Polar Star

  The man in the captain's chair fitted in. Fishermen were usually scarred by exposure to knives, spines and frayed ropes, and coarsened by cold air and brine, but Morgan seemed to have been abraded by something sharper. He was lean to the point of gaunt, with prematurely grey hair. Although he wore a cap and a sweatshirt, there was about him and his ship's bridge a sense of monkish order, of a man who was happiest alone and in control. As he unwound from his chair Slava gave him a nod of obeisance, and it occurred to Arkady that the third mate would have made a good dog.

  'George, this is Seaman Renko. Or you can call him Arkady.' To Arkady, Slava said, 'Captain Morgan.'

  The captain gave Arkady's hand a brief squeeze. 'We're sorry about Zina Pishvili.'

  'Patiashvili.' Slava shrugged as if the name were ridiculous or didn't really matter.

  'Pashvili? Sorry.' Morgan said to Arkady, 'I don't speak Russian. Ship-to-ship communications go through the company reps on the Polar Star. Perhaps you should ask a rep to join us, because right now we're losing trawling time and that means we're losing money. Can I offer you a drink?' On the chart chest was a tray with three tumblers and a bottle of Soviet vodka. Better than what the Soviets drank at home: export-quality vodka. He lifted the vodka a millimetre off the tray, as if measuring the minimum of hospitality. 'Or are you in a rush?'

  'No, thank you. Slava could take a hint.

  'Why not?' Arkady asked.

  Slava hissed, 'First wine, now vodka?'

  'It's like New Year's Eve, isn't it?' Arkady said.

  Morgan poured Arkady half a glass and, bemused, one for himself. Slava abstained.

  'Nazdrovya,' Morgan said. 'Isn't that it?'

  'Cheers,' said Arkady.

  Arkady drank his in three swallows, Morgan in one that he followed with an even smile of excellent teeth. 'You don't want a company rep,' he said.

  'We'll try to do without.' The last thing Arkady wanted was Susan joining their conversation.

  'Well, Arkady, ask away.'

  Morgan was so assured, Arkady wondered what would faze him.

  'Is this boat safe?'

  Slava started. 'Renko, that's –'

  'It's OK,' Morgan said. 'This is a seventy-five-foot Gulf boat with a North Sea rig. That means it was originally built to tend oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and then was refitted to come up here for the crabbing boom. When crabs went bust, they put on the gantry for trawling and some extra plating for hitting the ice. The real money went where it counts, into electronics. We don't have all the tradition of our round-headed friend and his three dwarfs over on the Merry Jane, but we do catch more fish.'

  'Did you know Zina?'

  'Just to see. She was always friendly, waving.'

  'And dancing?'

  'I didn't have the pleasure of dancing with her myself. I was in the wardroom going over charts with my good friends, Captains Marchuk and Thorwald.'

  'Do you like the joint fishery?'

  'It's exciting.'

  'Exciting?' Arkady had never thought of it that way. 'How so?'

  'After Dutch we're going up to the ice sheet. Soviet captains are intrepid. Last year you people got a whole fishing fleet, fifty boats, iced in off Siberia and almost lost them all. You did lose a factory ship and the only reason the whole crew didn't go down with it was because they were able to cross the ice.'

  'Those were Soviet boats,' Arkady said.

  'Right, and I don't want to end up like a Soviet boat. Don't get the wrong idea, I like Russians. It's the best joint fishery. Koreans will steal half of every bag. The Japanese are too proud to cheat but they're colder than the fish.' Morgan was the sort of man who smiled while he reassessed a situation. 'Arkady, how is it I don't recall ever meeting you on the Polar Star? You're a fleet officer or from the Ministry or what?'

  'I work in the factory.'

  'The slime line,' Slava said.

  'And you speak fluent English and investigate accidents? I'd say you're overqualified for cleaning fish.' There was a candid, glass-blue quality to Morgan's eyes that told Slava and Arkady what liars he thought they were. 'It was an accident?'

  'There's no doubt of it,' Slava said.

  Morgan had kept his eyes steadily on Arkady. His gaze moved to the net now idle on the gantry, then to two crewmen in oilskin coveralls coming up the outside stairs from the deck, and then back to Arkady. 'Okay. It's been a delightful social call. Just remember, these are American waters.'

