“Can you find me a pea jacket or a raincoat?”
The boy thought for a moment.
“Well, that depends, sir.”
Bowman gave him three shillings. Kit brought him an oilskin coat. It was on the small side, but good enough. Bowman put on his shoes and his cap, slid the letters of credit into his inside pocket and then put on the oilskin.
The deck of the Persia, long and wide, with its lights fixed to the masts, looked like a fragment of a city – a deserted street or boulevard – floating in the middle of the ocean. Sea spray swept the deck like rain sweeping a pavement, and lightning illuminated the white crests, throwing the hollows of the waves into dark shadow. The ship seemed to be moving forward without a crew or any passengers.
Bowman made his way around it, holding on to the railing. The sails had been taken down, and the engine was battling alone against the storm. The machines occupied one third of the vessel’s length, and when Bowman walked over them, in the cold and the gusts of rain, he felt their heat beneath his feet.
He went back down the same set of stairs. In the lit-up corridor, he smiled. There were towels hanging from almost every door handle. The ship’s boy must be making a small fortune.
Bowman put his clothes to dry on the wall that was heated up by the engine. He washed, letting the water pour over his scars for a long time, then he lay down naked on his bunk, a bottle of wine in his hand. The combination of the alcohol and the noise of the machines – the regular rhythm, the volume loud enough to fill his mind – did him good. Bowman slept for several hours, a heavy, dreamless sleep.
*
He went on deck at dawn or at dusk, when he was sure that he would meet no-one on the deck. The sailors, used to seeing him patrol the ship, greeted him familiarly.
On the fourth day, the storm grew calm, giving way to a sluggish swell that did no damage to the Persia but still discouraged the other passengers from going up on deck. Bowman spent hours up there, watching the sea and smoking his pipe. When the weather really improved, he decided not to leave his cabin anymore. Passengers would go out to take the air at all hours of the day, leaving their cabins one after another, straight-backed but still pale, to parade around on deck as if in the streets of Westminster. Women in hats even walked their dogs on leashes, turning away as their pets vomited all over the boat. Men smoking pipes or cigars greeted one another, striding along and chatting about the speed of the Persia. They went out to retake possession of this ship, which had mistreated them for four days. Its 3,000 horsepower was theirs for the nine days, sixteen hours and sixteen minutes of the crossing, just quick enough for the business that they would be doing in America.
Bowman did go out a few times in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep, and found, once again, his empty street afloat in the middle of the Atlantic.
Every day, Kit brought him what he needed, keeping him informed about the steamship’s speed.
“We’ll arrive tomorrow, sir. The storm caused a few delays. Normally we disembark at noon, so everyone can come and see the Persia. But this time, we’ll be arriving at night, just before dawn.”
Bowman made one last order for food and drinks – enough to take with him when he landed at New York. When Kit came back a few hours later, Bowman gave him his wages. He put the pound coin in his hand.
“Good crossing?”
The boy laughed.
“There’s nothing better than a bit of bad weather for me, sir. Here, I nicked this from the restaurant. They always have a party there, the night before we arrive.”
Kit handed the bottle of champagne to Bowman. Then he made a sort of military salute, trying to click the heels of his shoes together.
“Good luck, sir!”
And he scarpered, his pockets heavy with all the coins that Bowman had found at the bottom of his own. Bowman sat on the bed, untied the wire from around the neck of the bottle, and pulled at the cork. The explosion of the champagne made him jump. He drank a mouthful from the bottle, his eyes stung by the bubbles, and looked at the label, written in a language he did not understand. He knew that champagne was a French wine, so he tried to guess what the words might mean. Then he drank some more and belched. The bubbles burned his stomach. He put the almost-full bottle on the table and lay flat, incapable of sleeping, listening to the roar of the engine, waiting for the foghorn to sound.
When the hull of the Persia bumped against the dock, in the middle of the night, Bowman was fully dressed, sitting on the bed, his packed bag pressed against his legs, his heels nervously drumming the steel floor.
