“No!” shouted Johann, the wind carrying his voice over the water. “You will give me nothing. What are you trying to do? Do you take me for that pimp of yours? You will see what kind of man I am … do you dare to say such things to me? Well, tomorrow you try saying them!”
“I dare now,” she said, leaning lightly upon him and stroking his hand, “and I dare tomorrow. Don’t threaten me. I am not afraid of you, how could I be? You will never harm me? I shall be so pleasant to you, you will never want to harm me! Let’s not quarrel, it’s so dull, let’s dance.…”
“I don’t want to dance,” said Johann with honest brutality, “I’m sick of dancing. I want something more, something real, the real thing, you’ve fooled me long enough. The next time, there’ll be something different!”
“Oh, I hope so,” said Concha, “or what are we talking about? Are you going?”
“Of course,” he said. “It is late and I must put my uncle to bed.”
“What will you do?”
“Put him to bed, what did I say?” he asked. “What else do you think?”
“And then you put him to sleep?…”
He brushed her hand off his arm and gave it a good wrench as he threw it from him. “If he should die tonight you would accuse me,” he said, “you would say I did it. I’ll show you, he won’t die tonight—you don’t get me that easily!”
“Tomorrow night, maybe?” she called after him, as he took off towards his uncle’s chair like a man running for his life. She stood watching him pushing the chair through the doorway, rubbing her wrist, her face entirely expressionless. Then she went in the bar, where Manolo sat before a half-emptied bottle of red wine, with two glasses. She sat across from him and their eyes met briefly; she pushed her glass towards him and he poured for her. They lit fresh cigarettes and sat smoking as if each were alone, or they were strangers.
Bébé halted for a moment, and sniffed politely at the extended hand of Herr Graf, who patted him on the head and blessed him as he went by. “We are all God’s children, safe in His loving hands,” he assured the dog, who wagged faintly in response to the benevolent tone, but shook his head and blew the odor of the hand out of his nostrils as he waddled around the bow and disappeared just as Herr Professor and Frau Hutten emerged from the door of the bar and began inquiring of the dancers, “Have you seen our white bulldog? Do you remember him?”
Ric and Rac, having spun slowly to a stop, bored and ready for a good fight, saw as if with one pair of eyes Bébé’s dignified rear end walloping away from the sick man’s chair. Without even exchanging glances, they turned and loped through the ship to the deserted lee side to head him off. They ran full tilt updeck to meet Bébé, who saw them coming and stopped uncertainly, his nose working. Ric and Rac whirled down upon him, fell upon him fore and aft, clutching him at random but with utter purpose, and carried him instantly to the rail.
Bébé was again somewhat seasick, he could not resist, but he deeply resented being hauled around in this fashion. He rolled his eyes and growled and muttered under his breath, waggling feebly. They managed to lift him, limp legs dangling, helpless soft belly heaving, up to the rail, where his hind quarters stuck for a moment, but they pushed hard, together, and over he went, with a dolorous yelp. He hit the water like a sack of sand, went down, the sea rolled over him, he came up at once, took a good breath and stayed up bravely, keeping his nose and his frantically working front paws above water.
