Viator

When he called in his reports to Jochanan Lunde, as he did one sullen, gusty July afternoon not long after this conversation with Arlene, Wilander would usually take himself to Viator’s stern, where reception was the clearest. Approximately forty feet of the stern protruded from the forest, the ruined screws hanging like two huge crumpled iron blossoms above a shingle littered with weathered shards of trees that had been crushed and knocked aside by the ship’s disastrous passage, and strewn with mounds of dark brown seaweed that Wilander, though he knew better, often mistook on first sight for the bodies of drowned men. Standing by the rail that day, he felt exposed, vulnerable to the open sky and the leaden sea, its surface tented by innumerable wavelets close to land, but heaving sluggishly farther out, making it appear that a submerged monster was shouldering its way toward the wreck, and he had to repress an urge to duck back under the canopy of boughs, because the view from the stern was menacing in its bleakness—it seemed that the treeline marked a division between a lush green security teeming with life and a cold, winded purgatory populated by crabs and shadows. He gazed down at the shingle as he delivered to Lunde a litany of partial estimates and hastily conceived plans, responding to the old man’s terse questions, yet only half-involved in these exchanges; and so, when Lunde asked if he had noticed anything out of the ordinary aboard the ship, instead of offering his usual pro forma answer, distracted by a movement on the shore below and to the right of the hull (an animal, he thought; one whose coloration blended so perfectly with that of the motley pebbles and the shattered, silvery gray wood, he could not discern its shape), he asked, What kind of thing are you talking about?

Following a pause, Lunde said angrily, How can I answer that? I’m not there. I don’t know what’s ordinary for you.

—It’s all out of the ordinary, isn’t it? Living on a wreck’s not what I’d call normal.

—It bothers you? It’s becoming stressful?

—No, I’m not saying that. I…

—Is the job wearing on you, then? The solitude? If so, I can look for a replacement.

Wilander retreated from a confrontation. It’s just that given the context, I’m not sure how to answer your question.

—Well, let me ask it another way. Lunde’s voice held a distinct touch of condescension. In context of your experiences aboard Viator, using them as a standard for normalcy, has anything occurred that you’d consider abnormal? Anything unexpected? Anything startling?

Wilander would have liked to ask why Lunde wanted to know, what possible interest could such information hold for him, but he felt he had pushed the old man as far as he dared. Nothing startling, he said.

—Unexpected, then?

—Not really. There’s been some…odd behavior.

—Which is it? Not really, or there’s been some odd behavior.

The animal below cleared a cluster of wooden debris and crept across open ground, but its camouflage prevented Wilander from identifying it—it looked as if a portion of the shingle had become ambulatory. The other men, he said. They’ve developed hobbies. They don’t interfere with the job, of course, but…

—I should hope not.

Wilander peered at the animal—it appeared to be smallish, about the size of a badger, and moved fluidly, albeit slowly, as if sliding rather than walking.

—Are you there? Lunde asked.

—Yes. What were you saying?

—You were doing the talking. Something about the men’s hobbies.

—Right.