Carlos dreams of Eduardo sinking. He becomes Eduardo. His orange sea jacket fades to a muted blue before turning inkblack, in the way the deepening ocean bleeds all life of its colour. A final cry departs his gaping mouth as a rising, expanding bubble. Empty lungs collapse under the water’s weight. Strange life forms inspect him at close range. Hagfish nibble on fronds of waving hair. A parasitic lamprey attaches to a sunken cheek. Above him lies the swollen belly of an iceberg. Finally, his large body gives way to the seafloor.
He opens one eye. Then both.
His legs merge into a tail fin.
He communes with fish, removing hooks from black, rubbery lips. He plunges a hand down torn throats and into soft stomachs to remove the remains of poorly digested chicken bones, food tins and plastic bags, all discarded by fishermen. Antifouling paint, containing toxic tributyltin from the hulls of icebreakers, coats the seabed with its sickening film, causing some life forms to die and others to mysteriously change sex. The reach of humans is everywhere.
A procession of toothfish approaches him. There are perhaps five hundred. Each gaunt specimen hooked via a short nylon rope to a longer, sturdier line. It’s the longline he had cut only two and a half weeks before—the line he had let fall, fully laden, back to depth.
The fish queue patiently for him to release them, one by one. They are thin from being enslaved, unable to feed.
He hears the familiar engine noise of a boat above. Naked hooks, the size of fists, appear. He takes the end of one in his mouth and lets it pierce his cheek. He warns the other fish away. Hours pass as he waits, suspended. He is patient.
Finally he is brought to the surface. Once handsome, he is now reduced to a ghoulish mess of matted hair and gouging fish hooks tearing his broken face. His sea jacket hangs like shreds of sunburnt kelp. He gloats as he spins on the line, dancing a series of macabre pirouettes from an avant garde ballet. Slowly he stops spiralling and faces the fishermen on deck. His audience.
‘Soon there will be no fish left. Go home or you shall die.’ His curse is clear. Emphatic.
The fishermen hurriedly cut the line and he falls heavily back into the ocean. His turgid tail splashes water at the shaken men, who are left in doubt of their minds. He is gone, this soothsayer who can divine the number of fish left in the sea.
He has learnt to breathe the air dissolved in seawater, but it will not always be so easy. The deep sea, so rich in oxygen, is finally releasing the life-giving gas. As the earth warms, and ocean circulation patterns change, less oxygen is being transported down to deep-ocean currents. He wonders how long it will be before the strange world around him suffocates.
He rides the Antarctic circumpolar current full circle, allowing himself to be caught at every opportunity—at the islands of South Georgia, Prince Edward, Crozet Kerguélen and Heard. He moves further south to Ob and Lena Banks, where illegal fishers are already exhausting new grounds.
Sometimes deep-sea nets are used instead of longlines. But they are no barrier to this keeper of the deep. He climbs into their open mouths and cuts holes in their fouled rope to let the fish escape. Occasionally he is spilled onto deck and takes a blow from a gaff or a bullet to the head, body or tail. He bleeds thick blood, stocked high with anti-freeze borrowed from his Antarctic toothfish cousins. But he can’t be killed, for he lives in every fisherman. He is their collective fear of the ocean, of drowning, of becoming monstrous. He propels himself back into the sea.
Tales of this denizen of the deep spread. They converge in the bars of Port Louis, Durban, Walvis Bay and his home port of Montevideo. In these places, the illegal fishers gather to drink their fill of spirit, and to warm aching bones and souls weary from chasing fish across lonely seas. Each time his ghost visits a boat, the vessel inevitably suffers misfortune: sometimes the loss of life, sometimes an injury, always poor catches. It’s hardly worth going to sea.
His curse is realised. The boats scared away, he begins the long task of nursing the stocks back to health.
Carlos wakes in a lather of salt water, his mind and body thick with the effects of hypothermia. He struggles to shake off his nightmare of the ghoulish Eduardo and for a moment wonders if his friend’s death may also have been a dream. He glimpses relief. But it is a mirage. It vanishes like the flashes of Southern Lights that grace the Antarctic sky, teasing fishermen with the luminous greens—the colours of grass and trees—of home. He can’t lie, not even to himself. The details of the dream recur with sickening, spiralling clarity. Not as a fluid film of events, but rather a succession of short takes of the drama that unfolded. The order is jumbled, as he tries to make sense of what has happened.
An unstoppable barrage of memories place him once again on the frozen deck, reaching out for a disappearing hand. It’s as though by retelling the story, he hopes to discover a detail that will reverse events and bring Eduardo back.
