Retribution Road

by Antonin Varenne

  “Everything is ready, Mr Bowman.”

  The employee opened the briefcase and inventoried its contents.

  “The letters of credit to Duncan, Sherman & Co., our partners in New York, as well as the list of other American banks with whom we work. Your ticket for the Cunard Line, and your train ticket for Liverpool. A carriage will be waiting for you at the station, and your room is reserved for tonight at the Atlantic Hotel. And, lastly, the sum you requested in twenty-pound notes. Is everything to your satisfaction, Mr Bowman?”

  As with the previous day’s visit, the employee did not know how to behave with this man who looked like a common worker but was leaving for America with a small fortune, dressed in a suit that had seen better days. It had taken a while to explain to this Mr Bowman, who was obviously rich but ignorant, how letters of credit work, and to make him understand that, with the equivalent sum in dollars of what he was taking over there, he would be able to build a ranch, buy hundreds of acres of land and pay for the livestock that went with it. Bowman left with two thousand dollars in letters of credit, which he put in a travelling bag worth about six shillings.

  At Euston Station, he climbed into a second-class train carriage. When, one hour later, as the train was speeding northward, the conductor pointed out to him that he had a first-class ticket, Bowman ignored him and remained where he was. Then he opened his bag and the little briefcase, disturbed by the idea that the Peabody employee had also bought him a first-class ticket for the ocean crossing.

  He had asked for a third-class passage and the banker had almost choked with surprise.

  “We don’t sell those, sir. Moreover, only first-and second-class tickets will spare you the customs and sanitary formalities at Liverpool and at your arrival in New York.”

  A second-class ticket for a private cabin on board the Persia, a Cunard ship, leaving 27 January, 1860.

  Beneath the printed drawing of the boat – a long, two-masted steamer – he was struck by the Cunard company’s motto: We never lost a life.

  Bowman reread this strange sentence several times, and the idea came to him that the East India Company could have used it too, for recruitment purposes. As if crossing an ocean in a ship was as safe as going off to war.

  He took a flask from his bag and quickly drank half of the contents.

  Having nothing else to read, he went through the documents they had given him. The list of American banks, the letters of credit, which he hid from other travellers, and the Cunard brochure. The Persia, said the pamphlet, has held the Blue Riband, the world record speed for a transatlantic crossing, for the past four years, having accomplished the journey in nine days, sixteen hours and sixteen minutes. When Bowman came back from Madras, after his liberation and his transfer to India, it had taken him four months to reach London.

  The Persia, at nearly 400 feet long the biggest ship in the world, was also the first entirely built in steel, giving it a weight of 3,300 tons, which was able to speed through the water at 13 knots. To reach this incredible speed, the Persia was equipped with a 3,000-horsepower engine, consuming 150 tons of coal during each day of the crossing. Bowman imagined 3,000 horsepower harnessed to the hull of a little fishing boat, propelling it over the crests of waves.

  Two hundred first-class cabins and fifty second-class. There was no third class on board the Persia. The pamphlet continued with a description of New York, the modern capital of the New World. The city seemed to be a paradise for those who wished to do business there, a city equipped with all the latest technological advances, filled with opportunities, inexhaustible economic resources, a clean and beautiful city where, every day, taller and taller buildings were being constructed to house companies and immigrants from all over the world. Engravings of the port of Manhattan and the Hudson River illustrated the text. Another of Broadway Avenue accompanied an article promoting tourist activities, dance and theatre shows, concerts and exhibitions. Trains left the city in all directions, towards Philadelphia or Chicago, taking you there in a few hours. Others went west, to St Louis, or south, to New Orleans. From St Louis, whether by a Mississippi riverboat or by stagecoach, those who wanted to could explore the Wild West. After that, there were a few lines about the grand plains and the Indians which, if they were not copied word for word, nevertheless seemed to have come straight from one of Fenimore Cooper’s books, which Bowman had read in England. He read the pamphlet all the way to the end, without finding even the smallest mention of Texas.

