by J. G. Sandom
“Is that when you abandoned the ship?”
The Captain looked up. There were tears in his one cyclops eye. “Yes, sir,” he said. His voice was emotionless, dead. Talking seemed pointless. There were not enough sentences, enough words in the world left to cover the truth. He shrugged once and said, “Then we ran.”
Chapter 9
June 20, 1904
New York City
The Kleindeutchland inquest convened at the Rose. The people – they gathered in packs, based on family, friendship, or some other affinity. On the clan of their commerce. Their kind. They fused into clumps, like the cells of a tumor.
Goldstein presided over the inquest from a dais, flanked by Kiefer Munch, Hans Bering, and Pieter Max. Arvin Brauer sat off to the side. There was much discussion at the start about rules, codes of conduct, about honor and moral obedience. And then, when the crowd finally settled, when their knees had stopped wiggling and their ankles had stilled, Otto Goldstein called Bingham, his son.
The boy entered the room through the back. He was suddenly there. He was dressed in a uniform – the dark navy blazer and shorts preferred by the priests at St. Mark’s. His wavy black hair was well oiled and slicked back, combed and coiffed but seemingly tensile, like a very slow liquid, like glass. He moved to the chair by the dais – a stout set of beer crates, all jumbled together. He sat. He looked at the crowd. Then he started his story. He had told it so many times now that the words seemed nonsensical. He was sick of them now. His mouth had shaped them too often.
The story poured out and I noticed, as I sat in the corner alone, that Bingham never leaned back. He sat stiff as a pikestaff. He unrolled his soliloquy slowly. He tugged at the narrative, first gumming the words, then disgorging them into the crowd – like a heron from Schlüsselburg feeding its young. He looked as though he were sleepwalking. Goldstein had fed him a spoonful of laudanum, a few drops, after breakfast. It wiggled just under the skin
But Karl Lehman and Abelard Warner were different. Skinny Karl fairly quivered. Like most cowards, he was a scavenger, more at ease with the lifeless, the sick, or the wounded. He had never been under the eye of so large a convention and he stuttered repeatedly, mumbling his speech.
“ . . . the fire burst out of the fo’c’s’le,” he said.
“The Lamp Room,” said Goldstein. It was the fourth time he’d corrected the boy.
“The Lamp Room. Yes. Of course.”
“Please, go on.”
“Where Brauer had entered before.”
“Moments earlier.”
“Moments earlier.”
I don’t know if it was the narrative or the coaching that I resented the most. Their manner of speaking was practiced, rehearsed, each phrase and each sentence scripted. But the story lacked color. It was imprisoned by facts. It bobbled and bounced noun to noun, badly cabled by verbs, like a johnboat in difficult seas. He was finally excused.
Fat Abelard was startlingly different. His memory of the script had been swamped by his own recollections. Try as he might, he wasn’t able to silence the screaming, nor muffle the shuffle of desperate feet, the scratching of nail against wall. That smell, he couldn’t suppress it, of the people who had herded together, trapped like rats, with that bulkhead still blocking their freedom. The fire crept up on them slowly, singeing their backs, as they scratched at the bulkhead. Scratch. Scratch. Till it stopped.
“You saw Dustin enter the Lamp Room?” asked Goldstein.
“Yes, I did. We all did. Not just me, but Bingham and Karl Lehman too.”
“Then what happened?”
“He lit up a cigarette. Mallory Meer had just left. He was smoking alone. By himself. In the dark. The Lamp Room was below the main deck, toward the bow.”
“But if it was dark in the Lamp Room, how could you see?”
Abelard paused on a memory. His eyes rolled. He furrowed his brow. He looked like a newly hooked fish. Then he said, “When he smoked, as he puffed, the ember grew bright. It lit up his face. We could see him.” He paused and glanced out at the crowd. “Then he finished his cigarette. He flicked it away. It rolled on the planking.”
“Be specific,” said Goldstein. “Try to focus. Where did it roll?” he continued.
“To that box full of straw.”
“And Dustin Brauer, what of him?”
