A Sea Change

by Michael Arditti

  ‘It was a time when even Grandfather felt you’d been too harsh with me. To make me appreciate the pressures you were under, he told me how Luise was born: how he –’ I stared at my father with venom ‘– poured kisses like whisky down your throat.’

  I felt a strange surge of satisfaction beneath the pain that, for once, our roles were reversed and it was they who had to work out the implications of what I said. My mother looked unutterably sad, as if her whole world had been overturned and, this time, not by the Nazis. I was at a loss to know why since, although I was addressing her – and far too loudly for such a public place – the entire blame was directed at my father. He appeared to accept it, admitting, in a voice that slunk into my brain by stealth, that he had a great deal to make up for and asking how best he might start. ‘The only thing you can do for me,’ I said slowly, ‘is to jump overboard and drown.’ The words felt fragile even as I spoke them, but they shattered into a hundred pieces under the force of my mother’s slap. The sting was intensified by the knowledge that two of the scores of eyes fixed on me were Johanna’s. I turned to face my mother. ‘That didn’t hurt,’ I said, choking back the sobs. ‘What hurts is to see you being taken in by him.’

  My exit from the lounge was as humiliating as my ejection from the school swimming pool. I reached the corridor moments before the tears streamed down my cheeks, and sought shelter in a nearby lavatory. As I locked the door, it struck me as fitting that my only refuge was the one closest to the dirt. I felt desolate and ill-used. I was unable to credit my mother’s composure. It was clear that, for all my determination to shield her from pain, she had known of my father’s presence on board all along. Far from my keeping the news from her, she had kept it from me, which led me to wonder how many other plots she might have hatched. Railing at the injustice, I offered a fervent prayer for the ship to sink, killing everyone on board, including myself. My reflections were interrupted by the twisting of the handle and the increasingly urgent knocking on the door. When they grew too intrusive, I ventured out to be greeted by a florid man who, after rushing inside and relieving himself, asked me in future to indulge my disgusting practices elsewhere, which struck me as unconscionably rude, not least when, to judge by both the noise and the smell, his practices were far more disgusting than mine.

  The bell rang for lunch, which I resolved to shun, until I realised that, in my mother’s current frame of mind, I would only be punishing myself. To my surprise, she appeared both subdued and apologetic, asking to talk to me after the meal and promising that, this time, there would be no mystery guests. We duly found ourselves a private spot on the sports deck, where I listened to her politely while paying close attention to a flock of gannets diving for fish.

  ‘You’re right to be angry with me, Karl,’ she began.

  ‘I’m not angry with you,’ I replied. ‘I’m angry with him.’

  ‘You’re right to be angry with us both. I should have done more to keep you in touch with your father but, at first – for quite some time actually – he was not in the best of states. And I was afraid of doing anything to upset you, especially with all that was happening in the outside world.’

  ‘I didn’t want him to keep in touch. I wanted him to keep away.’

  ‘You’re such a private boy. It’s hard to know what’s going on in your head. I thought you were happy.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You never asked about your father. I should have realised it was because you were afraid of the answers. Meanwhile, I was left being both father and mother to you, when to be even one successfully is hard enough.’ For the first time, I saw how my father’s defection had compromised my relationship with my mother as well as with him. ‘Tell me, what do you know about how babies are born?’

  ‘Everything,’ I replied quickly, my horror at our sharing such intimacies overriding my hunger for knowledge. She looked relieved and explained that what Grandfather had told me about Luise was true but it wasn’t the whole truth. My father had been drunk at her conception, but he had been drunk because he was unhappy and, for that, she must bear her share of responsibility.

  ‘There are always reasons for everything,’ she said, which confused me because it contradicted the Bible, which taught that people were responsible for their actions, right back to Adam and Eve. I wondered whether I were the only Jew left who believed in justice.

  ‘If there are reasons for everything, then there must be reasons for the Nazis.’

  ‘Yes, but the reasons aren’t always good ones,’ she said. ‘I thought you thought that your father had left because he couldn’t cope with Luise. I thought you thought him a coward.’

