Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (32 page)

He planned to carry his umbrella and sit out in the damp, just breathing and thinking, allowing his imagination to roam.
 
He could soak up the details of life and people around him -- as the great Dumas had suggested he do.
 
It would be fodder for his writing.

Verne glanced out his narrow window and, looking down to the wet streets below, saw a huddled man facing the sidewalk.
 
Paris had many vagrants and strangers, but they had never troubled him.
 
As a student, Verne had few items worth stealing anyway.
 

Holding his bread, his bottle, and his umbrella, he stepped outside and drew a deep fresh breath.
 
He strode out with his long legs, determined to reach a quiet spot on the Seine at the northern edge of the Latin Quarter, where he could ruminate while he ate his lunch.
 

Before he could move down the block, the bundled stranger turned and raised a hand.
 
“Jules!” came an astonished voice.
 
“Jules Verne, is it you?”

Verne stopped and looked around, but saw no one else on the street, no place he could hide.
 
He became wary, afraid that this might be some beggar or cutpurse . . . though he had no money for either.

But as the stranger came forward, Verne stared at the dark hair and dark eyes, the changed shape of the face, now drawn and weathered . . . but still with a hint of boyhood familiarity.
 
Verne opened and closed his mouth, yet could not force words to come out.
 
He was unable to believe what he was seeing.
 
The man came forward and embraced him.

Nemo had returned.

Part V

PARIS IN THE 20TH CENTURY

i

Nantes, 1852

Standing on the quay, Nemo looked across the Nantes shipyards, shading his dark eyes.
 
It had been more than a decade since he’d departed on Captain Grant’s ship, three years since he’d returned -- and so much had changed, both in the world and in himself.
 
He was a man now, though surrounded by boyhood memories that haunted this place -- the best of times and the darkest of nightmares.
 

In the drydock shells and launching ramps at Ile Feydeau, he heard loud voices talking, mallets pounding.
 
Someone with a squeezebox sang out a ribald tune to keep his mates moving as they strung rigging on a new ship.
 
His heart grew heavy as he thought of his kind-hearted father working on the doomed
Cynthia
.
 
How many ships and sailors had gone in and out of this port since Nemo had left as a cabin boy aboard the
Coralie
?

The tall ships were still here.
 
A few clippers and brigs continued to sail up the Loire bringing in cargo from the Atlantic, though the main business of the city now centered on shipbuilding.
 
The future of Nantes lay in that industry, and now -- by the command of Napoleon III himself -- it was Nemo’s job to modernize the old shipyards, to prepare them for the next century.

As a young man, André Nemo had left home penniless and fatherless, with no future.
 
Now, with a commission from the Emperor of France, rebuilding the shipyards of Nantes would be but one of Nemo’s complex projects.

Since his return from far-off Iceland three years ago, Nemo had attracted much attention because of his extraordinary adventures.
 
But he hadn’t wanted to become a celebrity.
 
Instead, he had used his modest fame to arrange for a formal education -- something he could not have achieved as a mere orphan who’d served on a lost sailing ship (and a British-commissioned one, at that).

During his time on the island he’d already learned how to put his imagination to practical use.
 
Before, he’d had access to nothing more than the knowledge in poor Captain Grant’s small library.
 
Now, his engineering studies at the Paris Academy opened a new world of resources, and he excelled in public service by using his own skills combined with the raw materials and budget of the country.

The elected president of France, Louis Napoleon, had settled the unrest after the Revolutions of 1848 and recently declared himself Emperor.
 
To shore up his public image and continue the illusion of working to benefit everyday lives, Emperor Napoleon III undertook numerous construction projects.
 
The work had shaken the revolution-scarred populace toward a grudging optimism.

“The empire means peace,” Napoleon III had said in one grand speech.
 
“We have immense tracts of uncultivated lands to clear, roads to open, ports to create, canals to finish, our railway network to complete.
 
These are the conquests I am contemplating, and all French
people are my soldiers.”
 
Napoleon wanted Paris to make great strides ahead of the rest of Europe.
 
France would lurch into the future, advancing toward the 20th century, years before its time.

So, André Nemo worked to design bridges and towers, and, because of his successes, he was also chosen to redesign the shipyards in his hometown of Nantes.
 
He would improve its capabilities as a port and industrial center, and increase its commercial value for foreign trade.
 
The future looked very bright indeed.

Now, Nemo stood on the docks and made a mental list of proposed changes -- dredging the estuary to accommodate larger vessels, widening and reinforcing the quays.
 
He would suggest adding two more dry-dock facilities on either side of the river, and he would recommend that the shipyards concentrate on building new clippers, which were in heavy demand for passengers as well as perishable cargo.
 
The first merchant to bring a new harvest to market always commanded the highest price, and clippers could deliver tea from China or delicate spices from the Indies faster than any competitor.

Coming up the Loire with demonic snorting and clanking, a tall-funneled steamer approached the docks.
 
