The Flight Portfolio

by Julie Orringer

  FOUR

  Body and Life

  30

  Fever

  On Thursday morning Varian arrived at the quai de la Tourette to meet the Sinaïa. He’d always found it hypnotic to watch a steamship make its approach to land, to witness its enlargement from a speck on the horizon to a human-sized conveyance to a behemoth that filled every corner of the visual frame. But this approach was different: every inch the Sinaïa seemed to gain in size, every increase in detail he could make out as she drew closer, stood as evidence that she hadn’t been torpedoed, sunk, or requisitioned by the French navy—evidence that she existed, not as an idea or a dream but in material form, her black smokestacks thrust rudely against the sky, her nominal umlaut staring like a pair of cartoon eyes. As she reached the pier, as the deckhands threw giant ropes ashore and other hands caught and secured them, she ceased to be an independent machine and became instead a giant captive beast, surrendered and docile; the groaning quieted, the rocking stilled, and she was home, at least for a time.

  The passengers began to disembark, and Deschamps himself appeared at the door of his cabin and scanned the shore. When his gaze fell upon Varian, he raised a hand in greeting. In his other hand he held a small flat briefcase: the chess set, the same one they’d used in his quarters last fall. He descended from his high deck and walked the gangway to the dock, whistling. As he stepped ashore, he clapped Varian on the shoulder and regarded him with his deep-lined, penetrating eyes.

  “I haven’t had a decent game in months,” he said. “Won’t you do me the honor?”

  “With pleasure,” Varian said, and it was the truth; he had much to gain by losing to the captain again. He recommended that they use the back garden of a café he knew in the Panier, where they might play in privacy, the walls providing a soundscreen for their conversation. Fifteen minutes later they were installed at a table beneath a cascade of bougainvillea, two glasses of whiskey before them, the chessboard set for play.

  “I have a new offense,” the captain said. “Something I learned from a friend in Fort-de-France.”

  “I’m always eager to learn,” Varian said. He was aware that his position was uncertain, that the captain might have changed his mind by now; certainly the political situation had only worsened, and Vichy had only grown stronger since Varian and his friends had been imprisoned on the Sinaïa.

  The captain opened with a series of moves unfamiliar to Varian: He advanced and quickly lost two pawns, clearing the way for an early development of his bishop. Then he unfolded his knights and brought out his queen, and Varian found himself on the defensive. Good, he thought; let me be vulnerable, let me be unthreatening. Let me give him satisfaction. He moved his pieces into peril, waiting until the captain had captured a bishop and a rook before he introduced the subject of his stowaways.

  “Who was it who said,” he began, “ ‘malum consilium quod mutari non potest’?”

  “Publilius Syrus,” the captain said, without hesitation. “It’s one of a captain’s dearest maxims. The plan that cannot be changed…”

  “…is a bad plan,” Varian said. “It’s also a chess player’s maxim.”

  “Indeed,” the captain said. “You, for example, have been defending your king along the left flank. But you must now find a way to save him minus another rook.”

  Varian watched with some surprise as the captain broke through the strongest side of his defense. Indeed, that hadn’t been the plan; now he had to stall for time. He took up his glass of whiskey and caught a ray of sun in it, contemplating it in silence. “When we last met,” he said, “you showed me your ship’s secret, evidence of your father’s resourcefulness.”

  “Evidence of his desire to earn an extra franc, you mean.”

  “Yes, that too. I’d planned to ask you to transport an important client of mine—an artist of extraordinary ability, one who will be carrying a dossier of work possibly worth millions. I would have been willing to pay any price for his safe transit. But now, Captain, I must ask you to double the favor. There’s a person in my care, a young scientist whose case requires extraordinary measures. I wonder, could your compartment be made to accommodate two men? Or does your ship have another cranny where I might stow this young person, whose life is in danger and who must find passage—secret passage—to Oran, or some other northern African port, as soon as it can possibly be accomplished?”

