Remembering the Titanic

by Diane Hoh

Elizabeth began crying quietly. “Oh, Max,” she whispered, unable to look up at him.

  Obviously reeling from an unexpected reaction to his months of work, Max bent stiffly toward her. “What? What did you say, Elizabeth?”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

  A tall boy named Gregory who had been sitting on the floor stood up and said, “You know what, Whittaker? I lost an uncle on the Titanic. I’m all for freedom of expression and all that, but I think you’ve crossed the line here. I thought the postcards and the songs and the souvenirs were bad, but this … this is a lot worse. If I were you, I’d burn every single one of these and start over. And pick a different subject next time, all right?” To his girlfriend, also climbing to her feet, he said brusquely, “C’mon, Libby, let’s get out of here, before our holiday mood is completely ruined.”

  “I guess he doesn’t like my paintings,” Max said with forced lightness when the two had gone. “Well, I didn’t expect everyone to like them. And Bledsoe, it doesn’t matter if they don’t sell. That’s not why I painted them.”

  Elizabeth lifted her head. “Why did you paint them, Max?”

  Sensing a confrontation they had no desire to participate in, the other guests got up to leave, mumbling various excuses. Another holiday party … a concern about traffic in the falling snow … a rally to attend early the next day. One or two said, “Interesting work, Whittaker” or “I can see why you’ve been so busy lately,” but no one, not one person except Anne said they liked Max’s new work. And when Bledsoe, sending Elizabeth a sympathetic smile, led Anne from the apartment, she called over her shoulder, “Remember, Max, the important thing is to do as you please!” rather than complimenting him again on the work.

  When they had all gone and Bledsoe had closed the door, Max knelt by Elizabeth’s side. Looking up into her face, he asked with concern, “You don’t like them either? You look upset. They’ve upset you? The paintings?”

  Elizabeth jumped to her feet. “Of course they’ve upset me, Max! They’d upset anyone, even people who weren’t on the Titanic! They’re … they’re horrible! I don’t understand…” Her eyes caught sight of her father’s face again, and she began crying. “You painted my father. How do you think it makes me feel to see him standing on deck all alone, my mother and I already gone? Why didn’t you just stab me, Max? It couldn’t have hurt any worse than that painting hurts me.”

  His face went bone-white, and he took a step backward, away from her. He had put up a puny, scraggly Christmas tree in one corner of the room and decorated it haphazardly with large red colored lights. They were on, and the reflected red playing across his features contrasted sharply with the sudden loss of color. “Elizabeth, I…”

  “All these months you’ve been saying how hard you were working, and you never once even hinted that you were painting something like this. You didn’t tell me because you knew I couldn’t bear it,” she accused. “And you’re right. I can’t. It’s cruel, Max, it’s so cruel. People are trying to recover, to get on with their lives, to put that terrible night behind them. And then,” she waved a hand to include the paintings, “you bring it all back.”

  His lean, handsome face twisted in pain. “Oh, God,” he breathed, “is that what you think? That I was trying to bring it all back? I wasn’t, Elizabeth, that’s not what I was doing.” Looking ill himself, he sank into the wicker chair, putting his head in his hands.

  Elizabeth fought a desperate desire to rush over and put her arms around him. This was Max, whom she loved. There had to be a reason why he had done this. It was cruel, and Max was not cruel. Never cruel. “Then what were you trying to do?”

  He didn’t answer for a few minutes. When he lifted his head, his face looked so tortured, so torn, Elizabeth nearly wept for him. “What, Max?” she persisted quietly. “What were you trying to do?”

  “Get rid of it,” he said, his voice anguished. He put his head in his hands again. “I was trying to get rid of it. All of it. So I put it on canvas. I didn’t know how else to do it.”

  “Get rid of it?” Hadn’t he already done that, months ago? He’d seemed to. And he’d told her to stop thinking about it. As if that were possible.

  Maybe it hadn’t been possible for him, either. Maybe she’d been wrong….

