The Immigrants

by Howard Fast

  “Yes, I am.”

  “She’s been nothing but trouble and bad luck since Swenson had her built. Oh, I’m not against iron lumber ships. I’ve ordered three to be built for my own flag, but it takes time and research and planning. Swenson jumped into his, and it’s been nothing but trouble and disaster. That’s why he docked it and that’s why he’s trying to sell it.”

  “I’ve seen the ship,” Dan said. He addressed Whittier, but he was talking to her. She smiled and listened.

  “What do you know about iron ships?”

  “Not much. I know the Queen is two hundred and forty feet long, and I know her twin screws are out of sync and I think I know what has to be done with them. She’s eighteen hundred gross tons, and she’ll carry a million and a half board feet of lumber. She blew a boiler and her engine room’s a mess, but her engine’s good. I’ll put new boilers on the main deck, abaft the engines, two boilers instead of one, and they’ll never blow again.”

  “Boilers on the main deck?” Whittier exclaimed. Jean Seldon was smiling now, her father listening intently. “She’ll be top-heavy. You’ll lose her the first time out.”

  “No, sir. My arithmetic’s nothing to write home about, but I’ve done the calculations, and she will not be top-heavy. Also, when I take out her boiler, I’ll have cargo space for another hundred and fifty thousand board feet.”

  “I’ll tell you this, Mr. Lavette,” Whittier snapped. “You’ll not have me for a passenger.”

  Unable to keep from grinning, Dan told him he was not thinking of passengers yet. “That’s in the future, sir. I’m thinking that an iron ship can take a deadweight cargo, cement, salt, sugar, sand, so I’m not bound hand and foot by the lumber season or the lumber barons. And I’m not tied to the Redwood Coast I can take cargo from as high up as Oregon.”

  “You seem damn sure of yourself for a man your age.”

  “I’m as old as I can be at my age,” Dan said. “I don’t know very much, but I know the water.”

  The butler entered to announce that dinner was being served, and Mrs. Seldon interrupted to say that the very least they could do would be to save their business discussions until after they had dined. Watching, wary of error, Dan waited. Seldon took his wife’s arm, and Whittier his wife’s. Dan waited. Jean rose. “You will take me in to dinner, Mr. Lavette?”

  He nodded and took her arm. The easy flow of words that had poured out talking to Whittier dried up now. He simply did not know what to say. “You were splendid,” she whispered to him.

  “Oh?”

  “No one, but no one ever talks to Grant Whittier that way. They scrape and bow and agree with everything he says.”

  “It was wrong?” he asked uncertainly.

  “It was right.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that and entered the dining room in silence. He was seated at her left, with Whittier across the board from him and the Seldons at either end of the big table. He had never sat down to such a table before, three forks to his left, two knives and three spoons to his right and a third knife at the top of his plate. The plate itself was gold-edged with a gold monogram in the center. He saw Whittier move his wife’s chair in behind her, and Dan did the same with Jean’s chair. He touched nothing until he saw them pick up their napkins, and then he followed suit carefully, conscious of the fact that the girl on his left was watching every move he made. One large goblet, three smaller goblets. The butler was pouring water into the large goblets. His throat was dry and he desperately wanted a drink, and now he became conscious of the fact that he had carried his whiskey with him. How had the others disposed of their drinks? He set it down on the table, relieved when the butler removed it The Seldons and the Whittiers were chatting, a kind of small talk he had never encountered before, and his own silence began to fill him with oppression. Jean Seldon came to his rescue, and he wondered whether she had any notion that never before in his life had he dined with people like this in a room like this or a house like this.

  “How on earth do you know so much about ships?” she asked him.

  “I don’t.”

  “But of course you do.”

  “Well, about the Oregon Queen, I guess a little. I know more about boats. I been in boats most of my life, I guess.”

  “And a ship isn’t a boat?”

  Whittier heard this. “No, indeed, my dear,” he said. “A boat is not a ship, although some say that a ship is a boat.” His small joke amused him,and he chuckled over it.

