The Passenger (30 page)

‘Calm down, Wessel,' Lorenz barked.

The young man stopped waving his arms around but he was breathing heavily, and each forceful exhalation clouded the space between them. ‘There! Kaleun! Surely you can see it.'

‘There's nothing there, Wessel!'

The young man stepped past the flak cannon and leaned over the rear railings, his head craning forward. Tense cords of muscle had raised the taut skin of his neck. Lorenz looked through his binoculars again but all he could see was surging fog. When he turned to challenge Wessel, the boy looked desperate and bewildered. ‘There's a man out there.'

‘Don't be ridiculous, Wessel.'

‘I saw him, Kaleun!'

‘You couldn't have.'

‘He was wearing a long coat and striding toward us.'

Lorenz experienced a chill that superseded the polar cold and penetrated his very essence. He addressed Wessel sternly: ‘Pull yourself together, Wessel.'

The young man, chastened, stood at attention, pushing out his chest. ‘I'm sorry, sir.'

‘I think you should get back inside the boat, Wessel.'

‘But Kaleun . . .'

‘It's all right, Wessel.' The tone of Lorenz's voice was conciliatory. He reached out and gripped the boy's arm. ‘It's all right, Wessel, really. You've been up here for too long. The cold—the dark—this . . . landscape. Sometimes it all proves too much for the brain.'

‘I could have sworn . . .'

Lorenz pulled the hatch open. ‘Yes, of course. Get some rest, eh? Ask Ziegler to give you a dose of something to help you sleep.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And ask Leutnant Juhl to come up.'

‘Yes, sir.' Wessel began his descent. Their eyes met for a moment, and Lorenz was perplexed by Wessel's expression. Did it show frustration or was it resentment? He couldn't tell.

While Lorenz waited for Juhl he noticed that his heart was beating faster. The fog bank had become fully opaque again.

Juhl appeared: ‘What happened? What's wrong with Wessel? He looks terrible.'

‘I don't know, he had some sort of . . . panic. He started seeing things.'

‘Do you want me to come up again?'

‘No, send Voigt. I want you to organize a two-man rotation. Let's not have anybody exposed to this cold for more than an hour.'

‘The cold doesn't make you see things, sir.'

‘Where did you study medicine, Juhl?'

‘I haven't studied medicine.'

‘That's what I thought. We can go back to a four-man rota when the fog lifts.'

W
ERNER HAD MANAGED TO PREPARE
a surprisingly tasty stew from tinned meat and the last bag of potatoes. Condensation trickled down the wooden panels and the spicy fragrance that filled every compartment briefly masked the underlying stench of body odor and mold. Everyone in the officers' mess agreed that a good cook was a godsend, and Pullman, visualizing a heart-warming magazine feature on the unsung heroes of the navy, hurried off to the galley in order to memorialize Werner on film.

‘What are we going to do?' asked Graf.

Lorenz glanced at Falk. ‘Are you still praying?'

‘Yes,' Falk replied.

‘Keep it up. And while you're at it, ask God to make the North-Atlantic Drift a little warmer. A degree or two should suffice.'

‘I don't think God responds to specific requests, Herr Kaleun,' said Falk.

‘Is that your plan?' asked Graf, looking over at Lorenz.

‘We're stuck in pack ice,' Lorenz replied. ‘That's all. If the North-Atlantic Drift brings us a little more heat then there will be a thaw and we'll be free.'

‘And if the sea doesn't get any warmer?' Graf licked a cold dribble of stew from his spoon.

‘The fireworks can't go on forever. When the radio starts working we can ask headquarters to send a boat to cut us out.'

‘A rescue mission may take a long time to get here,' said Graf. ‘We've been lucky so far. But . . .' He passed his hand over his plate like a low-flying aircraft.

‘Falk's prayers have been exceptionally effective,' Lorenz responded. ‘I have every confidence in him.'

Graf put his spoon down and said, ‘That's all right then.'

No one smiled.

‘The flak-cannon teams are working well,' said Falk, ignoring the irony of his superiors. ‘We're ready to respond to an attack at any time—at least, theoretically.'

‘Excellent,' said Graf. ‘It's always reassuring to know that—at least
theoretically
—there's nothing to worry about.'

Falk would not be baited. He turned away and stared into the eyes of the portrait of Vice Admiral Dönitz.

Later, the majority of the crew, made lethargic by Werner's generous portions of stew, loosened their belts and retired to their bunks. The red dark-adaption lights were switched on and the boat became hushed and womblike. Conversation was unusually restrained. Quiet speech was succeeded by intermittent whisperings which were finally lost in the slow buildup of huffs and wheezes preceding sleep. Soon the air was resonating with snores and mumbles.

Lorenz was recumbent in his nook, passively observing a mental slideshow of Faustine: her feral eyes, her seductive smile, her slim wrist circled by a simple silver chain, the classical proportions of her nose, the vertical seams of her stockings that divided her calves and connected the hem of her skirt with the heel of her shoes. He remembered the mellow, lilting musicality of her voice, her books and her perfume, the scarlet impression of her lips on cigarette paper, and the paradox of their ecstatic union which always contained elements of anguish and despair.

