The Whispering Muse

VIII

BY THE END I was having difficulty following the plot, both because the storyteller’s words had become slurred with drink and because my own head was nodding. But so much is certain: the mate told me that one night, long after the Argonauts had returned home with the golden fleece, he was down on the waterfront in the city of Corinth. The weather was bad and there were few people abroad apart from Caeneus himself and his companions, a few squawking herring gulls and a clutch of adolescent kittens that he stressed had been both ill-favoured and irksome. By this stage in the story the hero’s world had suffered such an ill wind that his errand to the boat shed was to scavenge for something to eat. There he could usually find fish guts left over from the day’s catch, rotting crustaceans and dubious scallops, if his luck was in.

And would you know it? This time the easily pleased protagonist spotted a basket of bait that had somehow rolled over and was propped up on its side in the lee of a blue-and-white-striped fishing boat, while the shark bait — consisting mainly of mares’ intestines — lay wet and inviting in the sand. Caeneus glided into the shade and began to bolt down this feast in frenzied rivalry with the other gulls (his words), and the rapture of the competitive glut was so all-consuming that Caeneus couldn’t tear himself away from the delicacies even when an unseen bird-catcher jerked a string that was buried in the sand and tied to the end of the twig propping up the basket. The swarm of gulls whirled from under the keel of the boat like a foaming wave and Caeneus felt like the luckiest dog alive to be left alone with the mares’ bowels in the darkness of the basket.

The bird-catcher soon put an end to the fun, however. He stuck his hairy human hand under the bait basket, seized the feather-soft bird’s neck he encountered there and extracted Caeneus, who realised belatedly that he had walked into a trap.

Caeneus fought viciously with the hunter, pecking at his hands with his strong yellow beak, beating his head with silver-grey wings and clawing his chest with pink, fleshless feet, but the hunter tightened his hold on his prey, whirling Caeneus around hard in the hope of breaking his neck. It was an unequal struggle. The god of heaven had granted Caeneus the power of imperviousness to weapons and fists whereas the bird-catcher was the most wretched of vagabonds: a bald, haggard, pinch-bellied, shrunken-limbed old man — and as such was bound to yield to the bird in the end. But just as the bird-catcher loosened his grip and Caeneus squirmed from his hands, their eyes met:

‘Oh no…’

Grief crushed the liver-red gull’s heart as Caeneus recognised in the tramp’s burst pupils the most splendid champion the world had ever known, the man who had commanded the most famous heroes in days of yore, he who had won the love of queens and enchantresses; yes, there the gull saw the ruins of his old captain, Jason son of Aeson.

Caeneus shrank away from this terrible revelation. He called Jason’s name, called his own name, called on Hermes to free his tongue from its fetters, but all the son of Aeson could see and hear was a herring gull squawking on a rock. Caeneus craned his neck, cocked his head back and screeched:

‘Arrk, arrk! Ga-ga-ga-ga! Arrk, arrk…’

The greybeard Jason fled down the beach and the fleet-winged Caeneus took to the air in pursuit. Although stones harmed him no more than spears or knuckles, it took energy and concentration to dodge the pebbles that Jason was throwing in his direction, and Caeneus was worn out from the fight. So he hovered at a safe height above the knock-kneed man as he ran and crawled away over the sand. But soon hunger overcame fear and Jason began to search for something else to eat; at least the crazed herring gull seemed to have stopped trying to peck him. When the decrepit hero of the seas had scraped together enough for his supper he sought somewhere safe to eat it, in peace from other vagabonds, wild dogs and rats. He found sanctuary in the fabled graveyard of ships.

Here the sea castles of yesteryear lay rotting like beached whales on the sand, their timbers brittle, ropes rotten, nails rusty, the black and red paint that had adorned them from gunwale to keel quite worn away. Jason found a place by the prow of one of the many-nailed hulks and began to gorge himself in frantic haste, with constantly darting eyes. Once the meal was over he leant against the ship’s hull, took a deep breath and sighed as happily as after a banquet of old.

