by Milan Fust
All that was expressed in that smile.
"So?" she responded gently. I looked at her and was overcome with pity. Here she was, a young married woman who waited all her life to become just that: married. And now that she was, she still did such crazy things. An irresponsible brat is what she was, who chased after her pleasures like a child after a butterfly. Her face was darkened by shadows, which were really furrows of contentment, of bliss.
"Naughty child ..." I said, caressing her gently, brushing the hair from her forehead, and taking a good look at her face. It was the face of a pug-nosed rascal, impudent, and somehow also innocent-looking and appealing, as though she couldn't add up two and two, the poor dear. In reality, she was used to playing hide and seek; and when caught, she didn't give up, she played along slyly, like a kid.
"They couldn't locate the files," I said quietly.
You had to see her at this moment. She didn't let her relief show right away, lest she betray herself. She held in her joy, the way you'd hold back a wild colt. Still, she wasn't that clever. I wouldn't have believed her even if her expression stayed gloomy for half an hour. But as it was, she started singing, and before the half hour was up she was dancing. What's more, she began calling me Oncle Douc Douc and Monsieur Houine, which she did only on special occasions. I didn't want to be angry at her, so I cranked up my silver gramophone and with a smile asked her to dance with me. And we were quite polite and gracious with each other, I must say. I bowed, she squeezed my hand, as though we were only secretly engaged. And at that moment I think she liked me a little.
"Our friend, Annibale . . . does he own an automobile?" I asked her one day casually, seemingly with little interest, as though we had been talking about him just before. And as if I didn't know he had a car.
Naturally, I was still irked by the whole thing.
She put up her guard of course, got herself ready like a bird of prey, you could tell, though controlling herself all the same.
"I saw him just now, near the Etoile, driving a beautiful car."
"Annibale, Annibale," she mumbled to herself. But then she exclaimed with great interest (the most practical thing she could do under the circumstances):
"Ah, Annibale Ridolfi. You saw Ridolfi?"
"Yes, I did."
"In Paris?"
"Yes. We even said hello." All of which was untrue, of course, except for the fact that he was in Paris; that much I knew.
"But why didn't you stop him?" my wife asked. And she was ablaze by now. "Such a pleasant fellow, so entertaining, it would have been so nice to spend some time with him." In short, she started singing his praises, and all the while I was watching her face, curious to see just how far she will dare to go. Daredeviltry was in her blood, after all, impudence flowed in her veins. She was telling me in so many words that she didn't get scared, even if I did find out a thing or two.
"Yeah, I saw that shithead all right." And must have sounded like a raging bull. But all she could ask was:
"Feel like getting together with him?"
"No, I do not," I replied with all the forcefulness of a simple denial. And looked away.
Maybe if she had a child she would be different, I thought at times. But she wouldn't hear of a child.
Life, though, did have a way of taking my mind off this matter, and off my other private misfortunes as well. Things got tough, you see, what with the slump in business, the world-wide depression, which the shipping companies are always the first to feel. But I always managed to stay afloat, miraculously at times, it seemed, though always through tremendous effort. Once again I spent most of my time down in the Levant, and it happened that I wouldn't see my wife for months. One time I remember traveling sixty hours, via Constantinople, just to be with her a few days. And another time I brought myself to boarding an airplane in Port Said (flying was still a big deal in those days), because I was tormented by premonitions. I got restless and shaky in my work (I even fell ill on the plane; flying isn't for me). But I longed to see her, why deny it?
