The Ocean Liner

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by Marius Gabriel


  ‘I don’t mean Rosemary any harm.’ When she made no comment, he went on, ‘I do care for her very much.’

  ‘You think you do.’

  ‘I know I do.’

  ‘Perhaps you can even kid yourself that you didn’t do her any harm. But you did. Just like all the others who took advantage of her.’

  ‘I didn’t take advantage of her.’

  ‘You are no better than a man who has sexual relations with a child.’

  He flushed. ‘She’s not a child.’

  ‘Not in body, perhaps. But everywhere it matters – in her heart, in her mind, in her soul – Rosemary is a child. She will always be a child. Your idea of marrying her is not just absurd, it’s obscene.’

  ‘So is locking her up,’ he retorted. ‘How long do you think you can keep her shut in a convent?’

  ‘The rest of her life, if that’s what it takes to protect her.’ She looked at him with hostile green eyes. ‘Rosemary is as happy as Larry without you. She’s forgotten you already.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for one moment.’

  She laughed shortly. ‘How dare you contradict me to my face? You’ve got some nerve, coming to me like this.’

  ‘Like I said, I do love her. I don’t want to live without her.’

  ‘In that case, I suggest you go to the rail and throw yourself over.’

  ‘You’re a cruel woman,’ he exclaimed, stung by her coldness.

  ‘Then you wouldn’t like me as a mother-in-law,’ she retorted. ‘If you use extravagant language, you can expect to be mocked. You’re a young man who sees what he wants to see and hears what he wants to hear.’ She reached into her pocket. ‘You have no right to read this, but I want you to understand, once and for all.’ She handed him the telegram.

  He unfolded it. It had been sent to the ship from London the day before. The pasted lines of printed capitals covered the whole page:

  HAD RING-A-DING AFTERNOON TEA AT BELMONT HOUSE WITH ROSEMARY. LOOKED CHARMING AND WAS PRAISED BY EVERYBODY. LOVES THE PLACE. SAYS ‘MOST WONDERFULEST’ SCHOOL SHE HAS BEEN TO.

  ALL SERENE AND HAPPY. NO SIGN OF PINING FOR YOU OR CHILDREN. MUCH LESS DEMANDED OF HER NOW. SHELTERED FROM STRESS AND KEPT OCCUPIED. VERY RELAXED. IDEAL LIFE FOR HER.

  SISTERS CONSTANTLY REMARKING ON ‘MARKED IMPROVEMENT’ IN HER ATTITUDE AND STUDIES. AM VERY OPTIMISTIC.

  HAVE INSTALLED TELEPHONE LINE AND FIREFIGHTING EQUIPMENT FOR THEM. SEE ROSEMARY EVERY WEEKEND. DON’T WORRY ANY MORE. JACK AND JOE JR HEADING HOME SOON. MUCH LOVE TO YOU AND KIDS. JOE.

  Cubby handed the telegram back to Mrs Kennedy. ‘Sounds like he is talking about a six-year-old,’ he mumbled. But his eyes felt hot and there was a hard knot in his throat.

  Mrs Kennedy put the telegram back in her pocket. ‘You think me unkind, Mr Hubbard. But I’m going to give you some advice that is the kindest thing anyone will say to you: get on with your life and forget Rosemary.’

  She closed the door in his face.

  Igor Stravinsky was coughing heavily into his handkerchief that night. Masha laid her hand on his arm.

  ‘You should not be smoking. This is killing you.’

  ‘It’s not – the smoking – which is killing me.’

  He spat into the handkerchief. It was a dark night, but by the dim light on the promenade deck, where they reclined side by side, she could see the red stain on the linen.

  ‘You are not well.’

  He let his head sag back against the cushion, gasping for breath. ‘How far – have you got – with my symphony?’

  ‘I’ve copied forty pages. It’s a great privilege. But—’

  ‘But?’

  ‘The music is not in any sense Russian, Monsieur Stravinsky.’

  He was silent for a long while. ‘I do not feel myself to be a Russian in any sense,’ he said at last. ‘I consider myself a French citizen.’

  ‘Why have you stopped working on it?’

  He made a weary gesture with the bloodstained handkerchief. ‘I have stopped everything, Masha.’

  ‘Even living?’ she asked. ‘Forgive me, but you told my cousin that you wanted to die.’

