Authors: John Christopher
She had to shake him to wake him up.
‘Supper is ready,’ she said, ‘your Majesty. Stew. I do not know what the meat is.’
Mouritzen sat upright. ‘It does not matter what kind of meat it is,’ he said. ‘I can eat anything tonight.’
It was inclined to be tough, and had a distinctly fishy flavour: Mouritzen guessed it was seal meat. But it was rich and nourishing, and there was plenty of it. Afterwards Nadya produced a can of pineapple and Mouritzen laced the syrup with
akvavit
. The banquet closed with coffee and more drinks. They were both happy and replete, and a little bit drunk. The stove was beginning to glow a cherry red. Nadya had put the bath, still half full of water, back on top of it; steam was beginning to rise from it.
‘Help me to lift this off,’ Nadya said. ‘Be careful. The handles are very hot.’
‘Washing the dishes can wait till morning.’
‘This is a different washing. It is more than a week since my body was clean, and I found soap out there in the pantry.’ He helped her to put the bath down beside the stove. She looked at him. Her voice matter-of-fact, she said: ‘There is only one room and we have no screen. So while I wash myself you must lie down and look the other way. Is it agreed?’
Anticipation, excitement, stirred like a feather on his nerve-ends.
‘Agreed,’ he said.
He did not turn round until the splash and trickle of water told him that she was washing. He rolled over slowly, careful to make no noise. Nadya was kneeling in the bath, rubbing her wet limbs with a piece of yellow soap. The light from the paraffin lamp and the glow of the stove threw gleams of rose and gold on her glistening flesh. Her body, when she reached up to soap her back, was a splendid arc, bearing the lesser but equally magnificent arcs of her breasts.
He said: ‘You are lovelier than ever, Nadya.’
She turned to look at him, untroubled and unashamed.
‘It was agreed that you do not look.’
‘Did you think I would keep my word?’
She moved her head slowly. ‘No.’
Mouritzen got up and walked towards her. He put his hands on her neck, beneath her ears, and looked down at her.
‘In all the wide world,’ he said, ‘wherever a man looks at a woman, there is none who looks at one more beautiful than you.’
‘Only looks?’ she asked.
His hands reached farther down, clutched the wet, slippery skin. He knelt down beside the bath and kissed her.
‘You are washed,’ he said. ‘Come, I will dry you.’
Looking at him, she shook her head. ‘I have only started washing and I will not hurry it. And there is no towel: I must sit close by the stove and let the heat dry me.’
‘Then I will watch you, with what patience I can.’
‘No, you must not watch. I will tell you what you must do. You must drink some more Schnapps and go back to bed and rest quietly until I come – and this time you must not look round. Those are my conditions.’
‘And you will come to me then?’
She nodded. ‘I promise.’
Mouritzen drank the Schnapps and lay once more on the bed, his head looking away from the stove and the light. He pulled a couple of blankets roughly over him. The bed would not have seemed comfortable right after the
Kreya
but now it represented luxury and ease – there was a three-part biscuit mattress, and wire springs. He lay in a haze of fullness and intoxication, pleasantly, not urgently expectant.
He awoke to find Nadya pulling the blankets up over him. He tried to sit up and she pressed him down.
He said, with disappointment: ‘You have put all your clothes on.’
Nadya smiled. ‘I left my pyjamas on the
Kreya
. Lie still. I will tuck you in.’
‘I don’t want you to tuck me in.’
‘What you want we are both too tired to have.’
‘I’m not too tired.’
‘Then I am. Lie still. Go back to sleep.’
‘No.’
‘You will, because I say you will.’
She pulled another blanket over him and tucked it deftly underneath. Suddenly Mouritzen felt like a child being put to bed by his mother: a child who has been mildly naughty but knows he is forgiven. It would be futile to demand any more; better to resign himself to the simple warmth and comfort of the bed. And he was tired, so very tired.
Nadya stayed for a moment, looking at him. She smiled curiously.
‘You belong to Mary,’ she said. ‘I have given you back to her. But I do not think she will thank me.’
