“So tell me,” the captain said. “What are you boys going to do in the Congo? Lars wouldn’t give me a straight answer.”
Radar stiffened in his chair. “I don’t really think I can tell you.”
“I’m not in the habit of asking people their business, but you look like a man who can be trusted.”
“I’m sorry. I would have to ask Lars before—”
“Is it diamonds? Ivory? Ah—” He wagged a finger. “I know. Don’t tell me. It’s coltan. That’s what they’re taking out of there now. Blood coltan, they call it. For making mobile phones. That’s why they have you—el hechicero de la electrónica! It all makes sense now. I’ve seen people do exactly what you’re doing before.”
“We aren’t dealing in those things,” said Radar. “We’re performers.” He caught his breath, but it was too late.
“Performers?” the captain said, raising a gargantuan eyebrow.
“I’m sorry.” Radar lifted his hands. “I can’t say any more.”
“Well. My little troupe of performers. What are you performing, then?”
“You can’t tell them I told you.”
“Go on. Taming of the Shrew? Parsifal? Waiting for Godot?”
“I don’t fully know, if I’m being quite honest. It involves puppets.”
“Puppets? Ave María!”
Radar lifted his hands into a pleading prayer. “I’m sorry, I’ve said too much.”
“And where are you performing with this puppet show?”
“Can you please not say anything to Lars or Otik? I don’t think they’re big fans of me at the moment, and they certainly won’t be if they find out I told you anything.”
“I like you, Mr. Radmanovic. What did you say you were? American? You don’t seem like an American to me. You’re too good at listening.”
“I don’t really know what I am.”
“If I may — a word of advice. You’ve got to be careful where you’re going. The system still has its boundaries. And once you get to these boundaries, things begin to get a little hairy. Un poco peligroso. In the Congo, the box is said to contain x, but the box will not contain x. The box will contain nothing. Or something else entirely. It will drive a man insane.”
“I think that’s why we’re going there. To perform where the system has broken down.”
The captain lifted his arms. “Performers! To think, this whole time and I had no idea. Well, I love it. The Aleph has never had its own performers, have you, my little darling?” He reached out and tenderly stroked the wall of the cabin.
Suddenly the captain jumped up from his seat.
“Come,” he said. “There’s something I’d like to show you.”
They took three flights of stairs down to the main deck and then out a doorway and into the chilly night. Radar looked up. The stars enveloped them like a casket. He followed Daneri as he wandered through the maze of containers, the captain tapping their sides with his hand as if they were a herd of animals. They wove their way toward the bow and then turned and passed through a doorway that Radar had never seen before. They went down a small flight of stairs to a tween deck below the main deck, where they followed several more narrow corridors before slipping through another doorway and down two more flights of stairs. Radar had long since lost his bearings. If he were not with the captain, he would never be able to get back again. He was not even sure they were on the same ship anymore.
The captain abruptly stopped.
“Here,” he said, pointing to a crimson container illuminated only by a dim sea light on the far wall.
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
“Am I allowed to?”
“This one doesn’t belong to them.”
Radar was afraid the box would be either locked or horrendously complicated to open, but he pulled a lever and heard a satisfying click, and the door swung open easily. A familiar smell. A smell of home. He peered into the darkness, half expecting to see his mother, his father, to see everything the way it was before. He squinted. At first he could not understand what he was looking at, but then he saw them. Books. Endless stacks of books. Thousands of them.
“I deliver one of these every time I do the West African route.”
“Who does it go to?”
“He’s a remarkable man. He has a library in the middle of the jungle. It is said to contain every book in the world. Of course, this is impossible. But it’s a noble pursuit. And I’m glad to play my part.”
Radar stared at the books, lying, waiting like corpses. The captain swung the door shut.
“Or maybe it’s just a glitch,” he said. “Maybe the library does not exist. But the system demands it, and I must deliver what the system demands.”
5
On the evening of the sixth day, the seas began to swell. An electricity spread through the normally stoic crew. The men chatted nervously in the galley and then dumped their trays and left early to take care of their evening rounds. Hatches needed to be battened, stacking braces secured.
At the officers’ table, Radar sensed a palpable air of anticipation.
“We’re in for something nasty,” Ivan confirmed over his goulash.
“Is this normal for this time of year?” Lars asked politely.
“There’s no normal when it comes to the sea,” said Daneri.
“The radar didn’t see much,” said Akaki, the chief mate.
“The radar never sees much,” said the captain. “We’re in for one tonight.”
Ivan, seeing the alarm on Radar’s face, leaned over and whispered, “I wouldn’t worry.”
Back in Moby-Dikt, Otik, who had not been present at dinner, had already imploded into the sinkhole of his nausea. He lay on his cot, pale and moaning, one paw gripping the rim of his vomit bucket.
“Please,” he mumbled, delirious. “Tell my father. .”
“He’ll be all right,” said Lars.
But Otik did not look all right. “Tell my father. . to meet me at the café,” he whispered.
Lars tried to continue at the workbench, though even his normally glowing Nordic countenance had faded to a pale shade of avocado. The pitching grew worse, and his tools began to slide off the bench and clatter onto the floor.
With nothing else to do, Radar burrowed down into his bed and tried to sleep. As he lay supine, the boat’s roll and pitch became magnified. He closed his eyes, trying to reassure himself with the protection offered by these great layers of steel wrapped around his little cot. Surely such an awesome creation of man was immune to the forces of nature? He thought of the Titanic and its own claims to invincibility. The Aleph was no Titanic. She was made of much weaker stock. A shiver passed through him. Outside their container, the ship creaked and groaned. When Radar finally drifted off, his dreams were, as usual, fitful, incomprehensible affairs marked by leaks sprouting in hulls, horses swimming in open oceans, German U-boats breaching the surface in an explosion of foam.
After several hours of tossing and being tossed, Radar was awoken by a sharp, stabbing pain on his forehead. He opened his eyes to find the inside of the container in chaos, the world tipping upward at an impossible angle. It was as if a giant had decided to pick up the opposite corner of the box in order to get a peek at him. The downward slope had caused much of the equipment to come off the walls and the chairs to all slide up against his cot. In his bed he found several tools, including the one that had apparently attacked him: a silver T square. He touched his fingers to his head. They came away wet with blood.