Sleep washed over him in immense slow waves and he was carried onto the deck of U-330 and into a dream that replicated reality. The boat was trapped in a frozen sea and the sky was rippling with green light. He looked in wonder at the 8.8 cm deck gun, which appeared to be buried in a large viridescent gemstone. Among the ice floes in the middle distance he saw the raft approaching through black channels. He saw Sutherland and Grimstad in their customary positions—one standing, the other
seated—and a third figure, a woman, pressing her body against the British commander. When Lorenz raised his binoculars he recognized Faustine. Her right arm was extended across Sutherland's chest and her fingers were splayed over his heart. One of her legs was raised and the angle of her knee had made her skirt ride up to reveal her garters. She rested her head on Sutherland's shoulder and gazed at Lorenz. The coruscations in the sky found chromatic resonances in the beryl of her eyes and she looked demonic. Attached to her back were two black wings that arced so high they almost met above her head. She opened her mouth and a scorpion crawled out.

Lorenz awoke. He pulled the curtain aside and looked across at Ziegler. The radio operator was sitting forward, elbows on the table, his chin supported by his interlocked fingers. Lorenz let go of the curtain and his privacy was restored. The boat was not entirely silent. There were men talking in the control room, and he could hear drops of water falling into the bilges—a constant, regular beat. The hull was creaking like a sagging floorboard. He recollected standing outside his sister's house, smoking a cigar and talking to Hebbel. What had the doctor said? Something about dreams meriting interpretation . . . Lorenz couldn't remember precisely. What did this dream mean? Why had his brain cast Faustine as the Angel of Death and delivered her into the arms of Lawrence Sutherland?

Suddenly there was a loud bang—a sharp detonation. Lorenz sat up, and his first thought was that they had finally been discovered by the British or Americans. He quickly changed his mind. There was no strafing or gunfire, the lookouts were silent, and more important, there were no further ‘explosions.' He got up and stepped into the gangway.

Ziegler looked startled. ‘Sir? What was that?'

Lorenz ignored the radio operator's question and entered the control room, where he found Schulze and Krausse standing by the periscope, looking like stuffed shop mannequins. They had
been conducting some routine maintenance work, and Schulze was clutching a large wrench.

‘You heard it?' Lorenz asked.

‘Yes,' said Schulze.

Lorenz climbed to the top of the ladder and opened the hatch. The cold flayed his face. ‘Is everything all right?'

Müller peered down, his sou'wester silhouetted against a luminous mist. ‘Yes.'

‘Did you hear anything?'

‘Only the fireworks. Why?'

Lorenz shook his head—
it doesn't matter
—and closed the hatch again.

As soon as Lorenz was back in the control room there was another loud bang. The sound seemed to have come from the forward end of the boat. Lorenz exchanged puzzled glances with Schulze and Krausse before he swung through the bulkhead and marched past the hydrophone and radio cabins. He ducked under a hammock, stepped over a pile of discarded clothes, and when he straightened up a slimy side of ham slapped against his cheek. Men were stirring in their bunks. He arrived in the torpedo room and noticed that the chains of the lifting gear were swinging slightly. A torpedo had been pulled out for servicing. Lorenz sniffed the air. He couldn't smell burning, only a foul combination of body odor and grease. He studied the swaying chains. There was no draft, the boat hadn't rocked, and no one could have tampered with them before his arrival. He reached out, grabbed the links and released them when they had stopped moving. Once again, there was another bang. It was close enough and loud enough to make his ears ring.

Falk, Juhl, and Graf appeared.

‘What's going on?' asked the chief engineer.

Lorenz paused before answering. ‘Perhaps the ice is fracturing.'

He made his way back to his nook, donned his cap and leather jacket, and ascended to the bridge. Looking over the bulwark
he saw that some of the ice around the bow was uneven. Jagged pavements had risen out of the water at an angle. He addressed Müller. ‘Are you sure you didn't hear anything?'

‘The fireworks,' Müller replied. ‘Only the fireworks.'

‘How about you Arnold?'

‘I didn't hear anything . . . unusual, Kaleun,' Arnold responded.

‘The ice . . .' said Lorenz, pointing beyond the cable cutter. ‘It seems to have moved. You haven't seen it moving, have you?'

‘No.' Müller's expression was perplexed.

‘Nor me,' said Arnold.

‘What did you hear, Herr Kaleun?' asked Müller.

‘Three loud bangs,' Lorenz replied. ‘I suspect the sound was transmitted through the hull. Odd though: odd that you didn't hear anything.'

When he dropped back into the control room a small crowd had gathered. In addition to Falk, Juhl, Graf, Schulz, and Krausse, he also saw Schmidt, Sauer, Pullman, Voigt, Fischer, and Danzer. They were looking at him expectantly.

‘There has been some displacement,' Lorenz informed them. ‘Some cracking and lifting, but none of it conspicuous enough to attract Müller and Arnold's attention.'

‘Well,' said Graf. ‘There's nothing wrong with the boat. Everything seems to be in order.'

‘In which case,' said Lorenz. ‘You might as well go back to sleep.' His gaze traveled around the ring of faces. ‘All of you.' The ‘all' was emphatic.

Back in his nook, Lorenz could hear the men quietly conferring. It took them a long time to settle, and the boat was not returned to its former, satisfied, tranquil silence. The new silence was brittle and uneasy. Tensed beneath their fetid blankets, the men were not sleeping but thinking, and Lorenz suspected that most of them were thinking much the same thing. The noises that they had heard did not sound like breaking ice. They sounded much more like gunshots.

T
HE TEMPORARY TWILIGHT AT MIDDAY
was accompanied by a rise in temperature, and fissures began to infiltrate the ice field surrounding the boat. It became easier to scrape the rime off the flak cannon, and curling strips fell away from the barrel like decorative paper. Darkness returned but the fog continued to reflect and refract the flamboyant sky.