The Ocean Liner

by Marius Gabriel

  ‘If we do this work of Stravinsky’s, we’ll have at least forty dollars more,’ Masha said, wanting to get Rachel off such bitter subjects. ‘Shall we make a start?’

  ‘And by the way,’ Katharine pointed out sharply, ‘you can ill afford forty dollars for a task you don’t need doing.’

  ‘It will be useful to have fair copies of those two movements.’

  ‘I happen to know that fair copies of those two movements have already been sent to your publisher.’

  ‘Exactly. That is why I require further fair copies for myself.’

  She snorted at this prevarication. ‘Those forty dollars would have bought you a Cabin Class ticket.’

  ‘I am happy with my cabin.’ He was playing patience in the Tourist Class smoking room, his legs wrapped in a rug, a cigarette in a holder clamped between his teeth. From time to time, when he was frustrated by the way the cards turned out, he muttered filthy expletives in Russian, imagining that she couldn’t understand. ‘There is nothing wrong with the cabin at all.’

  ‘And what about the food?’

  ‘I have never been very interested in food.’

  ‘Nonsense, Igor,’ she said roundly. ‘You know you are a gourmet.’

  ‘Shit on your mother,’ he muttered to the cards in Russian.

  ‘I understand what you are saying. I have enough Russian for that. And I see you cheating.’

  Irritably, he gathered up the cards and shuffled the deck. ‘How can I play, with you sitting there like a crow, pecking at me?’

  ‘If you wanted to give those women charity, you could have just handed them the cash. You didn’t have to risk your precious autograph manuscripts.’

  ‘It is not a question of charity,’ he replied, starting to lay out a new game. ‘It’s a business transaction.’

  She lit a cigarette and began to buff her nails. ‘You are absurdly trusting.’

  Thomas König arrived at their table, his pale face set. ‘I gave them the portmanteau.’

  ‘Good boy.’

  ‘Why do you always repeat that I am a Nazi to them?’ he asked tensely.

  Stravinsky looked up, adjusting his spectacles. ‘But you are. Aren’t you?’

  ‘You make them hate me. Especially the older one.’

  ‘Is that not in the natural order of things?’

  ‘It’s hard for me.’

  ‘And yet you must bear it,’ Stravinsky replied with a warning note in his voice. ‘You have no choice.’

  ‘You could at least not make a point of it every chance you get.’

  ‘I don’t think they need reminding of what you are. And my advice to you is not to annoy the elder Fräulein Morgenstern. She has a very sharp tongue.’

  Thomas grimaced and walked off without replying.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Katharine asked.

  Stravinsky returned to his cards. ‘I suspect he has formed a sentimental attachment to one of the Jewesses.’

  ‘How ironic. The softer one, I should guess.’

  ‘Indeed, the other is something of a virago.’

  ‘I hope he doesn’t have any expectation of it being reciprocated.’

  ‘I shouldn’t imagine he is so foolish. He worships from afar. He is considerably younger, in any case.’

  ‘I don’t like him.’

  ‘Is he not a man and a brother?’

  ‘He is merely your cabin-mate.’

  ‘Indeed. On life’s journey, like us all. He will learn from us and we will learn from him. Aha.’ Chewing on his cigarette holder with satisfaction, he began to move the cards around successfully. ‘You note I am not cheating. Please do not tell me when I win that I have used underhand means.’

  Masha had worked for much of the night on the Stravinsky score. Rachel had been wise enough to leave her to it. Despite being rudely awoken by the anti-aircraft batteries, after having got to sleep only a couple of hours earlier, Masha was ready for breakfast, and full of the music she had been transcribing.

  ‘You can have no idea how wonderful it is,’ she exclaimed to her cousin as they made their way to the dining room.

  ‘Is it the roaring of lions or the trumpeting of elephants?’

  ‘Neither. It’s the most elegant, refined music you ever heard – well, since Beethoven, anyway.’

  ‘Since Beethoven!’

  ‘It’s full of enchanting rhythmic variations. And Rachel, it’s so clever.’

  ‘Oh, I am sure it is clever.’

  ‘And witty.’

  ‘I will tighten my stays before reading it, so as not to break a rib laughing.’

