by Dennis Bock
“Anything at all, Doctor Bethune,” Gwendolyn said.
I’d been mulling something over for a number of days, in fact ever since seeing Alicia feeding the seagulls that first morning. “I’m looking to make a portrait, and I’d be greatly honoured if Alicia would agree to sit for me. She is such a lovely child, as of course you know.”
“Oh, yes,” Alicia replied. “Please, I’ve never had my picture painted! Do say yes, Gwen!”
Gwendolyn smiled and said she had no objections, though I suspected she might herself have wanted a painter to fuss over her.
“You say you’ve never had your portrait painted?” I was still standing, slightly hunched, cupping my knees with my hands. “Well, then, what about it?”
Only slightly chilled under the weak winter sun, we met every morning on the promenade deck. She was always there, waiting for me, as prompt and energetic as she was young and pretty, and pleased to have an adult taking her so seriously. After a casual greeting and friendly chitchat, she sat perfectly still and without complaint, wrapped in a heavy sweater, for long stretches at a time: with eyes staring out to sea; sitting, standing; lying back on her deck chair; sometimes curling a lock of hair between her fingers. Her aunt was always in the next chair, quietly reading one of her poetry books.
One morning Gwendolyn straightened her back and said, “Will you just listen to this one? It’s so lovely it makes me want to throw myself into the ocean and die!”
“After that day she started reading to us while I worked. Her niece listened quietly. I wondered what an eight-year-old thinks when an adult says something about throwing herself into the ocean, but it wasn’t long before I saw that she understood her aunt’s flights of fancy and extravagant speech. Often, when Alicia began to fidget, usually after half an hour, I recommended a break of ten or fifteen minutes. She skipped rope while Gwendolyn and I spoke about the civil war in China and the subsequent Japanese invasion, and about her interests as a student of poetry. She read the “new poetry,” as she called it, because it was real and unfettered by convention or tradition. Smiling, she admitted she could only ever be an observer of genius. Perhaps, I said, but an astute observer, I’m sure. As I painted in the pale winter sunlight, chilled but comfortable enough, she read Eliot for us and Pound and William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. The Pacific stretched as far as the eye could see.
We were, by then, well away from where we’d started, yet still many days from where we were headed. The colours of the ocean were muted, but it was always calm, flat and soothing, with browns and greys. Sometimes, if the light touched the surface just so, I could see a shine as of liquid mercury at the forward edge of a soft rise in the water. I painted the young girl sitting, standing, or lying while, hidden in the inner breast pocket of my light green Abercrombie & Fitch jacket, I carried the stolen money.
Time spent with Alicia and Gwendolyn was a welcome respite. I began to enjoy the company of this child and her poetry-loving aunt for their own sake, as well as for the entertainment and diversion they promised. I was appreciative of their indulgence of my painterly musings. I was not as gifted as I may have made myself out to be, though I had dabbled for many years, principally in the portraits of various friends and intimate acquaintances. Yet despite the hours spent painting Alicia, and the calming presence of the smooth ocean, the crossing was by then proving tedious.
At the end of my fourth day at the easel, I turned to glimpse an unusually dark cloud on the far eastern horizon and saw the Captain walking purposefully toward me. Could there finally be a storm on the way? I wondered. The cloud, it turned out, immense though it was, was not in our path. The Captain greeted me and, with some curiosity, regarded my painting for a moment without speaking. “You are a surprising man, indeed,” he said at last.
“How so?” I asked. I didn’t turn from the canvas. “Do you play Bach and Mozart too, Doctor?”
“I have far less art in me than you think, Captain. I only entertain myself. It helps fill the time.”
“I wonder if you might have heard,” he said, “the news from Doctor Parsons?”
“What news is that?”
“He didn’t tell you? It seems we have a thief on board.”
“A thief?”
“Oh, the doctor was terribly upset. Rightly so, I should say. A fair bit of money’s gone missing.” He quoted the amount in question, the precise amount hidden in my inner breast pocket. “This isn’t common knowledge, of course,” he said.
“Of course. But you’ve got established methods on board, I imagine. A protocol for this sort of situation?”
“Oh, yes, we’ll get our man, Doctor Bethune. Not to worry. There are certain tricks we have for bringing a man like this forward.”
“Yes, I’m sure you have,” I said.
*
I walked a tightrope. I kept busy, all the while willing the ship to make land. Most mornings I met with the girl and her aunt and painted while listening to the poems of Wallace Stevens.
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
When she finished reading the poem, I said, “Did you know we have a macaw on board? An intelligent creature. I will take you both one morning to see him.”
