We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [70]
One of the Kanaks hollered down the hole and a chorus of voices responded. One by one they emerged. I tried counting them, but it was hard in the dark. I don't know how many there were, but I think they were all male. Their skin was as dark as a moonless night, and their faces were hidden behind great clouds of woolly hair. In the moonlight they looked like Negroes from Africa, but I knew they had to be Melanesians from the eastern Pacific—the darkest of all the races spread across this vast sea, and notorious among white men for being not only the most bloodthirsty warriors but also the keenest of all headhunters.
Now they were wandering peacefully around the deck, where scenes soon unfolded that I imagine you'd experience in their villages. Some sat down around the bowls of rice. Others drank from the water jars or poured the water into their palms to wash their faces. Others went to the rail to relieve themselves. Soon they were all sitting on the deck in smaller groups and a monotonous murmuring spread among them.
One started singing, and others joined him until soon they were all singing a song that seemed to use the Pacific as a metronome, rising and falling with a slow dignity that matched the immense swelling rhythm of the waves. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, for no apparent reason the song ceased and silence descended over the deck again as the Flying Scud sailed across the sea toward a destination known only to Jack Lewis.
I looked around for him. He was leaning against the deckhouse with a Winchester rifle.
The same scene was repeated each evening. The hatch was opened and the black shadows, otherwise known as free men, moved around the deck, going about their everyday business. Then they'd disappear. I had no idea what fate had in store for our free men. But Jack Lewis had told me too much about his philosophy for me to believe it would be anything good.
Why did he so adamantly refute the suggestion that they were going to be sold as slaves? After all, he was no hypocrite: I had to give him that. So what were they doing there?
"I've told you before, Madsen, and I'll tell you again: they're not slaves and they're not plantation workers. They're free men, like you and me."
That was his answer the next time I pressed him on it. After that I gave up asking.
A few days later he sought me out. The look on his face told me I was in for a surprise.
"It'll do no harm to reveal it now, Madsen," he said. "We're heading for Samoa. That's where your father is."
"So now I know," I said, though I'll admit I felt no urge to thank him. Instead I said, "So what's stopping us from going our separate ways? There's nothing to keep us together now."
He laughed and flung out his arms as if to embrace me. "Of course there is, my dear boy. Look around you. The sea! That's what binds us. How will you get to Samoa on your own? Swim? Get off on one of the desert islands that don't figure on any sea chart, and hope to obtain passage from there? No, you're tied to this ship. Just like the free men in the hold."
Jack Lewis was right. Knowing where my father was—knowledge that I feared I'd paid for dearly even if I benefited from it—changed nothing.
"We'll make a single stop along the way," Jack Lewis continued, in the same triumphant tone. "But I trust you won't feel the need to desert me."
"And why wouldn't I?" I retorted.
"Don't be insubordinate, my boy. Because you're too smart to live out your days on a desert island."
"If the island is deserted, what are we going to do there?"
"The same thing I always