The Yellow Sailor Read online

  PRAISE FOR Museum of Love

  “A delectably dour brand of Great Lakes magic realism, written in a prose that manages to be both terse and hallucinatory. Grimly witty, the novel’s high speed pageant of lust and loss is as painful as shrapnel, yet extraordinarily seductive and sublime. Mr. Weiner’s fictional world has an affinity with the work of writers like Ben Okri and J.G. Ballard, the photographer Joel-Peter Witkin, and film makers Guy Maddin and Todd Haynes. But he is, one suspects, less a disciple of these latter-day Surrealists than a kindred spirit. Employing a dream logic that taps directly into the unconscious, he pushes narrative to the outer limits of what it can do … The intense, dreamlike imagery, grim humor and hectic catastrophe of the novel are transformed by a prose of startling beauty … The Museum of Love is a dazzling calling card from an impressive talent.”

  —MICHAEL UPCHURCH, The New York Times Book Review

  “Weiner’s prose techniques echo not only the delirious raw intimacy of the novels of Celine, Burroughs, and Genet, but the cinematic disjunctions of Kronenberg and Lynch … Obviously, Weiner is not without expressive resources as a writer … he demonstrates a gift for evoking place and mood in lurid, surreal tones, dusting the rough substance of his tale with macabre lights and hues.”

  —TOM CLARK, The Los Angeles Times

  “An extraordinary first novel … Not since Genet have we seen so wise and devoted an examination of the mysterious confluence of religion, sex, and political power. The Museum of Love unveils a landscape of religious zealotry, racial hatred and fascination, love and rape, and the haunting promise of an open frontier, always out there, somewhere … [The Museum of Love] is structured like a diamond, a complex geometric jewel. Visionary, beguiling, and fiercely moral, The Museum of Love is an astounding achievement.”

  —MATTHEW STADLER, The Seattle Times

  “The style is spare, poetic; there is a throbbing rhythm reminiscent of both Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, and the book is an elaborate literary construction … The incidental details of time and space are stunning. The sensibility is absolutely convincing … An original and memorable reflection on our culture … The tone is relentlessly operatic.”

  —MARIAN BOTSFORD FRASER, The Toronto Globe and Mail

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  The Museum of Love

  Copyright

  First published in the United States in 2001 by

  The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

  New York, NY

  NEW YORK:

  141 Wooster Street

  New York, NY 10012

  Copyright © 2001 by Steve Weiner

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

  ∞ The paper used in this book meets the requirements for paper permanence as described in the ANSI Z39.48-1992 standard.

  ISBN 978-1-46830-767-2

  To

  Stephen and Timothy Quay

  Contents

  Praise for Museum of Love

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Yellow Sailor

  Broken Down, Raised Up

  Hamburg

  Blue Eyes

  Queen of the Ball

  Up the Elbe

  Morons

  O, Soldiers!

  Clumsy Love

  A Personal Savior

  Baden

  Into the Dark

  Love is Stronger Than Opium

  Hard Traveling

  The Bordello of First Loves

  Love Was a Secret of Two

  Couldn’t Hold On, Couldn’t Let Go

  Epilogue

  YELLOW SAILOR

  IT WAS 1914, Hamburg.

  Nicholas Bremml was nineteen. He had blond hair and green eyes. He joined the German merchant marine. The chief of the diesel room took him onto the Yellow Sailor. Nicholas carried a yellow suitcase with red stripes down twelve metal steps to a dormitory.

  “Put your clothes in the locker, Nicholas.”

  “Jo.”

  “And your shoes by the foot of the bed.”

  “Jo.”

  “Stay here.”

  The chief left. Nicholas looked around. Baskets of wet socks hung from bunks. Heating ducts crossed the ceiling. Underwear hung on bunk rails. He sat on a bunk.

  “What a stinky hole.”

  He looked out the porthole. Nikolaifleet’s slums smoked. Eddies circled a brewery and a chocolate factory. A masted boat leaned in a canal.

