Catch As Catch Can

by Joseph Heller

  Only once did the Captain intervene directly between parent and child, and the mere memory of that affair still filled him

  with dread. Nevil had unintentionally injured Nan slightly in a game they were playing, and Neil stormed out in a rage and began beating the boy, cursing aloud in a vicious outburst that left no care for the direction or force of his blows. The Captain held back as long as he could and then hooked on to Neil’s shoulders and tried to restrain him. Neil whirled, a look of brutal hatred on his face, and for a moment the Captain actually feared for his life.

  “You’re—hurting him,” he managed to cry feebly.

  Neil showed no sign of having heard. In another second something disastrous might have occurred, but the situation was brought mercifully to a close by the boy, who collapsed in his father’s hands.

  When Dr. Berensen arrived he was told that Nevil had fallen down the basement steps. He was with the boy a long time, and he returned with an angry frown. Neil followed and lurked sheepishly about the doorway, but Dr. Berensen ignored him and spoke tersely to the Captain.

  “What happened to him, Andrew?”

  “Will he be all right?”

  “I don’t know if he’ll be all right. His injuries aren’t serious, if that’s what you mean. Andrew, what happened to him?”

  “He fell down the steps.”

  “I’d like to see those steps. Andy, why do you call me? I retired seven years ago.”

  “Cynthia wants you. You’re the only doctor she’s ever had.”

  “Tell her to get someone else,” Dr. Berensen snapped. “I don’t understand cases like these.” He ended his agitated pacing and continued in a milder voice. “How have you been, Andrew? Stomach all right?” But before he left, he said: “I mean that, Andrew. Don’t call me for anything like this again.”

  It was Dr. Berensen who had delivered Cynthia into the world, and Dr. Berensen also who two years later was forced to stand by helplessly after an abortive attempt at a caesarean had

  opened a hemorrhage through which the substance of the Captain’s first treasure had emptied remorselessly. The Captain had never married again. For one thing, Cynthia would not have permitted it. Almost from the start she had shown a jealous possessiveness; and now she guarded him with a greedy solicitude which kept him closely at her side and made him account for each moment away from the house. The Captain had some small investments and would have preferred living elsewhere, but he had been moved to a point where only to oblige was an occupation, and he did not quarrel.

  It was not until Cynthia went away to college that the Captain really tasted loneliness. They had been close to each other, but one day she returned to him a stranger, nervous in conversation and inflexibly determined to be about affairs of her own. She already knew Neil, and soon she disclosed their plans for an early marriage.

  “We’d both really like a small wedding, but Neil is an only child and Mrs. Stevens has always wanted something special. She says she’ll take care of all the expenses if you let her manage it.”

  “Please tell her,” said the Captain, “that it doesn’t matter to me who pays for it. I do feel, though, that you and Neil should decide what kind of ceremony to have.”

  The wedding took place under the direction of Mrs. Stevens. It was a truly impressive affair, one by which each guest seemed more than properly awed, and in due time the bills for it all found their way to the Captain’s table.

  It was the week after his sister sailed that the Captain’s future was virtually determined.

  He was called into the city one day—as executor of a deceased friend’s will, it was his unpleasant role to preside over a quarrel that had broken out among the beneficiaries—and he soon found himself alone with the whole of a beautiful spring day still before him. In his newspaper he saw that the Washington was sailing that very noon, sailing for such distant retreats as Cobh, Le Havre, and Southampton. A moment’s hesitation and he was in a cab. Almost miraculously he found himself aboard the ship, with no obligation this time to confine his roaming. A sense of indescribable ease and contentment pervaded him, and as he moved leisurely over the decks and through the passageways he could not help pretending to himself that he really was sailing. Back on the pier, he did not wave to anyone, but he found the experience even more wonderful than before, and his imagination was still more deeply stirred.

  A coincidence, though very slight, finally decided him.

