Dragons in the Waters

by Madeleine L'engle

  But Simon scowled ferociously. “What’s the point of being a doctor if people die anyhow? If we find the cure for cancer and then people die of something else?”

  “Of course there’s a point. You can care about people, and about their lives. And you can help take away pain, and stop people from being frightened. Of course there’s a point. You have to be a doctor.”

  “If I can get scholarships.”

  “You’ll get scholarships,” Poly promised grandly. “If you want something badly enough and aren’t afraid to work you can usually get it.”

  “I’ll hold on to that thought.” He sounded grave. “I wish you were right.”

  “I’m always right,” Poly said, and before the boys could pounce on her she jumped up and ran across the deck.

  “She’s off to talk to Geraldo,” Charles told Simon.

  Simon raised his left eyebrow.

  “Geraldo is teaching her Dutch.”

  Simon grinned. “With a Spanish accent?”

  “His Dutch is probably pretty good. He’s been on a Dutch ship since he was twelve.”

  Simon’s smile vanished. “He’s not twelve now.”

  “No. But he’s only seventeen and Poly’s fourteen, and Geraldo is the first male friend she’s ever had who wasn’t lots older. Why do you think she calls him Herald Angel?”

  “Because the G in Spanish sounds like an H.”

  “You don’t think maybe she thinks he looks like an angel? He is extremely handsome.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Oh, come on, Simon. He has beautiful classic features, and beautiful black hair and huge eyes with lashes so long they’d look funny on anybody except a Latin.”

  “I know Geraldo’s nice-looking,” Simon said. “And he’s our friend, too, not just Poly’s.”

  “True, but it’s different.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be.”

  “Why shouldn’t it be? Come on into this century, Simon.”

  “I’m not at all sure I like this century. Does your father feel the same way that you do?”

  “About what? This century?”

  “Poly and Geraldo.”

  “We haven’t exactly discussed it. But Daddy has sharp eyes and ears, and his pheromones work as well as mine.”

  Simon sighed. “I suppose we could be Quentin Phair and Bolivar for a while, but I don’t feel much like that right now. Let’s go see if the pool is filled.”

  In the evenings it was already looked upon as established procedure that after dinner Forsyth Phair would play bridge with old Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Dr. Eisenstein. The first officer, Mynheer Lyolf Boon, often stood behind one of them, kibitzing, though he refused to take a hand.

  Simon, Poly, and Charles were sitting quietly in the background, finishing their sweet coffee, and in a pause in their conversation they heard Cousin Forsyth saying in his calm, reasonable way, “I’m not suggesting that we play for enormous stakes, after all. I doubt if any of us has either the money or the gambling instinct. But it’s more fun if we play for a penny or two a point—gives a fillip to the game.”

  Mr. Smith’s old voice was slightly quavery. “I’m sorry, Mr. Phair. I do not play for money.”

  Dr. Eisenstein said, “But for only a penny—”

  “Not even for a penny. I enjoy the game, but if you want to gamble, then ask one of the others.” He cleared his throat and his dewlap quivered and he mumbled something about his religion forbidding any form of gambling.

  Mr. Phair looked pointedly at Mr. Smith’s after-dinner drink of whiskey and soda.

  Dr. Eisenstein looked toward Dr. Wordsworth, who said sharply, “Sorry, I don’t play bridge.”

  Dr. Eisenstein looked at her in surprise, but did not pursue the matter.

  Dr. O’Keefe smiled. “Afraid I don’t, either. Never had time for it.”

  Mr. Theo, when questioned by Dr. Eisenstein, looked up from his book, shaking back his yellowish hair, which had a habit of falling across his face. “You would not want to play with me. I ace my partner’s deuce, or whatever you call it. I am better off to stick with Romeo and Juliet.”

  “One of Shakespeare’s more inept plays,” Forsyth Phair said. “He does not understand the Latin temperament. The death of the young lovers would have increased the enmity between Capulet and Montague rather than making peace.”

  Mr. Theo made no comment but returned to his reading.

  Mr. Phair turned to the first officer, who was leaning against the door frame between salon and foyer. “Mynheer Boon?”

  “No, no, thank you, no. I’m on duty in a few minutes.”

