The Way of Muri (16 page)

After skirting the Kuril Islands and leaving in his wake a dozen antiquated Chinese junks, Dick greeted 1995 in blissful solitude in the Yellow Sea, which was otherwise teeming with life. His magnificent head emerged from the water, commanding the instant respect of the local seals and sea lions, and he raised his half-blind eyes to the clouds above the Korean shores. Dick was constantly running into his kin in these waters – stripy, dark blue whales, narwhals and other distant relatives, united by ancestors as ancient as the junks. His fellow cetaceans did not go out of their way to be sociable, but this didn’t bother Dick. He himself was naturally taciturn, which was a source of considerable irritation to the communicative and inquisitive dolphins. The sperm whale responded to their relentless questioning with an inhalation and an exhalation and swam off into yet another sunset,
not thinking about anything
, which would surely have delighted the long-forgotten Yui!

A month later, Dick was spotted by some fishermen near Java. After travelling several thousand miles in an enormous arc from Mexico to Indonesia, the whale began heading due south. The ocean was alive with all kinds of travellers. Some crawled along the ocean floor, manoeuvring between underwater cliffs, navigating craters and plateaus. Foragers, scavengers and other hunters roamed above them, hoping to feast on their remains; meanwhile the inhabitants of the upper layers of the ocean, with the possible exception of the sperm whales, were oblivious to their existence. Higher still, diverse hordes of fish hovered above the ridges and drop-offs, from tiny ones just an inch long to ten-foot giants, who parted respectfully for the squid and octopuses that moved stealthily among them.

Among all these creatures, salmon deserve a special mention for exceptional commitment to their goal. Every year they rise from the depths to the surface in a silvery river, uninterrupted even by the most voracious plunderers, who are amply rewarded for merely facing the flow with their mouths open. Salmon are governed by a strange nostalgia. After spending approximately four years at sea, they return to their birthplace to spawn and die. In the shallows where fresh water meets salt water, a welcoming committee greets the tenacious fish with cries of exultation. Seagulls and storm petrels gorge themselves to excess. Bears come down from the mountains, smacking their lips – they barely have to move a paw to catch their next meal. Growing lazy, they simply bite out the spine of one victim before clutching at another. Seals, renowned for their gluttony, suffer the agonies of indigestion. But the salmon know what they are doing: against all odds they fight the current to follow their path upstream, leaping through rapids and over sandbars for hundreds of miles, until they finally reach their secret place. After fulfilling their reproductive duties, they sweep aside their roe and lay down their lives.

Plump and easy-going, tuna have their own migration route, their own important and mysterious goals to pursue in this
shimmering underwater world. These long-distance swimmers, the favourite delicacy of sperm whales, cross the Pacific Ocean from Java to Hawaii, losing tens, even hundreds of thousands of compatriots along the way. After resting in the seaweed forests off the shores of North America, they turn around and head back to where they started. Cod are characterized by their purposefulness. Great shoals of these arrogant, greedy marauders set out for Newfoundland, where fishing nets already lie in wait, and onwards, to the North Sea – they obviously have their reasons. Multitudinous hordes of Pacific saury, mackerel, herring and plaice hasten towards their destination. Capelin congregate in the Kronotsky Gulf, near the Kamchatka Peninsula, before setting out on their journey. Remoras participate in this mass mobilization too, choosing the strongest hosts: sharks and dolphins, not to mention whales. There are also seahorses, crabs, turtles, sea stars, sea urchins, porpoises and the aforementioned spiny lobsters. The assembled armies are interspersed with clouds of krill, plankton and microscopic organisms at the very bottom of the food chain. But they are moving too! The ocean is full of travellers, among whom the place of honour is still occupied by grey whales – the undisputed masters of global circumnavigation. Every year in December squadrons of them swim past San Diego as they set out on the longest journey made by any living creature. Tens of thousands of these wanderers cover a hundred miles a day. The pilgrims appear off the coast of Norway and near Iceland, round the Cape of Good Hope and pass the straits of the Aleutian Ridge. They can sometimes be found near Perkins Island, where entire pods become stranded on the coastal sandbars.

In the spring of 1995, after startling the team of a BBC Malaysia escort vessel with his unusual colouring, Dick headed to Tasmania.

‘Is there any point in measuring the height of summits that have already been conquered?’ Stout was holding court that spring at a conference in Pondicherry. ‘Everyone should determine for
himself why he sets out on his own journey and what he hopes to achieve from it. It doesn’t matter whether this journey will take him across continents or just a few feet from home! Cortés, Funegos, Marco Polo, Columbus and Amundsen… They were all motivated by a Goal! They knew exactly what they were aiming for! Of course, personal ambition also had something to do with it… But why shouldn’t we nurture our ambition? It is what stimulates our dreams.’

