Crossing on the Paris Read online

  She sat up and shakily reached for her glass, her mind racing for an appropriate topic of conversation. She needed to make small talk until they left for the safety of the party, the crowd. After taking a slow sip, she wedged herself into the corner of the sofa. Dizzy—from the champagne, the ship’s roll, the tobacco smoke mingling with perfume, his heat—she struggled desperately for something to say.

  “Do you think this rain will end before the party?” she finally managed, stuttering politely.

  “Ah, Constance, I must say”—he took her hand with a heaving sigh—“I’m enjoying our little party à deux. Having you all to myself.” He raised his glass to her: “To Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty.”

  He pulled her into his arms, kissing her expertly. Wobbly, she closed her eyes with a soft moan; his hands tentatively began exploring her ample breasts, her soft hips. She was returning his kiss, his fire, when the photograph came to mind. Not the one of those unknown children, but the one of her own. In that picture she knew so well, her daughters’ innocent smiles began to shift into grimaces of confusion, fear, disgust. She pulled away.

  “No, Serge,” she said, almost in tears. “I can’t.”

  “But, Constance, I’m crazy about you! And I know you feel the same way about me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said as she got up. “I truly am.”

  She stood in the open door, steadying herself on the frame, breathing in the fresh air. The chill of the night was already casting off the champagne haze. He remained on the settee, still too excited to move.

  “Don’t go, Constance!” Serge called out. “Constance!”

  She turned to him from the doorway.

  “Exactly,” she said, then walked away.

  The steerage workers’ noisy entrance into the women’s dormitory—harsh laughter rendered their words unrecognizable—woke Julie up from a hard sleep. The dinner shift was over. Groggy, the taste of rank mold in her mouth, she sat up slowly, feeling like she weighed a thousand pounds. As she got up to go to the bathroom, she noticed the other girls whispering and sneaking glances at her. Julie’s uniform, after sleeping in it, was thoroughly wrinkled and fell askew. The other girls neither teased her nor greeted her. Their leader, Simone, was absent.

  After splashing her face and rinsing her mouth, she drifted back into the corridor. She didn’t want to go back into the dormitory; the steerage girls’ rejection and the others’ indifference made the bunk-lined room a hostile territory. Julie thought again of Nikolai. Since that first morning on board, still in the docks of Le Havre, he had been friendly to her. He had pursued her, wanted her, claimed to love her. She thought of his love notes, torn and crumpled under her pillow, his necklace against her skin. Had he merely been a few hours late?

  Although she wanted to hear his side of the story, she could not bear another trip down to the engine room. She would have to wait until he came back to her. That was best, anyway; she didn’t want to appear overly eager. She poked her head into the kitchen, but Pascal was already gone; she wandered into the common room, but its thick cigarette smoke made her back right out. What she needed was fresh air. Although the seas were far from calm, Julie decided to go out on the mooring deck.

  She pushed open the heavy door and braced herself for the chill. It was no longer raining and the air—thin and piercing—revived her from the fog of sleep. Breathing deeply, Julie was walking out onto the deck, past a gigantic spool of rope and a few upended deck chairs, when she saw someone in the corner. A big man was leaning against the wall. She smiled to herself; it was Nikolai.

  Without worrying about what to say, Julie crept toward him. It was easy to surprise someone with the moon nearly covered in clouds and every sound lost to the wind. Standing alone, his eyes were closed, his mouth ajar, and his large hands—shining pale in the dark—were resting on something in front of him. A barrel, an air vent? What was he doing out here in the cold? Then, when she was just a few steps away from him, Julie saw his face change; his head jerked up and his whole body clenched. His hands gripped that thing before him, pulling up fistfuls of hair. It was a woman’s head.

  Julie did not move. She watched as Nikolai opened his eyes, slowly focused on her, and smirked; as the woman kneeling at his feet wiped her mouth on her hand, then, steadying herself with his long legs, shot up to his side.

  “You see, Nikolai? I know how to make a man happy!”

  The voice was Simone’s. She was reaching up to kiss him, but Nikolai brusquely turned her around.

  “Simone,” he said, clearly amused. “You remember Julie.”

