He said hesitantly, ‘You mustn’t blame every man you meet. I know you feel like it. But you must try to understand that what happened was the result of one old man’s lechery, just one old man, and not every man in the world.’
‘All men look at me the same,’ she said, sullenly and softly.
‘Well, they do,’ Collis agreed, ‘but that’s because of the way you dress and the way you act. If you wear your blouse as low as that, and if you smoke that way, and talk so rough, then men are bound to think that you’re easy pickings. I did myself.’
She lifted her head and stared at him defiantly. ‘What do you know? You come from New York. You’re a gentleman.’
‘A poor gentleman.’
She gave him a half-forgiving smile. ‘Not so poor. Not really so poor. And anyway, you’ll make plenty of money in San Francisco.’
‘I hope so.’
There was a short silence, during which the sky lightened surprisingly quickly. A door opened further down the promenade deck, and a sleepy-eyed man in crumpled broadcloth pants, an undershirt, and suspenders came out on deck, and systematically scratched his ribs and yawned at the distant coastline.
‘I’d better get back to my cabin,’ said Collis.
Maria-Mamuska nodded.
Collis waited a little while longer, and then said, ‘What’s going to happen to you? And what about your baby?’
She shrugged. ‘You needn’t worry. It isn’t your problem. If you’re poor, then you must have problems of your own.’
He bit at his thumbnail thoughtfully. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I guess it’s soft-headed, but who cares. Do you know any places in San Francisco?’
‘I’ve never been there before.’
‘Well, let’s say Montgomery Street. That’s a street that my lady friend mentioned. Her husband’s name is Walter West – have you got that? – and he owns a general store.’
‘Walter West,’ Maria-Mamuska enunciated carefully. ‘Who is Walter West?’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Collis told her. ‘The important thing is that I’ll meet you outside of Walter West’s store on Montgomery Street three years and some weeks from now, on 18 September, my father’s birthday, at noon. By then you’ll have had your baby, and I’ll know if I’m going to make any money or stay flat broke for the rest of my life. If it looks as though I’ve got some money to spare, well, I’ll give you a little to help you bring up the child. If it doesn’t, I’ll say hello, and that’ll have to be it.’
Maria-Mamuska brushed back her hair. ‘Why should you do this?’ she asked him.
He glanced back at the porthole, still with its drapes drawn, where Hannah had appeared. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s an act of – I don’t know, defiance.’
‘Defiance? What do you mean? You don’t talk straight.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I just get the feeling that once you’re out of step with the world, once you’re an outcast, it takes a hell of a lot of hard work and suffering to make your way back.’
‘I still don’t understand you. You’re a funny man. A little crazy, as I said.’
‘I’m only crazy because I’m not supposed to be here on the deck of this godforsaken ship at all. I should be waking up in my own bed on Twenty-first Street, in New York City, and I should be wealthy and organised and perfectly content. I should have gone out gambling last night, and had my supper at the Union Club, and maybe gone to a whorehouse to top off the evening properly. Instead of which I tried to seduce a married woman in a ship’s cabin, and got myself thrown out by some hair-curlered Tartar I’d never seen before in my life, and then I spent the rest of the night arguing with a Mexican-Polish lady about whether I was morally responsible for her pregnancy or not.’
Maria-Mamuska grinned. ‘You sure are crazy. But I’ll come to that place. If you say Montgomery Street, 18 September, three years from now, then that’s where I’ll be.’
Collis clasped her hand, and then kissed her, very quickly, on the forehead. For some reason he couldn’t begin to understand, he felt pleased, as if something quite happy had just taken place.
Right then, without any warning, Andrew Jackson Hunt appeared around the port side of the steamer, dressed in a tan suit, and tan-coloured cowhide shoes as wide and flat as cigar cases. He stared at the spectacle of Collis consoling Maria-Mamuska, with Collis in his nightshirt and nothing else, and Maria-Mamuska in her Pueblo blanket and a blouse that was obviously hanging loose, with undisguised pleasure. Collis couldn’t do anything but look back at him, and give him the sort of turned-down smile which means ‘Okay, you caught me, I give in’; but Andrew Hunt stepped forward and walked around them with both his hands clasped behind his back, as if he were admiring a new piece of statuary.
