by Dennis Bock
“No,” she said again, her answer as flat-out as it was incomprehensible. She would do no such thing. Needless to say I was taken aback. It was for the good of the cause, I insisted, keeping my voice level. I pushed her, still quietly, but with greater insistence.
“No, I will not,” she said. She would give me no reason.
I wondered if her youth and inexperience prevented her from “tattling” on a colleague—an inexcusably adolescent way of looking at things, the least offensive reason available. Worse still would be a lack of commitment to the cause we were sailing into. Maybe she suffered from a fear of her own subordination, or simply an inferiority complex. Knowing Miss Ewen as I did, not well, surely, but well enough, I couldn’t believe she would be so limited, so meek. I hoped above all that she’d taken this stand out of some misguided sense of compassion for a sick man. I was not afraid of ruffling feathers, I told her. Achieving our goals was of vastly greater importance than one man’s suffering.
She said, still staring out to the ocean, “I know your reputation well enough, Doctor.”
“Then you know I’m right,” I said. To this she said nothing. “By the time we get to Hong Kong there’ll be nothing left. You must reconsider. You know as well as I do how Parsons sits at that bar all day long. Good Lord, brandy for breakfast! I’ve seen it myself. It’s astonishing. I swear I’ll throw him overboard before he depletes our funds entirely. With or without your help.”
This caused her to turn her head. She stared at me with those big dark young eyes of hers. She really was quite lovely, I realized then. “You will be throwing no one overboard, Doctor Bethune, today or any other day during this crossing. Not while I’m on board.”
*
The evening after I confronted Jean began no differently from any other. On finishing with my writing, I was surprised to discover that it was nearing midnight. I’d been writing a paper for a medical journal, and with the intention of returning to it in the morning I set my notes aside and sought out a quiet stretch of deck up top. The ocean was calm and the air cold, a rich dampness that happily reminded me of my youth on the great Georgian Bay. I leaned against the rail and attempted to clear my thoughts. It was a wondrous thing to scatter the anxieties of the day over the ocean’s wide expanse, and that is what I intended to do before retiring for the night. A glowing light was just barely visible in the west, a remnant of someone else’s day, and a universe of stars sparkled overhead. I breathed deeply and conjured an image of you, my daughter, as you might be, warm, tiny, sleeping in your mother’s arms.
Along the length of the deck, solemn, bundled figures leaned over the rail, caught in their own silent reveries. One of these figures, the closest to me, thirty or forty paces off, tossed a cigarette over the rail, hunched his shoulders and started for the nearest hatch, then stopped as if reconsidering. A cold wind was picking up. To me it was bracing, but for this man it might have been too much. I held my image of you a moment longer, wondering what at that precise time you were doing, when a voice interrupted my thoughts. It was Parsons. He was standing beside me.
“It’s a long way down, Bethune,” he said.
“Taking a break from the bar, are we?”
“Not too long a break, don’t worry. Just off to the bank.” He jangled the key to his cabin.
“You’re a disgrace, Parsons.”
“I suppose you wish we could all be a bit more like you.” It was a stupid reversal. He was looking for a confrontation and past talking to, guaranteed more drunk than sober by this time of night. “You consider this your own personal cause, don’t you. You think my bar tab will give the Japanese the advantage in China? That Fascism will overrun all of Asia because of a few drinks?”
“I think it best you pay your own way, Parsons,” I told him, “nothing more than that. How you choose to deal with your problems is no concern of mine.”
“Nor is it any concern of mine how you deal with yours. A thing like that—Madrid—stays with you, doesn’t it.”
I was silent, looking into his eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “Madrid will be with you forever.” He smiled, waiting for a fitting riposte. “Nothing to add? No righteous words from the great Bethune? Good, then I’ll leave you to think this one through.” And he turned casually, owning the moment, and walked away.
Clearly he thought he had something on me, but I’d been unable to ask what that might be, exactly. I suppose the violence of his emotion had silenced me. I will never argue with a drunk, not if I can help it, though I was eager to put the matter to rest.
The following morning, I planned to contact the CAC without Miss Ewen’s help, even though I understood full well that only one name on the wire would be less persuasive. The telegraph room was situated just off the Captain’s nest, and I was greeted there by a bright-looking young man. For a moment I was taken by the commanding perspective: below sat the entirety of the ship, bow to stern, port to starboard, while all around us the ocean stretched, peerless and indifferent. The young lad smiled and nodded. After commenting on the fine view, I explained the urgency of my telegram and directed him to send it off at the earliest convenience, and to inform me the moment my answer was received. Then I tipped my hat and left him to his work.
After a slow game of billiards with a fellow passenger I drank a lemonade in the lounge then retired to my cabin to look over some of my notes. It was a pleasant morning, unrushed yet quietly productive. I had sublimated my gloomy thoughts, and the possibility that Charles Parsons knew something more than he should have became a distant bother, not overly concerning. I caught up on some reading and later strolled the decks, learning the ship’s plan more thoroughly. I enjoyed the views and, half past noon, snacked on a salmon omelette with jam and coffee at the café with a distinguished-looking Englishman who had some business with the Empress lines. As we talked, the ship’s Captain greeted my companion, who then introduced us. Captain Aldridge Lawson seemed very interested in my work, as he had trained in medicine at Cambridge for a brief time before the Great War. He told me if I was free that evening he would be honoured by my presence at his table. I said he should count on it.
