“So, you knew about me and Garbo?” I said.
Ingrid didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. It was a rhetorical question. I just had to say it out loud to make it real. Hear with my own ears her silent admission that I was and had always been, merely a factotum for her. An unwitting servant in service to a purpose still unknown—unknown to me, at least. A servant I now imagined had outlived his usefulness. Ingrid had stripped me to the bone. She’d taken everything from me, including my camera.
We stared at one another as the door to her suite once again exploded inward. This time I didn’t take my eyes off her to see who was crashing the party. Yeah, I was a dumb horse, but not a stupid one.
“Let me guess,” I said as multiple shadows loomed wraithlike. This time they didn’t stop at a respectful distance but descended upon me. They grabbed my arms and legs in the tunnel vision surrounding Ingrid’s visage. “British officers aren’t prudes.”
Under different circumstances, I imagined she might have laughed at my comment. But there wasn’t anything funny about what had just transpired. Or would be in the near future, I feared. Not really.
Ingrid grabbed her robe, slipped it back on, and watched as the British First Officers draped me in a sheet, confiscated my stolen porter’s uniform—one would assume as tangible evidence of my myriad transgressions—and dragged me away.
Ingrid was a smooth operator, all right. Bloodless. Or so my vanity wanted me to believe. Thinking her a monster was easier on my psyche in that moment. But I could tell she was engaged in some serious business. The kind professionals practice their entire careers. Yes, heroine or villainess, my beautiful faux barmaid had a job to do, and it wasn’t shilling drinks at the onboard drinking hole where she’d picked me up. Picked me up, bathed me, then dropped me back in hot water the second I was no longer needed.
When my British escorts and I reached the outer deck, sea and sky were calm. But a storm was brewing, all right. One that couldn’t be seen even as I found myself in the eye of it. An all-seeing eye that had been watching me from the start, waiting patiently to make a move. Waiting for the right time to show itself and all hell would break loose. I’d flown through a sucker hole—what pilots called otherwise serene skies—into a deadly maelstrom of cat and mouse all swirling aboard the Athenia.
Truly, I wanted back in the game. But to even have a chance of survival, I’d have to be patient and await my turn. Slow down, watch, then seize any opportunity quickly and without hesitation. I knew I had to figure out what I brought to the table first. Figure out how and why Ingrid had chosen me. What there was about me and my history that warranted bringing a non-professional into the mix in the first place. Only when I figured out how I fit into this crazy puzzle could I use that knowledge to escape what was shaping up to be the storm of the century.
In hindsight, escaping Heinrich had been easy. Too easy. No, I had to consider that I had been played for a patsy up to this very moment. Maybe was still being played. By Ingrid. By Heinrich’s hidden master. Even Garbo.
Garbo. What the hell was a movie star doing mixed up in all this intrigue? I had to believe she and I were the outsiders. The amateurs, out of our depth and in deep, open water. Or was I fooling myself yet again? Maybe for Garbo, movie stardom was her avocation. Maybe she really belonged in the shadowy cloak-and-dagger world of spies and counterspies, and I was the one truly alone.
If that were true, then why did I feel such a strong connection with her? I knew that behind her illusion was still a woman made of flesh and blood. A real woman I’d fallen hard for and not just because we had slept together. Why did I feel so compelled to look after her well-being, even though there was a very real possibility she couldn’t care less about mine?
I’d fucked up often enough to know you eventually have to pay the consequences. And I always had. But now everything was different. Exponentially harder. Once Garbo entered the picture, I knew there was more at stake than just my own neck. No, it wasn’t just me anymore. I wasn’t alone in this. And if I played my cards right, I hoped I’d never to be alone again.
15. A KISS TO BUILD A DREAM ON JAMES
I listened while Seth recounted his great escape from Heinrich, only to be betrayed by Ingrid, the Swedish-cum-British seductress. Meanwhile, I couldn’t wait to get back to my own raven-haired beauty. Sarah’s shift didn’t start until 8:00 a.m.
