That’s just how it is; that’s how it’s always been…
Guðmundur Berndsen heaves a sigh and continues to unpack the case.
He hangs the shirts and trousers on hangers in the clothes locker, arranges his underwear on one shelf and socks on another.
‘Well…’
Guðmundur clears his throat loudly before continuing to unpack his case, sort his luggage and put it away.
He wipes away a tear from the corner of his right eye with the back of his rough, veined hand and then takes out several short-sleeved T-shirts, lays four silk ties on the bed and hangs up a light jacket and light-coloured trousers. There is nothing left in the case except something folded in brown wax paper that covers the bottom.
Hrafnhildur has never put wax paper around his clothes. Is this a gift? No, hardly. He’ll be home long before Christmas and his birthday isn’t until May.
This couldn’t be…
Guðmundur feels a cold stab in his stomach and his neck stiffens as if he’s about to suffocate.
For thirty years a dark brown velvet suit has hung in the clothes cupboard in their bedroom. This is the suit that Guðmundur Berndsen wore on their wedding day. It hasn’t fit him for nearly twenty-five years but he is very fond of it, so Hrafnhildur has never been able to get him to throw it away despite pleading with him tearfully every single time she arranges the clothes in the crowded wardrobe.
For some reason she’s never been able to stand that suit. Perhaps she can’t stand it because it reminds her of the day she married Guðmundur Berndsen and now she is sending it with him to sea to tell him that the marriage is over and that he can go to hell, him and his crummy suit.
Or is she?
Guðmundur touches the package, this wax-paper wrapping that perhaps draws the line between love and unhappiness, the past and the present, marriage and loneliness.
‘My love,’ murmurs Guðmundur, lifting the soft package that crackles in his trembling hands.
My love?
He’s never said that before. Has he never said that before? No! Why hasn’t he ever said that before?
Because he’s a brute.
A brute!
A heartless brute who doesn’t deserve to have a wife and children!
Guðmundur Berndsen is angry with himself and his brutish nature and rips the wax paper off the clothes. He throws the paper on the floor, grips the suit with both hands and shakes out the folds. The material straightens and slides between his thick fingers, all the way to the floor. The captain blinks his eyes because the material is not brown but black, and it’s not velvet. This is not his suit! He’s holding a long dress with a low-cut back and short sleeves.
This is Hrafnhildur’s black dress! Which means that…
‘She’s coming,’ Guðmundur says softly, looking at the dress that he has hated for so long. He’s smiling from ear to ear. They had been thinking the same thing: when he had decided to stop going to sea, she had decided to stop singing for the dead.
But instead of expressing themselves in words they had each decided to send the other a symbolic message. She wrapped the black dress in brown wax paper in the bottom of his suitcase, and he bought a plane ticket and left it behind with her before he went off to sea.
As soon as he had handed her the ticket, Hrafnhildur knew she would use it but she chose to say nothing – because she didn’t need to. She knew that when Guðmundur found the black dress he would realise that it stood for ‘yes’. That was her answer. Taking off the black dress is her answer: Yes, I want to save the marriage. Yes, I will come to meet you.
Yes!
So they are linked after all. In harmony through thick and thin, until death do them part. Two people who are one whole.
A couple.
If only he’d told her he was through with the sea. But that can wait – he’ll tell her that as soon as they meet in Suriname. How surprised she’ll be! How happy she’ll be!
‘Thank you, Hrafnhildur! Thank you… my love!’ says Guðmundur in a voice as husky as the croak of a raven. He holds the shoulders of the dress and takes two steps back and one to the side. He wants to dance. He is dancing! He is dancing with an empty dress.
Brute! Who’s a brute? He’s the most romantic man in the entire world!
Guðmundur Berndsen feels he is floating on air, even though he’s probably stomping around his cabin like a newly awakened troll. And it’s almost as if the ship wants to dance too: it slows suddenly, as if bowing before an unseen dancing partner, then tilts to starboard, it tilts, and it tilts…
The captain stumbles, falls on his back and hits his head on the edge of the table.
What’s going on?
He blinks his eyes and looks dizzily up under the table. Blood runs from the scalp above his left ear and his right shoulder hurts.
‘What the…? Is the ship…?’ grumbles the captain and rolls out from under the table. Something’s not right. The ship isn’t managing to right itself and it almost seems to have turned so it’s drifting side-on to the wind. As if it were…
Guðmundur Berndsen stares at his hands that are pushing against the rug on the floor but feeling neither vibrations nor thumps.
The engine has stopped. The ship is dead in the water.
‘What the devil is going on?’ says the captain, his voice shaking. He stands up, flings the dress into his open suitcase and then goes quickly to the door, uphill over the rug-covered floor that is tilting at a thirty-degree angle to starboard. But he hasn’t opened the door into the corridor when the bell on the wall starts to ring.
Loud warning bells resound throughout the ship, as if the end of the world were near.
XXVII
14:45
When the captain enters the tilting bridge Rúnar is trying to phone down to the engine room.
‘What’s going on?’ shouts the captain.
‘I don’t know!’ Rúnar shouts back and replaces the phone. ‘There’s no answer from the engine room. Stoker isn’t on watch!’
‘Stay here! I’m going down to the engine room. The damn bell won’t stop ringing until someone either cuts the power to the main engine or restarts it.’
The captain sets off down the stairs and the bosun grabs the wheel with both hands and looks out the window, terrified, at the starboard side of the bridge, which seems to be hanging in midair over a turbulent sea.
‘What’s going on?’ asks Sæli, meeting the captain on the landing of C-deck.
‘You know the regulations!’ cries the captain, throwing up his hands. ‘All crew to go to the boat deck.’
‘Is there a fire?’ says Sæli, spreading his arms to keep his balance. ‘Is the ship sinking?’
‘I don’t know yet. But the engine has stopped and…’ Guðmundur stops talking when the warning bell stops, which means one of the engineers has arrived in the engine room.
The ship’s hull creaks as monstrous waves bend and batter the steel; the heavy beat of drums echoes in the hold and a long high-frequency tone resounds in the head of the crew. Then that slowly gives way to the symphonic whining of the wind.
‘While the ship is dead in the water we have a state of emergency on board,’ says the captain, gripping the handrail by the stairs. ‘But since the bells have stopped we’re hardly in immediate danger. Tell the men to stay put until I give the order to do anything else.’
‘Right!’ says Sæli, and he sits on the floor so as not to fall down.