Ship of Fools (77 page)

“Pardon, pardon,” he said, recovering his foothold, bowing from the waist and attempting to click his heels. They nodded and turned their distant eyes upon him, waved their hands lightly and went on, utterly indifferent to his sufferings, coldly careless that he was on the point of ending his miserable existence—worse still, unable even to imagine such a disaster!—with no more pity and humanity in them than his heartless wife. He returned to the side, took a good grip, and contemplated the waters again, and his situation, somewhat more calmly. So it was with him, here and now; he had come to this, and what a fool he had been to expect better! It was a tragic thing when a man was abandoned in his despair by the wife he had loved and trusted and given the best of everything, the wife he had depended upon to appreciate his devotion, to respect the nobility of his motives, to sustain his courage by her loyalty, to be indulgent of his weaknesses whatever they might be, for what man was altogether free of them? giving him freedom in all things while at the same time maintaining the restraints, appearances, and disciplines of daily life—what else was a wife for? Yet here he stood alone in the damp windy chill of midnight at sea in September, on the point of suicide; and she had not lifted a finger to save him. In fact, she had jeered at him, and mocked him onward.

Ah, it was the end. He could not endure it. No, and he would not either. What madness could have come over him that he had even for a moment dreamed of leaving his innocent, promising son, his only child, an orphan, and so badly provided for, after all. His insensible mother would certainly marry again, and leave her child to the tender mercies of a stepfather as she had left her husband to the cruel sea. In a new wave of fright and fresh outrage, but with a new resolution too, he began a long, dim struggle back to his cabin, with no clear plan in mind, but a fixed idea that seemed to be rooted somewhere in his vitals that now was the time to settle certain accounts, long overdue, with the female viper he had warmed in his bosom all these calamitous ten years.

Frau Baumgartner opened the door to her cabin noiselessly, and shaded the wall light with her palm as she turned the switch. Hans was in bed, as she had left him. He opened his eyes and blinked at her, smiling. She sat on the side of the bed and with a shake in her voice she could not control, asked him: “Were you asleep? Dreaming?”

“A little,” he said shyly. “I listened to the music a long time.”

“Did you say your prayers?”

“I forgot,” he said anxiously, afraid of a scolding. Instead she smoothed his hair and kissed him. “We'll say them later,” she told him. “Would you like to hear a story?”

Hans sat up instantly happy and wide awake. “Oh, you haven't told me a story since we came on this ship!”

“Poor child,” said his mother, reaching for her knitting bag, and sitting near him again. “What do you want to hear?”

“Hansel and Gretel,” he said at once. “I'd like that.”

“You're getting to be a big boy for such a childish story,” she told him, controlling her trembling fingers and getting the knitting started.

“I like it though, still,” he said a little timidly. “Is that my sweater you're making?”

“Yes,” she said, “and I mean to finish it before we get to Bremerhaven. I simply cannot worry any more about anything.” After a short uneasy pause while he watched her face to find out what she meant, she smiled at him and began: “Once upon a time there were a little brother and sister who lived in the Black Forest. His name was Hansel—Hans, like you; and hers was Gretel, like me; and one day they were wandering in the woods, picking flowers, when there came an old witch …”

Her voice steadied itself and smoothed out into the gentle drone that lulled Hans to sleep as if it were a rocking cradle; when she came to the part where the dear little brother and sister were stuffing the wicked old witch into her own blazing oven, Hans's eyelids were fluttering in vain efforts not to close, but at last he gave way and to the howling of the doomed witch he drew a soft deep breath and turned his head on the pillow.

Frau Baumgartner shaded the light with a small scarf, her eyes already running with tears. She sat down again and began to knit blindly, counting her stitches. If it took all night, she was going to sit there knitting and waiting for her husband.

When he opened the door wide and swung in, he could hardly believe what he saw there, yet it was all too clear. He had not known what he meant to do or say, but when she raised her stubborn face and stared at him unrepentantly, he raised his right arm. She dodged violently to one side, but the tears burst again down her cheek before the flat of his hand struck it like a wooden paddle. It was a light spanking blow that did her no harm, but in getting up from her chair she staggered and fell, striking her cheekbone on the washhand stand. Hans woke cowering and cringing; he covered his eyes with his crossed arms and shrieked. The ship was rolling so heavily Frau Baumgartner was awkward trying to get off the floor, and her husband took her hands and helped her. “Knitting!” he shouted at her as he raised her up, in a frenzy of grief, all anger forgotten. “Oh, how could you? Knitting with me about to destroy myself! Oh God, what does a man do with such a woman?”