Actually, it did me a lot of good to spend a little time at home. After all that hustle and bustle, on both land and sea, it felt nice and quiet. With the blinds drawn, the sun shut out, it was as if peace had finally touched my heart. And she did furnish our place rather pleasantly, I must grant her that. (Why shouldn't I be grateful to her at least in these reminiscences? So I will note that those brief periods were nice enough.) And she herself was kind and quite beautiful. To come home, therefore, was the greatest joy imaginable. Was it any wonder, then, that while away at sea, I thought not of Signor Ridolfi but of her—not of dubious affairs but of her eyes that lit up the starless nights for me. And then there were the memories of what I left behind. Sometimes I smiled at night when I thought of her powder puffs and talcum, of how awkward a woman really looks when she's getting dressed, what with her corset showing, her bodice sagging . . . how very sloppy all that is and still how enchanting. I kept thinking of one scene in particular.
She shook me out of my sleep. I must have been having nightmares, she said, because I was moaning. And she suggested we go out and have a night on the town—she also felt kind of closed-in.
"It's so stuffy in here, I can hardly breathe," she said, and leaning closer she added: "I'll be very pretty, you'll see."
She was out of bed already, and bubbling over as usual.
"How about going to a very fancy restaurant?" It was early in the morning.
"At least you won't spend your money on others."
"I won't?"
"Only joking," she said somewhat absently. But her eyes were burning. Something had to fuel all that excitement.
And she was at it already, pulling things out of her wardrobe. I had no idea she had so much stuff: furs and silks and lacy things with little velvet roses, all of it ready to take off and fly. It was a strange night. Everything around us lay dormant, and we were getting ready to go out, in the dead of night, to have supper. There she sat in front of her vanity, dolling herself up shamelessly, like a putain. We even laughed about that. Considering I'd just had a nightmare, I was in a pretty good mood. She pulled down her lashes and painted them black, then gray, then purple.
"To make you want me more," she said.
Next to her mirror was a pair of shoes which were so tiny they wouldn't fit a fawn, and an equally tiny pair of gloves, a handkerchief, a scarf, a pin, all thrown together in glorious disarray. What was her secret? I wondered. Yes, what is their secret?
The room was filled with all the scents one keeps remembering when alone: the smell of her hair, her perfume, and all those powders: rice powder, talcum, and the kind you blow into gloves. ... I just stood there in my dress shirt and watched . . . watched the whole colorful spectacle.
Should I then have bothered to figure out how much all these frills: the brushes, the lotions, the fineries were costing me? Should I deprive her of these little pleasures? I wouldn't do it, by God, come what may. She was still a young woman, she was entitled to this much, and besides, seeing her in them gave me pleasure—I even enjoyed the thought that while I broke my back on those bloody boats, all my labors, all my sweat were turned (dear God) into laces and tulles.
The thing was that I did have a little nest egg put away at that time, but I knew that using it up would spell disaster; the slide downward would be inevitable. And what then? I'd be at anyone's mercy, would have to take any job that came along, provided there were any to be had. The economic situation kept getting worse; and in the shipping business things were downright catastrophic. For instance, this is what happened to me in Southampton one day. I was sitting in a restaurant, a mediocre one, at that, and I noticed that the waiter was staring at me. I suddenly let out a cry: "What on earth are you doing here?" "What am I doing here? Wake up, man, don't you know what's going on out there?" Of course I knew, I heard enough about it. Skippers with fine reputations signing up in British ports as ordinary seamen. Expert engineers happy to be taken on as stokers.... I heard all a
bout it, but who believed it? Now, however, I saw it with my own eyes: an officer with excellent credentials working as a waiter in a restaurant. This scared me.
So I was soon on my way to the Levant again; the thought of something like this happening to me was incentive enough. But I went there for nothing. Purses were sealed tight, as were people's hearts. As is my wont, I made them irresistible offers—to ship Bohemian glass, fine textiles, porcelain, and who knows what else, for nothing, for a song, but even so there were no takers.
"Wet your money with a little spit and stuff it in your pocket," advised a shipowner, a very shrewd old woman, from Sebenico. I was shocked; I never heard her talk like this. She weathered every storm until now, nothing could faze her, she was shrewd, persistent, insidious. If she wasn't let in through the door, she'd climb in through the window. We were like small-time grocers, we dealt in tiny quantities of goods and chartered our boats when business was bad. Or we'd buy a rusty old ship, run it to the ground, and try to sell it at a tiny profit. We'd sit up nights, she smoking a pipe, I puffing on a cigar, trying to come up with a workable idea.