At that the splendid timberwork behind him creaked as if the rotten ship were groaning.

Then he heard a voice say:

‘Jason? Is that you?’

The voice was hollow and cracked, yet so powerful that it fluttered the tramp’s white beard. With a shriek of terror Jason flung himself on all fours and peered around in search of the foe. The voice continued:

‘O Jason, have you come to take me away?’

Jason spun round on his knuckles and yelped:

‘What? Where are you? Come out if you dare!’

‘Lord, I have awaited your coming ever since we landed at the city of Iolcus, when the harbour resounded with the cheers of the welcoming multitude for thrice nine days and nights, when the precious wine overflowed my thwarts from bow to stern, when the leafy olive branch wound up my mast, when the perfume of the vestal virgins’ incense wafted over my yards and rigging — when you disembarked, never to return.’

For, you see, Caeneus and Jason were not the only members of the famous quest for the golden ram’s fleece to be present in Corinth that night. That many-nailed masterpiece, the Argo, was there as well. She it was who lay there in the ships’ graveyard, gnawed through by the teeth of time, lamenting so plaintively:

‘Take me away. Sail me out to sea, the blue sea, where Poseidon shakes his trident at bold seafarers who steer their ships through the mountainous waves as if they were thunderbolts from the hand of supreme Zeus.’

But Jason recognised neither the galley nor her voice, and it made no difference how softly she cajoled her old captain:

‘Oh, how I have missed the feel of your strong feet walking my decks…’

He merely raged in the sand like a fighting cur, and when the enemy failed to show itself he rolled over on his back and began to howl and lament — sure that madness had taken hold of him.

Caeneus, who had observed the whole scene from his vantage point in the sky, now arrived on silent wings and perched on the Argo where the bowsprit met the prow.

The weary old ship creaked:

‘Caeneus?’

‘ARRK! ARRK! ARRK!’

The gull squawked and flapped its wings as the bow timber gave way with a groan of pain and fell to the ground, crushing the man beneath.

And that was the end of Jason son of Aeson.

But Corinth was not the end of the road for the herring gull Caeneus. He flew away, bearing in his claws a splinter of wood from the bow timber, which he has used for his storytelling ever since. Feeling things had become too hot for him in the Aegean, he persisted in his flight until he came all the way north to Finnmark. There a shaman took him under his wing and turned him back into the likeness of a man.

He had stayed a long time in the land of the Lapps, and since then had always worked on Scandinavian ships, generally as mate but occasionally as a telegraphist.

So Caeneus maundered on until the early hours. I must have fallen asleep in my chair and been carried by him to my quarters. I have no memory of undressing myself — it must have been him because my clothes were not in the cupboard but lay on the desk chair, though everything was neatly folded and the shirt and jacket had been hung over the back. This is still further proof that he had been well brought up, in spite of his interminable verbal diarrhoea.

I slept until three o’clock in the afternoon.

Today is Good Friday.

Need I say more?

In an attempt to make the day of crucifixion bearable for us, Captain Alfredson ordered a more lavish spread than usual, so we would have all the ingredients for a feast, as far as circumstances allowed. As the evening progressed the guests grew merry, and the captain was not behindhand in ensuring that everyone had a thoroughly good time. People told jokes which frequently raised a smile, and many of them were well received, though others were not quite as adept at finding the words for what they wished to say, and there were those who verged on the risqué. But, on the whole, one cannot deny that the evening was most congenial.