“I don't care!” she cried with terrifying obstinacy. “I don't care! Look at your poor child,” she said, “you are frightening him to death. What will become of him if he sees us like this? Shame on you!”

The father turned upon his son, arms outspread to embrace him. Hans implored with his hands spread before him, “No please Papa don't hit me!” This was the cut that went to Herr Baumgartner's marrow. He dropped on his knees beside the bed, drew the sobbing child to his breast murmuring tenderly, “Papa's poor little boy, poor good little child, I wouldn't harm a hair of your head. How could you think I would hurt you?” Hans stiffened and turned his head rigidly from the stink of the breath blown in his nostrils, his mouth tightly closed, feeling with horror his father's clammy warm tears joining his own on his face. His mother came silently, her weeping finished, a big blue bruise already forming on her cheekbone. She spread her arms around her son and husband and said in a most loving voice, “Look, Karl—this must stop. We are wrong to torment him like this with our troubles. He will be sick. He will never forget. Karl, try to forgive me. I am sorry.” At once he straightened and turned about, drew her towards him almost over Hans, who leaned out as far from between them as he was able. “My sweet Gretel,” he said, “I am sorry too. My heart is broken!”

“Oh no, no,” she said, dismayed. Melted with tears and surprised by rising sensuality, they began to fondle not each other but the child between them; their newly roused passion for each other poured back and forth over and through him like a wave. Hans threw himself sidewise trying to break out of the prison of their arms. They then recollected themselves, and let him go. He hunched back in his bed against the wall and tried not to see them. His mother's headdress had fallen and lay underfoot, its ribbons crumpled and streaked by their bootsoles. She stopped to pick it up, his father lurched forward to hand it to her. They rose together, then sat down again, their arms about each other. “Oh, oh, oh,” his mother kept whispering in a breathless voice, hiding her face in his father's shoulder as if she wished to be smothered. “Oh, oh …”

When she raised her head, her wandering eyes rested on her little boy, his head turned away, hands hanging. He looked like any other lost unhappy neglected child, a foundling in the room not sure of his welcome. Without moving, for her husband's face was now buried on her shoulder, she spoke to Hans in her familiar maternal voice: “Wash your hands and face, my son, you'll feel better—hurry now, in warm water, not cold. It is late for you to be awake. We must all go to sleep now, to sleep.”

Hans rose, and began to wash his face timidly, fumbling with the wet washcloth, eyelids lowered as if he were ashamed to be seen in his nightshirt, washing before these strangers. In soundless wretchedness, with a pitiable mouth, he dried his face and hands and crawled into bed. pulling the covers up to his chin.

His mother approached him again, gently. “Ah, never you mind, my dear little one. Go to sleep to sleep—everything is over, nothing bad has happened. Sometimes we are crossest with the ones we love best. Say your prayers, little love, good night.”

She was smiling vaguely not exactly at him, but at something she was thinking about. His father came also and kissed him with a wet mouth on his cheek. “Good night, my little man.” They turned out the light and began to undress rapidly. He could tell by the sounds.

In the dark, he lay still, arms folded tightly over his chest, knees stiff, his stomach a hard knot, hearing in the narrow bed a few feet away his father and mother moving, turning, the sound of bedclothes being drawn up, pushed back; the gentle rustle and hiss of their whispered secret talk, shallow irregular breathings, and his mother's slow measured broken sighing—“Oh, oh, oh …” as if she were in pain; and his father's breathing “Sh-sh-sh—” suddenly ended by a long low groan. Something horrible was happening there in the dark, something frightful they were keeping from him—he strained his eyes staring, but there was only a wall of pure blackness mingled with the sounds of struggle. It was not even sound, but a feeling of commotion as if they might be struggling—and yet, maybe not, for his heart was beating so hard and so loudly it deafened him for a while; when his ears cleared again there was nothing to be heard. Then he heard his father asking tenderly in a slow whisper: “How do you feel? Are you happy?” And his mother's drowsy murmur, “Oh yes, yes, yes—yes.”