Denny loitered about pretending to watch the dancers, though his sole constantly baffled aim was to catch a glance from Pastora. One of those Cuban students had latched on to her and they had settled down for the evening together, dance after dance. Denny was forced to admit at last that his prospects were gone, and in his disappointment even the desire for liquor had abandoned him. Getting drunk was not the answer to this one. From mere habit he stood at the bar and absorbed three or four quick ones, then carrying a double bourbon with him he took himself away, to the other side of the ship where he might brood unseen, staring into the monotonous waves streakily lighted from the portholes and decks, sulking corrosively and consoling himself by spitting through his teeth and repeating under his breath short nasty names for women—all women, the whole dirty mess of them, not just Pastora. Why pick on her out of all the millions? One as much a bitch as the other, he decided, noticing a bulky white bundle strike the water about midway of the deck—a bale of garbage from the galley he supposed—as Ric and Rac scurried past with wild eyes and open mouths, tongues strained out of the corners, crazy as ever, he observed; and almost instantly he saw another long dark bundle hit the water near the white one and there rose from the steerage a long hoarse bloodcurdling howl like a pack of coyotes. The sound rose, died down, renewed itself with shrill high women’s screams running above it. Denny spilt his whiskey, dropped his glass without noticing, scurried to the rail overlooking the lower open deck and saw the shapeless dark mass huddled and heaped, leaning far out and over, working madly within itself as if the people were all entangled and could not break apart, but the anguished howl had become human and was full of tears, and Denny in his drunken fog was filled with tears too. He put his hand over his mouth and began to cry, and raced back to the side again to see, now falling in the ship’s wake, a half dozen life-rings floating near a man and a white dog struggling in the sea, both swimming, the man holding the dog by the collar, a lifeboat with small white figures rowing hard towards them, leaping and falling with each bound forward. He felt an abrupt halt in the ship’s progress, an internal shock as if her engines had been stopped suddenly. He saw the course changing, felt the ship swinging around with a heavy churning and commotion at her prow, circling slowly around the lifeboat and the floating ring. A hard white searchlight showed the swimming man, still wearing his boina, reaching for the nearest ring; he missed and sank once more. The dog was seized over the side of the lifeboat, and as he came up again, the man.
Herr Baumgartner appeared, in more than usual distress, and asked Denny, “Why were those people howling?”
“Man overboard,” said Denny with authority, his tears dried. Herr Baumgartner responded with gratifying intensity, grimacing so deeply his ears and scalp moved, slapping himself on the forehead, uttering a loud groan and rushing to view what was left of the spectacle. He was joined presently by Herr Freytag, and then the alarm, or diversion, became general. The dancers left the music, the members of the band put down their instruments, all flocked to the rail to watch the rescue. Officers began moving among them asking them not to crowd the side, to keep away from the boat when it came up, please to stand back, there was, they declared, nothing to see; the rescue had been effected. The passengers glanced about as if they were listening, but no one moved or answered. Frau Hutten, who had been growing more and more frantic in her search, was almost in despair. She began to be resentful of the indifference shown by everyone, nobody sympathized or wished to help her. She was by now dragging her husband along by the arm, her limp had almost disappeared. Seeing that disreputable young Denny, the nearest person to her, she forgot all reserve and rushed upon him, close to tears. “Oh Herr Denny, please—have you seen my good Bébé, my white bulldog Bébé? Oh we cannot find him anywhere!”
Denny turned his head with a leer meant to be full of ridicule, turned back to the sea pointing, and asked, “Is that him, down there?”
Frau Hutten looked down and saw the boat being drawn up with Bébé sprawled in the bottom. She gave a shriek, fell back against her husband’s chest so violently he almost toppled, then fell forward as he seized her waist; he could feel by the surge of her body that if he had not been holding her, she would have gone forward full length upon her face.
The sailors lifted the long narrow body of the man over the side, limp as seaweed, his bare feet with crooked toes dangling, the shabby black wool scarf still knotted around his neck; the water streamed from his clothes as they carried him carefully back down to the steerage deck. Two sailors hoisted Bébé into Fr
au Hutten’s opened arms. She tottered under his nerveless weight, let him down on deck, and kneeling beside him, wept aloud like a mother at the graveside of her only child.
“How really revolting,” said David Scott to Wilhelm Freytag, who happened to be near. Herr Baumgartner heard and could not refrain from protest.
“But grief is grief, pain is pain, Herr Scott, no matter what the cause,” he said, his mouth wan and drooping.
“Ah, the drooling German soul,” said Freytag in pure disgust, moving away, remembering with an unpleasant start that this was a phrase of his wife’s, and one he had always resented from her. Herr Professor Hutten, in a heavy sweat of humiliation, finally got his wife to her feet, a sailor came forward to help him carry Bébé, and the mournful little group disappeared. At this point it occurred to Herr Lutz to suggest to one of the young officers that perhaps Dr. Schumann should be sent for to attend the nearly drowned man. “They are already giving him resuscitation exercises,” said the officer, as a rebuff to officiousness. But he did send for Dr. Schumann as, to be sure, he had intended to do without advice from a passenger.