  As they made their way to the dining room, they encountered Arturo Toscanini, walking at great speed, as always. He almost collided with them, and began to utter curses in Italian, before his dark eyes, flashing beneath his tangled eyebrows, registered who they were.

  ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, pulling himself up. ‘The beautiful signorine.’ He lifted his hat and showed his brownish teeth in a smile. ‘Buongiorno, buongiorno! ’

  ‘Good morning, maestro,’ Masha replied.

  Toscanini took Masha’s hand in both of his and raised it to his lips. ‘I was told of your unhappy news. I offer my condolences.’

  ‘How kind of you, maestro,’ Masha said, moved by this attention from the great man. Rachel, however, remained tight-lipped.

  Toscanini pressed another kiss on Masha’s knuckles, his eyes fixed hypnotically on hers. ‘That mean little man in his ridiculous chauffeur’s uniform! How I loathe him.’

  ‘Do you mean Hitler?’ Masha asked timidly.

  ‘They asked me to return to Bayreuth in 1933, to conduct The Ring. With Hitler sitting in the front row? The bloated Goering beside him? And that hideous gnome Goebbels on the other side? Never!’ He kissed Masha’s hand again. ‘They sent me ten thousand Deutschmarks. I sent them back. Hitler himself wrote to me, pleading. Do you know what I told him?’

  ‘What?’ Masha asked breathlessly.

  ‘I told him, Toscanini says Tosca-no-no!’ He burst out laughing. ‘What has Wagner to do with Hitler?’

  ‘Quite a lot, it seems,’ Rachel put in dryly. ‘The effect of the former on the latter is noxious. I sometimes ask myself whether the war would have started if Hitler hadn’t been such a regular visitor at Bayreuth.’

  Toscanini, who had still been pressing kisses on Masha’s hand, threw it down furiously. His face flushed dangerously. ‘Wagner expresses all that is sublime in the human condition,’ Toscanini thundered, ‘Hitler all that is most execrable.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Masha exclaimed, thrilling to the conductor’s fiercely curling moustaches and flashing eyes.

  Toscanini shook his finger in Rachel’s face. ‘Do not blame the composer of Parsifal for Hitler!’ He pushed past the girls and hurried away on his peregrinations.

  ‘The maestro is so fiery, isn’t he?’ Masha said in awe.

  ‘Half-mad, you mean,’ Rachel commented.

  They arrived at their table to find Stravinsky, Katharine Wolff and Thomas König already seated. The boy got up with perfect manners, his eyes flicking apprehensively from Rachel to Masha.

  ‘I’ve been copying out your manuscript, Monsieur Stravinsky,’ Masha said eagerly.

  ‘I hope you are not making expensive mistakes,’ Stravinsky said, looking at her from under hooded eyelids.

  ‘Oh no, I’m being very careful. But the music is so classical in form. It’s nothing like The Rite of Spring.’

  ‘My dear, it’s at least fifteen years since I began composing in the neo-classical style, and at least twenty-five since I wrote The Rite of Spring. Are you disappointed?’

  ‘Not at all. The music is wonderful. I’m surprised, that’s all.’

  ‘My life has been a long vista of surprised faces,’ he replied. ‘Unpleasantly surprised, I might add. They complained when I wrote new music, and said they wanted to hear classical forms. Now that I write classical forms, they complain and say they want to hear new music again. But one thin
g I cannot do is go backwards. I cannot be false to my aspirations.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Masha said, shocked at the idea. They ordered breakfast, and Masha and Stravinsky entered into a discussion of the accented off-beats in the music she was copying.

  ‘Have you seen what your great army is doing to Poland, Adolf?’ Rachel asked Thomas. ‘You must be very proud.’

  ‘It’s pitiful,’ Katharine said. ‘I was in tears in the night, listening to Polish Radio on my short-wave. They put on a Chopin nocturne. I had to switch it off. I couldn’t bear it. Even the women in my cabin were crying, and God knows they’re not sensitive souls. That poor, tragic country! Between Stalin and Hitler, God help them.’

  Thomas stared at his plate, pale-faced as the two women discussed the invasion. The dining room was completely full, and passengers were crowding at the doors, demanding tables. The overtaxed stewards were pleading in vain for them to form orderly lines. Those who had tables were shouting impatiently for food, which was emerging all too slowly from the kitchen. The crash of dropped crockery was becoming more frequent, the atmosphere more charged.