  The captain paused, his eyes on the board; he hadn’t forgotten that it was Varian’s turn. “My ship, as I mentioned before, is under the strictest surveillance. Even to take one stowaway would require me to risk imprisonment at best, an accusation of treason at worst. Two passengers doubles the risk.”

  “What if the young man could be passed off as one of your crew? He’s already proved himself adept at disguise. He escaped from Vernet in a guard’s uniform.”

  Deschamps smiled. “Clever boy. But I can’t let a concentration camp escapee pose as one of my men. The crew is, if anything, more closely regulated than the passengers. Their maritime expertise is a liability, you know. Political mutinies occur. Ships are lost to the enemy, remade as vessels of war.”

  “I understand,” Varian said, and moved an imperiled knight to his king’s side. “By no means would I want to compromise—”

  “And that’s to say nothing of the danger to your refugees. When we arrived just now, the Sinaïa was carrying four SS officers. These men observed all the goings-on upon my ship with the deepest scrutiny—whether under specific orders or simply by force of habit, I don’t know. In fact, Monsieur Fry, when I received your last note, I told myself I should refuse to see you here in Marseille. I told myself I was wrong to have shown you that compartment. I feel I may have raised a false hope.”

  The earth seemed to tilt beneath Varian’s chair. For months now he’d thought of the Sinaïa as a private treasure, or a secret weapon: a vessel that might be stuffed with an inestimably valuable human life and shot across the ocean. He refused to let it go now without a fight.

  “How does it feel,” he said, “to be required to transport Nazi officers? Are you obliged to dine with them? To converse with them?”

  “I’m obliged to do whatever they require,” Deschamps said, and a muscle at his jaw twitched. “The officers I mentioned, those four—while we were at sea, they executed a man on board my ship. Killed an innocent man, on a boat that’s never seen a death or the loss of a crew member. Do you know what we call a ship on which a person has been murdered? A Dirty Magdalene. That is what they did to my Sinaïa. They made my ship a Dirty Magdalene.”

  “Captain,” Varian said. “I believe you know why you showed me that compartment. I believe you know what your heart dictates.”

  “Check,” the captain said, and Varian had to turn his attention once again to the board; Deschamps had foiled his defense, and pinned his king, knight, and bishop along the back rank. He felt a jolt of annoyance, a needle of genuine competition.

  “Just one refugee, then,” Varian said. “The young scientist. Would you do that much for me? You’d only have to carry him as far as Oran, or Casablanca. Then, if all went well, perhaps you’d carry my artist and his portfolio to the same port, or onward to Martinique. I’m sure I mentioned before that we’d pay a generous honorarium.”

  Scarcely glancing at the board, the captain took Varian’s queen, which Varian hadn’t known to be endangered. Varian drew a breath of surprise, and a look of gratification moved over the captain’s sun-sharpened features. “You’re losing miserably, Mr. Fry,” he said.

  Varian flushed deeply. “Captain—”

  “People humble themselves to gain certain advantages,” Deschamps said. “It’s the oldest dance in the world. You, for example, lost to me last time on purpose. You wanted my favor, and you tried to buy it at that cheap price. At the outset of this game, you intended to do it again.”

  Varian opened his mouth to speak,
but the captain silenced him with an upraised hand. “All those years ago, when you were so plainly in the grip of some boyish trauma, I gave you the pleasure of defeating me. I did it even though I knew you considered me your intellectual inferior. That is what the young do: they see things from their limited perspective. They can’t help it, Monsieur Fry. It’s the nature of the age. But when you played me again a few months ago, you still took me for a fool. What is your excuse now?”

  Varian opened his mouth, closed it again. A knot formed in his throat. “If you knew that,” he said, “if you knew I was letting you win—why did you show me the compartment? Why did you let me believe you were willing to help?”

  “It gave me some satisfaction,” the captain said. “Showing you I had something you wanted so badly. Knowing I could choose to give it to you or not.”

