The Passenger (28 page)

The temperature was dropping and his breath produced white clouds in the air. Something was about to happen. He could sense inevitability, identical to the foreshadowing that had preceded the strange occurrences in Brest, when U-330 had been undergoing repairs. Lorenz felt dissociated, as if he were sitting in a theatre, watching a play that he had already seen. The future was no longer free to deviate. A palpitation in his chest signaled danger. This impression of peril was incontestable, almost overwhelming, and he was certain that it did not represent a psychological threat—something fantastic that might untether the mind, but rather the drawing near of a real, existential threat. A simple phrase clarified his intuitions: death is coming.

An irregular rhythm captured his attention; stopping and starting again, a faint squealing like a rusty hinge. It was difficult to locate at first, but in due course Lorenz raised his eyes. Several seconds elapsed before his brain identified the source of the sound. His eyes focused on the phenomenon and the full horror of its significance delayed his reaction. He remained completely still, looking upward, in a state of frozen disbelief. Above Lorenz's head, the wheel that locked the bridge hatch was slowly turning. The miniature U-330 came into his mind again. He did not consider its illuminated interior, but rather the surrounding darkness, the immense weight of water pressing down on the other side of the hatch. A glistening rivulet progressed around the seal and droplets began to fall on his face. Icy detonations made him spring
into action, and he raced up the ladder and grabbed the wheel. He tried to reverse its rotation. After the first failed attempt, a second followed, and when he tried a third time his muscles weakened, and the wheel slipped beneath his fingers. He tightened his grip and found some further reserve of power, but he could not sustain the effort. The nausea he had experienced earlier returned, and he began to feel dizzy. Suddenly the wheel was receding, and the conning tower went black.

When he opened his eyes he was in his nook and Ziegler and Graf were bending over him. His head was throbbing. He tried to prop himself up, but Ziegler said, ‘No, Kaleun—lie down. You fainted in the conning tower.'

‘Chief, go and check the bridge hatch.'

‘For what?'

‘It was making water.'

‘Kaleun?'

‘Just go, will you?'

‘Please . . .' Ziegler encouraged Lorenz to lie back again.

‘Very well,' said Graf. When the engineer returned he spoke with respectful neutrality. ‘A little condensation, but everything's in order.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes, Kaleun.'

Ziegler mopped Lorenz's brow with a damp cloth. ‘I think your temperature's running high, sir. You've probably got the stomach complaint.'

The radio operator was right. It took two days for Lorenz to recover.

L
EANING OUT OF THE RADIO
shack Brandt called, ‘Officer's signal.' Juhl excused himself from a card game and went to collect the decoding machine. He set it up in the officers'
mess and Lorenz handed him the code for that day. After adjusting the settings, Juhl exhibited his customary tendency to exploit the dramatic possibilities of his role by cracking his knuckles and wiggling his fingers over the keyboard. He started tapping the keys and each strike made a letter on the lamp board glow. Eventually, he laid his pencil aside and glanced back at Lorenz: ‘For the commander only.'

‘Ah.' Lorenz responded. ‘I see.' He went to his nook to collect his special instructions. On his return he made a brushing movement in the air indicating that Juhl should move aside, and after taking Juhl's place he reset the machine. The whispering that traveled through the compartments was like the soughing of the wind through branches, words carried on a breeze. Letters flashed, and when the decryption was complete he stared long and hard at what he had written. U-330 was to rendezvous with U-807 as a matter of utmost urgency. No explanation was given and the coordinates (which Lorenz double-checked) were for a location above the 70th parallel. U-807 was a Type IXB, a heavier, larger submarine armed with twenty-two torpedoes. He wondered why such a rendezvous was necessary. The collection and transfer of prisoners seemed unlikely. If U-807 was carrying prisoners then it should proceed directly to its destination. A transfer would only cause additional delay. But what else could it be? And why so far north? At the end of the message were the code names assigned to U-807 and U-330. They were typically bombastic—‘Verdandi' and ‘Skuld'—two of the three Personifications of fate from Nordic legend.

Lorenz stood and walked to the control room where the men seemed to withdraw, stepping away as he came through the hatchway as if he were surrounded by a repulsive energy. He stepped over to the chart table and, folding the piece of paper so that only the coordinates were visible, he showed them to Müller. The navigator's eyebrows drew closer together. ‘Can they be serious?' He pawed at his charts and when he had found the one he wanted he laid it out on the table. Dislodging some mold with
his fingernail, Müller fussed with a torn edge. Lorenz lowered the lamp and both men leaned into its beam. The crew was listening intently. Müller pointed at a spot on the chart roughly between the north coast of Iceland and the east coast of Greenland. ‘Why in God's name do they want us to go there?'

‘I'm sure you can make an educated guess.' Müller was shaking his head. ‘Cheer up,' Lorenz continued. ‘They could have sent us to the rose garden.' He tapped the chart between Iceland and the Faroe islands. It was where British aircraft were in the habit of jettisoning unwanted bomb-loads. ‘And you'll have no trouble seeing the stars. The nights are going to be very long where we're going.' Lorenz turned, ordered a change of course, and the boat veered north with diesel engines thumping at full speed.