  He was drawn from his bed several days later for one of the powders Dr. Berensen had provided for his gastric attacks and then—that very same morning—learned from the papers that the Washington had been delayed and was tossing in heavy seas outside of Southampton.

  It had been a miserable crossing—very miserable, indeed, if even the Captain suffered with seasickness—but the return trip more than atoned for it with a daily treat of quiet waters, gentle winds, and endlessly invigorating showers of clean air and sunshine.

  The Captain passed the time in a deckchair on his porch, smiling up placidly at the porcelain sky, or playing shuffleboard with a very young lady whose acquaintance he made his second day at sea. An Austrian girl orphaned by the Anschluss, she was on her way to Atlanta—a city she fervently hoped would not be too unlike Vienna. She spoke English with a fetching inaccuracy and brooded continually over the Captain’s inability to remember his muffler.

  Two days at home and he was away again, this time on the Nieuw Amsterdam. He was not sorry to go.

  Neil had begun the Captain’s shoreleave by renewing his assault on the management of the Captain’s securities, the inducement this time being an oil issue to appear shortly. The amount

  actually involved was small, but Neil, himself with an investment house, was incessantly annoyed by the matter of the Captain’s own broker, and it required consummate tact to resist him. Finally he gave up. Almost immediately the children were at his side.

  “What’s oil?” Nan demanded.

  “Petroleum.”

  “What’s petroleum?”

  Neil turned angrily to where Cynthia was busy at the table. Cynthia belonged to a women’s organization devoted to the maintenance of a nursing home for children, and she was engaged in estimating the receipts to accumulate from the annual spring luncheon, at which, for the first time, she would be seated on the dais.

  “God damn it, Cyn! Can’t you keep them away from me on my one day off?”

  Cynthia faced him with an icy stare. “Don’t swear at me in front of the children. I’ve told you that before.”

  The Captain spied the storm warnings, and he quickly guided the children into the study. Once there they waited expectantly. The Captain, remembering something Dr. Berensen had once told him about the childhood of Robert Browning, picked a book from the desk and placed it on the carpet.

  “This,” he began cautiously, “is oil. A very valuable thing, and very hard to get. Now, the first thing we must do is bring it out of the ground. You two are a bit younger than I am, so you handle the drilling. I’ll sit back and try to supervise.”

  In a moment they were all transported to the plains of Texas, laboring happily for the strike that would soon be theirs. They made phenomenal progress and were already in the refinery— Nevil had just castigated Nan severely for smoking in the plant—when Neil appeared, wearing that boyish indecision which always spelled repentance.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Come on, Daddy,” Nan cried. “We’re getting the oil out.”

  Neil relaxed a bit. “What’s that book doing on the floor?”

  “That’s not a book. That’s oil. ”

  “Oil is something else,” Neil said. “That’s only a book.”

  The children were suddenly embarrassed. They drew away from the Captain accusingly.

  “Grandpa said it was oil.”

  Neil began to understand, and he spoke with a loud buoyancy that echoed strangely in the quiet room. “Well, it isn’t really oil, but I guess we can make believe it is. Come on!
Let’s get it out.”

  But Nan had had enough, and she marched indignantly through the door. Nevil followed, leaving a strained silence behind.

  “I—I guess I spoiled their game.”

  “It wasn’t important.”

  “I—I hope you understand that I don’t mean to speak roughly to the kids or to Cynthia. It’s just—just that sometimes they get after me when I’m in a bad mood.”

  The Captain said nothing.

  The next evening Ralph Paterson came there for dinner. Neil drew the Captain aside in the afternoon.

  “He’s not too nice a person, I guess,” he said nervously. “He has some pretty unusual opinions about Hitler and doesn’t care who knows it. But he’s really not bad when you know him, and anyway, he’s a very important client and we have to handle him with kid gloves.”

