The Whispering Muse Part 3

The purser's lady friend, who seemed to have an absolute monopoly over the serving of alcoholic beverages, was now in the best of spirits and I could see no sign that she harboured a grudge against me. She served us liberally, filling her neighbours' gla.s.ses and asking the diners please not to be shy about helping each other to wine. In fact, as it turned out, everyone had rather more than they wished for. What reason she had to play both host and hostess that evening and offer the drink so freely I cannot say, though I have a hunch that as ever the couple's addiction to profit was to the fore, since I had gathered from Captain Alfredson that my hospitality bill, like those of the officers, would be paid by the shipping company, however high. So the couple would profit from any refreshments we consumed over and above what was considered a normal part of the meals, and alcohol weighed heavily in the balance. I tried to raise the matter with Alfredson but the woman saw and forestalled me by rising from her seat and inviting the guests to drink a toast to the captain, which we did with a good will.

Pleased as punch, Alfredson hurried to his quarters and returned with a stack of records and a gramophone. Seeing this, the first mate grabbed the corners of the tablecloth, one after another, and whipped it off the table complete with all the dishes and the remains of the rum trifle. He swung it over his shoulder like a sailor's kitbag, swept into the galley and flung it in the corner with a resounding crash and clatter of breaking crockery. I saw the purser's lady friend laugh out loud at this, for the purser could also charge the shipping line for loss of tableware. The captain slammed the gramophone down on the table and the second engineer was set to winding it up and choosing the music; drinking songs, as it turned out tales of womanising and debauchery in thirteen languages.

The instant the needle touched the groove in the record the purser's lady friend became the focus of the party. Everyone had to dance with her in turn: the captain, the first engineer, first mate, cook, steward and the three deckhands who were off duty it was Caeneus's watch while I myself filled in for the second engineer and twirled the gramophone crank while he twirled the woman.

From where I sat, squeezed up against the phonograph, I couldn't block my ears to song after song describing the sailor's life. The most memorable for me was a comic number listing all the sc.r.a.pes that drinkers can get into: I went to Australia and there I was happy: I bought dozens of girls for a month at a time.

I went down to Italy and there I was happy: I poleaxed the barmen who didn't serve me on time.

I went to Rhodesia and there I was happy: I knocked down wry-faced old blackamores with my fists of steel.

I went to Colombia and there I was happy: I took married women to my bed and enjoyed them for a while.

(Retold in my own words, V. H.) The chorus went as follows: I ended up in h.e.l.l and here I am happy.

And I have this to say to anyone who's curious about my lot: I feel no compunction for what I have done.

I have no interest in the dishonoured No interest in the dead.

(Retold in my own words, V. H.) Why should this particular song have been etched in my memory so that I can record its contents here? Well, because during the last verse the purser's lady friend came dancing up to me with one of the Kronos line's fine linen napkins in her hand. She had folded the napkin into a Napoleon hat. As the woman bent forward to place the hat on my head, my senses were filled with a powerful odour of mingled gin, cigarettes, eau de cologne, hair lacquer and sweat before she straightened up and screeched: 'Du bist doch mein suer Papageientaucher ...'

I laughed at this along with the rest while thinking to myself that Dr Pazmany would have been able to read a thing or two from the woman's behaviour, especially when she called me 'her puffin'.

Be that as it may, when the carousing was at its height and the music had begun to pierce one's ears like the song of the sirens, I heard someone shouting above the din of the gramophone: 'Hey, hey there! I ... you! Listen, hey, listen! Hey, you!'

The purser was standing apart from the milling throng, s.n.a.t.c.hing at his shipmates, one after the other, in an attempt to b.u.t.tonhole them. He was one of those whom Bacchus renders eloquent, and had imbibed just the right dose of spirits to fine-tune his speech organ to the point where his inability to p.r.o.nounce his 'r's had largely disappeared. This emboldened him to make p.r.o.nouncements, and he began imparting loudly into my right ear everything that he had on his chest I was his sole audience and confidant once his shipmates on the dance floor had shaken him off and unfortunately it has to be said that it was pretty poor, thin stuff, though it contained the odd interesting t.i.tbit.