‘Good morning, sir and madam,’ he said with benevolence. ‘And how are we enjoying our voyage?’
Only a few miles out of Limón Bay, on the isthmus of Panama, with the dark coastline already in sight, the Virginia’s steam engines blew a valve, and the ship wallowed offshore for most of the day, while the weather worsened, and the passengers were fed with stone-cold mutton and carrots. It was early evening before they eventually paddled into Aspinwall harbour, and it was raining out of a low sky the colour of dirty white bath towels. Aspinwall itself was built on a flat coral island in the middle of the bay, and as the Virginia approached it through the rain, it appeared to the passengers to be floating on the steamy water as if by enchantment, a clutter of wet red rooftops and peeling white stucco, like a town mysteriously set adrift from land. The passengers stood on deck with umbrellas, or sheltered underneath the sagging awnings, as they were slowly borne towards the United States Mail Steamship Company’s jetty. There, silent and disinterested, a huddle of longshoremen waited in wet shirts and sodden straw hats, and a company official with whiskers and rows of gilt buttons held a dripping umbrella in one hand and a fizzled-out cigar in the other.
Collis, his trunk already packed for the journey across the isthmus, stood under one of the awnings on the afterdeck, crowded next to his Latvian cabin partner. There was no sign of Hannah, and he suspected she was still in her cabin. He hadn’t seen her all day, and at lunchtime the steward had taken a tray along to the women’s quarters, so he guessed she was feigning sickness. Maybe she wasn’t feigning. The air was close enough and hot enough to make anyone feel sick. But the whole damned business made him feel unutterably depressed. As if life weren’t galling enough already.
Maria-Mamuska, still wrapped in her Pueblo blanket, a bundle of belongings by her side, was standing in the rain by the forward rail, her hair wet and stuck to her face. Andrew Jackson Hunt had positioned himself not far away from her, and every now and then Collis could see him turn and give her a cocky little smile. Well, thought Collis, if he’s prepared to take on Maria-Mamuska’s unborn infant, he’s welcome to her. It was a pity she was so damned dirty.
Gradually, the Virginia’s engines slowed, and she turned and eddied sideways towards the jetty. Out of the mist, beyond the jetty, the white two-storey headquarters of the steamship company appeared, surrounded by spindly palms, and an assortment of warehouses and storage tanks and fenced enclosures. Further inland, through the rain, Collis could make out only a scattering of dilapidated tropical houses, and beyond, to the south, foothills that were so dark and moist that they looked as if they were forested with freshly steamed broccoli. Even before the ship berthed, he could smell the distinctive tropical odour of donkey dung and sewage and home-cured tobacco, and he could hear the screeching of parrots in the trees.
The gangplank was lowered, and the passengers filed off the Virginia and on to the jetty. The rain continued steadily, and hardly anyone spoke. The company official shook a few hands and then stepped up on to one of the jetty’s bollards, holding up his umbrella as if he were going to attempt a leap into the sea.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, in a congested Illinois accent, ‘I very much regret to tell you that the ra
in has brought on a mudslide up at the Culebra cut, and that the railroad won’t be running this evening. However, the company has arranged for you to stay here at Aspinwall for tonight, and we should be ready to roll by midmorning tomorrow.’
There was a general murmur of dismay and disapproval. Even from where they were standing within the company’s premises, it was clear that the town of Aspinwall wasn’t as mysterious and magical as it had appeared from the bay. The heat was desperately oppressive, and every breath smelled of garbage and fever.
Andrew Jackson Hunt called out, ‘What happens if the railroad isn’t ready by the morning?’
The official shrugged. ‘You’re welcome to go by mule.’
‘By mule? And how long would that take?’
‘It’s about five hours on the railroad. By mule, it could take you days. That’s if you got there at all. The yellow fever’s bad this year.’
