Afterlands (17 page)

Don’t nod toward him that way, she says, he may be watching.

He can’t understand a word.

If we’re speaking of what’s on his mind, he might understand. The men all talked of it, after Hans lent out Merkut on the ship.

You say it with disgust. It’s a custom—a kindness. He clamps her buttocks with both hands. There. Hold still.

It’s not my custom. We are married, church married.

You always take what suits you of their ways and ours!

(This stings, especially now.) She says, Well, I won’t do this thing.

And he’s a good man, in his way. What use is a God that makes you so stingy?

But I
have
a husband, she says, reaching back to clasp his testicles. This stops his words, though not his sounds, his rocking. It’s good to be fed in this one way, at least. Somehow she is certain the lieutenant is watching, has even caught the import of their words. At her furtive, worried glance he turns away, onto his side, still breathing too evenly, she thinks, to be asleep.

Later, Ebierbing snoring and Tukulito’s mind at last starting to settle, Punnie whimpers, moans, clutching her stomach again.
Anaana!
Without a word Tukulito sits up and takes the child’s hand and gets her upright. She wraps a foxskin over the bony, bare little shoulders and leads her to the pemmican-tin chamber pot by the tunnel. Punnie looks up quizzically, her brow furrowed, unbraided hair wildly mussed.

Go ahead, little love, just here. It’s night-time.

While Punnie squats and strains, Tukulito listens: the voices louder now, the men outside their iglu. Punnie groans, then says how much it hurts, how she just can’t. Then: Oh … I hear Mr Kruger’s voice! I’m afraid they’re going to hurt him.

Stay here, my love. Tukulito crawls up the entryway and looks out. The side of her face is slapped numb by the wind cutting out of the west. By the light of a waxing half moon among floe-like, driven clouds, armed crewmen are milling outside their iglu, the eagle flag above it flapping and cracking like a horsewhip. Meyer’s voice calls out an order. The sound is faint, either because the wind carries off the words or because he is trying to be quiet. Anthing, rifle slung over his back, his mitten gripping Kruger’s nape, leads him away from the group. At a short distance he stops and spins Kruger back toward the men, four of them, who have made a line with Meyer behind them, their fur-clad backs solidified into a single creature. Four—so Herron and Jackson must be inside. Anthing swaggers back to join the crewmen, briskly unslinging his rifle as he comes. Kruger has on his head only a white blindfold and on his torso his high-necked grey sweater. The moonlight shows him trembling, all of him. Tukulito backs quickly up the tunnel, just into the iglu. Ebierbing now keeps his rifle here, with reluctance. Punnie stares at her, still haunched over the pemmican-tin: Anaana, I’m afraid they will hurt Mr Kruger! Tukulito takes the rifle and says calmly, Wake Ataata and the lieutenant. From outside, the sound of Meyer’s next order. A thin clatter as the men load.
Meyer
, she thinks—perhaps one shot will be enough—will be best.

Don’t wake them, she says. Bring a bullet from the loonskin pouch.

Ataata says I must never—

Now—two bullets! She crawls up the tunnel with the rifle. Another order, this time totally inaudible, and the men level their weapons. They seem to be aiming high, as if at Mr Kruger’s face. How would she have felt, the question skims through her mind, had Ebierbing asked her to comfort
him
instead? Hurry. Punnie is scrabbling up the tunnel, she hears the child’s clogged breathing—but it’s too late. Meyer yells a word like
fire
. Already Tukulito is backing down the tunnel, to block Punnie’s view and to protect her, from any number of things. Through the iglu’s walls a flash like lightning, a wind-muted crunch of gunfire followed instantly by the wind’s full return, like something arrived to cleanse things away.

Ebierbing and the lieutenant make no sound.

That is best now.

Anaana … will they hurt Mr Kruger?