Little by little, the endless expanse of the Pacific began to shape my imagination. The ocean became a vast desert and we a minute organism crawling over its back. I immersed myself in the details of the painting as the words fell from Gwendolyn’s lips. The green freedom of a cockatoo. The oranges. The light. The peignoir. When the light faded, however, I yet again set out to begin this story, and yet again failed. I was two men. Busy, engaging and visible by day. But alone in my cabin at night, solemn and introspective, my dreams troubled. The mornings were most productive. Dabbling. Listening. Dreaming as I painted portraits that gave me no end of relief.
Of course, there were options. I considered sneaking back with the money, slipping it under Parsons’s door or between that stack of envelopes where I’d found it. But that brought me back to the problem of keeping Parsons sober, and long enough to hold his tongue. Plus he’d polish off another good chunk of money that would certainly have better uses in less than a month’s time. One morning, as I touched my brush to a lovely daub of fresh—face pink I’d just created, the Captain rounded the corner. Had I been found out?
“Doctor,” he said with a wide grin. “Good morning. I wonder if you would consider a proposition.” He stopped to consider the painting. “Why, this is coming along nicely.”
“A proposition?”
“I would be honoured if you would deliver an address for us. Something very informal. Unofficial. Something personal, perhaps. I understand you were quite active about Madrid, speaking to audiences on the radio and so on, and back in Canada before joining us. I’ve talked to a number of passengers who remember you from the wireless.”
I asked him what he had in mind.
“Nothing political, of course,” he said. “That wouldn’t do. We shan’t get into that on board here. Not quite appropriate, you understand. But something . . . more personal, I wonder? Anything, really. People are interested, Doctor. You’ve led an interesting life. Made a name for yourself. We have a good many important passengers on board, and I’ve asked a number of them. Sort of an onboard lecture series. Keeps the mind busy.”
“Indeed,” I said.
“Think about it, will you?”
“But I have no idea what to talk about beyond my interest in politics and medicine. This is very flattering, Captain, but personal stories? I’m not so good at that.”
“Well, think about it, anyway.”
Yet I was obliged to admit to myself that the idea had intrigue
d me. In fact I couldn’t stop thinking about the offer, for a number of reasons. Was I flattered? Yes, I was. But I smelled an opportunity here, too, to advance the cause of justice in China.
*
Am feeling buoyed today, despite the cold. General Nieh has promised to secure a dynamo and a small gas engine to run it. Every bit counts, and this is more than a bit. A dynamo-electric machine is as good as gold out here. I have also requested a Chinese dictionary. My language skills are well below what they should be. Mr. Tung helps immeasurably with that, but how I would like to go the extra mile for these fine people here. They bend over backwards to make me as comfortable as possible and all I seem to do is show my impatience with them. Patience never was my strong suit, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, and this war’s fearsome horrors are taking a toll on what little stock I started with. Every morning I remind myself that my medical staff were tilling the fields and tending livestock only nine months ago, never even having heard of such basic materials as a catheter or cotton gauze. The work is drearily repetitive and sad—so many dead and wounded, in cold relentless enough to break a healthy man—but emotionally I’m feeling better these days. Some small signs of hope, starting with the dynamo. Given all the supplies needed and twenty or thirty trained medical staff, I would be the happiest man on earth.
*
One morning on board, after a difficult night, I was stepping out to meet Alicia and her aunt for another sitting. When I opened my cabin door I was surprised to find Miss Ewen standing there. We startled one another.
“You’ve surprised me,” she said, regaining her composure.
“You’ve not come calling for me?”
“I’m just walking,” she said. “Learning the ship.”
“I’m on my way up top. I’ll walk with you.” She was dressed in a cream-coloured dress and jacket suit. She was very pretty that day, I remember, with a light grey handkerchief over her hair. “I suppose it’s blowing out there a bit,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “it is.”
As we walked the length of the corridor she asked about the supplies I carried under my arm. I told her about the portrait I was painting.
“You’ve fortified yourself against this monotony,” she said. “Good for you. On board one has so much time to think. Perhaps a little too much.”
“The mind can go in circles,” I said.
We turned a corner and ascended a flight of stairs.
“I was coming to call, actually,” she said. “You caught me in the midst of reconsidering.”
“Reconsidering?”
“Yes, I’m ashamed to say. I wanted to talk to you about Charles.”
“You’ve reconsidered my proposal?”
“I think he invented his story about someone stealing the money.”
“Why do you say that?” I said. “Do you know something?”
“There is no evidence that anyone entered his quarters. I’ve spoken to the Captain on this matter. There’s nothing to go on but his word. We already know of his drinking. That’s the only thing we really do know.”