  “A ship is large, a boat is small. That’s about the difference,” Dan said. At least he was talking to her, sitting alongside of her. A maid placed a plate of crab meat and mayonnaise on his service plate and the butler poured white wine into the outside goblet of the three that were lined up before him. He had no taste for crab meat, and he wondered whether he would be offending them if he did not eat it. Jean was only picking at hers; he had no way of knowing that her appetite had fled with his presence there.

  “Could be off one of your own boats, Lavette,” Whittier said. “The crab, I mean.” Whittier was hostile, contriving his hostility in witless remarks. Dan said nothing, only thinking that if this small, pompous, foolish man, so uninformed about the essence of his own business, was a measure of the hundred tycoons who ruled the hills of San Francisco, then his own way up would be none too difficult It came down to money; if you had the money, you functioned and you could do without guts or brains; and if you had money, you saw a girl like Jean Seldon more than once, more than by accident He took the outside fork after the others had picked theirs up, and he forced himself to eat the crab meat

  “I’d like to think that it is,” Seldon said, taking the edge off Whittier’s remark. “Young Lavette here owns three crabbing boats,” he explained to Mrs. Whittier, “and that’s quite an achievement for someone his age.”

  “When most young fellows are still in college,” Whittier said.

  “Eating out of their daddies’ pockets,” Jean said sweetly, smiling at Whittier. “John’s in his last year at Yale, isn’t he?”

  “That’s right.”

  Mary Seldon looked at her daughter disapprovingly, but Jean refused to meet her eyes. The maid was picking up the fish plates and the butler was serving a clear soup. Trying not to look at her directly, Dan watched Jean.

  “And then he’ll go into your business, Mr. Whittier?”

  “Of course.”

  “What a pity he can’t start a shipping line of his own, as Mr. Lavette intends to do. But then he wouldn’t know how, really, would he?” she added, with a smile.

  Dan watching listening. Match their spoon. They dipped away instead of toward them. She turned to him and smiled.

  “That’s hardly called for, Jean,” her father said. “Why on earth would John want a shipping line of his own?”

  “Do you like the soup, Mr. Lavette?” Her question abandoned the rest of them.

  “Why–yes.”

  “You don’t like crab?”

  He found himself grinning at her. His nervousness had disappeared, and suddenly he had a sense of his own size, his physical strength, his own brains and being. Four years, he had earned his own bread and keep, fended for himself, had not only remained alive and well but had put together a small fishing fleet of his own, and kept it alive and functioning and fought the wind and the weather and met a payroll for eleven men in his crews–and be damned with the lot of them if he’d go into a funk over which spoon or knife to use.

  “Neither would I, if I were in your place, Mr. Lavette,” Jean said. “I would hate fish and I would hate crabs–ugly little beasts.”

  He found himself talking to her, and he found himself enjoying the challenge of this strange and somewhat incomprehensible dinner. After the soup, a plate of roast beef and potatoes was substituted for the gold-rimmed, monogrammed plate that had been in front of him. Then a salad with cheese. Then an ice. Then a small plate of what he guessed was rabbit stew, highly spiced. His only comparison were the dinn
ers he had eaten at the Cassala’s and the Levys’, and he felt that both families ate better food and more sensibly. But he would learn the ritual; he would learn every damn thing that existed in Jean Seldon’s world.

  After dinner, the butler passed cigars and brought out brandy. The women rose to leave the room. Jean Seldon said to her father, “Dear daddy, let me take Mr. Lavette and show him the terrace. I’m sure he doesn’t smoke cigars. Do you, Mr. Lavette?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “There. May I?”

  Her mother watched coldly as she took Dan’s arm, and without waiting for an answer, Jean Seldon guided him out of the room.

  “I’m spoiled,” she said to him as they stood on the terrace behind the house, with the great, splendid sweep of the bay and the city beneath them. “You must understand that I am the spoiled only child of a very rich man who adores me, and that’s why I do shocking things and get away with it.”

  “Shocking things?”