  ‘I am old. I have lived. And I have lost a wife, a child. You are still young. You haven’t had a child yet. You can’t stop living until you’ve reproduced, that’s the law of nature.’

  ‘And what if I were to lose my child, the way you’ve lost yours?’

  ‘You have to hazard everything,’ he replied. ‘That is the law of nature too. Risk everything, your whole being, on that throw of the dice.’

  ‘And how do you survive the death of a child, Monsieur Stravinsky?’

  ‘Maybe you don’t.’

  ‘Then how are we supposed to make sense of life?’ she asked. ‘Are you telling me you can’t leave until you’ve had your heart broken?’

  ‘Perhaps, yes.’

  ‘And to whom does it matter, whether you suffer or not?’

  ‘To God, perhaps.’

  ‘I don’t believe in God any more.’

  ‘I do.’ Stravinsky sat up and coughed up blood again. ‘But not in a God who keeps us from harm.’

  ‘What sort of God, then?’

  He rose with an effort to his feet. ‘I think of God as a stern country schoolmaster. He calls us one by one, to write something on the blackboard before he will let us go home. Some of us write beautiful things, some of us write nonsense, some make glaring errors. For some of us, the chalk snaps in our fingers before we can finish.’

  Masha watched him walk slowly away, then she rose and went to the rail alone. The moon had not yet risen, there were no stars. The lights of the ship glimmered on the nearest waves, but beyond, all was blackness.

  Masha leaned on the rail, thinking about the letter Rachel had received in Cobh, before the submarine. Did she feel any differently towards Rachel, since Rachel had revealed her inner self? She felt that she didn’t. She was too fond of her cousin to be disturbed in any way. She felt, more than anything else, compassion for the difficulties Rachel had faced in her life, pity for her isolation and her sorrows. But there was much that was strange about Rachel that had now been explained, and which she had begun to understand.

  ‘You are sad tonight.’

  Masha turned. Arturo Toscanini had joined her at the rail, wrapped in a heavy coat and scarf against the cold. ‘It’s a sad world, maestro,’ she replied.

  ‘I feel it also.’ He struck his breast. ‘This is broken.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He stood beside her, his face in shadow, the deck lights making a silvery halo of his sparse hair. ‘But you are too young to feel such things.’

  ‘I don’t think it matters how old one is.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s true. When I was young, I suffered from profound bouts of melancholy.’

  ‘I’m not normally a melancholy person,’ Masha replied with a catch in her voice. ‘But I’ve heard so much terrible news of late. Sometimes it overwhelms me.’

  ‘Poor little bird.’ He put his arm around her shoulders. Grateful for the fatherly reassurance, Masha laid her head on Toscanini’s shoulder.

  ‘You are so kind, maestro.’

  ‘It pains me to see you all alone in the world,’ he replied in a husky voice. ‘So young and so beautiful. I should like to help you.’

  It was almost like having Papa back. She nestled into him. ‘Oh, maestro—’

  But before she could finish her sentence, he was kissing her. She was astonished to feel his bristly moustache prickling against her nose, his lips sucking at hers. ‘So young,’ he repeated, munching greedily, enveloping her in a miasma of bad teeth, ‘so beautiful—’

  ‘Maestro!’ Masha exclaimed in horror.

  ‘Let me console you. I understand, I understand everything!’

  ‘Please, maestro!’ She struggled to get away from him.

  His wiry arms were surprisingly strong, and he was very determined. ‘Don’t fight me. I can make you happy, piccolina.’

&n
bsp; ‘Let me go!’

  ‘Patatina, dai.’ He had lapsed into Italian, and was murmuring endearments to her as his whiskery kisses, like the attentions of an elderly terrier, planted themselves on her mouth, cheeks and eyes.

  ‘Maestro, stop!’

  ‘Carissima!’ The conductor’s nimble fingers were prying under her coat, searching for the curves of her breasts.

  ‘Say, what’s going on here?’ The interruption had come in the form of a burly young passenger in a checked jacket, his hair slicked back in the defiant quiff which was popular with young Americans these days. ‘Is everything okay?’

  Toscanini appeared momentarily baffled, his tongue still protruding, his eyes rolling. However, his arms relaxed, and Masha extricated herself swiftly from his amorous grasp. ‘Thank you,’ she said breathlessly to the young American.