  The SS Manhattan had been in Southampton harbour for a week already, and passengers were still coming aboard along the steep, narrow gangway, a steady flow of humanity, or as Dr Emmett Meese indignantly put it, human garbage.

  Those already on board were showing signs of strain. Some, like Rachel and Masha Morgenstern, who had embarked in Bremen, had already been on the ship for a fortnight, and felt themselves to be choked by the ship’s surroundings. These prolonged stays in port were hard to bear.

  The sound of a bell cut through the hubbub. The public address system crackled.

  ‘Attention all passengers. This is the chief purser. The Manhattan will be sailing tomorrow morning at oh-six-hundred hours.’

  There was a moment of silence. Then the entire dining room erupted into cheers. The purser could barely be heard announcing that all passengers had to be on board by eleven p.m., and all visitors had to have left the ship by the same time, and repeating the announcement in French and German.

  Masha looked at Thomas and saw the tears running down his cheeks. She rose quickly from her chair and put her arms around him. She had made up her mind to be especially kind to him, even if Rachel enjoyed sharpening her claws on him. He was just a boy, and his solicitude had touched her.

  ‘Don’t cry, Thomas. You’ll be at the World’s Fair very soon.’

  Enveloped in her warmth and fragrant softness, Thomas had no words. She kissed his cheek and gave him her handkerchief, which he pressed to his face with both his hands.

  Hertfordshire

  The car pulled up in front of the big white mansion. Rosemary didn’t want to get out, but Daddy said, ‘I’m not in the mood to argue with you, Rosemary,’ and she knew that tone of voice, which always made her shrink inside. She got out of the car and looked around her.

  She didn’t really like the countryside. She didn’t understand it, with its silence and its emptiness and the way people fussed about things like the view and the trees and cows. And she’d been crying all the way from London and she couldn’t see very much because her eyes were all swollen. But when Daddy said, ‘Isn’t this grand?’ Rosemary nodded and said it was grand.

  Daddy held her hand as they went into the house. It smelled like all the schools she had been to, of floor polish and cooking and the rubber boots lined up in the hallway. The smiling nun took them to see the Mother Superior in her office.

  ‘This is Rosemary,’ Daddy said.

  Mother Isabel took one look at Rosemary and asked, ‘Have you been crying, Rosemary?’

  Rosemary didn’t say anything but Daddy said, ‘She’s having a very emotional time lately. I’m afraid we’ve been asking far too much of her. Engagements, appearances, dances. The embassy is a very public place. The press never leave her alone. There’s a lot of pressure.’

  Mother Isabel nodded sympathetically. She was old but you could tell right away she wasn’t one to be messed around with. ‘Oh yes. Of course, Rosemary’s face is already familiar to us from the newspapers. It’s natural that they would take an interest in such a lovely young woman, but the attention must be difficult.’

  ‘Very difficult.’

  ‘Your life will be much quieter here, Rosemary,’ Mother Isabel said, touching Rosemary on the shoulder. ‘You’ll find it very much more peaceful than London. But I promise you won’t be lonely or bored here.’

  ‘I don’t want to be here,’ Rosemary sobbed. ‘I want to be with Daddy.’

  Mother Isabel had a box of Pond’s tissues on her desk, perhaps because a lot of people cried in this room. She pulled one out with a little pop and gave it to Rosemary to staunch the tears that were pouring down her cheeks. ‘Daddy will be only an hour’s drive away.’

  ‘I’ll see you every weekend, Rosie.’

  ‘And you’ll be much safer here than in London,’ Mother Isabel went on, ‘now that the war has started.’

  ‘I don’t want to be in school any more,’ Rosemary said in a loud wail.

  Mother Isabel opened her eyes very wide. ‘Oh, but my dear, you’re not in school any more. Belmont House is a teacher training college. Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘You’re going to be a teacher, Rosie,’ Daddy said. ‘It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?’

  Rosemary stared at her shoes but she stopped crying.

  ‘It’s the start of a new life for you,’ Daddy said. ‘No more stress. No more strain.’

  ‘We’ll expect you to work hard,’ Mother Isabel said. ‘But we find that working with children is one of God’s gifts. There is no more rewarding occupation. Your father tells me that you love children?’