  ‘Is that any better than a drunkard?’

  ‘It does less damage.’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘I blamed everything on the drink. I clung to the hope that he’d come back once he gave it up.’

  ‘But he didn’t.’

  ‘Oh he stopped drinking years ago. I think he was frightened that he’d start again.’

  ‘He had no right to run away. We’re his family!’

  ‘His family was larger than he would have wished. It can be hard living in another man’s shadow.’ I presumed that she must mean Uncle Karl, but I had no opportunity to confirm it for she was already explaining how, although she had seen him only twice in the last eight years, they had kept in regular contact. I allowed myself a hope that he might have written for news but then, with Hitler’s voice rasping in my head, I decided that the only news he would have wanted came in bank statements. She surprised me by saying that it was she who had suggested he sailed on the St Louis, overcoming his resistance by exaggerating the perils in store. Even so, he had insisted that she bought him the cheapest ticket since he did not want to cost her any more money, which, giving me an alarming initiation into the mysteries of adult language, she translated as not wanting to cause her any more pain.

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me he was coming? Why keep it a secret?’

  ‘It never seemed to be the right moment. What with everything we had to do before we left.’ I blotted out the image of her retreat into the studio. ‘So I thought: why not wait until we’re on the ship? It’ll be a surprise.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘You always used to like surprises.’

  ‘Yes, “Guess what we’re having for pudding,” not “Come for a drink and meet your father.”’

  ‘I made a mistake, Karl. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?’

  ‘It’s not fair to ask me like that. It leaves me no choice. You should let me decide on my own.’

  ‘Though what matters more is that you forgive your father. We’ve a long voyage ahead of us. It’s the perfect chance for you to get to know him. Don’t squander it.’

  ‘So, is he going to live with us in America?’ I asked, not mincing my words.

  ‘America’s still a long way off.’

  ‘Cuba then? That’s only twelve days away.’

  ‘It depends on so many things. Perhaps he’ll live nearby. Like a cousin.’

  ‘He’s a father.’

  ‘And a husband,’ she said softly. ‘But we’ll have to wait and see. The important thing for now is that we’re together on the ship. And we’re safe.’

  I felt far from safe as she ended the discussion, her pretence of treating me as an adult exposed by her kindergarten phrase about the healing powers of time. She went down to the cabin, leaving me to grapple with a mass of new information. There was no one to whom I could turn. Sophie had kept aloof ever since we came on board, choosing to spend her time in the nightclub like a gangster’s moll. Aunt Annette was preoccupied with my grandfather, towards whom I felt a wave of resentment, all the more bitter on account of its being irrational, for falling ill and leaving me to deal with the change of circumstances on my own. Wandering aimlessly from deck to deck, I would even have welcomed Luise’s burr-like attentions, but she had attached herself to her friends, hobbling behind them like a reject in a th
ree-legged race.

  Filled with despair, I returned to the cabin, where further misery awaited me in the shape of my grandfather, stretched out like an effigy, his only sign of life the struggle for breath. My mother sat at his side, her face cupped in his inert hand. I longed to do the same, but I was repelled by the thought of the moribund flesh. As I berated myself for my callousness, the Doctor emerged from the bathroom. Collecting his bag, he promised to look in again during the evening. He then beckoned me to join him outside, which surprised me so much that I looked around to see if he was pointing to somebody else, at which he repeated the gesture more brusquely. Once in the corridor, he dropped all the cabin niceties and, with a gruff note of regret for my grandfather’s condition and a pledge to ensure that his end was as comfortable as possible, asked if there were any deathbed customs in our faith of which he might be unaware. I was appalled, not just by his words but that he should have addressed them to me. All my anger at having to abide by adult decisions paled before the horror of having to make them myself. He ought to be talking to Mother or Aunt Annette. I was still a boy and should be protected from death.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t say. I’m not bar mitzvah,’ I replied, squeezing through the escape clause.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ he asked. ‘Does that have any bearing on what we do.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘It means I’m not a man in any religious sense. I have no authority. So I’m not the person to ask.’ I strode off, anxious to put as much space as possible between myself and the cabin.

