by John Brunner
Some ten days ago, sleepless at midnight, he had suddenly decided to write a letter. Experience had taught him that setting his woes on paper made them easier to bear.
But to whom? It had to be someone who spoke French, naturally. He regularly wrote to his family, but to salve his pride he always put the best complexion on what he had to report, even though he had been unable to stop himself complaining about not getting the job at the Limousin. However, of course, the present owner owed nothing to its founder’s cousin…
Inspiration struck. Despite his Breton name, Dr. Émile Larzenac was a fellow countryman, and might be sympathetic to a stranger’s plight.
With only the faintest intention of mailing what he wrote, Gaston plunged his nib into the inkwell. Dawn found him still pouring out his heart on the page. At last he slumped exhausted on his bed, and almost missed the matinee as a result.
But to his surprise and delight, when he came to reread what he had set down, he realized he had struck precisely the right note. He had neither boasted about his talent nor moaned about his ill treatment; he had merely described his qualifications, indicated a couple of his ambitions, explained what made it hard to fulfill them in New Orleans, and requested the advice of a compatriot—in what leisure he might find from attendance on his patients—as to whether conditions at St. Louis might be better. He had expected to appear embittered; instead he had confined himself to an excusable degree of disappointment.
Casting his bread upon the waters, he addressed an envelope to Monsieur Émile Larzenac, Doctor of Medicine, in care of Monsieur Grammont, whose residence he found mentioned in one of the daily papers.
And committed it to the mails.
Here, now, miraculously, was the answer, not from Larzenac but from Mrs. Grammont. He read it again, marveling:
“Come St. Louis direct music funeral my beloved son accompany Cherouen medical doctor instructed take fastest steamer today expenses paid your fee $1000.”
“Hope it’s good news,” the delivery boy said as he turned to leave. “Been chasing you half the day! Better be worth it!”
“Oh, yes, it is very worth!” Gaston declared. And then, as a sudden thought struck him, his face fell. He snatched out his watch. Would there be time to go home and pack, get to the wharf, find out what steamer Dr. Cherouen had hired?
“D’Aurade, damn you!” the owner barked. “Come here! I haven’t finished.”
Gaston looked at him; at the telegram; back again. How could he face working any longer for such a disgusting barbarian? Never mind if he missed the boat and arrived in St. Louis after the funeral was over—the lightning had struck, and he must not disregard his cue.
He snapped his fingers loudly under the boss’s nose. “You may not be finish! But me, yes! I hope I see you now the very last time, salaud!”
Conscious of making a grand exit, he spun on his heel and quit the building. Only when he was safely clear did he break into a run.
“Hey, nigger!”
The shout was loud enough to disturb Caesar from his gloomy musings. He turned his head.
“Yes, you!” said the white man advancing on him, who wore a broad-brimmed hat and long-skirted coat and chewed an unlit panatela. “Want some work? Or are you too damned bone-idle, like most of your kind?”
Since losing his steam-crane job, Caesar had had to endure worse. He was overdue with rent; he had had to pawn his best boots; he was resigned to putting up with any kind of insult so long as he got paid. His slavery smile had come back as a regular habit. He put it on now and rose to his feet. Most of his “bone-idle kind” were half-starved. It made sense not to stand when you could sit.
Glancing around, he found that a commotion had developed while he was dozing. Around the Nonpareil, the Lydia King and the Atchafalaya there was a crowd shouting as though a fight were on the brew. Well-dressed men were waving canes and ladies were fanning themselves against the dry heat and both were pushing and elbowing their way toward the stages where harassed officers were trying to control them.
“Get on over to the Nonpareil!” the man who had roused him ordered. “Tell Mr. Underwood that Mr. Whitworth sent you—got that?”
“Yassuh!”
“Let me hear you say it!”
Caesar dutifully repeated the names.
“All right! You’re to help load baggage! If we don’t muster enough hands we’ll never leave on time!”
