Ship of Fools (46 page)

“How do you know?” asked Frau Baumgartner. “I love to watch them dance, and if the women do flirt, why, they are gypsies, after all.”

“Flirt!” said Herr Baumgartner, with infinite meaning. “Now then my dear Hans, no more raspberry juice before dinner, it will spoil your appetite.”

He ordered another brandy, and a small cherry cordial for Frau Baumgartner, who smiled at him reproachfully, then sat smelling the liquor now and then, and taking a drop on her tongue. But no, the pleasure had gone out of it … ah yes, the pleasure had gone out of everything in life!

Frau Rittersdorf had the deck steward raise the back of her chair to a comfortable position, drew her red chiffon veil somewhat further over her eyebrows for the double purpose of letting the slanting sunlight throw a rosy glow on her face and to insure against intrusion while she posted up her diary, neglected of late.

“Though it is no exaggeration to say there is not a moment of my existence, waking or sleeping, yes even in my deepest dreams, that I do not miss the company and conversation of my Otto, yet in the past few days I have missed him if possible more keenly than ever because of a certain little episode we should have so enjoyed together—a comic situation good enough for a play: The Christian man married to a Jewish wife being set by mistake at the Captain's table! A most misleadingly presentable young man he is, too—one can only regret his appalling lapse of taste. Yet this is no time for making allowances in such questions—quite simply, he must be rejected utterly from decent German society. We at the Captain's table were of course of the most charming unanimity that he should be sent to his proper place, at the table with the Jew. I hear this has created some little commotion among some of the other passengers. Those dreadful Americans, together with the vulgar Lutzes (Swiss!) and the even more vulgar Baumgartners (Bavarians, I believe), are showing ostentatious sympathy for him. I am not surprised at the Americans, nothing too base for them, let them find their own level; but even the lowest of Germans—one would think their
blood
would make the proper responses to a thing of this kind, without having to reflect for an instant. Alas, this is not always so. In Mexico I found it quite disturbing. I knew there the purest Germans of correct society who invited—not often, true—their Jewish clients or business associates to dine in their own homes. They excused themselves to me—‘Oh, it's only a question of business,' they said; or ‘You know we would not think of such a thing in Germany. Here, what does it matter?' But it does indeed matter, I told them; I feel that God sees us, and our dead heroes are looking down upon us in distress and amazement! My Otto had written this to me once after a defeat in battle, and I shall never forget it. How unerring his instincts in everything! It was his boast that no Jew had ever set foot in his father's house, to the farthest known generations. But I must not dwell on this—it is all too bittersweet.

“There is some light scandal about Herr Rieber having been put in the same cabin with this Jew, and now he must stay there, because there is no other place to put him, imagine. I cannot much care what happens to Herr Rieber, hopelessly coarse and common as he is—it is a mystery why he is at the Captain's table, except that he is a publisher of some kind, and I suppose merits consideration in this respect—yet I cannot be cruel enough to say he deserves this. The purser is being blamed for everything of course; he in turn blames the ship's agent in Mexico City who gave incomplete or misleading data on many of the passengers. I blame no one; but merely allow myself to be amused at this small diversion which provides a tiny respite from this voyage, which must undoubtedly be described as somewhat on the dull side.”

Frau Rittersdorf pushed back her veil, closed her fountain pen, and leaned forward stretching her neck and arms discreetly to ease the strain of writing, unfortunately just in time to attract once more the attention of one of those male Spanish dancers, the one they called Tito, the supposed husband of Lola—the “star” of the zarzuela, the putative father of those indescribable twins, though it was improbable that they were of human origin; rather, little demons one expected to blow up with a smell of brimstone and disappear before one's eyes. Still, this Tito—two evenings ago, when she had finished a delightful dance with a most charming young ship's officer, this Tito with ineffable impudence had come boldly up and asked her to dance with him! Whenever she remembered what happened next, and she had not been able to forget it for an instant, she began to blush, turning blood-red all over and breaking into a sensation of heat rash. She tried again hard not to remember, resolutely she had omitted all mention of it from her diary, and turned from the thought: she even repeated all the prayers she could remember, rapidly over and over as an incantation against evil.