  The narrow bridge became crowded as the fishermen entered. These were the Americans he had been curious about since he heard Lantz describe them as a 'motorcycle gang'. In the Soviet Union, where two wheels chained to an internal combustion engine were the symbol of personal freedom, bikers were called 'Rockers'. The authorities were always trying to channel Rockers into approved motordromes, but the gangs slipped away like Mongols on the loose, took over whole villages, then vanished before a state motor patrol could arrive.

  The larger fisherman had a sallow face, hooded eyes and the strong, hanging arms of someone who has spent time shoving crab pots and nets. Not a smooth man. He looked Arkady up and down. 'What is this shit?'

  'This, Coletti,' Morgan explained, 'is the joint venture. The man with our old friend Slava speaks English well enough to teach you. We'll make it fast but clean.'

  'Renko, this is Mike.' Slava introduced the younger fisherman, an Aleut with fine Asian features on a broad face. 'Mike is short for Mikhail.'

  'A Russian name?' Arkady asked.

  'Up here there are a lot of Russian names.' Mike had a soft, hesitant voice. 'There were a lot of crazy Cossacks around here way back.'

  'At one time the Aleutians and Alaska all belonged to the tsars,' Morgan told Arkady. 'You ought to know that.'

  'Do you speak Russian?' Here was someone who could have talked to Zina.

  'No. I mean, we use expressions,' Mike said, 'without, you know, really knowing what they mean. Like if you hit your thumb with a hammer, right? Or when we go to church, some of that's in Russian.'

  'There's still a Russian church in DutchHarbor,' Slava said.

  The Aleut dared a glance at Coletti before saying, 'We're really sorry about Zina. It's hard to believe. Every time we brought in a bag of fish there she'd be at the stern rail giving us a big wave. Rain or shine, night or day, she was there.'

  'You danced with her?' Arkady asked.

  Coletti cut in. 'We all did.'

  'And after the dance?'

  'When we left, the dance was still going on.' Coletti held his head at an angle, getting a fix on Arkady.

  'Zina was still dancing?'

  'She left before us.'

  'Did she seem ill in any way? Drunk, dizzy, lightheaded? Nervous, preoccupied, afraid?'

  'No.' Coletti answered questions like a Moscow militiaman, the type that volunteered nothing.

  'Who did she leave with?' Arkady asked.

  'Who knows?' answered a late arrival as he came up the galley stairs onto the bridge. This third crewman raised peaked brows in mock concern, as if the party had started without him. A gold ring decorated his left ear; a leather thong tied his long hair into a ponytail.

  His beard was wispy, almost feminine, like that of a young actor. He didn't offer to shake hands because he was wiping his own on a greasy rag. He said, 'I'm Ridley, the engineer. I wanted to add my own condolences. Zina was a great kid.'

  'Then you talked to her at the dance?' Arkady asked.

  'Well...' Ridley paused apologetically. 'Your captain laid out a generous spread for us as soon as we got on board. Sausages, beer, brandy. Then we visited with the Americans, Susan and her boys. Old friends, so there was more beer and vodka. As I understand it, it's against your regulations to have liquor on board, but it runs like a gusher every time I've been on the Star. Plus there's the time factor. The Star runs on Vladivostok time, which is three hours earlier than ours. You start a dance at 9 p.m. That's midnight to us. At that hour we relax real fast.'

  'It was a good dance?
'

  'Best rock and roll band in the Bering Sea.'

  Slava shook his head under the force of flattery.

  'The truth is', Ridley added in a confessional tone, 'I think we're an embarrassment when we get on the Polar Star. We get drunk and try to live up to the reputation of being wild Americans.'

  'No, no, said Slava.

  'Yes, yes,' said Ridley. 'The Russians are so hospitable. We get stoned and you go on smiling, picking us off the floor. I got so drunk I had to come back early.'

  Every crew had a natural leader. Even in the tight quarters of the Eagle's bridge, Coletti and Mike had taken a perceptible step towards the engineer.

  'Do I recognize you?' Arkady asked.

  'Ridley spent two weeks on the Polar Star,' Slava said.

  Ridley nodded. 'The voyage before this. The company wants us to be familiar with Soviet techniques. I can tell you that after working with Soviet gear my opinion of Soviet fishermen was higher than ever.'