Having been first on the ship, Bowman was the last one off it.
Never before had he travelled this far, only to land in a country that was just as cold as England. The lamps of the Persia projected a halo of yellow light into the mist, and the ground was covered with a thin film of frost. The windows and doorways of the Cunard ship were lit up too. Behind it, the city was invisible, drowned by night and fog. Bowman pulled up the collar of his jacket and followed the lanterns leading to the customs offices. He went to a counter. A man in uniform asked him for his name.
“The purpose of your visit to the United States, Mr Bowman?”
“The purpose of my visit?”
“Business or immigration, sir?”
“I’ve come to see someone.”
“Someone?”
“Family.”
“Does your family have American nationality?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you wish to obtain American nationality, Mr Bowman?”
“What?”
“If you fill out a form now, to prove your arrival on American territory, you will be able, five years from now, to present that document at any courthouse in the country and ask to become an American citizen.”
The Cunard employee looked up at him.
“Do you wish to fill out this form?”
“I’m not going to stay five years.”
“Alright. Then please be aware that you may, at any moment during your stay here, obtain this document from the authorities. Welcome to the United States of America, Mr Bowman.”
He signed next to his name on the register that the employee showed him, crossed through the building, and came out in the street, amid a crowd of porters and travellers diving into carriages. The trunks and leather suitcases were loaded onto trolleys; the first-class passengers, irritated by this unceremonious nocturnal arrival, gave terse orders for them to be taken far away from here as quickly as possible.
Bowman stopped a porter.
“John Street?”
“Yeah, the Methodist church.”
“No idea about the church. But if you follow South Street, you’ll cross John Street after about five or six blocks. To the left. But if I were you, I wouldn’t go too far down that way at this time of night.”
He didn’t have time to ask why, because the porter went back to his work.
Bowman followed the pavement and disappeared into the mist. It was daybreak. A grey glimmer was visible in the east. The street ran by the docks of a vast port and he could glimpse the silhouettes of moored ships, their masts rearing up in the fog. To his left were the façades of locked warehouses, letters painted on brick spelling out the names of trading companies.
Having lost count of the streets, Bowman finally turned left, advancing into the city without any idea where he was going. He could not see more than fifty feet in front of him, as he passed buildings whose upper storeys were invisible. Working men appeared out of the fog. It was the time of day when labourers would be hired. With caps on their heads and hands in their pockets, they walked quickly, the dawn air cold on their necks, their shoulders hunched. Bowman turned again at a street corner, and then at another, and found himself on a wider boulevard where the visibility was slightly better. He walked past the metal fence surrounding a park. Bare trees, ghostly figures, reached out with twisted fingers towards the light of the sky, their trunks still concealed behind a s
oft, milky veil. There was no-one on the pavement. He read one of the signs hung to the fence: City Hall Park.
Bowman was walking aimlessly now, waiting for the city to reveal itself to him. Clouds of steam escaped his mouth, dispersing in the mist as if in the breath of the city itself, the city that was still sleeping. In fact, he could hear it breathing, a distant murmur, like the rustle of fabric or a stream. The unreal atmosphere and his lack of sleep must be playing tricks on him. Bowman stopped to listen more closely. No, he wasn’t dreaming. The sound grew louder. He walked to the middle of a deserted road and turned towards the side of the street from where this strange murmur was coming. A dark mass surged out of the fog, occupying the entire width of the boulevard. Bowman ran back to the fence.
Women were walking down the road, elbows joined, their clothes and their light footsteps mingling to produce that dreamy swishing sound, filling up the silence of the city. As they advanced towards him and came into the light, Bowman saw the procession. There were hundreds of women. Maybe even thousands. The flood of black clothes, arms invisible, but bristling with heads, seemed to go on forever. Their faces were serious and pale, and they wore coats over their dresses. Working women.