Including the news that he had purchased his lady friend for the price of a leg of pork: THE PURSER'S TALE There is a type of venomous snake known as Vipera ursini. It is about a foot and a half long, ash-grey with brown spots and prominent black markings that zigzag the length of its spine. This snake lives in the undergrowth on the forest floor, devouring small animals, both hot- and cold-blooded, though it will sometimes undertake long forays into areas inhabited by man. Here it suddenly appears, having slithered under tree roots, down streams, along tracks and across the borders of the wood, all the way to the dark green thicket of willow that stands on the eastern edge of the old garden on the Polish estate of TZ-, posing as a compromise between cultivated land and untouched nature.

In late summer these willow shrubs provide the shadiest place in the garden and the gouvernante was in the habit of taking her little charges there to amuse themselves; the gouvernante being the governess who looked after the grandchildren of the elderly aristocrat and former magistrate, TZ-. He was a widower and usually lived alone apart from his servants, but because of the war, his daughter-in-law and her three children had come to stay with him while their father was away directing the defence of the homeland. One day, following afternoon tea, the gouvernante appeared in the shade of the shrubbery with the baby Opheltes, the long-awaited son, in her arms. She led the younger girl by the hand while the elder ran off at a tangent with her b.u.t.terfly net aloft, trying to capture the mayflies that glowed bewildered in the sunshine.

The gouvernante had no sooner reached the thicket of rough willow shrub than out of it stepped seven heavily armed men. They were equipped for a secret mission, in black overalls and lace-up leather boots, with provisions in knapsacks and their faces painted camouflage green. The woman didn't spot them until they parted the leafy branches and materialised before her. Upon which she gave a scream of terror and was about to flee with the children when the leader of the gang spoke: 'You see before you friends of the fatherland; we mean you no harm.'

He raised his hands and showed her that they were empty. And the woman thought to herself, those are the hands of an artisan they offer me no threat. The others also raised their hands. And their leader continued: 'All we want is something to drink, then we'll be on our way: our business is with the Germans at the fortress of Thebes.'

She answered: 'I can give you water. Come with me to the house where you'll be given both food and drink ...'

'Thank you, good woman, but our mission is secret and we cannot afford to lose any time. So we'll continue on our way.'

He signalled to his men to turn back into the forest and they began to part the branches of the willow, preparing to vanish into the thicket again, but the woman said: 'Wait! There's a well nearby that's used to water the horses when they're grazing here in the old garden. The water's fresh and full of invigorating minerals, since Mr TZ- loves his riding horses as if they were his own children.'

The man answered: 'The Polish steed is a divine creature. What is good enough for him is good enough for us.'

'Then I'll show you the way.'

But because the well could not be seen from where they stood and the gouvernante wanted Opheltes to enjoy the sunshine in the lee of the willows, she laid him on the gra.s.s and told his sisters to keep an eye on their little brother for the brief time it would take her to escort the men to within sight of the well. The boy had just learnt to crawl and the moment his nurse turned her back on him he rolled over on his stomach and crawled laughing under a bush where Vipera ursini was waiting.

Although the venom of this European species of viper is not powerful enough to kill an adult, it brings certain death to any toddler it bites and when the gouvernante returned to the sheltered spot, only a minute later, the little child Opheltes TZ- lay dead in a tangle of willow roots, and the snake had vanished.

When the thirsty friends of the fatherland saw the tragedy that had taken place, their leader said: 'This is an ill omen for our expedition, and the boy's true name should be Arkemoros: "Harbinger of Ruin".'

Sure enough, all seven of them lost their lives in the attack on the fortress at Thebes.

The TZ- family nursed their vengeance until the end of the war, though they compelled the guilt-stricken gouvernante to serve them in every conceivable manner in the meantime. Afterwards they handed her over to a Soviet tank platoon that came raping and pillaging through the region.