“He stepped from the Lamp Room. He never looked back. He just turned and headed away.”
“I see,” Goldstein said. “He went topside, aloft?”
“He just left.”
“Now – and this is important. Abelard. Abelard, are you listening?”
The boy was trapped in his reverie. He was looking within.
“Abelard!”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Yes, Herr Goldstein.”
“Did you see that box catch on fire? Did you actually see it ignite?”
“Yes, Herr Goldstein. I did.”
“That’s a lie,” Arvin said from the corner. A wave of disdain swept the room.
“Silence,” said Goldstein. “Or I’ll have you removed. Just be quiet,” he added, now softening. He twisted his body, looking down on his brewer. “You’ll have your opportunity to speak, Herr Brauer. All in good time.” He looked back at Fat Abelard.
The boy seemed to melt in his seat. His suit was too small for him – it had belonged to his less corpulent brother – and the skin of his neck pillowed over like lava. The jowls of his face gently quivered. His eyes bulged, his lips pursed. His head seemed no longer attached. It looked like his neck had been broken. He looked, strangely, like a hanged man.
“Abelard Warner. You know the difference between lying and telling the truth. You heard Lehman testify earlier. Karl said he was certain . . . one hundred percent certain: It was Dustin Brauer’s cigarette that set fire to that box. Can you corroborate his statement?”
“Can I do what?”
“Is that what happened?” Goldstein asked. “Dustin Brauer threw his cigarette to the deck. Then he turned and walked away, without once looking back to make sure. He simply headed down the passageway. And, climbing aloft, ventured out onto the deck – the busy promenade, I believe – where he stopped. Where he waited and waited until the cigarette had done its work.
“Who can say what he thought, as he waited there, safe, by the rail? Abelard, do you know? Can you know? Who can say what dream burned in his head as the fire grew larger below?
“Perhaps this was not a planned venture. Perhaps, it was just reckless abandon, a misfortunate oversight, deadly fun. But as unpremeditated as the act may have been, the result was the same.” Goldstein shook his round head. “The cigarette Dustin Brauer rolled, smoked, and then tossed without a moment’s hesitation to the floor killed more than a thousand men, women, and children. Burned them. And drowned them. Our sisters and daughters. Our wives. Lest we forget, in a moment of tenderness, as we look on the face of a child. Lest we forget.”
Goldstein swiveled and stared down at Fat Abelard. The boy squirmed in his seat. “One more thing, Abelard, if you don’t mind. Do you know what happened to Dustin Brauer once the fire grew out of control?”
“Yes, Herr Goldstein. We followed him topside, as you said. We didn’t know the fire was out of control when we left. We thought it was just a small blaze. Anyway, we climbed the stairwell and came upon him on deck. On the promenade. He was leaning against the port rail. When the fire grew out of control, he was one of the first to abandon the steamboat. Somehow, someway, he made it across to a tugboat astern.”
“What do you mean, somehow managed? Either he crossed or he didn’t.”
“Yes, he did, sir.”
“And he was safe and out of danger, out of harm’s way, well before the Slocum was lost. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes, Herr Goldstein.”
“A quite miraculous escape, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, sir. It couldn’t have been better planned. I mean, if it were planned. I know I can’t comment on that – to intent.�
�
Arvin Brauer got up from his seat. He glared up at Goldstein. “That’s enough,” he said tightly. “You call this justice? This is a farce, nothing more. A charade.”
An undertow of grumbling clutched at the room. The dining hall hummed with dissent. “Sit down,” someone said. “Dirty Jew.”
“I’ve not called you yet, Arvin,” said Goldstein. “Please do me the courtesy of taking your seat.”
“I will not, and you cannot compel me. Not as a judge. And not as my employer, either. Not any longer,” he said. “I’m through, done with the Rose and this neighborhood.” He trembled as he spoke. He was afraid yet transfixed, lit up by some bright inner light. “Shame on you, all of you,” he continued. “Shame on your bigotry. Your spiteful guilt. Your hunger for revenge. Shame on you all. I tell you – may the dead come back to haunt me, if I’m wrong – these boys are lying. My son is innocent. He has done nothing to warrant your hatred. He’s not even here to defend himself, to face his accusers–”
“Exactly,” said Goldstein. “Where is he? Why isn’t he here, if he’s innocent?”
