The Ocean Liner

by Marius Gabriel

  ‘And what do you expect to see when you go back to London?’ one of the others called.

  Miss Ward opened her baby-blue eyes very wide, just in time for the pop of another flashbulb. ‘I expect to see everything gay again, those hideous dirigibles gone from the skies, and of course, everything just as it has always been.’

  ‘So you think you’ll see the Union Jack still flying over Buckingham Palace?’

  ‘Well, you know, that would mean the King wasn’t at home. I would hope to see the Royal Standard. That would mean he was in residence.’

  ‘Do you think Britain can win this war?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. Britain must win this war, mustn’t she?’

  ‘Miss Ward,’ a man called from the back of the group, ‘Walter Winchell has just written in his column that you’ve inherited two and a half million dollars from your late daughter. Is that true?’

  Miss Ward’s smile faltered, and for a terrible moment she felt she was going to crumple to the floor, like some creature shot in the heart, in full view of the cameras. She forced herself to remain upright. ‘No parent should ever have to inherit anything from a child. It’s the saddest thing in all the world. But yes, it’s true. My darling Dotty left me everything in her will.’ Mentally, she was preparing what she would say to Walter Winchell about revealing that little snippet of news. The man held nothing sacred and everything in contempt.

  ‘Tell us about the submarine, Miss Ward.’

  She fixed the smile back on her face. ‘I wasn’t going to let any German submarine catch me déshabillé, gentlemen. I slept in a flying suit all the way.’

  There was laughter, and another volley of photographs. She managed to get the reporters out of her cabin and shut the door on the last of them, sagging wearily. She was ready to leave the ship.

  HMS Amphitrite

  They let Hufnagel out of the sickbay to get some fresh air. The two burly sailors who went with him everywhere, as though he were a wild beast who might at any moment lash out or leap overboard, had finally relaxed their vigilance. Weakened as he was, he presented little danger to anyone. One of the sailors even solicitously draped a blanket over his shivering shoulders.

  ‘There you go, Fritz. Don’t catch a chill.’

  He nodded his thanks. Clutching the blanket around himself, he went to the rail and looked across the bay at the distant towers of Manhattan. He was remembering his last visit here as a midshipman. The precise phrase which formed in his mind was ‘in my youth’. It was an odd phrase, considering he was not yet twenty-five. But he felt old. Much of himself had gone down with U-113. He was no longer what he had been.

  He glanced down at his right arm, which now ended in a bandaged stump, just above the elbow. It was a pity to lose the arm. And the other arm, thanks to Todt’s first shot, still had a doubtful future. He knew the British naval surgeon had done his best, but he was inexperienced and over-eager with the knife. Anyway, there was no use crying over spilled milk. What was done was done. He had saved the Manhattan, and perhaps hundreds of lives. That was something. He had no idea who those passengers were, whose lives had been in his hands for a trembling moment. And they would never know who he was. But that was war. Where ignorant armies clash by night.

  He looked again at the New York skyline, thinking of the teeming streets his younger self had once walked, so long ago. It would surely not be long before the might of America joined with Britain against the Axis powers. Then – for all Hitler’s contemptuous dismissal of a ‘mongrel nation’ – the war would take a very different turn.

  It made little difference to him now. He would be spending the rest of it, however it turned out, as a POW. He would see the world from behind a fence for years to come, perhaps a decade. Nobody could tell. And after that, he would have to face his life as an amputee, a wounded bird pecking crumbs on windowsills.

  He wondered what sort of Germany he would be returning to after it was all over. There was sometimes a vision in his mind of endless fields of smoking rubble, where scarecrow figures huddled. Among the scarecrows in this vision he could see members of his own family. Perhaps that was overly pessimistic. Yet the first month of the war had already shown him that the dream of glory was in reality a nightmare of folly, slaughter and devastation.

  ‘Don’t upset yourself,’ one of his guards said. ‘We’re all a shower of bastards.’

  Hufnagel realised that the remark was meant to be comforting. He realised, too, that the warmth on his cheeks was from tears that were trickling from his eyes. He wiped them away with the rough wool of the blanket. They led him below again.

