Harvest

CHAPTER SEVEN

Nadiya had had enough. All the whining, all the demands, all the pent-up boy energy that regularly erupted into swearing and shoving, had sucked away her strength. That, and now the seasickness. Gregor, the big ape, was sick as well, as were most of the boys. On the roughest days, when the ship's hull pounded like a hammer on the anvil of the North Sea, they all lay groaning in their bunks, the sounds and smells of their wretchedness penetrating even to the decks above. On such days, the mess hall below remained dark and half-deserted, the passageways were empty, and the ship was like some great and moaning ghost vessel, guided by the hands of a spirit crew.

Yakov had never had such a good time.

Unstricken by even the faintest twinge of nausea, he roamed freely throughout the ship. No one stopped him. Indeed, the crew seemed to enjoy his presence. He would visit Koubichev in the engine room, and in that noisy hell of grinding pistons and diesel fumes, the two of them played chess. Sometimes Yakov even won. When he got hungry, Yakov would wander into the galley where Lubi the cook would offer him tea and beet soup and medivnyk, the fragrant spiced honey cake from his native Ukraine. Lubi never said much. "More?" and "Enough, eh?" was the extent of his conversation. The food he served was eloquence enough. Then there was the dusty cargo hold to explore, and the radio room with its dials and knobs, and the deck with its tarp-covered lifeboats to hide in. The only place he could not wander was the far-aft section. He could not find any passage to get in there.

His favourite place of all was the bridge. Captain Dibrov and the navigator would greet Yakov with indulgent smiles and allow him to sit at the chart table. There he'd trace with the index finger of his one hand the course they had already sailed. From the port of Riga, down the Baltic Sea, through the channel past Malmo and Copenhagen, around the top of Denmark, and across the North Sea with its stepping stones of oil platforms with names like Montrose and Forties and Piper. The North Sea was bigger than he'd imagined. It was not just a little puddle of blue, the way it seemed on the chart. It was two days of water. And soon, the navigator told him, they'd be crossing an even bigger sea, the Atlantic Ocean.

"They won't live that long,"Yakov predicted.

"Who won't?"

"Nadiya and the other boys."

"Of course they will," said the navigator. "Everyone gets sick in the North Sea. After a while their stomachs settle. It has to do with the inner ear."

"What does the ear have to do with the stomach?"

"It senses motion. Too much motion makes it confused."

"How?"

"I don't really understand it. But that's how it works."

"I'm not sick. Is there something different about my inner ear?"

"You must be a born sailor."

Yakov looked down at the stump of his left arm and shook his head. "I don't think so."

The navigator smiled. "You have a good brain. Brains are far more important. You will need them, where you're going."

"Why?"

"In America, if you're clever, you can become rich. You want to be rich, don't you?"

'! don't know."

Both the navigator and the captain laughed.

"Maybe the boy doesn't have any brains after all," said the captain. Yakov looked at them without smiling. "It was just a joke," said the navigator. '! know."

"Why don't you ever laugh, boy? I never see you laugh."

"I never feel like it."

The captain snorted. "Lucky little bastard's going to some rich family in America. And he doesn't feel like laughing?What's wrong with him?"

Yakov shrugged and looked back at the chart. "I don't cry, either."

Aleksei was curled up on the lower bunk, clutching Shu-Shu to his chest. He was startled awake as Yakov sat down on the mattress. "Aren't you ever going to get up?" askedYakov. Aleksei closed his eyes. "I'm sick."

"Lubi made lamb dumplings for supper. I ate nine of them."

"Don't talk about it."

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Of course I'm hungry. But I'm too sick to eat."

Yakov sighed and looked around the cabin. There were eight bunk beds in the room, and six of them were occupied by boys too ill to play. Yakov had already visited the adjoining quarters and found the other boys equally incapacitated. Would it be this way all across the Atlantic?

"It's all because of your inner ear," saidYakov. "What are you talking about?" moaned Aleksei. "Your ear. It's making your stomach sick."

"My ears are fine."

"You've been sick four days now. You've got to get up and eat."

"Oh, leave me alone."

Yakov grabbed Shu-Shu and yanked it away. "Give him back!" wailed Aleksei. "Come and get him."

"Just give him back!"

"First you get up. Come on."Yakov scurried away from the bunk as Aleksei made a futile swipe for the stuffed dog. "You'll feel better if you're out of bed."

Aleksei sat up. For a moment he huddled at the edge of his mattress, his head swaying with every tilt of the ship. Suddenly he clapped his hand to his mouth, lurched to his feet, and scrambled across the room. He vomited into the sink. Groaning, he crawled back into his bunk.