‘In that case, it looks as if we don’t have much choice,’ decided the woman who had chased Collis out of the ladies’ quarters the previous night. ‘Take us to the hotels.’
The company official led the way, while barefooted Jamaican porters took up the rear with the baggage. The Virginia was unloaded of her mail and her provisions, breathing and hissing and letting out an occasional chuff as her boilers were cooled off, and Collis turned back once and looked at her. She could return to New York and civilisation. God alone knew where he was going to end up.
Hannah was only a few paces ahead of him as they reached the wet railroad tracks of the company’s terminal. Already a sorry collection of mule traps was gathered there to take the ladies, overlooked by six or seven Jamaican muleteers in ragged white shirts and soiled white pants, and only one complete mouthful of teeth between the lot of them. They chewed and spat and watched the soaking, pale-faced passengers treading delicately along the boardwalk towards them, and one of them made a coarse remark which set the others cackling like castanets. Collis quickened his pace a little so that by the time Hannah was lifting her skirts to step over the first railroad track, he was right by her side. He crooked his arm and offered it to her.
‘Hannah?’ he said.
She stopped and stared at him. There were plum-coloured circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept very well. Although she was carrying a small fringed parasol, her blue cape was stained with rainwater, and there were raindrops, or tears, clinging to her eyelashes.
She paused, and then turned away.
‘I don’t need any help, thank you. I’m quite capable of walking on my own two feet.’
‘Hannah, you’ve misunderstood me.’
‘I don’t think so. Now, please, we’re holding people up.’
She began to walk across the tracks, and Collis walked beside her. ‘What you saw this morning, Hannah, that was nothing but a farcical mistake. The girl was half-witted. She was only trying to show off.’
Hannah pursed her lips. ‘I see. She certainly succeeded, didn’t she?’
‘Hannah, this is a hot climate. All manner of odd things happen. But you mustn’t read damning interpretations into every one.’
Hannah reached the far side of the tracks. The company official tipped his cap and gestured towards the mule traps. ‘Madam, I am truly mortified to have you inconvenienced this way.’ He grinned, as if he were truly tickled to see this motley party of greenhorns having to spend the night in such a pestiferous place.
‘Hannah?’ Collis said.
‘Yes, Collis, I hear you,’ she said, in an expressionless voice. ‘But I can only believe what I see with my own eyes, and my eyes have told me not to trust you.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Collis. ‘What does trust have to do with what happened this morning? We’re not husband and wife, are we? We’re not even lovers. How can I possibly be unfaithful to you if I’ve never made any promises to be faithful? Did you ever hear me give my oath never to look at another woman? Hannah, you’re married to someone else – you can’t expect it of me!’
‘You’re wriggling now, Collis,’ she said, ‘and it doesn’t suit you.’
She reached the rickety mule trap with its dirty cushioned seats and its mildewed awning, and she reluctantly held out her hand to the muleteer to help her climb aboard it. She settled herself, and then she looked at Collis with self-possession and pride, but also with distinct regret.
‘However much you protest,’ she said, ‘the fact remains that when we first met each other, we were both conscious of an affinity of spirit. It was possible that, in time, this affinity might have flowered. Instead, I looked out of my window this morning and saw the very first seedling being trampled underfoot.’
Collis wiped the rain from his face with his hand. ‘Are you trying to tell me that we could have been lovers? In spite of everything you’ve said to the contrary?’
‘It wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility,’ she said with dignity. ‘I have to confess, to my shame, that it did enter my mind more than once. I know I protested. But there were moments when it seemed like a sort of answer.’
‘Then why did you turn me away?’
She lowered her eyes. ‘I am not a New Yorker, Collis. I am not a woman of much intellect or experience. I know that I am attractive in your eyes, and in the eyes of many men to whom the sacraments of marriage are only there to be broken. I am attracted to you, too. There, I’ve said it. But I need to be handled with delicacy. I feel a great burden of guilt already, without having it aggravated. You came cantering up to me last night as if you were a steeplechaser, and I were just another hedge you wanted to jump. You were too bold and too flippant. Collis – I need reassurance before I can ever consider becoming acquainted with you more closely.’