  Flushing Meadows, 1940

  It was the biggest machine Thomas had seen since disembarking from the Manhattan ten months earlier. Pennsylvania Railroad’s S-1 locomotive towered over the crowd, more like a space rocket than a train, three hundred tons of gleaming blue steel, sculpted into flowing, aerodynamic lines. Even here at the World’s Fair, where everything was the biggest, the fastest, the latest, it was overwhelming: the most powerful train ever built, the Locomotive of Tomorrow.

  It had been mounted on enormous rollers so that it could be run at full speed for the excited crowd. As the behemoth got into its stride, its wheels, each one taller than a man, churned into silvery blurs. Dense, hot steam poured over the spectators, drenching them. At peak power the howl of its whistle pierced the thunder of its pistons.

  Thomas felt his identity erased by that noise and might. He ceased to be himself; one could not think one’s own thoughts. It was not until the great wheels slowed and the thunder sank back into the earth that he could be Thomas König again. Half-deafened, he looked at his wristwatch and saw that it was time to leave.

  He walked towards the Theme Centre along one of the paths that converged there. On this Fourth of July of 1940, the World’s Fair was thronged with visitors in holiday mood. Ahead of him, over the heads of the crowd, the Trylon and the Perisphere glowed as though in a dream, brilliantly white. They were supernatural, the spire piercing the blue vault of heaven like the steeple of some mechanistic god, the sphere pregnant with infinite possibilities.

  All around him rolled the noise of the World’s Fair, multitudinous, multifarious. Music of all kinds clashed and mingled with the bawling of amplified announcements, the sound of children playing, the drone of engines. Over in the distance he could hear the roar of the Goodrich pavilion, where Jimmy Lynch and his Death Dodgers raced around the track, performing stunts to thrill the crowd. And from Frank Buck’s Jungleland, where visitors could ride camels and elephants, a rich zoo smell emanated.

  There had been grave doubts about whether the Fair would reopen in 1940. The prospect of American involvement in the war loomed ever closer. The huge Soviet pavilion had been dismantled and shipped home. So had the pavilions of several smaller countries which had now been overrun by the Nazis. In sympathy, others were flying their flags at half-mast. Slightly anxious patriotic slogans and American flags were everywhere. But these undercurrents were overlaid with sunshine and festivity today.

  Thomas reached the Theme Centre and sat on the grass under a tree. The Perisphere in front of him seemed to float weightlessly on the fountains beneath it, light as a ping-pong ball for all its huge size. He watched the visitors taking their photographs, remembering how he had longed to see this sight. In his darkest moments, when grief had taken him by the throat and wouldn’t let him breathe, the dream of being here had saved him from despair.

  At last he saw a familiar figure approaching across the lawn. He got to his feet.

  Masha Morgenstern was wearing a white summer frock and a wide-brimmed straw hat. On this hot summer’s day, she looked as cool as an ice-cream cone. When she saw him, she paused for a moment, taking off her dark glasses. Then she ran to him and flung her arms around him.

  ‘Thomas! I almost didn’t recognise you at first. You’ve grown so much.’

  ‘I’m seventeen now,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘And I’ve had a bi
rthday too. I’m twenty-one, imagine.’ She held him at arm’s length to study him. ‘You’re so tall. You must be almost six foot now.’

  ‘Almost,’ he said. Where formerly they had conversed in Berlinerisch German, they now automatically spoke American English.

  She held up the stub of her entrance ticket. ‘See? I used the ticket you gave me.’

  A smile flickered across his grave, narrow face. ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘So am I.’ She read the stub. ‘The World of Tomorrow – Admit One. I remember the night you came into my cabin with this. It was an act of great kindness.’

  ‘I’m sure I got on your nerves.’

  ‘Never once. How you pulled the wool over all our eyes, Thomas! You gave a very good impersonation of a Nazi, quoting Hitler verbatim. You must have been laughing up your sleeve all the time!’

  Thomas grimaced. ‘Not laughing.’

