The Great Betrayal
Daybreak drunk with Boris again.
We have a crime that we are planning.
That’s just the kind we are.
And if we see it through you will know me by repute though my face remains in shadow.
That would not discompose me.
Rather, it suits me. For you see, my favorite color is black.
The ship itself is an impossible thing.
Though it is many nights, its shape has remained mysterious to me.
The very thing is unnavigable.
It is silly.
It is silly to think of how the ship itself is unnavigable when the mission is so simple.
It is discomfiting.
I cannot find the navigator’s bridge, though I meet him often in the mess and suggest the place is in shambles. It is not that he does not agree except there is something in his comport that suggests that he does not.
Later on, in my compartment, I have endeavored with no small effort to determine what I lack in order to convince him.
I have little to show for this.
Boris, of course, does not abet me. Lying abed instead, he pets himself, no doubt.
I hear him grunt up there.
Boris is bored by the whole affair.
Boredom breeds contempt, at least, or I would have no companion with which to plan this breach of protocol.
I must bring the navigator around but it seems I cannot reach him. I surmise that Boris is the navigator’s type, but Boris will not teach me how to speak to him. He is too busy drinking up there, under the covers where he has found some solace and some privacy. I do not blame him, for Boris is a fellow of some grace and manners like the navigator is.
So, I have started sipping from his bottle.
And today, I will detain the navigator.
Of the mess I say there is nothing simpler to find. It is very near the privy, which is only down the hall. I should find it if I were blind. The least of us must eat, of course, which is why it was designed this way.
The navigator eats there, too, although he is an officer.
Although he is an officer, he dresses like an ensign.
We surmise he is a kind of spy, or why else might he condescend to our mess where the stuff is poorer?
What he wants with us I can hardly guess, for we know very little—little of the ship, that is, though much about the mission (except that is such a paltry thing it plays on my suspicion that perhaps there is more to this than has so far been volunteered). Yet, the navigator must be intimate with every particular, so his condescension is an ancillary concern.
But, soon I will unweave this skein of guiles.
It is the typical mess with its long counters and many tables and in the corner is the window from which rations are expressed. It is to this window that I make my path directly, though several of my companions are having supper at a table near the entrance and they mark that fact that I cannot have missed them and yet have done so all the same, without saying hello. But, I don’t care though; they are the kind of friends for whom there is no better word—my imagination or the language fails. If one of them had stood and hailed me I would not have been persuaded to cease my errand lest its urgent object should be lost. They do not stand but they have seen me I am sure; that’s just the kind they are. They would rather sit and be slighted than stand and invite me to join them. Too busy at their food, for they are the kind that can suffer only one object at a time and this must be directly in front of them!
There is a reason why I bunk with Boris, even though he is a louse.
His boredom is a kind of charm.
It is the stitch that’s sewn our coats together.
His contempt is another thing entirely.
I am trying eagerly to imitate it but so far with little to show—though I am learning, yet upon tiptoe.
And what does this lot have, save for gravy? Soon they will retire to the privy and all the talk will turn to these matters.
The enduring stains on their sleeves!
But I cannot amuse myself thinking of them, for I see the navigator supping in the corner now, where it is lit less well.
He is having tea, it seems, and is neither reading nor figuring in his book, so he might leave at any time and I must be quick, but not too quick, if I hope to reach him without rousing his suspicions.
Have you decided what you would have?
Look, only didn’t you see that I have been thinking all this time very hard about this question that you have decided, for some reason, to put to me when it is obvious that I should be standing here for no purpose except to divulge that very secret straightaway as soon as I have found the solution.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you, but we are closing and since you seemed very distracted I thought that it might be more charitable to break in upon it before it was too late.
That’s fine but could you please let go of me and put me down as well because this is an uncomfortable position and it is only making it more difficult to think.
I will do that but it was you who leaped into me in your surprise at my voice from your elbow where my head was and I had to react or else we both might have been injured and perhaps you would have come off worse since you were not anticipating the collision, as I was.
Well if you had been anticipating the collision, why didn’t you let me alone and in peace?
Remember, it is because we are closing now and you seemed so bent upon deciding what you would have that I must have stopped it unless your vexation should have turned to fits.
But I shouldn’t be vexed at all if you hadn’t frightened me.
But you are vexed now, I see that.