‘Dedicating yourself to bringing your own vain and insignificant ideas to fruition is like being the miser who spends his whole life searching for a pitiful pot of gold,’ Belanger wrote the same spring in the foreword to his book. ‘I am categorically opposed to such idiotism! It is particularly senseless to spend your life roaming around the world in pursuit of some selfish goal or, even worse, for personal glory…
Pauca verba!
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Our happiness is to be found only on the great march from one open space to another, from galaxy to galaxy!’

Juliette Lorraine, a twenty-one-year-old oarswoman from Le Havre, hadn’t read Belanger’s book. She hadn’t even heard of Stout. She had come up with the idea of sailing the Atlantic in a rowing boat just sixteen feet long and five feet wide and stubbornly set about putting her plan into action. The only technological accessory Juliette chose to take was a two-way radio, which in the event proved extremely unreliable. Was she motivated by ambition? Maybe. As soon as they caught wind of the venture the Parisian press lambasted her bewildered father, director of one of the local yacht clubs, but he was speechless with shock over his daughter’s foolish decision. Her family were categorically opposed to the endeavour, but the papers did their job and Juliette became famous even before she took up her oars. She cast off from her home town into the unknown, planning to end her self-inflicted suffering in Trinidad. Initially she kept
steadfastly to her course, only rarely making radio contact, but 1,500 miles from her destination, to the appalled horror of those following her journey, Juliette ran into a virtually perfect storm. She had to strap herself tightly to her craft. The storm drowned two fishing seiners and seriously damaged a 100,000-ton tanker but the tiny rowing boat, lurching from crest to hollow, escaped unharmed. Juliette Lorraine survived the ordeal on a combination of aspirin and fruit drops, praying that her water purification system would not fail.

As Muri crossed the bridge over the Vistula, the oarswoman was only 600 miles from her destination. However, fate struck a cruel blow – the first storm was followed immediately by another, which mercilessly threw the boat 300 miles back into the most deserted part of the ocean. Juliette wept, and blood stained her last pair of spare oars, but despite her swollen hands she rowed and rowed. Her skin dried out under the tropical sun, turning to parchment. One night there was a deafening splash right next to the boat. It was followed by the roar of a mysterious animal, which sounded as thought it had swum up from the very depths of the ocean. Juliette admitted afterwards to the tenacious American reporters that it was the worst moment of her life. Never before had she had heard such a deep and mournful cry, so full of suffering, so prolonged and inescapable. It was the sound of something terrible bewailing its agony. After this traumatic incident Juliette was hardly able to sleep a wink for the remainder of her journey. Several times she thought she might be losing her mind, but her body was on autopilot and her muscles kept working. The storm meant she had to change course and head for Florida, not that this made her journey any easier. The heat was unbearable. The tropical sun sparkled in the water, dazzling her eyes, and even her tiniest scratches were corroded by salt. She was chased by barracuda, and her provisions ran out. At the end of May 1995, the waves unceremoniously threw Juliette’s boat onto Florida’s marshy shores. Naturally, the coast-guards had been following Juliette’s progress; she had been
spotted by a patrol aeroplane two days previously, but the place where she ended her epic journey and climbed out of her boat, staggering and swaying on the unsteady land, was inaccessible to all but a few.

Juliette Lorraine was hailed by the UN as the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic. She rather enjoyed the ensuing interviews and photo shoots. During the course of her epic journey Juliette had lost two stone; her cheeks were sunken hollows, and she was suffering from chronic sleep deprivation and insomnia. She was taken to a US naval hospital for thorough observation, but apart from gum disease she appeared to suffer no lasting ill effects. Everyone wanted to know what had compelled such a young girl to row from Le Havre to America, to leave the safety of her home shores for weeks of torment at sea. But this question was never truly answered.

‘Bravo, Juliette!’ rejoiced Stout, who was at a particularly high-level astrological symposium in Casablanca when he heard the news. ‘
Macte! Macte!
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Viva
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the valiant girl! Will anyone ever attempt a more risky venture?
Magna est veritas, et praevalebit!
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’

‘This farcical stunt is exactly the kind of nonsense advocated by the small-minded individuals who insist that every journey must come to an end,’ spat Belanger. ‘Such journeys are not giant leaps, merely a few paltry steps! Is this not
casus belli
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against the garrulous fools who believe that shuffling a few feet is enough to bring them to the end of their Path? I cannot deny that it is entertaining to watch these clowns indulging their egos and putting on their shows, but their circus antics are wearing a little thin. All they seem to care about is dressing up in their finery and blowing their own trumpets. Pitiful posers! Who
cares whether their journeys end in triumph or tears? We will continue our never-ending march!’