The purser’s lady friend, who seemed to have an absolute monopoly over the serving of alcoholic beverages, was now in the best of spirits and I could see no sign that she harboured a grudge against me. She served us liberally, filling her neighbours’ glasses and asking the diners please not to be shy about helping each other to wine. In fact, as it turned out, everyone had rather more than they wished for. What reason she had to play both host and hostess that evening and offer the drink so freely I cannot say, though I have a hunch that as ever the couple’s addiction to profit was to the fore, since I had gathered from Captain Alfredson that my hospitality bill, like those of the officers, would be paid by the shipping company, however high. So the couple would profit from any refreshments we consumed over and above what was considered a normal part of the meals, and alcohol weighed heavily in the balance. I tried to raise the matter with Alfredson but the woman saw and forestalled me by rising from her seat and inviting the guests to drink a toast to the captain, which we did with a good will.

Pleased as punch, Alfredson hurried to his quarters and returned with a stack of records and a gramophone. Seeing this, the first mate grabbed the corners of the tablecloth, one after another, and whipped it off the table complete with all the dishes and the remains of the rum trifle. He swung it over his shoulder like a sailor’s kitbag, swept into the galley and flung it in the corner with a resounding crash and clatter of breaking crockery. I saw the purser’s lady friend laugh out loud at this, for the purser could also charge the shipping line for loss of tableware. The captain slammed the gramophone down on the table and the second engineer was set to winding it up and choosing the music; drinking songs, as it turned out — tales of womanising and debauchery in thirteen languages.

The instant the needle touched the groove in the record the purser’s lady friend became the focus of the party. Everyone had to dance with her in turn: the captain, the first engineer, first mate, cook, steward and the three deckhands who were off duty — it was Caeneus’s watch — while I myself filled in for the second engineer and twirled the gramophone crank while he twirled the woman.

From where I sat, squeezed up against the phonograph, I couldn’t block my ears to song after song describing the sailor’s life. The most memorable for me was a comic number listing all the scrapes that drinkers can get into:

I went to Australia and there I was happy:

I bought dozens of girls for a month at a time.

I went down to Italy and there I was happy:

I poleaxed the barmen who didn’t serve me on time.

I went to Rhodesia and there I was happy:

I knocked down wry-faced old blackamores with my fists of steel.

I went to Colombia and there I was happy:

I took married women to my bed and enjoyed them for a while.

(Retold in my own words, V. H.)

The chorus went as follows:

I ended up in hell and here I am happy.

And I have this to say to anyone who’s curious about my lot:

I feel no compunction for what I have done.

I have no interest in the dishonoured –

No interest in the dead.

(Retold in my own words, V. H.)

Why should this particular song have been etched in my memory so that I can record its contents here? Well, because during the last verse the purser’s lady friend came dancing up to me with one of the Kronos line’s fine linen napkins in her hand. She had folded the napkin into a Napoleon hat. As the woman bent forward to place the hat on my head, my senses were filled with a powerful odour of mingled gin, cigarettes, eau de cologne, hair lacquer and sweat — before she straightened up and screeched:

‘Du bist doch mein süßer Papageientaucher…’

I laughed at this along with the rest while thinking to myself that Dr Pázmány would have been able to read a thing or two from the woman’s behaviour, especially when she called me ‘her puffin’.

Be that as it may, when the carousing was at its height and the music had begun to pierce one’s ears like the song of the sirens, I heard someone shouting above the din of the gramophone:

‘Hey, hey there! I… you! Listen, hey, listen! Hey, you!’

The purser was standing apart from the milling throng, snatching at his shipmates, one after the other, in an attempt to buttonhole them. He was one of those whom Bacchus renders eloquent, and had imbibed just the right dose of spirits to fine-tune his speech organ to the point where his inability to pronounce his ‘r’s had largely disappeared. This emboldened him to make pronouncements, and he began imparting loudly into my right ear everything that he had on his chest — I was his sole audience and confidant once his shipmates on the dance floor had shaken him off — and unfortunately it has to be said that it was pretty poor, thin stuff, though it contained the odd interesting titbit.