  “I hope I never see Hamburg again.”

  Nicholas read a list.

  1. A German is strong.

  2. A German is decisive.

  3. A German does not complain.

  4. A German does not lose integrity.

  5. A German never doubts.

  He took a revolver from his suitcase and put it in his locker. A man with black greasy hair, parted in the middle, bare-chested, stood in the doorway. Nicholas turned.

  “Whose revolver is that?”

  “My father’s.”

  “What does your father do?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Of what?”

  “Spanish influenza.”

  “Are you infected?” the man said.

  “Nee.”

  “I’ll bet you are.”

  The man took off his trousers.

  “My name is Karl Dach.”

  Karl bent over a basin and soaped himself.

  “My name is Nicholas Bremml. I’ll be glad to get out of Hamburg. That’s for sure.”

  Nicholas hung his clothes in the locker and put the suitcase in.

  “What’s it for?” Karl said.

  “What?”

  “The revolver.”

  “To protect myself.”

  “Against what?”

  “Anybody who would do anything,” Nicholas said. “Not that anybody would.”

  “No. Why would they?”

  “What have I got to offer?”

  Karl flexed his muscles. There was a tattoo: a mermaid hooked by an angler.

  Jacek Gorecki came in. He wore a red plaid shirt and red suspenders. Alois Dach, Karl’s brother, came in. He was fat, with a walrus mustache. A Swedish machinist came in. He also had a walrus mustache but his was clean. Alois ate marmalade with two fingers. A paraffin heater smoked. Alois banged it. The wick died. Nicholas took off his shoes and socks and rubbed between his toes. Alois threw the marmalade jar into the Elbe.

  “Nicholas.”

  “What?”

  “Want to hear a joke?”

  “Sure!”

  “A Norwegian, German, and Pole argued who was the filthiest. The German said, we’ll find out. We’ll go into a pigsty. Whoever can stand it the longest is filthiest. They found a pigsty and went in. After three days the German came out. Two days later the Norwegian came out, throwing up. That settled it. A week later the pig came out.”

  Nicholas laughed. He wiped tears. Karl handed him a bottle of red wine.

  “You drink, don’t you, Nicholas?”

  “Sure.”

  Nicholas drank. It ran down his chin. Lights went out. Silhouettes moved. Bunks groaned under the weight of men. The Swede prayed.

  “Jesus är min vän then bäste,” he said. “Jesus is my friend, the best.”

  Light-spirals glided along the ceiling. Nicholas stretched out, hands behind head. A battleship went by. Torpedo bo
ats cruised, screws slow. The armored riverboats Tiger and Comet went up the Elbe to Lauenburg.

  “Sweet dreams, Nicholas,” Karl said.

  Nicholas snored.

  “Something is wrong with Nicholas Bremml,” Karl said.

  “What?”

  “He’s no good.”

  The Sulzer-Diesels throbbed.

  No good.

  No good.

  No good.

  It was morning. The chief of the diesel room opened the door.

  “Germans, awake!”

  Nicholas blinked.

  “Huh?”

  “Breakfast!”

  Alois threw the covers aside.

  “Direkt!”

  He put on gray overalls and lumbered up the stairs. Karl put brilliantine in his hair.

  “Shower, Nicholas.”

  “I will.”

  Karl left. Nicholas showered. He touched his nipples. He came out dressed in a blue shirt and black trousers and went up the stairs. The Swede sat under a portrait of a man with black pommaded curls and spectacles.

  “Who’s that?” Nicholas said.

  “Julius Bernai,” Karl said. “The owner.”

  “Is he German?”

  “He doesn’t look it.”

  “No.”

  “He lives in Austria,” Jacek said.

  Nicholas moved his chair.

  “Well, I don’t like the way he looks at me,” he said.

  Germans laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “He’s a homosexual,” Jacek said.

  “Oh.”

  “Do you know what a homosexual is?”

  “Sure.”

  “What?”

  “One of those.”

  Eggs came, sausage, cream, porridge. The Swede prayed.