His thoughts drift now to Eduardo’s wife and daughters. He’ll have to make a satellite call to break the news, a call that will reveal the Pescador’s position to the world—not that it’s a secret any more. And if the call is intercepted and used somehow to incriminate him, then that is the price he must pay. The fate of the boat and the catch now seems less important. He covers his face with his hands, blocking out the world. Perhaps he should give Virginia and the girls one more day in which to believe that Eduardo is still alive, a brief peace before their hollow grief undoes them forever. Carlos knows that from the moment they learn of Eduardo’s death, their lives will be divided neatly into before and after. Everything will change.
The boat is travelling perilously in the following seas, and Carlos thinks of Dmitri at the helm, steering the boat northeast, at right angles to the waves behind them. How could he have failed to see the Russian’s vile potential? He pounds his fists hard against the inside wall of the hull. He recalls the accusations Dmitri made against Eduardo and wonders if any were true. Perhaps none of it matters now. He feels sick with grief and panic and the knowledge that he has failed his crew. Carlos lowers himself out of his bunk and feels his body ache under its own weight. There’s a sharp pain each time he draws air into his lungs, and he realises he must have bruised or cracked a rib when he was reaching over the deck yesterday, reaching down towards oblivion for Eduardo. He closes his eyes against the pain and the truth.
Someone knocks on his cabin door and he hears the hinges creak as the door opens and closes. ‘We’re going to pretend that it’s a divided camp.’ It’s Manuel’s voice coming towards him. ‘That the Spaniards aren’t yet convinced of his plan, and that the Peruvians are for it. If we all pretend to be behind Dmitri, it’ll look too suspicious.’
‘What he said about us planning to sell some of the catch behind your backs was true.’
‘Most of us would have done the same.’
Carlos opens his eyes to study Manuel, trying to comprehend the loyalty of his crew. ‘I didn’t know about the guns.’
‘I know. Neither did Eduardo. I overheard him talking to Dmitri. Not the whole conversation—most of it was in Russian—but he let slip in Spanish a few times, to swear mostly.’ Manuel makes a poor attempt at a laugh before his grave expression returns. ‘Eduardo was furious that Dmitri had brought guns on board.’
‘So he was telling the truth.’ Carlos rubs his forehead and studies Manuel.
‘Si. But we have to focus on Dmitri now. He has been at the helm for nearly twenty-four hours. He’ll be getting tired and dropping his guard. You go up there, and tell him the Spaniards won’t talk to you. He’ll take it as encouragement and call us up to the wheelhouse—I’d bet on it. But we’ll play hard to get so that when the Peruvians offer their support, he’ll lap it up. When he hands out the guns, that’ll be our chance to overthrow him.’
‘You’ve given this some thought then?’ Carlos manages a weary smile, but inside a part of him has died. Being at sea doesn’t feel the same without his best friend. But even Eduardo had struggled to make light of the grim situation they’d become embroiled in. Carlos suspects this would be one of the few occasions that he would have admitted he’d bitten off more than he could chew.
He thinks back to being a boy at La Paloma, larking about with Eduardo—the trips too far from the coast in Eduardo’s father’s dinghy, and the nocturnal dives (Eduardo always went first) off the pier to commune with the ocean’s night-dwellers. It’s true that Eduardo took bigger risks than he himself was ever prepared to take, but it’s also the case that Eduardo was prepared to wear the consequences. Whatever secret arrangements his friend made for this trip, Carlos consoles himself, were to protect him.
Carlos pays a short visit to the crew’s cabins below deck, acknowledging each man with a short dip of his head. He sees their silent grief at losing Eduardo. He opens his mouth to speak, but shuts it again. Words are inadequate. In silence, he makes his way along the corridors and back up the three flights of stairs to the wheelhouse.
‘What the hell happened yesterday?’ Carlos fires the question at Dmitri as if it were him, and not the Russian, holding the gun. He knows that the treacherous conditions on deck would have hampered visibility from the wheelhouse, but the Russian must have seen two men become only one. ‘Why didn’t you turn the boat around? We could have saved him.’
‘Not in those seas.’
‘You didn’t even try. You killed him.’
The Russian sneers. ‘Do you think I need either of you?’
Carlos glances briefly through the rear windows and sees that their lead on the Australian boat has narrowed while he has been asleep. To hell with them. He reaches for the satellite phone. ‘I’m calling Eduardo’s family.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Dmitri holds up a small piece of wire, no doubt taken from the guts of the Inmarsat communication system, from his jacket pocket. He takes a final mouthful of vodka and feeds the wire into the empty bottle. ‘We cannot transmit using VHF radio, either. We can, however, listen to incoming calls on both, just to keep ourselves entertained.’ He laughs.