Collis reached out and took her hand. Her fingers were limp and yielding, but he still held on.
‘You’re as giddy and confused as any woman I’ve ever met,’ he told her, as warmly as he could manage.
She kept her eyes down. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said. ‘But I have my sensitivities, too. And what I saw this morning out on deck – well, it hurt my sensitivities considerably.’
‘You mean you were considering taking me as a lover, and now you don’t know?’
‘Collis, it was that dreadful girl –’
‘That girl was nothing! That was the most absurd thing that has ever happened to me! She just – popped herself out for no reason at all!’
‘I see,’ said Hannah disbelievingly.
Collis held her hand for a moment longer, then released it. It dropped by her side as if it were artificial. She really was the most frustrating woman. It was entirely in character for her to tell him after he had failed to seduce her that she had been willing at least to entertain the possibility of their becoming lovers, given the right approach. But why hadn’t she told him before?
A muleteer came up, dragging behind him a wet, bedraggled mount with a worn leather saddle. ‘This one is for you, señor,’ he said. ‘Better get up. We have to go now.’
‘Is it far?’
‘Just down Front Street, señor. A few hundred metres.’
‘Then I’ll walk.’
‘No, señor, ride.’
‘Just so that I’ll have to pay you?’
‘No, señor. The street.’
‘The street? What’s the matter with the street?’
The muleteer tried to think of the English words. Finally, with very careful enunciation, he said, ‘Human doings, señor.’
Collis looked around the puddly railroad yard. Already most of the Virginia’s passengers had settled themselves in the traps or sat themselves astride single mules. In the mist of a rainy Aspinwall evening, they looked like refugees from some eccentric military campaign, the remnants of a disreputable regiment of cavalry. The Virgina let out a long hoot, and a mule, with great solemnity, dropped dung on the railroad tracks.
‘Let’s talk again later,’ Collis said to Hannah. ‘There’s no need for us to be enemies, is there?’
‘Who said we were enemies?’
‘There’s no need for us not to be friends. Even lovers, if that’s what you will, and if that’s what the Lord God wills.’
‘The Lord God never wills immorality,’ said Hannah.
‘I don’t believe He wills unhappiness, either.’
Hannah opened her purse and took out a handkerchief. It wasn’t very clean, but then most of the Virginia’s passengers were running low on personal laundry. ‘I’d rather you didn’t take His name in vain,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t need to if you told me how you really felt.’
She patted the rain from her cape. ‘I don’t know how I feel, Collis. I believe that I’ve told you everything possible. I have thought about you as a lover, but it could never be a passing relationship, a brief affair. I would have to commit myself to you, and I would expect commitment in return.’
‘Is that why you were so upset when you saw me with Maria? Because you’d already committed yourself, and you expected the same from me?’
She raised her head. The evening was very dusky now, and through the rain her face seemed to have the quality of a delicate luminescent painting.
‘I suppose so,’ she said.
Collis stood beside her trap for a while, and then went over without a word and took the rough rope rein of his own mount. Over in the far corner of the yard, sitting in the open doorway of a boxcar marked ‘Specie & US Mails’, were a dozen Jamaican porters, most of them half-naked. At a signal from the railroad official, they jumped down from the boxcar and gathered up all the hand baggage that couldn’t be strapped to the mules and began to file out of the railroad yard and along the muddy road towards the town. One of them, the last, even carried a small boy on his back, on a wooden seat that was fastened around his shiny black head with a cloth band. The boy, in a sodden sailor suit, was pale-faced and fast asleep.
The chief muleteer, a fat man in a wide straw hat, now called, ‘Hoi, hoi, hoi,’ and waved his arm like a threshing flail, for everyone to follow. Unsteadily, everyone did so, shaken in their rickety traps, or with their bottoms swaying dangerously on the narrow wet backs of their mules.
Railroad Page 18
