We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [318]
His mother had no objection to the name and said so once she'd re-covered, which she did very quickly. New mothers are hardy creatures. She turned out to be Danish as well, though she didn't look it. Her grandmother and her mother were from Greenland, and even the Eskimos there are a kind of Dane. Her grandmother had been a k'ivitok, an oddball who ran around the icecap on her own and refused to mix with other people. However, she'd done so eventually—and rather thoroughly too. The man she chose was a middle-aged Danish artist who never even saw the daughter he fathered. The daughter had married a Canadian called Smith.
They were sitting in a semicircle around her as she told her story. She was lying in the berth in the captain's cabin—nothing less would do. But it was Bluetooth who was the guest of honor. He was snuggled at his mother's breast, sound asleep, as if nothing more astounding had happened to him recently than a perfectly ordinary birth.
It was when she mentioned her Canadian father that Knud Erik leaned forward and studied Bluetooth's mother.
"Miss Sophie," he said, hesitantly.
"No one's called me that for a long time. Neither Missus nor Miss, though I happen to be unmarried. Not that it's relevant. I still go by my maiden name, Sophie Smith. Yes, that's me."
"Little Bay?" Knud Erik said. He wasn't checking that he was right. He just didn't know what else to say.
"Yes, Knud Erik, I recognize you. You don't need to introduce yourself. You called me a bitch when we said goodbye. You're still the same handsome boy. You've grown taller. But then you hadn't quite grown up then. And your eyes—they're not quite the same."
"When you disappeared, I thought you'd died."
"Yes, I guess I owe you an explanation. I was wild in those days. I wanted to see the world, so I ran off with a sailor. He soon got tired of me and I got tired of him. So I became a sailor myself. I was the steward on board the Hopemount." She looked around at them. "Where are the others?"
"You're the only survivor."
She looked down at Bluetooth and caressed his face with a finger. A tear rolled down her cheek.
"It was Knud Erik who...," Anton said.
She looked at Knud Erik. "I once said that you'd drown. But I was just trying to make myself interesting. Instead, you saved me from the water."
"I still have time," he said. "To drown, I mean."
Sophie didn't say who Bluetooth's father was, nor did she seem to attach much importance to it. He hadn't been one of the lost men of the Hopemount, as they'd originally believed, and they got the impression that Bluetooth was the fruit of one of the many casual encounters that wartime so lavishly offers. She assured them that she hadn't planned to give birth on the open sea in the middle of a convoy on the most dangerous route the war could offer. She'd intended to be back in England before her due date, but the Hopemount had been stuck in Murmansk for five months, and given the choice between a Russian hospital and the sea, she'd definitely preferred the latter.
She helped out in the mess with Duncan and Helge. A stoker cobbled together a cradle for Bluetooth. Herman sat in the mess, as usual, except when he was sent to the bow to keep a lookout, and when he wasn't washing down his vodka according to his scientific method, he used his jerking-off hand to gently rock the baby. Together, Old Funny and Bluetooth, the ugly idol of war and the small growing seed of defiant, promising life, formed the core of the ship.
The Nimbus sailed to Iceland and from there to Halifax, Nova Scotia. From Halifax they returned to Liverpool. They celebrated Christmas on the Atlantic.
Old Funny told his stories. For the time being, all the crew demanded of Bluetooth was his existence. And exist he did. He wet and soiled his diapers, which were improvised from dishtowels and dishcloths; he burped and gurgled, sucked and cried; he got diaper rash and then colic. But most significant were the happy times when his eyes, like telescopes, would examine the mess