  Old Mrs. Smith looked anxiously at her husband. “Odell, dear … couldn’t you …” Her gnarled hands fluttered over the green felt of the card table.

  Mr. Phair shuffled the cards with an expert riffling. “No sweat, as the kids would say.” (Poly, Simon, and Charles exchanged glances.) “We’ll play as we have been doing, for points. No money. I’d never want to disturb anybody’s religious scruples. Now let’s see, Dr. Eisenstein, you and I were five hundred points ahead of the Smiths last night. Let’s see if we can’t give them an even bigger trouncing tonight.”

  Mr. Smith wiped the back of his neck with his handkerchief, as though the room were extremely warm. As a matter of fact, the evening was breezy and quite cool. Jan ten Zwick, coming into the salon to see if more drinks were needed, noted the curtains blowing straight out from the prow windows, and lowered them.

  “Let’s go.” Simon put down his cup.

  “I think I’ll go on the upper deck and take a walk,” Dr. Wordsworth announced in her penetrating voice. “I find that the Dutch food, delicious though it is, weighs heavily on me, especially that superb pastry. This afternoon I walked 175 laps, and I doubt if it was two miles.”

  The children rose, and Dr. Wordsworth preceded them to the foyer, then turned down the starboard passage to the aft deck, from which she climbed up to the boat deck.

  Poly whispered, “I wonder if the captain’s warned her about not standing between the rail and the boats?”

  Charles said, “I like to sit there sometimes, with nothing between me and the ocean. But I’m very careful.”

  “You’d better be.” Poly looked around. Dr. Wordsworth had vanished. Geraldo was in the galley washing out the coffeepot, waiting until he could clear the after-dinner coffee cups, and the glasses, and wash up and go to bed. He smiled and waved at them as they turned to go downstairs.

  “He’s hardly any older than I am,” Poly said.

  Simon said, “He’s a lot older than you are.”

  “Only three years.”

  “I’m twelve. Do you think Mother and Daddy would let me go to sea?” Charles said. “I’m the same age Geraldo was when he started.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Such things are beyond logic.” She led the way down the stairs.

  Charles said, “What about Geraldo’s parents?”

  “We’re affluent compared to Geraldo’s family. He has a whole lot of brothers and sisters and his parents were relieved when he got a job and they had one less mouth to feed. Listen, what was all that about?”

  “All what?” Simon asked crossly, still concentrating on the unwelcome thought of Geraldo being more important to Poly than Simon.

  “Around the card table.”

  “It was about bridge,” Charles said reasonably, jumping over the high sill between passage and deck.

  “It wasn’t just about bridge. They were all trying to pretend that it didn’t really matter whether or not they played for money—but it did matter.”

  “Especially to Mr. Smith.” Charles picked his way carefully through the dark shadows between cargo, heading for the prow.

  “And Cousin Forsyth,” Simon said. He did not understand Cousin Forsyth.

  Poly detoured around the hearse. “Adults are strange. And they seem stranger as I start to become one of them.”

  Simon seated himsel
f on a keg. “I think it’s stupid to play games for money, even if you have money to spare. But Cousin Forsyth wasn’t suggesting high—wat- chamacallem—high stakes.”

  “It was all more important than it was.” Poly leaned over the rail and looked at the slightly phosphorescent spume breaking about the prow of the Orion. “Which is what’s so peculiar about it. Dr. Eisenstein would have liked Dr. Wordsworth to play, and Dr. Wordsworth wasn’t having any of it—as though Cousin Forsyth had suggested they play for a thousand dollars a point or something.”

  Simon thought he knew why Dr. Wordsworth didn’t want to play with Cousin Forsyth, and he wished he felt he could tell Poly and Charles about the conversation he had overheard.

  Poly continued, “And Mynheer Boon wasn’t about to play, either. He sounded almost frightened at the idea, and I don’t see why it would be that out of line for an officer to play cards with the passengers for a few minutes. Now, Daddy and Mr. Theo were casual about saying no; it really was just because they aren’t much for card games.”

  Charles leaned back against the rough paint of the rail. “I like Mr. Theo—and thank heavens he said to call him Mr. Theo. I can never remember Theoto—whatever it is.”

