Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (33 page)

Caroline, bearing the name and fortune of Captain Hatteras, stepped in to take over the business.
 
The daughter of Monsieur Aronnax marched into the offices with a vengeance, sat at her father’s big mahogany desk as if marking her territory, and began issuing orders.
 
This had scandalized the conservative clerks, and she released two of them at once when they refused to follow her orders.
 

The former office manager, who had been discharged by her father, fought Caroline, insisting that a married daughter with an absent husband was not fit to run a great shipping company.
 
He attempted to buy “Aronnax, Merchant” at a low price that would have devastated the family.
 

Caroline’s bereaved mother understood nothing of the work, had never bothered even to know the names or trade routes of the Aronnax ships.
 
After a long, tear-filled evening Caroline had convinced her mother not to sell, and suggested that she herself should acquire the rights to the company, ostensibly in the name of Captain Hatteras.
 
But there would still be a legal fight.

Because of her long friendship with Jules Verne, Caroline had gone to his father as an attorney to challenge the contested ownership.
 
Instead, the dour man with bushy gray sideburns had shaken his head.
 
“I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do, Madame Hatteras.
 
A woman cannot run a business.
 
You must sell.”

Frustrated, she realized that Monsieur Verne had only enough legal knowledge for filling out ordinary wills and property deeds, and very little fire in his belly.
 
She had long ago learned from Nemo never to give up, and so she continued to press the issue on her own.
 
Caroline had taken a train to Paris, where she found an ambitious and vociferous attorney, who handily won her case.
 
So, for three years, she’d been the owner and manager of “Aronnax, Merchant” -- and she reveled in the challenge.

Now, Nemo and Caroline walked together under the sunshine toward their favorite bistro, and he looked at her, proud of what she’d accomplished.
 
Her other options had been to sit at home or become a society lady -- neither of which fit Caroline at all.
 
The gossips still talked about the scandal of the female merchant (but then, they always would), even though Caroline had been extraordinarily successful in rebuilding the family business according to her own instincts.
 
She had uncanny luck in choosing paths and cargoes.
 

At home, alone, she wrote her own music as she had always dreamed of doing, maintaining the fiction of the non-existent composer “Passepartout,” to whom she gave all the credit . . . though few people questioned her about it any more.
 
Even her loyal maidservant Marie had married a tradesman and had left service.

Strolling along, he enjoyed Caroline’s company.
 
“I wish we could be alone,” Nemo said.
 
“It’s so difficult, and I have so much I want to say.”

Caroline shook her head.
 
“We can’t -- and you should not.”
 
Then she smiled.
 
“But I know what you must be thinking, even after all this time.”

The two of them arrived at the open-air coffee shop next to the flower stalls and pastry vendors.
 
Jules Verne, still tall and thin but sporting a new beard, waved at them.
 
He had already ordered pots of dark coffee and chocolat chaud and munched on a gooseberry tart while he waited, wiping sticky jam from his lips.
 
During his visits home from the Paris Academy, Verne made every effort to replenish himself in preparation for his fourth and final year at law school.

A disappointed frown crossed his face when he saw Caroline on Nemo’s arm.
 
She released her light touch as they both walked toward Verne’s table.
 
He stood halfway up to greet her, and she kissed the young man on his red-bearded cheek.
 
“Thank you for waiting, Jules.”
 

Blushing, Verne pushed one of the pastries toward the chair she had selected, then self-consciously wiped crumbs from his lips with a stained napkin.
 
“I’ve ordered us some cheese, and I chose a currant pastry for you, Caroline.
 
I know that’s your favorite.”
 
It occurred to Nemo how much his friend looked like a wide-eyed puppy, eager to please.

Before Nemo could say anything, Verne turned to him, full of energy and news.
 
“I’ve received a letter from one of the ships that went searching for your island, André.
 
There’s been a volcanic eruption in the vicinity of the coordinates you gave.
 
Maybe your island has sunk.”

“Like Atlantis,” Caroline said, her blue eyes shining.

Nemo nodded sadly.
 
“That could well be.
 
The volcano was restless when I entered its caves.”

“It’s a good thing you left when you did.”
 
Verne scratched his curly hair, then took a bite of the nearest pastry, licking his fingers.
 
Nemo poured a cup of chocolat chaud for Caroline and himself.
 
Verne continued to watch them from across the table, as if keeping track of how often they looked at one another.
 

“And for you, Caroline, I’ve asked one of my lecturers at the Paris school.”
 
When Verne awkwardly cleared his throat, he looked very much like a lawyer.
 
“I can draw up the papers if you like.
 
In three more years, with no word from the
Forward
, it --”
 
He hesitated, then forced himself to go on in a somber voice.
 
“It is possible to begin proceedings to have Monsieur Hatteras declared lost at sea, if . . . if you should wish to get on with your life, that is.”
 
He added in a rush.

Startled, Caroline unconsciously glanced over at Nemo.
 
“Seven years . . .”

“You are still a young woman, Caroline,” Verne pressed, “with a great deal to offer --”

Nemo took her hand.
 
