Veracity (23 page)

Of course, this wasn't the most reassuring message I could have received, but I'm happy to have had some forewarning. Because, as a matter of fact, he was right, I
had
always intended on lumping a few thorny situations onto his shoulders, or at least the ones that had to do with people. And knowing that that wasn't an option anymore meant that I was going to have to become incredibly attentive to the petty one-ups and defeats that were taking place between the crew; though, more specifically, I would have to watch over Knut's little antics as vigilantly as I could, because if there were going to be any problems, they would almost certainly begin with him.

To my credit, I was against Knut's coming on the expedition from the very beginning. It was Chalmon, who had taught all of us advanced navigation, and whose star pupil was Knut, that had adamantly insisted on the fact that '
every
ocean vessel should have the most skilled navigator it could possibly get its hands on,' which was a rationale that sounded so valid everyone backed the suggestion within seconds. But what the Elders
didn't
know was that we'd all learned a few things about this 'expert navigator' of ours while growing up. Things we weren't so quick to forget.

It wasn't only the fact that Knut could be a bit of a bully - as
every
child can be vicious in his or her own way - it was the disturbing event that happened
after
someone showed up at the scene in response to the crying that they'd heard. What made Knut unique was that, though he could turn a person into a snivelling heap of flesh just as efficiently as anyone else, he could somehow manage to look convincingly guiltless about it afterwards. He would stay quiet, standing casually, never overacting, never over
re
acting. If the Elder who'd come to investigate asked him a question, he would always have a persuasive answer ready, as if he'd been calmly thinking it through the entire time he was standing there in the spotlight. And even if they doubted he was telling the truth, even if all of the facts and the fingers in the group were pointing at Knut, they would still choose to be lenient when reprimanding him, just in the case that he really was as innocent as he seemed. And this phenomena never ceased to amaze me, because the act of manipulating and misleading is something that we all do to some fumbling degree, but to actually be able to consistently pull it off, to so naturally succeed in deceiving the majority of the people around you into believing that you hadn't deceived them in the first place, was just plain creepy. I knew that in order for a person to do that, they had to have an intimidating level of detachedness to them. And once I realized this, I made a specific point to keep myself at a guarded distance from Knut, which meant that the idea of being shoulder to shoulder with him for the rest of my life wasn't exactly the most enticing of options.

It was Dana who finally persuaded me to listen to the rest of the Elders, pointing out that we were simply 'not going to be in a situation where we could
afford
to make navigational errors.' And he was right of course, but I was still reluctant; and I'm sure that my reluctance - after everyone turned to look Knut over, his blonde, boyish hair neatly drawn to the side, a gentle, reassuring grin on his face - seemed completely unfounded. What was more, I didn't have a shred of evidence to back up my argument that he
shouldn't
come; it had been years since he'd made anyone cry with his opportunistic jabs, but this was probably only because he knew what he could and couldn't get away with on the island, and I had an unsettling feeling that things were going to change once we were in a setting that was removed from it. Yet how was I supposed to explain to a group of learned old men that I had a 'bad feeling' about him? I could already see the flaring white of the bottom of their eyes as the entire room rolled them at me. 'A feeling', they would grumble, shaking their heads and picking some lint from their pants, extending their arms out to the sides and dropping the feathery debris on the floor.

True, I don't know what intuition is or where it comes from, but I do know that the more mystical and otherworldly we make it, the easier we allow our logic to rule it out, which, I've come to the conclusion, is dumb. Because there are times that I wonder if intuition might just be the sum of all those subtle and subconscious facts that we receive about things beforehand, a tallied list of significant information that we've derived from details that
seemed
insignificant at the time we took them in. The fluttering of an eye at a certain question, the miniscule pause at a moment when there shouldn't have been one, the flicker of an expression on a person's face before they have time to model something more appropriate, or the odd trailing off of a phrase, a word, or even the intonation of a letter. Maybe, in the end, there is no such thing as intuition. Maybe that 'feeling' that we get is really only cumulative fact that has been collected from sources that are just too obscure to reference. And if that were the case, it would make ignoring those 'feelings' quite stupid, wouldn't it?