  “What can I offer you?” Varian said, hearing the note of desperation in his own voice. “What do I have that could be of value? If it’s money you want, I can produce it. Any amount. If it’s something the black market can provide—”

  “You rate me so cheaply, Monsieur Fry. I don’t want your money. I don’t want this or that from the black market. I have all I need, materially speaking. Perhaps I want only for you to know you aren’t quite as intelligent as you think. Perhaps I want all of your compatriots to know it. There you sit, on the other side of the ocean—yes, even you, Monsieur Fry, though your body is here—watching our disaster unfold, believing you can remain uninvolved. But you’re already involved, all of you. Your government has taken thousands of lives, doing nothing. And now you ask for my aid, at the possible price of my own life—”

  Varian dropped his gaze to his lap, to his folded hands. “What do you want, then?” he asked. “What can I promise you?”

  “I know who you are, Monsieur Fry. I know what you do. I’ve spent some time learning all I could about you. I have my ways of inquiring. Voices travel over the water. I’ve heard, for example, that you have the ear of Mrs. Roosevelt, and I know you write for The New York Times. I know you have what’s known in France as un plafond. A platform. I want you to prick your country’s conscience. I want you to do more than you’ve done.”

  “Yes,” Varian said, still scarcely able to speak. “That is—that’s what I want to do.”

  “I want you to write,” the captain said. “I want you to promise me you’ll report everything you’ve seen. I don’t need a role in it. That’s not what I’m seeking. What I want is for you to report all the misery, the grief, the ugliness. The feeling of the Nazis’ hands around our necks. All you’ve witnessed, all we’ve had to bear, while your compatriots sit comfortably on the other side of the ocean.”

  “Forgive me, Captain,” he said. “You’re right. I should have done more already.”

  “Perhaps you should have. It would have been to your credit. But it will give me some satisfaction to see you begin to do it now. If I help you, it will be for that reason only. But I refuse to stretch my neck any further than I promised before. I will take one at a time, and only one.”

  Varian hardly dared speak. “When?”

  “In two days’ time,” Deschamps said. “Your charge must be willing to be transported onto the ship in a sealed cargo container. Once he’s been loaded, two men I trust will deliver him to my quarters, and I will uncrate him myself. We will sail for Oran, and then we’ll make our way to Martinique. If we encounter no difficulty, we’ll return by the same route in two weeks. Then I will take your second man. And, by the way”—he glanced down at the board, having just moved his queen into fatal proximity to Varian’s king—“checkmate.”

  Varian had never felt so deeply shamed. “I’ll meet your condition,” he said. “I swear on my own life.”

  “I hope you do meet it,” Deschamps said. “For your own sake. I don’t claim to know you well, Monsieur Fry, but I’ve studied human nature long enough to see what kind of man you are. I see what it will cost you, personally speaking, if you fail.” And without another word, the captain swept his chess pieces back into their velvet bag, shut the bag into the wooden case, and left Varian at the table alone.

  * * *

  ________

  Back at Air Bel he found Grant half conscious, a newspaper abandoned on the coverlet beside him, a plate of soup untouched on the bedside table. His eyelids were a dull violet, his lips dry, his skin violently hot to the touch. He didn’t react to Varian’s coming in; he seemed to be in some other place, a world in which all his focus was his pain. Varian bent to his ear and spoke his name. His eyes flew open.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “I’ve just come from Captain Deschamps. He says he’ll only take one man. But then he’ll return for the other.”