Garbo’s words had echoed in my head while Sarah and I embraced and kissed in the dark of the resource room and made love on the abandoned third floor. Echoed even while I felt the young nurse’s heart beat against my chest, tasted the warm wetness of her lips and tongue. Held the small arch of her back with my fingertips. She had been hot to the touch. Yet there was Garbo, watching over us from a respectful distance the whole time. Whispering her secret in between my ears. Keeping me from losing myself in Sarah completely.
Now both Sarah and Garbo were gone, and I was back in my hospital bed listening to Seth. He hadn’t said a word when I came back from my “date.” Didn’t ask how I’d fared with the beautiful nurse. But then again, I guess he didn’t need to. My face, flushed with pleasure, probably said it all.
Still, I expected him to gloat. I had been too chicken shit to make a move on my own. Only Seth’s threat to cut me off from Garbo had given me the nerve to lock lips and hips with Sarah. Maybe both of us were off our game. Seth was dying, after all. And I was falling for Sarah. Hard.
“I never saw it coming,” Seth said, staring forward.
He was twisting his top sheet in both hands. White knuckling his covers and sweating through his hospital gown. He was sans morphine, and it showed. Taken himself off painkillers in order to be more lucid. For me. For a price.
“Seth.” I shifted my body toward him, ready to jump if needed. “Are you all right?”
I don’t know how, but the old man saw me motion for the nurse’s call button without looking over at me.
“No,” he said. “They’ve done all they can do.”
Then Seth grabbed for the pink basin beside his bed, the one stationed beside all our beds, and dry-heaved into it. Quick and violent, his face became closed like a fist, and he puked once more into the bucket.
Seth barely made his night table with the basin and leaned back in bed covered in flop sweat. I stayed quiet, monitoring his shallow breathing. Making sure his chest rose and fell in a semi-consistent rhythm. I knew he wouldn’t allow himself to be put on a respirator.
“No heroic measures,” I’d overheard Seth say to Doctor Moonbeam. That was Seth’s new nickname for Dr. Zoom. No, once Seth’s lungs gave out, that was all she wrote.
“Seth,” I started.
“Save it,” he said, his breath short. “It’s just the morphine. Stomach never could—”
Maybe he was having a bad reaction to the morphine. But there was something in his raspy, labored breath that made me afraid. Afraid he’d go down hard. Suffer.
“Anyway, you need me compos mentis,” he said and turned to give me a scowl. “Gotta finish.” He took another breath. “Can’t croak before the story ends.”
I had to keep it together. For Seth. Christ, for myself. I had to fucking think of something, anything to say.
“You’ll get no argument from me.” I channeled Martin, my asshole of an ex-boss. “Walk it off, old man.” Seth smiled, thank God. He relaxed the death grip he had on his sheets. I knew he was scared. Hell, I was fucking terrified, and I wasn’t the one dying. I wanted nothing more than for his pain to end. But until then, he’d stay focused on the story. Take his mind off what was happening to his body. Off what inevitably came after he was done.
“Where was I?” he asked and blinked.
“You were describing how the British officers dragged you away while a beautiful, naked Ingrid looked on,” I said.
“Right. That’s right. Give me a second,” he said and closed his eyes, “to catch my breath.”
I was happy to. Watching the old man suffer had brought back memories of being with
my mother when her own end was close. I’d play the fool to get my sick mother to laugh. Being only ten, I had a limited range of stories and antics with which to distract and try to comfort her. So, slapstick it was. That it came naturally seemed an added bonus at the time.
Before Mom went into the hospital for the last time, I had put on a spontaneous afternoon vaudeville act in the backyard. She’d watched from her second-story balcony seat while I set the stage. A late January snowfall provided a perfect backdrop.
Both big fans of The Six Million Dollar Man, one of Mom’s favorites that she’d got me hooked on when it was in reruns, I assumed my best impersonation of a dour Lee Majors, a.k.a Steve Austin. He was always dour. Then, with a serious, constipated expression I would run in slow, exaggerated motion back and forth. Again and again, across the white expanse.