  ‘I’ll walk you to your cabin.’ The American offered his arm. She took it gratefully.

  ‘Carissima!’ Toscanini bleated in dismay as Masha and her rescuer made their escape down the deck.

  ‘Who’s that old billy goat?’ the American asked.

  Masha took out her handkerchief and wiped the spittle off her face in disgust. ‘It’s Arturo Toscanini.’

  ‘The conductor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Gee. I hope I did the right thing. You looked kind of reluctant, so I thought I better say something.’

  ‘I think he got carried away.’

  ‘He’s old enough to be your grandfather.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’

  ‘He ought to be ashamed of himself. My name’s Cubby Hubbard, by the way.’

  ‘I’m Masha Morgenstern.’ She glanced over her shoulder, anxious that Toscanini would follow her; but he had vanished. ‘I’m so glad you were there.’

  ‘No problem. I’ve seen you and your friend around the ship. I guess you’re getting away from Hitler?’

  ‘Yes. And you’re going home?’

  The American’s pleasantly chubby face looked unhappy. ‘I’m going to enlist as soon as I get back.’

  ‘But America’s not in the war.’

  ‘Not yet. But I reckon we soon will be. I thought I’d get an early start. So when it happens, I already have some rank, you know what I mean?’

  ‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,’ Masha said uncertainly. ‘Do you come from a family of soldiers?’

  ‘No. Matter of fact, I’m a musician. But—’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Well, I’ve had a disappointment. I don’t feel the same way about things any more.’

  ‘A disappointment in love?’ Masha asked.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Did she choose someone else?’

  He sighed. ‘Other people chose for her.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry. I know how that feels,’ Masha said quietly.

  ‘You do? Well, I guess we’re in the same boat. The whole thing was just a dream.’

  ‘You mustn’t say that.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have tried to kid myself it could ever work. A couple of days ago an old lady – I think she was a witch – told me you should never mix dreams with reality.’

  ‘But you can’t live without your dreams,’ Masha said wistfully.

  ‘Well, that’s all I have now. I don’t see my future the way I did before. A few weeks ago, I was in Paris, listening to Django Reinhardt. I was kidding myself that one day I could be as good as that. But I just realised I’ll never be as good as that. No point in even trying. So it’s the Navy for me.’

  Masha glanced at his face. Under the youthful plumpness there was a square, dogged strength. ‘I hope you go back to your music one day.’

  ‘You never know.’

  ‘No, you never know.’

  He escorted her to her cabin, where she thanked him and disengaged her arm. She went through the door, half-giggling, half-tearful. ‘Oh, Rachel!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Rachel demanded.

  ‘Toscanini. He’s been trying to make love to me on the promenade deck.’

  Rachel rose angrily. ‘What did he do, the wretch?’

  ‘Oh, it’s too absurd. He put his arm around me, and I thought he was just trying to be nice, but then he started kissing me and calling me piccolina and patatina—’

  ‘How disgusting.’

  ‘But such a nice young American came to my rescue. He told me he’s going to enlist. I feel so sad for him.’

  ‘Never mind him. Didn’t I warn you not to let Toscanini get you in some dark corner?’ Rachel said.

  ‘But he’s so old! I never imagined he could behave like that—’

  ‘We must complain to the Commodore.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly. Everybody will laugh at us.’

  ‘He’s a revolting creature. His wife is on board!’

  Masha sat down and began to laugh breathlessly. ‘Well, at least I can tell my grandchildren I was kissed by Toscanini.’

  ‘You,’ Rachel said dryly, ‘and a few hundred others.’

  HMS Tisiphone

  Altogether, HMS Tisiphone picked up five survivors of U-113, including Todt, Hufnagel and Krupp. The five of them had all been in the control room, and had managed to make their escape through the conning tower hatch in the first few minutes as the U-boat went down. It was Krupp who had ensured Hufnagel’s survival, taking precious moments to fit him with a life jacket at the risk of his own life.

  The rest of the crew, including the men in the stern of the boat, where the torpedo had struck, those who had rushed into the forward compartment, those in the engine room and those in the sickbay, had all perished with the submarine. Forty-three men were dead. Hufnagel tried to absorb this as his injuries were treated by a well-meaning but clumsy British petty officer.

