by Jack Dann
Stephen walked and climbed, followed by the sea, as if in a dream.
Numbed, he found himself back on the Boat Deck. But part of the deck was already submerged. Almost everyone had moved aft, climbing uphill as the bow dipped farther into the water.
The lifeboats were gone, as were the crew. Even now he looked for Esme, still hoping that she had somehow survived. Men and women were screaming “I don't want to die,” while others clung together in small groups, some crying, others praying, while there were those who were very calm, enjoying the disaster. They stood by the rail, looking out toward the lifeboats or at the dirigible, which floated above. Many had changed their clothes and looked resplendent in their early twentieth-century costumes. One man, dressed in pajama bottoms and a blue and gold smoking jacket, climbed over the rail and just stepped into the frigid water.
But there were a few men and women atop the officers’ quarters. They were working hard, trying to launch collapsible lifeboats C and D, their only chance of getting safely away from the ship.
“Hey!” Stephen called to them, just now coming to his senses. “Do you need any help up there?” He realized that he was really going to die unless he did something.
He was ignored by those who were pushing one of the freed collapsibles off the port side of the roof. Someone shouted, “Damn!” The boat had landed upside down in the water.
“It's better than nothing,” shouted a woman, and she and her friends jumped after the boat.
Stephen shivered; he was not yet ready to leap into the twenty-eight-degree water, although he knew there wasn't much time left, and he had to get away from the ship before it went down. Everyone on or close to the ship would be sucked under. He crossed to the starboard side, where some other men were trying to push the boat “up” to the edge of the deck. The great ship was listing heavily to port.
This time Stephen didn't ask; he just joined the work. No one complained. They were trying to slide the boat over the edge on planks. All these people looked to be in top physical shape; Stephen noticed that about half of them were women wearing the same warm coats as the men. This was a game to all of them, he suspected, and they were enjoying it. Each one was going to beat the odds, one way or another; the very thrill was to outwit fate, opt to die and yet survive.
But then the bridge was underwater.
There was a terrible crashing, and Stephen slid along the float as everything tilted.
Everyone was shouting; Stephen saw more people than he thought possible to be left on the ship. People were jumping overboard. They ran before a great wave that washed along the deck. Water swirled around Stephen and the others nearby.
“She's going down,” someone shouted. Indeed, the stern of the ship was swinging upward. The lights flickered. There was a roar as the entrails of the ship broke loose: anchor chains, the huge engines and boilers. One of the huge black funnels fell, smashing into the water amid sparks. But still the ship was brilliantly lit, every porthole afire.
The crow's nest before him was almost submerged, but Stephen swam for it nevertheless. Then he caught himself and tried to swim away from the ship, but it was too late. He felt himself being sucked back, pulled under. He was being sucked into the ventilator, which was in front of the forward funnel.
Down into sudden darkness ...
He gasped, swallowed water, and felt the wire mesh, the airshaft grating that prevented him from being sucked under. He held his breath until he thought his lungs would burst; he called in his mind to Esme and his dead mother. Water was surging all around him, and then there was another explosion. Stephen felt warmth on his back, as a blast of hot air pushed him upward. Then he broke out into the freezing air. He swam for his life, away from the ship, away from the crashing and thudding of glass and wood, away from the debris of deck chairs, planking, and ropes, and especially away from the other people who were moaning, screaming at him, and trying to grab him as buoy, trying to pull him down.
Still, he felt the suction of the ship, and he swam, even though his arms were numb and his head was aching as if it were about to break. He took a last look behind him, and saw the Titanic slide into the water, into its own eerie pool of light. Then he swam harder. In the distance were other lifeboats, for he could see lights flashing. But none of the boats would come in to rescue him; that he knew.
He heard voices nearby and saw a dark shape. For a moment it didn't register, then he realized that he was swimming toward an overturned lifeboat, the collapsible he had seen pushed into the water. There were almost thirty men and women standing on it. Stephen tried to climb aboard and someone shouted, “You'll sink us, we've too many already."
“Find somewhere else."
A woman tried to hit Stephen with an oar, just missing his head. Stephen swam around to the other side of the boat. He grabbed hold again, found someone's foot, and was kicked back into the water.
“Come on,” a man said, his voice gravelly. “Take my arm and I'll pull you up."
“There's no room!" someone else said.
“There's enough room for one more."
“No, there's not."
A fight threatened, and the boat began to rock.
“We'll all be in the water if we don't stop this,” shouted the man who was holding Stephen afloat. Then he pulled Stephen aboard.
“But no more, he's the last one!"
Stephen stood with the others; there was barely enough room. Everyone had formed a double line now, facing the bow, and leaned in the opposite direction of the swells. Slowly the boat inched away from the site where the ship had gone down, away from the people in the water, all begging for life, for one last chance. As he looked back to where the ship had once been, Stephen thought of Esme. He couldn't bear to think of her as dead, floating through the corridors of the ship. Desperately he wanted her, wanted to take her in his arms.
Those in the water could easily be heard; in fact, the calls seemed magnified, as if meant to be heard clearly by everyone who was safe, as a punishment for past sins.