The neighbors must have thought I was nuts. Especially old prune-faced neighbor lady, but I didn’t care. Looking up to see my mother’s silhouette fogging panes of glass with gales of silent laughter was enough to keep me doing encores all day.
Now, from my bed, I hawkeyed Seth dozing and remembered how much Mom had slept toward the very end. Like I had done with her, I imagined Seth the healthy, twenty-nine-year old, vibrant and obnoxious tabloid reporter. The one who’d headlined his own story aboard the ill-fated Athenia. I mentally erased the wrinkles of his heavily lined face and added forty pounds to his lanky, gaunt frame.
My mental makeover made me smile. Young Seth was a handsome man in an arrogant way. He had an ever-present smug expression I would have disliked on sight in anyone else. But this guy grew on me quickly. Yeah, the Young Seth I conjured was everything I imagined he would be. Everything I needed him to be. Complete with black fedora and a lit cigarette hanging from his lower lip.
Since meeting the two Seths, Garbo had become three-dimensional and taken on incredible detail in my mind’s eye. More complex than I could ever have imagined by myself. I saw her the way Young Seth must have seen her through those analytical blue eyes of his. Even more amazing, I felt Garbo’s steel-blue gaze trained on me.
I’d searched for Garbo’s ghost ever since I’d moved to Los Angeles. I should have known I’d never find her there. Garbo hated every minute she’d spent in L.A. during her reign in golden-age Hollywood. That was well documented. But who in their right mind would have guessed I’d find her ghost in Norfolk, Connecticut, haunting an old tabloid reporter?
Garbo. Mom. And now Sarah. Three beautiful, mysterious women. Three sphinxes, each enigmatic in her own way. Garbo, alive beyond the screen, elusive and remote even while whispering secrets. Mom, alive in spirit and dreams, yet obscured behind panes of glass stained with the fog of time. And Sarah, my beautiful Sarah, alive, interested and apparently available. The greatest mystery of all.
And Sarah had kissed me. After I’d offered up my lame-ass version of a smooch, Sarah leaned her lithe, soft, and strong body into mine and laid one on me. A knockout punch of a kiss, right in the kisser. The kind of kiss, I had to believe, that made kissing catch on in the first place. A kiss to build a dream on.
16. IS THE JUICE WORTH THE SQUEEZE? SETH
I’d never been on the bridge of a ship before. The view from the Athenia’s was awe-inspiring. A one-hundred-and-eighty-degree panoramic view of the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing but water and sky. I could even see the curvature of the earth. A massive blue ball of water that we sat on the tippy-top of.
In short, I was scared shitless.
Two stewards escorted me into the room while Captain James Cook conferred with his first officer. The captain was a massive man himself, and from behind, dressed in formal whites, he reminded me of Moby Dick. I had no desire to piss the leviathan off and waited patiently—which was against my nature—for him to turn around.
While I was waiting to get my ass chewed out by the captain, Lars the porter appeared and stepped onto the bridge. I smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back. Then I realized he wasn’t there to take the crew order for high tea. Rather, he stood across from me and looked with disdain at my stained and stolen porter’s outfit. Lars was there to add fuel to the fire. The one the captain would light to burn me at the stake.
Captain Cook finally turned around, gave me a stare and sized me up with one big scowl. Moby was even scarier from the front. I tried to keep my cool, but dressed as I was, an impostor, that is, I felt compelled to speak first. Not my first mistake since I joined the Athenia back in the Port of New York. Obviously not my last, either.
“Captain,” I said, “something strange is going on aboard your ship.”
“Hold your tongue,” he said. I held it.
Then Captain Cook took a giant step closer to me. I resisted the urge to jump back. He was as tall and wide as Heinrich, but with his captain’s hat and white beard, his head looked even bigger. He reached out a massive hand and grasped my porter’s vest. Then tightened and twisted his sausage-sized fingers into a fist. My entire upper body and a generous portion of my chest hair caught in his vice-like grip. I prayed I wouldn’t piss myself.