  On board ship, that space was inevitably limited, but I made my way to the promenade deck and, in spite of myself, was caught up in the general excitement at the sight of a small boat arriving with the last thirty passengers. Their faces were darker than ours, but they had the same look of baffled resignation. I followed their progress up the accommodation ladder until I found, to my dismay, that I was sharing my vantage point with Schiendick.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘the Jew with two names. It’s strange, wouldn’t you say, that most ships try to rid themselves of rats, but we invite them on board?’ I made to go, but he grabbed hold of my arm. ‘The one thing that can be said in their favour is that they’re not Jewish rats.’

  ‘They’re not?’ I betrayed my surprise.

  ‘They’re Cubans, who’ve been fighting the war in Spain.’ Having heard of no war in Spain, I suspected that this was more propaganda. ‘Communist scum who tried to overthrow the government. So, of course, they lost.’ My pleasure at their escape was tempered by the thought of the thirty Jews whose places they had taken. ‘But the Generalissimo – the Spanish Führer – has shown mercy. He’s sent them to rot in their own wretched country. As we have you.’

  ‘But our country’s Germany, not Cuba.’

  ‘You don’t have a country! You’re parasites! A blight on every place you enter. Do you really think the Cubans want you, that they’ll welcome you with open arms?’

  ‘We have our landing permits.’

  ‘Oh yes, they want your stolen money, but do they want you? Believe me, there are patriotic Cubans, admirers of the Reich, who are busy preparing for your arrival. I say this out of friendship –’ He flashed me a toothy grin as if to emphasise both the irony and the threat. ‘Don’t walk down any dark streets or drink from open bottles. Your two names won’t save you then.’ I fell back as, with a click of his heels, he saluted so sharply that he caught my ear and shouted two words, which stung me far more than the blow…. Perhaps now, Marcus, you’ll understand why I objected so strongly to the youths with ‘88’ embossed on their T-shirts. Far from being the blanket complaint of an old man forgotten by fashion, it was a considered protest at the veneration of the eighth letter of the alphabet, the double H of ‘Heil Hitler!’, which made it the most provocative number that they could have chosen, except perhaps for 666.

  I sat in the lounge and ordered tea. In the absence of either a book or a companion, I was left to eavesdrop on the neighbouring table, where four old ladies indulged in their favourite pastime of grumbling about their daughters-in-law. I was distracted by a dark figure looming over me but, instead of the waiter, it was my father, who pulled up a chair as if I had ordered tea for two. I objected to the intrusion but, before I had a chance to say so, he launched into a long speech full of guilt and remorse, which ended with the fervent hope that we could make a fresh start in a country that was new to us all. Speaking as though he were an equal member of our group rather than one step up from a stowaway, he suggested that we regard the voyage as a period of probation. ‘What?’ I asked, taking my tone from Schiendick. ‘Like seeing if we have sea-legs or enjoy playing deck quoits?’ Then, to my disgust, he began to cry and repeated the plea that I might find it in my heart to forgive him.

  ‘It’s not up to me. I’m not the one you’ve wronged. It’s Luise you should be asking.’

  ‘But how would she know what I meant?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  At that moment, the waiter arrived with the tea and I seized my chance. ‘This gentleman is confused. He isn’t supposed to be here. Would you please show him to the tourist lounge.’ My voice, an imitation of my mother’s and grandfather’s and, given its unpredictable crack, pitched halfway in-between, proved more effective than I had dared hope, since, whether in awe at my new-found authority or despair at my refusal to bend, my father allowed himself to be led away. My satisfaction turned sour, however, when I discovered that it was the old ladies who were now eavesdropping on me and shooting me looks of unconcealed disapproval. I concentrated on my cup and tried to suppress an uneasy feeling that they were right. It might be a single moment of rejection as against the constant rejection of the past eight years, but I had made his humiliation public. Moreover, I had appealed to an outside jurisdiction which, under the circumstances, was a betrayal not just of my father but of my fellow Jews. I was assailed by the image of the thousands of innocent men who had been led away by Nazi officials…. Pyrrhus surveyed his victory and wept.

