Free When the Night Comes by Favel Parrett Page B

doors. Arms out in front of him, head twisted to one side.
    I open my mouth, call his name. I scream for help and the sound echoes down the stairs. I look at my hands, shaking and coffee-stained. Nella just keeps on slicing and shuddering through the ice. She just keeps on moving.
    I run down the stairs, take Soren’s wrist in my hand. It’s warm, his skin still warm, but I can find no pulse. His eyes are open. They stare at the wall.
    I hear shouting, footsteps on the metal stairs. I see faces, serious faces. I am pulled up and out of the way. I lean against the coolroom doors. There is blood on my shoe, blood on my trousers. I must have been kneeling in it.
    There on the floor, a pool of blood.

    The captain is opposite me. We are sitting in the red booth. I don’t remember getting here. I don’t know how long I have been sitting here.
    â€œThere is nothing we can do,” he says. “He has passed.”
    I nod. I look at nothing.
    â€œWhy don’t you go, get cleaned up?” he says, but I tell him I want to stay.
    We sit there.
    â€œJust a terrible accident,” he says. “Terrible.”
    There’s a body bag brought down from somewhere. Crew keep coming into the galley, hearing the news. No one can believe it. It’s not real. It can’t be right.
    Klaus comes over.
    â€œDinner is off,” he says. “I’ll put out soup, some sandwiches.”
    â€œYes,” I say, “the soup’s ready,” thinking about the cauliflower soup I made after breakfast.
    He pats me on the shoulder then, something he has never done. Like a father would. Like a brother.
    We wrap Soren up and take him into the freezer. No one says a word.I keep thinking he will just wake up, say, “Got you! That was a good one.” But when the captain closes Soren’s eyes with the weight of his fingers, something inside me goes very cold.
    Someone hands me a glass of whiskey and I drink it down. Then another. Another. That night we sat in the passage—riding out the storm—he said to me, “I know I’m meant to be here, on this ship.”
    We drank to that. To all his plans. Antarctica and all that we would see. To the bar he would open, to all of the adventures that would be his.
    â€œHere’s to us,” he said, and we drank down our whiskey, which tasted bitter to me, but I was going along for the ride. Being part of it. That feeling. He made you feel like freedom.
    â€œLucky,” he said. “You and me. Christ!”

    I sit in my cabin in clean clothes. I don’t know where the ones I was wearing are. Outside the ice is getting tough—sticking together in sheets, in rounds.
    If I’d just let him win rock, paper, scissors, then I would be drinking my coffee, reading the news from home, and Soren would be bugging me—talking nonstop the way he always did, asking me about this and about that. Talking about his camera, about the photos he took yesterday, about the ones he’s going to take tomorrow. Talking about the Rolling Stones. About Pink Floyd. About the stars and the gods and about everything that’s in that head of his. And I know that from now on the silence of Soren not talking will be terrifying. That it will be the loneliest sound of all.

MS Nella Dan
    VOYAGE 2, 1986/1987 SEASON
    11th November 1986
    POSITION: 63° 26.000’ S, 120° 5.000’ E
    CAPTAIN’S NOTE: Pack ice in all directions. Icebergs in the distance. We continue at slow speed.
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    The captain puts down a cup of coffee for me, black, and I take it.
    â€œI know you were close,” he says.
    I tell him what happened. I tell him everything—the frozen beef and the coffee break and the ship pitching up over the ice.
    We sit like that—I sip my coffee and he sips his. Up here it is much quieter than below, the engine sounds muted. Up here, high in the sky, there is no smell of diesel fuel or roasting meats. No smell of cabbage. The