Dr. Schumann walked slowly down the passage on his way to the main deck, not being able to decide by the sounds what sort of panic or emergency it was, and met La Condesa at the first turning, strolling like a ghost, in a black nightgown and a long old brocade wrap trimmed with monkey fur.
“Ah, there you are,” she said in a dreamy childish voice and reached to touch his face with her fingertips as if she did not expect to find him solid flesh. “What is the strange noise? Is the ship sinking?”
“I think not,” he said, “what are you doing here?”
“I am walking about, just as you are,” she answered. “My stewardess ran away. Why not? The steward told her something was happening.”
“Maybe you had better come with me,” said Dr. Schumann, taking her arm.
“I’d like nothing better,” she whispered. He saw that the drug he was giving her was beginning to lose its effect; by this hour she should have been unconscious—no shipwreck could wake her. His heart gave a perilous leap of rage when he thought of her abandoned there by that cowardly stewardess, and yes—yes, abandoned by him, who had caused her to be made helpless and then had left her to her fate. In this moment of possible danger he had not given her a thought. “God help me,” he said, almost terrified at the evil he was discovering in his own nature.
“Let’s walk a little faster,” he told her, “the ship seems to be turning. There is surely something gone very wrong.”
“How can you tell if the ship is turning?” asked La Condesa, moving he thought as if she were already under water. She leaned until her cheek touched his shoulder and spoke in a wavering chant. “Imagine, if the ship should sink, we should go down together embraced, gently, gently to the bottom of the sea, quiet dark love in the cool sleepy water.…”
Dr. Schumann’s hair moved crinkling upon his crown, he had a savage impulse to strike her from him, this diabolical possession, this incubus fastened upon him like a bat, this evil spirit come out of her hell to accuse him falsely, to seduce his mind, to charge him with fraudulent obligations to her, to burden his life to the end of his days, to bring him to despair.
“Hush,” he said, putting into that mild word a weight of command that arrested her roving attention, and even lighted a small flicker of life in her voice: “Ah yes, I do talk too much, you always said so!”
“I never said such a thing,” said Dr. Schumann, flatly.
“Oh never—not in words,” she answered, lapsing once more into her half-stupor. On the stairs she roused a little and said, “Isn’t that my stewardess coming back?” It was, and behind her came the steward. “You are needed below, sir,” he said. “Man overboard, half drowned.”
Dr. Schumann said to the stewardess, “Take this lady to her cabin and don’t leave her again without an order from me.” Returning to his own cabin to pick up his black case, he reflected on the expression on the face of the stewardess as she acknowledged his rebuke—an unpleasant mixture of furtive insolence and false abasement, the all too familiar look of resentful servility. He reflected uneasily that she could not be trusted, and La Condesa, who knew well how to deal with her sort, was now in no condition to control her. His agitation grew as he felt the oppression of the increasing millions of subhuman beings, the mindless grave-stuff not even fit to be good servants, yet whose mere mass and weight of negative evil threatened to rule the world. Sweat broke out on his forehead, he slipped a small white pellet under his tongue, picked up his case, and set out walking as fast as he dared, in the hope of saving a nameless, faceless fool in the steerage who had been stupid enough to fall overboard. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” he prayed, to chase away the stinging swarm of his thoughts, and crossed himself openly as he emerged on deck, without caring who saw. Frau Rittersdorf saw, and crossed herself responsively, saying on impulse to the Lutz family, “Ah, the dear good man, going with prayer on his errand of charity!”
“Charity?” inquired Herr Lutz, who considered that Frau Rittersdorf gave herself airs above her station in life—she was no better than he was! “Charity in what way? He is only doing a duty that he is paid for, after all!”
Frau Rittersdorf gave him a bright stare of amused curiosity as if he were a kind of strange insect, and moved away in silence.
Father Garza, surrounded by weeping women and gloomy men huddled on the floor in the stinking cabin beside the bunk where the drowned man lay, rose from his knees and turned when Dr. Schumann stood in the doorway. A weak naked light hung from the ceiling, and a single candle burned on the small collapsible table the priest had brought with him for the Viaticum ceremony. He blew out the candle and assembled the sacred objects, and shook his head.
