Penguin

Penguin.

For Andrew Pack, who mentioned the penguin.

Everyone has noticed that over the previous few days the behaviour of
the penguin has rapidly deteriorated.

"Where did you get it?" Torn asks Reyka one evening over our dinner of
cod and herring.

"It is not an 'it' it is a 'he'," says Reyka and promptly stands up
from the table.

"How do you tell the sex of a penguin?" asks Torn but if Reyka has
heard she does not answer. Under our gaze she ascends the staircase
that leads to either her room or the toilet.

****

Later we find Reyka in her room. She is wrapped tightly in a pink
eiderdown and she has a Gideon bible in one hand and a glass containing
a small amount of green liquid in the other.

"I have to tell you," she says, "I have been offered a commission on a
whaler. We sail from Akureyri at first light."

"Then you must pack," says Torn.

Reyka raises the glass to her mouth and drains the liquid. The bible
she lets fall to the quilt.

"Sometimes the hardest thing about leaving is leaving."

"And the hardest thing about staying is staying," says Torn. "You must
tell us about this penguin."

"He was disabled when I purchased him," says Reyka. "Both his wings
had been hewed clean off."

"I meant from where did he come," says Torn.

Reyka pauses momentarily and then, as if retrieving the information
from an exceptionally large dictionary, she replies. "I got him from
Ivor Magnusson at the Swinging Anchor Hotel."

"Thank you," says Torn and we leave the room.

****

Torn prods me awake before dawn and we accompany Reyka to the bus
terminal. It is cold out and Torn scolds me ruthlessly for losing my
willie warmer.

"I had it," I say, "and now it is gone."

"Just don't blame me for the consequences," says Torn.

We watch silently as Reyka steps up onto the step of the bus. She is
wearing a fake sable coat and a pointed green hat. She turns at the
last moment and her lips move as if to say something. They say nothing
that is audible and the bus door hisses close.

"She is my sister," says Torn and nods once.

We make our way back through the still dark streets on foot. As we
step back inside the house on the edge of the ice field the first thing
I see is the penguin. By its feet is my willie warmer. It is in
tatters.

"It could have been worse," says Torn. "You could have been wearing
it."

Somehow his words are of no comfort.

****

After lunch Torn takes an empty crisp box and makes four holes in the
side with the wrong end of an ice-cream scoop. He then chases the
penguin around the table until the penguin stops, heaving for breath.
With a look of triumph Torn lifts up the penguin and places it in the
crisp box.

"Come," he says to me.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"To Ivor Magnusson at the Swinging Anchor Hotel," says Torn as he
places the crisp box containing penguin under the crook of his
arm.

****

There are only two other people on the bus. One is a Japanese airplane
spare parts salesman and the other a teenage Icelandic boy clutching a
bag of ring doughnuts. Both are interested in our penguin or at least
the noises coming from within the crisp box.

"We are taking him home," says Torn and Torn being one always to
divert attention away from himself asks the other passengers about
themselves.

The Japanese airplane spare parts salesman tells us in stilted English
that he is delivering an exhaust valve push-rod to an Icelandic venture
capitalist who is rebuilding a Bleriot XI bi-plane in his garage. The
teenage boy's story is more simple. He has a crush on a beautiful girl
he met the previous market day and he is taking the bag of ring
doughnuts as a token of his love.

Outside the windows of the bus all is white. The white seems to be
endless.

****

It is night when we arrive at The Swinging Anchor Hotel. We make our
lone way up the path under the pinpoints of stars.

The hotel stands at the pinnacle of a tall cliff. The drop down to the
raging sea one hundred feet below would be certain death, the climb up
the sheer rock face impossible.

At a curved reception desk a skinhead giant looks us up and down and
replies obliquely to our request.

"It's a bit out of the ordinary two men asking to share a room, isn't
it?" he says.

"We also have a penguin," intones Torn pumping himself up to a full
two thirds of the giant's height.

"Everyone has a penguin," comes the instant reply and it is then, as
the giant turns, that I notice two things: a) a poster on the back wall
of the reception, b) the view through an open door to the hotel
bar.

On the poster is the simulacrum of a penguin. Below it, the words,
'Penguin. Reward 20 krona. Please contact Ivor Magnusson room 21B'.
Through the door of the bar I see penguin after penguin after
penguin.

"Room eight six two," says the receptionist. "You're right at the
top." He brings his hand down sharply on a silver bell. It rings
sonorously but nobody comes.

I take this as a sign.

****

Torn and I are in bed. The penguin is in the bathtub in the ensuite
bathroom. Perhaps sensing that it is closer to home it has desisted
from squawking.

"I don't like this," says Torn. "If our penguin is the one Ivor
Magnusson is looking for then I won't hand him over. Nothing good ever
comes from the exchange of money."

I look over to where my false leg is leaning against the window ledge.
We purchased it on the black market for what Torn referred to as a tidy
sum. I hesitate about saying anything as deep down I agree with Torn. I
don't want to sell the penguin. After all, we are here to set it
free.

"What shall we do?" I say.

"We must tread carefully," says Torn.

****

In the morning we leave our penguin in the bathtub and go down to the
bar. We are on a fact finding mission.

In front of a roaring fire is an old woman in a silk gown and an ivory
hat. At her feet is a penguin.

"Have you come for the reward?" asks Torn.

The old woman nods slightly. "But I don't think my penguin is the
one." The woman places a wrinkled hand on the hubcap of the penguin's
head and spins it around. "Look at its back," she says. "No map."

"I see," says Torn. "No map." And we stand up to leave.