  “Theotocopoulos,” Poly said. “I can remember it because it was El Greco’s real name, and El Greco’s my favorite painter in the world.”

  “You’re a walking encyclopedia,” Charles started automatically, then said, “Sorry, Pol, I know you love El Greco.” He stared up at the stars, at constellations in completely different positions from those in the sky above Benne Seed Island or Gaea. “Those two professors are a funny combination. Dr. Wordsworth looks like a Spanish opera diva, and Dr. Eisenstein has sort of Norwegian hair, what with those brown-grey braids around the top of her head.”

  “She’s got a very big nose for a Norwegian,” Poly said.

  “How do you know Norwegians don’t have big noses?”

  Poly settled herself in a more comfortable position. “As we said, adults are peculiar.”

  A voice called from the gangway. “Simon! Simon!”

  Simon sighed. “Cousin Forsyth. Every time his hand is dummy at bridge he decides he’d better be cousinly about me and send me to bed.” He called, “We’ll be right in, sir. Don’t worry. We won’t be more than five minutes.”

  “I’d prefer you to come now.” Mr. Phair moved around boxes and bales, disappeared in the shadow of the hearse.

  “All right.” Simon rose.

  “We’ll come, too.” Poly stood up, shaking out the pleats of her skirt. “I’ve got a book I want to finish. Here we are, Mr. Phair. You can go back to your game. Umar!”

  Mr. Phair’s dark form stiffened. “What was that you said?”

  “What was what?” Poly sounded over-innocent.

  “What you said just now, that word.”

  “All I said was that we were coming and you could go back to your game and then I yawned.” But she grabbed Simon’s wrist in a steel-strong clamp. “See you at breakfast, Simon.”

  5

  NOCTURNE

  The passengers of the Orion usually retired early. Occasionally Dr. Wordsworth and Dr. Eisenstein lay out on the small back deck for half an hour or so, their deck chairs pulled out from under the shading canvas, so that they could study the stars. They were very serious about this, and it seemed to Simon that they forgot to notice the beauty of the night sky.

  But this night they were in their cabin early, Dr. Wordsworth brushing her black tresses with the ritual tea. Dr. Eisenstein, in brown cotton bathrobe, looked up from her notebook. “Ines, what on earth did you mean by saying that you don’t play bridge? You know you play a far better game than I do.”

  Ines Wordsworth did not deny this. “I just didn’t want to play with that bunch.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with them?”

  “Oh, Ruth, the Smiths are thousands of years old. I got a peek at her passport—she’s eighty-one, and he’s obviously older. They’re sweet and all that, but they’re dull old fuddy-duddies.”

  “What about Phair?”

  Dr. Wordsworth knew how to swear picturesquely in a good many languages. She brought all of them into use, while Dr. Eisenstein put down pen and notebook in amazement.

  A slow tear trickled down Ines Wordsworth’s cheek and she wiped it away furiously. “My God, to think that I was once in love with that desiccated fop!”

  “Oh, my dear!” Dr. Eisenstein cried. “I’m so sorry—how dreadful for you.”

  “Forsyth, forsooth,” Dr. Wordsworth said, and blew her nose furiously. “At least it does begin with an F.”

  “You don’t mean—you can’t mean—Mr. Phair is Fernando?”

  “Aren’t you being a trifle slow? Fernando Propice: Forsyth Phair: F.P. both, and Propice does mean fair in English. And for him I went to jail. Is it so surprising that I tried to put the past behind me?”

  “My dear,” Ruth Eisenstein said slowly, “of course it is behind you. But it is not good to bury things. They will always erupt and in that way they may even destroy you. I hate to see you in pain, but I think that it may be a very good thing for you to come to terms with the past. It will always be part of you, and until it is acknowledged and put in its proper perspective it will always be able to hurt you.”

  Dr. Wordsworth lay still in her bunk, looking away from her friend.

  Dr. Eisenstein put away her notebook and pen and got into bed.

  Still looking away, Dr. Wordsworth said, “You may be right. Thank God he’s going on to La Guaira. I’ll be better when we get to Lago de los Dragones and your Quiztanos. Perhaps it will do me good to talk about the past. I know you want to help me. I’m very grateful.”