Four years later the purser found the woman in a wh.o.r.ehouse in Konigsberg. The day before he had acquired a leg of dried ham, and in exchange for this he was allowed to take the woman away with him.

IX.

I SHOULD THINK TODAY, Sat.u.r.day 16 April, has been the most remarkable of the voyage so far. From early this morning till late this evening we have experienced one novelty after another. On the dot of six the rumbling and clanking began as every machine and winch on deck, fore and aft, ground into action as the loading was resumed with urgent haste. There was little chance of sleeping while this was going on so I got out of bed.

I put on my dressing gown and went out into the saloon, where I found the crew who had been turfed out of bed so that the loading of the ship could progress with all speed. Although the industriousness of the Norwegian dockers should have been cause for optimism, there was a subdued atmosphere among the deckhands at the breakfast table. Not that this was surprising. Many of them had caroused until nearly two in the morning and inevitably some had continued in their cabins, a few pa.s.sing out in their bunks with a bottle tucked under their cheek not that it bothered me.

What did come as a surprise was that the purser's lady friend should say good morning to me. She seemed to do so on impulse, quite cheerfully. I returned the greeting dryly, though with perfect civility, and waited all through breakfast for the sting in the tail. But no, she merely finished her breakfast, took her leave of me in the same amiable manner and went off to start her ch.o.r.es; she had to work for two that day for, as she put it wittily, the purser was working in bed.

I was still scratching my head over the woman's change of heart when the first engineer accosted me and invited me to go skiing with him. He had borrowed a car and planned to drive an hour or so up a fairly long valley to a place with ski slopes and a winter hotel for wealthy guests. There I would have a chance to try out something new, especially with regard to ski runs, with which he a.s.sumed I was little acquainted. He was sure we would be given a royal welcome at the hotel and had booked a table so we could lunch with the thirty other guests who were staying there. We could expect to sit down to eat with stockbrokers and politicians from Sweden and Norway, not to mention industrialists, ski-jumpers, actresses and shipping tyc.o.o.ns.

I patted the engineer on the shoulder, saying it was a kind invitation and a kind thought on the part of a fit young man to an old-timer, but unfortunately I didn't feel I could accept. I was here as a guest of my benefactor Magnus Jung-Olsen and did not wish to abuse his hospitality by preferring a Norwegian ski hut to the fine amenities offered by the flagship of the Kronos line.

The engineer said he perfectly understood; he himself had never before sailed on such a well appointed ship as the MS Elizabet Jung-Olsen, although he couldn't boast such princely quarters as I who lodged in two s.p.a.cious cabins with an en-suite bathroom. And with that we parted company.

All afternoon I watched the loading of the ship. It was an impressive sight as the white blocks of raw paper came swooping over the ship like banks of cloud before descending with a loud whine into the hold. A young person would no doubt find this pastime a touch monotonous but I managed to see something new in every block. I watched the loading from various angles thanks to the solicitude of the deckhands who shifted me hither and thither around the deck so I wouldn't be in any danger. There I stayed until the first mate came over and asked whether I would like to be his guest on the bridge, which afforded a good view of the operations, saying he would also like to take this chance to introduce me to the innovations in navigation equipment that were to be seen there, for at this point wartime inventions had begun to flood on to the general market to the benefit of us all.

Yes, the ship was certainly well equipped and there had been many innovations since I rowed out to the fishing grounds with my father seventy years ago. The mate's seat, for example, was a leather upholstered armchair, which could be tilted back and forth, spun in a circle or raised and lowered at will. Then there was the gallon-capacity coffee machine, divided into two compartments, which could also hold hot water for tea. It was bolted on to a waist-high hardwood cupboard in one corner of the wheelhouse, and let into the worktop beside it was a pewter tin full of English shortbread. The first engineer invited me to sit in the armchair, then brought me coffee and shortbread on a tray that he clipped to the right arm of the chair. And before leaving to attend to his duties he handed me a pair of binoculars and turned on the wireless: Turalleri, Pumpa lens and Hut la ti tei Norwegian sailors' ditties performed in poignant and heart-felt style by the much-loved Magnus Samuelsen.

