The Aeschylus

1

“Are you coming?” Jan asked.

He knows, Lucja thought. He knows and that's why he's grinning. For a brief moment, she considered telling him no, to shut the door and lock her family outside. Instead, she got to her feet and bristled.

“Of course I'm coming. I'm just grabbing my coat. It's cold on deck, you oaf.”

She expected a retort, but Jan only looked amused. Not because he was making fun of her, she realized, but because in some way, he understood the frustration of it all.

Ari and her father were well ahead of her by then. She put her head down and slunk after, not wanting them to see her face. If they did, they would want to know what was wrong, and of course, she would tell them. Her father would see it as just another headache, more like than not. Worse, it would give him an excuse to blame her emotions on her woman problems. How could she not be emotional? Things were getting worse by the day. She needed someone to talk to, and the only person she could trust was now in prison on the other side of the ocean.

Once she reached the deck, Jan shut the trap door behind her and went back to doing whatever it was he did down there. The previous night, she had seen him writing a letter. When did he intend to send it? He was a strange man, not that the other soldiers were any better. The fat one — Sealer or Seiler, or whatever his name was — he frightened her. And the lieutenant was… well, he was hard to figure out. She supposed he was the only one with manners though, and that counted for something.

Her father stopped ahead and waited for her. “Lucja, are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

“Stay close tonight. You know, some of the men on this ship haven't been home to their women in a long time. You're getting to the age where…” He paused, looked embarrassed, then said, “Just stay close, all right?”

That was almost funny given the circumstance, but she nodded. If he had meant to tell her that men could not control themselves around pretty young women, he had done a poor job of it. Her mother had put it much more eloquently. “Always be careful when you're alone, darling,” she had said. “A man in the heat of passion has less sense than a dog.”

And what would her father do if she were attacked? Very little, she thought dismally. Looking past him, she caught sight of Ari and Zofia stargazing over the bow.

“You see that constellation up there?” he asked Zofia.

“Where?”

Ari pointed, and Lucja followed his gaze to a cloud of magenta hanging far above.

“It marks the great table constellation, Mensa. You see it? Those stars form the shape of a table cloth. You can always tell where it is thanks to the Magellanic Cloud. A Portuguese poet called it The Spirit of the Cape, Adamastor. It was supposed to be a storm that would destroy any ships venturing too far south. Of course, they never got far enough to see exactly what it was.”

“You talk funny,” Zofia said.

Ari turned red. “Do I? I guess I do. I just think it's funny something so far away could scare people.”

“It is scary.”

“I suppose it scares me too. It's only visible from the southern hemisphere. You know what that means?”

Zofia shook her head, her thumb falling predictably into her mouth.

“It means we're a long way from home.”

Lucja shivered. A long way from home indeed.

When her father moved to join them, she slipped away and climbed the ladder to the wheelhouse. It was cold up top, but the sea was a beautiful thing. As she stepped to the rails, the water below looked almost inviting.

“You want to be careful there. If you fell overboard, you'd freeze to death before we could grab you.”

Startled, Lucja turned to see Lieutenant Dietrich approaching from the wheelhouse door. He removed his hat, revealing a flat, if not unattractive brown military cut. Whether he did this because of the wind or because he was addressing a young lady, she didn't know.

“You startled me.”

“My apologies. It was not my intent.” He put his hands on the rails. “I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to fall. Most people don't realize how dangerous it is up here with the boat rocking.”

“What do you care?”

“I know you'll find this hard to believe, Miss Kaminski, but I would like to see you arrive to our destination intact. It is very important you do.”

“What do you mean 'important?' Why are we so damned important?”

Harald was silent for a long moment, then said, “Your father is a very special man. He was trying to leave the country at a time when he was greatly needed, and that made my superiors angry.”

“He's not special. He hasn't been able to work for three years. When he meets new people, he doesn't even tell them his real name, like he's ashamed of it. You call that 'special?'”

