Ship of Fools (68 page)

The steward took up David's plate at last and set down a huge apple tart covered with whipped cream. “I'm
famished
,” he said to Jenny in friendly confidence, squashing into the mess with his fork.

What did they do with the children they stole?

Jenny glanced around and said, “Everybody looks tired. It's just the same as we were in Veracruz, or in Havana. We all remember we're strangers and don't like each other. We're all on our way somewhere else and we'll be glad to see the last of each other. God, I'd hate to think I'd ever get even a postcard from anybody on this ship again, as long as I live!”

David speared another forkful of apple tart. “You mean even Freytag?”

Jenny put down her idle fork and picked up her napkin and dropped it. “All right, David. Sleep well. Good night,” she said, blazing. She rose with her flying lightness as if she had springs instead of muscles and took off at top speed in her tight little walk but as if she were on skates.… David finished his dessert and drank his coffee.

The voyagers straggled out of the dining room and took a turn or so about deck and disappeared. Portholes were darkened early. The Captain on the bridge swallowed his bismuth and went to bed, abandoning the fiction that he and not the second mate was getting the ship to sea after the pilot left. The purser doing his paper work sent for coffee and cake, nodding and waking as he ate. Dr. Schumann, as if walking in his sleep, made a round of the steerage, treated the baby with the infected navel, gave paregoric to a man with cramps, dressed the cut forehead of a man who had taken part in the steerage brawl, and did what he could to pass the hours of this disastrous night, as he felt the sea and distance and time itself piling up between him and the island he would never see again, had not in fact seen at all, except as a steep road from the dock with a small white carriage climbing away slowly taking with it all the vanities and illusions of his life. Father Garza could say as much as he liked “Deal with her as with a scarlet woman, an incorrigible heretic, do not set foot in her snares,” but these words changed nothing, meant nothing. He walked around the deck and waved a greeting to the ship's band, folding up for the night after a token tune or so; stepped round the sailors who had the ship to themselves, such healthy fine young animals, with not a shaky nerve among them, lucky dogs; in the whole crew there was not a sick man among them except the boy with the floating kidney, who still presided over the deck games, and seemed to be no worse for it, though no attention had been paid to Dr. Schumann's recommendations for his treatment. Dr. Schumann resisted his impulse to ask the boy how he was getting on, and barely glanced in passing, without his habitual twinge of commiseration, at the handsome young man, a perfect specimen of pure mindless well-being, wheeling the crotchety little dying man for a last breath of evening air. Noticing again the sulky, scowling face secure in its instinctive self-righteous resentment, Dr. Schumann felt the swift sting of a strange envy of that preposterous cruel innocence.

They seemed to be setting out along the coast of Africa, Herr Glocken decided, following the end of his finger across the map of an atlas he picked up in the library. He was troubled with his recollections of the day just past in Santa Cruz, not the town nor the people in it, but himself and his own unhandsome part in events witnessed by passengers who would be sure to despise him for lack of presence of mind, for cowardice, even. The very shape of the word in his head gave him cold shudders. He ached steadily all over, in his veins and in his bones, his teeth throbbed, and a double dose of his medicine did very little to ease him. He ate his dinner to keep up his strength and went to bed early to be free of his cabin mates for an hour. He tucked himself in on his side under his blanket, doubled the pillows under his head, and opened his big flat unwieldy book full of facts that might help put him to sleep. “Latest maps,” the foreword announced, “… all countries … all states … the heavens … voyages of discovery … statistical information on oceans, lakes, rivers, islands, mountains and stars …” Herr Glocken could see plainly on his map under his finger that indeed even now the ship must be reeling along the indifferent coast of Africa that had no port on that shore. What was the difference to him where he was, or what doing? He fell asleep.