“Where do you think he is? He’s hiding from this mob. Hiding from you. Where else could he be?”
“You give me no choice, Arvin Brauer. If you don’t produce your son by sundown tomorrow, it is you we’ll hand over. To the authorities. To the police. Do you hear me, Herr Brauer? The witnesses were clear, their testimony unimpeachable. Your son, Dustin Brauer, started that fire, which resulted in uncounted dead. You’ve made yourself his accomplice, an accessory to murder. It is you who is guilty,” he added, pointing down at his brewer.
Arvin moved toward the exit.
“You have not been excused,” Goldstein said. “Do you hear me? Arvin Brauer? Arvin Brauer, sit down!” He nodded almost imperceptibly, and two men with muttonchops appeared by the door.
Arvin hesitated. His eyes darted about the dining hall, but there was no ready exit. The two men approached him. Arvin stood still as they hooked their arms round his elbows. “Yes, I can hear you,” he said. “It’s all very clear now, Herr Goldstein.” A frightful smile played on his lips. They started to lead him away. “As long as you’ve got your scapegoat, what does it matter?” he shouted. “What do you care, any of you? One Jew’s as good as another.”
* * *
I came to Dustin in a dream. He lay on the floor, at the foot of the bed of his friend, Henrik Silverstein. It was the first time he had slept in three days. He was curled in a blanket, still dressed in his work clothes and boots.
He was dreaming of tropical islands, of palm-fronded atolls and bright turquoise seas. He listened to seabirds – shrill gulls, raucous terns. He savored the salt in the spray. At first I was loath to disturb him. He slumbered so peacefully. He was so far away. But the wolves of Kleindeutchland were circling. They had visited all of his family, and most of his friends in the district already.
Tall and slender, like Dustin, but with curly brown hair, Henrik lived on Fourteenth Street, between Eighth and Ninth. He was an only child. His mother worked as housekeeper to a retired sea captain. They shared two rooms at the top of a wonderful five-story brownstone. The floors had been pilfered from ship decks – the stoutest of strakes, hand-fitted and practically seamless. The main floor was checkered with marble – Crema Marfil from Carrara in Italy. A huge gilded mirror from Marseilles graced the foyer. And the railing from Juneau was so perfectly jointed that it looked to be carved from one tree. Henrik’s father had gone to work one morning and never returned. There were times when Henrik imagined him walking the streets of these strange far-off cities, the wellspring of each wondrous thing in the house.
The servants’ quarters were a great deal more humble, of course. But to Dustin, the size of the rooms, their airiness, and that skylight which blistered with sunlight on most afternoons in the summer made the Silverstein home seem like paradise.
I was loath to disturb him . . . but I did. One minute he was hauling wind, bearing down on a following sea, and the next he stood beside Barnaby, in the offices of the Knickerbocker Steamboat Company. Miss Hall hovered close by. I could sense Dustin’s wonder. I could feel his confusion unfurl. He knew nothing of these people, and yet they seemed real. He felt as though he should know them.
“Yes, Mr. Barnaby. As you wish, sir,” Miss Hall said. “Life jackets were already on order.”
Dustin awoke. He glanced about the darkened room. It was almost 2:00 A.M. Henrik was sleeping, his breathing soft and profound. Gaslight played on the ceiling. Somewhere a man coughed on Fourteenth Street below. A horse neighed. A girl laughed. Dustin tried to sit up. He tried to roll, but his arms and his legs were immobile. Mr. Barnaby, he thought. He knew that name! It had been splashed across the front page of every newspaper in the city for a week. Frank Barnaby, of the Knickerbocker Steamboat Company. Life jackets were already on order. But what did it mean?
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Someone was there. He could sense it. Someone or something. Right there! A cold wind swept through him. He tried to get up but he couldn’t. He was frozen with fear. He was paralyzed. A dog howled in the distance.