“What do you suggest, then?” I asked.
“It’s a terrible mess. It’s all unravelling, isn’t it.”
We came upon a hatch leading out to the promenade deck. I pushed it open for her and touched her elbow ever so slightly as she stepped over the small rise and out into the morning sunshine. “I feel so traitorous. Villainous. The fact is, I just don’t know.”
“You may feel as you must, Miss Ewen, but you must also feel right about sending the telegram. I will not force you. This has to be your decision.”
“It is,” she said.
It was clear that Jean found it unkind and perhaps even dishonourable to go behind Parsons’s back as we eventually did, and that she felt she might have crushed something in herself in turning on this “kind and helpless man.” I assured her we had no other choice. She knew, finally, what she had to do. The telegram went out that same afternoon, signed by the both of us, requesting that the CAC relieve Parsons of his financial responsibilities. We stayed together a short time after that, walking slowly. I assured her that we had pursued the correct course of action. She seemed needful of assurance, so I told her that when replacement funds were eventually wired to Hong Kong, as surely they would be, every last dime would be used for the purpose intended. In that we could be proud.
What about Parsons, then, now that Jean and I had sent the telegram?
I was careful about reintroducing the money into the coffers of the expedition. It couldn’t simply reappear, just like that, without raising suspicion. What I did was this: I accepted the Captain’s offer to speak, on the condition that following my address, donations might be made in a discreet manner to a non-political, non-partisan humanitarian effort to benefit victims of the war in China. The Captain was delighted to comply.
When we received a telegram in response to ours two days later—which happened to be the day of my lecture—it officially discharged Parsons of all financial duties and “effected a transfer to Dr. Bethune.” He might not have known before then that I’d actively set about undermining him, but he would know it now, just as I knew surely enough that not much time would pass before he came to take my measure.
During the increasing turbulence of those days I quite miraculously cobbled together some thoughts for the talk I’d promised to give. So it was, after a torturously long dinner on Friday evening, that our Captain rose, tapping his wineglass with a slender silver fork, and called the hall’s attention to where I sat at the head table. Billingsley, Parsons, Jean and Gwendolyn, with pretty Alicia, were all seated about the room. The Captain cleared his throat with great force and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we have the honour . . .” and so on, and after his humbling introduction I rose, bowed as graciously as possible, and walked to the podium, which stood at the front of the hall, where a small team of busboys had assembled it as we ate. The first face I saw, of course, was that of my chief adversary.
Parsons smiled at me, and in that moment I was convinced that he’d put the Captain up to this. Invite Bethune, by all means, he would have said, he won’t be able to resist. The man’s vanity is unsurpassed. I returned his smile. Perhaps for a moment my mind went blank with fear. The diners were silent now. I might have blinked uncontrollably and fidgeted with my hands. Yet I remember thinking, quite clearly, too, that this was what it must feel like to stand before your accuser—your victim, in a sense—while observed by a jury of your peers, your every tic observed, registered, every pause, every garbled word, every drop of pitiable sweat as you made your case. My case, indeed. And so I began:
“Ladies and gentlemen.” My eyes roamed over the audience. I was by then a practised public speaker. I’d taken my film about the mobile unit in Spain to over fifty cities in Canada and the United States, and had lectured in a great many teaching hospitals. I tried to regulate my breathing. “It is an honour to share with you some thoughts I have compiled here on the . . .”
He was waiting. Well, let him wait.
“. . . on the nature of . . . truth.”
Could I be as audacious as this? I hope you will forgive me.
“The entire world,” I continued, “indeed, humanity itself, craves the basic foundation of truth, the bedrock of our existence. Political truth. Moral truth. Social truth. Aesthetic truth.”
My notes, I noticed then, were still folded in my hand. I’d not had the presence of mind to follow what I had prepared.
“Humanity. The man to your left. The woman to your right. We, all of us. Choose whatever avenue you care to look down, and on a clear day you’ll see what we all want in this life, no matter where you live or whom you love. And that thing is truth. The fundamental truth of the ages, equality, purity, brotherhood. The most profound question of existence, the question of why, can only be answered thus, with a
n appeal to truth. That each man bears within his soul the dignity and value of a thousand men, and each of that thousand, each within his soul, likewise possesses the dignity and value of that one man. Are we not here, I wonder, on board this ship, on this earth, to seek and to find the truth as it resides within each of us, in whatever form we may carry it? We must all have this basis, this foundation, for the lives we lead, for without it we are lost, loveless and bereft. Life’s handiwork—our deeds—shall mark us all, individually, as seekers of truth, and it is by these markers that we know if we succeed or fail in this life.