  Fleeing from the lounge to the dining room, I found that meals were taking on the character of a party game where, each time that we sat down, there was another empty chair. In addition to the persistent absentees – Mother, Grandfather and Aunt Annette – the Banker’s wife had been confined to her cabin with what her husband delicately described as ‘mal de mer’. This permitted the Professor to monopolise his attention, ignoring his own wife so pointedly that I wondered whether their private conversations amounted to anything more significant than requests to buy toothpaste and switch off the lights. She, meanwhile, having concluded that, due to their respective status, neither Luise nor Sophie merited her regard, directed the full blast of it on me. After demanding the latest bulletin on my grandfather, she could barely conceal her disappointment when I assured her that he was fine. She frowned as if she had caught me feigning illness in order to break the fast on Yom Kippur. Then, in a voice as sickly as the tart on which she was gorging, she expressed her sympathy for Mother and Aunt Annette: ‘It’s never easy, having two women in one household.’

  ‘Is that so?’ I replied slyly. ‘Solomon had seven hundred wives – and three hundred concubines. And he was the wisest man in the Bible.’ My retort had the desired effect as she choked on her pastry. I envied the Professor’s licence to deliver three hefty thumps to her back.

  After dinner I spent an hour at my grandfather’s bedside, where I felt increasingly oppressed both by the sickroom atmosphere and my own lack of feeling. I suspected that my mother’s assessment of my selfishness was correct and, at the risk of confirming it, I excused myself and escaped outside. I stood at the rail, marvelling at the stillness of the starlit sky and a sea that seemed to be teeming with squid. Wrapped in the darkness, I watched with a mixture of envy and distaste as three elderly couples strolled hand-in-hand like children in a crocodile. Walking up to the lifeboats, I distinguished shapes which, on close – and brief – inspection, turned out to be other, younger, couples, intimately en
twined. I felt acutely aware of my isolation. Had I been a child, I would have been able to make friends as easily as Luise. Had I been an adult, I would have been able to invite Johanna to the nightclub. Instead, I was doomed to haunt the ship like the Flying Dutchman. Despair overwhelmed me and I decided to return inside, only to stop short when a ray of light fell on Sophie, who was clasped in the arms of a sailor as if she were posing for the cover of a cheap romance. Determined to intervene before she did anything dangerous, which I defined for myself as leaning back so far that she slipped over the rail and drowned, I tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘What the hell …!’ She wheeled round in fury. ‘Karl? What do you want? Have you been spying on me?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’ve just come outside. How can you think that?’ Mollified by an assertion of innocence which was for once genuine, she introduced me to her companion as casually as if we had met in a library. His name was Helmut Ritsch, and he was the ship’s helmsman. It was hard to make out his features, let alone his expression, in the shadows, but I could see that he was tall with curly hair and, to judge by the glint of whiteness, a broad smile. I shook his hand and then, struck by a sudden fear that the ship might veer off-course, asked whether he shouldn’t be on the bridge. He laughed and said that he had a deputy. ‘I can’t be expected to be on duty twenty-four hours a day.’

  ‘Some of us are,’ Sophie interposed.

  Smarting under the implied rebuke, a far cry from her usual claim that she wouldn’t change places with anyone, I explained that I had come to take her back to the cabin, where Luise needed her. Scared that, for the first time, she might decide to place her own needs above Luise’s, I added that she was very disturbed – a much more powerful spur than upset – about Grandfather. Sophie turned to Helmut and, with a despondent shrug, apologised for having to leave him. He smiled – at least the glint grew wider – like someone who was saving his last square of chocolate in order to savour it all the more later. Even their words were as soft as caresses. I waited for them to slip into an embrace, exchanging kisses as if they were as precious as Grandfather’s breaths, but Sophie shooed me away with the same affronted air as the couple at Lake Havel, who had supposed that I was training my binoculars on them rather than a pair of storks.