The band finished their song and started another ragtime tune. I glanced down the deck where they played. I hadn’t noticed before, but at least two dozen people now stood listening to them, leaning against the rail or standing in small groups. None of the listeners wore life preservers. It was as if they were simply watching a band in their local park on a Sunday afternoon.
Damn strange. Everywhere I looked there were questions. Where had Susan gone? Why had I ended up on the Titanic? Why weren’t more people trying to save themselves? How the hell was I going to get back home? Questions. Questions. Questions. Not an answer in sight. And no time to do any more looking.
I blew on my hands again, then worked at stacking the last bundle of folded chairs. Maybe I’d tie just one more chair on top of each bundle just to make sure. I’d have to—
“You’re wasting your time, you know.”
I hadn’t heard or seen her come up, so her sudden declaration startled me and I banged together the chairs I was stacking, sending one clattering down the sloped deck.
She stood over me like a teacher over a naughty child. She wore a high-necked black evening gown, elbow-length black gloves, and a small, fashionable black hat perched nestlike on her dark brown hair. I guessed her age to be about thirty-five. She took a sip of a golden liquid from a cordial glass and smiled.
I didn’t know what I was more surprised by: what she was wearing, her complete calmness, or that she had spoken to me.
Suddenly, after six hours of saying “pardon me,” or “excuse me,” or yelling and getting nothing for my troubles but a jolt of electricity, here was this lady talking to me and damned if I could think of anything to say.
“Aren’t you cold?” I finally asked, going for the easy question first and indicating her thin dress.
“Do you like it?” she asked, turning a half-turn one way, then back, like a young girl in front of a mirror. “I found it especially for the party. I think it was one of Mrs. Straus’s.” As she spoke, her breath crystallized in front of her face, glowing in the deck lights and giving her a ghostlike appearance.
“It’s striking, but don’t you think it a might thin for the weather we’re having?” To illustrate my point, I blew on my hands in a futile effort to get some feeling back in them.
She shrugged. “After a few years, you get used to it.”
“Few years?” What the hell did she mean by that?
She flashed a smile that made me wish I wasn’t about to die, then took another sip from her glass.
I studied my raft and tried to think. Maybe it would hold us both. I could throw a few more chairs over the side and stack them on top of the raft to make up for the extra load. That might make the raft a little top-heavy, but she seemed light enough. Besides, she could help me get the raft over the rail and away from the ship.
“You’re new on board, aren’t you?” she asked. “This your first cycle?”
“Damned if I know first from last,” I said, gathering up the extra chairs and stacking them on top of my raft. “But I’ve been here about six hours.” I wrapped the rope around the chair legs to keep the chairs from scattering.
She laughed softly. “I thought so. Only newcomers do things like this.” She indicated the raft. “It’s probably quite workable, but—”
“Just what’s so wrong with a person saving their own skin?” I demanded. “I don’t see you doing anything.”
“I don’t need to,” she said. “Neither do you. Really we don’t.” She pointed down the slanted deck at the band. They had finished another ragtime song. “That was their last full song. We recycle fifteen seconds after they start ‘Autumn.’”
As if she were their leader, the band raised their instruments and began playing “Autumn.”
“By the way, my name is Marjorie. Marjorie Thiel. I’m from New Mexico. 1972.” She leaned down and extended a black-gloved hand.
I didn’t know whether to touch her or not. I doubted if my heart could take many more of those shocks. I decided I didn’t really have much to lose at this point.
“Kellogg Jones.” I said as I shook her soft, warm hand. “Idaho. 1990. Everyone calls me Doc.”
Her soft laugh sent breath crystals swirling in the light from the draped windows. “Tell you what, Mr. Doc. You meet me in the first-class smoking lounge in thirty minutes and I’ll fix you a drink. You do drink, don’t you?”
I nodded. “But—”
“Good,” she said, and took a sip from her glass. “Thirty minutes. I do so love current news.” She turned and started down the slanted wooden deck toward the band. I watched her for a moment, amazed that she could keep her footing in such high heels.
She was between steps when everything faded, exactly as it had when I triggered the mirror at the lodge.
Then I was in the blackness again.
No up or down. No light. No sound. No smells.
Nothing. The same feeling of total emptiness as six hours before.
It lasted long enough for me to wonder where I would end up this time. Barely. Then the lights came back up like a curtain on the second act of a play.
I was again standing in the officer’s promenade section on the starboard side of the Titanic’s boat deck. Wind carried the salt spray up into my face as the huge ship raced through the gray waters. The sky was splattered with streaks of red as the sun again set on the Titanic’s last night.
Everything was the same as it had been six hours before.
Exactly.
I had a full stomach from Constance’s dinner, the heavy pack was on my back, and I wasn’t wearing my coat. On top of that, I was warm. Warm from sitting in the lodge’s big living room.
Had the last six hours been a dream? Or was I really standing here again?