And with a glance at his watch and a ferocious scowl he was gone in search of more recruits. It had not occurred to him, Caesar reflected bitterly, to offer a rate of pay.
But he did as he was told, anyhow.
These past few days a terrible sense of betrayal had dominated the existence of Eulalie Lamenthe. Since the episode of the lily she had gathered all her own forces. And, inevitably, spent more than she could afford…
Though she must survive on cornmeal mush and blackeyed peas, this was not too great a price. For recently she had dreamed that a stranger without a face was trying to bind about her waist a girdle that could never be unknotted. The sign was unmistakable. It was not Damballah who wanted the death of her only son, but a jealous rival, perhaps someone who had never born a child of her own.
Insight struck like a knife. Was this upstart Mam’zelle Josephine a mother?
Because if she was not—!
Virginity was permissible in the Christian context, but in the light of the old religion from Africa what it reflected was failure: deformity, or repulsiveness, or derangement, or the effect of a curse. Once, long ago, she had hinted at this aspect of her beliefs to Alphonse, but he had never taken her—or any woman—seriously. He turned her remark with a French epigram. In those days she had understood the language well enough to follow what he was saying: “Of all sexual perversions, chastity is the least comprehensible.”
He had been content to treat the idea as a joke. For her it was absolutely real. And now she came to think of it, while more and more rumors were clustering around the mysterious Josephine—there was even a song about her—none referred to a child or any other relations. (To be called “Mam’zelle” did not, naturally, signify virginity. Conjuh women were seldom referred to as “Madame”; the married ones, the vast majority, were generally called “Tante” or “Maman.” Already Eulalie was “aunt” to half a thousand people she had never met.)
Gathering her courage, she read the omens and found them favorable. Accordingly she sent out those who had been Athalie’s followers and were now hers to noise abroad the fact that she was prepared to encounter her arch-rival on the night of nights, 24th June, the feast of St. John Baptist for the orthodox, but a date with very different meaning for those who hewed to the competing creed.
Nothing happened.
But the following day, when she was fully expecting that those who had defected to Josephine would shyly steal back, that didn’t happen either.
Meantime a terrible conviction gripped the city: there was to be a race between the Atchafalaya and the Nonpareil. Knowing Eulalie’s son was pilot of the former, people kept inquiring whether they should bet on her. Most of them would do so anyhow, for the honor of the race—the other kind of race.
Her dreams became a hell of disasters and explosions. It was vain to try and comfort herself with the advertisements the respective captains published; for each, there were a dozen contradictions in the news and editorial columns.
She had become more than ever estranged from Fernand over the past months, and often lay awake into the small hours, mourning the fact. The sole cause was that she was doing her best for him—sacrificing herself to protect him with armor stronger than steel. She was convinced of that, and consequently regarded him as ungrateful.
Yet he was still her son, and he must be married and must father an heir before he died…
All this morning people from the neighborhood had been setting off for the river. From occasional cries Eulalie had been able to piece together that they were planning to witness the start of the race
. At last she could bear the temptation no longer. She too set out for the wharf, her heart hammering insanely, her mouth dry, her vision overlaid with the image of her son as he had been when he was young enough to be dutiful.
And in her purse she carried as a gift for him the most precious of her magical possessions.
Luncheon at the Moynes’ when a guest was present was a lengthy and formal event; dish succeeded dish to the accompaniment of proper wines and intolerable vapid smalltalk. Gordon fretted. He had no special wish to be here. But after the failure of his visit to St. Louis, he needed to use every minute of the Nonpareil’s stopover to drum up support for his schemes. He would have preferred to invite Andrew Moyne, and other people whom he knew to be looking for fresh investments, to meet him tête-à-tête at the St. Charles. His account there, however, was embarrassingly large by now, so for the immediate future it looked as though his domicile was going to be aboard the steamer. A fine pickle to be in!
