Ship of Fools (57 page)

“Take it easy,” he said, “what you got against religion—I mean, well,
religion
? I don't mean beads and fish bread and mumbo-jumbo, I mean—well, I just don't understand, that's all.”

“No, you don't,” groaned Hansen. “Do you know what happened this morning at the funeral of that poor man who gave his life for a worthless dog, a pampered pet of those fat middle-class people who—”

“I nearly missed it,” said Denny, “I just got in for the scrimmage. Why, hell, man, I was standing right next to you!”

“I did not see you,” said Hansen.

“Well, I damned near didn't make it,” said Denny, having lost the thread of his argument, whatever it was. Hansen, glowering knottily into his beer, said nothing further and seemed to forget that Denny was there. Herr Löwenthal sidled over to the bar, with a face of distress, and nodded to Denny, one of the few passengers with whom he still felt on speaking terms. He grimaced and laid his flattened hand on his midriff. “It still makes me feel sick,” he said. “Think of being sewed up in a sack and thrown overboard like a dog! Makes me sick …”

“Well, I can't think what else they could do with him,” said Denny, reasonably.

“Why, they could put him in a box with ice and keep him until we got to dry land,” said Löwenthal, “and bury him like a human being.”

“It wouldn't be practical,” said Denny. “Too expensive. And besides, that's a regular custom … if you die on board ship you get buried at sea, don't you?”

“I've been back and forth, back and forth, how many times already, and never till now did I see a thing like this. It looks like heathens.”

“Well, yes,” agreed Denny reluctantly, “those Catholics. But what do you care?”

“I don't,” said Herr Löwenthal, “I should worry about what Christians do to each other—I got enough trouble without. But it made me sick.”

It was Denny's turn to brood. He was in a bad position. Here was an atheist on one side, talking like a Bolshevik. And here was a Jew on the other side, criticizing Christians … that is, Catholics. Well, he didn't like Catholics any more than he did atheists, on the other hand he didn't like the idea of a Jew talking against Christians. Suppose he, Denny, said to Löwenthal, “I think Jews are heathens,” how would he take it? He'd accuse him right away of persecuting Jews … Denny began to feel tired in the head. He began to look forward to the end of his stay in Germany, and to getting back to Brownsville once more, where a man knew who was who and what was what, and niggers, crazy Swedes, Jews, greasers, bone-headed micks, polacks, wops, Guineas and damn Yankees knew their place and stayed in it. That fat guy in the steerage got what was coming to him, treating a funeral like that, and he acted like an atheist too, but it stuck in Denny's craw that a bunch of those spic-Catholics had conked him. “Wops,” he said loudly, to nobody, “just a lot of wops.”

“Wops?” asked Herr Löwenthal, uneasily, a red spark glowing deep in his eyes. “What wops?” He did not wait for an answer, but walked away rapidly, carrying his drink. “I don't know any wops,” he said over his shoulder.

“Kike,” said Denny to himself, in a confidential tone, “that's all.”

Freytag and Löwenthal, though they would never know it, or if they had known, would never admit it, shared a common cause for thankfulness in the diversion of the passengers' attention towards such dramatic events as the drowning and burial at sea of the reckless Basque, whose name even now no one remembered, except perhaps an equally nameless few in the steerage. Freytag's rage and resentment at the mean little scandal at the Captain's table had swept him away into postures he had not intended; had exposed him in a peculiarly false, unbecoming light, no less false because the incident was only a variation of many that had happened before, and would happen to him again and again, so long as he was married to Mary. The sinister thing about this episode was, it was the first time any unpleasant thing of this kind had happened to him when he was traveling without Mary. He had to admit that he looked forward to the few occasions that separated them for even a few days, when he enjoyed again, with a great lightness of heart, the privilege—and what a divine privilege it was, how ever had he taken it so for granted in the old days?—of being a member of the ruling class of the ruling race of the world, capable of extending his career as far in any direction as his own talents could carry him; free to rise without challenge to any level of society he chose. Oh, what had he thrown away in this insane marriage—yes, and what had he done to Mary, whose life was as threatened as his own? Suddenly without any care for appearance, for he was sitting in his deck chair, he doubled his fists over his eyes and groaned, “Mary, darling, forgive me.” He heard her light pretty voice saying instantly, “Why of course I forgive you—what have you done?”

