Squid (Heart bypass, squid survey)

Heart bypass, squid survey.

by R. Eric Swanepoel

(First published in Deliberately Thirsty Magazine, Argyll Publishing,
Glendaruel, Argyll PA22 3AE, Scotland)

The Brits

The first time you do it it's a weird sensation, right enough, cutting
into still-living flesh. Then, like everything, it becomes routine: the
sharp blade seems to know where it is going. But it's never just a job.
They're all individuals pulsing away, glistening wet sleeknesses of
desperate life trying to communicate for the last time: colour patterns
blooming and fading, a jet of ink here, a squirt of water there. Rage,
rage, against the dying of the light... To call them molluscs seems
demeaning. As a scientist one is supposed to be detached and cool, but
how can you be when you are cutting up something so beautiful and so
frantic? The task on the ship is banal: weighing, dissecting, measuring
and putting aside the now inert and sad little lumps of tissue... You
know you will never sound the depths of the secrets of their ephemeral
grace in this way, but you have to tell yourself that it's all for the
greater good... For theirs and yours, and mankind's. After all, if we
know how many there are, how often they breed, and how fast they grow,
then we can exploit them in perpetuity. Nets and stomachs will be
filled, fishermen will have jobs, and the squid will still be there,
colour-throbbing their enigmatic way through the oceans, super-charged
pelagic chameleon-krakens forever...

The least honour you can do them is not to shun their touch. Plunge
your hands into their squirmness and connect with the dying spirit of
the deep. It's practical too - a firm non-shrinking grip makes for fast
and sure work. You have to do it, so do it quickly and well, and get as
much as you can from the pillage.

We rise when we hear the winch engines hauling the nets in, Janet and
I, The British Contingent. On the stern deck we inspect the hoard of
wriggling silver strained from the briny. The crew sort it for us:
whiptail hake in one box, common hake in another, then there's
kingclip... The boxes in which we're interested are packed with Illex.
They're heavy, but not that heavy, and we are young and strong, and so
we help Juan to place them on the scales - after all he's over fifty
and he's just had a bypass operation. He doesn't thank us, but that's
just his way I suppose. We pull our weight and don't stand on ceremony,
which is more than could be said for some...

There they appear now, the Argentinian scientists, late but
'glamorous', plastic chic and waif thin, with all that make-up
plastered on their faces, but nothing in their stomachs and less in
their hearts... and who could possibly divine what's in their heads?
Look at them waiting, obscene caricatures of femininity... standing
waiting for poor Juan to heave their boxes on the scales, while they
affectedly (they must think elegantly) smoke their constant cigarettes.
If they ate a bit more and posed a bit less they would be of more
use... Why the hell did they bother coming, with their lacquered nails
and long blond hair? Their pathetic fingertip poking doesn't get the
work done - heaven's sake, if they don't like the sensation of handling
squid they could wear gloves! God, their hair-flicking makes me
sick!

The Argentinians

It wasn't our fault that our government invaded the Malvinas. Of course
we would lose. Might is right and the English have might, and such
interests in our fishing grounds, and in our oil of the future... and
Thatcher needed a war to stay in power... Thatcher... they're all like
her aren't they? Hard men-women, bereft of femininity. What are we on
earth for, after all? We were so stupid to think we could win against
that ugliness. Yes, we were bound to lose! And now they are on our
ship, and glaring at us, those sexless eat-and-work machines, who don't
give a damn about aesthetics. It's such lack of respect for
themselves... and for men. We're only in this life so long and the
least we can do is appreciate its pleasures... and give pleasure to
others... It's not as if men and women are the same! God made us that
way, so why do they strain to minimize the difference? It's sick! ...
And once again these blunt Anglo-Saxons are taking our resources from
us... One population of squid, they say, not four, so that we can't
fish year round...

Juan

They cut me open. I would have died otherwise. The whole thing happened
so quickly... In 1985 I was the strongest man on board. In 1986 there
was some pain... In 1987 I was lucky to get to the hospital alive...
then months of rest, taking things slowly. Maria got on my nerves - I
wasn't a bloody child, but she took control of everything. And the
wheelchair, and I couldn't satisfy her any more... But I made it! The
day I got back on ship and made those boxes move! Things had changed a
bit, though. We were no longer fishing, we were 'doing research'... and
there were women! What would my father have said? But it was good...
shifting boxes for them. Their perfume and their smiles and fat Maria
at home! And then the English. Castration, and my mortality thrown in
my face