“Dustin?” said Henrik. He stirred and looked over the bed. “Dustin, are you alright? You’re pale as a sheet.”
Dustin closed his eyes, then opened them again. His mouth was dry as dead leaves. Slowly but surely, the blood returned to his veins.
“It’s nothing,” he said. And then, like a nail through my heart: “Just a dream.”
Chapter 10
June 21, 1904
New York City
Henry Lundberg winked at his fiancée as he mounted the dais. He was dressed in a worsted wool suit trimmed with velvet. His luxurious lead-colored tie matched his army gray shirt with precision, setting off his bright violet eyes. His shiny black hair – the envy of many a girl – rolled off his shoulders in waves. His eyebrows were plucked, his cheeks naturally rouged. He unbuttoned a button and sat.
Stanley Sikorsky had been responsible for presiding over the inquest all morning, interviewing lesser personages. O’Gorman arrived fairly late. He seemed out of sorts and impatient – verklempt, as Dustin would say. Despite the fact that the inquest had been running quite smoothly, the coroner was taking his lumps in the press. The process was taking too long. The interviews weren’t thorough enough, or they suffered from length, or from brevity, or from an overabundance of facts. They were either too sharp or too pasty, like a fruit that’s never in season. They were nobody’s favorite.
“You are an inspector for the Unites States Steamboat Inspection Service – the USSIS – are you not?” said O’Gorman.
“I’m privileged to serve in the Service.”
O’Gorman looked down at the witness. “Just answer the question, please.”
“I am.”
“And you were responsible for inspecting the General Slocum, correct?”
“I am but one of many, sir, serving in the Service, who’ve been blessed to inspect, or to otherwise make an inspection of, the General Slocum, to be sure.”
“A yes or a no will do fine, thank you.”
“Most certainly. Yes.”
“And did you, or did you not conduct an inspection of the Slocum on March seventeenth of this year, on behalf of the USSIS?”
“I would hesitate to say it was on behalf of the Service. I am, it is true, an employee. But – and do not think me self-serving – I prefer to think of myself as being the Service, if you know what I mean, when in service . . . to the Service.” He gave O’Gorman a wink.
This final gesture seemed to set O’Gorman off. “Just answer the question, damn you.”
Henry Lundberg looked appalled. He wilted in his seat. “I beg your pardon, coroner,” he said.
“I apologize, Inspector Lundberg. For cursing. But please stick to the facts. And only to the facts. I’m sure your opinions and feelings and intuitions and kinesthetic sensations are of great and vital importance to you, but they don’t serve th
e needs of this inquest. Now, if you’d do me the honor of answering my questions with simple replies – say, a yes or a no, I’m sure we’d all greatly appreciate it. Perhaps, then, we’ll be able to get off to lunch at a reasonable hour. For a change.”
It was hot in the chambers. A fly settled on Louisa’s arm, and she shook it away.
“By all means,” Lundberg said.
I looked down upon his fiancée, Mabel Smith. But all I could see was that picture Lundberg kept in his head. With her skirt up, that thigh.
“When you made your inspection, did you find the life vests in working order?”
“Well, you see, sir. It’s difficult to remember exactly what I thought about them.”
“It’s only been three months.”
“Three months to you, sir, but sixteen steamships, twenty-four schooners and thirteen assorted smaller vessels to me. I did, however, review my personal diary this morning. Based on my entry of March seventeenth, it’s clear, without doubt, that I gathered the life vests were in satisfactory condition.”
“Satisfactory?”
“As I said.”
“And were you aware that, according to his testimony, Captain Van Schaick had requested new life vests from the Knickerbocker Steamboat Company on more than one occasion?”
“I was not. If that’s true.”
“Do you have any reason to believe that it’s not true?”
“Well, sir. And I say this with the utmost respect. A man like Captain Van Schaick, in his position, as it were, as the master of a ship that went down . . . well, I naturally question his view of events. A sunk ship does funny things to a captain. I’ve seen it before, many times. Funny things.”