  Simone spun around. When she saw Julie’s blank face, she burst out laughing.

  “What?” she called, tossing her chin up and grabbing on to Nikolai. “Are you here to take lessons?”

  Julie stood there another moment, gawking at them, waiting for Nikolai to provide some kind of explanation. He didn’t say a word. Instead, staring into Julie’s eyes with that self-satisfied grin, he reached up and snatched Simone’s breast. As Julie turned around, ready to fly, she heard Simone shriek in delight: “Naughty boy!” Almost at the door, Julie tripped over a deck chair and skinned her knee. She felt their laughter, but only heard the wind.

  Back inside, Julie walked quickly, wondering whether Nikolai would follow her. But what could he possibly say now? With a long shiver, she wrapped her arms across her chest. Why had she ever let him touch her? She thought of Simone’s shining pig eyes. Did she imagine this—kneeling on a freezing metal floor, filling her mouth to bursting—her latest triumph? She could have him. Julie hated them both.

  With nowhere to go, no one to talk to, Julie ducked into the dim kitchen. She slid her fingertips down the long counter, cool and clean. Passing Pascal’s block of knives, she picked up the longest one, the one for filleting large fish, and felt it in her hand. Suddenly, she heard something move in the shadow. With a gasp, she froze, pressing herself against the wall, hoping to make herself even smaller. With the knife outstretched and shaking, she listened for the echo of Nikolai’s heavy boots, straining her eyes to see to the end of the room. Finally, next to the doorway, she caught a glimpse of a cat’s hindquarters.

  “Stormy,” she muttered, letting out a huge gush of air; she didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath.

  Bold and proud, the cat turned around to face her. Julie saw it was carrying a dead mouse in its jaws. Recoiling, Julie gagged. She threw the knife on the counter and ran out of the galley. Cat and mouse. Yes, she knew that game. And she, like that stupid mouse, had allowed herself to be caught.

  She had to get out of steerage. Heading toward the middle of the ship, she lumbered along thinking back on Nikolai’s brutality. She had tried to make excuses for it—her man’s uncontrollable passion and so forth—but now saw it for what it was. She’d trusted him, a man she’d just met, and he had used her cruelly. Julie, who had read her brother’s vivid accounts, could not have dreamed of such savagery outside of war.

  She climbed stairs and passed through corridors—riveted metal trenches; rotting, idiotic trenches—trying to escape the uncomfortable warmth of the ship’s bottom, the noise of its ever-beating heart. In a long hallway of closed doors, she became disoriented but kept on, grasping the handrail, indignant to feel the ship pitching still.

  When she finally arrived to the top deck, already midship, she filled her lungs with the cold air and walked directly to the side, glaring at the mighty, tumultuous sea that had turned her insides out.

  Her hands grabbed the rail, held it tight, her knuckles white. She swung her head down to look straight down the hull. From this inverse perspective, her eyes flitted across the specks of lit portholes, trying to make out each level above the waterline (six? seven?). She stretched through the railing and leaned out on the icy metal to stroke the black-painted rivets (the ship’s numberless birthmarks), which made their way down and into the sea. It seemed impossible that only a few days had passed since the launch. That day, gazing down this hull,
she had been awestruck by the ocean liner’s height, the surprising distance from the deck to the water. She thought of the boys standing next to her and, with another shuddering gag, the tall one’s joke about his meat.

  Nikolai . . . she felt her skin prickling, the bitter pain between her legs. She had not needed a clever genie to be fooled, but just a man who could muster a few honeyed words. She wondered whether Nikolai had told Simone—with her toad skin and missing teeth—she was beautiful. Had he said he loved her too? Remembering his repulsive grin as he groped Simone, Julie rolled her eyes, her face red with shame. She was the poor dupe, she decided, her hand reaching up to her birthmark, she was the idiot. Flawed, she was easily flattered.

  She stood back up and reached for the Virgin: the Melter of Hard Hearts. Simone would probably be wanting it tomorrow, think it her due. How many women had worn Nikolai’s golden lure? How many other beauties had he deceived with it?

  “I will be the last,” Julie mumbled.