At long last Mrs. Moyne withdrew, and he was able to accept with relief her husband’s suggestion that they adjourn to his smoking room along with Matthew—who had sat through the meal like a specter at the feast, mechanically picking at what was set before him and speaking scarcely twenty words.
But as they were crossing the entrance hall, there came a hullabaloo from the servants’ quarters. Voices could be heard raised in a quarrel; someone banged a door.
A gong used to call people to dine stood on a table at the foot of the stairs. Moyne struck it with his fist and shouted for his butler, while Gordon glanced anxiously at a nearby clock. Time was slipping away, and he fully intended to be aboard the Nonpareil for her record run. So instead of explaining his project in detail he would have to present a curtailed version—
What had the butler just said? Moyne was turning round.
“I do apologize, Mr. Gordon! But it appears the Atchafalaya is dumping Ohio River cargo. Some of my staff who have been making bets on the chance of her racing have got overexcited by the news… Is something wrong?”
Between set teeth Gordon forced out, “Can we believe this?”
Moyne, puzzled, consulted the butler, who insisted that the person who had brought the news was trustworthy.
“Woodley knew where I was!” Gordon muttered into his beard. “He could have—Mr. Moyne, you must excuse me. I have to cut short this most enjoyable meeting. Matthew, call the carriage and— Boy, don’t you hear me? Why are you standing there like a plaster dummy?”
Pale as paper, biting hard on his lower lip, Matthew spun blindly on his heel.
“That boy of yours doesn’t look well,” Moyne observed.
“Doesn’t act well, either,” Gordon grunted, shrugging into his topcoat. “Lily-livered little bastard! I’ll wager it’s the idea of the Nonpareil racing that’s made him so upset!”
“You mean there is going to be a race?”
“Maybe, maybe not!” Gordon snarled. “If half what I’ve heard about Drew is true, he’ll stop at nothing to leave early and then claim it was a level start! I must get back at once! But, of course”—suddenly regaining control—“if there is a fair race, the Nonpareil is sure to win, and she’ll be a splendid nucleus for the line of steamers I propose. So if you’re inclined to place a bet yourself, Mr. Moyne, I counsel you to back the Nonpareil!”
During their last downriver trip, Parbury had spelled out over and over what must be done if, against all odds, Drew accepted that a race was inevitable and took the obvious step of trying to get away first, so his wake would hinder the pursuing vessel.
Woodley had been resentful of this gratuitous tuition. Now, by contrast, he was glad of it. He was able to issue far more precise instructions to his men than he could have done without it.
However, as the time of showdown approached, he began to lose his borrowed confidence, and checked his watch more frequently, and wondered what in hell was keeping the old devil. He even started to feel that he should have made more of an attempt to trace Gordon. Though exactly what a foreign financier could usefully do on a high-speed run was a question without an answer. It was just that over the past months he had grown used to working in impromptu committee. Even this trip had been jointly planned, and on his own Woodley felt irresolute.
Sometimes he wondered what it was like to be Drew, governed by no man, capable of outfacing even Barber, although sacrificing as the price of his independence the colossal fortunes one well-starred gamble might reap on the river. Sometimes he dreamed: if only I had been master of the Atchafalaya…!
Still, everything seemed to be going fine. Lots of last-minute passengers were appearing, enough to ensure the voyage would turn a handsome profit. Even McNab had been seen to crack a smile.
When, as was inevitable, Vanaday the steamboat inspector came aboard, Woodley greeted him with only the faintest hesitation. Somewhere at the back of Gordon’s mind indubitably lurked the notion that if all else failed they could break the lead seals on their safety valves. At first Woodley had accepted the notion; it would take a few bribes to sort matters out afterward, but he had assumed the financier could easily afford them. Evidence that Gordon’s money was locked up in Britain had come as a blow—but if need be, he reasoned, he could pay the bribes himself out of his probable winnings.
Even so, he wished it had been Sweet assigned to today’s duty, or someone else tractable, for Vanaday had a reputation for strictness. Had he not been the one to condemn the old Atchafalaya?