  The Captain saw the familiar hint. It was an effort to keep his voice steady. “Truthfully, Neil, I wasn’t planning to dine tonight. I’m a bit tired, and I thought I’d have something light and retire early.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that I didn’t want you there,” Neil hastened to explain. “It’s just—just that I know how strongly you

  feel about what’s going on over there. He’s pretty touchy, and it would sort of make things awkward if you got into a—a discussion.”

  The Captain was grateful when the chance to sail on the Nieuw Amsterdam arrived. The Captain liked the Nieuw Amsterdam at first sight, was immediately at home there. He was sorry when the time came to make his way back to the pier, but it was with considerable satisfaction that he saw the gangplanks loosened and, amid the festive blare of horns and a sudden, bright shower of falling streamers, watched himself depart on his second voyage.

  Having committed himself to a new career, the Captain now plunged into work with an energy and devotion that would have been exhausting in someone less zealously inclined. Voyage followed voyage, and soon he was at sea almost all the time.

  At first Neil and Cynthia treated the whole thing as a joke. The night the Austins, friends of theirs just returned from a trip to Europe, were there, was typical. The Captain liked the Austins, especially Ruth, who called him Andy and teased him blatantly about a young mistress in the city. The Captain rejoiced in this raillery, but it was gall to Cynthia, who would grow tense and resentful and try with stiff perseverance to deflect the conversation. Once she had even fled the room and later had upbraided the Captain fiercely for encouraging Ruth. Neil sided with the Captain and turned on Cynthia angrily, and in the end the Captain was forced to pacify them both. The Captain listened indulgently as the Austins recounted their journey.

  “Ah, Cobh,” he interrupted at one point. “A lovely harbor.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “Oh, yes. Many times.”

  “It must have been a long time ago.”

  “Not so long,” smiled the Captain. “In fact, quite recently, you might say.”

  “That’s odd. We didn’t even enter the harbor. I thought none of the regular liners ever docked in Ireland.”

  “It is all a matter of the tides,” announced the Captain, recovering from a sudden cough. “As you know, Cobh is a small harbor lined with very dangerous shoals. The tide has to be exactly right before they can bring a large vessel in. It was unfortunate you missed it.”

  Neil and Cynthia both broke into laughter as soon as the Austins had gone.

  “Why, you old faker,” Neil cried appreciatively.

  “Well,” chuckled the Captain. “I have been there.”

  “When?” demanded Cynthia. “When were you ever there?”

  “Oh, a long time ago, my dear. At one time I traveled a great deal.”

  They were satisfied with that, and once again the Captain prided himself on his navigation. But inwardly he was sober, for he was surprised that Cobh was in Ireland. He had imagined it in one of the Low Countries, in Belgium, Holland, or Norway, and the next day found him guiltily in the town library. It was pleasant there, and he returned often to read about places he was visiting. He would sit by the window and pause for long intervals. He would grow absorbed in the loafers jollying each other across the street or relaxing on the bench in the sunshine, content in their tobacco and quiet talk, men his own age with whom it had been too late to grow familiar.

  Actually he learned little from his books, for his fancy would alter each fact to his taste. Italy became a land of festivals and mandolins in which the sole means of conveyance was the gondola. There were no coal mines in Spain; groves of citrus trees covered the countryside, and the women were as fertile as the land and had dark hair and dark eyes and were all lovely and vibrant with a wholesome, passionate, and incorrigibly pagan wantonness.

  The Captain’s voyages continued, and of all ships he came to prize the Queen Elizabeth most, not on merit alone, but also for the historical associations which the name recalled. The Captain had never heard the Elizabethans described as “the giant race before the flood,” but it was a judgment in which he would have heartily concurred; and the names Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Milton, Raleigh, Byron, Drake, and Newton all sounded paeans in his thoughts.

  The war, of course, changed everything. When duty called, the Captain knew what to do, and he did not hesitate. He enrolled in the merchant marine, and, against the advice of his broker, began converting his securities into defense bonds.

  Those were grim years for the Captain, years when the ocean was black and the voyage to Murmansk longer than a trip to Mars. He was torpedoed again and again, eighteen times in all, and once, after floating three days in a blinding gale, was brought to bed with an acute case of indigestion.