  “Hwarken lifwet eller dödh,” he said. “Neither life nor death.”

  Outside, cranes and tugs moved at the north ends of the bridges. A Belgian boat passed: Christine Carspecken by Carels of Ghent. Ships from Cameroon, Zanzibar, and Samoa smoked by. Nicholas pointed to pepper.

  “Peper.”

  Alois handed him pepper.

  “Kaffee.”

  Alois poured coffee for Nicholas.

  “Milk?”

  “Just a quantum,” Nicholas said.

  “You’re a hungry kid,” Alois said.

  “Giff mi Broot.”

  Alois gave him bread. Nicholas spat it out.

  “De Broot is salzeg!”

  “If the bread is salty, idiot, don’t eat it.”

  They ate.

  “Jacek,” Alois said. “What will you do after the war?”

  “My uncle works for Herr Bernai in Polish Silesia. In the coal mines. I’ll work with him.”

  “Karl?”

  “Who cares?”

  “Nicholas,” the Swede said, “what will you do after the war?”

  “I’ll be billiards champion of Hamburg.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Whatever you do, somebody is better.”

  They ate.

  “We’ll knock the shit out of the English,” Nicholas said. “Won’t we?”

  “Why?” Jacek said.

  “English shells don’t penetrate German armor.”

  “Yellow Sailor is not panzered,” Karl said.

  “No?”

  “No. No armor at all.”

  “Oh,” Nicholas said. “I didn’t know that.”

  Breakfast was over.

  Nicholas went to the kitchen. He cut carrots, boiled soup, and scrubbed the butcher’s block. The cook sharpened knives. Ventilation clogged. Nicholas wiped his face. A man came in with a horse’s thigh. Nicholas cut it into chunks and scraped gelatinous tendons. The cook reached into a pail. An eel bit his hand. He cut off its head.

  SMS Friedrich der Grosse, flagship of Fleet III, sounded alarms. Jacek ran in.

  “War!”

  Nicholas and the cook embraced.

  “Hurrah!”

  “Hurrah!”

  They ran on deck. Battleships Niobe, Undine, and Frauenlob moved down the Elbe past St. Pauli fish market and Landungs-brücke’s cupola. Yellow Sailor shuddered, reversed, and followed.

  Blankenese and Altona went by. Tennis players waved from courts below villas. At Brunsbüttel a torpedo boat turned into the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. The Elbe broadened. Petrels hovered. North Sea tides came in. Yellow Sailor banged into them. Nicholas cut his finger. Blood dropped into the soup.

  Cuxhaven’s lighthouse stood on wet sand. Trawlers with guns hidden in nets crossed sandy channels. Germans opened zeppelin hangars.

  Yellow Sailor rolled into the North Sea.

  “—o—God—”

  Nicholas vomited.

  “—this is awful—”

  The cook held Nicholas’s face and fingered flecks from his cheek.

  “You dirtied yourself, Nicholas.”

  He stroked Nicholas’s cheek.

  “Without meaning to.”

  Down in the diesel room Alois slapped bearings as they went by. Oil droplets blurred. Connecting rods rammed up and down. Karl turned screws with a dirty screwdriver.

  A bell rang.

  “Lunch!”

  Nicholas served the Germans ham, bread, mustard, sauerkraut, and beer. Then he stood behind the table, hands behind his back. The North Sea darkened. Whitecaps rolled. Outside, an English sailing boat fought toward Dogger Bank. A pan fell off the kitchen wall.

  Nicholas went to a window.

  “Submarine!”

  Karl turned.

  “Where?”

  “There!”

  “It’s just boards, Nicholas.”

  “We’re not panzered!!”

  “Shut up!”

  Lunch was over. Nicholas washed dishes. Clouds moved: goose-shaped, piano-shaped. The cook boiled beef. The sun reddened. Nicholas’s eyes teared.

