Midnight

A cry.

Not part of the dream, seemingly outside my port. A cry of pain.

Nothing could be seen, with the fog.

I have rushed on deck, not knowing where to run. Vlahutza shouted at me from an alcove lit by lamps, Olgaren’s shelter against the night.

There was naught left but a cigar, still smoking, a void whose silence screams.

We watched the ember until it went out.

Abranoff looked down at his own cigar and then hurried to throw it overboard, as if it were an incandescent eye that suddenly winked at him.

One more gone. Lord help us!

Vlahutza says we must be past the Straits of Dover, as in a moment of fog lifting, he saw North Foreland, just as he heard Olgaren cry out.

If so, we are still en route, though now sailing aimlessly through the North Sea. Only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us, and God , it seems, has deserted us.