The whole thing from start to finish was his own fault; he could only accept this hard fact, writhing with wounded pride—how could he trust himself for anything if he made such a fool of himself in this matter of his whole life and Mary's? His rage rose again in its first freshness against everyone who had witnessed his humiliations, those who presumed to pity him, to make apologies—that wretched Baumgartner—and those who presumed to share his wrong—that Jenny Brown, with her sentimental habit of trying to get into everybody's skin. Really, he liked Mrs. Treadwell better, with her complete insensibility. And as for the rest of them, especially the dullards at the Captain's table, who would take pleasure in snubbing him if only they could catch his eye, he wished deeply that Mary were with him: she would have made them positively entertaining with her ruthless humor and charming utterly heartless malice. “Why, Mary!” he said to her once, shocked and admiring, “How can you be so cruel? Don't you belong to the human race?” She had paused briefly, shot him a keen sidelong glance, and said: “No, not really—I am a Jew, remember?”

Löwenthal, in spite of the unpleasant state of affairs—it was nothing new to him—was still quite willing to engage in a little conversation for sociability with almost anybody who came along, just so they kept off the subject of religion—
his
religion, for he did not admit the existence of any other; all religions except his own were simply a lot of heathens following false gods. It didn't matter what they called themselves. He had been reminded more than once by some Goy who wanted an argument that there were something like two billion human beings in the world, all presumably created by the same God, and only a matter of some twenty million Jews. So what had God in mind, showing such unjust partiality? Such nonsense never fazed Herr Löwenthal for an instant. “I got nothing to say on the subject,” he would answer, “you should argue with a rabbi. I take his word he knows God's business.” But the mere pronunciation of the Name, even in a heathen language, even only the Name which stood for the Name which must never be uttered, made him uneasy. He always changed the subject if he could, or walked away if he couldn't. It didn't matter to him what the Goyim thought of him, whether they liked him or not. He didn't like them, so he was a jump ahead of them from the start. He didn't want them to do him any favors—he would get what he wanted out of them by himself, and no thanks to anybody. All he wanted in the world was the right to be himself, to go where he pleased and do what he wanted without any interference from Them—what right had They …?

That no race or nation in the world, nor in all human history, had enjoyed such rights made no difference to Herr Löwenthal: he should worry about things none of his business. He simmered and seethed like lava boiling underground, turning upon itself with no way out. He distrusted all Goyim, but he distrusted most of all those who plagued him with talk about how they disapproved of all racial prejudice, how they had none themselves, and how they hated what the Captain had done, and how they had good Jewish friends, and how everybody knew that some of the most talented people in the world were Jews. And so generous—always helping somebody. Herr Löwenthal pursed up his mouth and made a spluttering sound, almost in the very face of that American shicksa who carried a drawing book everywhere, the one traveling with a man she wasn't married to, as if it mattered! Who without even saying good morning came up from the back and started walking along with him, chattering about how she thought the whole thing was a perfect disgrace, and she wanted him to know that she was shocked at it.

“At what shocked?” he asked, not looking at her, feeling his face curl up with distaste at her nearness. She kept bending her neck around trying to look him in the eye, but one quick glance was all she got from him. He couldn't stand shicksas at any distance. “What happened you got shocked?”

She didn't take the hint, but went on saying she couldn't bear for him to think that everybody had felt the same as the Captain, or Herr Rieber or—well, people like them. Nearly everybody she had talked to had hated the whole thing; but the Captain, she pointed out, was running the ship, so what could a passenger do? “I just wanted you to know,” she ended, rather timidly, as if that settled something, as if he cared what she thought, as if what she said would make any difference to him. The nerve of her!