Don’t you understand that that is only because you frightened me by sneaking up to me like that and perhaps also because the question was inane since you could see I was still thinking and perhaps even a little more because of this conversation, which is approaching the inane in itself. But even then I am only a little vexed and I don’t mean to reproach you. It’s simply the situation.
But I am deeply sorry that you are vexed at all.
Not another word about it or I shall really become vexed with you after all! You are the one that I am speaking to, and I am vexed, so while it might appear that I am vexed with you already, that is not the case. But, I will become vexed with you if we continue to talk about it.
Well, know that I would not wish this.
Thank you. Now, what about some food? I must meet with my companion who is already sitting here for a long time and if I am famished I cannot carry out the important business which we must attend together.
Well I would be happy to get you something but at the risk of vexing you further, I must ask right now who it is you’re referring to when you speak of your companion.
What business is it of yours?
I would not presume to say that it is any at all but if you expected to meet your companion here in the mess then perhaps he has forgotten or become discouraged.
What are you talking about?
Why look around and see for yourself that there is no one here except you and I. The mess is closing as I said and everyone has finished his supper and moved on until next time.
That’s obvious! But why have you detained me in talking for so long?
Sir, I beg your apology. The fault is entirely my own this time and I am ashamed to have been an accessory to this malapropism.
I do not think that you have been an accessory to any such thing. I only would like some food now, although I admit my appetite is somewhat spoiled. What about some broth?
I’m sorry sir.
Why is that?
You will be very vexed.
Just go on because it can’t get much worse.
The mess is closed, sir.
Yes I know, you’ve been saying that, you’ve been talking of hardly anything else and now you must be joking with me but I’ve been listening to you closer than you think and you said the mess is closing not that it is closed, so go on and put me down already and go and get me something and a lot of it. My appetite is coming back.
It was closing and I might have gotten you anything at all even rabbit or caramel if we had acted sooner, but now the mess is closed and there is nothing you or I can do.
You can go in, or I’ll strike you!
Go ahead, sir. But I can’t. It’s closed even to me. But I understand if you would like to hit me. If it would make you feel better, go on. It might. Though I am weak and I am certain it should hurt me terribly.
Oh, go away. And put me down, will you? I shall stay here until my companion returns for the next meal so that I don’t miss him.
I’m afraid you may not stay here, sir.
I will!
I shall have to stop you then, sir. I may have to use force.
First you tell me to hit you and then you threaten the same and I’ve done nothing wrong! It’s you who should be beaten!
If you stay you will have done something wrong and I will have to beat you, it’s true. If you beat me, that is also something which is wrong but I would allow it and not report it since, though I did nothing wrong, I did upset you accidentally and I feel a great remorse about that, so I would recourse to the natural laws which admit of fair exchange. Blows for vexation. I do this only because the laws of civil society do not strictly forbid it.
Listen to the cook.
Not a cook, sir, merely a hand. So what will it be? Will you beat me and leave or must I beat you to leave?
I would like very much to beat you, for I have an unpleasant feeling about you and I cannot admit that I do not suspect that you have planned all of this somehow in order to prevent me from meeting with my companion. But that is detestable and I will restrain myself, safe in the knowledge that once my companion, who is an officer of this ship, discovers that I was detained here by a mess hand that justice will be served upon you instead of you doing the serving of whatever grim trickle it is that passes for board in this mess. And with that I take my leave of you, if you’ll finally put me down that is!
Very well, sir. I’m sorry, sir. Goodbye, sir.
Goodbye, “sir” although that is too rich a term for you, I think. May we never cross paths again!
And that is when I took my leave of that mouse called a man. To think that I had been buttonholed by a mess hand when to claim the navigator was my errand. But the vicissitudes of ship life quite often attain the heights of obscenity. It is hard to say just how but I am not a liar unless there is an excuse. The hand needn’t know what the mind desires, only that it should obey. Otherwise, you are feeding the mouth to its throat.
Now I shall have to go back to Boris to tell him I have been squeezed out today and he will not be pleased with me. I must think of something to appease him by, so he will not cut me from the crime we’re planning.
But hey—I see the hand proceeds me...
He is scurrying ahead of me along the passageway...
And what if I should catch him, eh? I’d show him what it’s like to be sewn up in a situation then and have the seams cut out of him.
That would take the stuffing out of him.
And after that he would not be so puffed up again.