The rear party had no easy time of it. Although she made every effort to conceal it, Sheila was clearly in pain, and made worse by every jolt of the sledge. They camped for the night on the ice, about half-way across the fjord, and shared out the meagre rations. They had watched for the flare in the southern sky – the sign that the advance party had reached the hut – but it had not come. They had no assurance of reaching refuge even by the following evening, and by then there would not be as much as a biscuit left for them to eat. Perhaps, Olsen thought, they could go after the seals again; but there was no reason to expect better luck. None of them was skilled, either in hunting or the use of weapons, and none had much strength left. If they did not find the hut tomorrow, they were finished. He wondered what had happened to Mouritzen and the others – probably the same that must soon happen to them. He shrugged. If one died, one died, and there were worse places to die than in this cold, white, empty world.
But while an ember of hope remained, he would not resign himself to death. The next morning he had them up and breaking camp while the stars were still large in a near-black sky. They pushed on towards the darkness out of which, for a short time, the sun would rise. Slowly it lightened in front of them.
It was Mary who first glimpsed the figure approaching. She called out gladly:
‘Look! It must be them.’
‘Two,’ Olsen said, ‘not three. But I think you are right.’
One of the figures waved. The sun was half risen and the arm semaphored for an instant against its disc.
Mary said: ‘I know it’s Niels.’
Mama Simanyi said: ‘And that is Nadya – the red hood, see.’
As they approached, Mary ran forward. Mouritzen embraced her. They stood locked together; Nadya came forward to the sledge and threw down the sack she had carried over her shoulder.
‘We took turns to carry it,’ she said. ‘Biscuits, cans of meat, some chocolate. This is for a snack, unless you are not hungry?’
Olsen said: ‘We are not hungry, and it is not yet lunch time, but we accept because it would be impolite to say no. In fact, we will eat at once.’
When Mouritzen came back with Mary, Nadya and Mama Simanyi were already sharing out the food. Mouritzen took Annabel from Josef and tossed her up in the air.
‘Then you found the hut?’ Olsen said to him. ‘How far is it?’
‘Eight kilometres, I guess.’
‘We looked for the flares last night, but saw nothing.’
Mouritzen tossed him the empty pistol. ‘We used them in bear-fighting.’
‘Bear-fighting?’ Olsen looked round, conscious of an absence. ‘Katerina?’
‘And another.’
‘Is there wireless at the hut?’ Mouritzen made a gesture of negation. ‘And Jorgen? Did you leave him there?’
Mouritzen said slowly: ‘Jorgen is dead.’
‘How?’
Mouritzen told them the story. They ate the biscuits, covered with corned beef, while they listened. With the exception of a commentary of sighs and cluckings by Mama Simanyi, no one said anything.
‘So we stumbled on the hut,’ Mouritzen finished. ‘We were lucky there. And we found a stove ready to light, food, bed, blankets. And Schnapps! But I do not want to run things so close another time.’
Mary said: ‘In the hut – there were only the two of you then?’
There was reluctance in her voice, but also a deep-seated need. He looked at her. He tried to disguise his guilt and embarrassment; he knew he was not succeeding.
‘Yes. That was lucky also. There are two beds.’
‘Are there?’
‘You will see that.’
He had over-explained. Reading her face he saw that she thought him guilty; and guilty in act as well as intent. Her features had fallen too easily into lines of disappointment and mistrust: the lines were not new, and they made her ugly. He was glad that Annabel had wandered out of immediate earshot and was climbing an ice hillock.
Nadya spoke before Mouritzen could think of any protestation that would not protest too much. She said to her mother:
‘It was cosy in the hut, with the stove; so warm that I had a bath. There is only a small tin bath, but it was big enough to bath myself in. I found soap. Now I feel clean at last.’
‘Do you call it clean?’ Mary said. ‘And is it clean to do that sort of thing with a man you know is to be married to another woman? It would take a big bath to clean the like of you.’
Nadya moved forward until she was quite close to Mary. She was smiling slightly. She said softly:
‘Are you not grateful? I brought you food. And I brought you back your man.’
‘You can keep him. I don’t want him, soiled from you.’
‘You suspect too much,’ Nadya said, ‘too quickly. It will not be a good marriage if you think he is in bed with another woman each time you turn your back.’
‘Take him! Marry him yourself. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
Nadya was silent for a moment. She said:
‘He is a good man. He saved my life twice. He was in great danger. He deserves a woman who will be glad of him and who will still love him, even if he sleeps with me when he is tired and happy to be still alive, and a little drunk. But he did not sleep with me. We did not make love together. He is not soiled from me.’