Pei Yu Ling – a Chinese man who, like Juliette, had not read the philosopher’s work – stretched a thin cable across one of the gorges of the Yangtze River, 160 feet above the swiftly rushing water. Without waiting for an audience, the tightrope walker began his perilous journey. It was 650 steps from one side to the other. He paused frequently, tensing over the roaring water. It was seven o’clock in the morning so there weren’t many spectators; those who were present watched in silence, anxious not to distract him with their cries of encouragement. One of the spectators happened to be a reporter, who happened to have his camera with him, and he caught the entire episode on film – right up to the moment when the man with the pole stumbled and fell like a stone, disappearing into the yellow waters of the great river. The onlookers didn’t even have time to gasp.

The tightrope walker was fished out of the river two miles downstream. Unperturbed by onlookers, the police dragged Pei Yu Ling from the water, held him upright and thrashed him with their truncheons. This was a legitimate response, in a way – the mission had not been sanctioned by the local authorities and had been undertaken by the stuntman entirely at his own risk.

As Muri discovered, an equally radical method of dealing with travellers was employed in a small town close to the Lithuanian border. Stray cats and dogs were rounded up from all over the town to be slaughtered by sullen orderlies. Muri had been caught too, following a momentary lapse of judgement, and was rushing frantically about the cage with all the other doomed strays. A cacophony of yelps, barks, yowls and dying wheezes filled the air. To block out the desperate howling so that they could concentrate on their work, the orderlies stuffed their ears with cotton wool. They also drank throughout their shift, but their hands were so used to grabbing that their performance was in no
way impaired and the metal-handled clubs continued to serve them well. The team had been hit by influenza – only three of the usual six men were on duty, and they were clearly tired. Nevertheless they continued to raise their clubs, bringing them down with their usual wheezing and grunting, and every blow met its target. Piles of dead mongrels lay at their feet. It was fortunate for Muri that the workers had applied themselves so enthusiastically to the task of dispatching the dogs. They had already removed their hats and quilted jackets and left them outside the enclosure, foolishly omitting to shut the door behind them on their way back in. Now, steaming and sweating, they advanced on their last remaining victims. One of the alcoholic louts raised his club over Muri, who looked into his eyes and instantly decided that the situation called for his tried-and-tested self-defence strategy. The cat made the greatest leap of his life and sank his claws deep into the human’s face. The executioner dropped his weapon and stepped backwards, stricken with unbearable agony. Muri immediately detached himself and sprinted towards the doors. In a matter of seconds he was free again!

Then summer came. In the middle of July 1995, the sperm whale inadvertently swam into a trawl net and promptly ripped it to shreds, seriously damaging the windlass of the associated fishing schooner in the process. If the captain (who was also the owner) and the crew had had any sense, they would have written it off as an unfortunate inconvenience – after all, anything can happen during a fishing season. But the thought of their money drifting away with the torn net was enough to make the fishermen forget about reason, and so the whale was forced to swim away from three avengers who had set out in pursuit of him in a motorised longboat. Soon the desire for vengeance was compounded by the thrill of the chase, the feeling that sooner or later will be the undoing of all humanity. Twelve-calibre bullets tore craters in the whale’s back, which erupted with fountains of
blood. Despite his increased speed Dick was unable to outdistance the two first-class engines, so he was obliged to turn and face his enemies. His pursuers had lost all sense of perspective. These self-assured scions of the twentieth century, wearing brand new waterproof overalls with walkie-talkies in their pockets, greeted the sperm whale’s turn with exultation. They fired yet another volley from all barrels simultaneously. They had every faith in the lethal firepower of their Bur-12 rifles, the latest model from the top weapons manufacturer, so they arrogantly allowed the whale to approach them at close range. The naive fools! Bleeding from his wounds, the sperm whale raised his tail flukes and brought them crashing down on the pitiful substitute for soil beneath the feet of these misguided fishermen. The engines were swept away as the vessel split in two; all three men were thrown overboard, and their rifles sank without trace. A second blow destroyed the longboat completely. Clinging to one another in the water, the hunters sensed the horror of their situation and began wailing at the top of their voices. Their trepidation turned to panic when the whale’s gigantic head suddenly rose up before them on the next wave, blocking out the sky and any hope of salvation. The subsequent tsunami engulfed all three would-be whalers.