  Bowman finished his gin and looked outside. It took him a moment, after all these images of America, to recognise the cultivated fields and the cold, gloomy landscape of the English Midlands.

  He saw houses flash past, and recognised Birmingham Station when the train entered it. After a two-hour stopover, during which most of the travellers left the carriage and were replaced by others, the train headed northwards. It arrived in Liverpool four hours later, as night was falling. A driver in uniform was waiting at the exit of the station, holding up a blackboard with Bowman’s name drawn on it in chalk. Bowman climbed up into the horse-drawn carriage. When he got out, in front of the hotel, he could not believe his eyes. The Atlantic was illuminated by dozens of lamps hung from the façade, and the front door was ten feet high, made in shining copper and glass. At the reception desk, blushing with shame, he muttered his name and the hotel employee, just as surprised as he was, confirmed his reservation. He gave Bowman the key to his room on the second floor.

  The room was so huge, he could have fitted not only his old hut in here but the entire wasteland it sat upon. In the doorway, petrified, he stared at the decorations, the immense bed with its embroidered blankets, the cast-iron radiators that warmed the room, the large mirror hung over a gilt-painted sideboard. The idea came to him that he should count his money again, just to be sure that the bank still had something to give him after paying for this carpeted castle. By the bed, a cloth cord hung from the ceiling, with a tassel at its end. Bowman grabbed hold of it and pulled. The cord was attached to a spring, and it rose into the air on its own. Bowman looked around him, as if a secret door was about to open, but nothing happened. He sat on the bed, facing the mirror, and looked at himself without understanding what he was doing there. He was startled by a knock at the door. They had found him out. It was all a mistake: his hotel was further down the street, on the port, a simple inn he could afford.

  When he opened the door, a young man in uniform, with a little hat on his head, asked him what he wanted.

  “What?”

  “You rang, sir. What do you desire?”

  Bowman looked at the cord on its spring.

  “I didn’t know what it was.”

  The boy, curious rather than irritated, observed Bowman.

  “That’s all right. So there’s nothing you want?”

  Faced with this badly dressed client, the boy had adopted a more casual tone. Bowman hesitated: “Is it possible to get something to eat here?”

  “Of course. I’ll bring you a menu.”

  “A menu?”

  The boy raised an eyebrow.

  “There’s meat in sauce, with vegetables. Would that suit you?”

  Bowman felt ridiculous, but said yes to the meat.

  “And a drink.”

  “Wine, sir?”

  “Yes, and gin. Is there any?”

  “A bottle, sir?”

  “A whole one?”

  “You think these gentlemen drink out of thimbles? I carry up crates of the stuff every night, sir. And if you want my advice, ask for a bath. It comes with the price of the room.”

  The boy walked away through the carpeted corridor, leaving Bowman standing in the doorway.

  One hour later, he slid into a hot, scented bath. He ate on the bed, trying not to get sauce all over the covers, then, having eaten his fill, lit a pipe and opened the bottle of gin and watched the candle flames dance on the sideboard, reflected in the mirror. Unable to sleep, he finally took the inkwell and pen from his bag, u
nfolded the sheet of paper and read through what he had written on it.

  Arthur Bowman. London. 1858.

  26 September.

  I have found seven addresses.

  Another two to go.

  It was Wright and Cavendish who told me to find ten men on the Healing Joy.

  The first one I chose was the preacher and now he’s the last one on Reeves’ list. But I didn’t find Penders.

  The list is almost finished and I don’t know if I’m going to find anything. Or what I’m going to do if I don’t.

  I found Young. He was mad too.

  I ran away and I hid in a boat all night scared that the workers would find me.

  There’s only Peavish left.

  It’s a bit worrying because he’s the last one but at the same time I’m looking forward to seeing the preacher again.

  He did not understand. In his memory, he had recorded all his research, all the things that had happened to him, but in fact he had only written about twenty lines, which didn’t say very much at all: a terse summary of the last two years of his life.

