She had tried to telephone to him too. She had known in her heart that there was disaster; she had tried to reach his apartment. The telephone had been taken over at government orders; the streets were choked with people and frenzied confusion. When she reached his apartment the concierge had fled and nobody could tell her anything.
She said, shifting the memory of that day: "That's in the past."
"Yes. Yes, of course. You keep telling me that. It's true of course, but—well, never mind. To make it short, she gave the passport to me, and I knew somebody who could fix it all up with visas and so forth. You learn things like that—but . . ." He paused and then said deliberately: "I never really let you see his passport, did I, Marcia? You see, it's his passport but it's my photograph. I had it put on, in place of his. I—never intended to resume my own name. You may as well know that now."
It was, then, as she had so recently guessed. She waited for a moment, seeking words, seeking arguments and finding none that would avail against that long and stubborn scheme. "No," she said. "No . . ."
"I have thought it over. That is my decision, Marcia. You must help me. It means so much to me."
"But, Mickey, it isn't practical. People will recognize you. You've appeared in concerts. . . ."
"People in an audience never remember the face of a pianist. Nonsense!"
"All your friends, all the people who knew you . . ."
"Marcia, you don't understand. I'll never play again. I knew a very small, circumscribed group of people. Mainly people interested in music. Well, all that and those people are out of my life. I'm Andre Messac now. A new identity, a new life . . ."
"You can't. . . ."
"And I depend on you, Marcia. I want a new life. I didn't want it really, when I found you in Marseilles. I didn't want anything except to see you again. I'd thought of you, all those years of horror. There were times when I could keep alive only by thinking as hard as I could about you, holding some clear memory as if it were a symbol, a tangible thing. The thought of you actually, my darling, was as sustaining as—a piece of bread. That doesn't sound very fancy and high-flown, does it? But it's true."
Her throat had closed up tight again. There was fine cool spray against her face, but there were tears too, remembering the time at the villa with its stone floors and walls, its emptiness, the longing for Mickey that every minute held. She said, her voice uneven: "For me too, Mickey. I often wished that we had married, that winter in Paris."
"I wished it, too. Yet at the time, with everything so confused, so uncertain, it seemed better not to. We were wrong, I expect. I was sorry, too. There was so much time to think of everything as it might have been. Well, as you say, that's in the past. Only I desperately want it to remain in the past, my darling. I want everything new for us. Everything on a clean slate. No clutter from the past, and no echoes of what I might have become."
"We ought to have gone to America that winter, while we still could. I thought of that, so many, so many times I thought of that."
"How could I?" asked Mickey simply. "I'm a Frenchman. How could I have gone?"
It had been his argument then. She sighed and shivered a little, and pulled the thick brown coat with its brave red lining tighter around her. And suddenly for a queer, illogical second she wished she could talk over the situation with the tall man in the red dressing gown she had met in the Captain's cabin—Colonel Josh Morgan.
A man she didn't know and had never seen in her life before!
She was tired; that was the explanation. She felt the need to lean upon someone and, until Mickey was better, she could not lean upon him. Contrarily, she must make herself strong and certain, so that Mickey now, while he needed it, could derive some strength from her.
Obviously, then, she could only agree to his plan, fall in with it for the time being. Until Mickey himself grew stronger —not physically, but within that core that men can only call a soul. Until he was certain again that life was good, desirable; until he had regained confidence and assurance and, mainly, his grip upon the reality, the sunshine and gaiety and dear, homely honesty of home. It might be slow in coming, but it would come.
She said, however, with odd feminine tenacity: "I think we should tell Captain Svendsen—no one else. I liked him. I believe he'd understand and—and help. . . ."
Mickey whirled around toward her. "No, Marcia! He'd have to tell. He has to do whatever his duty is. He couldn't conceal my real name; he'd have to report it. There's nothing else for him to do. You can't say anything to him that would induce him to swerve an inch from his job. I saw him; I talked to him; that's the kind of man he is. If you tell him who I am, Marcia, everybody will know it." He stopped and searched her eyes almost incredulously. "Does my only chance for a new life mean so little to you?"
"Oh, no, no, Mickey. I love you. . . ." She put her hands upon his then, but his hands were cold. His eyes were those of a stranger for an instant, so she seemed to be reaching out toward someone who was not there.
That, too, must be the effect of fatigue and nerve strain. And Mickey said unexpectedly: "Do you really love me?"
He didn't really mean that. She must have patience, infinite patience, and again she thought, strength for both of them just now. If the night past had frayed her own nerves and physical endurance, what must it have done to Mickey? She put her arm through his own. "Mickey, Mickey, you know that I love you."
"Well, then call me Andre, not Mickey. You will, won't you, Marcia?"
"Yes, until we can straighten it out."
"What do you mean by that?"
It had been the wrong thing to say. She felt again that she was being stubborn and feminine. She was right and yet wrong; it was almost as if they were quarreling.
"Mickey, I'd never do anything you asked me not to do. We mustn't talk like this. It is wonderful simply that we are standing here together, alive and beside each other. Last night . . ."
"Yes. Last night! I have been thinking about this man Castiogne. It is hard to believe that he was murdered in the lifeboat. I can see how it could have happened without any of us being aware of it. But what I can't understand is why. We were all on the point of being drowned at any instant. Even if somebody wanted to kill him, it seems pointless. Every one of us stood such a good chance of being dead at any time during the night. Luther Cates thinks the same thing. Naturally, it was one of the seamen, crazed perhaps by fear. Until he confesses, I suppose it will be more or less unpleasant for all of us."
He broke off as someone came out on deck behind them.
"There you are," said Daisy Belle Cates. Marcia turned; Daisy Belle and Gili came toward them, both in nurses's uniforms and coats like the coat Marcia was wearing. Gili stopped beside Mickey. Her long golden hair was twisted to a heavy knot on top of her head; her face was without makeup, except for her full mouth which was deeply crimson with lipstick she had managed to borrow. She said: "What about the murder, Andre? What are they going to do? Do they suspect any of us? Do they think we did it?"
Daisy Belle said: "Could I have a cigarette, Monsieur Messac? Thank you." Mickey—Andre, Marcia reminded herself. Andre offered Daisy Belle the package in his hand and lighted the cigarette for her. She took a long puff and said: "Thank Heaven for that. I hope never to see another cigar in all my life, let alone smoke one."
Gili's long green eyes slanted once toward the older woman and then came back to Mickey. "Who do you think killed him?"
Mickey said: "I don't know."
Daisy Belle took another long, relishing breath, and tilted back her reddish-gray head and that fine-drawn profile to expel the smoke, slowly, savoring it. She said then: "Obviously it was one of the seamen. None of us knew or cared anything about the man. The only thing I know of him is that he was very handsome in a sort of peasant way and apparently lived on garlic."