Yes, Boris could surely make a mess of him, and perhaps he would also be impressed that I had captured him and forget a little of my failing then.
It should not be hard for me. You see, I am accustomed to dealing with rodents and other little things. There were many in the privies of the yards of my youth and many of another kind in the same aboard the ship.
You must bait the hook and wait patiently. The little sniffing thing will always arrive if you offer the proper incentive.
My mother taught me how to do this with a crumb and a bit of thread.
We lay in wait in the dead of night, with only the end of the string to keep us company. The string was tied to a stick some distance away and the stick was notched to admit the lip of a tin. In the shadow of the tin lay the crumb. If we remained absolutely still, at length it came for the crumb.
The bigger thing for the little thing and the bigger for the bigger still.
It would only take a moment to miss the mouse once it arrived and since our eyes could not pierce the darkness we must have listened like our life depended from that tied, notched stick. I did not like the sudden din when we whipped the stick out from the box, when the animal would bounce around and seek the exit, but soon that would stop unless the beast was big, then sometimes the box would almost scoot away, until I leaped upon it.
Although I did not like to catch the animals, I saw it must be done. Eventually, I admit, I began to enjoy the task.
And I will enjoy this too and think that I will win, though Boris and I will not eat this hand that feeds us, even if he would send us to bed hungry.
Now, how to do it:
1) I will become his tail. To follow him so closely I must be like an appendage, hence the appellation. As he goes so shall I, with all grace, and will not clunk along behind but shall hold myself high upon my toes and only put the tip down gently upon the tile and I shall not shuffle but step deliberately and swish merrily, to and fro if I must, to match him. Not a mere shadow but a true tail, and these have brains.
2) I will await an opportunity. Every living thing must cease its progress now and again or become distracted for various reasons. Importunity is the shape of a horn; the ship itself is my baited hook and this mouse will nibble at the crumb. Pausing; opening a door; lacing a shoe: the dull stations of ship-life will be my trip-wires today.
3) I will fall upon him. My body will be the tin. I will be listening very closely and pull the stick away at precisely the correct moment. The stick in this case is my legs. They are both long things supporting the trap, which is the heavy thing from which he will be unable to extricate himself unless I myself lift it off. I will spread out my overcoat, which is part of the uniform, so that the cape becomes like a great wing, which can double as a net so that when I fly out over him and touch down upon him he is entirely covered in fabric and will be further disoriented by the loss of his sight (for it will be quite dark under the cape cover), even as he must realize that some great, sudden force has borne him to the floor.
4) I will return to Boris with the quarry to accept his congratulations and plan the next move.
It is a thick crime already but I am eager to immerse myself in it further, for I can see no other course and I am bored of boredom.
Isn’t it funny that this fellow, who had thought he’d had the best of me, should soon be kicking and punching desperately at phantoms?
I find it evinces a kind of design to things, which is detectable sometimes and is suggested in the most enduring stories, the ones where matters are sorted out fairly and all the twists are squared. For example, though my errand may have seemed to fail, I shall not be returning empty-handed and then again it may be that I have caught the better man because looks, above all else, can be deceiving.
This is certainly what my friend was saying as I swooped upon him in the hall once he paused momentarily.
One moment he is scurrying along quite unaware and preoccupied, no doubt, with the typical gamut of small concerns that predominate his daily thoughts and the next he is flat out and not even certain if he should be frightened or if he has simply fallen suddenly asleep or died mysteriously since all the lights have gone out from his eyes and perhaps from his brains, too since they have gone otherwise blank.
Hello? He cried, cautiously.
Hello again, I replied automatically, though with some pleasure.
Oh, it is you then and I have not died or gone mad, unless I am conversing with myself or some dread agent of the other side.
Ah, but how can you be sure. Perhaps I am such a grim thing.
But you said 'hello again' which indicates to me that you have met me before and I have never gone mad before, or died before, so far as I am aware.
The broth of forgetting is sweet, they say. They say it is irresistible.
But they might be wrong if they can’t remember trying it. Besides, you have already tipped your hand. Either one of us is mad or we have met before.
It is not so simple as that, you’ll find. You’ll soon discover that we have plans for you. Infamous plans.
Very well gentlemen, tell me what I must do and I will if that is the only way to secure my release.