  He thought for a moment, then sat on a chair in front of the sideboard and dipped his pen in the inkwell.

  I found an American newspaper and inside they wrote that another murder just like that one had happened in a city in Texas.

  After that, I don’t remember much.

  Frankie’s wife came in the hut when I was having a breakdown. She washed me and then she said she wanted to fetch a woman for me and at the same time she touched me. I couldn’t move and she told me to go away.

  I wrote a letter to Peavish and she was the one who took it. Another pastor came to the hut and he told me that Peavish had gone to America after my visit to his chapel.

  Peavish lied and I thought I was looking for Penders. Now I don’t know if it’s him or the preacher.

  I left a letter to Frank and Stevens to say that the boat was theirs and that I’d come back.

  I left the Christmas presents and the Bufford widow’s book for Frank’s wife.

  Tomorrow I’m taking a boat that goes to New York and it scares me to be at sea and to go there.

  When he had finished writing, he reread it several times, lying on the bed.

  At dawn, long before the departure time, Bowman was waiting in the cold outside the Cunard landing stage. He was not the first in line.

  *

  They had spent the night on the quay: a crowd of men, women, old people and children. Blankets thrown over their shoulders, babies hidden under coats, they had got up, silent, in the grey dawn, shivering with cold in the falling sleet. Sleepy-eyed, they stood in a line in front of the entrance to the Cunard offices reserved for third-class passengers. Three or four hundred people, all huddled together, holding suitcases. They shuffled forward, inch-by-inch, nervous and exhausted, breathing out clouds of steam.

  Bowman walked past them and entered the building through the second-class door. He did not have to wait in line. An employee checked his ticket then asked for his name, and his date and place of birth.

  “Arthur Bowman. Eighteen twenty-one. London.”

  Before arriving at the counters, the third-class passengers went past tables where Cunard employees sat, along with doctors who examined them. Teeth, ears, hair. They made the passengers cough and listened to their lungs. Every ten or fifteen passengers, a doctor nodded, and the passenger picked up his suitcase and went back the way he had come, head down, accompanied by his family, if he had one.

  Bowman asked the employee who was writing his name in the register:

  “Is there a risk of illness?”

  “The American customs fine the shipping companies a hundred dollars each time they bring in sick immigrants. So we check them before they board. But don’t worry, sir, you won’t be travelling on the same ship as them.”

  Bowman went out through the other side of the building and found himself on the landing stage. The Persia, with its black steel hull, seemed to turn its back on the other Cunard ship: a wooden four-masted vessel that had seen better days, similar to the slow, pot-bellied ships of East India. The third-class passengers were boarding this sailing ship. At the bottom of the gangplank, they walked between sailors armed with crop sprayers, who squirted them from head to foot with disinfectant. The passengers coughed and wept. The Cunard employees also sprayed the contents of their luggage. Once they were on deck, the third-class passengers went down into the hold where they remained, in cramped conditions, for five or six weeks. Bowman guessed that the mortality rate must be the same as it was for the sepoys in East India. One in ten. Children excluded.

  We never lost a life.

  The Persia was still empty. At the top of the gangplank, Bowman showed his ticket to a company officer, who whistled for a ship’s boy. He was the first passenger on board, having arrived four hours before the ship was due to depart. He followed the child in his too-short sailor’s uniform, passing by the foot of a large red-and-black chimney from which billows of smoke escaped. Under the steel deck, he felt the vibrations of the idling engine, the pistons pumping every few seconds, beating as slowly as a bull’s heart. His cabin was one of the lowest on the ship, with a porthole just above the water line. A bunk, a table, a wardrobe and a washstand.

  Bowman put his bag on the bed and gave twopence to the boy, who was waiting by the door with a smile on his face.

  “So it’s like a hotel, this boat, eh?”

  “Yes, sir, it’s a floating hotel.”

  “Can I take my meals in my cabin?”