I laughed a strained laugh into the cold North Atlantic wind. And I thought I had been confused the first time around.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
First-Class Lounge
Second Cycle
April 14, 1912
THIRTY MINUTES AFTER I found myself starting my six hours on the Titanic all over again, Marjorie Thiel walked through the aft door of the first-class lounge. She was wearing black slacks, a silk blouse, and a long strand of pearls. Her thick brown hair was pulled back and tied with a white ribbon and she smiled when she saw me. I liked her smile.
It had been a long thirty minutes for me, waiting and wondering if she would appear. After I had gotten my bearings again and talked myself into realizing I really was back on the boat deck in the same place I had arrived, I eased the pack to the deck and then dragged it over and leaned it against the bulkhead. As I had the first time, I had unwrapped my ski parka from around the rifle, covered the rifle with a pair of pants, then put on the parka. In a daze, I had gone over to the railing and stood, staring out over the ocean while trying to make sense out of what was going on around me.
I hadn’t gotten past the first twenty questions when behind me a door in the bulkhead opened with a loud clang and two men came out and turned toward the entrance to the grand staircase. One wore a turtleneck sweater and the other a ship’s uniform. They were the same two men who had almost run into me six hours earlier. Only this time I was standing farther up the deck as they repeated their exact motions, ducking under the rope barrier, going inside and down the stairs. I felt as if I were watching a movie I had just seen, only from a different seat in the theater.
It appeared I was about to repeat the same six hours. But this time I would get to do different things while the ship and its crew stayed on their original course.
I followed the two men inside and spent the rest of the thirty minutes standing near the bow entrance to the first-class lounge, leaning against an oak column, and watching the passengers.
When Marjorie finally came through the stern door, I acknowledged her smile with a slight wave, then moved across the room to meet her. Most of the room was now empty. The two men I had followed down to the dining room the first time around had already le
ft, passing me as I stood beside the door.
Marjorie pointed toward a booth under a port-side window and I headed there as she seated herself.
“Pretty shocking, isn’t it?” she said as I got to the booth. No hello, how are you. Nothing.
“What’s that?” I studied her face as I slid into the booth across from her. She was a much more striking woman in the light than she had been outside in the cold Atlantic night. I reduced my estimate of her age by a year or so, and even that might have been a little high. She had intense green eyes and lots of smile lines in her face. I liked her right off.
“All this,” she said, sweeping her arm around at the lush room and the furnishings that by 1990 standards would have cost a fortune. “Being on the Titanic, time repeating itself over and over.”
“Time doing what?” She ignored my question and went right on.
“I’m new enough on board that I remember how shocking it can be the first few times. Not like some of those rude ones who were on deck listening to the music. They were laughing at you. That’s why I went up to talk to you.”
“I’m glad you did,” I said. “But I don’t understand why they were laughing. I was—”
She held up her hand. “Lots of time for that. I promised I’d make you a drink. What would you like?” She slid out of the booth and stood waiting for my answer.
After the last six and a half hours, I felt I needed something strong. Real strong. “Scotch. Rocks. Splash of soda, if you can.”
She laughed. “Practiced drinker, huh?”
“Bartender,” I said. “Mind if I tag along?” I really wasn’t a practiced drinker like the scotch implied. I used to drink scotch a lot, but I hadn’t had one since the month after Carla died in that car wreck. Of course, during that month right after the funeral I had drunk a lot of it while trying to forget. The scotch hadn’t helped.
“Sure,” she said, turning and heading across the lounge’s plush carpet toward the oak bar built into the center wall. “Just be careful of the passengers and crew. In case you haven’t noticed yet, touching one of them gives you a real jolt.”
“I noticed,” I said. “Twice.”
“Don’t worry. After a few years you know exactly how they’re all going to move, right down to who’s going to pick their nose when. You get real good at avoiding them. Mostly the prisoners stay in areas where there aren’t too many passengers.”
“Years? Prisoners?” My voice must have sounded as shocked as I felt. The full reality of being stuck on the Titanic for years was finally starting to hit me. I didn’t want to think about what she meant by prisoners.
“That’s right,” she said softly. “What was the date before you got pulled here?”
“June twenty-ninth, 1990.”
I was cleaning my grandmother’s hand mirror on August third, 1972, and found myself here. Almost eighteen years at four cycles a day. How many would that be?” She stared off at the ceiling trying to figure the math, then gave up. “I never was any good at math. You’d better stay here and watch how I do this. I know how this guy moves.” She laughed. “I ought to. I drink here often enough.”
I stood near the entrance as she ducked around behind the ornate oak and maple bar and moved toward the well. She waited for a few moments until the bartender, a man in his early forties, draped his bar towel over his shoulder and moved down the bar. Marjorie stepped into position at the well and, with practiced ease, pulled two crystal rocks glasses off the overhead rack, scooped ice into both, filled one with a brand of scotch I didn’t recognize, and then filled the other with what looked to be a brandy. She then grabbed a bottle of soda out of the area below the ice and added a touch to mine.
She had my drink in my hand before the bartender even stopped walking away.
“Fast,” I said, holding my drink up with a nod of thanks.
“Bartender,” she said, smiling. “Flagstaff for a few years, then Vegas. I was back in Flagstaff helping with my grandmother’s estate when I was pulled here.”