Harald looked at her knuckles, bone-white where they gripped the metal. “None of this was my doing, Miss Kaminski. I suspect that if my superiors knew just how special he was at an earlier time, you would not have been subjected to this. I could be wrong, but I think arrangements would have been made sooner.”

“Arrangements for what?”

“Until we arrive, I'm afraid that's still confidential. But believe me when I tell you that I am sorry for this. As long as your father cooperates, you have nothing to worry about. You, or your mother.”

“And what do you want him to do?”

“There are others like him where we are going, other men with a special kind of knowledge. We think Dominik is the key to uniting their talents. If he does this thing for us, your family will be rewarded. You have my word on that.”

Lucja looked at him uncertainly.

“Life aboard a ship is hard for everyone. The sailors don't have it any better. They are confined to small, cramped spaces to sleep, and when they are not sleeping, they perform dangerous jobs that require back-breaking endurance. Even though you are confined, you are free from such chores.” Harald considered, then reached into his soldier's jacket and withdrew a man's billfold. From it, he took a small photograph and handed it to her.

It was a picture of a young woman, fair-skinned and quite comely. There was an expression of bliss on her face that looked utterly foreign under the present circumstances. Lucja briefly and cruelly thought of tossing it over the railing. Instead, she handed it back. “She's lovely.”

Harald nodded. “Perhaps too lovely. She has many other suitors who would take my place. We'll be apart these months, and like you, I had no choice in the matter. So you see, I'm depending on your father also. Once he is finished, I can get back to my life and my fiance. Until then, we are apart, just as you are from your mother and your friends.”

“Aren't soldiers always moving around?”

“To some extent, yes. But in times of peace, it's much easier to stay in one place. I'm used to traveling by car, but it is still difficult.”

“Can you drive?” Lucja asked. She'd only been in a car a few times in her life, as her parents did not own one.

“No. When you're as important as I am, you have people to do that for you.” He winked at her, then removed his hands from the rail and rubbed them together. “I'm off to my other duties, Miss Kaminski. It was nice to chat. If you need anything, you can let me know.”

She hesitated, then blurted, “You should call me Lucja. There's no need for 'Miss Kaminski.' That's for my mother, not me.”

“All right,” he said, smiling and then turning again.

“Wait!” She grabbed a hold of his sleeve. For a moment, she was wracked with indecision. The lieutenant was not her friend — she wasn't foolish enough to believe that — but if he really did want to show her kindness, the opportunity could not be missed. “I do need something from you. That is, if you're willing to help.”

“Yes?”

“Well,” Lucja said, her facing turning scarlet, “I know I must look very young to you, but I am of age. By that I mean… well this is terribly embarrassing… I have certain needs being on board a ship for an extended period of time. They are of a delicate nature.”

Harald flushed, but in a way, this made her feel better. His reaction was not one of amusement. “Yes?” he said again.

“I'm sure that a ship full of men does not have all the sanitary items a woman needs, but I need something. Tonight,” she added with some force, “and I would beg your discretion. Telling you this is very difficult.” She looked up at the moon, hoping that he would interpret her meaning.

“I understand. I have to apologize, as that's not even something I considered. You're right thinking there are no womanly goods on board. I could likely get you a handful of shirts and cut them into strips. Would that be sufficient?”

“If there's nothing else. It's better than the papers you left in the pantry.”

“Very well. I'll meet you back here before you return to your room. All right?”

She nodded, beginning to feel, for the first time, that the night may not end in disaster. Of all the people on board who could have taken her secret, she would have thought this man one of the least likely.

Harald returned his hat to his head and walked off. Lucja prayed he would be true to his word, and that if he did take a few shirts for her, that he wouldn't be noticed. If she managed to keep her dignity through all this, it would be a miracle. She looked over the railing again, down into the black water lapping at the side of the ship. The water suddenly looked cold and uninviting, and she wanted very badly to get back to the main deck.