  Arkady remembered Ridley being pointed out. 'You speak Russian?'

  'No, there was a whole lot of sign language. Language is not one of my talents. Look, I had an uncle who lived with us. He studied Esperanto, the new international language. Finally he finds a woman who also studies Esperanto. In WashingtonState there had to be about five people. Anyway, she comes over and we're all in the parlour waiting for this big moment, two people speaking Esperanto, like a glimpse of the future. It takes about ten seconds to see that they don't understand each other at all. She's asking for the wine, he's telling her the time. That was Russians and me. Sorry. Just out of curiosity, did you serve in Afghanistan?'

  'I was too old to do my "internationalist duty",' Arkady said. 'Did you serve in Vietnam?'

  'Too young. Anyway, I don't even remember saying goodnight to Zina. What happened? Did she disappear?'

  'No, she came back.'

  Ridley enjoyed the answer, as if he'd found someone worth talking to. 'Came back from where?'

  'As I understand it,' Morgan said, trying to put the conversation back on conventional rails, 'her body was picked up by our net and was found when the bag was opened on the Polar Star.'

  'Jesus,' Ridley said, 'that must have been a moment. She fell over?'

  'Yes,' Slava said.

  Coletti pointed at Arkady. 'I want to hear him say it.'

  'It's too soon for that,' Arkady answered.

  'Fuck that!' Coletti exploded. 'We don't know what happened to Zina. We don't know if she took a swan dive or what, but we were off that fucking boat before anything happened.'

  'Coletti.' Morgan stepped in front of him. 'Some day I'm going to open up your head just to see how small your brain is.'

  Ridley eased Coletti back with a touch. 'Hey, we're all friends. Take it easy like Arkady. See how he watches.'

  'Yes.' Morgan noticed; he told Arkady, 'We apologize. Whatever happened to Zina was a tragedy, but we hope it doesn't affect the joint venture. We all believe in it.'

  'We'd be shit out of work if we didn't have it,' Ridley said. 'And we like making new friends, having Slava play his sax or explain all about perestroika and how the Soviet Union from top to bottom is thinking in new ways.'

  'Thinking in

  New Ways

  ' was a catchphrase of the new men in the Kremlin, as if Soviet brains could be rewired like circuit boards.

  'Are you thinking in new ways?' Ridley asked Arkady.

  'I try.'

  'A senior man like you has to keep up,' Ridley said.

  Slava said, 'He just works at the factory.'

  'No.' Coletti disagreed as if he had special information. 'I used to be a cop and I can smell another cop. He's a cop.'

  Being lifted by cage up the Polar Star's hull was like floating across a great curtain of suppurating steel.

  Slava was furious. 'We made fools of ourselves. This is a Soviet affair, it has nothing to do with them.'

  'It doesn't seem to,' Arkady agreed.

  'Then what is there to be cheerful about?'

  'Oh, I think of all the fish I didn't see today.'

  'That's all?'

  Arkady looked down through the open bars of the cage at the catcherboat below. 'The Eagle has a low hull. I wouldn't take it into the ice.'

  'What do you know about trawlers?' Slava demanded.

  There had been the Sakhalin trawler. Captured from the Japanese during the war, it was a little drift trawler, a porous wooden hull around an ancient diesel. Wherever paint peeled, ghostly Japanese markings emerged. There was no trouble getting a berth on a vessel overdue to sink, especially when the captain had a simple quota: cram the hold with salmon until the boat shipped water. As the new man, Arkady was stuffed into the warp hole; when the net was pulled in he had to run in a crouch around and around, coiling a hawser spiked with frayed metal threads. As the hawser filled the hole he circled on all fours like a rat in a coffin, then climbed out to help shake the net. By the second day he could barely raise his hands, though once he got the knack he developed the first shoulders he'd had since the army.

  Of course, the lesson of that foul little boat was that fishermen had to be able to get along in a confined space for long periods of time. All the rest – knowing how to gaff wind or mend – meant nothing if one man set his shipmates on edge. Arkady had never seen as much antagonism on the trailer as he had witnessed on the glittering bridge of the Eagle.

  The cage swayed with Slava's agitation. 'You had a day off, that's all you wanted.'

  'It was interesting,' Arkady granted. 'Americans are a change.'