“We're all deaders,” said a woman standing beside Stephen. “I'm sure no one's coming to get us before dawn, when they have to pick up survivors."
“We'll be the last pickup, that's for sure, that's if they intend to pick us up at all."
“Those in the water have to get their money's worth."
“And since we opted for death ..."
“I didn't,” Stephen said, almost to himself.
“Well, you've got it anyway."
* * * *
Stephen was numb, but no longer cold. As if from far away, he heard the splash of someone falling from the boat, which was very slowly sinking as air was lost from under the hull. At times the water was up to Stephen's knees, yet he wasn't even shivering. Time distended, or contracted. He measured it by the splashing of his companions as they fell overboard. He heard himself calling Esme, as if to say good-bye, or perhaps to greet her.
By dawn, Stephen was so muddled by the cold that he thought he was on land, for the sea was full of debris: cork, steamer chairs, boxes, pilasters, rugs, carved wood, clothes, and of course the bodies of those unfortunates who could not or would not survive; and the great icebergs and the smaller ones called growlers looked like cliffs and mountainsides. The icebergs were sparkling and many-hued, all brilliant in the light, as if painted by some cheerless Gauguin of the north.
“There,” someone said, a woman's hoarse voice. “It's coming down, it's coming down!” The dirigible, looking like a huge white whale, seemed to be descending through its more natural element, water, rather than the thin, cold air. Its electric engines could not even be heard.
In the distance, Stephen could see the other lifeboats. Soon the airship would begin to rescue those in the boats, which were now tied together in a cluster. As Stephen's thoughts wandered and his eyes watered from the reflected morning sunlight, he saw a piece of carved wood bobbing up and down near the boat, and noticed a familiar face in the debris that seemed to surrou
nd the lifeboat.
There, just below the surface, in his box, the lid open, eyes closed, floated Poppa. Poppa opened his eyes then and looked at Stephen, who screamed, lost his balance on the hull, and plunged headlong into the cold black water.
* * * *
The Laurel Lounge of the dirigible California was dark and filled with survivors. Some sat in the flowered, stuffed chairs; others just milled about. But they were all watching the lifelike holographic tapes of the sinking of the Titanic. The images filled the large room with the ghostly past.
Stephen stood in the back of the room, away from the others, who cheered each time there was a close-up of someone jumping overboard or slipping under the water. He pulled the scratchy woolen blanket around him, and shivered. He had been on the dirigible for more than twenty-four hours, and he was still chilled. A crewman had told him it was because of the injections he had received when he boarded the airship.
There was another cheer and, horrified, he saw that they were cheering for him. He watched himself being sucked into the ventilator, and then blown upward to the surface. His body ached from being battered. But he had saved himself. He had survived, and that had been an actual experience. It was worth it for that, but poor Esme ...
“You had one of the most exciting experiences,” a woman said to him, as she touched his hand. He recoiled from her, and she shrugged, then moved on.
“I wish to register a complaint,” said a stocky man dressed in period clothing to one of the Titanic's officers, who was standing beside Stephen and sipping a cocktail.
“Yes?” asked the officer.
“I was saved against my wishes. I specifically took this voyage that I might pit myself against the elements."
“Did you sign one of our protection waivers?” asked the officer.
“I was not aware that we were required to sign any such thing."
“All such information was provided,” the officer said, looking uninterested. “Those passengers who are truly committed to taking their chances sign, and we leave them to their own devices. Otherwise, we are responsible for every passenger's life."
“I might just as well have jumped into the ocean early and gotten pulled out,” the passenger said sarcastically.
The officer smiled. “Most people want to test themselves out as long as they can. Of course, if you want to register a formal complaint, then ..."
But the passenger stomped away.
“The man's trying to save face,” the officer said to Stephen, who had been eavesdropping. “We see quite a bit of that. But you seemed to have an interesting ride. You gave us quite a start; we thought you were going to take a lifeboat with the others, but you disappeared belowdecks. It was a bit more difficult to monitor you, but we managed—that's the fun for us. You were never in any danger, of course. Well, maybe a little."
Stephen was shaken. He had felt that his experiences had been authentic, that he had really saved himself. But none of that had been real. Only Esme ...
And then he saw her step into the room.
“Esme?” He couldn't believe it. “Esme?"
She walked over to him and smiled, as she had the first time they'd met. She was holding a water-damaged cedar box.
“Hello, Stephen. Wasn't it exciting?"
Stephen threw his arms around her, but she didn't respond. She waited a proper time, then disengaged herself.
“And look,” she said, “they've even found Poppa.” She opened the box and held it up to him.
Poppa's eyes fluttered open. For a moment his eyes were vague and unfocused, then they fastened on Esme and sharpened. “Esme ...” Poppa said uncertainly, and then he smiled. “Esme, I've had the strangest dream.” He laughed. “I dreamed I was a head in a box ..."
Esme snapped the box closed. “Isn't he marvelous,” she said. She patted the box and smiled. “He almost had me talked into going through with it this time."
