Читать книгу Montparnasse - Thierry Sagnier - Страница 9

Chapter 4

On the fifth day of the voyage, La Savoie was struck by a gale-force storm that came from nowhere and stayed. Only the hardiest passengers ventured from their cabins, and Frederick watched as seamen from the engine room tied down the first and second-class decks. The men were bare-chested brutes with grimy hands and sullen expressions, unshaven and heavily tattooed. They worked methodically in the driving rain, securing deck chairs and tables, parasols and recreation equipment. They were unconcerned by the weather, and the male passengers gave them wide berth. The females stared covertly and whispered behind their hands.

One of the wealthier passengers, a Texan with three master suites for himself, his mistress and their entourage, took a nasty fall and broke a leg and an arm. A Jewish woman from the Bronx was mildly bruised when a brutal swell threw her against a bulkhead. Dozens took to their bunks, whispering of the Titanic. A Portuguese deckhand was crushed when a supply locker accidentally opened and released cylinders of compressed oxygen.

The galleys were shut, and the few passengers capable of eating had cold sandwiches and salads. The captain ordered the liquor supply—wine included—secured and locked, and the bars on every deck were closed. Passengers complained and resorted to their private stocks of spirits. The injured Texan, a hard-drinking man, threw a party in his suites for all first-class passengers. Some 50—mostly men—attended and found no shortage of alcohol, though the canapés were marginal at best. Working in his overwhelmed infirmary, the ship’s French physician, aided by two nurses, ran out of bismuth and dispensed white chalk tablets.

In their cabin, Frederick and Easter had surprising reactions to the storm. As his complexion grew sallow, hers took on color. She began to laugh, clapping her hands every time lightning burst. She jumped up and down like a child, and when the wind howled loudest, she insisted on going outside. Frederick forbade it, but she wrapped herself in a shawl and did so anyway. Furious, he chased her, grabbed her elbow, and when she turned to face him, he saw a wild glow in her eyes. She set her jaw, wrested her arm away and resolutely walked to the deck’s nearest entry. Frederick, weaving, followed as each swell threatened his balance. When Easter reached the door, it was locked. She turned, marched in the other direction until she found a porthole. That had also been sealed shut, but she unscrewed the four brass wing nuts and fought it open. A blast of wind and rain hit her squarely in the face and she laughed. Frederick, astounded, kept his distance. Sheets of lightning exploded across the low sky. The corridors were bare, and the dim light gave the area an ethereal radiance. For a moment, Frederick thought he and Easter might be the only two passengers aboard, so empty and desolate was it in the fury of the storm. Then Easter turned, took his face in both her hands and kissed him hard on the lips. She led him back to the cabin, shed her clothes, and reclined on the bunk, uncovered. The cabin light swept across her in geometric patterns to reveal hollows and valleys he’d never seen. He looked away, embarrassed, and she reached across the small space to take his hand and pull him to her.

The storm died during the night and in the morning he found his bride fast asleep and only partially dressed. He reddened at the sight and recalled the feel of her, replaying the night’s abandon. She was breathing evenly; there was color to her cheeks. He was sore, as if scorched with fine sandpaper in his most private places. There were three long scratches across his belly and, when he looked at the mirror, dark red round marks on his neck. His trousers, shirt and undergarments were in a pile on the floor.

His trousers showed a rip along the inseam. He carefully folded and hung the clothing in the diminutive closet. Then he sat on his bunk and tried to collect his thoughts. He felt a tinge of distaste. Civilized people did not rut like barnyard animals.

Frederick selected fresh clothes, dressed quietly and made his way to the dining room. The kitchen had weathered the storm and fired its ovens. On each table lay a basket of hot breads, and waiters served from covered trays. He ate lightly and shared boating experiences with an older gentleman who told him of a week spent aboard a ship in the Indian Ocean during the typhoon season. That, claimed the man, was a serious storm.

When Frederick returned to the cabin, Easter was awake but still in bed, her ill health restored to pre-storm days. Nothing in her face was out of the ordinary, but she was even paler than before. Neither mentioned the preceding night.

She slept most of the day, and in the late afternoon drank two cups of tea and ate a piece of toast. Ten minutes later it all came up. That night, Frederick woke from a confused dream with his hands curled protectively around his testicles and the sheets tangled about his feet. In his mind was a Mexican comic strip a friend had shown him, eight crude panels depicting an over-endowed postman and a willing housewife who resembled Easter a bit too much.

Sleep eluded him. He lay in his bunk thinking he did not know his new wife at all, and had never truly considered the changes this union would impose on his existence, and, for the first time, it frightened him.

Life in Chicago had been, if not boring, at least quotidian. He worked for his father’s firm, where he was presented with problems whose solutions were rarely taxing and never irreversible. His secretary, Mary Meredith, never sick and familiar with all his foibles, arranged for his laundry to be picked up and delivered, brewed a perfect cup of coffee, screened the rare calls he received, and made sure his personal bills and rent were paid promptly. He took her to lunch twice a year and saw to it that her salary was above the norm of the company’s other women employees.

