Viator

—I’m not sure. He said he came when the snow was still deep. He’s the one who set up the generators, you know. And he got the plumbing going, too. Anyway, he told me Viator had penetrated the forest and consummated a marriage between the organic and the inorganic. His words, not mine. I still don’t know what the hell he was talking about. He said we were all part of the marriage. I was wedded to iron, he said. And he told Halmus he was beloved by glass. He’s always going on like that. Spouting philosophy.

—It sounds more like fantasy.

—Is there a difference? Arnsparger nudged the burlap sack with his foot. What I’m saying, maybe he expanded the metaphor and told Halmus you were the husband of the linden tree. Halmus isn’t smart enough to make something like that up. The guy went to college, but he don’t have a clue. You should ask Mortensen. If you can persuade him to talk, I bet he’ll have a hell of an explanation.

Wilander unscrewed the cap on a bottle of water, but did not drink, puzzling over what had been said.

—It’s an odd situation, Arnsparger went on. All of us have wondered about it. Doesn’t it seem odd to you? Four guys…five, now. Five men of Scandinavian heritage down on their luck. They all seek employment at a temp agency run by another Scandinavian guy. They get to be friends with him and then he sends them to live on Viator. That how it happened for you, right?

—You were friends with Lunde? All of you?

—You thought it was just you, eh? That you were a special case? Me, too. I figured we’d be pals for life, me and Lunde. He bought me lunches, took me to movies, we talked about Sweden…Not that I know shit about it. My family emigrated when I was three. For a while I thought he was an old fag, but eventually I decided he was just lonely, he wanted to reminisce.

—It was the same for the others?

—Yeah, but once we got here, Lunde wasn’t so eager to talk to us. He keeps things businesslike on the phone. Anything to report? he’ll ask. And you say, no…or maybe you tell him some bullshit. Then he’ll ask if you’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary. Nope, not a thing. Okay, he’ll say. Keep up the good work. God knows what work he expects we’re doing. There’s not a damn thing to do.

Wind stirred the branches of the linden, its leaves splayed across the port like simple green hands lovingly massaging the glass, and Arnsparger held forth on the folly of Lunde’s plan, how ridiculous it was, the idea of bringing in forty or fifty men to break the vessel into scrap—you’d be deep in the red after paying for labor, living expenses, all the rest. Now if Viator had reached her destination…Had Lunde mentioned to Wilander that she’d been headed for South America to be scrapped? That’s right. One of those places where shipbreaking is the main occupation. It must be a hellhole, wherever it was. And they must not care about cancer. These old ships, they were full of asbestos, every sort of poison. He’d done a computer search before leaving Fairbanks, at the public library, and the places where they broke ships apart, they were wastelands, long beaches with dozens of hulks listing along the shore, some reduced to skeletons, and hundreds of workers filing inside them, like prisoners marching into death chambers. In a place like that, breaking Viator wouldn’t make extra overhead, and nobody cared how many people sickened and died as a result, not so long as they made themselves a few pesos. Here you’d have start-up costs. Nothing but overhead. You’d have unions looking at you. Labor do-gooders. All that for one ship? It made no sense.

Arnsparger pushed up to his feet, shouldered his sack, and shook Wilander’s hand. Well, Tom, see you around. It’s okay I call you Tom, is it? Thomas seems too formal under the circumstances.

—Tom is fine.

Arnsparger smacked himself lightly on the forehead. I almost forgot. He fished a cell phone from a trouser pocket and passed it to Wilander. Your turn, he said.

Wilander looked at him quizzically.

—We all took our turn, except for Nygaard, Arnsparger said. Making reports and all.

—Oh, right.

—I hate to put you to work right away, but can you order me some jewel boxes? Those plastic cases you keep CDs in? I could use a couple of gross. They’re dirt cheap when you buy them in bulk.

—Why do you need them?

—For my samples. Come over to my place some night and I’ll show you.

—I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying about Lunde, Wilander said. It’s your opinion that he sent us here for no real purpose?