Stay there. For a third time Tukulito edges toward the tunnel mouth and peers out. Anthing and Madsen are helping Kruger to his feet, Anthing brusquely, Madsen with a certain delicacy. On Kruger’s white-masked face there seems to be no blood, and none on his sweater. His legs, though apparently unshot, will not function just now. At Meyer’s hushed command the men turn and march in file back to their iglu and then, one by one, they kneel and crawl inside. Madsen leads Kruger in, half pulling him, while Anthing shoves from the rear; the way they brought in the stolen seal. Anthing glances over, straight at Tukulito, but apparently sees nothing in the dark tunnel mouth. She is about to go inside to tell Punnie that Kruger is all right when she feels the child at her shoulder. With what tiny voice she has left Tukulito says, There, little love, you see? He’s all right. It was all just a little game.

Jan. 20. 1
P.M
.
Blowing a fresh gale today, which may open up the ice for the natives; and has also apparently delayed the plans of the Count.

I am now compelled to record an event that occurred this morning, after Joe had gone hunting, and Hannah and Punnie had gone to Hans’s hut, to help care for Tobias; so that I was mercifully alone for a short time. Disgraceful though it be, it is part of this story, and must go in. It will also show the animus of some of the men, and is a specimen of what I have had to endure from them. Kruger, entirely unprovoked, entered my hut, and commenced to abuse me in the most disgusting language, even threatening personal violence; but perceiving, though I said but a few words, that I was entirely willing to afford him every facility for trying his skill in that line of business, he did not attempt to put his threat into execution; and finding he could not provoke me to assault or shoot him, he shortly subsided and left. I suppose the foolish fellow had been boasting of what he could do (aside from involving himself in public misdeeds, I mean, as well as covert ones, for here if ever is the proof)—and the others had set him on by “daring him” to do it. It is evident enough that he had his backers. However, he walked off feeling a good deal smaller, I think, than when he came in.

4
P.M
.
The Esquimaux have returned from their day’s hunt, bringing a fine seal, one considerably larger than last time; he will furnish us all a fine meal; and, with full stomachs, I hope the men will find themselves in a better frame of mind. At the moment they are complaining harshly, and issuing threats once again, for the natives brought the seal in with some stealth, so that this time the men should not seize it; and we have made a fair division of the meat. They are more wary in their threats now, for with several of their number unwell, and Herron no doubt tepid in their cause—as his glances my way often suggest—they know they have not the numbers to bully us with their old ease.

The filth in this hut is truly incredible; I cannot allow myself to dwell on it for long. Hannah appears sadly to lack the inclination, or perhaps simply the strength, to keep it as she once did. It is difficult to believe that she has ever lived among civilized folk. But then, these days, I feel little more than the rawest of savages myself.

Kruger finally encounters her outside the latrine. She is leading the peaked, sallow child back to their snowhut. He almost collides with them. Reaching down he steadies Tukulito’s small shoulder with his hand. She shrinks back at his touch.

Go now, love, she tells Punnie. The child peers up at Kruger, then scuttles off.

Sir, she says firmly, you must be more careful.

Yes, in this darkness I’m always—

No—I mean with the other crewmen. I know what happened the other night, sir. And the next morning, with the lieutenant.

One does get weary of being almost shot.

She blinks, impatient, or uncertain of his tone, then says, I tried, sir, but I could not help you. Forgive me.

He is moved to the core by these words, by their animating thought, but can find no way to respond, verbally. He swallows and says thickly, But does
Tyson
know what happened? He claimed to know nothing when I confronted him! (The man drawing his pistol at Kruger’s advance, eyes orbed with fury, or fear, then seeming to squeeze the trigger—but either the proofcatch is on or the gun is jammed, rusted. Still, this second mock execution is enough to liquefy Kruger’s limbs, force him to retreat. He tells her nothing of this.)

He was asleep, sir. I had not time to wake him.

Through that volley? I never heard a thing louder in my life!

Nor I, sir, I assure you.

If he means to command on this ice, he can’t allow “his” men to be shot, whatever the …

She is edging back from him, his abrupt vehemence. He has been inching toward her without realizing.

Now you will have to forgive me, Hannah. I seem …

Not at all, sir.

He must think I’m being used to draw him into a fight.

So I believe, sir, though he no longer confides in us. You are trembling, sir.