Instead of refusing him quite in the easy friendly tone she would have used to a gentleman, so that he should not suspect her horror at his indecent proposal, she stood transfixed, lips parted, unable to breathe a syllable, with his black eyes like a snake's gleaming wickedly only a few inches from hers; and had felt herself taken without her consent and spirited away like a cloud, in the lightest, surest, gentlest embrace she had ever known, in such a dance as she had not even dreamed of since her innocent girlhood, herself again a pure sylph of the most gauzy lightness—oh no, Frau Rittersdorf almost moaned to herself, could I have done such a thing? Oh, did I really allow that to happen?

When it was ended, he kissed her hand quickly and darted away, leaving her standing alone, dazed; Lizzi Spöckenkieker whirling by like a merry-go-round with that puffball of a Herr Rieber called out mockingly, “Where are your castanets?” The young officer returned then and asked once more to dance, and though he had seemed so graceful and easy before, now they trundled along and could hardly catch step together; and though he said rather gaily, “I dare not leave you alone for a second, a gypsy will kidnap you!” she knew she was being warned and rebuked at once. As she reflected on her unheard-of behavior, and what would have been the retribution visited upon her by her Otto, never a man to withhold justice, for one blinding moment she was almost grateful for his absence. Instantly right feelings reclaimed her; she realized that if Otto were alive, oh if only he were alive, she would be far from this wretched ship, far from this mean society. She had always had the look and deportment of a lady, and her husband had been proud of her in any company! Now she must make certain by her manner that that Lizzi shall not dare to mention this incident of the Spaniard's presumption at the Captain's table, nor would she tolerate any familiarity on the subject from anyone else. She grew quite rigid; but it had not been necessary. No one mentioned it—no one seemed even to have heard about it. Even Lizzi had never presumed to give her a little conspiratorial smile the next day. This in the end had made it all the worse—their ignoring might be a form of criticism of her conduct or morals—yet, she asked herself, what could possibly have been said or done by anyone to make it better?

She must simply forget, as she was forgetting Don Pedro, as she was forgetting the miseries of being a girl of a poor family who must educate herself to be a governess in England; as indeed sometimes she feared she was forgetting Otto. Whenever she thought of him, and it was very often, he was no longer solid remembered flesh and blood with a resonant voice still speaking in her ear, no; he now appeared a shining image a few feet off the ground like a visitant angel, in pure white and gold uniform (though he had been an army officer, field artillery, never the navy), with a rainbow aureole around his head that quite obscured his features. She had not been able to remember his look for years; and now she often had to strive to see and feel again that wonderfully shaped golden head that she had cradled in her arms and kissed and sung to as if he were her little child, rocking him to sleep, both of them molten with tenderness.…

Frau Rittersdorf had a sensation of drowning, she closed her eyes and gasped, her head swam and rolled; she opened her eyes again and there was Tito bending over her gracefully in his tight black dancing dress, red waistband, bolero, frilled shirt and all: and he was saying—what on earth was he saying? He was carrying what looked like a sheaf of small tickets of some kind in his left hand; he slipped one out and held it towards her, and he was not smiling but holding her gaze with his as if he meant to hypnotize her. Frau Rittersdorf reached out her hand to take the ticket, at which it was withdrawn and he said, “Not yet. Let me tell you something …”

Frau Rittersdorf's head cleared, she sat up and listened attentively, expecting to hear something sinister, forbidden, or at the very least disreputable. Instead it was disarmingly, childishly simple. The zarzuela company wished to promote a little fiesta in which everyone on board could take part; a specially festive dinner in which everybody would appear masked and change places at table. There would be special music, dancing for all, and the zarzuela company itself proposed to give a full evening's show from the most elegant numbers in its repertory: then there would be a drawing of numbers for beautiful prizes; the prizes were to be purchased at shops in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a place known for its refined arts and handiworks. It was all to be offered as homage to the Captain, the evening before the ship should reach Vigo, where the zarzuela company would disembark.