But ignore them I did. Finally, albeit half-heartedly, I accepted that Knut would join the expedition as another one of our 'valuable' members. We were away from the island for all of two days before the bullying of Solmund began, and I've silently cursed that I ever let the Elders persuade me since.

Of course, he hadn't been a problem for me directly for a long while - years actually. I had established myself as a confident individual at the beginning of our adolescence, which seemed to be enough to keep him at bay. But in the back of my mind I knew that, if he ever actually wanted to, he had it in him to be a stubborn obstacle for anyone. And after he started bullying Solmund, and I started reproaching him for it, there had been some tense moments between us, usually while he lingered around Solmund for a few worrying seconds before backing down, a knowing little smirk on his face, eyeing me with very carefully weighed hostility. I wasn't sure what was going through his mind, but I certainly was hoping to myself that he wasn't preparing to challenge me in some way, that he wasn't weighing me out, meticulously watching my hesitations, listening for signs that would suggest just how much Mikkel was prepared to back me - or not. Though, now I know that that's exactly what he was doing, but for the time being, it would remain an unfounded concern, a paranoid suspicion; or it would until the incident with the knives at least.

18

The same perfect weather that we were lucky enough to have the day we embarked stayed with us for quite a few days afterwards, the skies always clear, a light wind at our backs, and the sailcloth taut and bulging, pulling us forward with effortless speed. In fact, our lives were made so easy that I couldn't help but become somewhat lax about how many people we kept on deck, as the vast majority of time the crew just sat around in the sun becoming dehydrated and nitpicking at one another (which was proving a little annoying to listen to, no matter how much I knew I should). So, considering the fact that two, or even one person alone was enough to operate the ship under such conditions, it made sense to send people away when they came up for their shift. But at first, instead of giving them free time, I thought it best to assign them some kind of cleaning job, or the tedious work of maintaining and repairing sections of rope (neither of which was really necessary yet), which, not surprisingly, wasn't met with the greatest of enthusiasm. And when I eventually admitted to myself that there was good reason for their reluctance, that I was forcing people to do things that we all knew were pointless, I decided that maybe I should just leave them alone and let them enjoy the easy seas in whatever way they wanted to; and this usually meant disappearing below deck where they would become surprisingly quiet. Of course, I understood that giving them time to be idle wasn't the greatest idea either, but some amount of boredom was unavoidable, and if I set a precedent of keeping them entertained every waking moment, I would only regret it later on. So, when the skies began to sheet over with high clouds late one afternoon, and it looked as if our bout of good weather was going to be slowly winding down, I found myself nodding at the stratum, welcoming whatever system was moving in, relieved that people would finally be busy again. Unfortunately, the potential damage that might have stemmed from their idleness had already been done - and I would find out all about it that same afternoon.

Mikkel and I were talking near the helm when it happened - or at least I was talking to Mikkel; he seemed a little more absorbed in the wood flute that was being played nearby than in our conversation. "So - yeah, I would definitely take a detour to see them," I was saying, continuing my rambling speech about mountains, "I mean - they're the most striking thing on the maps, and even more impressive in the pictures. (Personally, they've always looked like giant, pointed clouds to me - don't you think they look a bit like clouds?)"

"Uh... yeah, I guess," he said. He looked over at Onni who was sitting near the rail, and had just finished playing one of his melancholic tunes on the flute he brought along. He put the instrument in his lap and turned away from us to look out at the ocean. "Nice," Mikkel praised, speaking to the back of Onni's head.

"Thanks," he replied, without turning around, his voice muffled, "it's new." What he meant by this was that he had just composed the song on the spot, without ever having practiced it before, which was a feat that never ceased to amaze me.

