D
ense fog surrounds the boat when I come up on deck to relieve Bo.
I glimpse at Janek’s silhouette with the hood fastened over his brow, behind the wheel.
“Good morning, where’s Bo?”
My voice is weak and hoarse and my body is screaming for rest after sleepless, rainy and cold nights. Humidity seems to remain lying like wet rubber on my skin.
I straighten up and repeat my question since Janek didn’t answer.
Only the sloshing sound from the bow as it breaks the water can be heard.
My body is too tired, too sick to have strength to ask again. My sense runs disinterestedly by his absence of heart.
I see Bo lying in a foetal position under his jacket by the mast.
“Bo, you can go below and lie down now. Your shift is over.”
I stroke his back with my hand.
He looks at me with blank eyes and in a voice as hoarse as mine he says, “Sri Lanka, we’re passing Sri Lanka now. If it weren’t for the fog, we would be able to make out land through the binoculars from here.”
“Fantastic! Then we’ll reach land, the Maldives, in a bit more than a week!”
My attempt at being positive doesn´t seems to work.
“I’d have done anything to go ashore now, it’s only a day’s sail away!”
He points hastily with his whole arm in the direction he presumably thinks the island is.
“Imagine, Val, freshly squeezed orange juice, fruits and vegetables, a real bed, no psychopaths, you know who I mean.”
He groans.
I see a breakfast buffet and a clean, warm, dry hotel bed and answer, “Mm-hm, sure, I could have hopped off in Sri Lanka, but now life seems to not want that. Not much we can do about it. Come on, Bo, if you’ve managed three weeks then you can easily manage one more!”
I stretch out my right hand. He meets it with his. He gets up and leans closer to me.
“One alternative would be for us together to attack him from behind. Tie him up and sail the boat ourselves to Sri Lanka. We’d manage, it’d be a piece of cake from here!”
He scratches between his dreads.
“Or we’ll throw him to the sharks, there are plenty round here! Go to bed now.”
I try to coax a laugh for my joke but feel uncomfortable about not knowing if Bo is joking or if he has started losing his mind.
He slowly gets up and tells me to not wake him for breakfast.
I stagger forwards to my place in the bow and try to find some sort of space within.
But right now my insides feel as compact as the thick, impenetrable fog surrounding us.
A wave douses me. I don’t bother wiping the saltwater from my already wet face.
Muffled music from an accordion can be heard in the fog somewhere. Voices in a foreign language. I also seem to be losing my mind.
I jump when the boat engine unexpectedly thunders into action and we begin moving speedily forwards through the fog.
“Valentina, go below immediately!” Janek shouts loudly from the cockpit.
I spy an old wooden boat in different colours before I get below.
I don’t have time to climb down before the boat veers violently.
I fall. My body which was trying to heal breaks once again.
I cannot induce myself to get up. The roaring engine smells of gasoline and the floorboards have a faint scent of tar about them.
Someone outside screams in poor English for us to stop. That they will not hurt us.
Nora jumps below and bumps into me where I lie.
“Get up, Val, what’re you doing?”
She helps me up.
“I fell down the steps. What’s happening? Is it another boat? Who are they?”
I keep hold of her though she wants to pass.
“It’s probably pirates, in other words modern pirates, thieves at sea. Or crazy fishermen from Sri Lanka. We do NOT want any of them on board!”
She opens the hatch where the engine is and adjusts something that makes the boat move faster ahead.
“Stay here! Do not go up on deck and do not wake Bo!” She stares at me and for the first time I discern fear behind her eyes.
She climbs up again and closes the hatch after herself.
A shot is fired.
Energy bursts in every cell within. My heart beats too fast, out of rhythm with life.
I sit on the floor and bury my face in my hands.
Saltwater runs from my nose.
I close my eyes and pray once again that all this is merely a macabre nightmare.
Another shot is fired and the voices seem upset and are heard more clearly.
Fear ought to be my friend by this time but this feels very unfamiliar.
A fear that seems much more unpleasant and frightening than all the storms we thus far have taken ourselves through. All the dark clouds that had swept in over us feel so innocent compared with the human minds’ manipulations and fake manoeuvres.
Fear of man’s crazed and chaotic mind.
Fear of what we are capable of doing to each other once we’ve lost contact with our hearts, with ourselves.