But now there was nothing. I went home. As it was, my wife had been pestering me for some time to quit those tar-paper boxes (that's how she referred to the ships I'd commanded then), and was after me to try to get a better position somewhere (she obviously would have liked her husband to be a more respectable sea captain). So I wrote to an old friend of mine in London, a Greek shipowner named Alexander Kodor, who also knew how to pinch pennies, though when I met him his star had already risen—he became a very wealthy man. The second time I met him, in Italy, he was swelling with pride as he embraced me. "I am the king of the seas," he said and gave me a very significant look.
He exaggerated, of course; he was no king of the seas, only the principal shareholder of a maritime insurance company. Which is enough if you also happen to be a speculator and wheeler-dealer of the first order, which he was. He could easily help me, in other words, if he wanted to. And he did help, this time he really did, he spared no effort. Later that year I became the captain of a lovely little boat, a truly wonderful vessel ... oh she was dainty and delicate like a young miss—a birthday cake if I ever saw one. Not a scratch on it anywhere, though it had been in service for eight years. Five thousand tons but very fast and geared for Mediterranean travel. Daphne was her name, and they made good use of her, I must say. After the war an international group took it over, who were small on capital but big on ideas. They fitted it out as a kind of excursion boat for inexpensive runs between Europe and the Near East. Such cruises were a novelty then, though the need was there, for never was there such a longing to visit the Holy Land as in those postwar years. And even people of modest means began to feel like traveling. So the company's gamble paid off. They refurbished the boat in a hurry, at the height of the depression (before it was used to freight tropical fruit and wine), and sparing no expense, they advertised heavily. We got all kinds of people—devout pilgrims, pleasure-seekers, tourists from America, in short, an interesting and mixed crowd, and my cargo also consisted of a better grade of goods (we still carried some, the Daphne wasn't exclusively a passenger ship). And as far as the route was concerned, I could pilot a boat in those waters in my sleep, that's how well I knew the region—the sea, the coast, the offshore conditions, etc. Everything, then, was fine, the pay decent—need I say more? I could find nothing wrong with the arrangements, really, still I felt pretty miserable. Indeed, I thought my luck had run out when I had to switch from heavy freighters to this powder puff. There were signs of trouble on the Daphne's first voyage, but I discounted them. The second trip, however, was calamitous. One night, less than a hundred miles off Alexandria, fire broke out in the ship's interior.
But let me describe the incident in a little more detail, partially to unburden myself. For as far as I am concerned, this is still unfinished business and will remain that, I fear, to the end of my days. I feel the accident also explains a lot of things. After it I was like a man who lost his footing. But let's not rush ahead.
I will start by saying that I've always been a sound sleeper and what's rather unusual, I rarely dream. (As a matter of fact, I didn't quite know what to say to that certain psychoanalyst. Do I dream? No, I don't.) However, on this new boat I couldn't sleep very well, was restless—I worried too much about the boat, I think. At the same time I was also absent-minded, though it's all the same now. Suffice it to say that that night I sweated a lot and felt a kind of pressure on my chest. I may have been asleep, for all I know, but didn't feel good about it. I was glad when I was awakened. For a moment I thought it was my turn on the bridge. I always liked night duty, especially when it was pitch dark and you did nothing but work, steadily like a machine, and had nothing else on your mind.
At any rate, one of my officers knocked on my door and reported:
"Captain, we are on fire."
"What are you saying?"
But he didn't have to repeat it. I knew right away what was up, at such moments I always do. It's scary how fast I can act in a crisis.
"Let her heat up, let her sweat," I gave the order quickly. I knew from experience that cotton and wool and other such material will turn white-hot, like charcoal, before starting to burn, they absorb their own heat. If we can only trap that heat, we've gained precious time.