“Why is this man dressed as a porter?” he bellowed.
“He’s a stowaway, Captain.” The first officer said from behind the captain. “Porter Lars here spotted him entering a passenger’s cabin earlier this morning.”
Captain Cook turned and considered Lars while keeping his grip on me. I could tell Lars was almost as nervous as I was. He lowered his eyes and put his hands behind his back to bow. The captain grimaced at the crown of the young man’s head.
“Report, Porter,” the Captain said. “When did you first catch sight of this scofflaw?”
Lars lifted his head and stared scared into the Captain’s huge face. He took a big swallow before talking. “Back in port, sir. He boarded with the reporters.” He turned and looked at me. “He looked ill, so I let him into a men’s room off the Promenade Deck.”
“Why didn’t you report him then?” the Captain said.
“I thought he was a paying passenger, sir.”
“Then what?”
“Then I saw him again. He was fraternizing with a stewardess and the American entertainer in the Main Salon. I assumed he was just another passenger.”
“Get on with it,” the captain snapped.
“But the next time I saw him, he was entering a lady’s suite,” Lars said. “A very special lady’s suite, dressed as … well, dressed as he is now.”
“What is the passenger’s name?” the Captain said.
Lars hesitated. All the color drained from his face and he looked more scared than before, if that were possible. Paradoxically, Captain Cook became even scarier looking, all but having lost his patience with both of us. I closed my eyes and braced for impact.
“Garbo, sir.” Lars said just above a whisper. “The lady’s name is Greta Garbo.”
I didn’t need my eyes open to know Captain Cook was now glaring at me. I could feel the intensity on my face and in my chest. His grip became even tighter. I winced and opened my eyes, afraid they were going to pop out of my head for the second time in one day. The first having been in Heinrich’s smelly armpit.
“Who are you?” he said to me. “What are you doing on my ship?”
“Seth Moseley,” I said. “I’m an American reporter. I can explain everything, Captain.”
“Silence,” he commanded. “You speak when I tell you to.”
Then the room got smaller and ten times hotter. Sweat rolled down my cheeks under the glare of everyone’s contemptuous stare. They all waited to see just how the captain was going to eviscerate me. Every muscle in my body contracted, adrenaline pumping through my veins in anticipation of his first verbal blow. I was about to be hung out to dry and knew it.
“First Officer,” the Captain said.
The first officer materialized from behind the captain. He was tall and thin as a reed or appeared so in contrast to the white whale. The young officer came to attention.
“Yes, sir.”
“I wan
t this man taken to the brig where he is to remain in isolation for the duration of our voyage.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And get him out of that uniform.”
“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”
Then Captain Cook let go of me and turned away. I couldn’t believe it. That was it? My face flushed once again, this time out of indignation. He hadn’t asked me anything. Not one damn thing. I straightened my bloodied vest and threw my chin out. This was by no means over.
“Captain,” I said. “It might interest you to know that there are Nazi agents aboard your ship.”
Everyone froze, including the Captain. Obviously, I had broken every rule in the book by speaking out of turn, again. But honestly, how much hotter could the water I was already up to my neck in get? The Captain turned back around.
“One more word out of you,” he said and raised a sausage finger to wag at me, “and I’ll have you flogged.”
“But, Captain—”
“Get him out of my sight!”
Then the first officer, the stewards, even Lars swarmed around me. All hands on deck pushed me back, out, and off the bridge while the white whale watched. That’s when I caught a glimmer of recognition in his eye. The faintest tell that I hadn’t said anything he didn’t already know. And that’s when I really exploded.
“You have a duty, Captain,” I said as his crew manhandled me away, “to see to the safety of every passenger aboard your ship.” That included me, of course.
The captain turned away while I bucked and weaved to break free. They almost had me through the door, when I braced myself at the threshold and held fast.
Looking for Garbo Page 14