‘I’m sure you can make an educated guess.’ Müller was shaking his head. ‘Cheer up,’ Lorenz continued. ‘They could have sent us to the rose garden.’ He tapped the chart between Iceland and the Faroe islands. It was where British aircraft were in the habit of jettisoning unwanted bomb-loads. ‘And you’ll have no trouble seeing the stars. The nights are going to be very long where we’re going.’ Lorenz turned, ordered a change of course, and the boat veered north with diesel engines thumping at full speed.
Stormy weather forced them to dive. It was late, the lights were low, and Lorenz was sitting in the officers’ mess on his own. The door to the crew quarters was open and he could hear the men talking. As usual, they were discussing sex, and trying to outdo each other with outlandish stories. He had noticed that when the boat was submerged their conversation became more extreme, as if physical descent was correlated with moral descent. After a while, it didn’t matter who was talking. The voices became interchangeable.
‘Have you ever fucked a dwarf?’
‘Yes, I’ve fucked a dwarf. We were in this shitty brothel in Lübeck and all the whores were busy. They had this little midget woman there whose job it was to serve drinks. I got tired of waiting and asked the madam if I could hump her instead. It’ll cost you, she said, but I was beyond caring.’
‘Was she any good?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say she was good — but she was very enthusiastic. When she was on top it was bit like being part of a circus act.’
‘Do you know Golo Blau? He fucked Siamese twins once when he was out in India. They were joined at the head and the hips.’
‘Imagine it…’
‘What about Kruger, though?’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s fucked a pig.’
‘Has he?’
‘Yes. Her name’s Helga and she works in a bar in Wilhelmshaven. Isn’t that so, Kruger?’
‘All right… she was a little overweight maybe.’
‘I’m surprised you could get anywhere near her.’
And so it went on, disembodied voices drifting through the open hatchway: a journey through the darkness of the ocean and the soul.
The light changed, the temperature dropped to minus fifteen, and ice began to accumulate: on the bulwark, the rails enclosing the rear of the bridge, the 2 cm flak cannon, the periscope housing, and the aiming-device pedestal. Within minutes of climbing out on to the bridge the lookouts were soaked and freezing, their foul-weather gear became stiff, restricting movement, and icicles ornamented their sou’westers. When they reentered the boat the ordeal continued. Instinct compelled them to huddle around the electric heater but the return of sensation was excruciatingly painful, a horrible burning thaw that left them speechless and exhausted. Boots, filled with seawater, stuck to their feet. Nothing dried, and they resigned themselves to sleeping in wet clothes beneath damp blankets. It got colder, and to survive on the bridge it became necessary to wear knitted underwear and thick sheepskins, clothing so bulky and cumbersome it became difficult to squeeze through the hatch. Frequent dives were necessary to control the buildup of ice, but sometimes the mantle thickened so quickly that teams had to be sent out to smash it with hammers. The deck was slippery, and the men had to be roped together like mountain climbers.
Lorenz stood firm, his face encrusted with rime, staring at the bow slicing through the floes. The noise it made was satisfying, a steady whoosh punctuated by thuds and crunches. He turned just in time to see Pullman struggling to remove a glove. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘I’m trying to get my glove off,’ said Pullman. ‘I can’t operate my camera.’
‘I’d advise you to keep it on. If you touch the bulwark with your bare hand the skin will stick to the steel. And if a plane appears we’ll have to tear you off and I don’t know how many fingers we’ll leave behind.’
Pullman accepted the advice with a curt nod. ‘How often are you ordered this far north, Herr Kaleun?’
‘It’s happened before — last time to provide a weather report.’
‘My teeth…’ Pullman winced. The cold was spleenful and malicious, nipping and biting, perversely inventive, almost inspired when it came to discovering novel pathways for the transmission of pain.
‘They can crack in these temperatures. Perhaps you should get back inside.’
‘I’ve never seen weather conditions like this. The other patrol I was assigned to went out into the middle of the Atlantic. Are we in very much danger?’
Lorenz laughed. ‘If we need to execute a rapid dive we might discover that the ventilation tubes and the ballast tank purges are blocked — or the diving planes won’t work. The ice makes us unstable. The cold can bend a propeller out of shape. Shall I go on? Yes, Pullman, we are in considerable danger and will continue to be for some time.’
When night came it delivered the spectacle of the Northern Lights. Luminous green veils traveled across the sky, folding and unfolding, brightening and dimming. Scintillating emerald cliffs collapsed, and shimmering silver spires rose up from the horizon. The boat’s foamy wake separated slabs of ice that appeared to be made from polished jade. Sparkling ribbons fluttered at the zenith, and the constellations shone with frigid brilliance through gauzy undulations.
Lorenz had observed the Northern Lights many times before, but he was still entranced by the profligate genius of the natural world, the casual and indifferent but perfect flourishes that caused his chest to tighten with a hopeless, generalized yearning. He was tantalized by the possibility of meaning, but meaning inconveniently located beyond the reach of human intellect. Such beauty was so fiery and vivid and pure that it cauterized thought. He was nothing, consciousness bathed in green-white brilliance, a pattern of sensations, humbled and cleansed by intensive exposure to the sublime. The cold was no longer hostile, but fresh, vital, and redemptive. He wanted to leave the earth and fly up into the sky, not to be commemorated like some ancient hero in a constellation, but to achieve the exact opposite, to be absorbed and dissipated by the dancing lights, to be strewn across the heavens until the distance between his thoughts made personal identity impossible. He dreamed of nullity, obliteration, escape. A sigh brought him back to earth. Müller was standing next to him. The navigator held his sextant against his chest and his face was tilted back. A tear beneath his right eye had collected enough light to shine like a jewel. Müller wiped it away and said, ‘Are you coming back down now, Kaleun?’
‘No,’ said Lorenz. ‘A little longer…’
‘You’ll freeze, sir.’
Lorenz reconsidered. ‘Yes, you’re right, Müller. I’ve been up on the bridge for far too long. Thank you.’
On the way to his nook, Ziegler leaned out to attract Lorenz’s attention. ‘Kaleun? The lights… they’re playing havoc with the radio. I can’t pick up any broadcasts.’
‘All right,’ said Lorenz. ‘There’s nothing we can do about that.’
He crossed the gangway, pulled the curtain aside, and lay on his mattress. After closing his eyes he could still see the aurora borealis, glaucous cathedrals crumbling into dust before being blown away by a wind that had crossed the void between planets.