David sometime later found him there breathing slowly, the light still on, the open atlas spread over his face. David removed the book and turned out the light without disturbing him. He then remembered seeing Denny in the bar, by now so sopped in alcohol David half expected him to ignite spontaneously every time he lighted a cigarette. No such luck, though; he would come in late falling over everything in the place, stinking and sweating and mumbling; on second thought, David drew Herr Glocken's curtain close, turned on the light again as a guide to Denny, went to bed and drew his own curtain. The very top of his mind seemed to be the only part of it that was working at all, or at least, any voice he could hear, and that kept stupidly repeating like a parrot: “To hell with it. Jump ship. Just get off at Vigo and keep going. Jump ship. To hell with it.…” The clamor went on until it came to him that he might as well be counting sheep. He counted sheep slowly and breathed very deeply at the same time, an exercise his mother had taught him at five years, when songs and bedtime stories could not quiet him any longer. The old trick worked again, good as new; he waked next morning much refreshed to Denny's loud yawns and groans, Herr Glocken's pleadings for someone to give him a glass of water, and the peremptory call of the breakfast bugle.

Jenny woke early and looked out of the porthole for news of the weather. The sky was pale, sunless, the water was gray and silver-speckled for the first time. She was chilled and pulled on a sweater when she dressed. The ship had crossed some line in the night, it was not summer any more, but early fall.

Elsa opened her eyes and stretched and got up to the porthole to breathe in the dampness with delight. “Oh, look,” she said, in gentle wonder, “oh, it is like Europe now, all misty and dim and soft, I remember it now. It is like coming home already. It seems strange I ever lived in Mexico.…”

“But Switzerland is all sunlight and color, or so I have heard?” remarked Jenny. “I thought they had nothing but sunny weather. And snow. All the travel folders say so.”

Elsa brought her head in and around from the porthole. Her ungirlish face was softened in a near-smile, not very becoming, perhaps, but a change from her habitual bewildered sadness.

“Oh no,” she said with a queer earnest pride, “in St. Gallen we have fogs and rain like anywhere else. Oh,” she breathed out despairingly, “maybe it will be better there.”

The bulletin board once again bristled with seagoing information: ship departures and arrivals, maritime strikes and other disturbances in world ports; troubles in Cuba, troubles in Spain, troubles in Germany, knots, latitudes, longitudes, sun risings and settings, phases of the moon, today's prophecies of weather for tomorrow; besides the games and horse races and moving pictures and the ship's pool; and an announcement by the zarzuela company that the long-awaited gala evening in homage to the honored Captain of the
Vera
would take place this very evening, with a dinner, music, and dancing, a brilliant performance of comedy by the members of the zarzuela company, hosts of the evening; and a final drawing of numbers for the splendid prizes offered to the fortunate holders of tickets for the raffle. Fantasy costumes and masks. Seating arrangements at all tables to be changed for the sake of festive novelty. A few tickets remained unsold; Doña Lola or Doña Amparo would be happy to oblige whoever wished to purchase. A special view of the prizes would be offered at the morning refreshment hour in the bar. All cordially invited.

Several of those who had been targets of rude remarks on this subject now drifted by with wary side glances—Herr Glocken, the Baumgartners; Herr Rieber, taking advantage of Lizzi's absence, no telling what those guttersnipes might think of next; and even Freytag, moved by curiosity only, stopped to read.

“Quite a change of tone,” he remarked to the next corners, Frau and Herr Professor Hutten, “sinister, I should say. Isn't it a little late for them to be practicing manners on us?”

“
Good
manners, yes,” said the Herr Professor, carefully, “after all the other kinds they have been giving us. But a change for the better, I should say dear sir, even if only superficial, temporary, and for unworthy motives—”

“What other kind could they have?” asked Freytag, feeling cheerful all at once. There was something about the way the Herr Professor took on any subject or situation, on a moment's notice, poured it into the mold of his own mind and handed it back to you all in one piece, without a seam, that put Freytag in a good malicious humor. It took genius to be such a bore as that.