I followed her back over to the same booth under the port-side windows. Through the paned window was the first-class promenade and beyond that the dark waters of the North Atlantic. I slid over the cloth seat of the booth until I had my back to the water. I’d have to face that again soon enough.
“Where’d you work?” she asked after a sip of her drink.
“Boise. A place I half owned called the Garden. Taught at the university before that.”
“Professor type, huh?” She laughed.
“That’s why the name Doc. Too damn many degrees.”
Again she laughed. She seemed to be the type of woman who enjoyed life. Every time she laughed, her face would almost glow. Infectious. I found myself relaxing around her.
“So, Mr. Doc. Tell me what you were doing when you ended up here?”
“Being stupid, from the looks of things.”
“Huh?” she said, stopping in the middle of a sip of brandy and looking up at me.
“I came here on purpose.”
“You did what?” She shouted the last word and I glanced around the room to see if anyone noticed. Of course, no one did. “Why would you do that? I don’t understand how you even knew. No one I’ve talked to has come here on purpose.”
It was my turn to laugh. “I didn’t know where I was heading. Not really. I was following someone who triggered the mirror right before I did and might be here. You seen any other newcomers besides me? A woman with short, white hair named Susan?”
Marjorie shook her head. “You’re the first new person I’ve seen in the last six months. But that doesn’t mean anything. It’s a big ship. I can’t believe anyone would come here purposefully. Do you have a way out?”
“That’s exactly what I’m starting to hope Susan has.”
Marjorie had put her glass down and was staring intently across the table at me. “For God’s sake, would you tell me how you got here?”
“Sure, if you promise to answer some questions for me when I’m done.”
“Deal,” she said and we shook hands on it. Her hand was warm and smooth and I didn’t want to let it go for fear she too would simply vanish. But I did and she settled back into the soft seat.
I spent the next forty-five minutes going over the story about the lodge and about the ghost named Gretchen. I told her about Constance and Fred and about how much the lodge meant to them. I told her about Susan and her strange story about this being a group collected by some unknown people she called Seeders to give mankind a second chance after humanity pulled the plug on itself. That part sounded stupid the minute I said it, but at least Marjorie was nice enough not to laugh.
Then I found myself telling her about how bored I had been teaching and how dull it was in the bar and how stagnant my life had become. Admitting that part to her surprised me. I ended my story with the weak rationale that I came through the mirror to look for the ghost’s lost lover. She didn’t laugh at that one either, which meant she was a nicer person than I had hoped.
“You need another drink?” I asked at the end of my story.
“Sure thing,” she said. We crossed the distance over the thick, patterned carpet to the bar in silence.
“What will it be?” This time I went around behind the bar while she stayed at the edge.
“Brandy,” she said. “You’ll find it to the left. The scotch is above it.” The main bartender was standing down the bar talking to one of the waiters.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I grabbed two rocks glasses off the rack and filled them. I stayed with the same scotch she had poured for me. It had tasted good after the first sip or so. A light, smoky taste that I knew I could grow to like very quickly.
“How come he can’t see the glasses move?” I said as I slid her drink across the end of the bar. “It’s obvious we’re invisible to them, or something like that. But shouldn’t he be able to see the glasses move?”
She shrugged. “They can’t. I don’t know why. I
remember someone theorizing it had to do with us touching it. And them being locked into exactly what happened in their time frame. Something about solidarity of time. Or something like that.”
She shrugged and tasted her drink. “I don’t know how it all works, but it works for everything. In fact, I’m wearing a passenger’s clothes right now.” She indicated her blouse and pearls as we headed back toward the booth. Before she sat down she pointed at her slacks. “A man’s pants. I was in my bathrobe when I arrived and every six hours I end up back in my bathrobe.”
“Where? I didn’t see you anywhere on the boat deck when I came through.”
She laughed. “I end up down on E deck near the engineer’s mess. Gave me a real start the first few times, let me tell you.”
“I know the feeling.”
Her face went serious again. “You think this Susan’s story is true?”
“When I saw her pop out of that chair, I started thinking it just might be. And after the last few hours, I don’t know what to think. Someone or something has a reason for setting this up. What little bit she told me makes as much sense as anything else I can think of.”
Marjorie nodded. “Then she’s probably here somewhere. And if she knew what she was getting into, she wouldn’t do all the newcomer’s stuff that would make her stand out.”
“Like building a raft?” I said.
“Like building a raft.” She touched my arm. I really enjoyed the light feel of her fingers. “At least you tried to save yourself. I went down to the main first-class dining room and threw plates at people to try to get someone to talk to me. It’s real unnerving to watch a plate hit someone in the side of the head and not even have them flinch.”
I laughed. “I can imagine. I tried and failed to get someone to listen to me a few hours ago. How about answering some of my questions, now?”
“What I can,” she said.
I looked across the table at her. There were so many questions, I didn’t know where to start. And the funny thing was that even though I was so confused, I found myself wanting to ask her questions about her life and what she liked and didn’t like. And if she had been married.
Laying the Music to Rest Page 12