  ‘Oh, forgive me. That was insensitive of me. Do you have news of your parents?’

  ‘Only that they were sent to a place called Dachau. The Red Cross told me that. But of course they aren’t allowed to write. And you?’

  ‘I received a postcard a few weeks ago, saying that they were well. But it wasn’t in their writing, and it seemed like something that had been printed on a machine.’

  ‘We must have hope,’ he said quietly.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, we must have hope. You’re at school?’

  ‘My uncle and aunt have been very kind. They put me in a private school in Connecticut. It was difficult at first, but I’m working hard.’

  ‘I’m sure you are. Your English is very good.’

  ‘So is yours.’ He had been too shy to look her in the face, but now he raised his eyes to hers. ‘Are you happy in America?’

  ‘Very happy. I’m studying the piano again at a music academy. I never thought I would. I’ve lost many years, but—’ She spread her hands. ‘There’s still something left in these.’

  ‘And Rachel?’

  Masha laughed. ‘Oh, Rachel! Rachel is always the same. She’s working as a switchboard operator but I don’t think it’ll last. She keeps connecting the wrong parties, and then gets angry when they complain.’ Her brown eyes sparkled. ‘But tell me: have you seen Elektro the talking robot yet?’

  ‘Yes, I saw him this morning. He has a dog now, Sparko.’

  She cocked her head on one side. ‘You don’t sound very excited.’

  ‘I expected a real robot. Elektro is just a big toy.’

  ‘I’m sorry you were disappointed.’

  ‘Nothing can disappoint me today.’

  ‘You’re very gallant,’ she said solemnly. She hooked her arm through his. ‘Now – you’re the expert. Show me around.’

  With Masha close beside him, he showed her the things he thought would amuse her. They visited Little Miracle City, and were able to pick out some of Hoffman’s Midget Marvels, performing among the other little people. They watched nylon stockings being made, and a big Fourth of July parade of soldiers, followed by a demonstration of American military hardware. Ironically, that took place on the Court of Peace, against the backdrop of the Trylon.

  There were other grim notes. One of the pavilions was collecting money for medical aid to China, with a display of tragic photographs. The France pavilion was flying its flag at half-mast; and this year’s show of the Fair was Streets of Paris, with Abbott and Costello, a painful reminder that the actual streets of Paris were now echoing under German jackboots. At the Great Britain pavilion there were displays of gas masks, German bombs, photographs of the Blitz, and even the tail of a German bomber that had been shot down.

  ‘I don’t want to see these things,’ Masha said with a shudder. ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘When I was your age I was always starving.’ She linked her arm through his. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.’

  The vulgar smell of the fried onions in the hot dog elbowed its way between them. He quietly discarded the garnish, not wanting to lose the intimacy of Masha’s scent, which was of lilies and vanilla. But she did not seem to mind the onions, and ate with the relish of a healthy young animal, swigging her vivid red soda from the bottle. She caught him watching her, and laughed.

  ‘Have I got ketchup all over my face?’

  ‘Only a little, on your lips.’

  She dabbed her mouth with the paper napkin, and leaned back luxuriously on the concrete bench, stifling a belch. ‘I love America. I feel so free here. Don’t you? Berlin was a prison. I thought it was just being a Jew that made it feel like that, but now I think that to be a German is itself to be a prisoner. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Where else can you eat sausages on a bench and drink from a bottle, and nobody frowns at you?’ She waved the remaining half of her hot dog at the extraordinary buildings all around them. ‘Where else can you see this?’

  ‘Nowhere.’

  ‘Nowhere. It’s—’ She couldn’t find the words. ‘Well, it’s America.’

  While she ate the rest of her hot dog, Thomas quietly got rid of his in the trashcan nearby. He understood her enthusiasm and wished he could share it more fully. This America was garish and brash and bursting with energy. The women flaunted their bodies in tight clothes and laughed with lipsticked mouths, the men showed their muscles and wrestled each other on the sidewalks. It would take him time to assimilate it and be assimilated by it.