Gouts of smoke poured from its stack, while paddles churned the river.
 
Nemo had seen only a few of these so-called ‘pyroscaphes,’ named after the Greek for “fire ship.”
 
With continuing progress, he suspected the vessels would become more common, and noisier and smellier.

Nemo paced up and down the riverbank, lost in his own world.
 
He had let his dark hair grow long, as was the fashion in Paris, and he sported a mustache and goatee.
 
Every time he looked in the mirror, he still expected to see the imaginative boy who had left Ile Feydeau; instead, he saw an adult stranger.
 

Out of practice for a decade, Nemo struggled to readjust to a modern life back among civilized men.
 
After two years aboard an English exploration ship, after battling pirates, suffering hardships on his mysterious island, and exploring the catacombs beneath the Earth, Nemo no longer knew how to exist as part of calm French society with its intricate politics and convoluted social graces.

Emperor Napoleon had entrusted him with a good many important projects.
 
Yet, the more he worked on them, the more Nemo missed the challenge of constructing a simple counterweight elevator or excavating his cave dwelling.
 
Despite its glamour and all the fineries, the availability of resources, this civilized life was dull and mundane.
 
He had little patience for government bureaucracies and budgetary constraints, for deciding how best to widen roads in France’s rural departments.

Now, he gazed back down the Loire, picturing in his mind where it drained into the sea at Paimboeuf.
 
Far beyond, lay the Americas or Africa or the South Sea islands.
 
Strange places to explore, mountains to climb, jungles to investigate.
 
He sighed wistfully, then looked at the clock on a nearby church tower just as the bells began to ring the hour.
 
It was time for the meeting he’d both longed for and dreaded.
 

Caroline would be waiting for him.

In new clothes and stiff boots, Nemo strode down the narrow streets of Ile Feydeau to the rowhouses at the water’s edge.
 
He walked beyond the piers into the older, more expensive section of town until he reached the offices of “Aronnax, Merchant,” which had been owned by Caroline’s father.
 

The gray-painted wooden doors were open to let in a fresh spring breeze and the smell of flowers.
 
Inside the business offices at rows of varnished tables and desks, diligent clerks jotted down manifests in thick ledgers.
 
Others pored over the financial records of various shipments, while one rail-thin man placed pins on a chart of shipping routes, presumably marking the estimated positions of the Aronnax fleet.

Nemo paused in the tall doorway, a stranger, still uncertain of himself.
 
Already, this seemed so strange.
 
Because he had spent so many years without the need for speech, Nemo often found it difficult to begin a conversation.
 
Two of the clerks looked up with questioning gazes, but before anyone could ask his business, Caroline emerged from a back room.

When she saw him, the sun rose on her face.
 
“André!”
 
Caroline had grown beyond the pretty young girl he had fallen in love with -- she was still as beautiful, but more filled out, taller, more self-assured.
 

He’d seen her briefly several times since his return to France, but he hadn’t yet grown accustomed to how much she had blossomed.
 
Instead of the barely contained rebellion that had always shown in her blue eyes, Caroline now carried a hard business sense, a sharp intelligence, and a resolve that had not been there before.
 
She had fought hard to reach her place here, and she would not let anything budge her from her position.
 

“I am so glad to see you.”
 
She came forward, stopping close to him.
 

“
Bonjour
, Madame Hatteras,” he said, though it hurt him to remind her of her husband, who still hadn’t returned from his polar voyage, even after four years.
 
Nemo longed to kiss her, but instead forced himself to maintain his honor and his distance.
 
After a brief, awkward pause, they shook hands like two business associates.

After taking over her father’s shipping offices, Caroline had dispensed with the flowery colors and frills she’d worn as a young woman.
 
Now she wore a gray woolen suit and a broad hoop skirt; she had more important things to do than bow to social niceties and expectations.
 
Since her marriage to Captain Hatteras, Caroline had used her time and her intelligence well, carving her world into the shape
she
preferred, rather than the other way around.
 
Nemo was proud of her.

“Shall we go, André?”
 
She slid her arm through his and allowed him to escort her out of the merchant offices.
 
He felt a cold sweat break out down his back.
 
“I’m sure Jules is already at the café waiting for us.”
 
She turned a hard gaze to the clerks, who still seemed disconcerted at having a strong, independent woman as their boss.
 
“The employees can do without me for a short while.
 
They know who pays their salaries.”

Caroline’s father had died in 1849, mere weeks after a terrible altercation with his office manager.
 
At the height of the argument, Monsieur Aronnax had fired the man on the spot; thereafter, indignant, he proceeded to work himself to the bone, refusing to hire a replacement.
 

Without revealing that she had secretly studied the workings of the shipping business for years, Caroline stepped in to assist her father as a surrogate office manager.
 
Monsieur Aronnax brooded over how his supposed successor had betrayed him, while inadvertently continuing his daughter’s training.
 
When he’d died suddenly, the master merchant had appointed no official replacement, which left the business operations in turmoil.