  “God,” Grant said, and closed his eyes again. And then he slid back into the state in which Varian had found him, a twilight of fever and pain. Madame Nouguet appeared a moment later with a tray of cool cloths. She reported in a whisper that Grant had scarcely eaten or drunk anything all day, not that there had been much to eat in any case: a few crumbs soaked in broth, that was all. Each time she’d tried to give him a spoonful, the pain of swallowing had been so severe that he’d given up. Finally she’d sent Rose into town for ice, and had been feeding it to Grant in tiny chips for the last two hours. She bent to him and found that he had fallen asleep, and she voiced the hope that Varian would not disturb him again; she would put the ice into the ancient icebox downstairs, and perhaps Varian would give him more when he woke. She looked hard into Varian’s eyes, her expression of concern uncut by its usual salting of opprobrium. She was, he could tell, genuinely worried. He implored her to take a rest, and it was evidence of her own exhaustion that she went without protest.

  Varian carried the bowl of ice downstairs and put it into the icebox. Then he opened the kitchen door and walked out onto the patio. He would go to town at once, he thought. He would call the doctor from the station. But on the bench at the edge of the garden he saw Zilberman, hands on his knees; Zilberman, who rarely ventured out of the greenhouse in daylight, sitting as if in a trance at the edge of the Val d’Huveaune, one hand shading his eyes. Varian went down the stone stairs and into the garden.

  “Ah, there you are,” Zilberman said, turning, as if he’d been waiting for Varian all along. He raised an arm toward the view. “So much beauty! All this time, I’ve hardly allowed myself to see it.”

  Varian seated himself on the bench, rubbing his knees with his palms. “Lev,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s a problem.”

  Zilberman removed his tortoiseshell glasses and turned to Varian. “What sort of problem?”

  He hadn’t considered until this moment how he might frame the situation; he found now that his compulsion was to say as little as possible. “We’ve got to use the Sinaïa to get Tobias to Oran. That’s got to happen at once. Then the boat’s got to cross the pond and come back before it can take you.”

  Zilberman absorbed this. “How long will that take?”

  “A couple of weeks longer than we thought. But I think it can still be achieved while your visa’s good.”

  “My wife and daughter are expecting me before the month’s end.”

  “I’ll send word to them tonight.”

  Zilberman’s brow constricted, and he put his glasses on again, squinting at Varian. “Isn’t there any other way? Another ship?”

  “Not one that I’d trust you on. I’m sorry, Lev.”

  “Please, Monsieur Fry. You mustn’t apologize. None of this is within your control. I’ve waited this long; I’m studied at it by now. And I’ll be glad to know Tobias is off the continent. As for me, I’ve got work to do here. A few more pieces were promised to me this morning. Chagall is late on his contribution. I thought he wouldn’t finish in time, but perhaps now he will.”

  “Thanks, Lev,” Varian said, and closed his eyes against that green v
iew. He sat for some moments at the painter’s side, both of them in silence; a complicated measure of birdsong ascended from the valley, and the scent of lavender blew into the garden on a current of cold-edged wind. Deep exhaustion bloomed in his bones, so profound he thought he might never move again. But then it struck him, with some horror, that he’d delayed his call to the doctor, and he hurriedly took his leave of Zilberman and ran up the path toward town.

  * * *

  ________

  By the time Dr. Mirandeau arrived that night, Grant had woken from his brief sleep and seemed refreshed; his eyes were sharper, his attention returned. At his bedside the doctor was jocund and encouraging, and Varian felt a vertiginous relief. Surely Mirandeau’s tone meant that Grant was out of danger, that his continued fever couldn’t pose a serious threat. But afterward, once Mirandeau had gone downstairs to the salon with Varian, he removed his monocle and declared in a low, grave tone that the patient must not be allowed to leave his bed on any account. His blood pressure, the doctor said, was concerningly low; fluid had collected around the patient’s heart, and was preventing it from filling properly.

  “Pericarditis is a trapdoor, if you will,” the doctor said. “One wrong step and the patient may fall through. Monsieur Grant’s state is precarious. If his pressure falls further—”

  He didn’t want to hear more. “How much longer will the inflammation last?”

  “Another week, perhaps longer. And then the patient must have time to recover.”

  “There’s so little food,” Varian said. “I fear that’s making it worse.”