  Max nodded. “Yes. Get rid of it.” He shook his head, and when he lifted his face to her again, she saw tears in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have done it. The minute I saw the look on your face, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. They are as ugly as that night was, I can see that now. But when I was painting them, I wasn’t thinking that way. I was just trying to get it all out, away from me. So that I could sleep at night again. So the attacks would stop.”

  She did move toward him then, sinking to the floor beside his chair to look up at him. “Attacks?”

  He described then, in agonizing detail, the nightmares he suffered from, terrible, black dreams of drowning in a deep, dark pit whose walls were as slippery as silk. But worse, he told her, were the episodes when he was fully awake. They came upon him without warning, and they came often. “It’s as if I’m suffocating. It’s the same way I felt when I was under the water, before my drunken rescuer came along to snatch me up to the surface and drag me to a lifeboat. I can’t breathe, any more than I could then. My chest feels like the Titanic itself is sitting on top of it. Most often, it happens at dusk, just as the sky begins to darken. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t dusk when I was tossed into the ocean. But when it happens, I can’t breathe, or swallow, or talk. Sometimes it hits me when I’m painting, or eating, or talking on the telephone. It’s as if every last breath of air has been stolen from all around me and my lungs are filled with cotton … or, more likely, saltwater. Dark, frigid, saltwater.”

  Elizabeth reached up to touch his hand. “Max, why didn’t you say anything? You never told me.”

  “It has even happened,” he continued, “when I’ve been with you. I would have to stop talking in the middle of a sentence, trying to get my breath back. You never noticed.”

  “I’m sorry. You should have said something. I had no idea. You hid it well.”

  He shrugged, seeming a bit calmer. “You couldn’t have helped. I guess that’s why I never told anyone, not even you, because I knew it was something I had to handle on my own. When nothing I tried worked, that’s when I came up with the idea of the paintings. I figured, other artists paint reality, why not me? I knew I could do it. The pictures were so clear in my head.” He shuddered. “Very clear. Anything that I hadn’t seen with my own eyes, I just pictured from what I’d heard and read afterward.”

  Elizabeth thought for a moment, wanting desperately to say the right thing, words that would make Max feel better. “The paintings are very … accurate. I don’t think photographs could be any clearer than the images you put on canvas. You are very, very talented, Max. They’re very good. It’s just…”

  He nodded. “I know. The subject matter. Not fit for human eyes. But people should know. I never meant to hurt you. The look on your face…”

  “It’s all right, Max.” She held his hand tightly, fixing her eyes on his. “I know you never meant to hurt me. You wouldn’t ever do that, not on purpose.” She paused, then asked, “Did it work?” She waved her free hand to encompass the paintings. “Did painting these scenes do what you’d hoped? Are the nightmares gone? Have you had any attacks since you finished the last scene? When did you finish?”

  “This morning. I put the finishing touches on the last one this morning. So I don’t know if it worked or not, not yet. But…” He leaned forward to touch Elizabeth’s cheek. “Just telling you helped. That’s pretty strange. I never expected that. I thought talking about it would make it worse. I was sure that bringing it out into the open would somehow make it bigger, more real, something … give it life, I guess. Not that it didn’t already have a life of its own.”

  “I just wish you’d said something sooner,” said Elizabeth. “What’s the point of having someon
e to love if important things aren’t shared? I don’t expect you to tell me everything, Max. You have a right to your private feelings, just as I do. But we were both suffering. It might have been easier if we’d shared that.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “I know. But it still makes me feel bad. Knowing you were going through all that and not being able to help you.” Elizabeth smiled. “I was mad because I thought you weren’t feeling anything. You kept telling me to forget about that night, put it behind me. And the whole time you were doing this.” She waved at the paintings again. “I should be really mad at you now, just for making me think you were getting over it and I wasn’t. You know that wasn’t fair.”

  “No, it wasn’t. And it was stupid. I should have been more honest.”

  They sat in silence for a while, heads together, Max’s arm around Elizabeth. “So, you forgive me?” he asked finally, sitting up straight but maintaining his hold on her hand. “You don’t hate me?”

  “No, Max, I love you. Just don’t keep things from me, all right? Not big things, anyway.” Elizabeth paused, then asked, “What are you going to do with these?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think about it.”