"And don't wake up the men if you can help it," I called after him, and also reached for my robe—it was a cold night.
Try as I might, I don't think I could really describe that night. The little motor pump was hissing away, otherwise there was eerie silence; only occasional footfalls could be heard on deck. And there was this great brightness, as if all the lights had been turned on for some non-existent guests. For ghosts.
Slowly, quite peacefully, the bow of the boat began to smoke; it gently curled through the cracks at first, then rose swiftly, as we were still going full steam.
It wasn't the first time I found myself in such a fix; it happened twice before, in fact. Once, on a short run between China and Japan—the boat was a Dutch three-master, as I recall—we ran aground. The vessel was loaded with rice. For two days straight we kept dumping the world's finest rice into the ocean, still we couldn't break loose, though after a time we were so light, we nearly tipped over—we were hit broadside, to boot. ... I had contended with fire too, just outside Trieste. But we managed to steam into harbor in the nick of time. It was so hot on board, our bones were about to melt. In short, I'd been in sticky situations before and sweated out each one, but nothing like this night.
I was helpless, especially at first—that was the main problem. As though my ill fortune had made me lose my senses, preventing me from thinking straight. I just didn't know what to do. Went up on the bridge, raced down to the fire, issued the most contradictory orders. Told them, for instance, to let out the throttle, increase speed, and immediately thereafter demanded to know why they hadn't flooded the hold with steam. I ranted and raved, though I knew full well, as does everyone, that if I wanted to pick up speed, I needed engines operating at full blast. Still, I was half-insane with rage and about to attack the engineer. My first officer just stood there, staring.
And that irritated me, too, his look did. So I vented my anger on him as well, blaming him, absurdly, for everything.
Luckily, we had no trouble with the passengers, not with those in steerage, that is (we had plenty of them aboard, we were that kind of ship). With their sorry belongings, they proceeded to the upper decks, pale and frightened, like so many prisoners, but in perfect order and without a murmur. Yes, they could do it. I must say that this orderliness—the solemn composure of the poor— moved me. They've grown accustomed to misery, and danger, the things other people consider indignities not meant for them. I do like the poor so much better . . . But let's not get into that just now.
I had some of the clogged-up vents cleared, in the hope that something would flare up and we could locate the source of the fire. But all we got was more bi
llowing smoke, it assailed us like some dark beast. You couldn't see a thing: below deck all the lights went out, and even lanterns were useless. But my men grimly stood their ground, exerting themselves to the breaking point. Only when overcome by the smoke did they wheeze and cough and grope for fresh air. Out in the open things were dripping wet; down below the fire raged on.
All I wanted to do was quickly get to the storage area and close off the entrance. Whatever lay in the way had to be tossed overboard. I always know exactly what kind of cargo I am carrying, even its shape, its size, the way it's placed in the hold, since my main concern is keeping the proper balance and making sure nothing slides or tilts—that's why I never skimp on rope and packing material. ... So I did make myself useful, after all. What is more, my head began to clear up by then. What else? Soon, more steam than smoke was coming from below, and that, too, was something to be cheerful about.
But by then some of the first-class passengers began to appear.
"What is it, captain, what happened? Why is it so hot?" Such questions they put to me. As if they'd gone batty and couldn't see what was happening.
"There is a fire, damn it," someone in the foredeck yelled, and even gave a jerk on the bell.
By then I was myself again: I rounded up these gentlemen and hustled them into the first-class lounge. Even turned on the gramophone for them, let them enjoy themselves. And I ordered a few sailors to stand at the door and not allow anyone to leave that room.
I had a schoolmate at the Academy, a boy from Friesland by the name of Ebertsman-Leiningen, who once invited me to his house for winter recess. He'd checked with his parents first, but curiously enough, when we arrived no one was there except the gardener. The master and missus had gone off to the Riviera, we were told.