The Pop’s Rhinoceros (11 page)

Crunch, crunch, splosh, crunch…

Terra firma on the littoral means water-sheets, shingle ridges, water damped with sand or sand suspended in water, semblances of solidity, and shifting extents

of gray and brown crazed with wriggling gullies and brine-filled channels—a various and troublesome terrain for the would-be mariners Bernardo and Salvestro as they trudge along the beach—ambiguity and mud.

…squelch, splosh, crunch, crunch, gloop…

This pocked and stippled no-man’s-land, teetering before the tilts of the sea, is strewn about with slimy sea-grass, reeking kelp, wormy and piddock-bored flotsam, chitinous debris, wave-stripped gull feathers, wind-scoured razorshells, the crunching bubbled mucus-rafts of pelagic snails, and—

cruUNCH!

“Ow!”

Mole crabs.

Tracking the weak flood tide up the shallow gradient of Usedom’s shore, a colony of tendril-waving spume-straining mole crabs have suddenly decided to drill out of the sand and chase landward after the protein-rich surf, intent on food-capture farther up the beach. Consider, the thousand versions of crab-surprise at Bernardo’s horny-soled foot descending into their midst. Enormous, white—a brine-scrubbed cow skull washed up some months back is a distant point of comparison, but crab memories are short, crab tempers shorter still. They attack.

“Salvestro! Crabs!” His fox-trapped foot, too, still tooth-marked, too swollen to get a boot on.

“Are you whining already, Bernardo? Pick up the barrel and come on!”

They continued, sullenly, along the tide-squeezed beach, crunching over the pebbles and sploshing through the pools, bound in silence and mutual irritation for Ewald Brüggeman’s boat.

Off the coast, the previous night’s rainclouds had descended to settle on a turgid sea. Great clods of fog stirred and lumbered before a breeze too weak to clear them. It would be sunrise now, could they but see it. Salvestro tried to shrug the rope higher up his shoulder. It kept slipping down. He only hoped it was long enough. He scanned the beach ahead as vapor swirled in from the sea. His stomach growled. They had breakfasted on herring.

Soon, a vague lozenge appeared some fifty yards ahead. They drew nearer, and the lozenge grew more boatlike, the dark bar of her mast rising out of the fog.

“Here she is, Bernardo.” Salvestro slapped the boat approvingly. “Stow our own craft here by the mast. The
mast,
Bernardo. That’s it. Now drag the boat into the sea and let’s be off.”

Bernardo bent, took hold of the stem-piece, and heaved. A few pebbles crunched underneath, but the boat barely budged. He tried again, straining harder, with as little success as before. “It will not move.”

“Put your back into it, come on!” Another heave followed, and another, the boat remaining fast. Bernardo straightened, caught sight of his companion, and glared.

“Get out, Salvestro.”

“What?”

“Get out of the boat and push.”

Some minutes later Bernardo was rowing powerfully into open water. Salvestro sat facing him, shouting directions. Both men were soaked to the thigh. Fog blew over the boat in waves, thickening one moment, thinning the next, to allow him glimpses of the shore. They rowed east, keeping the face of the island to starboard, Salvestro growing gradually quieter and more somber until the only sounds were Bernardo’s grunts as he pulled on the oars, the slap of water against the boat’s sides, the faint thuds and dunts of the barrel as it knocked gently against the mast. From time to time he glanced down at it anxiously. The thongs, the glass plate, the signal line, its leather sheath and black insides. Darker than he remembered.

“Faster, Bernardo!” he barked abruptly. “We’ll be here all day at this rate.”

But Bernardo was intent on his rowing, a novel and interesting activity in his view, and would not be roused to argument. Salvestro contented himself with rehearsing their signals and giving his final instructions.

“Remember, one pull for down, two for up, three and four for forward and back. …” Forward and back, thought Bernardo. Like rowing.

“And mind your balance,” Salvestro recalled Ewald’s warning. “Keep the weight of the barrel opposite your own. Use the rope, Bernardo. You on one side, barrel over the other. Don’t forget.” Something troubled him about this arrangement, but he could not put his finger on it. “And pull smoothly.” Perhaps that was it. Bernardo grunted his assent without breaking stroke, and Salvestro lapsed once more into silence.

