The ships in Liss

(translated by Barry Scherr)

I

There are people who remind you of an old-fashioned snuffbox. When you pick up such an object, you ponder it fruitfully. It is an entire generation, and we are alien to it. The snuffbox is placed among other appropriate little objects and is shown to guests, but rarely does its owner use it as an everyday item. Why? Do the centuries daunt him? Or are the forms of another time, so deceptively similar to modern forms geometrically, so different in essence that to see them constantly, to be in constant contact with them, means to live imperceptibly in the past? Is this perhaps a shallow thought about a complex disparity? Hard to tell. But, as I began to say, there are people who remind you of an ancient everyday item, and the spiritual essence of these people is as alien to the manner of life around them as the above-mentioned snuffbox to a price gouger from the Hotel Lisbon. Whether in childhood, or at one of those turning points in life when the developing character seems to be like a liquid saturated with a mineral solution – disturb it just a little and it will all irreversibly congeal into crystals that form with the speed of lightning – maybe at such a turning point, thanks to a chance impression or something else, their soul adopts a steadfast form once and for all. Its needs are naive and poetic: the integrity, completeness, and the charm of the habitual, where daydreams dwell so serenely and comfortably, free of the moment’s cavils. Such a person prefers horses to trains, candles to electric bulbs, the downy plait of a girl to her artful coiffure with its smell of burning and musk, roses to chrysanthemums, and the ungainly sailing vessel with its lofty mass of white sails that reminds you of a jawly face with a clear brow above blue eyes, to th steamship pretty as a toy. His inner life is of necessity guarded, while his external life consists of mutual repulsions.

II

Just as there are such people, so are there families houses, and even cities and harbours that are guided by a spirit all their own.

There is no port more disorderly and marvellous than Liss, except of course Zurbagan. The international, multilingual city strongly reminds one of a tramp who has finally decided to bury himself in the fog of a settled life. The homes straggle helter-skelter along the vague suggestions of streets, but streets in the proper sense of the word could not exist in Liss, if only because the city emerged on the sides of cliffs and hills, connected by steps, bridges, and spiral-shaped pathways. All of this is covered by a solid mass of tropical greenery, in the fan-shaped shadow of which glitter the childlike, blazing eyes of women. A yellow rock, a blue shadow, and picturesque cracks in old walls; in some kno.ll-shaped yard a huge boat is being repaired by a barefoot, unsociable person smoking a pipe; there is distant singing and its echo in a ravine; a market on piles beneath tents and huge umbrellas; a weapon’s gleam, bright frocks, the fragrance of flowers and greenery that gives rise to a dull yearning, as in a dream, for love and trysts; the harbour, as filthy as a young chimney sweep; sails furled in sleep and a winged morning, green water, coves, and the ocean’s expanse; at night, the magnetic conflagration of stars and boats with laughing voices – such is Liss. There are two hotels here: the Prickly Pillow and the Heaven Help Us. The sailors naturally crowded more thickly in the one that was nearer at hand. It is hard to say which was nearer in the beginning, but as a result of their competition these venerable institutions began to skip towards the harbour – in the literal sense of the word. They moved, rented new quarters, and even built them. The Heaven Help Us won. A deft move on its part left the Prickly Pillow rooted amidst some barely negotiable ravines, while the triumphant Heaven Help Us, after a ten-year struggle and having been the ruin of three eating houses, settled down to reign right beside the harbour.

Liss’s population consists of adventurers, smugglers, and sailors. The women are divided into angels and shrews; the angels of course are young, searingly beautiful and tender, while the shrews are old – but one must not forget that even a shrew can be useful. Take for instance a happy wedding during which a shrew who had previously concocted infernal machinations repents and begins a better life.

We will not investigate the reasons why Liss was and is visited exclusively by sailing vessels. These reasons are of a geographic and hydrographic nature; altogether, everything in this town produced on us precisely that impression of independence and poetic rhythm that we tried to elucidate through the example of a person with pure and clear needs.

Ill

At the time our story begins four people were sitting at a table on the top floor of the hotel Heaven Help Us before a window with a picturesque view of Liss’s harbour. They were Captain Duke, a quite corpulent and effusive individual; Captain Robert Estamp; Captain Renior; and a captain better known by the nickname “I know you”, because he greeted everybody, even strangers, with just this phrase if the person evinced an inclination to go on a spree. His name, though, was Chinchar.

Such a glittering, even aristocratic company could not, naturally enough, be gathered round an empty table. On it were standing various festive bottles brought out by the proprietor of the hotel on special occasions – namely those like the present one, when captains, who generally had no love lost for each other for reasons of professional swashbuckling, got together to do some heavy drinking. Estamp was an elderly, very pale, grey-eyed, taciturn man with reddish eyebrows; Renior, with long black hair and bulging eyes, looked like a disguised monk; Chinchar, a one-eyed, agile old man with black teeth and a mournful blue eye, was notable for his scathing tongue.

The inn was full; people were singing at one table and arguing noisily at another; from time to time some merry-maker, who had reached the stage of complete oblivion, would head for the exit knocking over the chairs in his path; the plates and dishes were rattling; all in amidst this noise Duke twice caught the name “Bitt-Boy”. Evidently someone was recalling this glorious person. The name came up apropos, for a difficult situation was under discussion.