  'Well, I can promise you that you're not getting off the Polar Star again. What are you going to do now?'

  Arkady shrugged. 'There were many people on special duty during the dance. I'll ask whether any of them saw Zina on deck or below. Try to find out when the Americans actually left the ship. Talk to people who were at the dance. Talk to women she worked with in the galley. I want to talk to Karp again.'

  'After we talk to the women we'll split up,' Slava said. 'I'll take Karp. You take the crew below decks, that's more your style.'

  The cage cleared the side and began its descent toward the familiar, scrofulous deck and the barrels heaped like a high-tide line of sea trash around the stack.

  'You set them off,' Slava said. 'The crew on the Eagle are usually great guys. Susan is generally an angel. Why is everyone nervous? We're in American waters.'

  'A Soviet boat is Soviet territory,' Arkady said. 'They should be nervous.'

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  To a fanfare of trumpets white lines emanated from a red star. Natasha pushed the fast forward button to the image of a white clock-face on a blue background. Fast forward again to the slanted log of Novosti News, then the silent picture of a man reading accounts of stale events into two microphones, then fast forward again until finally a slim girl in a skin-tight vicro warm-up outfit appeared on the television screen. She had a dappling of freckles across her nose, hoop earrings and braided hair the colour of brass. She began stretching like a willow bending in a strong wind.

  In the ship's cafeteria, facing the glow of the connected television and VCR, outfitted in sweatsuits and aerobic gear, twenty women of the Polar Star tilted grudgingly like sturdy oaks. When the girl bent forward and touched her nose to her knees, they took only slight bows, and when she ran lightly in place, the women sounded like an enthusiastic, thundering herd. Though Factory Worker Natasha Chaikovskaya was in the lead, not far behind her was Olimpiada Bovina, the massive chief cook of the crew's galley. Like a little ribbon on an oversized box, a powder-blue sweatband decorated Olimpiada's brow. Sweat leaked from the band, welled around her small eyes and flowed poignantly like tears down her cheeks as she pursued the graceful, tireless acrobat on the screen.

  When Slava called her name, Olimpiada abandoned the trotting and puffing with the wistful reluctance of a masochist. They talked to her at the back of the cafeteria. She had the fruity voice of a mezzosoprano.
>
  'Poor Zina. A smile is gone from the galley.'

  'She was a hard worker?' Slava asked.

  'And cheerful. So full of life. A tease. She hated to stir the macaroni. We have macaroni often, you know.'

  'I know,' Arkady said.

  'So she would say, "Here, Olimpiada, is some more good exercise for you." We will miss her.'

  Slava said, 'Thank you, Comrade Bovina, you can –'

  'An active girl?' Arkady asked.

  'Certainly,' Olimpiada said.

  'Young and attractive. A little restless?'

  'It was impossible to keep her in one place.'

  Arkady said, 'The day after the dance she didn't come to work. Did you send someone for her?'

  'I needed everyone in the galley. I can't have all my girls wandering around the ship. I run a responsible kitchen. Poor Zina, I was afraid she was sick or overtired from the night before. Women are different, you know.'

  'Speaking of men...' Arkady said.

  'She kept them in line.'

  'Who was at the head of the line?'

  Olimpiada blushed and giggled into her hand. 'You will think this is disrespectful. I shouldn't say.'

  'Please,' Arkady said.

  'It's what she said, not what I said.'

  'Please.'

  'She said that in the spirit of the Party Congress she was going to democratize her relationship with men. She called it "Restructuring the Males".'

  'There weren't one or two men in particular?' Arkady asked.

  'On the Polar Star?

  'Where else?'

  'I don't know.' Olimpiada suddenly became discreet.

  Slava said, 'You've been very helpful, Comrade Bovina.'

  The chief cook chugged back to her position in the class. The girl on the screen spread her arms and rotated them; she seemed light enough to fly. Through the power of television, all across the Soviet Union this young dancer had become the new ideal of Soviet women, a shining, bobbing icon. Sleek Latvian women, Asiatics in felt tents and settlers in the Virgin Lands all watched the show and copied her every move. Thanks to the VCR, the ladies of the Polar Star could follow suit, though looking at their broad backs and outstretched, powerful arms, Arkady was put less in mind of birds than of a squadron of bombers lifting off.