Including the news that he had purchased his lady friend for the price of a leg of pork:

THE PURSER’S TALE

There is a type of venomous snake known as Vipera ursini. It is about a foot and a half long, ash-grey with brown spots and prominent black markings that zigzag the length of its spine. This snake lives in the undergrowth on the forest floor, devouring small animals, both hot- and cold-blooded, though it will sometimes undertake long forays into areas inhabited by man. Here it suddenly appears, having slithered under tree roots, down streams, along tracks and across the borders of the wood, all the way to the dark green thicket of willow that stands on the eastern edge of the old garden on the Polish estate of TZ—, posing as a compromise between cultivated land and untouched nature.

In late summer these willow shrubs provide the shadiest place in the garden and the gouvernante was in the habit of taking her little charges there to amuse themselves; the gouvernante being the governess who looked after the grandchildren of the elderly aristocrat and former magistrate, TZ—. He was a widower and usually lived alone apart from his servants, but because of the war, his daughter-in-law and her three children had come to stay with him while their father was away directing the defence of the homeland. One day, following afternoon tea, the gouvernante appeared in the shade of the shrubbery with the baby Opheltes, the long-awaited son, in her arms. She led the younger girl by the hand while the elder ran off at a tangent with her butterfly net aloft, trying to capture the mayflies that glowed bewildered in the sunshine.

The gouvernante had no sooner reached the thicket of rough willow shrub than out of it stepped seven heavily armed men. They were equipped for a secret mission, in black overalls and lace-up leather boots, with provisions in knapsacks and their faces painted camouflage green. The woman didn’t spot them until they parted the leafy branches and materialised before her. Upon which she gave a scream of terror and was about to flee with the children when the leader of the gang spoke:

‘You see before you friends of the fatherland; we mean you no harm.’

He raised his hands and showed her that they were empty. And the woman thought to herself, those are the hands of an artisan — they offer me no threat. The others also raised their hands. And their leader continued:

‘All we want is something to drink, then we’ll be on our way: our business is with the Germans at the fortress of Thebes.’

She answered:

‘I can give you water. Come with me to the house where you’ll be given both food and drink…’

‘Thank you, good woman, but our mission is secret and we cannot afford to lose any time. So we’ll continue on our way.’

He signalled to his men to turn back into the forest and they began to part the branches of the willow, preparing to vanish into the thicket again, but the woman said:

‘Wait! There’s a well nearby that’s used to water the horses when they’re grazing here in the old garden. The water’s fresh and full of invigorating minerals, since Mr TZ— loves his riding horses as if they were his own children.’

The man answered:

‘The Polish steed is a divine creature. What is good enough for him is good enough for us.’

‘Then I’ll show you the way.’

But because the well could not be seen from where they stood and the gouvernante wanted Opheltes to enjoy the sunshine in the lee of the willows, she laid him on the grass and told his sisters to keep an eye on their little brother for the brief time it would take her to escort the men to within sight of the well. The boy had just learnt to crawl and the moment his nurse turned her back on him he rolled over on his stomach and crawled laughing under a bush where Vipera ursini was waiting.

Although the venom of this European species of viper is not powerful enough to kill an adult, it brings certain death to any toddler it bites — and when the gouvernante returned to the sheltered spot, only a minute later, the little child Opheltes TZ— lay dead in a tangle of willow roots, and the snake had vanished.

When the thirsty friends of the fatherland saw the tragedy that had taken place, their leader said:

‘This is an ill omen for our expedition, and the boy’s true name should be Arkemoros: “Harbinger of Ruin”.’

Sure enough, all seven of them lost their lives in the attack on the fortress at Thebes.

The TZ— family nursed their vengeance until the end of the war, though they compelled the guilt-stricken gouvernante to serve them in every conceivable manner in the meantime. Afterwards they handed her over to a Soviet tank platoon that came raping and pillaging through the region.

Four years later the purser found the woman in a whorehouse in Königsberg. The day before he had acquired a leg of dried ham, and in exchange for this he was allowed to take the woman away with him.