Twice a week he played cards with male friends and once a month, with these same friends, he ate dinner at the same restaurant and visited a nightspot, usually one where there was music and dancing. He danced with the girls and on three different occasions, when they were willing, he’d bedded them quickly in hotels. He always left a small tip in an envelope as his friends had told him this was the proper thing to do after an encounter with a working girl. “They appreciate the hell out of it,” one had said. “And if you ever want to have a second round, they’re a lot more receptive.”

Only one time had he seen the same girl twice and the second evening had ended early with a rapid and unhappy coupling at the apartment she shared with two others from the steno pool. Lying in her narrow bed was unsettling, and though he promised to be in touch the next day, he avoided for months returning to the club where they’d met.

One colleague, Jack Corrigan—the one with the dirty comic strip—was married and said it was the best of both worlds. “I get some at home—two, three times a night if I feel like it, any time of the week except Sunday—and I get some away from home whenever I want, and no one’s the wiser.” This seemed to be Corrigan’s obsession and only topic of conversation. Truthfully, Frederick had never liked Corrigan at all, and found him a bore and a boor. In fact, he rarely enjoyed the twice-weekly gatherings. He went because young men of his age and social position did that. He had never bothered to ponder the lives of his companions, to inquire about their inner workings or their ideas, their families, their daily existences. He didn’t know their middle names, where they lived, what they thought on most basic issues. The group seldom discussed anything more momentous than the latest baseball score or a recently opened show. When Frederick, on a few occasions, tried to turn the conversation to more consequential things, the group as one stared at him blankly, save for Corrigan who’d called him “our intellectual.” They hadn’t even given him a decent bachelor gift—instead anted up to purchase an illustrated marriage manual translated from the Japanese—and had roared at his discomfiture when he’d opened the package. He’d stashed the gift in a box full of old college clothes, and had not shown it to anyone.

Frederick wondered whether he might be a prude when it came to his wife. Were the marriage vows an entitlement for Easter to act as she did, so wantonly out of character? Perhaps this was where marital passion led, or perhaps there was something wrong with Easter. She might not be as well-balanced as it had appeared. Perhaps the recent loss of both her parents to influenza had deeply unsettled her.

Perhaps she was insane.

The idea hit him with such force that he sat up in his bunk. Much as he tried to dispel the notion, he began to categorize her actions, placing them in a harsh and demanding light. The thoughts cascaded; thoughts of her use of color and shapes in her paintings, colors that had nothing to do with reality—red skies, purple waters—of the elongated faces that looked like African masks. He thought of her manner of speech, how she addressed everyone in such a friendly way—was there more there than met the ear? What of how she dressed sometimes, with little care for current fashions? She showed a complete lack of interest in all things that should interest women: social events, gossip, magazine recipes. She had told him early on that she couldn’t cook and would probably never learn. At the time, it had seemed a charming admission and he’d not given it a moment’s reflection. Now that simple deficiency was foreboding. She kept a secret diary, claiming every woman was entitled to private convictions. The journal had irked him in the past but now took on darker significance. She refused to be called Catherine, but instead insisted on using her middle name, Easter, and again Frederick had thought this irresistible at first, another beguiling singularity. Was Easter really a name? That had been his mother’s first question, for which he’d had no ready answer at the time. Why would a rational woman want to be called Easter?

What would she be like in Paris, where morals were worn like loose-fitting robes?

A few weeks before his marriage, Frederick had begun perusing the European edition of the Chicago Tribune with a mind to becoming familiar with events overseas and impressing his wife-to-be. He’d read about Paris, about the models who shed their clothes for a pittance and offered God knew what favors for a franc or two. There had been a breathless report by a special correspondent (the footnote identified the author as a well-known Christian painter from the Midwest; Frederick did not recognize the name) about an artists’ benefit soirée—orgy might be a more appropriate word—held in Montparnasse. Young women (some no older than 16) had bared their breasts in a contest to see who would be crowned la plus belle poitrine de Paris. Hundreds of nymphs and nymphets had paraded semi-naked before a horde of drunken mustachioed men who clamored their assents or whistled their disapproval. He suddenly saw Easter’s breasts in such a contest, smelled the unwashed artists’ garlicky breath, and witnessed grubby hands reaching for her flesh.

He shook his head, rubbed his temples with two forefingers, rose from his bunk, threw a glance at his sleeping wife, and rearranged the covers where they had fallen from her feet.

The list of shortcomings grew.

He recalled Easter, bare-legged, insisting they have dinner together in an Irish bar where she was the only female, and telling a risqué story about a woman friend’s involvement with a music hall performer. Indeed, her friends seemed inappropriate. One, Enid, had ground her hips suggestively against every man she’d danced with at the wedding party, then, deliriously drunk, had done an obscene shimmying gyration as Easter clapped delightedly.

Frederick checked his watch; it was 1:30 in the morning. He dressed quietly, made his way to the bar and ordered a straight gin and lime with ice. Three men sipped their drinks at a nearby table. Toward the rear of the small room, he spotted the French physician who raised his glass and beckoned. Frederick returned the toast, decided to join the man and perhaps, indirectly, lead the conversation to Easter’s bizarre behavior.

In the end they spoke about the weather.