  She looked down at Her demure face, then spit on it. She peeled off the necklace and, throwing as hard as she could—a pitch trained by four brothers—cast it overboard. She turned away, refusing to watch its descent. Glancing down the deck, Julie became aware of another figure hobbling toward the wavering rail.

  An elderly woman in a tartan bathrobe was slowly making her way to the edge, leaning her slight weight onto her cane as she carried a bundle on her hip. Was it a baby wrapped in a blanket? Julie watched her steady progress, her steps short and cautious, her long, white hair flying recklessly in the wind. The old lady lunged forward and grabbed the rail, letting the cane fall. Was she weeping? She clutched the bundle to her breast, then kissed it.

  Watching the woman in terror, Julie began slinking down the rail toward her. As she came closer—the lady still hadn’t noticed her—Julie recognized the skinny frame, the lined face: it was the rich woman who wouldn’t have passed the third-class health inspection, the one who’d smiled at her when she and Nikolai were dancing on deck. What was she doing? Surely she wasn’t going to hurt that helpless creature?

  The old woman hesitated; she sat her bundle on the rail, wiping her eyes. Now only a yard away, Julie watched as her face quickly changed and became determined. The lady then took it with both hands and pitched it overboard, nearly falling in the process.

  “No!” Julie cried. “No!”

  She had rushed over and tried to snatch it from her, but was too late.

  Vera turned to the voice, confused. Ah, it was the egg-faced, waltzing girl from steerage. Why was she so upset? Was it she, the heir to her journals? She studied her face with curiosity. How could this be?

  “The baby! The baby!” Julie shouted, beginning to sob, finally releasing a mighty backlog of tears.

  “Oh, did you hear it too? Is it crying still?” Vera asked, heartened, looking from side to side. “Where is it?”

  Constance was rushing back to her cabin, engrossed in her thoughts, when she heard a cry. Two women were at the rail. One was very small, wearing only a light dress against the cold night, and the other was in her bedclothes with wild, white hair. The taller one was throwing something—a small, soft form—into the sea. Did she hear the word “baby”?

  Without thinking, she ran toward them. As she came out on deck, a stream of ice water from the upper level drained down her back, dousing her hair and dress, taking her breath away. Constance dashed to the ship’s edge.

  Julie was crying, inconsolable. Vera, baffled, was trying to comfort her with one arm, as she held on to the rail, her strength waning.

  “What’s happened here?” Constance asked, breathless. She immediately recognized the pair of them from the infirmary and their acquaintance with the ship’s surgeon: the French working girl, in a rumpled uniform, and the elderly dowager, wearing her pearls even now. What were they doing here? Together?

  “She’s thrown a baby overboard,” Julie screamed through her tears, pointing at Vera with horror.

  “What?” Vera was astonished. “What are you talking about? I haven’t even seen the baby!”

  “I saw you throw it! It was swaddled in a blanket!” Julie looked at her in wide-eyed accusation. “I was right here when you did it!”

  For another moment Vera stared at her, then slowly smiled.

  “Well, I suppose it was my baby.” She looked at the two young women’s faces and saw shock, aversion. “They were my journals,” she quickly explained. “Wrapped up in my shawl. That was all, just my journals.”

  Julie, who had been so sure of what she’d seen, was dumbfounded. She stood there shaking, sobbing still.

  “So scandalous were they?” Constance asked, surprised at the notion that a little old lady could have anything to hide. “That you had to pitch them into the ocean?”

  “That wasn’t the problem.” Vera’s face twitched a bit; her smile suffered. “I couldn’t stop reading them. And, here lately, I had begun to wonder if any of it was even true.”

  For an instant, they stood in silence, suddenly noticing sounds from the Grand Gala in the wind. The festivities in the ballroom sounded every bit like New Year’s Eve: the music and applause, the outbursts of laughter and noisemakers. Out on the cold, empty deck, the muted celebration seemed to come from another world.

  “It’s chilly here,” Constance said. She pushed the damp hair out of her eyes, her teeth chattering. “We should be going in.” None of them was dressed for the weather and they had all managed to get wet on the slippery, rolling deck.

