Читать книгу Black Man on the Titanic - Serge Bile - Страница 13

They were on their way back to Quebec with their son André11, two years old, after a few days vacationing with family in France.

Just like Juliette Laroche, Antonie Mallet, twenty-four, was a stay-at-home mother, content with her life. She found joy in taking care of her son, her husband, and her house. She admitted being envious of Juliette, who proudly flaunted her high hairdo and her round belly.

“When are you due?” Antonie asked.

“Can you believe she’s only in her first trimester?” Joseph said, before his wife had a chance to reply.

Albert Mallet laughed heartily, and so did Simone. She was happy. For the first time that day, her father was not frowning. Which one of the four adults had first broken the ice? Who among the Mallets or the Laroches had started the conversation? Was it the husbands between themselves? Was it the wives? After an hour, no one really knew. But that was no longer important. They were friends now, and all delighted by the good company.

Joseph confided to Albert Mallet that he was proud of the fact that one of his children would be born in his home country. The perspective carried some kind of symbolism. What a marvelous way to launch their new life!

To Antonie, Juliette explained that her pregnancy was part of the reason they were traveling on the Titanic. The original plan had been to travel later the next year, but when the “unplanned” pregnancy had been revealed a few weeks before, Joseph had decided on an earlier departure, so that the crossing would be less exhausting for his wife.

Otherwise, they would have had to wait another twelve months.

As the train moved toward the unknown and Antonie and Juliette got to know each other, they discovered they both had revised their initial plans.

Both women had first considered embarking on the France, another ocean liner of the moment, which followed the same itinerary as the Titanic, with a decor just as magical. But when they had learned that children on board were not permitted to eat at the same table as their parents, Antonie and Juliette had changed their minds and finally opted for the Titanic.

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On April 19, 1996, as she stands at the commemoration on the dock in Cherbourg, Louise is once again thinking of this twist of fate. Since her father had already purchased the tickets for the France, he’d been deeply annoyed by the rule regarding meal times: in the dining room, children occupied an area away from their parents. Thankfully (or so he believed at the time), when he had requested the switch from one liner to the other, the employee at the counter had not given him a hard time.

Louise is overwhelmed by guilt. She’s possessed by this irrepressible and fleeting feeling every time she thinks of the Titanic, which is often. She is angry at her mother for having told her; she is angry at her father for having changed the reservations. She is angry at herself for being at the root of her family’s misfortune, and she is angry at Simone for the same reason.

Louise wishes quite simply that they had never taken the New York Express that day.

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As a cognac merchant, Albert Mallet had the gift of gab and knew how to connect with just about anybody. On the train headed toward Cherbourg, Mallet was happy to break the ice and exchange a few words with Joseph Laroche. He was intrigued by the tall, mustached man who shared his compartment on the New York Express. A black man among all these white people, that was not something one saw every day! As he listened carefully, he quickly understood that his singular fellow traveler was not an American, unlike the other wealthy passengers in first (and second) class. Mallet assumed Laroche to be either West Indian12 or African.