“Too late, I’m afraid,” he said, smiling rather cheerfully, “for materia medica.”
“Still,” said Dr. Schumann, “there is something to be done,” and he advanced with his stethoscope and sat on the edge of the grimly dirty bunk where the dead man, naked to the waist, washed and purified by the salt sea, lay at perfect ease in the state and dignity of his death.
Dr. Schumann in his long experience as unwilling witness of death in nearly all its aspects had never lost his awe and tenderness for that Presence. He felt it now, again, an almost visible shade hovering over them. He knew by all the signs and all his senses that the man was dead, yet he continued for some time to listen intently through his instrument for some flutter or whisper of life in the gaunt rib cage and the sunken famished belly of the long body with its great knotted shoulder joints, the skeleton arms, and big warped hands, now curled inward like a child’s. Nothing. He rose and took a last glimpse at the dark melancholy exhausted face now closed in a secretive faint smile. The women, huddled together near the dead man’s feet, began praying aloud, their rosaries clicking, and one of the men came forward and crossed the limp hands on the breast, and tenderly covered him up.
“Can you imagine anything more absurd,” said Father Garza to Dr. Schumann in his atrocious German as they walked back slowly and took a turn around the deck together, “than this, that a man jumps from a moving ship at night in mid-ocean and is drowned, a deed of carelessness reprehensible to the last degree, not suicide certainly, but a blamable disregard for his life, which is not his to throw away so lightly—Imagine, my dear Doctor? to save the life of a dog?”
Dr. Schumann considered his own rash act in leaping to save the ship’s cat from Ric and Rac, and wondered what the priest would think of that. He felt he did not have to imagine anything, the man’s impulse seemed almost too crudely natural. “I have seen him down there, on the deck, carving little animal figures with his pocket knife,” said Dr. Schumann, after a pause. “He was a Basque,” he added, as if that might explain some mystery.
“An unbalanced savagely individualist people,” said Father Garza, “with their weird untraceable language and their pagan Catholicism … what would one expect? His name was Etche
garay,” he pronounced, rolling the word with sensuous pleasure.
“I must remember,” said Dr. Schumann. “Thank you. Sorry, I have a call to make.” He turned away, then retraced a step and asked, “Oh Father—who do you think threw that dog overboard?”
“Those devil-possessed children with the zarzuela company, of course,” answered Father Garza. “Who else?”
“I wonder if anyone saw them,” said Dr. Schumann, pleasantly, “or are they real devils who can take any shape, or make themselves invisible for their deeds of darkness?”
“A sound whipping and three days’ penance on bread and water would drive out their devils,” said Father Garza, “they are only rather dull little sinners. I do not believe in making them feel self-important by calling them devils. A series of good whippings on an empty stomach is all that is needed.”
“I wish it might be so simple,” said Dr. Schumann, a lively sparkle of impatience in his eyes. Seeing the priest’s frowning glance ahead, and his mouth pursing to pursue the topic, Dr. Schumann said “Good night” hastily and turned aside.
He found the Huttens kneeling on the floor of their cabin, bowed like a sculptured Pietá over the prostrate form of Bébé, who now and then raised his head, retched and drooled more salt water. They raised their heads towards him with the same burdened, sorrowful air of the men and women beside the dead man, and Frau Hutten, against all her rules of domestic discretion, spoke first: “Oh Doctor, I know it is not right to ask you, but oh, what can we do for our Bébé? He is suffering so!”
Dr. Schumann said dryly, “I have dogs at home.” He spread his hand under Bébé’s head, lifted it, put it down gently and said, “Go on kneading him strongly and keep him flat on his belly. He will recover. But the man,” he added, “the man who jumped overboard to save him is dead.”
Frau Hutten sat back on her heels and covered her ears flatly. “Oh no no!” she cried out with a note of anger under the shock, then remembered and went back to digging her clenched fists into Bébé’s lower ribs and spine, heaving him forward and back, fetching a low grunt from him and a rush of frothy water.
Ship of Fools Page 41