  Elizabeth hesitated, then said, “Don’t destroy the one of my father. I don’t want it just now. I’m not ready. But could you please keep it? Maybe later, when it doesn’t hurt so much, I might want it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, I’m not sure. But I think maybe … it’s a wonderful likeness of him, Max. He looks so … brave.”

  “He was brave. Right up until the very last minute. I’ll keep the painting for you, Elizabeth. You just let me know when you’re ready to own it, and it’s yours.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be careful not to hang it where my mother can see it. I don’t think she could stand it. But then,” Elizabeth added with a wry smile, “that won’t be difficult, since I won’t be living in her house.”

  Then she told Max everything that had happened before she arrived at his apartment.

  Chapter 19

  “THEY SEEMED LIKE NICE enough people,” Flo commented on the drive back to Brooklyn after the Farr Christmas party. The snow had ceased to fall, but a suck, light coating of it covered the road, forcing Flo to drive slower than usual. “And a fine house it was. Shame about the father. Titanic, it was. Terrible thing.”

  “I was on that ship,” Katie said without meaning to. The words slipped out easily, surprising her. She never talked about it anymore. She had learned not to, from Paddy. And then, although John was a good enough listener, he hadn’t been there that night, so what was the point in speaking to him of it?

  Flo was so shocked, the car swerved on the road. “Go on, you weren’t! On that ship! And never mentioned it before?”

  “You never brought it up before. And anyways, it’s not such a good thing to talk about. ’Twas a terrible night, not somethin’ people take any joy in remembering.”

  “But you survived. One of the lucky ones, sitting right here in my car. That’s a wonder.”

  “Yes, I was lucky. And Paddy, too.”

  Flo glanced over at her sharply. “I thought it was John you were keeping company with now. Thought you were all over Paddy.”

  “I am. I was just sayin’, he survived, too. His brother didn’t. And his body wasn’t recovered, like some of them. But Paddy survived.”

  “That must be a hurt,” Flo commented. “Losing his brother in such a way. Wouldn’t that give you nightmares, though? Thinking of your own brother, down there in the deep, dark sea.” She shuddered. “Wouldn’t imagine your Paddy ever gets a good night’s sleep.”

  “I wouldn’t know. He never said. And he’s not my Paddy.” It was upsetting … how saying that still pained her so. She hadn’t seen or talked to Paddy in months. That girl, Elizabeth Farr, had said she had “great stage presence.” Maybe that just meant pride was keeping her head up. What she really wanted to do was bury it in a pillow and bawl her eyes out, she still missed Paddy so.

  Not that bawling would do any good.

  They were still nearly ten blocks away when they saw smoke in the distance. It was thick and dark, spiraling steadily upward to bruise the night sky, turning it a deep, ugly purple.

  Noticing the smoke, Katie sat up straight on the seat. “That smoke there, see it? It looks to be near my aunt’s house. Maybe you could go a bit faster?”

  But other drivers returning from a night out in the city had noticed the smoke, too, and had slowed their pace, sensing excitement and fearful of missing it. Flo had no choice but to proceed cautiously. Katie, anxious for her aunt and uncle’s safety, began fidgeting, sitting very far forward on the seat and peering through the windshield.

  By the time they had less than three blocks to go, the smoke had intensified, a high wall of gray wool so thick, it was impossible to discern which roominghouse might be the victim. Katie couldn’t even be sure on which side of the street a fire might be raging. She knew only that it was raging, knew that what she was seeing from a distance was no boiling pot overturned on the stove, no ashes from a coal burner setting a small throw rug ablaze, no heated iron burning a hole the size of a silver dollar into a wooden ironing board. It took more than a small fire to spew forth such giant clouds of evil black smoke.

  With two blocks still to cover, Flo’s car, held captive in a long line of curious drivers, was moving at a snail’s pace. Katie could stand it no longer. Taking advantage of the lack of speed, she shoved the door open and jumped out. As late as it was, almost eleven o’clock, she could see just fine. There were streetlights, and lights from houses. Besides, she’d walked this avenue many times with John or with Mary and Tom. She knew the way.

