I gaped. Teenie in a library? She could barely read. But sure enough, she grabbed her radio and turning it on full blast to pop from Radio Luxembourg, dived into the library and began to burrow in the books.
I looked in at this extremely novel sight of Teenie trying to read. She was tapping her foot to the pop music and moving her lips painfully as her fingers slowly traced the lines of a page. She found she was reading Hull Maintenance.
Shortly, she yelled for the Chief Steward and he came in and seeing what she was pointing at, he indulgently unlocked some glassed cases nobody had looked into since the yacht was built. She stared at a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and recoiled, dismayed, from the size of the books. But bravely, she persevered. "What letters come before and after N, Inky?"
Accommodatingly, I found the entry "Napoleon" for her. She sweated at it. It was pretty hard work. She had to take two breaks to get cream sodas and strawberry bubble gum to fortify herself. Beads of sweat bedewed her laboring brow.
Finally she looked at me. "What's 'exile' mean, Inky?"
"Banishment," I said.
"Vanishment?" she said. "Aha! I've found the hideout! Where's Captain Bitts?" The Chief Steward picked up a phone.
The grizzled mariner appeared. "Are you lost in a fog again, Teenie?" he said, laughing.
"Bittie," she replied, "I haven't even got a foghorn and I'm clean off the chart."
He sat down on the arm of a chair in front of her. "I don't see how that could be, Miss Teenie. The way you had me mauling the chart drawers just before we left Bermuda, I should have thought you would have memorized every port in the world."
This was news to me. I could credit her pestering him in his bedroom but not in the chartroom. Since when had Teenie become enamored with geography?
"That's just it," she said, "these (bleepards) don't mention a port. They're talking about a whole different street map. It says this outlaw Napoleon exilated to..." she consulted the volume, "the 'Isola d'Elba.'"
"Isola means 'island' in Italian," said Bitts.
"Oh," said Teenie.
Bitts was pointing to a large globe of the world which hung as the centerpiece of the library. "It's right there," he said.
"What's that thing?" said Teenie.
"It's a globe of the world," said Bitts.
"No (bleep)," said Teenie. "You wouldn't try to con me, would you? All those charts you showed me were flat."
"The world is round, Teenie," said Bitts. "That's what Columbus proved."
"Now, let's not change the subject," said Teenie, waving a cautionary finger at him. "I know (bleeped) well where Columbus, Ohio is. I got arrested there when I was seven."
Bitts gave the Chief Steward a signal and that portly worthy hit a switch. The big globe lighted up with internal lights. Bitts took her cautionary finger and guided it over to the colored surface. "This is the Mediterranean Sea. We're in that. Now, this is Corsica and this is Ajaccio where we are anchored. Now," and he made the finger trace, "if we go down through the Straits of Bonifacio, northerly up the east coast of Corsica, we come to..."
"The Isola d'Elba," said Teenie in triumph. "It's just on the other side of Corsica! Well, I'll be popped! Hey, Bittie, why didn't you tell me it was all on this big blob? Look here. Bermuda. Morocco. Italy. Rome. Sicily. Greece. Turkey. For Christ's sakes, Bittie. Why'd you let me wear my eyes out on all those flat charts when here it is, plain as bubble gum!"
"I'm not at my best at four o'clock in the morning," laughed Captain Bitts.
I was shocked. After that workout she had given me the night we sailed from Bermuda, she'd been doing things with Captain Bitts! And just before me, she'd been messing around with that black-jowled lecher! There was no end to her appetites! She was impossible!
"You leave that blob lit," she told the Chief Steward. "And you leave those cases unlocked. You guys have had me in a spin with your flat charts and travel guides. Who cares if you're liable to get ptomaine poisoning in Antone's Restaurant. That isn't the kind of education I'm looking for." She peered closely again at the big globe. Then she grabbed up the encyclopedia volume and went tearing out yelling, "Hey, Maddie, Maddie! I've found the (bleep)'s hideout!"
"She's a sweet child," said Captain Bitts, fondly.
"Yes, Mr. Bey," said the Chief Steward, "you are indeed fortunate to have such a charming and innocent niece. I just love her girlish enthusiasms. So refreshing."
I thought they must be talking about a different Teenie than the one I knew. Her enthusiasms were a lot too strong for any mortal man.
But in looking back, I am amazed that, with all my training and experience, even then I did not begin to even guess what her enthusiasm was really centered upon right then. Had I done so, I might very well have escaped.
Instead, when she came back, I tamely gave my assent to sail for Elba.
"They're not French, anyway," said Captain Bitts. "The island's Italian. They're civilized and me and the crew will get a chance to go ashore. The rest of Europe used to say, 'Death to the French.' Now it's the French who say, 'Death to Everybody.' If it's all right with you, I'll sail right now and get out of these froggie waters."
The sea was beautifully calm after we passed through the Straits of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia, just south of it.
Bitts had said, "You'll notice the difference when Corsica gets between us and the prevailing westerly winds." And I certainly did. We were now in Italian waters and I believe that was the first time I had ever seen anything Italian calm.
The chief town, Portoferraio, was a pretty place, white buildings with red roofs standing about the blue harbor. Teenie and Madison went tearing off and I was very happy to have a walk on solid land and exercise my Italian.
The ancient Etruscans used to mine iron there and the name means "Smoky Place," probably from the smelters. But I think some English wag must have exiled Napoleon there because it was as close as they could send him to Hells. But the gag would have failed for it is now a pleasant resort: the industries are tourism and Napoleon.
The "Ogre of Europe" exile residence was right in the town, on the beach: the Palazzina di Mulini. I wandered around in it: nice place, not the least bit like a jail; my idea of prisons was more like Spiteos, not this palace. No wonder he had escaped! No electric caging.
Teenie and Madison had been there already. When I asked about them, one of the guards said, "Ah, la bellina fanciulletta Americana! L'innocente." And I thought he must be out of his mind. He had called her "the pretty little American girl" and commented on her innocence. He was holding up two joints she must have given him as a tip. It never ceased to amaze me how people failed to see through the little (bleepch).
They had gone on to Napoleon's summer resort, the Villa San Martino, four miles southwest of town where there was a museum of Napoleonic artifacts and paintings. Some exile! A palace and a summer resort yet! But the man must have been a complete psychotic to want to escape from all this. He should have seen Spiteos!
It was too far to walk, I was not about to pay a fortune for a cab, so I idled around town and drank expressos. How calm, how soothing, to sit at a sidewalk table in the sun of early May, far from the travail and turmoil of Hellers and Kraks and Hissts and Burys.
"Hello, Inkswitch."
I knew I shouldn't have hit the hashish the night before. The hallucinogenic effects were obviously recurrent. I could have sworn that was Bury's voice.
"Mind if I sit down?"