt he will, because for all his British chauvinism, which gets freshly creased and ironed every day, he is secretly afraid of English provincial life — he will undoubtedly relay his philogynous experiences in tones befitting such a man of the world. “By the way,” I say, “the beach is still mined.” He raises his gin and tonic, flips the coaster over with his left hand and places the glass irritatingly in the middle of the table. He seems excited, he has something up his sleeve, something he wants to tease me with, he can scarcely wait. I close my eyes. Behind me I hear clinking sounds as voices fill glasses, glasses run over, voices rinse the glasses out, I feel an acidic wave rising from the depths of my stomach. When I reopen my eyes the pianist is leaning forward and speaking in a conspiratorial voice: “If you only knew what was lying on the bottom of the ocean.”

“Gold?” I guess without enthusiasm. “Torpedos? Giant fan worms?”

“Nothing of the kind. Ships, powerful ships. And any number of compatriots.”

“Whose compatriots?”

“Yours.”

He leans back in his chair.

“I understand they’ve been here a while?”

“Ever since the First World War.”

“I’m not interested, we let that one go a long time ago, these days we’re more interested in fresher corpses.” The pianist nods, as if my reply was as easy to predict as the next move in a classic chess opening.

“Does the name Admiral Graf von Spee mean anything to you?”

“No, nothing, wait, von Spee … von Spee? When I was a student I used to live near a square called Graf-Spee-Platz.”

“Undoubtedly named after the same man. A prominent admiral.”

“Does he have a von in his name or not?”

“That’s immaterial. The fact is he’s one of your heroes.”

“And how exactly was he heroic?”

“He crossed two oceans and then showed up here in Stanley with his entire fleet, having got it in his head he would interrupt the British coal supply, even though he knew that he was hopelessly outgunned.”

The pianist’s voice whirred on, now he could take his hands off the handlebars, it was all downhill from here, an easy ride to his goal.

“At the time, Stanley was excellently protected by two battle cruisers, the H.M.S. Invincible and the H.M.S. Inflexible …”

“That was a very gentlemanly gesture, to give Admiral Graf von Spee such a clear warning.”

“Gentlemanly indeed, but it was of little avail, your Admiral ignored their presence and insisted on going down in these waters, together with two thousand hands including two of his own sons.”

“A cold grave. And what are you trying to tell me with this story?”

“For a geologist you are remarkably impatient. Before the battle, the squadron at a bay in southern Chile, that cost time, the element of surprise was lost, but it had to be: the admiral insisted on pinning Iron Crosses on three hundred of his sailors.”

“Are you telling me that three hundred Iron Crosses are lying just off the Falklands?”

“You’re catching on.”

“That’s insane.”

“On the contrary, it makes perfect sense, the farsighted admiral anticipated his demise and wanted to make sure his men did not go down undecorated.”

The pianist rested one arm on the back of the crimson chair and looked at me with great satisfaction. He has a remarkable talent for staging his own well-contented state, he smacked his lips and ran a finger along the rim of his gin-and-tonic glass, now nearly empty.

“Crosses on the sea bottom, mines on the beach, I have to admit I might have underestimated your island a bit.”

“Next time we should go for a walk together.”

“I’ll mull it over. But only if you take my request this evening.”

“Just don’t be too hard on me, I don’t know any Germanic funeral marches.”

“I’d never dream of asking for something like that. I’m thinking of something more current, something you could play with your left hand while unbuttoning a summer dress with your right.”

“Now you’re talking.”

“In honor of Admiral Graf von Spee, in honor of the light-footed penguins on the beach I would like to hear the only song I feel would do the occasion justice.”

“Aha, now you’re giving in.”

“What I’d very much like to hear is Rule Britannia! Britannia rule the waves .”

At least one time on every trip the talk turns to the hundred Inuit names for ice and snow. I always confirm that it’s true, the Inuit have a name for ice floe, pancake ice, hummocked ice, brash ice and grease ice, tabular iceberg, ice cliff, ice needles, ice foot and ice tongue, for the ice fields formed out of firn, for ice caps, permanent ice, ice age and for growlers and bergy bits. But I’m not one hundred percent sure they have a word for glacier fleas.

Like an elephant in a china shop, nothing’s as bad as it looks, things have gotten out of balance, you can write that one off, below 40° S there is no law, snap yours up now while supplies last, you’ve just begun to scratch the surface, November Zulu. This is Foxtrot Two Niner, over. This is November Zulu, proceed, Foxtrot Two Niner, over. I’m flying back from Gerlache Strait, over. What’s going on? over. Dan Quentin, over. Dan who? over. You can squeeze out a little more, no one’s going to question it, the guru chose the peace and solitude of the mountains, Charlie we haven’t paid her ass the tribute it deserves, I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, ha ha ha, you didn’t see that, in the spring, summer and fall months he lived in the dense forest, his only roof was heaven. Quentin’s raking it in, he’s the new Christo, over. Roger, never heard of this Dan Quentin, what does he have to do with Christ? over. Christo, The Umbrellas, Valley Curtain, Running Fence, over. Doesn’t mean a thing to me, over. Making nature visible by covering it up, over. That’s an old whore’s trick, over. Art with people, over. Torch them all, every SUV, give the firebugs a field day, under no circumstances should you mention that in your job interview, first there’s a big bang then the car bursts into flame, in winter he retreated to a cave that protected him from ice and snow, below 50° S there is no government, whatever had been sown and reaped by human hands he refused to eat. For example, over? “FAQ” in Silicon Valley, “QED” in the Burj Khalifa, over. The naked cyclists in Hyde Park? over. That was somebody else, over. What’s he looking for in the Antarctic? over. A big SOS on ice, over. He collected fruit from wild trees, plants from the forest and roots from the earth, below 60° S there is no god, we got off with a black eye, he fed his body just what he needed to survive. The passengers on board the Hansen linked together to form a red SOS, over. By choice? over. Yes, about a hundred pax per letter. It was a show, I’m telling you, out. Roger, out. I will fulfill all of your desires BREAKING NEWS MS HANSEN HIJACKED IN THE ANTARCTIC BREAKING NEWS MS HANSEN HIJACKED IN THE ANTARCTIC I’ll be sittin’ when the evening comes