“Now with Bitt-Boy,” Duke exclaimed, “I wouldn’t be afraid of an entire squadron! But he’s not around. My dear captains, I’m loaded with vile explosives – a terrible thing! That is, not I, but the Marianne. However, the Marianne is I and I’m the Marianne, therefore I’m loaded. It’s an irony of fate: I – with a cargo of grapeshot and powder! Let God be my witness, my dear captains,” Duke continued in a gloomily animated voice, “after that knock-out dish they treated me to in the commissariat I would have even agreed to carry seltzer and soda water!”

“A privateer showed up again the day before yesterday,” put in Estamp.

“I don’t know what he’s looking for in these waters,” said Chinchar, “but one’s afraid to weigh anchor.”

“What’s burdening you now?” asked Renior.

“Utter rubbish, captain. I’m transporting tinware and perfume. But I’ve been promised a bonus!”

Chinchar was lying, however. He was “burdened” not with tinplate, but with an insurance policy, and was seeking a suitable time and place to sink his Hermit for a large sum. Such dirty tricks are no rarity, although they require great circumspection. The privateer was bad news; Chinchar had received information that his insurance company was on the brink of ruin, and so he had to hurry.

“I know what that pirate’s looking for,” declared Duke. “Did you see the brigantine that cast anchor at the very entrance? The Felicity. They say it’s loaded with gold.”

“I don’t know that vessel,” said Renior. “I saw her, of course. Who is her captain?”

Nobody knew. Nobody had seen him. He had not made a single call and had not come to the hotel. Just once three sailors from the Felicity, middle-aged and decorous people pursued by curious glances, came from the ship into Liss, bought some tobacco, and did not appear again.

“A pup,” grumbled Estamp. “A lout. Stay in your cabin, lout,” he suddenly flushed and turned towards the window, “maybe you’ll grow a moustache.”

The captains broke into guffaws. When the laughter had died down, Renior said:

“There’s nothing to be done, we’re locked in. I’d give up my cargo with pleasure – after all, what do I care about someone else’s lemons? But to give up the President…”

“Or the Marianne,” interrupted Duke. “What if she were blown up?” He grew pale and drank down a double shot. “Don’t speak to me about such terrible and fateful things, Renior!”

“I’m so sick of hearing about your Marianne,” shouted Renior, “that I would even welcome an explosion!”

“And may your President sink!”

“Wha-a-at?”

“Captains, don’t quarrel,” said Estamp.

“I know you!” cried out Chinchar to a very surprised visitor. “Come here, treat an old fellow!”

But the visitor turned his back. The captains sank into thought. Each had his own reasons for wishing to leave Liss as quickly as possible. A distant fortress was expecting Duke. Chinchar was in a hurry to play out his little swindle. Renior thirsted for a reunion with his family after a two-year’s absence, while Estamp was afraid that his crew, which was a loose assemblage, would leave him. Two of them had already run off and were now at the Prickly Pillow bragging about fantastic adventures in New Guinea.

These vessels – the Marianne, the President, Chinchar’s Hermit, and Estamp’s Aramea – had taken refuge in Liss from the pursuit of hostile privateers. The high-speed Marianne had been the first to fly in, the next day the Hermit had come crawling, and two days later the Aramea and the President dropped anchor, panting. Including the mysterious Felicity, there were in all five ships in Liss, not counting barges and small coastal vessels.

“Therefore I say that I want Bitt-Boy,” the tipsy Duke began to speak again. “I’ll tell you a little something about him. Of course, you all know that milksop, Beppo Malastino. Well, there was Malastino staying in Zurbagan, drinking ‘Good God’, and holding his Butuzka on his lap. In walks Bitt-Boy. ‘Malastino, weigh anchor, I’ll pilot your vessel through Kasset. You’ll be in Akhuan Skap before everyone else this season.’ What do you think, captains? Many a time I’d sail through Kasset with a full cargo, and that idiot Malastino would have done well to heed Bitt-Boy blindly. But Beppo thought it over for two days. ‘Oh a storm belt… oh, blah blah, the buoys’ve been torn off…’ But the crux of it, lads, wasn’t in buoys. Ali the Turk, Beppo’s ex-boatswain, made a hole in his brig directly across from the mizzen and sealed it with pitch. A wave would have quickly washed it away. Finally the swooning Beppo sailed through the infernal strait with Bitt-Boy; he was late, of course, and the money in Akhuan Skap had come to like others more than that wop, but… isn’t Bitt-Boy a lucky-chap! In Kasset they were hurled against the reefs… Now, several barrels of honey that stood near the Turk’s hole had begun to ferment, most likely back in Zurbagan. These barrels burst, and about four tons of honey battened down the hole with such a collision mat that the planking never gave way. Beppo turned cold when he discovered it during the unloading in Akhuan Skap.

“Bitt-Boy… I would have begged him to come to me,” remarked Estamp.

“Some day, Duke, they’ll hang you for the powder anyway, but I have children.”

“I’ll tell you another story about Bitt-Boy,” Chinchar began. “This affair…”

A dreadful, jolly racket interrupted the old swindler. Everyone turned towards the door, many began to wave their hats, and some rushed to greet the newcomer. A collective roar raced like the wind through the vast hall, while individual shouts burst through the enthusiastic uproar:

“Bitt-Boy! Bitt-Boy! Bitt-Boy, bearer of good fortune!”