Please, not “sir.”

I was afraid to tell him what happened. As they did not shoot you really—I thought he would consider it a further ruse.

Do
you
at least trust me? He looks back over his shoulder.

I hardly know whether to trust myself any more, Mr Kruger.

Her eyes are elusive, blending into the dark.

But yes, she says, I do.

He finds himself extending his arms, trying to embrace her. Please, they both say, in unison. She retreats, raising a mittened hand to stop him. The open hand is trembling.

Forgive me, sir. I must return to my daughter. And do be careful, sir.

Jan. 24
. To-day is our one hundred and second day on the ice—one of the most wretched I have ever known. The monotony is fearfully wearisome; if I could get out and exercise, or hunt, it would help to relieve the tedium; but while this wind and severe cold lasts, it is not to be thought of. Fortunately it is also confining the men to
their
hut. I hope they have given up their plans to try and reach Disko. The glass tells 45° below zero. Both yesterday and today, the natives report, large pieces have broken off the sides of our floe; soon we may have to rebuild all the snowhuts further “inland”—and, if this shrinking should continue, build them closer together, whether we want it or not.

3
P.M
.
Joe has returned, in the same stealthy way as before, bringing a fine large seal. We already have our pemmican tea, made over the lamp; so we thankfully divide and distribute the animal, which is such a welcome addition to our meal, and eat a little raw meat, and a few mouthfuls of blubber, and then have a smoke. But that luxury will not last long; I am on my last plug of tobacco to-day.
The mercury is now frozen
, so we know not how cold it is. But the Count informs me, through his “over-lieutenant” Mr Anthing—for it seems that they have given up sending Kruger to me—that he and the other men will be setting out as soon as this cold spell passes.

Jan. 28
. The moon changes to-day, or did last night, and there are now full tides; this may expedite the damage to the raft, but also opens up the ice for seals. The Esquimaux are off, as usual, on the hunt. We are all well but one, Tobias. I can doctor a sailor, but I don’t understand what is the matter with this poor little fellow. His stomach is disordered and very much swollen. He can not eat the pemmican at all; so he has to live on dry biscuit, and we have nothing else to give him. At night we can hear him cry, and hear his mother singing to console him.

The wonder is not that one is sick, but that any are well.

The mercury is still frozen. The men are seldom seen out of their hut. From the nature of the food we live on, and the small quantities, there is seldom any imperative necessity which calls them outside—perhaps not more than once in fourteen days. Oh, it is depressing in the extreme to sit crouched up all day, with nothing to do but try and keep from freezing! For those accustomed to action and averse to sloth, I think Hell will be a place not of everlasting toil but of eternal inactivity. Sitting long in a chair is irksome enough, but it is far more wearisome when there is no proper place to sit. No books either, no Bible, no Prayer-book, no magazines or newspapers—not even a
Harper’s Weekly
—though there are always more or less of these to be found in a ship’s company where there are any reading men. Newspapers I have learned to do without, having been at sea so much of my life, where it is impossible to get them; but some sort of reading I always had before. I believe Kruger had a book here, but that he lost it somehow; more likely he and the men have “cannibalized” it for the paper, or burned it for the heat.
It is now one hundred and six days since I have seen printed words!
This engenders a kind of hunger, too, and one which the reader of these lines will be sore pressed to imagine.

As it is, the thought of something good to eat is apt to occupy the mind to an extent one would be ashamed of on shipboard or ashore. If this life should last much longer, we shall forget that we have brains and souls, and remember only that we have stomachs! Some of the ancients, I believe, located the soul in the stomach; I think they must have had some such experience as ours to give them the idea. We even dream of food in our sleep; and no matter what I begin to think about, before long I find, quite involuntarily, my mind has reverted to the old subject.

I miss my coffee and soft bread-and-butter most.

Still, I believe God is watching over us, unworthy though we be, and that He will guide us into safety. For although I am overcome sometimes with certain thoughts, as I think of loved ones at home, I am not without hope. God, in creating man, gave him hope. What a blessing! Without that we should long since have ceased to make any effort to sustain life.