  “Dragging you away like this and out of the clutches of that stupid Grant Whittier.” She watched him. “You don’t think that’s shocking.”

  “Yes. No. You talked your head off with Grant Whittier, Mr. Lavette.”

  “That was different.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know what to say to you.”

  “Of all the silly things I ever heard! There, I’ve hurt your feelings.”

  “No.” He shook his head, trying to find the proper words. “I don’t know what to say to you. I never knew anyone like you before.”

  “How old are you, Mr. Lavette?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “And I’ll be twenty-one in six–no, five–months. So we’re the same age, but every boy of twenty-one I ever knew was a little boy–not in size, mind you–but just a kid. You’re very different. Do you know that?”

  “No, I never thought about it.”

  “Do you always say exactly what’s on your mind?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I do.”

  “Daddy described you as a sort of roughneck, in clothes that didn’t fit you. You’re not a roughneck at all.”

  “This is a new suit.”

  “That’s not what I meant at all. You are provoking.”

  “I don’t mean to be, Miss Seldon.”

  “My name is Jean, Mr. Lavette. You may call me that I shall call you Dan. We have been formally introduced, so it’s perfectly all right.”

  “I want to see you again,” he said slowly.

  “Oh?”

  “Will that be all right? I told you I’ve never met a girl like you before. I’ve never been to a house like this before. You might as well know.”

  “Indeed.” She looked at him thoughtfully–tall, slender, elegant, coldly and incredibly beautiful. Then she closed her eyes while he waited. Then she opened them and smiled at him. “Yes, Dan, you may see me again.”

  When he left the Seldon house, he walked quietly for a dozen paces, and then he let out a howl and began to run. He went down the hill like a loping steer. When he reached the wharf, he leaped into one of his boats, prowled through it, and then sat in the stern staring out at the fog that lay upon the bay. He had no desire to sleep. The whole world was new and wonderful and incredible.

  Maria Cassala gave birth to a stillborn child. Dan went to the hospital and stood by her bedside, while she clung to his hand and wept. At thirty-four, Maria had already left her youth behind her. She was stout, her once lovely face puffy and blotched. She clung to his hand with a kind of frantic desperation. The doctors had told her that she would never have another child. She was a simple woman, illiterate, and she made no attempt to learn English. In spite of her husband’s success and growing wealth, she would have no servants in the house. She did her own cleaning and cooking, but now the doctors told her husband that she must spend at least five weeks in bed.

  “But you are my other son, Daniel,” she told him through her tears. “You will always be my son, and when Rosa is older, you will turn to each other.”

  “You get well. Just get well, Maria.”

  “My child was a son,” she moaned. “Daniel, Daniel, he was taken from me before I ever touched him.”

  Outside, in the hospital corridor, Anthony embraced him. Dan was shaken by the depth of the man’s emotion and grief; after all, the child had never lived. “You turn to people you love,” Cassala said. “Money–my whole life is money. You are my son, Danny. I lose one son. Not you, Danny.”

  Away for most of the morning, Mark Levy returned to his shop to find his wife, Sarah, close to tears. Her annoyance was out of character. “How can you find anything here? How can you ever find anything in this mess?” Martha took the cue from her mother and began to wail. “Where were you?” Sarah demanded as she picked up the child and quieted her.

  “I was only gone a few hours. I went to look at the Oregon Queen.”

  “Jenson was in here, shouting at me. He says the oakum you sold him is no good.”

  “He’s crazy.”

  “He dumped it all behind the shop. I gave him his money back.” Mark started to say something, then swallowed his words. “Oh, I hate this whole thing,” she cried out. “I hate being a storekeeper. I hate it.”

  “You never said that before.”

  “I’m saying it now. Isn’t that enough? I’ll feed Martha and get your lunch.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Mark said. He began to prowl around the store, straightening a shelf of goods here and there. “I didn’t know you hated it. It’s pop’s store. Hell, it’s given us a decent living. Chandlering’s not the worst thing in the world.”

  “I’m sorry.” She sat down with the child in her arms and began to weep.