Gazing through the gaps in the fog, he watched the coast unwind in a hazy gray strip. At first it seemed hardly to hold sea and sky apart, but as they continued east it thickened and firmed. Ashore, the ground was rising. He screwed up his eyes, trying to pierce the vapor’s shroud. The spectral foreshore grew more definite, became a ridge, then a steep-sided bank, rising higher still, until there, he saw it: a sheer face of dark red clay, the cliff’s ruddy wound, with the church on its summit just visible through the mist.

“Stop rowing, Bernardo,” he instructed. They had reached Vineta Point.

Both men rose, Salvestro to uncoil the rope, his partner to manhandle the barrel. The boat rocked alarmingly. Salvestro checked his pockets for candles and tinderbox, then moved to inspect his craft: the seal about the spy-hole, the firmness of the glass. Bernardo had the lid off and was tapping his knuckles against the staves. He stood back as Salvestro tied the rope to the eye-bolt and the boat lurched more wildly. Both men sat down quickly. When the boat had steadied herself, Salvestro stood up gingerly and looked down into the barrel. It smelled dank and fishy. He felt his breakfast climbing out of his stomach.

“Well, then,” said Bernardo.

“Right, then,” said Salvestro. A moment’s contemplation before he climbed inside. His earlier unease returned, stronger this time. Something about the boat. About balance. He crouched down, drawing his knees up to his chest. Bernardo took hold of the lid.

“Should we say a prayer?” he ventured. Salvestro was motionless, staring fixedly at the wooden wall an inch away from his nose.

“The lid,” he said.

Dirty gray light bulged in at the windows set high in the wall, pressing on the interior gloom. Humped on pallets lining the length of the dorter, monks in various stages of wakefulness stirred at the sound of footsteps. HansJürgen tiptoed between the two rows. There was a time they would all have risen as one at the tolling of the bell, but now the bell was silenced they began the day when it pleased them. Some rolled over to eye him resentfully. Some ignored him altogether. It was barely daybreak. Some snored. Some lay silent as the dead. Laxity of discipline, in Hansjürgen’s judgment, a slackening in the monastery’s round. It seemed so long ago.

His intrusion rippled slowly over the slumped bodies. A belch sounded. Sphincters began to loosen and release farts into the cold air. Unwashed mouths breathed stertorously and added evil-smelling clouds to the fug. Urgent rustlings ceased abruptly at his approach, were furtively resumed as he passed farther down the dorter. Fingery sins were being committed under rank-smelling coverlets. It was on the increase; fumblings and yieldings in the dawn’s gray silence, Onan’s sin at the dousing of the lights. HansJürgen blamed the Prior. His lectures stirred up the younger ones and threw their humors out of balance. A loud, ill-concealed grunt resounded from somewhere behind him. Spillage. Young dogs.

The senior monks slept at the far end of the chamber. He passed his own pallet, undisturbed that night. Beyond it, Brother Gerhardt was already dressing. He betrayed no surprise at the summons, and the two men strode out quickly together, watched by two dozen pairs of eyes. They crossed the cloister in silence. Behind them in the dorter, rumors would already be taking flight. Gerhardt would see him as the Prior’s creature, not party to his own circle of supporters; an enemy. Their sandals clacked on the cobbles and clattered up the stairway. Gerhardt, Hanno, and Bernd: they kept themselves close, those three. A shifting handful of younger monks made up the outer circle of the clique, all pledging nominal allegiance to the old Abbot. They entered the Prior’s cell.

Father Jörg was standing by the window as before.

“My eyes cannot pierce this gloom, Brother,” he said, indicating for HansJürgen to take his place. “Welcome, Brother Gerhardt,” he added. Gerhardt nodded without speaking. “Tell me now, what do you see?”

HansJürgen waited for a thick patch of fog to pass. The boat was stationed where he had seen it last, a quarter mile or more out from the foot of the cliff. He spied a figure aboard, but no trace of his companion.

“I can see only the giant, Father,” he said. “One of them has disappeared.”

“He is in the barrel. That much I saw before this cursed fog thickened.”

An inquisitive face had appeared at the door. Brother Joachim-Heinz’s.

“Yes?”

“I came to offer my assistance, Father.”

“Brother Heinz-Joachim, too, no doubt.” The monk nodded and was joined by the other. “Very well. Now, Brother Gerhardt …” Brother Gerhardt nodded.