However, the greatest pleasure for me was to see the blocks of raw paper gliding past the wheelhouse windows. Now that I was on a level with them I could see how far the raw product fell short of the quality book paper that was shortly destined to preserve the words of the Prophet or the speeches of Ataturk. With the help of the binoculars I could distinguish the discolouration of the half-worked pulp, for although the blocks had appeared snow-white from a distance, I now saw that they were shot through with bark-coloured fibres that sometimes had a greenish tinge. The best opportunity to examine this came when the workmen in the hold failed to keep up with their counterparts on sh.o.r.e, for then the block would stop swaying and hang still for a decent interval before my eyes.

On one such occasion I spotted something unexpected: one of the deceased workman's hands was trapped in the outer layer of the paper pulp. The little finger and half the ring finger were missing but a wedding band still encircled the stub, and the bones were visible through a gaping wound in the palm.

Before I could alert the workers, the block was lowered into the hold and I thought to myself that it would be a hopeless task to find the hand in the gloom below. So I decided to keep the knowledge to myself; the crew were superst.i.tious enough as it was. And even I had my doubts that fortune would favour any ship that carried a dead man's hand.

Indeed, I had grave doubts on this score.

Mate Caeneus listened for an unusually long time to his woodchip that Sat.u.r.day evening in Mold Bay. For, as it transpired, it had some peculiar things to impart. Certainly Caeneus was frowning when he lowered the chip from his ear and replaced it in the inside pocket of his officer's jacket. He drained his coffee cup in one go, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said in a low voice: 'When I began my account of the Argonauts' sojourn in the realm of doe-eyed Hypsipyle, I told you that we sailors got into some tight spots at times, and once I only narrowly avoided killing myself through sheer recklessness during our sh.o.r.e leave on Lemnos, as it happens.

'After more than three months on the island a few of us younger deckhands had the bright idea of organising a race in the chariots left behind by our mistresses' former husbands. These were solidly built, showy vehicles, inlaid with gold leaf and engraved with images of the swiftest-flying G.o.ds and fabulous creatures of antiquity: wing-footed Hermes, rosy-fingered Eos, Pegasus of the shining mane and shimmering Iris all sprinting h.e.l.l-for-leather across the wide fields of heaven.

'My mistress at the time was called Iphenoa. She was in her thirties and had been married to a lieutenant, for by this point in time the crew of the Argo had finished with the smartest district of the town and we were now servicing the needs of the women in the soldiers' and artists' quarter. Iphenoa had two nubile daughters. On the day of the race she accompanied me to the starting line and knotted a blue brocade scarf around my neck for luck. Her daughters harnessed the racehorses to the chariot, referring to one as Cat and the other as Death. These were giant beasts that the poets would have described as snorting fireworks, for Cat was of the same stock as Bucephalos, Alexander the Great's steed, with toes instead of hooves, while Death was grey, with eyes of blue.

'During the weeks I had spent in the women's home, both sisters had tried in turn to entice me into bed, but unlike many of my shipmates I refused to serve more than one woman from each family, and never young girls. The maid servants were another matter and here the daughters felt I was rubbing salt in the wound for I was quite willing to roger the servants when the mistress was away from home. So I should have been on my guard. When Iphenoa had kissed me on the mouth and was leading the lieutenant's daughters to the stands, the girls glanced back over their shoulders, smiling at me most oddly.

'We raced five at a time, and in the second heat my fellow charioteers consisted of: Peleus, father of Achilles; Acastus, son of Pelias; Staphylus "bunch of grapes", son of Dionysus; and the huntress Atalanta.

'The latter competed on behalf of those celibates who took no part in the womanising but remained on board the Argo and guarded the ship under the command of Heracles.

'The judge raised his arm. He let it fall.

'The horses leapt into action. The charioteers yelled.