You are quite presupposing but you are in no position to strike bargains. And you underestimate me, for it was the work of one man who detained you, which was me, and yet you addressed me as if I were a company. How very amusing. Do you think you are so important?
I only addressed you as such because you yourself said that you all had plans for me. I was only trying to be polite and to listen well in the hope that such an attitude might expedite my release or at least make it known to you that I will do my best to accommodate you if it will be favorable to me. If you are alone in your errand, let me tell you that I am very impressed.
Fool! Don’t think that I don’t see your game or detect a note of sarcasm in your praise of my ability. I do not need your endorsement to know that I am a rat-catcher of the first degree. Rats are not without guile and are prone to testing every means of escape but I am a first degree rat-keeper too, you know. And you are a rat.
If you say so then I suppose I am in your rattrap, too.
True, and we have plans for you.
I will try my best to fit in your plans but you must tell me what they are.
We will go to Boris, rat. And that’s for him to decide.
Then there are two of you?
You shall soon find out I said to him and with that I led him away towards my and Boris’ compartment.
It wasn’t far away and we had soon arrived although we should have done sooner except that I was obliged to keep my coat over the rat’s head to keep him deceived about the direction we were going in case he should escape and attempt to raise a campaign against us. Although this would be easily brushed aside—probably involving gnawed sticks and whatever other crudely improvised weaponry his pack could quickly lay claws upon—and dispensed with handily by us in fitting fashion, it would nevertheless be such a complete waste of time that I saw fit to prevent its ever getting started. Even though I would have liked nothing so much as to bloody their noses there was a greater misdeed afoot that wanted shodding, though this was slightly delayed due to my prisoner’s blindness, which caused him to bump his head and elbows repeatedly against the walls despite my care in leading him.
I hesitated only momentarily at the compartment door in case Boris should be so drunk as to have gone to sleep upon the floor, which is something I have never seen but which worries me because I’ve heard of it.
I knocked and heard the familiar grunt of Boris from the top bunk and opening the door I discovered that all was well and Boris was up there, hiding under the covers; drunk and undiminished.
I’ve brought you something, Boris, I said, and indicated the figure of the rat looking like a plump, grey ghost with fleshy legs underneath my overcoat.
Boris growled at the sight and sighed in pride towards me. He thought I had overcome the navigator as promised and that we were one step closer to conducting our great transgression. At that moment a new idea occurred to me, which made me tremble at the thought.
Good, he grumbled, Good, he said, sounding slightly sick as though the drink had found its inevitable way, at last, to his health. Let me see him then.
I led the rat before Boris’ bed and lifted off the coat with a flourish.
There he stood, twitching his nose and blinking numbly in the sudden light of the cabin. A rat, alright, I thought triumphantly.
I lifted up the covers then so Boris could see for himself. Black Boris in his great grey uniform, with eyes as red as rubies, looking splendid with the bottle beside him and his great grey mustache, pungent with the smell of scheming.
Don’t pull the blanket down all the way now, he chortled, winking, for I’ve a girl under here and so should you, you fetcher and fletcher of the arrows of malcontent, which we shall reign upon our foes now the navigator charts our course.
Of course, of course, I shall have one I said and smiled a secret smile and stamped upon the rodent’s toe.
Tell him, I said, pointing at Boris, whose face was delirious, drunk, with glee, tell Boris here the queer things about the ship and leave no detail behind, for you, the navigator, you shall be the reason for my black heart beating louder all the time.
X
I wrote this piece while sick with a fever in the hottest part of the summer in Val Verde, California in 2011. I remember watching episodes of George Gently and The Midsummer Murders around the same time and trying to make crackers in the oven to go with chicken soup without knowing how. The crackers didn't turn out, but I still enjoy George Gently, even though it was a rough time, personally.
A version of this story appeared in the second issue of Nat. Brut in 2013 after I was solicited for a piece by an acquaintance of a very nice guy named Dave I worked with briefly at the arts venue, Machine Project, who I met when I was hired to help Mark Allen respond to emails, then—when that dried up—to sweep the floors. The acquaintance was the deputy editor of Nat. Brut at the time and must have asked Dave if he could recommend any writers who might be interested in contributing to an up-and-coming publication. I don't think Dave had ever read any of my writing, but we did have a good conversation about Kafka when I was sweeping the floors at Machine Project and I appreciate him throwing me a bone on faith.