Later that day, as I was preparing for dinner, the knock I’d been waiting for sounded at my door. The lad from the telegraph office handed me a small envelope, barely the size of a personal calling card. I gave him a few coins and closed the door. It was not the news I’d been expecting. After reading the message, I slipped the telegram in my pocket. I have carried it with me to this day as a memento of the idiocy of bureaucrats everywhere.
DR H N BETHUNE
EMPRESS OF ASIA
COMMITTEE HAS COMPLETE FAITH IN ALL MEMBERS OF EXPEDITION STOP WILL REQUIRE NO CHANGE OF ACCOUNTING PRACTICES BEST OF LUCK
Despite this setback, I managed to pass a pleasant evening at dinner. Topics of discussion were as wide ranging as oceanic navigation, politics, medicine and, finally, over cognac and a cigar, the Great War. As a young man, our Captain had sailed on board HMS Excelsior as a petty officer with the Royal Navy. Also at the Captain’s table was a terribly sententious missionary named Billingsley, out of Union College in Missouri, who showed a great interest in our expedition. He too was a fighting man, he said, but in God’s army. “Bibles, not guns,” he added. It turned out he was a Seventh Day Adventist. When I welcomed him to the struggle on behalf of the armed atheists and Communists of the world, he looked at me with an expression of true horror, as if he had never before laid eyes on a dirty Communist. His eyes seemed to ask how someone of obvious intelligence could support such a despicable social fantasy. Heads turned, and the other conversations at our table fell silent. The Reverend Mr. Billingsley regained his composure enough to say, “You’re not really a Communist! Surely you see there is no future in Communism.”
“On the contrary,” I said, “that is precisely the future I hope will prevail. We have seen the avarice of Capitalism. Capitalism cannot care
for the sick and needy. Capitalism can only enrich those still hungry for riches despite their obscene wealth.”
He reached for his glass, sipped his wine and returned the glass to its place, then he folded his hands on the table and looked directly into my eyes. “We are bringing the word of God to those who hunger for it. Nothing less than the word of Jesus Christ. Spiritual hunger is what’s bringing us, Doctor, and there’s nothing faddish about that. Spiritual hunger is in many ways more devastating than the hunger for bread.”
“My father might have said the same thing,” I told him.
“Oh?” he said.
“He enjoyed a lofty career in the Presbyterian Church.”
“Well, there you see. Perhaps he and I would see eye to eye.”
“Perhaps you would have.” I said. “He passed away some years ago.”
He said, “I’m sorry to hear it.”
“He had the Devil on the run his whole life.”
“Isn’t that what we all aspire to, Doctor Bethune, such an urgency of purpose? In one sense or another? To combat injustice, disease, war? The Devil has many names.” As the white-gloved waiters appeared with a kingly looking roast of beef, I told Billingsley the story of how my family had moved from town to town in the service of the Church, and how in the end it was revealed that a pursuit of the Devil had rather little to do with it.
“Perhaps your father knew something you did not,” he said. “Allow me to say that a son should not be so quick to dismiss his father’s ideas.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes. I only smiled, tilted my wineglass, drank and waited for an opportunity to shift the direction of our conversation. I feared that Billingsley might attempt to hatch some moral out of any story I might tell, or draw an unlikely parallel between me and my father and his desire to rout out evil wherever he should find it. For once I was not up to a heated discussion, and I didn’t bother telling him that it was the people of those small Ontario towns, at first invigorated but soon threatened and finally wearied by my father’s overbearing righteousness, who had sent us packing again and again.
The following morning Jean appeared at the entrance of the veranda café, wearing again the cap and cape she’d worn our first day out. I was sitting at my usual table, to port, beside a large window. It was not so uncommon, her stopping for breakfast there. We’d shared coffee and toast a number of times. I decided to cut to the point.
“Doctor Parsons is a thief and an outrageous drunk. I don’t know for what you owe him your allegiance, but he cornered me the other night. He was talking nonsense. You wouldn’t believe what he was going on about.”
“Oh?” she said.
“What he said really isn’t important. What’s important is the quality of the man, not the nature of his lies. It is the fact of his lies that matters.”
“He’s willing to travel thousands of miles—”
“Look at the reality. It is the trusting nature of your youth that hopes for the best even when that’s clearly unattainable.”
“I think you underestimate—”
“My dear,” I interrupted, “you’re prone to overestimation. There is no alternative but to send that telegram. You will grant me that, I’m sure.” I waited a moment to ensure my point had been made. She was silent. Believing all was settled, I got back to work.
Determined study has always been for me an effective tonic in the face of struggles. After taking my morning walk, I settled down quietly in the deep silence of the lounge. I felt the tension and bother of dealing with such a nuisance as Parsons fall away from me and was pleased to regain my focus. Around noon I decided, as a favour to myself, to stop off at the bar on upper deck to take something before proceeding to the café for a light meal. I felt I owed myself a treat. I’d been under a fair bit of strain and had, I thought, held up rather well. A familiar optimism was returning to me.