'Then the sky was blue over Lemnos. Then the waves lapped the sh.o.r.e, then the limestone threw back the sunlight and the men's skin shone until they seemed as insubstantial as immortals. Everything sang to the same tune; no ear could distinguish between the hoof-beats, the creaking of the wheels and the shouts of the charioteers.

'Half an eternity pa.s.sed in this manner.

'I had driven no more than ninety feet when the spokes in the left wheel of my chariot gave way. As if by a miracle, Cat and Death broke free from the yoke and suffered no harm, but the chariot and ground collided with such colossal force that all I can remember is being hurled into the air in a forward trajectory and landing on the undercarriage, where I danced a brief tarantella before everything went black.

'When I came to my senses Jason was standing over me, looking very grave. He said I had broken both my legs. I'm told that I smiled back at him as if it was nothing to make a fuss about. Then I swooned again and had no idea that my life was hanging by a thread. Next I woke to discover that my clothes were being cut off, and I was vaguely aware of a girl drawing splinters of wood from my chest, for which I was grateful. But when the wounds were st.i.tched up without an anaesthetic, the pain was so great that I blacked out. I must have surfaced from my deathly coma like this several times during the first days after I was brought to the hospital.

'I was in such a bad way that it's a wonder Captain Jason bothered to have me patched up at all. For broken legs were not all that ailed me after the accident: on closer examination it turned out that I had been grazed on the hands and across the breast, a great wound gaped from my right eyelid to the nape of my neck. My diaphragm had burst when my lower intestines were thrust upwards, putting so much pressure on my lungs that I had difficulty breathing, on top of which I had bruised five of my ribs. My right ankle had shattered, my foot was twisted back and my thighbone had snapped at the ball joint on the left-hand side. This in turn had been stirred together in such a tangle that broken shards of bone had sliced through the muscle. The bones of my left hand had snapped, as had the fingers of my right. Both calves were also broken and split up to the knee joints; altogether, eleven bones were broken in twenty places. My left wrist and shoulder joints were sprained, and so were several other joints. And a large patch of my scalp had been flayed from my skull.

'Now I owed my life to the fact that Jason son of Aeson had been fostered and tutored by the centaur Cheiron, the greatest physician of his age. As there was a risk of my healing in a deformed posture, being so soft and mangled, he resorted to "crucifying"me: nails were driven through both my legs and straps were tied to them, then belayed around two blocks on a pole at the end of the bed, and Jason tied a heavy sandbag to the end of each strap. Next, slings were placed under my knees which were then hoisted up, each weighed down by a sandbag. It took me two weeks to get used to the "cross" from which I was to hang for four months altogether. All that time I suffered from a nagging ache in the nail holes, though this was alleviated when I drank the wine that Iphenoa brought me every morning.

'Before Jason could crucify me he had to bore holes through my legs below the knees, using a fairly hefty drill for the job. Apparently I told Jason that it would prove hard to drill through the bones of a man who had been granted the gift by blue-haired Poseidon of being impervious to sharp weapons. This proved correct, for the drill got stuck for an age in the bone, and one handle after another snapped off, but Jason broke through in the end and immediately started on the other leg.

'But it was not only the toughness of my legs that betrayed my past. During the struggle to heal myself my body reverted to the shape it used to have before my metamorphosis sixteen years earlier. I myself wasn't aware of this until one of the girls who helped me to breathe held up a mirror below my belly. I saw that my p.e.n.i.s had shrunk until it exactly resembled the p.e.n.i.s of a five-year-old boy, both in size and behaviour, and its proportion to a man's body was like what you would see on a Renaissance sculpture (at last I understood why the nurses had been giggling at me). Moreover I had moulted like a wolf in spring. My chest was white and soft again with the swell of maidenly b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

'Yes, once I was a girl. My name was Caenis and I did as I pleased. We lived in Thessaly. My father, Elatus, was king of the Lapiths. He was a conventional man and the day I reached marriageable age he began to pester me to wed. It would certainly have been an easy task for the king to find me an eligible bridegroom such as a hero who was both heir to a kingdom and a monster-slayer to boot for I was famed throughout the lands for my intellect and radiant beauty. Indeed, I was so intelligent and fair that my half-brother Polyphemus used to call me Thena or Dite in an attempt to get a rise out of me. But as is often the case with independent girls, I paid little heed to my father's talk of marriage: like the gra.s.s that bears hermaphroditic flowers and fertilises itself, I bloomed for myself alone.