  “I’m so sorry I frightened you,” Vera said to Julie, the two of them still holding the rails. “But, they were just . . . books.” This last word fell out of her mouth at an awkward angle. “Now then, let’s go inside and get warm.”

  “Not yet,” Julie said with a grimace, looking straight out toward the black horizon, which could not be distinguished from the sea. She couldn’t bear the idea of returning to third class; she wasn’t ready to face Simone and she certainly didn’t want to see Nikolai. Again, the decks seemed her only option.

  “I can’t go back down to steerage. Not yet,” Julie repeated with a trembling chin. She began crying again, though a few last words spurted from her mouth: “God, how I hate this ship!”

  Vera stripped a hand off the rail and put it around Julie’s slight shoulders. Constance stood firmly on her other side.

  “Have you ever been in a first-class cabin?” Vera asked her kindly. “Why don’t you come to my rooms? Both of you. We could order some tea.”

  Julie stared at the wispy old woman, with her bright eyes and windblown hair; she looked every bit a fairy-tale character. A good witch, a fairy godmother, someone who could grant wishes that would not go awry. With a nod, she let go of the rail.

  Constance picked the cane off the deck and handed it to the elderly woman. “I’d be pleased to join you,” she said, giving them both a warm smile despite the chill. She was curious about these two.

  The three of them walked back inside the ship, arms linked, helping one another. Vera’s whole body ached; she needed to sit down. When they arrived at her cabin, they found Amandine sitting on the chair, the old Scotty in her lap.

  “Sorry, ma’am, to disturb you. I know I should be in my own room.” The relief in her face was obvious. “But Bibi was barking so!”

  “That’s fine, Amandine.” Vera smiled, sinking down on the edge of the bed. “In fact, you’re sorely needed here. We need some towels—we all got a bit wet, I’m afraid—and a pot of strong tea. And . . . chocolate cake. Yes, why not? Oh, and Amandine,” she added, looking at Julie, “this girl’s uniform is in terrible shape. Could you find her something to wear? Perhaps a dress that comes to midcalf?” she suggested, taking in Julie’s small frame.

  Amandine looked over at the young woman, who offered her a clumsy curtsy, then at the lady she recognized from the infirmary. If she wasn’t mistaken, these were the same two women who stood near her mistress in that shoddy launch photograph from L’Atlantique. The old s
ervant shook her head as she reached for the clean towels. Miss Vera had always been full of surprises. She’d been concerned about her, though, and was glad to see her looking well if rather unkempt. Going out in this weather with a fever! The old servant handed out the towels, then began rifling through a trunk.

  Constance looked into the mirror and sighed. The hairdresser’s careful curls lay on her shoulders like seaweed. Just as well, she thought. Tonight she would brush it straight and tomorrow she would just pile it on top, in its usual bun.

  Vera too glanced into the mirror and, behind her cracked portrait, saw the three of them reflected there. Quietly drying their arms, fingering their long hair, three women in different stages of life. Here we are, she thought, the maiden, the mother, and the crone. I am at the end.

  “These should do,” Amandine said, handing Julie a collection of garments. She turned to Vera. “I’ll put in that order with service now.”

  Julie had been examining the room: the fine wood, porcelain, and fabric. No bare steel here! She sniffed the air; it was filled with fresh flowers, beeswax, and perfume. Up here, she could understand why people enjoyed traveling by ocean liner.

  “You can breathe in here,” she told Vera.

  “Quite so.” Vera nodded, brushing her long, tangled hair. “Go ahead and get out of that uniform, dear. The bathroom is in here.”

  When Julie returned from the bathroom, the other two had wrapped towels around their shoulders and settled into armchairs. Dressed in one of Vera’s simpler gowns, she’d managed to alter its length by gathering up the material and holding it in place with a tightly pulled sash. In this ill-fitting finery, Julie already felt better, as if she were someone else, not the seasick steerage girl whom the engineman had taken on a dirty mattress. The ugly uniform seemed an accomplice to the suffering she’d endured under the waterline. If the luxury cabin had only come equipped with a fireplace, she’d have been happy to burn it. Lacking a fire, she sat down in the chair next to the others.

  “You look pretty in those clothes.” Constance smiled. “Brand new.”