Just as I rounded a tall bookshelf, a man brushed against me. I was carrying a journalistic account of the China situation called Far Eastern Front. This young man, about thirty or thirty-five, nodded politely, glimpsed the title and said, “Snow, hell of a writer,” then introduced himself. When I gave him my name, Eli Ansell said, “Ah, yes, Doctor Bethune, I was told you were on board. What a great honour.”
“You’re off to the war, then,” I said, “or just an interested Sinologist?”
“Both,” he said. “As a journalist, actually.”
It took me some minutes to realize that I’d read a number of his pieces in Voice of Action, a Seattle-based newspaper, including an explosive article five or so years before about an innocent Negro accused of murdering a white man. The newspaper’s coverage had obliged the authorities to admit the truth: that their case was racially biased and the accused totally innocent. I told him I’d followed all this as closely as I could, living at the time in Detroit. A member of the American Newspaper Guild, he was off to cover the same war I was headed into. Slim and elegant with a pencil-thin moustache, narrow fingers and a sharp, dimpled chin, he had a strong nose, thick black hair, and—I saw as our crossing continued—he was forever scribbling in a small notebook he carried with him everywhere. I asked what he expected to find in China.
“I hope to get to Nanking,” he said. “What’s happening there is fascinating. I understand that Tang Shengzhi’s ordered a retreat to the other side of the Yangtze. The city’s fallen to the Japanese. There are rumours of a street purge. I have a name to focus on—a Kraut, a Nazi, actually, called John Rabe. He’s there with the Siemens China Corporation. Now he’s head of the International Committee that’s trying to protect whoever they can. They’re setting up safety zones and getting embassies to open their doors to refugees. It’s a powerful irony, a Nazi sticking his neck out like that given what they’ve been up to in Europe. It’s a compelling story, and news is just starting to trickle out. Incredible stuff, really. The numbers are astonishing if you happen to believe them.”
“The only war people care about these days,” I said, “is in Spain.”
“Causes don’t interest me so much as stories. Characters, Doctor. Without heroes and villains a war doesn’t sell papers. The man makes the story. Speaking as a journalist, that is.”
“Quite the opposite in my case,” I said.
“How’s that?”
I thought of Spain, and then of what awaited us in China. “People don’t interest me as much as the cause they fight for.”
*
Earlier this evening I asked Ho to sit for me. He was uncharacteristically still, quietly reading a thin, well-thumbed book. I walked back to my hut to fetch pad and pencil. He regarded me with some curiosity, then simply resumed reading. When I finished drawing I showed him my work. I think I rather like it, but I can’t tell from his reaction if he’s pleased or not. I’ll call it Chinese Boy Reading.
*
Well, the truth is, I needed to know what Parsons knew about Madrid. What did he think might frighten me? I had nothing to hide, so what blackmail could he have up his sleeve? Perhaps my conversation with Ansell about Nanking had inspired me to take matters into my own hands. Or maybe it was simply frustration. Whatever the reason, I resolved to meet Parsons head-on, since the tomfoolery between us had become time-consuming. I decided to confront him as early in the morning as possible, before the first drink touched his lips. He would, I hoped, be forthcoming, if asked directly what rumours he’d heard, from whom. Then we could have it out. For the first time in days I felt buoyant.
That morning I knocked at cabin C37 and silently stood, waiting. After a moment I knocked again. “Parsons?” I called out. “Listen, open up, it’s Bethune.”
There was no answer, so I tried the door and found it unlocked, then pushed it open and looked inside. The bed was unmade, with clothing strewn about, and on the ledge by the porthole sat an empty liquor bottle, beside it an overflowing ashtray. I step
ped across the threshold and again called, “Parsons?” I could hear the shower running in the bathroom.
Surveying the cabin, I noticed a stack of envelopes tied with string on the dresser to the right of the bathroom door. Scattered there were a number of folders, a set of keys, a wallet, a loosely knotted necktie and an unframed photograph, curling up at the edges, of a young woman. When I turned it over and read the inscription, I felt a moment of mercy for him. Nothing in it made me think that the pretty young woman on the reverse was dead, but it was somehow obvious enough. Exhibit I. Parsons’s entire world was contained within that picture of the young woman of seventeen or eighteen—an only child, I imagined, I don’t know why.
I stepped forward and examined the pile of envelopes. The third from the top, bearing the seal of the China Aid Council, contained the money in question. Minus a week’s worth of drinking, it was all there. I tucked the envelope into my breast pocket and silently closed the door behind me.
Up on the promenade deck a few moments later, I found it was a chilly, bright and refreshing morning. As I rounded the bow from port to starboard, I spotted Alicia with her Aunt Gwendolyn and thought perhaps this might be an opportune time to engage them in conversation. They were taking the sun, sitting side by side in a pair of rented lounge chairs. “I wonder,” I said, approaching them, “if I might make a request?”