'King Elatus found the situation most unfortunate, and the same could be said of the suitors who had waited full of antic.i.p.ation for the day when the princess would be offered up for grabs. The greatest champions on earth had gathered there, bold men and true; I would get to know many of them in my new life as a man since several were destined to be my shipmates on the Argo.

'I was allowed to have my own way. The host of heroes moved on to the next country and commenced wooing the king's daughter there. My father turned to more agreeable tasks than bickering with his daughter. And who knows, my existence might have continued in this satisfactory state had news of the obdurate girl in Thessaly not carried beyond our mortal world.

'Not far from the city I had a secret refuge, a small cove that I liked to visit at the kindling of the morning star. At that hour there was nothing more translucent under heaven than the shallow sea between the rocks. The seabed was everywhere visible and the water, blue as an eye, grew lighter the closer you got to the surface, until it turned green, then vanished and I breathed it in.

'It was there that the G.o.d found me.

'The cove emptied of seawater. It was as if a wet quilt had been stripped from the ocean floor. There's a pretty sh.e.l.l, I thought to myself and walked over to a sugar-pink snail's house that lay on the sand. I bent down, picked up the conch and weighed it in my hand: well, I never, here's a gift for Eurydice.

'Then the heavy wave broke over me.

'The surf raged in Poseidon's deep, cold eyes as he flung me flat on my back and crushed me beneath his weight. I tried to scream for help but he forced my teeth apart with his blue fingers and spat a mouthful of raw wet seaweed inside. I tried to wriggle out from beneath him but at the slightest movement my flesh and skin were lacerated by the coral that covered his thighs, the barnacles that grew on his palms; it was better to lie still while the G.o.d laboured away on top of me, the shark oil oozing from his hair into my eyes. He did not cease until all the air had been knocked from my maidenly lungs and my veins were emptied of blood: then with a spasm of his hips he filled my body with seawater his climactic groan echoed with the despairing cries of a thousand drowning men.

'The briny sea flooded every inch of my body: my belly and heart, my joints and limbs, every sinew, every muscle, every lymph node and nerve and wherever it went it felt like molten iron poured into the out-stretched hand of a child.

'Poseidon was well satisfied with his rut, and in return for my maidenhead he offered me one wish. I curled up where I lay on the sh.o.r.e and whimpered: '"I wish I were a man so I need never again endure such an ordeal."

'These last words emerged in a deep masculine timbre, for the G.o.d had been as good as his word. And now that I was a man, Poseidon was generous to me, saying that from this time forth my nature would be such that no metal could harm me. He must have fore-seen that I would have to take part in many a duel to defend my honour against men and giants who doubted my prowess because I had once been a maid.

'In my male shape I was given the name of Caeneus, and I remained in that form until the day war broke out between the Lapiths and the Centaurs, which was when the latter drank themselves into a frenzy at the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodamia. A great battle was fought that you can read about in many books for it was considered one of the mightiest clashes of antiquity. When the centaurs had given up trying to shoot me with javelins and arrows or run me through with swords and knives and I had managed to kill their leader Latreus they resorted to bombarding me with rocks and huge tree trunks. I don't know whether tales of how badly I had been injured on Lemnos gave them this idea, but they piled so much of the forest on top of me that I was forced to change shape or perish.

'Long afterwards the poet Naso quoted my brother-in-arms and former shipmate on the Argo, the seer Mopsus, as saying that a dun-coloured bird had flown up from the pile and soared high into the sky in a wide circle above the battlefield. There it mewed sorrowfully before flying away.