  Red cliffs rose under purple clouds. Yellow Sailor docked at Helgoland. Mine-throwers came in. A U-boat left. Boats unloaded shells, canned meat, rope. Germans sweated, lanterns went up metal stairs. Nicholas smoked on deck.

  Battleship Niobe left, lights out.

  “A raid—!”

  Nicholas punched the air.

  “Knockout!”

  Niobe signaled by light-shutter: Knockout!

  Nicholas walked down to the dormitory. He took off his shirt. Potato peels were in his hair. Jacek came in. He smoked a while, then took out a red concertina.

  He sang.

  Free is the beach

  Free is the night.

  He put the concertina down.

  “Are you from Sylt?” Nicholas said.

  “With a name like Gorecki?”

  “Well, you have a beautiful tenor, Jacek.”

  “Do you like music?”

  “Especially love songs,” Nicholas said.

  Karl and Alois came in. Their faces were oily, their hair matted. Nicholas went to the head.

  “Hey! Bremml!” Karl called.

  “What?”

  Nicholas came back.

  “Something’s in your locker.”

  Nicholas pulled out a rotted eel.

  “Who did this?”

  The Swede smiled and turned away. In a mirror: Nicholas, skinny, hairless, holding a dead eel.

  “Some friends!”

  “You have no friends,” Karl said.

  “I have friends.”

  “Yes, but they don’t like you.”

  “They do.”

  “Do you know why they don’t like you, Nicholas?”

  “Why?”

  “You’re weak.”

  “I’m not,” Nicholas said.

  “You are.”

  “Hit me.”

  Karl got off his bunk and punched him.

  “Harder.”

  Karl hit Nicholas harder.

  “HARDER!!”

  Nicholas bent over, head in hands. Karl pounded his back with both fists.

  “I
’m German!” Nicholas shouted.

  Karl kicked him. He jumped up onto his bunk.

  “I’m not the one who’s weak!” Nicholas said.

  Karl threw his shoes to the floor.

  “Woman.”

  “I am not a woman,” Nicholas said.

  “You wish you were.”

  Lights went out. The Swede prayed.

  “Altijd här ach ewigt ther,” he said. “Always here and etern ally there.”

  Yellow Sailor turned back to the German coast. Nicholas chopped onions. Suddenly thousands of birds swirled. The sun went behind a cloud.

  “Have you ever been to the halligs?” the cook said.

  “No.”

  “Look.”

  Strips of islands broke a silver sea. A silo stood over waves. A red pony cart crossed mudflats.

  “See those stakes?” the cook said.

  “Jo.”

  “The North Sea brings sand. The tide goes out and the sand drops at the stakes. That’s how the halligs build land.”

  “Clever.”

  “Yes. Very clever. Sometimes the storm-flood, which they call Blanke Hans, comes in over the halligs. So the people are religious. Only a few are saved, you know.”

  “Most drown?”

  “No. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “Do you believe in God, Nicholas?”

  “No.”

  “Storm coming,” the cook said.

  Germans hammered bolts, battens, and iron bars over the hatches. Coffee spilled from mugs. A chair tipped over and slid down the mess hall. Gusts peaked at Force 6. Nicholas braced his feet but dropped a sack of potatoes. Rain whipped into wires and tarpaulin tore away from the anchor chain.

  Jacek ran in.

  “Man över Bord!”

  “Who?” Nicholas said. “What man is overboard?”

  “The Swede!”

  Nicholas, Jacek, and the cook ran out. Germans hauled the Swede over a rail.

  “Jacek!” Nicholas said. “He is doot.”

  “Yes, Nicholas. He’s dead,” Jacek said. “What did you expect? Life eternal?”

  Clouds rolled over bogs, stumps, and dripping apple orchards. German fishing-boat protectors S61 and S62 patrolled the Danish coast. Yellow Sailor docked at Tönder. Carol Schwichtenberg, by Krupp of Kiel, came in. Julie Oldenburg came in. Esther Anderson docked. Dabney Mergendahl, a masted ship out of Flensburg, came in on her maiden voyage: rainbow dressing of flags.