  Almost everyone he had known aboard U-113, a small world, but a world nevertheless, was gone. He would never see any of them again. It was a thing almost impossible to comprehend. Most of them had been barely over twenty. He himself was only a few years older than that, and nothing in his life had prepared him for these past weeks. He felt altered in vital ways, a man apart, as though he had in reality gone down with the iron coffin, and a stranger had been put in his place.

  The well-meaning officer gave him a swig of scotch from a bottle, to fortify him against the pain of the crude stitches with which he was trying to hold together Hufnagel’s torn and bleeding arm. It was a mistake. The raw alcohol made Hufnagel confused and then violently ill. The bed which he had borrowed from a British sailor had to be changed.

  The British crew, fresh out of port, were clean and groomed. He and the other four survivors had been dirty and unkempt even before U-113 had been sunk. They were far worse now, covered in oil and filth. The only emotion he was able to feel at first was a vague shame at his own appearance and that of his fellow Germans.

  The British skipper, Cottrell, was inquisitive. He was eager to talk, and looked in on Hufnagel now and then as they waited to rendezvous with the destroyer which would take charge of the captured Germans. He was a pink-cheeked, gingery man who affected a pipe, and seemed to Hufnagel like the cartoon of a typical Englishman.

  ‘May I ask,’ he enquired during one of his visits, ‘what you were up to with the Manhattan?’

  ‘Our captain got it into his head that he was going to torpedo her.’

  ‘Didn’t you see the American flags painted on her sides?’

  ‘Yes. We had a disagreement about that.’

  ‘And that’s when this so-called mutiny took place?’

  ‘It had started some time earlier, I think.’

  ‘But this is when he shot you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Cottrell puffed on his unlit pipe, producing a whistling sound which apparently give him as much satisfaction as real tobacco smoke. ‘I don’t mean to interrogate you. They’ll do that when you get to England. But it seems you saved a lot of innocent lives. You’re not a Nazi, I take it?’

 
Hufnagel couldn’t think of an answer which would explain his feelings without seeming disloyal to his country. ‘I am a German.’

  ‘Yes, of course you are. The reason I ask is because your skipper’s still Heil-Hitlering and raving about you.’

  ‘Yes, I hear him.’ Todt was perfectly audible a few bunks away, accusing Hufnagel of treason.

  ‘He seems awfully cut up. I suppose the fact that you were all so busy arguing about the Manhattan explains how we were able to surprise you.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Did you serve in the last war, old chap?’ Cottrell asked innocently.

  Hufnagel realised he must look very decrepit indeed. ‘I wasn’t born yet when it started.’

  ‘Oh, I see. So you’re about the same age as me. Well, the closest I’d been to battle was breaking a tooth on some buckshot in a roast pheasant. Your boat was our first kill.’

  ‘I congratulate you,’ Hufnagel said dryly.

  ‘Thank you.’ Cottrell champed on his innocuous pipe. ‘I’m glad you survived. Sorry about your crew.’

  ‘You didn’t start the war.’

  ‘Neither of us started the war. There’s not much point in worrying about it, is there?’

  ‘No. If you worry about it, you won’t last very long. Like Hamlet.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve heard of Hamlet?’

  ‘We read Shakespeare at school.’

  ‘Odd, that.’

  Hufnagel, weak with pain and loss of blood, found himself wishing Cottrell would go away and leave him alone. ‘What is odd?’

  ‘Our two countries being at war again.’

  ‘You always start it.’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Cottrell opened his mouth to launch on a defence, but seeing Hufnagel’s drained face, thought better of it, and drew the curtain again.

  SS Manhattan

  ‘They say we will be in New York in four days,’ Stravinsky announced at breakfast the next morning.

  ‘You sound happy about it,’ Katharine observed.

  ‘Why should I not be happy about it?’ He dabbed egg yolk off his lips. ‘It is our journey’s end, after all. The start of a new life.’

  In Le Havre, a matter of three weeks earlier, he had been bemoaning the end of an old life, Katharine reflected; but she did not utter the thought. She was glad to see him starting to look buoyant again, shedding his weariness and despair. Even the tone of his skin was improved, as though the blood beneath were circulating more vigorously. ‘I think you quite enjoyed our encounter with the German submarine.’

 

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