The River Queen

by Mary Morris

  I reached him with the good news. “I’m pregnant,” I told him. “I’m going to have a child.”

  The transatlantic silence was shattering. “Are you sure?” he finally asked.

  “I’m sure,” I told him.

  “Well, a child is a wonderful thing.”

  “I was thinking we should make it legal.”

  There was another long pause. Finally he replied, “Legal in what sense?” He had written over thirty books on international law. He had pleaded cases before the World Court. Surely he knew what legal meant.

  It was during the months of “white nights” in Leningrad. Like Raskolnikov, plagued by anguish and guilt, I walked the canals. Clearly Jeremy had no intention of marrying and I knew I could not have this child on my own. I wandered into a bar, filled with the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. They were like mannequins with their dark eye shadow, their pointy breasts. They were prostitutes, waiting for men from Finland, and they thought I was trying to hone in on their weekend business. I wandered out and walked some more. Half the night I walked, then went back to my hotel room, a study in curtains and lace, and called my mother.

  In tears I told her I was pregnant. I said that Jeremy didn’t want the baby and I was coming home to have an abortion. “Are you sure this is right?” she asked me. “Are you sure it’s what you want to do?”

  “What else can I do?” I sobbed into the phone. And I made her promise, “Don’t tell my father. You have to swear.”

  “I swear,” she said.

  Half an hour later the phone rang. It was my father. “Mary,” Dad said, “I hear you have a problem.”

  I cried uncontrollably when I heard his voice. “Yes, I have a problem.”

  “Well,” he said, his tone surprisingly modulated, “in my opinion there are no problems. Only solutions.” Always his aphorisms. “You know,” he went on, “men come and go.” He paused as if he knew of what he spoke—as if he was thinking about something he didn’t want to say. “But a child is forever.”

  “Can you live with that?” I asked tentatively. I had never spoken with my father like this before. I peered out of the window at the sunny streets of Leningrad at four a.m.

  “I can live with a lot worse,” he said.

  MIST

  17

  IT IS night as we reach Lock and Dam 11 just north of Dubuque. There’s no traffic and the lockmaster lets us float free. Normally I like floating free with no ropes, but, as we drop down into six feet of blackness, there’s an eerie feeling as if we are sinking into a dark hole. For the first time in days there’s silence on board. Jerry has rigged up a beacon on the flybridge, but the river is onyx as we sail into Dubuque.

  It has been a very long day and we’re tired as we float beneath a railroad bridge and past the huge floodgates of the city. As we ride through them, these gates loom above us and seem to lead into a netherworld. Before us sits Diamond Jo Casino, illumined as fireworks, with calliope music seeping from its decks, and paddleboats, used now only to take tourists for rides. But as we enter the harbor and look around, it’s clear that there is no marina. There are no pleasure craft here at all. Jerry has a memory of the marina being between the floodgates, but as we gaze around, it’s not. “Do you see anything?” Jerry asks Tom, who stands with me on the bow.

  “No, Sir, I don’t.”

  I don’t either and I’m crestfallen. I was very much hoping for a shower and some amenities and I feel the irritation rising. I check the map and see that the Dubuque Marina is at river mile 582.0, which was a few miles upstream, just below the lock and dam, and we missed it. I show Jerry the map. “Can’t we go back?” I ask.

  “It’s too late,” Jerry says, clearly annoyed. “I’m not going upstream in the dark.”

  “Well, what’re you going to do?”

  Jerry scans the harbor into which we’ve sailed. Tied beside Diamond Jo Casino is a commercial paddle wheeler called The Spirit of Dubuque. “I know the people who own that paddleboat, a guy named Walt. I’ve met him a few times,” Jerry says. “We’ll tie up here.”

  “Here?” I stare at him, amazed. There is nothing here except the casino and this paddleboat.

  “What do you think, Tommysan?”

  Tom shrugs. “I’m tired. I think we can get power off that boat. If not, I’ll use the ‘genie.’” This is what he calls his generator.

  “I want to find the marina.”