Carlos takes a step towards Dmitri, but José threatens him with the gun. Carlos holds up his hand in surrender and steps back. To be shot now would serve no one, bar Dmitri. And with the shortage of helmsmen on the boat, not even him.
Carlos leans his back heavily against the wall nearest him and slides down to the ground. He rests there on the wet carpet, his knees drawn up, hands hanging over them. His body is still exhausted from the day before, and he squeezes shut his eyes as he tries to block out the piercing pain in his ribs.
‘So, what’s the feeling among the crew?’ Dmitri asks. ‘I thought El Animal might have been back here with an answer by now. What’s taking him so long?’
‘I don’t know. The crew aren’t talking to me.’
Dmitri guffaws. And Carlos watches him reach for the intercom. ‘Manuel, bring the Spaniards up to the wheelhouse. I want them to hear from me what is on offer.’
Within minutes, the ten Spanish crew arrive edgily at the door. Their eyes go straight to the guns slung across Dmitri and José, and then dart around the room as they try to conceal their fear. Most of them, Carlos realises, are seeing the wheelhouse for the first time. They take in the bird’s-eye view that the windows afford of the fore and aft decks, and Carlos imagines that each of them is reliving the last three weeks from his perspective. He questions whether they would have made different choices.
José is watching their eyes too, and twitching with adrenaline. He points his gun anxiously at the men.
‘Take the helm, Manuel,’ Dmitri orders, before turning to speak to the assembled men, his own gun hanging by his side.
The Spaniards jeer collectively at Dmitri and swear at José, who is waiting on the Russian for direction. One of the younger crew spits at Dmitri’s feet. It’s not the reception the mutineer had expected.
‘Do not mock us, my friends,’ Dmitri warns. ‘And do not think for a moment that my colleague here does not know how to use that gun.’ His expression hardens. ‘Show them, José. There must be someone here who has angered you over the last few weeks. Perhaps they have taken more than their fair share of food, or made you look a fool.’
José appears confused about what Dmitri is asking him to do.
‘Go on. Show them you can do it. Or are these men right? Are you afraid to use the gun?’
Carlos notices Manuel tensing visibly at the helm. This was not part of the plan. ‘There’s no need for that,’ Manuel speaks quickly. ‘Listen, men, to what Dmitri is offering you.’
‘Shut up. I want them to see I am serious.’ Dmitri repeats his instruction to José. ‘Go on!’
José raises the weapon and looks down its length to the men in front of him. He surveys the group, one by one. Carlos has paid little attention to José until now. He strikes him as a loner, and wonders if the young Peruvian can claim to know any of the men in front of him—if anyone inspires hatred or admiration. Or are they just a blur of fishermen, desperate souls crewing the same boat on the same stretch of ocean?
‘I said go on!’ Dmitri bellows.
The gun is trained on the oldest fisherman, Roberto Cruz. Carlos has never seen José even speak to him.
‘Do it!’ Dmitri roars.
‘No!’ Manuel shouts from the helm.
José panics and Carlos hears the gun explode.
‘¡Jódete!’ Carlos swears. He hadn’t expected the fool to do it. Not in the chest. Perhaps over his head, or into the floor. He goes to the old man. Roberto’s son—a young man of perhaps twenty—is on the opposite side, holding his hand to his father’s bleeding chest. His other hand smooths the wounded man’s time-worn forehead, and strokes his thick, silvery waves of hair.
‘Padre,’ the young Spaniard cries.
Roberto is still alive, but is managing only shallow airy gasps. His lips and skin are fading to a bluish white. There is blood at his mouth. He says something quietly to his son and touches his cheek. Carlos is holding Roberto’s other hand and feels it release. The wheelhouse falls silent.
José staggers backward, seemingly bewildered by what he has done. He almost drops the gun, but Dmitri takes it before it hits the ground.
‘I did not think you would actually do it, I have to admit,’ Dmitri says, slapping José on the back. The young man leans into the furthest corner of the wheelhouse and vomits.
Carlos glowers at Dmitri with wet eyes, his arm flung around Roberto’s son. ‘You’ve taken our friend and this man’s father. How will you ever sleep again?’
‘You think this is the first man I have had killed!’ Dmitri’s laughter hisses like shards of ice in a fire.
José, vomit still clinging to the sparse hairs on his chin, has slunk to the floor, cowering from Dmitri and the angry Spanish crew.
‘And you,’ Carlos says, glaring at José, ‘you might try to hide, but you’ll be haunted by what you’ve just done for the rest of your life. You’ve killed a man, and nothing you ever do will put that right.’
‘Enough!’ Dmitri spits. ‘I hope I now have your full attention. There is something important I have to offer you.’