  Flo shouted after her, “You stay away from that smoke! It’ll be the ruin of your voice!”

  Katie was already racing up the street, slipping and sliding on the suck sidewalk. Heart pounding, holding up the hem of her green dress to keep from tripping, she ran toward the smoke. She saw no flames, but perhaps she was still too far away. Another block, and now she could see the source was a house on this side of the street, not on her aunt’s side. Her knees would have gone watery with relief then except that just as quickly she realized that the house directly across the street from her aunt’s was Agnes Murphy’s. Where Mary and Tom lived. And Bridget.

  Katie ran faster.

  When she was close enough to realize that it was indeed Agnes Murphy’s house spewing smoke, her eyes quickly scanned the scene for some sign of a skinny little girl with bright red hair. There were no small children present. It was late. They were safely in bed, asleep. Most of the neighborhood men worked the night shift at a nearby factory. They wouldn’t be working on Christmas Eve, but that was tomorrow night. Not tonight. That left only elderly neighbors, some with nightwear poking out from beneath their winter coats, to gather on the lawn.

  Katie saw no sign of Bridget.

  But her eyes did locate Mary, sobbing in the arms of her landlady. Tom was away at work, and wouldn’t be home until seven in the morning. Katie pushed her way through the crowd. The wind had changed, now blowing the smoke toward the rear of the house. Though there was plenty of the thick, dirty gray stuff pouring from the open front door and first floor windows, she saw no flames. Perhaps there was no real fire, only smoke, though Katie couldn’t imagine how that could be so.

  She ran to Mary and Agnes. “Where is the baby?” she called, tapping Mary on the shoulder. “Where is Bridget?”

  Incapable of speech, her face still hidden in Agnes Murphy’s ample bosom, Mary could only point. She pointed straight at the house.

  “She’s in there?” Katie cried, horrified. “Has no one gone in after her, then?” She whirled, her eyes flying accusingly from one face to another. She saw no one who looked hale and hearty enough to enter a smoke-filled house. They were all too old.

  Katie turned back to Mary. “Are you certain sure she’s inside?”

  Silent nodding fr
om Bridget’s mother.

  “She was sleepin’, Mary was,” Mrs. Murphy said over the top of Mary’s head. Her tone was not unsympathetic, even though it was her house that might be burning. “Had herself a bad day, so she went to bed early. I was next door, havin’ a cuppa tea with Mrs. O’Donnell, when we seen the smoke. Come right over here and woke up Mary, but the smoke was so thick we couldn’t stay in there. ’Twas grabbin’ us by the throat and yankin’ all the breath out of us. When we tried to call for Bridget, we swallowed smoke so bad, nothin’ came out. I don’t…”

  But Katie was already gone, pushing open the gate and dashing up the cobblestone path toward the smoke-filled house.

  She paid no attention to the warnings shouted after her.

  Chapter 20

  HAD IT NOT BEEN for the image of Bridget’s small, pale face firmly lodged in Katie’s mind, she would have turned and fled instantly from the thick clouds of smoke billowing through the open front door. There were no flames, but the smoke itself engulfed her, tearing at her throat. She was coughing even before she stepped over the threshhold.

  But Bridget was inside….

  As Katie hesitated for a second in the doorway, her hands over her nose and mouth to protect them, she heard the faint wail of a siren. Too distant, much too far away to be of any help quickly. And how, then, would a fire engine make its way through that long line of autos crawling along the avenue hoping to see something exciting? What if the siren she was hearing wasn’t even headed her way? Could be going somewheres else, to a different fire, maybe, or to a car wreck because of the slippery roads.

  She dared not wait. Bridget couldn’t wait.

  Katie plunged headlong into the thick wall of dirty gray.

  Once inside, she felt as if she had been swallowed up by a giant steel-gray monster. She could see nothing. There was not the tiniest shred of light to help her find her bearings. The smoke was so acrid it sent tears streaming down her cheeks. Her hands left her face to yank her skirt and petticoat up to cover her nose and mouth. This helped only a little. She couldn’t be sure exactly where the staircase was. In all that gray wool, there seemed to be no left, no right, no stairs….