  “Well, it’s too late now,” Jerry snaps as he maneuvers beside the big paddleboat. So it will be another night of no water, but it seems as if Tom can rig us up for light. We secure our fenders as Jerry pulls in beside the empty paddleboat. I can see a walk along the levee. It is dark, but the walkway is lit. Lovers sit on the wall, smoking, drinking beer, kissing. But I have no idea how to get there.

  As Tom and Jerry tie up, I’m trying to figure out how to get off the boat. Jerry says that the only way is to inch along the outer railing of the paddleboat, go down the gangplank to the walkway, climb under a chain-link fence, and go past security into the back door of the casino.

  This whole endeavor has a slightly criminal feel. With Jerry’s help, I make my way around the outer railing of the paddleboat, the river black and murky beneath me. Plastic bottles and debris float in greasy muck ten feet from where I hover. I shimmy along the railing, reach the gangplank, slip along it, follow the narrow walkway, and slide under the security chain, expecting to be stopped at any moment.

  As I make my way to the casino, I pass a young man in gray slacks and a cranberry shirt. He is smoking a cigarette and slips under the chain, heading toward our boat, I assume to arrest us for trespassing. As I enter the casino via the service entrance, a huge bouncer stands at the escalator. He’s wearing a shiny gray suit and is built like a vault. I ask him where I can get dinner. He tells me that the restaurants are closed, but that I can get deli sandwiches on the top floor.

  I don’t want deli sandwiches. I want food. Something hot that doesn’t come between two slices of white bread, preferably home cooked. I ask the hostess and she informs me that the restaurant closed at nine. It is 9:10. “You mean I can’t get anything to eat on this huge floating casino?”

  She shakes her frizzy red head and says with a sweet midwestern twang, one it took me thirty years in New York to lose, “You can get deli sandwiches on three. You can get breakfast at about five. And, of course, the bars are all open until two.”

  Wow, I think, you can’t eat, but you can drink for the next five hours. Now that should help you drop some serious change. I call Tom and Jerry on my cell and inform them there’s no food to be had, just booze and slots. “Well,” Jerry says, “there’s a hotel right there. Why don’t you just go spend the night there? You might like that better.”

  I’m standing in the parking lot, staring up at the generic hotel that looms ahead of me. My feelings are definitely hurt. “Are you asking me to leave the boat?”

  Jerry hesitates. “No, I’m not asking you to leave. I just thought you might be more comfortable.”

  “I don’t want to do that.”

  “We’re going to order pizza,” Jerry says.

  “Where’re you going to have it delivered?”

  “Oh, Tom’s got that all figured out. They’ll bring it to the parking lot of the Hampton Inn, which is nearby. Shall we order something for you?”

  I hate pizza. I hate all that doughy stuff. I want a meal, shower, amenities. “Order me a veggie pizza, okay? Lots of veggies.”

  Jerry agrees and I tell him I’ll touch base with him in half an hour. I’m going upstairs to have a drink. Three young Asian men get carded as they try to get into the casino, but it seems I’m of age and the bouncer lets me go upstairs without an ID, which I don’t have with me anyway.

  As I enter the casino, I am stunned by the flashing lights, the hordes of people, the clinking sounds of the one-armed bandits. Tumbling change. The roll of the dice. The spin of the roulette wheel. Croupiers in purple jackets are closing all bets
. I sit down at the bar, which is essentially a paneling with about half a dozen games of electronic poker.

  An elderly woman a few barstools down is sitting with a pile of quarters, an ashtray full of cigarettes, focusing on her game. The bartender with a bad toupee asks me what I’d like. I ask what he’s got in white wine and he tells me chardonnay. “I’ll have that.” He takes a cardboard container out of his cooler and pours me an eight-ounce glass of wine through a spout.

  A blond-haired woman, thin, in a white baseball cap and white capris, plunks herself down two stools up from me. She orders a double Scotch and the bartender seems to hesitate. I can see that she is completely sloshed. He brings her her drink, which she sips as she wins at solitaire and bends the bartender’s ear. He listens attentively. Something bad has happened to her. He’s nodding compassionately. A man comes by who seems to be with her. He is young and handsome and she shoves him away.