  Masha had polished off her hot dog. She pulled her skirt up over her thighs to expose her legs to the late afternoon sunlight. ‘I’m sick of being so white,’ she complained. ‘American girls are always tanned. It looks much nicer.’

  Thomas glanced at her bare legs and then looked quickly away. ‘You look fine.’

  She drank from her soda bottle and held it to him, still a quarter-full. ‘Do you want to finish it?’

  He took it from her and laid the neck against his lips. There was a momentary trace of her perfume, a slippery suspicion of her saliva. He tilted the bottle up and the strawberry soda, warm and slightly flat, sluiced them away. He swallowed the moment – the nearness of Masha, the sweetness of the soda, the warm sun on his skin.

  As he took the bottle from his lips, the air compressed around them, squeezing their eardrums. There was a deep thump that shook the concrete bench they were sitting on. A few leaves scattered off the nearby trees, spinning in the shocked air. Suddenly, people everywhere were running and screaming. Over behind the Perisphere a cloud of black smoke was rolling into the sky.

  ‘What was that?’ Masha asked anxiously.

  ‘I don’t know. But we should leave.’

  People were streaming to the exits, and they joined the crush. There was still some laughter among the crowd. They could hear people around them speculating that it had been Fourth of July fireworks, or a prank, or just another display of some kind. But nobody wanted to stay to find out; and as they left the Fair down the ramp to the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit, they heard a policeman telling a colleague, ‘There’s been a bomb at the British pavilion. Two cops got it out of the building, but it went off. Killed the both of them and dug a damn great hole in the dirt.’

  ‘We were there an hour ago,’ Masha gasped. Thomas nodded, feeling sick.

  The transit back to Manhattan was crowded. They managed to find seats next to one another. Masha was pale and silent. For a while she slept with her head propped against Thomas’s shoulder. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the feel of her soft hair tickling his cheek. Why did the day have to end like this? The war had followed them all the way to Flushing Meadows, all the way to his dream, with its senseless cruelty and violence.

  The sun was setting by the time they reached Penn Station. Golden-red light streamed through the glass roof, flooding the huge concourse below with fiery shadows. He had to get back to Hartford to be in school by nine. He offered to walk her to her platform.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said, ‘a friend is coming to pick me up.�
��

  ‘Then I’ll wait with you.’

  ‘Oh, you needn’t. You go and get your train.’ But then she saw his expression and relented. They made their way to the great clock that hung in the archway, and stood under it to wait. ‘Thank you for today, Thomas. It was lovely to see you again. It was a lovely day all round.’

  ‘I’m sorry it ended like that.’

  ‘So am I.’ She looked suddenly tearful. ‘I don’t want America to join the war.’

  ‘If they don’t, the Nazis may take over Europe.’

  Masha looked at the crowds around them. ‘These people came here to escape all that, the same as we did. They don’t deserve to be dragged back into it. I want America to be somewhere wars don’t happen.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anywhere wars don’t happen.’

  ‘What are you going to do with your life, Thomas? Engineer? Rocket scientist?’

  ‘Something like that, I suppose.’

  ‘Just don’t become a watchmaker.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t want to think of you in some little room, tinkering with little things, like a prisoner. Don’t end up like that. Be free. Be big.’

  ‘I will try.’

  ‘You’d better. Or I’ll come and find you one day, and drag you out, and embarrass you in front of all the other watchmakers.’ She turned her head, her eyes lighting up. ‘My friend is here.’

  Masha’s friend was a good-looking young man in a double-breasted suit, wearing a trilby hat. He greeted Masha affectionately. The arm he put around her was casually proprietorial. He smiled cheerfully at Thomas as they shook hands.

  ‘Thomas, this is Dale Gordon,’ Masha said. And there was something in the shy, proud way she said the name that opened a door in Thomas’s mind. Through the door, he seemed to be looking down the years, as though looking down a hall of mirrors. He could see at once that Masha was going to become Mrs Dale Gordon, that she would live a happy life with him in a happy house, and have his children, and grow old with him. And in that hall of mirrors, his own reflection appeared only once, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.