At the door to the bar we literally bump into a barrel-chested man
with a sinuous red beard.

"Hello Ivor," says Torn.

"Hello Torn," says the man. He pauses. "Your sister, the whaler. Is
she free?"

"She sailed this morning at first light from Akureyri."

"Pity," says Ivor, "I am about to embark on a journey that will bring
untold wealth to all involved. Only as soon as I find this damned
map."

****

Up in our room we check the penguin and find no map.

"I thought as much," says Torn. "This penguin has already been through
Ivor's hands. I wouldn't like to think what he would do if he saw him
again."

"Then what shall we do with him?" I ask as I hear the sound of webbed
feet slapping the parquet floor behind me.

"There is a place," says Torn, "but it is dangerous."

From outside comes the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks a
distance below. A lone seagull calls.

"If you only live half a life," I say, "you will only have half a
life."

Torn nods. "Come then. I brought us fresh willie warmers in
anticipation of such a course of action.

****

Torn knows of a path down the cliff face and leads the way. He has the
crisp box containing the penguin clutched tightly beneath an arm.

The wind is howls around us like the hands of angry children and what
with only one real leg and one false one I struggle somewhat. As I
reach the bottom Torn is already there, the penguin standing aloof next
to him gazing out to sea.

"I haven't been here for years," says Torn.

"Where?" I say.

And Torn points.

In the area between the base of the cliff and the end of the shore is
a small wooden hut. Clumps of dried seaweed hang from its barnacled
roof.

"Follow me," says Torn.

He sets off up the sloping shingle closely followed by the
penguin.

****

"Can I borrow your boat?" says Torn.

The old man in the hut takes the pipe from his mouth and then puts it
back in again.

"There's no whales about," he says, "if that's what you're
after."

"It's not for the whales," says Torn and he points pointedly at the
penguin.

"Caractacus!" says the old man and he hoots repeatedly with laughter.
Each hoot sends a cloud of smoke shooting from the end of the pipe.
"You believe in Caractacus?"

"A society that loses its belief in stories," says Torn, "is on a
rocky road to ruin."

The old man shakes his head. He removes the pipe from his mouth like
he is uncorking a bottle of vintage Champagne and he says, "You may
borrow the boat under one condition."

"What's that?" says Torn.

"You bring it back."

****

The boat is more of a coracle than a canoe but rests somewhere
uncomfortably between the two.

Torn and I sit upright side by side on a hoary plank in the centre of
the vessel and each grip tightly onto a rugged oar. The penguin rests
at the back watching us through beady eyes.

The land takes an infinity to disappear and then as if in a flash it
is gone over the edge of the sea. Torn has told me to keep count of the
strokes and it isn't until I'm on 357 and pain is screaming down my
back that I risk a question.

"Do you know the way?" I ask.

"No rests," shouts Torn into the buffeting wind.

"I'm not resting," I say as the oar scoops the water for the 358th
time.

"We are nearer just by not keeping still," says Torn.

This, I know from the past, is one of Torn's favourite expressions. He
used it once on a day out walking in the Apennines. That same night, I
recall, we spent sleeping in a tree, the ground below patrolled by a
hungry brown bear.

However, I wonder if Torn is right. In all my time with Torn I have
always felt I am heading towards something marvellous.

****

Night comes and with it violent swells. It is like being a pea flicked
between the thumbs of a giant.

"Torn," I scream, "we are going to die."

"We won't die," says Torn, "or, at least, we will die trying not
to."

"Torn!" I scream again and it is then that I see it; a single fir tree
silhouetted by a circular moon.

****

Land is like a blessing, each particle of sand a sacrament.

"We made it," I say.

"Not yet," says Torn and he sets off walking.

We walk throughout the night and arrive at dawn in a small clearing.
In the centre of the clearing is a large tin structure that could only
resemble a rocket.

"He bought it from the Chinese," said Torn.

"Who did?" I ask.

"Caractacus."

I think Torn is talking to me until I notice the man striding towards
us with his hand outstretched in greeting.

"Caractacus," says Torn again and the man smiles and they shake hands
silently.

****

We drink Earl Grey tea from a table in the centre of the rocket.

"I am primarily an astronomer," says Caractacus. He reaches behind him
and pulls an ancient-looking book from a shelf. "This book is the
original one Flamsteed recorded the stars in on the express orders of
Charles II. Flamsteed never finished his work. I intend to do it for
him. The view of the stars from this island at night is quite
spectacular."

"What are we doing here?" I say to Torn as Caractacus stands from the
table to refresh the teapot.

"You'll see," says Torn.

****

We have a light dinner and then Caractacus shows us around his
compound. There is the rocket, a separate toilet block, and through a
short walkway under arching trees what Caractacus calls his private
zoo.

"It is not really a zoo," says Caractacus, "it is more of sanctuary
for disabled animals."

And it is then that I understand.

"We must stop here," says Caractacus.

We are at the end of the walkway. There is a gate. Beyond the gate I
see an earless rabbit, a three legged donkey, a giraffe with no tail.
And before the gate, of course, is our penguin.

"No humans allowed in the zoo I'm afraid," says Caractacus. "Only
animals. This is where you must say goodbye."

Torn and I kneel together and each put an arm around the body of the
penguin. We pull him in to us and he comes willingly and places his
beak in the join of our shoulders. We remain like that for minutes
almost as if we are praying.

After we stand Caractacus opens the gate and with a gentle push the
penguin waddles through. He turns to look at us momentarily and then
with a squawk disappears into the abundant ferns.

"Goodbye," I say.

"He is a penguin," says Torn. "He is a penguin."