  Rosemary sniffled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘All those who love children are loved by them in return,’ Mother Isabel said. ‘But there are some individuals who are blessed with a special gift, because they are especially close to childhood. Something tells me that you are one of these, Rosemary.’

  She looked up at last, blotting her nose. ‘I do love children.’

  Mother Isabel smiled in a way that reminded Rosemary of the statues of Mary. ‘It’s a sacred love. It’s not like any other kind of love. It’s pure. Divine. Other kinds of love can bring us pain. They can bring us to sin, terrible sin, mortal sin. But God’s divine love can wash away that sin. And God’s love is so often channelled through His little ones. Do you understand, Rosemary?’

  Rosemary knew that Mother Isabel was talking about Cubby. She felt her mouth twist into a sullen shape. She missed Cubby terribly. And he hadn’t even written. She groped in her pocket for her cigarettes and put one in her mouth.

  ‘We don’t allow smoking at Belmont House,’ Mother Isabel said, her voice changing slightly, just enough to show that she was displeased. ‘We’ll have to ask you to get rid of that particular habit.’

  ‘Perhaps you might make an exception for Rosie,’ Daddy said quickly. ‘She finds the habit very relaxing. Maybe she could be allowed to smoke in the garden? I know she’d appreciate that dispensation. And I’d be personally very grateful.’

  Mother Isabel thought about that for a moment. ‘Very well,’ she said, folding her hands. ‘We don’t want to impose unnecessary hardships on Rosemary. But not in the building, if you please.’ She took the cigarette from Rosemary’s lips deftly and dropped it in the wastepaper basket. ‘Your father tells me you will soon have your twenty-first birthday.’

  Rosemary nodded, looking longingly at the cigarette which lay in the trash.

  ‘We’ll arrange something special for that. It won’t pass unmarked.’ She pressed a bell on her desk. ‘I’m going to ask Sister Clare to show you around while your father and I have a little talk.’

  But while they waited for Sister Clare, Mother Isabel and Daddy started their little talk anyway, with their voices lowered, as though she couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  ‘Now, Mother Isabel,’ Daddy said, ‘you just
let me know how I can help you here at Belmont House. I’d like to show my gratitude in any way I can.’

  ‘We always need help, Mr Kennedy. I could give you a list as long as your arm.’

  Daddy stuck his hand out, grinning. ‘As you can see, I have long arms, Mother Isabel.’

  Mother Isabel laughed. Daddy was tall. ‘Well, let’s see whether Rosemary is going to be happy here.’

  ‘I have a feeling that Rosemary is going to be very happy here.’

  ‘Belmont House is a happy place, Mr Kennedy. Our Benedictine brothers say Ora et Labora.’

  ‘“Pray and work”.’

  ‘Exactly. We believe that work is the best kind of prayer. We also believe that keeping young people fully occupied is the best way to keep them on the straight and narrow and avoid divagations into sin.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

  ‘For a young woman with Rosemary’s difficulties – and perhaps weaknesses as well – filling every hour of every day is of the utmost importance. It keeps the mind occupied. And the influence of children cannot be overestimated. They guide us surely and effortlessly to God. Their innocence is often the best medicine for a guilty heart, and their laughter the best medicine for a heavy one.’

  ‘Amen to that. I have nine, myself.’

  ‘Needless to say, you may rest easy that here at Belmont House, Rosemary will be well protected from the outside world. She will not be receiving any’ – Mother Isabel glanced at Rosemary – ‘callers such as you would not wish her to receive.’

  ‘That’s very important to us.’

  ‘May I ask how serious the – ah – problem was?’

  ‘It seems they were seeing each other as often as they could.’

  ‘By seeing each other you mean—’

  ‘All the way, yes.’

  ‘And emotionally?’

  ‘Well,’ Daddy said, also glancing at Rosemary, ‘she doesn’t have the emotional capacity for very deep feelings. I think it was more physical than anything else. She’s not a child any more, if you get my point.’

  ‘I do, indeed. You may feel that the damage has been done, in that regard. But our experience is that there is no damage which cannot be healed. We’ll get her mind off’ – she waved her hand – ‘certain topics. And we’ll direct her thoughts to higher ones. Whatever can be keeping Sister Clare?’ She pressed the bell again.