  “Nonsense.” Dr. Eisenstein turned out her light. The curtains were drawn across the portholes and the room was dark and stuffy. That morning Geraldo had folded their blankets and put them on top of the wardrobe. Dr. Eisenstein thought of turning on the fan and decided it was not quite warm enough for her thin blood.

  Through the darkness came Dr. Wordsworth’s voice, back in control. “Thank God my father was English. My temperament is basically far more Anglo-Saxon than Latin.”

  Dr. Eisenstein barely stopped herself from laughing. “We have been colleagues for nearly twenty years and I have yet to find an Anglo-Saxon trait in you.”

  “You’ve always been deceived by looks. I meet a situation with reason. That is an Anglo-Saxon trait. The Latin crashes into everything with emotion.”

  “And that,” said Dr. Eisenstein, “is a generality.”

  Jan ten Zwick, still in his white uniform, sat at his desk and finished tallying the day’s accounts. His cabin was hot and the fan did little to cool it. His blood, unlike Dr. Eisenstein’s, was not thin. And he was disturbed. He decided that he would go up on the boat deck, where Dr. Wordsworth walked laps, and that he would stand in the breeze for a few minutes before going to bed. He locked the drawer where he kept money and records, and left his cabin, crossing the foyer and walking down the port passageway so that he would pass the cabin with the Bolivar portrait.

  As he went by, he put his hand against the handle, but the door, as usual, was locked, and the handle did not move to his touch. He had keys to all the cabins, but he did not go in. No use risking further unpleasantness.

  —Umar, he thought.—Umar. Why should a Quiztano name be written on the back of the portrait? What else is written there? If that one board had not come loose as we were carrying the case into the cabin, I would never have seen that much. What possible reason could there be for a Quiztano name to be written on the back of a portrait of Bolivar that was given to an American? Umar. Umar. It is very strange. Perhaps I will talk about it to Mynheer Boon.

  In his tiny cabin next to Poly’s, Emmanuele Theotocopoulos prepared for the night. He read an act of Romeo and Juliet—an inept play!—then turned out the light. Within easy reach of his hand—and the cabin was so compact that anything he might need was in easy reach—was a worn music manus
cript of Bach organ preludes and fugues. He knew them so well that it was unlikely that he would need to refer to the music. He lay on his back, his mane spread out on the pillow, and let the music fill the cabin. He heard it as he himself had played it during his many years as Cathedral organist; the small cabin grew and expanded until harmony and counterpoint overflowed the ship and spread out into the ocean. He felt relaxed and at peace. He looked forward with joy to Emily Gregory’s first public concerts; he felt little anxiety; she was a superb musician, with the depth and power of suffering behind her technique, a musical wisdom far beyond her age. He looked forward to taking her to some of the great restaurants, to being proud of her.

  The girl, Poly O’Keefe, just growing out of gawkiness, reminded him of his pupil, despite Emily’s black hair and Poly’s flame. But they were more or less of an age, moving into adulthood with a kind of steel-spring stubbornness and an otherworldly innocence almost as acute as that old-fashioned boy’s, Simon’s.

  He was both surprised and annoyed to have the great strands of the fugue broken thus by thought: thoughts of the girl he was sailing across an ocean to hear; of the three children on the ship. He was, for no logical reason, worried about his three young traveling companions, and since Mr. Theo was both a Greek and a musician he payed attention to such illogical notions.

  He sat up in his bunk.—I am too old to be bothered with children. And there is nothing wrong. They are all quite safe. Dr. O’Keefe is as loving a father as I’ve ever come across, and Mr. Phair treats young Simon as though he were a piece of Venetian glass. Phair: harrumph: there was something odd going on around that bridge table.

  He pushed the unwelcome thoughts away, went back several phrases in the music to pick up the theme, lost it again. It was not only the niggling, irrational worry about the children, or a sense that there had been unexplained tension at the bridge table that was interfering with the music: it was the heat. He realized that they had moved into sultry weather and he was damp with perspiration. He had always disliked hot weather; why hadn’t he had sense enough to get on a ship with air-conditioning? He hated air-conditioning, that’s why.