'It was a young herring gull that had not yet acquired its adult plumage.

'It was I, Caeneus.'

X.

It was nearly one in the morning on Easter Day when Caeneus broke off his story so that someone could comfort the purser's lady friend who had burst into tears when he described the rape of Caenis. At first she had borne up bravely, clamping her hand hard over her mouth and gesturing to the mate not to worry about her but to carry on, she would get over it. But when he said, 'It was I, Caeneus', a paroxysm of sobbing escaped from behind her hand and she wailed: 'Oh, I can't bear it!'

The purser clasped an arm tightly around his lady friend's shoulders. She buried her face in his chest and wept there a while. He stroked her hair gently, crooning something consoling, humming so deep in his chest that the melody vibrated low against her ear. The ensuing quiet gave me a chance to observe my dining companions' reactions to this heart-warming spectacle: One word was written on all their faces: 'DEFEAT!'

Indeed, though the tune was meant for the purser's lady friend alone, the song and the weeping were for all of us. Four years had pa.s.sed since the end of the great conflict but we still couldn't believe that humanity had won.

The woman straightened up in her chair. She dried her eyes with her napkin, blew her nose, took a large gulp of water and said: 'Right, I've had my cry.'

The atmosphere relaxed a little and I got the impression that it was not the first time this had happened. The captain refilled our gla.s.ses. I drew attention to the lateness of the hour, which gave rise to a murmur of comment, but in spite of this Caeneus carried on from where he had left off: 'As the first child's cry sounded over Lemnos, I recovered my former physical strength and virility. But the Argonauts' conditions had deteriorated so greatly during their stay in the realm of doe-eyed Hypsipyle that it didn't seem wise to set me to work straight away. Instead I was quartered with Heracles aboard the Argo for our last three weeks on Lemnos. Nevertheless, I had achieved more than might be expected of a badly injured man: Iphenoa was more than five months pregnant and nine of the girls who had nursed me were with child by the time I was discharged from hospital.

'Meanwhile, my crewmates' lot during those spring days was such that even as the babies began to be born in the palace, they were finishing their duties towards the women in the paupers' district and all that remained was to bed those who lived in the Street of the She-wolf; mostly prost.i.tutes whom the queen had ordered to give up their trade though the men did not find them particularly compliant. This combination of births and diminished living standards now finally had a dampening effect on the men's ardour, and many became frequent visitors to Heracles and his lads, who had by now been guarding the ship for nearly ten weary months.

'The visitors complained of their lot, moaning that they were kept constantly dashing from one end of town to the other, either flattening the straw with their verminous mistresses or lulling their infants to sleep in the palace apartments. And to crown it all, the mothers of their children were eager to start all over again.

'A lesser man than Heracles might have made use of this discontent to foment a mutiny against Jason son of Aeson. He would have summoned the men to him by night, hoisted the canvas and sailed away, leaving the captain behind in the clutches of this strange nation of women. Instead he summoned Jason and they met by the side of the ship, at the crack of dawn, while I lay in my berth inside and overheard the whole thing.

'It was the spring equinox.

'I heard Heracles say: '"Tell me one thing, brother: who are the Argonauts? Are we hunted killers? Were we exiled from our lands for sacrilege or incest forced to roam the seas like pirates? Why have we sat here so long, blockaded by women, going nowhere? Was it not our mission to achieve an impossible task? To triumph over monsters and witchcraft? To sail to the ends of the earth and return with a priceless treasure?

'"Or do you intend your men to die of old age in the laundries of Lemnos, kneading the s.h.i.t from the nappies of their base-born offspring?"

'In that instant the spell seemed to lift from Captain Jason son of Aeson. He embraced Heracles, declaring that he had spoken well and justly, then ordered the crew to bid farewell to their mistresses and prepare the Argo for departure. He himself lay with Hypsipyle for the very last time, having by then begotten one son, Thoas, with her, and their lovemaking proved so potent that it resulted in another son, Euneus, who later became famous for providing the drink at the siege of Troy.