  He gives a shrug and goes off and she slides over to the stool next to me to play electronic poker. Her cigarette rests in the ashtray and smoke blows in my face. I’m feeling lonely and she doesn’t seem as if she’s having the best night of her life either so I ask if she’s all right. “No,” she says, her words slurring like she’s a bad actress in a bit part, “I am not all right.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I tell her. “Is there anything I can do?”

  She shakes her head. “There’s nothing nobody can do. My best friend died last week.…”

  “Oh, I am really sorry.…”

  “My stepfather. But he was my best friend in the whole world.”

  I tell her I am really really sorry about this. I am about to tell her that I just lost my father, thinking we could commiserate, but she goes on, “And then I had surgery on Tuesday, the day after he died.”

  I was surprised to see that she was smashed and playing electronic poker so soon after surgery. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” She brings her face close to mine. “Hemorrhoids,” she says. I smell the whiskey on her breath. “The pain is excruciating.” Then she turns back to her poker game.

  * * *

  Once Dubuque had more millionaires than any other city in the world. Grand houses on the bluff attest to this wealth. These were men who got rich on the river trade—men who fought the railroads and the bridges that now cross the river. And failed. There is a sense here of a town that thrived and is now coming to terms with its ordinariness and its down-home roots. Leaving the casino, and hoping to find a restaurant open, I stroll across the Third Street Bridge. Most of the closed shops sell candles and potpourri. I pick up the local newspaper, which has four sections—News, Sports, Classified, and Religion.

  The bleakness of the downtown depresses me. Several stores are vacant. As with many midwestern cities, it seems as if all the life has been leached out to the malls. It’s just ten o’clock and the whole place is shut down. I was hoping I’d find something open, but it looks like it’s pizza for the night.

  I make my way back across the bridge to the main entrance of Diamond Jo Casino. I go in, then out the back, the way I’d come—through the service door, past the laundry. Why security lets me go this way is beyond me. Once again I’m waiting to be arrested for trespassing when I meet the guy who I passed coming in. He’s still puffing on a cigarette, but this time he gives me a hi. “So, are you with Captain Jerry?” he asks, holding up the chain so I can slip under.

  Captain Jerry now, is it? “Yes, I am,” I tell him, surprised he knows who we are.

  “Oh, he’s a great guy. Well, enjoy your night.”

  “Sure. And you enjoy yours.” I give him a little wave and wonder if he’s being sarcastic, though I must admit sarcasm seems to be an alien mode in the heartland, reserved for the distant coasts. I wander down the levee to the gangplank that takes me on to The Spirit of Dubuque. Then, I shimmy once more along the railing until Jerry sees me coming and holds out his hand, making sure I don’t drop into the river. Nice way to travel, I think. But I hear the sound of a “genie” and know we are hooked up with power and light.

  “So, what’d you say to that guy?” I ask Jerry as he hoists me on board.

  “Oh, I just dropped a few names. Offered him a beer.” Apparently the mere mention of Walt’s name got us hooked up for electricity and a place to moor. Jerry is on the deck, sipping a beer, proud as a lord in his fiefdom. He stares at the levee and at Tom who is making his way, pizza boxes in his hand, as he does a funny side step along the levee wall down to the gangplank.

  “Captain Jerry,” Tom says, holding up the pizza boxes.

  Tom hands me mine. As I open it, all I see is a thick crusted thing with lettuce and tomato sauce, slathered in deep fried taco chips. I stare in dismay. “What is this?” I ask him.

  “You wanted veggies, didn’t you?” Tom says.

  18

  AT STRAHOV Monastery in the city of Prague there is a room full of ancient globes. They are kept behind ropes and an iron gate, but I have long had my eye on them. Last summer I was able to get into this room. I wanted to see what the world looked like to the mapmakers almost four hundred years ago. With my fingers I twirled globes from 1630, 1645.

  These are some of the oldest globes in the world. London and Rome already exist. But America is a vast, undiscovered land. In between Europe and the New World is a sea filled with serpents, long-tailed monsters, winged demons with claws, ready to grapple a sailing ship down, born of some mad, dark traveler’s tales.