Carlos watches the Russian who has so misjudged his audience. He may have won their fear, but he is as far from gaining their respect as a man can be. How could he have ever thought this would convince them? It occurs to Carlos that Dmitri would be the sort of person to beat his dogs, coercing them into submission. But beaten dogs feign loyalty only while their master is awake. The moment he falls asleep, they’ll tear him apart.
‘But before I start,’ Dmitri says, ‘you might want to question your loyalty to your capitán here.’ He points at Carlos. ‘What he is not telling you is that he himself is a murderer.’
‘What?’ Carlos clamours, incredulous.
Dmitri tells the Spaniards what he has already told the Peruvians about Carlos and Eduardo’s plans to secretly sell part of the catch. ‘But,’ he goes on, ‘it seems that wasn’t enough for him.’ He eyes Carlos. ‘What better way to secure the full amount than by pushing Eduardo overboard when it was just the two of them on deck.’ Carlos feels the crew watching him, narrowing their eyes and the terms of their loyalty. ‘I saw it all from up here. It’s a good view, you must admit.’
Carlos is on his feet now. ‘You’re suggesting I killed my best friend? These men know that’s absurd.’ But he senses his crew’s allegiances swaying, back and forth. He is losing ground, metre by metre, just as he lost sight of Eduardo in the waves only yesterday. A wall of water, a trough, a wall of water, a trough.
‘We all know Eduardo would never unclip himself from the safety line. It was unclipped from the rail. You.’ Dmitri glares at Carlos accusingly, ‘reached down and did that for him. You killed Eduardo.’
Carlos shakes his head. There’s nothing he can say that will help his case. He was a fool to toss Eduardo’s empty safety line into the sea. He knows that now. But how could he ever have anticipated that he would need to account for himself? He watches the men slip away from him. They, too, are unclipping themselves from their safety harnesses and sinking. And he can do nothing about it. He wants no more of this trip, or of the fish. He just wants to go home to María and Julia and the baby in her womb.
‘So, men, you decide where your loyalties lie. If not with me or Carlos, then at least with yourselves. What I am offering is this.’ Carlos listens to Dmitri outline the promises he made to the Peruvians: a share of the proceeds from the sale of the fish and the guns, which he still claims Eduardo smuggled on board. ‘But only if you help me get this boat to Mauritius. You decide. But before you go…’ Dmitri measures his shoe size against the dead man’s foot and orders Roberto’s son to remove his father’s sea boots. ‘I will take his overpants, too,’ Dmitri says. ‘Unfortunately the jacket has a hole in it.’
Roberto’s son lunges for the gun, but Dmitri cocks it fast.
Carlos restrains the young Spaniard. ‘Don’t!’ he shouts at him. ‘He’s not worth it.’
The young man squats on the floor, his arm bent across his face, and weeps unashamedly.
‘I said undress him!’ Dmitri hollers.
Carlos places a hand on top of the grieving youth’s head, before beginning to undress the dead man. Slowly, the young Spaniard lifts his face and whispers to his father. ‘Lo siento,’ he apologises, before surrendering to the task.
‘And when you have finished, throw him overboard,’ Dmitri orders.
‘Let us at least wrap him in a sheet,’ Carlos implores as Dmitri squeezes Roberto’s boots onto his own feet. The boots are in good condition, probably new. It occurs to Carlos that the old man must have figured he had some years of fishing left in him yet.
‘The fish will not mind how he comes; just get him out of here,’ Dmitri snaps. ‘Now!’
Carlos again puts a steadying hand on the bereaved son’s bowed head and then says a small prayer, despite Dmitri’s protestations. Like pallbearers at a funeral, six of the men help to lift the body.
‘Do not think you are leaving this wheelhouse,’ Dmitri tells Carlos.
Carlos observes Manuel as the men open the door to the outside. The Spaniard’s face is contorted with deep pain. Not just physical pain now but soul pain with its own distinctive ache. Carlos knows that Roberto and Manuel were old friends, and that Manuel will be feeling responsibility for his death. It had been his idea to suggest that they play ‘hard to get’. If it hadn’t been for that, Roberto might well be alive. Carlos knows the guilt of not being able to save a friend is almost worse than dying yourself.
Through the ice-lacquered glass of the wheelhouse, Carlos watches the blurred figures carry the body along the deck. He sees them stop and then move in unison, swinging the old man like a wave advancing and retreating, advancing and retreating, until they have built up enough momentum to cast the dark shadow over the rails. The body plummets below the side of the boat out of sight from the wheelhouse, but the men remain reverently on deck for some minutes before drifting, like ghosts, back inside.