Frau Hutten signaled to Bébé by a small pull on his leash. Her husband took the hint and they went on to the bar. Frau Hutten could hardly wait to see what those thieving dancers had managed to bring on board. She was not the only one. Lola and Amparo, looking remarkably fresh and somewhat less scornful than usual, stood on each side of a narrow trestle table with a kind of display rack above it, a makeshift got up for them by the barkeeper and the commissary stores man together, and they had a quite presentable show of loot; somewhat on the feminine side, perhaps, as if meant for women to win for themselves or men to win for them. “It's all right if you like lace,” David said to Mrs. Treadwell, and she smiled vaguely as she passed and said, “I do like lace usually, but not today.” There were a number of fine carved tall tortoise-shell combs, an assortment of lace table-cloths, a gauzy black lace mantilla, a large white embroidered shawl, bright-colored scarfs, a rather coarse lace bedspread, an assortment of black and white lace fans, two ruffled petticoats, and a length of airy white embroidered linen. Frau Schmitt could not decide whether this linen was meant for altar cloths or petticoat ruffles. In any case, she refused to covet it, or even to admire it, for it was stolen, and those people should be denounced and punished. But who would denounce them? And to what authority? Who would listen to her? She had troubles enough, griefs enough, she could not bear the thought of one more snub or piece of neglect from anybody about anything. This was a terrible, evil world and she was helpless in it. She reached out and rubbed the linen tenderly between thumb and forefinger. “Beautiful, beautiful,” she said in German to Amparo, almost under her breath. Amparo instantly extended her right hand full of tickets and pulled one from the pack with her left. “Four marks,” she said, as if Frau Schmitt had asked for one. “Wait,” said Frau Schmitt, rather breathlessly, fumbling in her change purse.

Denny, a good deal the worse for wear, had nonetheless succeeded in overtaking Pastora for a moment. They were at a table near the bar. He was drinking restorative beer, she was sipping a cup of coffee and watching him acutely over the rim of her cup. He later reported to David that he never had really caught on to what they were up to, but Pastora made it all sound like good clean fun—“just a regular
baile
,” he said, “sounds like one of these hoedowns the greasers are always having around Brownsville. Well, let's go. Anyhow, I'm collecting off that gal tonight or I'll damn well know why not.” Meantime, he decided to lay off the liquor, take a good sleep and get himself in shape for the hoedown.

Herr Baumgartner's favorite theory was that a social occasion was a sacred duty, to be performed as well as one was able no matter what one's private condition of mind or body. His parents had observed this at first with some approval as the normal fun-loving spirit of childhood, later with some dismay as they saw that he would leave any family task undone, all study hours neglected, all household rules ignored, even defied, to run after the most trivial fleeting pleasures, often in most undesirable company. Frau Baumgartner, after long experience with her husband's vagaries, agreed with his parents that there was an incurable streak of frivolity in him. In spite of all, she had never succeeded in refraining from wifely warnings and cautions, not against innocent pastimes, who could disapprove of those? but the late hours, the drinking, the prolonged card games with inevitable loss of money; all the male amusements of the
Turnverein
, bowling, singing half the night, steins in hand; running off to the street fairs with a set of cronies to shoot at clay targets and make himself sick on Mexican food, bringing home an armload of trashy dolls and vases and mechanical toys too childish even for Hans, who dutifully pretended to be pleased with them. Ah well, she had done what she could, and yet—was it her fault that her husband, who loved her, she was sure of it, who had been so delightfully merry-hearted in their first years together—who, she could never deny, had been until late years a devoted husband, father, provider—was it her fault that he could not find any satisfaction in the joys of home, the gentle domestic habits, the company of his dear family? She began to fear that she would never know.

She was therefore not surprised, but unpleasantly impressed, when in midafternoon he began rummaging in the crowded cabin, fishing out oddities of costume suitable for Mardi Gras or shipboard parties. He tried on her red and white plaid jacket, which sat on him with just the right misfit for comic effect. “What are you doing?” she asked, knowing the answer before he spoke.

“But I cannot understand!” she cried. “What have we to do with those terrible people, who cheated us out of our money and then stole everything they could lay hands on in Santa Cruz … we saw them. Why, why should you go to their party?”

“It is a party, just the same,” said Herr Baumgartner, seriously, tying on the shaggy whiskers that had frightened the little Cuban girl. “I feel we should not be skeletons at the feast. At least the children should be allowed a little enjoyment.” He smiled at Hans, whose face was shining happily as he watched his father's preparations. “
They
are innocent,” he said unctuously, “why should we punish them for the guilt of their elders?”