  America itself is terra incognito. Virgin territory that exists no more. When I looked at the oldest globes, the Mississippi, if it is there at all, is a mere trickle, a barely visible line that doesn’t cut a continent in two. Only DeSoto in 1524 has seen it. But it made little impact on him or his men. He made note of it, seemed unimpressed, and promptly died. No one had described it. At the time when these globes were made, America is as unblemished as a baby’s cheek.

  * * *

  This is how it looks to me that morning as we sail out of Dubuque. A white mist rises as we chug through the floodgates the way we came. No one has arrested us or put us in the stocks. It is the coldest it’s been and I wrap myself up in Kate’s flannel moon and stars blanket I’ve brought with me. I’ve got on an all-weather jacket, but still I’m shivering up on the bow.

  This scene is out of Brigadoon as the river widens and the mist engulfs us. A flock of egrets darts along the surface, dipping in and out of the fog. I am aware of a clattering noise but don’t pay it much heed. I’m deciding it is time for a home-cooked meal. The taco pizza almost did me in.

  The coolness of the morning makes me think of Bolognese. I’ve got the bottle of merlot that will go nicely, though Jerry has put it on chill. As we start our day downriver, I go into the cabin to brown the meat with a little butter. I’ve yet to find olive oil in any of the stores. As the meat cooks, I dice two tomatoes. I pour off the excess fat and stir the meat, then add the tomatoes and adjust the seasoning.

  The clattering grows louder. Tom is piloting from the fly-bridge where I assume he must be freezing. As I am putting my tomatoes into the pot, I hear Tom give Jerry a holler. “Will you take over below, Sir? I’m going to go smell my engines.” Tom is always smelling his engines, sniffing the air, listening like a bird to the ground. He can hear the slightest strain to a motor when the fuel isn’t quite moving along. He talks to his engines the way I imagined he’d talk to a lover, or to his dog. “Come on, Girl. Do it for me. Don’t let me down.”

  This time we hear a big bang and Jerry goes, “Cowabunga. What’re you doing, Tom?”

  “Just wanta move the fuel along, Sir.”

  “What’s wrong with the fuel?”

  I finish slicing the onion and put it all in the pot to simmer. Then take my place back at the bow, shivering once more as I sip coffee and write in my journal. I feel a kind of stutter to the boat as if it is moving in fits and starts. The engine seems to be making burping noises.

  A blue heron rises from the bank. I t
urn to show Jerry and see him and Tom bent over the Chrysler Marine Engine Service Manual. They are studying a drawing and I can decipher the upside-down words FUEL PUMP. Somehow I suspect that when you see your river pilots staring into the engine service manual, this cannot be a good sign.

  “God. I hate those little marinas,” Jerry says.

  “Yep,” Tom says. “Never should’ve stopped there.”

  “And they know we aren’t going to go back upstream and yell at them.” I’m hiding my head, starting to feel very guilty as I recall the Guttenberg marina where I persuaded Jerry to stop. Jerry explains that, perhaps inadvertently, they sold us watered-down gas, which creates pockets of air in the engine, and that has destroyed our fuel pumps and so on. “We’ll go on one engine until we get through the next lock and dam. Then we’ll have to fix it.”

  Tom is working on his engine and I’m stirring my sauce. “Tom, I’m going to take the throttle,” but Tom can’t hear him with the engines running.

  Tom shouts back. “The plugs don’t seem to be wet, Sir.” But Jerry doesn’t hear this.

  “Mary, will you please relay?”

  “Jerry’s going to take the throttle.”

  “Tell him the plugs aren’t wet.”

  “The plugs aren’t wet,” I say. For a few moments I shout messages between them as we sputter into Bellevue Lock and Dam 12. Jerry says we won’t float free. “You don’t float with one engine,” he says, shaking his head. “Not enough control of the boat.” We go to our positions. Me to the front with my small stick, Tom to the back. Here we’ll drop down six feet.

  “We should get through okay,” Jerry says. “As they say in Oslo, no sweat.”