Bowman turned around and fled from this silent flood, walking fast. Increasing the distance between them and him, he found himself alone in the lightening mist, pursued by an ever-louder chorus. Hundreds of gentle voices combining to become one giant voice, rumbling like thunder.
“To City Hall!”
“To City Hall!”
“Strike! Strike! Strike!”
Bowman kept following the fence, trying to find the entrance to the park. Another sound rose in the distance ahead of him. But this time he recognised the noise. About sixty feet away, he saw a line of soldiers moving towards him. A troop of men marching in time, their boots beating rhythmically against the ground, the barrels of their rifles pointing above their heads and mist-wreathed bodies. Bowman was trapped between the soldiers and the protesters. He quickly crossed the road and dived down an alleyway. The echo of slogans and boots ricocheted from the walls around him. Holding his bag tightly, he kept running until he heard an officer yell an order: “Halt!”
He stopped and retraced his footsteps. The boot heels struck the ground as one, making a noise like a gunshot. The voices of the women went silent and the rustle of the procession slowed and quietened. A hundred feet separated the protesters and the soldiers. The silence lasted for a few seconds. The breaths of the troops and the workers, warmed by the march, rose in little clouds like the bodies of horses before galloping away in the cold. The women had rosy cheeks and frowning faces and they stood with elbows joined. The soldiers, straight-backed and immobile, did not look at them. Their eyes stared at a point above the crowd.
Bowman knew nervous men when he saw them. Perhaps they weren’t afraid of these unarmed women, but they certainly didn’t feel at ease, faced with these workers of all ages. Old and young women, adolescent girls, some pretty, some fat, some rebellious. There were a few black women too. Perched on some of the women’s shoulders were small children.
Bowman did not recognise the uniforms of this army, nor the rank of the officer who advanced, passing between the rows of his men.
“The strike must end! There will be no more negotiations! If you advance, we will open fire!”
A woman’s voice rose from the procession in reply:
“Our children are starving to death!”
Another woman spoke out:
“We want to see the mayor!”
“Yeah! Let Mr Wood come out of his palace – we’ve got things we need to tell him!”
And the shouting began again:
“To City Hall! To City Hall!”
The officer stepped back behind the rifles of his men.
Bowman, from his alleyway, watched the other side of the boulevard. Behind the fences of the park, in the last patches of fog held in place by the trees and plants, figures were moving quickly. Other soldiers were taking up positions on the side of the protest march, hidden behind trees and benches. The women were trapped between the fences on one side and the buildings on the other, and the troops were barring their way. The slogans gradually fell silent again. A woman in her forties, her hair in a bun, walked towards the soldiers.
“The men will be joining us soon! The steelworkers have voted to strike! You can’t stop us advancing!”
She took another few steps towards the young soldiers.
“Soldiers! Soon it will be your wives and children who’ll be starving to death! These are your mothers out in the street today! What are you doing here? Eh? Go home or march with us! You and your families are dying of hunger too and you’re slaving away for less money than you need to live! Soldiers, join us!”
The first rows of the women chorused this, and soon the whole procession was chanting: “Soldiers, join us!”
“Soldiers, join us!”
“To City Hall!”
Bowman, used to hearing orders even under the racket of gunfire and heavy artillery, heard the voice of an officer amid this riot of voices: “First line! In position!”
Twenty soldiers knelt on the ground.
“Second line! Take aim!”
Forty rifles were pointed at the protesters’ chests. In the park, too, the soldiers took aim. Cries arose from the procession, near the fences, swallowed up by the slogans: “They’re in the park! They’ve got us surrounded! We have to get out of here!”
Bowman took a step back and pressed his body against the brick wall of the alley.
In the front rows, some women closed their eyes while others wept and trembled, held upright by their comrades. They took a step forward. The procession began to move. The soldiers’ rifles shook. The officer yelled: “Fire!”