2

Dominik observed all this from the bow of the ship, being careful not to stare when he could help it. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but he didn't like the tone of the conversation. Dietrich was a dangerous man, and if one of his tricks was to somehow endear himself to his daughters, that would make him all the more so.

“Put me down, Papa!” Zofia cried. He had been holding her up on his shoulders, letting her walk the tightrope. He and Maggie had taken her to see the Sarrasani Circus at the post-Olympics performance in Berlin two years before, and for a time, she had been obsessed. She would pretend to be one of the little tightrope walkers in a pink costume, practicing most sincerely whenever he picked her up. She had given up the fantasy more than a year ago, but here, in the wake of Maggie's disappearance, she had regressed. Dominik wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not.

“Put me down!”

When he did, she kissed him. Young babe or grown woman, she would always be his darling.

“Drink, pantry man?”

Dominik saw the captain approaching, holding out a tarnished silver flask. Although the man didn't appear dangerous, he pushed Zofia behind him out of instinct.

“Go on, take it.”

Reluctantly, Dominik did. He unscrewed the cap and took a swallow, wincing at the acid inside. As soon as he was done, the captain took the flask back and drank with no reaction whatsoever.

“I saw you were admiring my ax earlier.”

“What?”

“My ax,” Heinrich said, pointing to the bow. “You were looking at it.”

Dominik turned and saw the oak handle and huge red blade mounted beneath the rails. Before he had noticed Lucja on the walk, he had indeed been looking at it.

“A smart man like you, I'm sure you've read stories in your monster books.”

“I don't know about that.”

“Oh, come on. You know Poseidon's sea monster of Troy, and The Midgard Serpent, and The Leviathan. All that nonsense, right?”

“I'm sure I've heard of them.”

“I guarantee you, my friend, they're nothing compared to the ones we hunt.”

“Is that right?”

“We go to the coldest waters on earth. They're lined with these little islands that could tear the ship apart. One wrong turn, and we're dead. If a man falls overboard, he's beyond saving. The shock, you see, it makes his body go rigid and sink. If he keeps his head above water, the air is so cold it'll freeze the water in his beard.” He pointed out to sea. “We spot them maybe a hundred meters away, maybe less. Gray mounds that mist ice up into the sky. They're nearly twenty meters long, and they swim in groups. You've lived in a city all your life, boy, you ever imagine a thing like that? If they liked the taste of metal, they could open their mouths wide enough to swallow us. You believe that?”

“Listen,” Dominik said, trying to extricate himself. “I—”

“You'll sit down and listen,” Heinrich said angrily. “You shut up when the captain's talking.”

“Papa,” Zofia said.

“It's all right, honey.” Dominik sat down and pulled her onto his lap. When the captain looked at him, he wasn't sure whether to be enthralled or insulted.

“You know how we control it? We blow it's goddamned guts.” Heinrich pointed to the harpoon gun. “Those crazy goddamned Swedes are the ones who thought of it, putting a grenade on the end of the hooks. We shoot straight into the belly, and poof!”

Dominik wasn't sure, but he thought it was the Norwegians who revolutionized the industry, not the Swedes.

“We don't kill it, mind you, it'll sink. Ever hear the sound of a dozen men screaming as they're dragged down into the water? You don't want to. Anyway, the wound is just enough to make it sick in its guts. Just enough to make it weak. If the harpoon goes too high, it'll bounce off. If it goes too low, it'll shoot right through the tail. Even if it all goes right, sometimes the thing doesn't play along. That's where the ax comes in.”

“You mean you actually… chop it?”

Heinrich laughed. “No, my boy. No! It's for the rope. The harpoon rope! If it swims the wrong way and the rope gets hung up, we cut it. The rope is as thick as your wrist. No butter knife will cut a thing like that. It's the ax. The ax, or the ship gets pulled under by the beast.”

Dominik looked at the massive weapon again. “Tell me about the rope.”

Heinrich passed the bottle. Dominik had another drink.