Onni was my idea. He was the last of our crew to be picked, and I remember that when I brought up his name to the Elders, they were a bit puzzled. He certainly wasn't a hard worker, nor was he a great sailor, and as we rotated the chore of cooking, we soon found out that he wasn't exactly gifted in the culinary arts, either. In fact, there wasn't much at all that Onni could contribute, except his music and who he was, which, as far as I was concerned, was already a lot more than others had to offer. He had always been the most musical person on the island, and throughout the span of our lives, was constantly there in the background, tapping at his legs, humming, pattering his fingernails on a shell he'd picked up, or plucking at a string that he was stepping on with a sandal and pulling tight with the other hand, his head cocked to the side to listen to the flexing twangs. Sometimes, on the ship, he would stand at the rail and drum at it in a way that would stop the entire crew, all of us, pausing to turn our heads and listen as if we were - to use Kara's words of how she'd once described the way people twisted around to hear him, forgetting what was in their hands, suddenly still and captive - 'like the faces of flowers to the sun'.

In order to get him on the crew, I made up stories about his sailing heroism that Mitra certainly couldn't back, but for some reason did; probably because she liked him as much as me. And though I'm sure the Elders saw through this little fabrication of ours, they let him come anyway - most likely for the same reason.

He was one of those people that everyone, no matter who they were, was drawn to. His hair was long, straight and black, his body delicate, his features sharp; but it was his mannerisms that set him apart. I would describe them as dreamy or distant, but that would insinuate a kind of absentmindedness, and this wasn't the case. He was definitely
there
- because when he spoke, which wasn't very often, he would say the most insightful things, muttering his take on the situation with a matter-of-factness that sometimes stunned, but never really injured. His world, I think, was an unvarnished one, and he seemed to look at people in that same light, eyeing you from the periphery, giving you the feeling that he was seeing you for exactly what you were - though not in a judgmental way - it was more with a kind of graceful forgiveness than anything else. Which, in the end, was probably exactly why people were drawn to him.

But getting back to the knives. That afternoon, while Onni paused between songs and was busy looking out at the sea, and Mikkel, sick of hearing about mountains, had walked over to lean on the rail beside him, there was a window of time when all three of us fell into silence. And it was in that pause that I started to become aware of a faint knocking sound, which was coming from the lower deck every half minute or so. The sound was just above the swish and clatter of the sailing, but the more I listened, the more it became apparent; until it dawned on me that it had been in the background for quite some time. What was more, I was pretty sure that I'd heard it other times I was standing at the helm as well, thudding just beneath the din of the ship. But what had probably brought it to my conscious attention for the first time was that the sounds were now accompanied by muted jeers and hollers. And the moment I recognized them for what they were, I straightened up to listen even more intently, memories of a not-too-distant mischief flooding my mind.

"Hey guys? What are they doing down there? I mean - that thumping sound - what is it?" I asked.

Onni turned around and wrapped both his hands over the flute on his lap, as if it were a bar that he would have to hold onto before he spoke. He waited until our eyes met, and even then, paused for a few seconds. "Knives," he finally said, deadpan.

I squinted at him, then at Mikkel, who'd also turned around, waiting for one of them to offer some kind of elaboration. They blinked. So I looked down at the deck, trying to work it out myself: There were two kinds of knives on the ship, the filleting knives in the kitchen, and the diving knives, which were intended to help us in scavenging for food along the coast once we'd arrived on land. The Elders had foreseen that it might take some time to either locate food, or cultivate it, so it seemed logical to have the tools to get them from the sea, where we already had plenty of experience providing for ourselves. But as far as I knew, the diving knives were still secured in one of the storage compartments, and I couldn't really think of any way that the delicate blade of a filleting knives could be responsible for making a sharp thudding sound followed by taunts and laughter, which, incidentally, seemed to be getting louder with every second. I looked up at Onni again, "Sorry - could you... could you expand a bit on what exactly you meant by 'knives'?"