Pescador's Wake by Katherine Johnson Page A

form—an ever-changing sculpture. A snow-white petrel disappeared as it flew in front of the tabular berg, and then reappeared, as if by magic, on the other side. The Antarctic sun, ringed by a halo of high cloud, barely clung to the horizon. In its haze, here at the edge of the ice, there were seals, creatures that appear to me to be as different from other animals as the Antarctic is from the other continents. Their presence provides unexpected comfort and makes me feel less alone.
    Just before nightfall, there was an explosion of birdlife—a celebration—as plummeting beaks swooped to spear fish plump with krill. Adelie penguins reflected metallic flashes through the water, while fulmars, albatrosses and whale birds startled the sky.
    How I would love to soar with these birds. To fly above all that I know and reach a higher plane. To rise beyond what my father and his father dreamed of for me. To write. Perhaps it seems odd for a fisherman to hold such esoteric ambitions. But do not underestimate us—our dreams, our experience. There are other artists here, too: poets, painters and musicians. The sea might flow in our veins, but surely we are permitted to bleed ourselves of it on occasion. To express our respect, even our love for it. Instead we are taking from it all that we can. Devising schemes to make money fast, so we can one day be free.

C ARLOS
The Pescador
21 September 2002
    Carlos Sánchez moves his boat through the pack, forcing the ice into a violent series of rifts and ridges. Caught in the ship’s lights, immediately ahead of him are two icebergs—one to starboard and the other to port. They jut up through the frozen landscape like static frozen eruptions, blasted off the Antarctic ice shelf.
    The boat groans under the weight of nearly two hundred tonnes of toothfish, and countless kilograms of polar ice. The white mass is building on the rails, layer upon layer, threatening the ship in the same way cancerous bones threaten the stability of a human body.
    Carlos watches as Eduardo straps his safety line to a rail and begins the hand-numbing job of smashing the metal bars clean. Seventeen crew work alongside the first mate on the flood-lit deck, creating small glassy avalanches that pound the painted metal of the deck. The wind has dropped to a mere thirty knots and the seas have been smothered by the pack. It’s a welcome reprieve and the men make the most of the relative calm, even if it is after midnight.
    But Carlos can feel the squeeze of the ice beneath him, sucking the boat of speed and threatening to stop them, dead.At the next opportunity, he’ll try to break free. He flicks through his logbook. They’ve been running south of the Australian patrol for four days. He doubts Julia has even been told of the chase. Why wouldn’t Francisco and his department feign ignorance for as long as possible while the palms of officials are being greased with the money of stolen fish?
    The master reads the chart and, with his finger, traces the dotted lines that indicate the likely extent of ice throughout the year, before fixing his gaze on the eerily lit pack in front of him. According to the map, it’s at its greatest reach and will soon recede. For now though, it’s starving them of precious fuel and erasing any advantage they have gained by heading so far south.
    Carlos thinks of his crew: four Uruguayans, four Chileans, ten Spaniards, fifteen Peruvians and a Russian engineer, whom Eduardo first met during his time working the Bering Sea fishery three years ago. Normally, a vessel’s owner arranges its crew, but Eduardo had put in a good word for the engineer, telling Migiliaro that Dmitri was the best in the business. Carlos had appreciated the recommendation—at these latitudes, a good engineer is the difference between making it home, or not—but, on a personal level, he hasn’t yet warmed to the Russian, who strikes him as a law unto