第4章 The Second Night

The second night of the long dark was the fifteenth of November. The sun was under. The strait was black. The station was the entirety of what the night meant. At three in the morning, the small radio rang. The same sound. The same note. The same length. The same quiet. I was in the dormitory. I heard it through the wall, and I went to the wire room, and Halvard was there, and the small radio was on the shelf, and it was not ringing anymore, and the note was gone, and the wire room was the sum of what the night was. "Same time," he said. "Same time," I said. "I'm going to take it apart," he said. "I'm going to see what's inside." "You don't have to." "I have to. It rang twice. I can't sleep with it on the shelf. I need to know what it is." I did not stop him. He took the small radio off the shelf. He carried it to the workbench. He took out his tools. He opened the case. The inside was empty. There were no wires. There was no mechanism. There was no speaker. There was no dial. The case was the size of my hand and the inside of it was the size of nothing, and the wire room was the whole of the night, and the night was the entirety of the long dark. Halvard put the case back on the shelf. He did not say anything. I did not say anything. We stood in the wire room, and the small radio was on the shelf, and the wire room was the night's whole, and the night was the entirety of what the long dark meant, and the long dark was the entirety of what the winter meant, and the winter was the whole of what the six were. "What do you make of it?" he said. "I make nothing of it," I said. "It's the small radio. It rang at three. The inside is empty. I don't know what it is." "I don't know what it is either," he said. "But it's not a radio. A radio has wires. A radio has a mechanism. This has nothing. And yet it makes a sound. And the sound is the whole of what the wire room is." I went back to the dormitory. I wrote in the log book: 03:00, small radio, same sound, Halvard opened it, inside is empty, no mechanism, no wires, cause unknown. I closed the log book. I went to sleep. The wire room was the entirety of the night, and the night was the sum of what the long dark was. In the morning, I went to the boat shed, and Odd was there, mending the rope, and I said, "The small radio rang again, at three. Halvard opened it. The inside is empty." Odd did not look up. His hands were moving, the way Ingrid's hands used to move, the way the braiding was done, the old way, the way the people who came before us did it on the seal-rocks. "It's the quiet bell," he said. "It's the sound the strait makes when the lantern-gale comes up. I used to hear it with Ingrid, on the seal-rocks, in the long dark, when the cord was set and the gale was coming up the strait. It was not a bell. It was the sound of the strait. And the strait is the whole of what the long dark is." "Where did you hear it?" "On the seal-rocks. Ingrid used to braid the cord. She'd sit on the west wall, in the evenings, and her hands would move, and the cord would be ready by morning. I'd carry it out to the seal-rocks and set it, and the lantern-gale would come up the strait, and the cord would sound, and I'd know where the shore was. And the sound it made, when the gale was in it, was the same as the quiet bell." I did not say anything. I went back to the station. I wrote in the log book: 04:00, boat shed, Odd says the quiet bell is the sound the strait makes when the gale comes up, the sound of the cord that is not set, cause unknown. I closed the log book. The wire room was the entirety of what the night meant. The workbench was in the wire room, against the far wall, and the far wall was the whole of what the wire room was, and the wire room was the sum of what the station was. Halvard set the case on the workbench, and the workbench was the sum of what the night was, and the night was the whole of the long dark. He took out his tools, the small screwdriver and the flat blade and the magnifying glass, and the three of them were the whole of what the engineer's kit was, and the engineer's kit was the whole of what the wire room was. He opened the case. The screws were the size of my thumbnail, and the four of them were the whole of what the case was, and the case was the whole of what the small radio was, and the small radio was the whole of what the wire room was. The kettle boiled and no one poured. Outside, the strait greyed toward another squall, and the sound of it came in over the stones in long even breaths. She counted the boards in the ceiling the way her mother had taught her to count anything that might otherwise become unbearable, and when she reached the end she began again, and the beginning again was the whole of what the hour was. The bell on the point gave no signal; it had given no signal in three years, and its silence was now a kind of furniture in the room, something they walked around without seeing. The second night was the fifteenth of November, and the fifteenth was the whole of what the second night was, and the second night was the long dark's whole. The sun was under, and the under was the whole of what the sky was, and the sky was the whole of what the strait was, and the strait was the entirety of the long dark. The station was warm, and the warm was the whole of the station, and the station was the whole of the night, and the night was the entirety of what the long dark meant.