“We have said it is a pity to spend such a long voyage without one public fiesta,” said Tito, seriously, as one in all good faith. Frau Rittersdorf's head cleared another degree: her mercantile instincts took charge. “But you sound so businesslike, for an artist,” she told him. “How can you be so practical?”

“I am the manager of this company,” he told her, “also the director, and my wife is my assistant.”

“Lola?” asked Frau Rittersdorf, with condescension.

“Yes, Doña Lola,” he corrected her, haughtily.

The mists cleared from Frau Rittersdorf's mind at his tone. “You must let me think a little,” she said languidly, making motions as if she would open her diary once more. “I am not a devotee of games of chance in any form—” Her eyes wandered and she saw that Lizzi Spöckenkieker had taken up her station two deck chairs away, with a large-leaf magazine she was not pretending to read. This sight was so annoying to Frau Rittersdorf she sat up and spoke with perfect firmness.

“How much are these tickets for your game of chance?” she asked, briskly.

“Four little marks,” said Tito, curling his lip to show what a contemptible sum they must both think it.

“I would not mind the money,” said Frau Rittersdorf, noting with some distress that this scene could hardly be more conspicuous. People were beginning to go by on their before-dinner parade. The bride and groom, oblivious of course; Dr. Schumann, oh dear! The Cuban students, somewhat more subdued these days, but full of mischief, with evil tongues, you might be certain; the dull Lutzes with their dull daughter, nothing to think about but gossip! The two priests—she had always made a point of bowing to them, but now she wished she were invisible. That dreadful American Denny with his mean sneer and evil eyes—the whole shipload of first-class passengers seemed to have taken advantage of her predicament, which she could never explain; for Tito was bending over her with the air of one very sure of his welcome, as if she were about to accept his invitation to coffee, perhaps. The sheaf of tickets had disappeared from his hand. Frau Rittersdorf summoned all her powers, sat up straighter than ever, noting in the same moment that Lola and Amparo, also in their ruffled dancing costumes, were leaning together at the rail nearby; she spoke firmly.

“I must know more about this from others,” she said. “It is a little vague, I do not understand yet precisely what it is you wish me to take part in. What you propose is far from customary. On the best boats you will find no such custom as this offering of a gala to the Captain in mid-voyage, or nearly. The proper moment for the Captain's dinner, you will find I am right, is the second evening before reaching the final destination. Believe me, I have traveled always until now on the finest ships and this is what is done by
le beau monde
… at earliest the third evening out depending on the weather and other such things.… No, I cannot see the necessity for your rushing this occasion merely because
you
must leave the ship at Vigo; most of us shall continue our journey to the end. Just before we arrive at Bremerhaven, I shall be delighted to join in any little plan to show our gratitude to our good Captain for his pains and troubles with us on this voyage. Not before. You must be so good as to excuse me.”

“But we who disembark at Vigo wish also to offer a little correct homage to our noble Captain,” said Tito, with great formality and in pretty fair German.

“Persons of the best society do these things otherwise,” answered Frau Rittersdorf, now in full stride as mentor, an apostolic light in her pale eyes. “I see no reason for assuming that the Captain will not know the difference if we offer him an entertainment which ignores the accepted forms of social life … and also, perhaps you do not know this, there is hardly ever—indeed, I can remember no such occasion, where an element of the commercial or of the lottery has been involved. One does not buy tickets for the Captain's dinner. Indeed, in the very last analysis, I am trying to explain to you that the Captain's farewell gala is by invitation of the Captain himself to his passengers, not the other way around. The food, decorations, favors, music, indeed everything but the champagne is provided from the commissary, for all the passengers as well as the guests at the Captain's table. So,” she ended triumphantly, for Tito was listening sharply and she hoped her lesson was sinking in, “you and your Spanish friends must do as you wish about this, privately, without engaging others who have different ideas about such things!”