“The giant is attempting to lift the barrel, Father,” said HansJürgen. Brothers Hanno, Georg, and Bernd appeared, shunting the first two farther into the room. “He has fallen over, Father. The boat’s motions are too wild for him, I fear,” reported the monk.

“Right. Now, Brother Gerhardt, I recall during your endeavors of three summers ago …” Brothers Florian and Reinhard were sidling past Hanno and Georg, trying to peer over Hansjürgen’s shoulder on the far side of the cell. “Now what?” asked Jörg.

“We came as soon as we could,” said Florian.

“To help,” said Reinhardt. He stumbled forward as Gundolf, Matthias, and Harald pushed their way in.

“Help? With what?”

“The giant has righted himself,” relayed HansJürgen. “He is waving his arms, I think—no, he is shouting at the barrel.”

“With the giant,” answered a small group at the back of the room (Brothers Egon, Ludwig, and Volker).

“With the boat,” answered those behind them, moving forward (Brothers Henning and Horst). Brother Christoph lost his balance as they entered and bumped against Brother Gundolf, who elbowed him in the ribs. Someone shoved Matthias.

“We’re here,” said Brother Wulf.

“Here we are,” said Wolf.

“All three of us,” said Wilf. “Over here.”

“Stay there,” ordered Jörg. “Now, Brother Gerhardt.” Gerhardt nodded.

“He has it!” cried HansJürgen. “He is going to drop it over the side. No, he cannot. The boat will capsize if he does. … Ah. He has fallen over again.” Volker and Ludwig crowded nearer, pushing their way between Christoph and Harald, who pushed back, and someone kicked Matthias.

“Concerning your endeavors, Brother Gerhardt, of three winters ago, I recall you built—”

“The giant is going to try the stern. The nose will rise, though, I know it. There it goes. Yes, I was right. Pardon me, Father.”

“—a raft.” Brother Gerhardt nodded. Brothers Walter and Willy had arrived and, finding the doorway blocked and the room beyond it solid with monks, now decided to climb over Henning and Volker, who threw them off as they grew sensible of this plan, landing them abruptly on top of Gundolf, Florian, and Reinhard, who all fell over, bringing down Hanno, Georg, Berndt, Wulf, Wolf, and Wilf. Someone punched Matthias. Finding the cell momentarily cleared above waist level, Jörg pressed on with his request.

“Now, Brother Gerhardt, we have need of a vessel to fetch these unfortunates to safety. Any vessel.” He paused and scratched the side of his mouth. “Your raft, in short.”

Florian jumped to his feet at this. “I will man the tiller,” he said.

The other monks were picking themselves up off the floor. At Florian’s offer, several more volunteered their services: “No,
I will. …”
“Me!” “No, me….”

“The raft has no tiller,” retorted Gerhardt, “nor decks, nor mast, nor fabric of any kind. The raft is rotted and utterly unseawor—” But the other monks were already offering themselves as midshipmen, captains, boatswains, third mates, helmsmen, and ship’s carpenters, jostling forward to catch Jörg’s eye.

“The rope!” HansJürgen cried out suddenly. “Of course, he will swing the barrel out with the rope. Here he goes. Heave it now, that’s it. …”

“Ship’s beekeeper!” petitioned Brother Volker.

“Ah no. He has hit the mast. He will shout at it now, I know it. Yes, there he goes.”

“Oarsmen,” appealed Jörg, and the monks clamored to be taken on. He chose the ten largest: Egon, Reinhard, Gundolf, Walter, Willy, Georg, Hanno, Henning, Volker, and one more—he cast his eye over the excited monks—Harald. “Good. Now obey the orders of your captain, Brother Gerhardt, and all will be well. Come now. …”

“The giant is very vexed now,” said HansJürgen as a scramble began for the door, Christoph and Johannes barging each other aside, Florian slipping between them, while Wulf, Wolf, and Wilf hovered about, blocking Walter’s and Reinhard’s paths and diverting them into that of Georg.

“He is picking up the barrel now, yes, up it goes. What strength!”

Bernd fell against Horst, who fell against Henning as Joachim-Heinz and Heinz-Joachim stumbled, rose, and rushed forward, only to collide with Harald and Hanno. Gerhardt nodded. Egon and Christoph shunted Gundolf and Hanno, while Ludwig, Hubert, Volker, and Horst kept bouncing off the rear of the pack. Matthias burrowed directly into its midst, drove forward for the door, was tripped, and fell flat on his face. Someone trod on him.