The little boy's muscles and nerves and even the ends of his fingers and the roots of his hair let go all at once, all over, all through him, as if the thousand sharp cords binding and cutting him everywhere had broken all at once. A long yawn of delicious sleepiness flowed in him like warm water. He flung himself loosely on his side, nearly face downward towards the wall; his hands and feet and the back of his neck felt easy and soft, he fell asleep blissfully drifting from cloud to cloud all by himself into that soft darkness without sound and without dream.

Mrs. Treadwell and her young officer were joined by other junior officers who seemed to be taking them in on a drinking party, while making a round of the ship. She remembered afterward that she had been rather gay all over the place—first in the bake shop helping some very polite lads make rolls. Her party looked in on the galley, the bar, the officers' mess, all four decks, the engine room, and no matter where they were, trays of drinks followed them. She was offered, and accepted, cognac, Chartreuse, port, Amer Picon, Rhine wine, and German champagne. At one point they met up with the purser, who got the surprise of his life when Mrs. Treadwell greeted him as a boon companion and kissed him fondly. He returned the compliment with a hearty smack on her cheek, and a shrewd look into her eyes. “
So
,” he said, indulgently, and trundled on, with the junior officers in his wake. Her partner of the evening appeared to expect her then to kiss him; she asked him why. He said it was not a thing one gave reasons for. Mrs. Treadwell thought it much the better idea to wait until tomorrow and see then how they both felt about it. He could not conceal his horror at such a point of view. “That is simply terrible!” he said, severely.

“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Treadwell. “I am sorry.” The charming young man looked very sulky, and Mrs. Treadwell noticed for the first time that he had a flashlight with him. He directed the ring of light at Mrs. Treadwell's feet, lighting her way, and they descended the narrow steps in silence, he holding her arm firmly. “I do not believe you are sober,” he informed her at last, “on the bridge you offered to steer the ship. No harm done of course—but I think it is the first time such a thing ever happened to the Captain.”

“He must lead a very sheltered life,” said Mrs. Treadwell, “poor man.” They strolled along the main deck, passed the dancers and the music, noticed Lizzi and Herr Rieber still waltzing, and towards the bow, that wretched Herr Baumgartner seemed to be being sick at the rail. He turned a face of despair towards them, almost an appeal for help. They passed, the young officer now supporting Mrs. Treadwell with an arm around her waist.

“He seems awfully sick, somehow,” said she, “perhaps dying. He says he is dying, of something very painful.”

The young officer said flatly, “I don't believe it at all. He just likes to drink all the time and keep himself sick.…”

Mrs. Treadwell said quite soberly “You don't believe then that people get sick and die some times just naturally? Of some disease they can't help?”

She noticed for the first time the cocky set of his white cap, farther to one side than was usual. He spoke up promptly in an intolerant voice: “Of course. But why should anyone claim special consideration merely because he happens to be dying? We are all sick,” he said dogmatically, and the stoic mask of self-pity covered his features for an instant. “We are all dying, only not at the same pace … well, is that anything to get excited about?”

“I am not at all excited about it,” said Mrs. Treadwell, a little on the defensive side, “but you seem to be.”

“I am never excited, never,” he told her, with a tremor in his voice that could mean anger, “it is simply that I who live a life of endless discipline have no patience with all the stupid muddle caused by such people as he, who do not know how to live!”

“Do you know?” asked Mrs. Treadwell gently, stopping and raising her face to his so that their glance met steadily. “Tell me.” It occurred to Mrs. Treadwell that this was an odd conversation in the light of what she saw at once was going to happen. He enveloped her wholly, waist, shoulders, arms, brought her instantly under control and kissed her violently on her mouth, which was still open in speech. Mrs. Treadwell shuddered at the same unpleasant sensation of being bitten, of the blood being drawn by suction to her mouth that had revolted her in the past, and she drew away, turned her head outward, refused, and defended herself by a passivity that dismayed and enraged him.