  “I don’t know if that’s allowed for second-class passengers, sir. But I can ask.”

  Bowman observed him for a moment, then gave him another coin.

  “I want to eat here twice a day, with a bottle of wine. Is there a bar on board?”

  “Course, sir.”

  “Go and get me a bottle of gin. I don’t want to see anyone else. You bring me my food. You’ll get more money at the end of the voyage.”

  The boy ran off, and Bowman locked his door. The walls, painted white, were also made of steel and he could feel the engine, very close by, vibrating through them. The cabin was already hot. The porthole, looking out at the tresses of seaweed stuck to the legs of the landing stage, could not be opened. Bowman sat at the little table, placing the pen, inkwell and sheets of paper on it, along with the copy of the New York Tribune. He unfolded the Cunard pamphlet, then folded it back together in a way that allowed him to see the little map of New York printed inside. The city was built on an island, at the centre of a network of great rivers, inlets and bays. Other names of cities, illegible on the reproduction, surrounded New York in that interlacing of water and earth. The complexity of this maritime network worried him. The port of New York was in the middle of a labyrinth whose dimensions he could not guess.

  He took off his shoes and his jacket, lay on the bunk, and drank the rest of the gin from the bottle he’d bought at the Atlantic. One hour later, he heard noises above him, then in the corridor outside. The other passengers were boarding. Two more hours passed before the Persia’s foghorn sounded. The engine started up, shaking the entire hull. The noise of the pistons, connecting rods and gears was impressive, and the temperature in the cabin soon went up by several degrees.

  The ship began to move. Bowman twisted his neck to look out through the porthole. He saw the quay, the four-masted ship still moored to the docks, and the sky full of black clouds rushing inland, over Plymouth. The waves started to lap at his little window. The visibility was poor, but he could glimpse the coastline of England, about twenty miles away. Within a few hours, the Persia was past Ireland. Away from the shelter of land, the swell grew, and every ten seconds or so the cabin’s porthole would be plunged into darkness. Bowman lit the oil lamp hung from the ceiling.

  There was a knock at the door. The ship’s boy had brought him a bottle of gin.

  “Bring me something to eat. Bread, lard and fruit. Bring a lemon, too, if you can find one.”
r />   “Sir, there’s everything you could ever want on this ship.”

  The boy left again, sprinting without difficulty down the passageway while the Persia swayed and rolled with increasing violence, slamming into the sea like a battering ram on a castle’s portcullis. This was not just the usual ocean swell. The steamship, engine roaring at full power, had entered a storm.

  The boy came back half an hour later with a bottle of wine, an entire loaf of bread, some cheese, an orange and a lemon, all of it wrapped up a large tea towel.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Kit.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twelve, sir.”

  A resourceful child with quick eyes, bitten nails and long legs. In the middle of a growth spurt, by the looks of it.

  “What’s it like outside?”

  “There’s a storm, sir, and I’ve heard that it’s likely to last for most of the crossing. The passengers are all in their cabins and half of them are sick. The dining saloon’s empty. I often come down this passage, so if you need anything, just trap the towel in the door, and I’ll stop by and see you. And in ten days, when we get there, you’ll give me a pound.”

  Bowman took a penknife from his pocket, cut the orange in two and handed the boy half of it. The child refused.

  “There’s no lack of food on board, sir! Hang the towel from the door if you need something.”

  Bowman sat at the table, reread his notes, dipped his pen in the ink and adapted his movements to those of the ship.

  I am on the boat.

  The first battle in a war is knowing how to wait.

  Then he cut up the bread, swallowed a few bits of lard, sliced the lemon into quarters, bit into the pulp and rubbed the peel against his gums before swallowing it.

  The boy came back in the evening, and Bowman ordered some extra food.

  “How can I go up on deck without seeing the other passengers?”

  “If you really don’t want to see anyone, go left down the passage, and take the second staircase, not the first one. That comes out below the front mast, sir, on the bow of the ship.”