  “Fried oysters,” Dr. Berensen grumbled, in a dour and complaining mood. “Won’t you ever grow up?”

  “Too much water,” declared the Captain.

  “What’s that?”

  The Captain covered a smile, in excellent spirits now that his gravest fears had been dispelled. He was propped up in bed, dapper and gay in a pair of navy blue pajamas, and he pressed a mischievous pinky over his white moustache.

  “Too much water,” he repeated. “That’s what brought it on.”

  “Water wouldn’t bother you. It’s what you eat. You have to be careful, Andrew.”

  “It was the water,” the Captain persisted merrily. “You can’t expect a man my age not to be affected by icy water.”

  “Don’t drink ice water,” Dr. Berensen said. “And don’t eat any fried foods. Get some sleep now. I’ll be in to see you tomorrow.”

  “You don’t understand,” the Captain continued dangerously. “I’ve been torpedoed.”

  “We’ve all been torpedoed,” Dr. Berensen said tiredly. He closed his visiting bag and stood up. “Good-bye, Andrew. Please take care of yourself.”

  Ten days passed before Dr. Berensen grudgingly returned him to duty, but he was proudest of all when the Captain was awarded the D.S.M.O. and his photograph—a poor likeness, everyone admitted—blazoned across the front page of every newspaper in the land.

  Shortly after the war ended, a wonderful thing happened to the Captain. He met Mr. Simpson. The Captain had not meant to resume all his activities when peace came, but he was soon at sea again more than ever before. One day as he was peering at the city in a vain attempt to find his bearings, a voice spoke at his side.

  “You’re an old sailor, I see.”

  The Captain turned to face a young man in the braided blue uniform of a ship’s officer, about Neil’s age, with a friendly, un-inquisitive smile that stilled the Captain’s alarm.

  “Yes,” he agreed modestly. “How could you tell?”

  Mr. Simpson merely smiled. In silence they stared out together past the angulate, green piersheds and the rude juts of land, past the black spouts rising in indolent drifts from the plodding tugboats, at the vanishing sweep of the horizon. The sun was warm and sent channels of sparks shimmering through the water. Only when the stewards appeared did the Captain stir.

  “I hav
e to go now. I must—look after my luggage.”

  “Perhaps I’ll see you during the trip.”

  “Yes,” said the Captain. “Yes, of course.”

  Furtively he made his way ashore, dazed by this truly astonishing encounter, and at home that evening he was unable to resist describing his fortuitous reunion that day with his good friend Mr. Simpson.

  “Who?” asked Cynthia.

  “Mr. Simpson. Surely you remember my telling you about him. He’s the officer I met on one of my voyages.”

  “Oh,” grunted Neil. “One of your voyages.”

  The Captain fell silent, sulking because he had been prepared to enumerate the many adventures which only a man in Mr. Simpson’s profession could enjoy. Impatiently he looked forward to their next meeting. Cynthia detained him that morning with a plea to extend his leave.

  “You aren’t going into the city again? Please, Daddy, you know how it tires you.”

  “I’m afraid I must,” he lied. “More trouble with the estate.”

  He found Mr. Simpson in the same place, and the young man could not conceal his amazement when he saw the Captain.

  “Hello! Sailing again?”

  The Captain nodded and came to a palpitating halt.

  “Let’s see,” Mr. Simpson began musing aloud, and broke off with a look of puzzlement.

  The faint, trembling signs of a smile hovered eagerly, hopefully, about the Captain’s mouth. His forehead was burning, and his heart thumped wildly in a desperate prayer. He had taken his umbrella with him. It embarrassed him now as he held it feebly before him. All this while Mr. Simpson was peering at him intently. Finally he seemed to understand, and his face opened with a gentle smile.

  “I’m very glad you could make it,” he said softly. “I was afraid we’d have to sail without you.”