‘You’re a good liar,’ Mary said bitterly, ‘but he’s not. He leaves you to answer, and there is guilt in his face. Take him. You are two of a kind.’
Nadya was preparing for a new rejoinder, but Olsen spoke first.
‘That’s enough,’ he said. His voice was not loud, but cold and decisive. He turned to Mary. ‘One half-hour ago I was thinking we will all die tonight – of cold, of hunger. Now death stands off a little. But a little only.’ His arm made a sweep across the frozen waste of ice. ‘There is no room here for jealousies, infidelities. Our purpose is to survive and to reach safety. When we are at Scoresby there is time for your quarrels and kisses. Not before. Understood?’
Mary said: ‘I’m sorry.’
Olsen continued to look at her for a moment.
‘So,’ he said. He turned to the others. ‘The meal is over. We march.’
They reached the hut soon after half past three, with the shadows thickening over the snow. Mouritzen and Nadya had left the fire burning in the stove; the atmosphere was warm and welcoming. After so long a time in which there had been no warmth in the world except the warmth of their bodies huddled together, they knelt around the glowing metal and stretched their hands forward to it like worshippers. Mama Simanyi bustled around, fixing the supper.
Sheila had been put on one of the beds. Jones sat beside her. He said:
‘Is that better?’
She nodded. ‘I’d forgotten there could be such comfort.’
‘Tonight you must eat something. It will be hot.’ He looked at her anxiously. ‘You will eat something, won’t you?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘More than try.’ He pressed her hand. ‘Everything’s going to be all right now.’ He leaned forward. ‘I’ll tell you something,’ he said softly. ‘Thorsen guessed about us – and he found the money.’
She looked at him. ‘I wondered.’
‘He was going to blackmail us. He talked of taking half, or more.’
She nodded, but only slightly, as though the movement taxed her strength. ‘I see.’
‘But he’s dead, and we’re safe. Now we’re going to be all right.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’re going to be all right.’ Her hand moved beneath his. ‘I do love you.’
‘Just eat your supper,’ he said, ‘and get well and strong.’
But when the food came, she only ate a couple of mouthfuls. Despite his coaxing, she could eat no more.
She said: ‘It’s rest I want most. I haven’t been able to rest properly before. Perhaps in the morning I’ll be hungry.’
The others finished their food, and the Schnapps bottle went round.
‘A toast,’ Josef said, ‘to Captain Olsen, who has led his crew across the frozen seas.’
Olsen shook his head. ‘Too early,’ he ‘said, ‘We are not yet in harbour. I give you a better toast: to the men who built this cabin here, and put in it food and refreshment for the traveller.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Josef said. He paused. ‘Who pays for this?’
Olsen shrugged. ‘The Government, the company – does it matter? Maybe they will send us a bill. And if they do, maybe we will pay it.’
Mama Simanyi said to Mary: ‘The little one is tired. A full belly after so long makes her sleepy. There is still a bed free. You and she must have it. If we push it against the wall, you can both sleep there.’
‘You have it,’ Mary said. ‘We’ll be all right on the floor.’
‘No, no, you must have the bed! We insist.’
Mary said: ‘But we don’t want it.’ Her voice had an edge and she looked at the bed with loathing. ‘I would rather sleep on the floor.’
Mama Simanyi read the look. ‘You do not speak just for yourself. There is Annabel.’
‘She will be better on the floor, too.’
Mama Simanyi came closer to Mary. She took her wrists in her hands, lifted them up and together, and shook her. The shaking was unobtrusive but thorough. She said:
‘Pride is good, but not too much. And a woman who deprives her children for the sake of her pride is – is wicked. The little Annabel has had ten nights sleeping out on ice. She needs comfort. If she is my child, I will put her to sleep on a whore’s bed if there is no other.’
Mary turned her face away. Mama Simanyi drew her closer, but gently this time. She said:
‘You love the child. I know you would not hurt her. Come, we put her to bed together. And if you like it better, you lie on the floor beside her.’
Mary drew a sobbing breath against her. She said:
‘I wish I could help it. I don’t want to … It’s just …’
‘I know,’ Mama Simanyi said. ‘Now let it rest. You will let me help you put Annabel to bed?’