Solemnly, Yakov handed back Shu-Shu.

Aleksei hugged the stuffed dog against his chest. "I told you I was sick. Now go away."

Yakov left the boys' quarters and wandered into the corridor. At Nadiya's stateroom door, he knocked. There was no answer. He moved on to Gregor's stateroom and knocked again.

"Who is it?" came a growl.

"It's me. Yakov. Are you still sick as well?"

"Get the fuck away from my door."

Yakov left. He wandered around the ship for a while, but Lubi had retired for the night. The captain and the navigator were too busy to talk to him. As usual Yakov was on his own.

He went down to visit Koubichev in the engine room.

They set up the chessboard. Yakov drew the first move, pawn to king four.

"Have you ever been to America?" Yakov asked over the rumble of the pistons.

"Twice," said Koubichev, moving his queen's pawn forward. "Did you like it there?"

"Wouldn't know. They always order us confined to quarters as soon as we get into port. I never see a fucking thing."

"Why does the captain order this?"

"The captain doesn't. It's those people in the aft cabin."

"What people? I've never seen them."

"No one ever does."

"Then how do you know they're there?"

"Ask Lubi. He cooks for them. Someone's eating the food he sends up. Now are you going to move a piece or what?"

With great concentration, Yakov advanced another pawn. 'why don't you just leave the ship when we get there?" he asked.

'why would I?"

"To stay in America and get rich."

Koubichev grunted. "They pay me enough. I can't complain."

"How much do they pay you?"

"You're too nosy."

"Is it a lot?"

"It's more than I used to make. More than a lot of men make. And just to go back and forth, back and forth across this damned Atlantic."

Yakov moved out his queen. "So it's a good job? To be a ship's engineer?"

"That's a stupid move, bringing out your queen. Why did you make it?"

"I'm trying new things out. Should I be a ship's engineer some day?"

"No."

"But you get paid a lot."

"It's only because I work for the Sigayev Company. They pay very well."

'why?"

"I keep my mouth shut."

"Why?"

"How the hell should I.know?" Koubichev reached across the board. "My knight takes your queen. See, I told you it was a stupid move."

"It was an experiment," saidYakov.

"Well, I hope you learned something from it."

A few days later, on the bridge Yakov asked the navigator: "What's the Sigayev Company?"

The navigator shot him a look of surprise. "How did you hear that name?"

"Koubichev told me."

"He shouldn't have."

"So you don't talk about it either," saidYakov.

"That's right."

For a moment, Yakov didn't say anything. He watched the navigator fuss with his electronics equipment. There was a small screen where little numbers kept flashing, and the navigator would write the numbers in a book, then look in his chart.

'where are we?" asked Yakov.

"Here."The navigator pointed to a tiny x on the chart. It was in the middle of the ocean.

"How do you know?"

"By the numbers. I read them on the screen. The latitude and longitude. See?"

"You have to be very clever to be a navigator, don't you?"

"Not so clever, really." The man was moving two plastic rulers across the chart now. They were connected by hinges, and he'd clack them together as he slid them to the compass rose at the edge of the chart.

"Are you doing something illegal?" askedYakov.

'what?"

"Is that why you're not supposed to talk about it?"

The navigator sighed. "My only responsibility is to guide this ship from Riga to Boston and back to Riga."

"Do you always carry orphans?"

"No. Usually we carry cargo. Crates. I don't ask what's in them. I don't ask questions, period."

"So you could be doing something illegal."

The navigator laughed. "You are a little devil, aren't you?" He began to write again in his notebook, recording numbers in neat columns.

The boy watched him for a while in silence. Then he said, "Do you think anyone will adopt me?"

"Of course someone will."

"Even with this?" Yakov raised his stump of an arm. The navigator looked at him, andYakov recognized the flicker of pity in the man's eyes. "I know for a fact someone will adopt you," he said.

"How do you know?"

"Someone's paid for your passage, haven't they? Arranged for your papers."

"I've never seen my papers. Have you?"

"It's none of my business. My only job is to get this ship to Boston." He waved Yakov aside. "Why don't you go back to the other boys? Go on."

"They're still not feeling well."

"Well, go play somewhere else."

Reluctantly Yakov left the bridge and went out on deck. He was the only one there. He stood by the rail and stared down at the water splintering before the bow. He thought of the fish swimming somewhere below in their grey and turbid world, and suddenly he found he couldn't breathe; the image of swirling water was suffocating. Yet he didn't move. He stayed at the rail gripping,it with his one hand, letting the panicky thoughts of cold, deep water wash through him. Fear was something he had not felt in a very long time.

He was feeling it now.