“The rope starts on the weapon, then goes under the deck here.” The captain pointed to a spot below their feet, then to a hole in the deck where it reemerged. “It comes out there, then goes up to a pulley on the mast. It goes back from that pulley to a winch at the stern of the ship. Do you see it?” The entire rear end of the ship was occluded by the smokestacks and the wheelhouse, but Dominik nodded anyways. “It forms a triangle. Do you get me? The top of the triangle is on the mast. That's the key. The rope connects to a steel cable, the cable connects to another pulley, then runs to a steel accumulator spring below deck.” There was a slur on this last: steel ac-coom-oolater. But Dominik got the idea.

“The mast is the anchor,” Heinrich said. “The force goes down. No matter how hard it pulls, the weight goes down. Without the cable, and without the mast…” He snapped his fingers, letting the image hang. “Crazy goddamned Swedes,” he said again, spitting over the side of the deck.

Dominik, who had only been to the Berlin zoo once as a youth, and who had never seen anything larger than a seal living in the ocean, found the entire idea ludicrous. One thing was for certain, and that was Heinrich didn't just get into the business for profit margins on blubber and ambergris. There was a kind of mania in what he did. It made Dominik think back to the captain's role in their abduction, and he wondered how much of an enemy the man really was.

“How do you feel about all this?”

“What?”

“This,” Dominik said indicating the ship and himself. “They've hijacked your boat.”

The captain shrugged. “It's good money, but I have no love for The Reich, if that's what you mean. I suspect you have even less, even before you ended up here.” He took another drink and laughed.

Dominik shuddered. It wasn't a cruel laugh, but it wasn't a joke he could share, either.

“And what will you do after?”

The captain shrugged again. “Go fishing.”

This struck Dominik cold, and he had the sudden urge to leave. When he stood up, however, his head swam. Whatever was in Heinrich's little flask was strong stuff. He was struck that the other man could still talk, let alone sound coherent.

“You're starting to look pale, my friend. Sit down. Sit with me and have another drink.”

“Why do you drink so much?” Dominik asked.

“There are terrible things out here, my friend. Things no man should have to face sober.”

A little while later, the captain got up to check on his crew, leaving an air of salt and body odor behind. Dominik watched him go, patting Zofia's head with one hand. It was only when Heinrich was out of sight that he realized what else was concealed beneath the walk: a row boat. He had noticed it the night before, but it hadn't really registered. Up until a few minutes ago, he would have thought stealing a rowboat and heading towards land might have been a good idea. But whether or not Heinrich's intent was to scare the shit out of him, that's exactly what he had done.

It was a long time before he got to sleep that night. When he finally did, his dreams were filled with ice and chaos and large, formless things under the sea.

3

The following night, he left the girls with Ari and then waited until no one was watching. He began to walk towards the stern of the ship, passing under the rear stairs and circling behind the smokestacks. He listened, but all was silent save for the lapping of the water and the flap of the ropes leading to the aft mast. Then, he saw it: the only life raft on this God-forsaken ship. The second rowboat, usually found on the port side, had been removed for reasons he didn't know. No prison, no boat, no man can hold us, he thought again.

“It's not much, but it would probably float,” a voice said. Dominik jumped. He peered through the shadows and saw the orange glow of a cigarette. How he hadn't seen it before, he didn't know. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

“The question is, where would you go? You don't have the faintest idea where land is, or how far.” The tall soldier Jan stepped out of the shadows with an eerie silence.

“A man can look, I suppose.”

Jan nodded, turning towards the railing and looking out to the sea. “You have a lot to live for, sir. I wouldn't go getting any ideas.”

Dominik stared at him. He figured the other man would either offer him a smoke or haul him off to the lieutenant for insubordination, but he didn't do either. Instead, Jan flicked his spent butt over the railing and turned to leave.

“I'm off to clean my gun. You better get back to your family before someone finds you here and beats your head in.”

Dominik thought this was good advice.