'The Argo weighed anchor.

'The wind was in our favour.'

In the momentary silence that followed Caeneus's last words, I seized the chance, before people started clapping, to strike my winegla.s.s with a teaspoon, then rising to my feet I announced: 'My dear shipmates! I must be permitted to say a few words. I wish to express my grat.i.tude.

'We have been on this voyage now for seven days and nights, soon to be eight, and it must be said that I have looked forward to every day. Throughout the voyage you have gone to great lengths to make my stay as agreeable as possible; Captain Alfredson has allotted me a regular seat at his table, the radiator in my cabin breaks down and before I can say 'Jack Robinson' someone has repaired it; I am invited on one motor excursion after another; there is always hot coffee in the pot when I come in from my turns about the deck; the steward has ironed my shirts. And although at times discord has raised its head between us "supernumeraries", it has always been resolved in the end. We are adults and know that it takes two to make a quarrel.

'Here in the saloon the atmosphere has invariably been homely; we have had music and dancing, and Mate Caeneus has entertained us with his life story fascinating stuff for the most part, if a little on the racy side. But you are young; after the war we awoke to a new world and the words of Dr Pazmany, who predicted in 1927 that in the future s.e.xual matters would be openly discussed at the dinner table, have been proved correct. Yes, high or low, young or old, you have shown me perfect amiability and respect.

'And this evening you have humoured me yet again by having seafood for dinner; prawns and ocean clams with a creamy dill sauce on toast for starters, and poached salmon with potato gratin and melted b.u.t.ter for the main course. And although it was tinned, not fresh, I have no complaints. I feel as if my Nordic temperament has been revitalised by this excellent and intelligently concocted repast. Little did I suspect that the seeds of the ideas I sowed in your minds with my points about "fish and culture" would find here such fertile soil, would so soon bear such excellent fruit.

'I thank you for that!'

Raising my gla.s.s I looked over the brim at each of my table companions in turn. I took a sip. I raised my gla.s.s anew. Lowering it, I did not replace it on the table but allowed it to remain in my hand. And for the rest of the speech I brandished the gla.s.s to emphasise my words: 'As I have lain in my cabin reflecting on your kindness to me, I have indulged myself in the belief that it has not been from obedience to your master alone but that perhaps you have derived some small pleasure from this old man's company on the voyage, just as he has unquestionably enjoyed yours.

'But now the adventure is over, tomorrow our ways must part. For, you see, I have decided to abandon ship and head for home ...'

I paused to let the news sink in. They looked at one another in surprise, shaking their heads and exchanging comments in low voices. I raised my hand for silence, then carried on in the same friendly tone: 'One moment, please, one moment! In my letter of thanks to Mr Magnus Jung-Olsen I will give you all the highest recommendation. It is n.o.body's "fault", merely that I feel I have already seen so many things, experienced so much, that I doubt the journey to Poti in Georgia could add anything new. But if anything interesting should happen on the voyage I do hope that when we meet again you will tell me the story I will give Captain Alfredson my address and telephone number before I go.

'Finally, I would ask you all to be upstanding and drink a toast to the Jung-Olsen family and the Kronos shipping line.'

Everyone rose to their feet and I led the toast: 'Long live the Jung-Olsen family and the Kronos line. Hip, hip, hurrah!'

When I returned to my quarters the fore cabin had been converted into a larder. From the way everything was arranged you would have thought it had been like that for the duration. It was a mystery to me how the purser and his lady friend had achieved this transformation without my being aware: the walls were lined with shelves and through the wire netting designed to keep everything in its place in heavy seas I saw piles of tins, jars of pickled vegetables and packets of flour, sugar and spice. There were sacks of potatoes in one corner and a stack of boxes of wine and fruit juice by the door, all lashed down with leather straps. In the middle of the cabin stood a huge refrigerator.

My luggage, however, was nowhere to be seen.