The first salvo seemed to make no noise. Because no-one really believed it was happening, or because the cries of the women were as loud as the gunshots. A cloud of smoke filled the space separating the two groups. When it dissipated, there were screams of terror, drowned out by the slogans still being chanted by the crowd behind. The front rows, pushed forward by their comrades, tripped over corpses and tried to turn around. From the park came another salvo. Bullets whistled through the bars of the fences and smashed the windows of the buildings opposite. This time, the chorus of slogans stopped, turning to shrieks and screams as panic took hold of the entire protest march.
Bowman covered his head with his arms. It took several minutes before the women stopped running in all directions and bumping into each other, before the flood of workers turned around and began to flee. During this time, there were five more bursts of gunfire. The alley was invaded. Women ran past Bowman, screaming, helping the wounded, carrying children. The soldiers were now shooting at will. The boulevard emptied and the screams of the workers grew more distant.
“Bayonets! Forward march!”
The troop advanced down the boulevard, stepping over bodies lying across the road. Bowman watched the soldiers pass the alley. When they had gone far enough, he came out and walked in the middle of the street, amid the clouds of smoke and the smell of powder. The bodies were lying on their backs or bellies, faces humiliated by death, muscles tensed by the impact of bullets. Torn dresses revealed grazed legs and white bellies. Long hair, unpinned, flowed over the ground, soaked with trickles of blood running in straight lines between the paving stones. Bowman stood there, unmoving. In the park, the last soldiers were dispersing.
Someone called out to him:
“Help me.”
At his feet, rolled up in a ball, a young woman was looking up at him.
“Please. Help me.”
He turned her onto her back. She was holding her stomach with both hands. Bowman pulled apart her fingers, lifted up her clothes, and examined the wound.
“Help me.”
He put an arm under her head and another under her legs. She weighed almost nothing. Just a child of fifteen or sixteen. Blood dripped onto Bowman’
s jacket, steaming in the cold air.
He leaned her against a wall in the alleyway. Her face was white and her lips dry. Bowman rummaged through his bag, but found only a half-empty bottle of gin. He stood up, turned around, wondering where he might find some water and knowing that it was already too late. He pressed down on the girl’s stomach to slow the blood loss. She put her hands on his.
“I need a doctor. Please. It hurts.”
She looked around her, then back at this man she didn’t know. She begged him: “My parents. You have to find my parents.”
Her eyes did not leave Bowman’s. She squeezed his fingers with her hands.
“Please.”
She sat up, grimacing with pain, and clung on to him. Her voice grew weak: “My parents . . .”
She bit his shoulder to avoid crying out. The blood was no longer dripping on Bowman; the wound was drying up. She held herself tight inside his arms, as if he were a mother, her jerky breath slowing. Her head fell backwards, into the man’s hand. Her neck muscles no longer held it up. Bowman could feel the skull heavy in his palm. She was still looking at him.
She was too young to be able to die peacefully; the fear, stronger than anything, of dying alone without knowing why.
“There’s nothing I can do for you, child.”
Her heart was still beating and she begged him to say something before she could no longer hear. Bowman moved his hand towards her face, and the girl, seeing his fingers touching her eyes, started with panic.
“Shh. I’m not the one you need to look at. Don’t be scared. It’s your time, child. Breathe. There’s nothing else. Just a bit more air.”
Her body relaxed. Her chest rose slowly, then Bowman felt the air from her mouth on his hand, a little lukewarm puff of air, which stopped when the body, like a balloon, had stopped emptying. His fingers slid down her face, closing the eyelids. He freed himself from the corpse’s grip and lay it on the ground.
On the boulevard, soldiers were picking up the workers’ bodies and throwing them on carts. The wounded were lined up on the pavement, without any medical aid or even blankets. Day had risen over New York. Arthur Bowman, covered in blood, walked down the narrow alley, repeating a question to himself, with a sour smile on his face. He wondered if the girl, lying in the alley, had chosen to fill out the form to become an American citizen.
Retribution Road Page 23