S
TORMY WEATHER FORCED THEM TO
dive. It was late, the lights were low, and Lorenz was sitting in the officers' mess on his own. The door to the crew quarters was open and he could hear the men talking. As usual, they were discussing sex, and trying to outdo each other with outlandish stories. He had noticed that when the boat was submerged their conversation became more extreme, as if physical descent was correlated with moral descent. After a while, it didn't matter who was talking. The voices became interchangeable.

‘Have you ever fucked a dwarf?'

‘Yes, I've fucked a dwarf. We were in this shitty brothel in Lübeck and all the whores were busy. They had this little midget woman there whose job it was to serve drinks. I got tired of waiting and asked the madam if I could hump her instead. It'll cost you, she said, but I was beyond caring.'

‘Was she any good?'

‘Well, I wouldn't say she was good—but she was very enthusiastic. When she was on top it was bit like being part of a circus act.'

‘Do you know Golo Blau? He fucked Siamese twins once when he was out in India. They were joined at the head and the hips.'

‘Imagine it . . .'

‘What about Kruger, though?'

‘What about him?'

‘He's fucked a pig.'

‘Has he?'

‘Yes. Her name's Helga and she works in a bar in Wilhelmshaven. Isn't that so, Kruger?'

‘All right . . . she was a little overweight maybe.'

‘I'm surprised you could get anywhere near her.'

And so it went on, disembodied voices drifting through the open hatchway: a journey through the darkness of the ocean and the soul.

T
HE LIGHT CHANGED, THE TEMPERATURE
dropped to minus fifteen, and ice began to accumulate: on the bulwark, the rails enclosing the rear of the bridge, the 2 cm flak cannon, the periscope housing, and the aiming-device pedestal. Within minutes of climbing out on to the bridge the lookouts were soaked and freezing, their foul-weather gear became stiff, restricting movement, and icicles ornamented their sou'westers. When they reentered the boat the ordeal continued. Instinct compelled them to huddle around the electric heater but the return of sensation was excruciatingly painful, a horrible burning thaw that left them speechless and exhausted. Boots, filled with seawater, stuck to their feet. Nothing dried, and they resigned themselves to sleeping in wet clothes beneath damp blankets. It got colder, and to survive on the bridge it became necessary to wear knitted underwear and thick sheepskins, clothing so bulky and cumbersome it became difficult to squeeze through the hatch. Frequent dives were necessary to control the buildup of ice, but sometimes
the mantle thickened so quickly that teams had to be sent out to smash it with hammers. The deck was slippery, and the men had to be roped together like mountain climbers.

Lorenz stood firm, his face encrusted with rime, staring at the bow slicing through the floes. The noise it made was satisfying, a steady whoosh punctuated by thuds and crunches. He turned just in time to see Pullman struggling to remove a glove. ‘What do you think you're doing?'

‘I'm trying to get my glove off,' said Pullman. ‘I can't operate my camera.'

‘I'd advise you to keep it on. If you touch the bulwark with your bare hand the skin will stick to the steel. And if a plane appears we'll have to tear you off and I don't know how many fingers we'll leave behind.'

Pullman accepted the advice with a curt nod. ‘How often are you ordered this far north, Herr Kaleun?'

‘It's happened before—last time to provide a weather report.'

‘My teeth . . .' Pullman winced. The cold was spleenful and malicious, nipping and biting, perversely inventive, almost inspired when it came to discovering novel pathways for the transmission of pain.

‘They can crack in these temperatures. Perhaps you should get back inside.'

‘I've never seen weather conditions like this. The other patrol I was assigned to went out into the middle of the Atlantic. Are we in very much danger?'

Lorenz laughed. ‘If we need to execute a rapid dive we might discover that the ventilation tubes and the ballast tank purges are blocked—or the diving planes won't work. The ice makes us unstable. The cold can bend a propeller out of shape. Shall I go on? Yes, Pullman, we are in considerable danger and will continue to be for some time.'

When night came it delivered the spectacle of the Northern Lights. Luminous green veils traveled across the sky, folding and
unfolding, brightening and dimming. Scintillating emerald cliffs collapsed, and shimmering silver spires rose up from the horizon. The boat's foamy wake separated slabs of ice that appeared to be made from polished jade. Sparkling ribbons fluttered at the zenith, and the constellations shone with frigid brilliance through gauzy undulations.

Lorenz had observed the Northern Lights many times before, but he was still entranced by the profligate genius of the natural world, the casual and indifferent but perfect flourishes that caused his chest to tighten with a hopeless, generalized yearning. He was tantalized by the possibility of meaning, but meaning inconveniently located beyond the reach of human intellect. Such beauty was so fiery and vivid and pure that it cauterized thought. He was nothing, consciousness bathed in green-white brilliance, a pattern of sensations, humbled and cleansed by intensive exposure to the sublime. The cold was no longer hostile, but fresh, vital, and redemptive. He wanted to leave the earth and fly up into the sky, not to be commemorated like some ancient hero in a constellation, but to achieve the exact opposite, to be absorbed and dissipated by the dancing lights, to be strewn across the heavens until the distance between his thoughts made personal identity impossible. He dreamed of nullity, obliteration, escape. A sigh brought him back to earth. Müller was standing next to him. The navigator held his sextant against his chest and his face was tilted back. A tear beneath his right eye had collected enough light to shine like a jewel. Müller wiped it away and said, ‘Are you coming back down now, Kaleun?'