Disguising his apprehension, he escorted the inspector on his survey of the boilers, piping, and engines, and thought all was going flawlessly.
Then disaster struck.
Rounding a corner among the stacks of wood being readied for the furnaces, they came upon a man sprawled like a dead starfish with a whiskey bottle clutched in his hand.
Woodley’s heart sank like a steamer holed by a snag.
“I know him,” Vanaday said after a pause. “By the list your agent supplied, he’s your fourth engineer.”
Woodley took a deep breath. “Not any more,” he said grimly.
“That’s correct, Captain,” Vanaday murmured, tucking his documents under his arm and bending to feel in the slumbering man’s jacket pocket, from which he retrieved a greasy engineer’s license.
“Withdrawn,” he said succinctly. “He can appeal, but I shall oppose him. Have you had trouble like this before?”
“Oh, my God,” said a soft voice behind them. They glanced round to find Brian Roy, carrying a pipe wrench which he let fall in horror to his side.
“Well?” Vanaday continued, as though the newcomer had not spoken.
“Nothing like this,” Woodley declared. Roy echoed him.
“No, he’s always trimmed his drinking bouts until he was safe ashore. Must have been the prospect of a race that unsettled him.”
“A race, is it?” Vanaday repeated thoughtfully. “Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that if word of your racing gets to the Cincinnati Underwriters, you may kiss good-bye to your insurance.”
Bluffly Woodley replied, “When they see how well she runs, they’ll cut our premium!”
“That’s as may be,” Vanaday said. “But I expect to see this man put ashore.”
“Yes, of course!” Woodley snapped. “We’ll just have to make the trip with three engineers!”
“That’s your decision. But don’t overwork them in search of any records, or I’ll have an addendum to make to my report. I can find my own way back to the stage.”
When Vanaday had gone, Corkran arrived and learned the news in a couple of brief, bitter sentences.
“Manage with three engineers?” he said in dismay. “Captain, we can’t!”
A nod from Roy confirmed the statement. Williams simply lay there, his faint smile commenting ironically on the argument.
Woodley drew a deep breath, conscious that on the outcome of this depended his authority.
“Dump Eb ashore!” he bellowed. “The wharf is littered with soberer and
better engineers!”
“Like who?” Corkran demanded.
“You should know better than I do! But I’m sure there must be an engineer out there who’d give his eyeteeth for a berth on a racing steamer! Go look for one!”
“What can I say you’ll pay him?” Roy countered.
“More than he’s getting now!”
“And if that’s more than you’re paying us—?”
“Damn it, man! If he helps us win we’ll all be rich!”
That worked. Roy hastened back to the guards. Following more slowly, Woodley was infinitely relieved to see a carriage arriving, from which stepped the unmistakable figure of Parbury.
Steady toil, even for a scant half hour, had revived Caesar. As though the blood flow enlivening his stiff limbs brought with it memories of the time when he had striven against an enemy while handicapped by worse than misery, he found himself responding to the orders he was given, to the weight of the bags and bundles he was shifting, to the mere acknowledgment of his existence which he had so sorely missed waiting for work that wasn’t offered.
Therefore when a drunken white man was carried off the Nonpareil he paid attention.
In his nostrils rose the scent of hot oil and burning logs. His fingers felt the roughness of cast iron.
He recognized that man. For months on end he’d done his work on quarter-pay.
It was a squeeze: as when in a bend where the channel, though deep, was exceptionally narrow, steamers bound upriver that dared not lose way because the current was too strong were meeting others heading down whose rudders did not give enough control to divert them across the stream.
If there were not collisions, at the irreducible least there would be anger. Captains and officers and crew of boats involved in such a muddle tended to bear long grudges afterward.
To the brash bright accompaniment of Manuel’s band, which he had led out as usual at the one-hour mark to advertise the Nonpareil’s departure, this kind of clash was now occurring between people.