  “Why are you crying? The hell with Jenson. You gave him his money back. He has no kick coming.”

  “I’m not crying over that. Maria Cassala’s child died.”

  “What? Who–Steve or Rosa?”

  “No, the baby. It was stillborn. Danny Lavette was in here and he told me.”

  “Yeah, that’s rotten. But you don’t have to cry over it. It happens.”

  “Yes, it happens.”

  “She’ll have other kids.”

  “She won’t. The doctor says no.” She dried her eyes with her skirt and pressed Martha to her bosom. “I’m just miserable.” She went into the back room with Martha, and a few minutes later Mark heard her singing to the child. “If I were only like that,” he thought. “In and out of grief that easily.”

  “Why did you go to look at the Oregon Queen?” she called out to him.

  “To see if Danny is crazy.”

  “Is he?”

  “No.”

  “I have cold fish for your lunch. Will you eat it?”

  “I’ll eat it,” he said with resignation.

  Feng Wo’s knowledge in a variety of areas was amazing. “What would you wear,” Dan asked him, “to take a girl driving? Not a tart. This is a girl with class.”

  Feng Wo thought about it for a moment. “I think, Mr. Lavette, white ducks, a white shirt, and some kind of jacket sweater that buttons down the front. You can buy that at Lords. Maybe those canvas shoes they call sneakers.”

  “Just that? Not flannels?”

  “I worked for such people once. It is true they wear white flannels for their amusements. But you’re a man of the sea. Ducks would be appropriate, I think.”

  But once at Lords, he bought the white flannels and a blue boating jacket with brass buttons. White sneakers. The shoes were all right, but he felt like a fool in the boating jacket, and at the last moment he pulled on an old gray sweater. At least it was clean and did not smell of fish. At Peek’s livery stable on Jefferson Street, he rented the newest, brassiest gig that Jesse Peek owned, with a fretful, nervous brown filly to pull it. “If I had any sense, I’d give you an old nag,” Peek said, “because you don’t know beans about horses, Danny, and she’s lively, lively. So keep her in check but don’t hurt her mouth. She’s a dandy.”
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  It was six dollars for the day, but worth it, Dan decided. Nor was his mood dampened by the frigid welcome Mrs. Seldon gave him when he arrived to pick up Jean. She came downstairs wearing a pale green blouse, a white cardigan sweater, and a loose plaid skirt that fell to just above her ankles. Her honey-colored hair was tied at the back of her head with a green ribbon–and to Dan she was totally, unequivocally the most beautiful and desirable creature that had ever existed.

  “If you will excuse us for a moment, Mr. Lavette,” her mother said, taking her into the living room while Dan waited in the foyer. “Jean,” she said, “I simply do not understand you.”

  “What is there to understand, mother?”

  “To go unchaperoned with a person like that in an open gig for anyone and everyone to see–I don’t understand it. I simply do not.”

  “What do you mean by a person like that?”

  “He has no background, no family, a crude, pushy–”

  “Stop that, mother.”

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “Are you forbidding me to go?”

  “No, I won’t have a scene. You’d go anyway.”

  “Yes, I would.” She flung open the door, strode into the foyer, took Dan’s arm, and steered him out of the door.

  They drove for a few minutes before she said, “I had a scene with my mother. I’m not cross with you. I’m upset. You might as well know. I have a beastly temper.”

  “About me?” he asked.

  “Yes, about you.”

  “That’s all right,” he said placidly. “I’m not your kind. If I was in her place, I’d probably feel the same.”

  “You are the most astonishing young man. Doesn’t anything bother you?”

  “Sometimes. But right now, the way I feel, nothing could bother me. Where should I take you?”

  “First to see your boats. I am absolutely intrigued with them.”

  “They’re just dirty, smelly old fishing boats. Now if this was twenty years ago, it would be different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that was the time my father began to fish here. All the Italian fishermen rigged their boats with the same lateen sails they had used in the Bay of Naples and off the coast of Sicily, and they were something to see all right.”