“Your suggestion is premature, Jules.
 
Let’s wait the proper amount of time first, then let Caroline make her decision.
 
Remember, I was gone for more years than that -- and I am most certainly still alive.”
 
His voice was stern, alarmed at his friend’s impropriety and at Caroline’s obvious distress.
 
“We’ve had enough on the subject for now.”

“Running ‘Aronnax, Merchant’ requires all of my energy, Jules.
 
I am quite content with my life and not anxious to take another husband just yet,” Caroline said, but the troubled look on her face and the quick glance she sent Nemo suggested otherwise.
 
“I never gave up hope on you, André.”

Verne saw the look and tried to cover his frown, suddenly flustered.
 
“There’s no hurry.”
 

Though he continued to dabble at writing plays and poetry, along with his stage-manager’s job at the theatre, Jules Verne still had too little success to justify any career other than to follow in his father’s footsteps.
 
It looked as if it would be an attorney’s grave for him.
 
“I’ll be required to return home in another year or two after I finish at the Academy.
 
And André, you’ll be here at Nantes working on your engineering projects.”
 
Verne forced a bittersweet smile.
 
“It could be like old times for the three of us.
 
A world of adventure is waiting.”

Nemo heard a ship’s bell clanging on the distant quays, sailors shouting to each other as they cast off mooring ropes.
 
His heart felt heavy again, and he looked across at Verne.
 
“I’m not sure we can ever go back to those days.”

ii

The old stone bridge had been damaged by cannonfire during the Revolutions of 1848, but moss, water, and time had weakened the supports long before.
 

Intent on his work, Nemo stood in knee-deep slimy mud beneath the pilings, searching for cracks, rapping with a steel hammer to listen for soft spots.
 
Waving his hand in front of his face to scatter biting flies, he waded deeper to assess which repairs might be needed.

On the shady bank sat his designated work party, chewing on grass blades.
 
Pieces of wooden scaffolding lay all around them, unassembled; a stonemason mixed a new batch of mortar, though it would probably dry before Nemo came back and told the laborers what to do. . . .

While his plans to modernize the Nantes shipyards ground through the endless bureaucracy, he had been recalled to Paris.
 
His sketches and ideas fought for notice among hundreds of worthy projects while the Prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann, juggled proposals to make Paris the most magnificent capital in Europe.
 

In the interim, Nemo dutifully designed reinforcements to weakening bridges or church steeples, and even outlined improvements to the expanding railway network.
 
Though many of his innovative ideas were too strange to be accepted by formally trained engineers, Nemo did his best to find the most efficient way to accomplish each task.
 
He recalled the inspirational words of Napoleon III: “March at the head of the ideas of your century, and those ideas will strengthen and sustain you; march behind them, and they will drag you after them; march against them, and they will overthrow you.”

Nemo marched to the rhythm of his own imagination, though often his work crews didn’t want to march at all.
 
He slogged dripping out of the water and began to issue orders, already eager to face the challenge of the next job.

#

Nemo lived alone in a small room at the heart of Paris and often went to operas and the theatre, including several entertaining little farces that Jules Verne had written or staged.
 
Sometimes, he made a point of meeting his redheaded friend, but their lives had diverged enough that the lost years became a gulf between them.

Verne himself had never yet managed to set foot outside of France.
 
The struggling writer was enthralled by parties and literati, but Nemo preferred the silence of his own company to the posturing and naive “intelligentsia” who spouted opinions as if they were facts.
 
The challenge of complex engineering projects was a better fuel to Nemo’s imagination.
 
Though the Emperor’s architectural repairs did not make use of his full abilities, the work kept him busy -- and this left his mind free to absorb anything else that interested him.

Nemo wandered through the palatial halls of the Louvre, studying magnificent works of art -- most particularly the Mona Lisa, an exquisite portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, whose drawings and notebooks had so captivated him aboard the
Coralie
.
 
He also loved to travel to Versailles to admire the architecture of the “palace that was a city” built by Louis XIV.

A single man with no social aspirations, Nemo’s tastes did not run to the extravagant.
 
His greatest indulgence was to subscribe to the Parisian science magazines that young Jules Verne had shared with him so many years before.
 
Nemo read voraciously to keep up with new scientific developments, reveling in the tales of explorers seeking wild paths across the globe.
 
With only his memories of distant lands, he traveled in his mind, living vicariously through the other great men of the century.
 

He thought often of Caroline, though he didn’t dare see her more than once every month or two, when business took him back to Nantes.
 
He longed for her and mourned the circumstances that had built a barrier between them.
 
The two of them did, however, exchange a regular correspondence, and he read and reread every note she sent.
 
He would smell the faint scent of her stationery, look at her brisk but delicate handwriting, and imagine her slender fingers holding the pen as she gathered her thoughts.
 

By now, her husband Captain Hatteras was almost certainly lost at sea . . . but Nemo would not pressure her to file for a death certificate, as Verne had suggested.
 
He would wait and think about her, and when his longing grew too intense, Nemo plunged with greater vigor into his daily work.