He said, “Well, what I got to do with all this? I'm not worrying, I just sit where they put me, minding my own business; maybe Herr Freytag is the one you should sympathize with. He's the one got kicked out, not me. I been out all along,” he said, “I got no complaint, I'm used to being a Jew.”

The shicksa stopped in her tracks and asked him in a blaze of temper: “Are you always so stupidly rude, or is this a special occasion?” Without waiting for an answer, she spun about and made off in the opposite direction. Herr Löwenthal noted that her legs were like a stork's. In a pleasant glow of satisfaction he lighted a good cigar and stretched out in his deck chair. He snapped his fingers at a passing steward. “Beer,” he said, briefly but not unkindly.

One of the Spanish dancing girls stopped beside his chair, and offered two oblong bits of cardboard with printing on them. “Here are your two tickets for our fiesta,” she said, her harsh voice toned down to a rough murmur. Herr Löwenthal on inspiration decided to pretend he took them for a gift. “Thanks just the same,” he said in a patronizing manner, making a motion to put them in his pocket.

“Two dollars,” she said, holding out her palm slightly cupped, rubbing thumb and forefinger together.

“
What?
You selling them? What for?” Herr Löwenthal was in a waggish humor.

“A fiesta.”

“What kind of fiesta?”

“We dance, we sing, we eat and drink and then we have a little lottery for beautiful prizes—maybe one of your tickets win? Maybe both! Who knows?”

Herr Löwenthal's good humor lapsed. “Who knows? I know one thing, I got this kind of luck—if I had a winning number in my pocket, by the time I got to the place to claim it, the number would have changed, all by itself … Now don't argue,” he said, thrusting the tickets back into her hand. “Take these and go away.”

“Filthy pig,” she said in a Romany dialect.

“Whore,” he said in Yiddish.

Manolo bowed to little Señora Ortega, bent over her deck chair offering tickets and a shattering fire of explanations. The Indian nurse, sitting near holding the baby, glanced quickly at the tickets and away again, face calm, eyelids lowered. She could not read words, but she could smell a chance-game at a great distance, she knew numbers when she saw them, and bought a fraction of every lottery that came along, because she knew one more thing very well: for her kind, born on the straw mat, barefoot from dirt floor to grave, there was only one hope of fortune—to hit the lucky number, just once! Her dead mother often spoke to her anxiously in dreams: “Nicolasa, my child, listen now to me carefully—listen, do you hear me, Nicolasa? I am about to give you the winning number for the next lottery. Buy the whole ticket, look until you find the seller who has it. He is in Cinco de Mayo street. His name is …” and always, as she began to recite his name, the number, the serial, all, her words would run together, her face grow dim, her voice die away, and Nicolasa, waking in fright, would hear herself calling out, “Oh wait, Mother! Don't go … tell me, tell me!”

Señora Ortega smiled at the expression on Nicolasa's face. She knew it well, and what it meant. She bought the two tickets from Manolo and gave them without a word to the Indian girl, who would have kissed Señora Ortega's hand if she had not instantly taken it back. She then dismissed Manolo without a glance at him as if he were a stupid servant, and said to the girl, “Let me hold the baby awhile. He is so sweet this morning.” Manolo was touchy and impudent: he had the money and it would take more than a Mexican halfbreed to insult him. In fact he was so elated with success where he had not expected it, he sold tickets to the Baumgartners and to the bride and groom before his spirits flagged; they didn't put up any sort of fight. He observed, however, in the two pairs of eyes, light blue and dark blue, of the American painters a glint of pure, implacable hostility which did not waver as he came nearer. He had no words to express his contempt for this colorless, sexless pair, no more juice in them than a turnip, sitting around with their drawing boards pretending to be artists. He did not pause at their chairs, just the same: he would leave them to Lola or Amparo, especially Amparo, who could tame tigers.

Jenny and David, sitting together amiably, watched Manolo prance by with an extra flip of his behind for their benefit. David said, “I liked them better before they began mingling social consciousness with their blackmail. Did you happen to see the bulletin board this morning?”

“I was so furious with that Löwenthal I couldn't see anything,” said Jenny. “What are the dancers up to now?”