“So you learned all of the constellations?”
“Yes, but not exactly like that. It is like I am becoming familiar again, if you understand. But of course I can’t see every star. I feel like I know them, but I can’t see them. And then I realize: there is whole Southern Hemisphere that I have never seen. So this is when I leave Vanavara and my family. To see sky I cannot see. I am not cosmonaut, I am not scientist, but I am next best thing. I become sailor. The sea is my outer space now.”
“Rule number two-thirty-nine.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
• • •
ONE AFTERNOON, Radar was sitting up on the bridge while Ivan was at the helm on the eight-to-four watch. A call came in on an ACR VHF transceiver, but it warbled and fizzled out in the middle of the transmission.
“What did they say?” asked Radar.
“I can’t hear. That radio is broken,” said Ivan with a shake of his head. “Everything on this ship is broken.”
“Not everything,” said Captain Daneri, coming into the wheelhouse. “We are not broken, Mr. Kovalyov.”
“Pardon, Captain,” said Ivan.
Radar cleared his throat. “Maybe I could fix it.”
“I think it is impossible. Igor tried and he said it is hopeless,” said Ivan.
“Igor’s a fool,” said the captain. Igor was one of those unfortunate souls who had convinced himself that the world was bent on deceiving him. He was also supposedly the boat’s electrician. But as far as Radar could tell, he devoted nearly all of his time to hitting the cooling devices on the refrigerated containers with his wrench and cussing in his native tongue. The clang of his wrench had become a common refrain in the ship’s painful symphony.
“Well, I could just take a look,” said Radar.
“Mr. Kovalyov, would you believe it? Our guest wants to tame the dragon,” said the captain. “Our guest is calling Igor un idiota incompetente.”
“I didn’t say that,” said Radar.
“You are correct: Igor es un idiota incompetente.”
“If I could just take a peek,” said Radar. “I might be able to—”
“He just wants to take a peek,” repeated the captain.
“Let him take a peek,” said Ivan.
“Please,” the captain bowed, and gestured at the radio. “She awaits your intentions.”
After removing the front panel, it took Radar barely a minute to discover the corroded transistor switch running off the link board. Telling Ivan and an amused captain that he would be right back, he detached the transceiver from the stack and made his way down to Moby-Dikt. Otik offered no response when Radar asked him if he could borrow one of the soldering irons, so he went ahead. Utilizing a spare transistor he found in a drawer, he fashioned a new switch, and what he could not solder he secured with a small wad of well-chewed watermelon-flavored bubble gum.
• • •
BACK ON THE BRIDGE, he presented his handiwork.
“It’ll run for now, but you may want to get a more permanent solution when you get back to port,” he said.
Ivan marveled like a child. “That,” he said. “That is something incredible. Chewing gum.”
“Well, don’t tell Igor,” said the captain. “Wait, on second thought, let’s tell Igor. Let’s tell him that un yanki bobalicón is doing the job he cannot do.”
“One day, I will write song about this,” said Ivan.
Later, Daneri would touch Radar’s shoulder and say, “You’re a part of her now. She doesn’t ever forget.”
Indeed, ever since offending him that first day in port, Radar had slowly finessed his way back into the captain’s good graces. Or maybe it was simply a case of Radar being the only available audience member. It had become clear that Captain Daneri was really just a showman in search of a show. Perhaps this was why he had agreed to shepherd them across the ocean in the first place. Yet in this regard, Otik and Lars were not holding up their end of the bargain. Despite repeated invitations by the captain to join him in his quarters for an after-dinner maté, Otik and Lars consistently excused themselves so as to return to their feverish preparations. Things were not going well with the vircator. A palpable air of panic could be felt inside Moby-Dikt, so Radar returned there as seldom as possible now, only to catch a few hours of nightmarish sleep, though even this was proving difficult, as his companions worked all hours of the night. When Radar tried to query them about their progress, both grew cagey, even hostile. Radar was thus left to be Daneri’s sole patron.
Entering into the captain’s cabin was a bit like entering into a time machine. The room was paneled in a lush African mahogany so dark it appeared almost purple by the light of a candle. At the center of the room was a giant desk of such immense proportions, it was unclear how the piece had ever entered the cabin or how it would ever be removed.
Captain Daneri presided over their evenings together from a body-worn burgundy armchair, sipping his maté out of a calabash gourd through a thick silver straw. Occasionally he would light up a Cuban cigar, although these he dutifully rationed, explaining that his father had lost his entire throat to cancer and did not speak a word for the last fifteen years of his life.
“Do you know what we’re carrying right now on this ship?” the captain asked Radar one evening.
“Not really,” said Radar, gingerly sipping at his maté. As usual, Otik and Lars had already bidden their farewells, and he found himself wishing they were there to deflect the attention or at least make a pass at one of the captain’s riddles.
“Well, good. No one does. At least no one can speak with absolute certainty. I myself have not opened any of the containers, so I can only tell you what the system tells me, and the system speaks only in terms of possibility. A container does not contain something — it ‘is said to contain something’. The same can be said of a good book.” He picked up a piece of paper. “TPMU 839201 3, said to contain 6,800 pounds of frozen chicken; RITU 559232 0, said to contain 14,000 pounds of frozen fish; CSQU 938272 8, said to contain 3,400 pounds of hypodermic needles, pharmaceuticals, and other medical equipment. . said to contain 6,000 women’s long-sleeve shirts. . said to contain 550 youth bicycles. . said to contain 55,000 pounds of aircraft engines. . said to contain 20,000 pounds of computer equipment. . said to contain 8,000 pounds of unbalanced polymer. . said to contain 4,000 pounds of gems, precious metals, and coins. . said to contain 15,000 pounds of barley. That’s a lot of barley.”
“It is a lot of barley.”
“If the barley exists. But even if the barley does not exist, it doesn’t matter. Soon the world will not contain anything definitive anymore; it will only be said to contain things. We will exist in a system of total possibility. It is what I call un desdibujamiento. It’s a wonderful word, isn’t it? Un desdibujamiento. It means ‘the blurring of the local.’ The lines between here and there have begun to blur, and it is all because of the question of the box.” The captain leaned back. “But I can see I’m scaring you. You mustn’t let me get started on one of my little rants. Anyone will tell you this.”
“Desdibujamiento,” repeated Radar.
The captain nodded. “Like caressing a woman,” he said.
Radar wasn’t an expert in caressing women, so he said nothing. They sat in silence. The roll of the ship was causing an imperceptible shift in all the documents around the room. Radar could feel the papers shift back and forth on the desk ever so slightly.