Marius Gabriel
THE OCEAN LINER
For Teddy, Tom, Emma and Sabby
Le Havre, 1939
‘He’s a very ugly man,’ Rachel said. ‘Even uglier than his photographs.’
‘But look at his eyes,’ Masha replied. ‘They burn like coals.’
‘Well, I don’t find him impressive. And as for his music—’
‘You don’t like his music?’
‘Not in the slightest.’ Rachel, who had studied at the music conservatory in Leipzig before the Nazis had ejected her, had firm views on modern music. ‘If I wish to be disturbed, I shall go to the zoo and listen to the tigers roar.’
‘But that’s exactly my point. His music excites one, the way a dangerous animal excites one.’ The two girls had been craning over the railing to watch Stravinsky come aboard their ship. They thought of it as ‘theirs’, this magnificent American liner, even though it had so far carried them only from Bremen to Le Havre. But those five hundred nautical miles had already taken them into a new world.
Stravinsky was making slow progress up the gangplank, helped by a middle-aged woman, evidently his travelling companion. They were met by the charming senior steward, Mr Nightingale, immaculate in his white serge and gold buttons. Mr Nightingale attempted to take the composer’s bag, but he refused. ‘I’m sure it contains his latest work,’ Masha whispered to Rachel, ‘too precious to be entrusted to anyone.’
Perhaps sensing that he was being watched, Stravinsky looked up. His eyes met the girls’. They both darted back from the rail and began to walk along the deck swiftly, arm in arm, past the rows of loungers, embarrassed at having been caught staring at the great man.
‘I saw The Rite of Spring in Berlin, a few years ago,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s about a young girl who dances herself to death. I found it quite horrible.’
‘I’ve seen it too. I was electrified.’
‘Hardly a pleasant sensation, I should say. That’s how the Americans execute their criminals, isn’t it?’
‘I felt my heart beating so hard that I thought it was going to jump out of my chest. The Nazi papers said it was degenerate rubbish, of course.’
‘Well, one has to bow to the sublime taste of the Nazis. And it’s unfortunate that he’s a Jew. He is the kind of conceited Jew who gives all us Jews a bad name.’
‘As a matter of fact, my dear Rachel, he is Russian Orthodox, and a devout Christian.’
Rachel arched her plucked eyebrows satirically. ‘Oh, Masha! Not even a Jew, and you’re in love with him?’
‘I’m not in love with him – only with his music.’
‘I am distressed to see you already whoring after the Gentile,’ Rachel replied with a pious sniff.
‘You’re very naughty to make fun of Rabbi Moskovitz,’ Masha said. She had been warned for years that her cousin Rachel was ‘dangerous’, though nobody had explained quite what the danger was. Rachel was certainly very satirical. Masha was a vivacious young woman of twenty with a cloud of dark hair and bright hazel eyes. Her cousin was older by three years. While not so pretty, Rachel was blonde, which they both felt would be an advantage in America. They had the family name Morgenstern, and they were first cousins, although they had grown up in different cities: Rachel in Leipzig, Masha in Berlin.
Before leaving Bremen, both girls had been subjected to stern lectures on keeping themselves pure as they embarked on new lives. Rachel, who had a facility for quoting scraps of the Torah in a nasal chant, had made Rabbi Moskovitz the subject of a number of jokes.
‘Thy lewdness shall be uncovered, and mark my words, child’ – Rachel wagged her finger, squinting hideously like Rabbi Moskovitz – ‘thou shalt pluck off thine own breasts.’ They had reached the end of the promenade and now turned around. Despite herself, Masha was laughing at Rachel’s parody. It was unfortunate that just at that moment, Stravinsky had reached the deck.
Stravinsky glowered at the cousins, panting for breath after his slow climb. Masha realised with horror that the celebrated composer imagined he was the subject of their mirth. She clapped her hand over her mouth. That, however, made the situation even more uncomfortable.
Stravinsky’s companion, a spinsterish woman in a lavender-tweed suit, took his arm to steady him and steered him past the cousins. As they went by, Masha noted Stravinsky’s yellowed skin, faltering walk and general air of exhaustion. She felt a rush of pity.
‘He looks so ill,’ she exclaimed in an undertone to Rachel, ‘so broken – and he thought we were laughing at him. I’m mortified.’
Katharine Wolff helped Stravinsky down the companionway. His small feet, usually so light and neat in their motions, stumbled on the stairs. His shoes, usually gleaming, were dusty. His person, usually impeccable, was crumpled. He seemed to have reached the end of his strength.
The journey from Bordeaux to Le Havre had been difficult, the roads choked with vehicles. Since the declaration of war a fortnight earlier, the whole of France had been swarming like an ants’ nest disturbed by a wicked boy with a stick. The mighty German army was massing on the borders for an invasion. There had already been fighting at Saarbrucken. The British were sending an expeditionary force to bolster the French army, with its flimsy tanks and antiquated aircraft. A catastrophe loomed. All those who could were getting out.
They had arrived at the harbour with frayed nerves after many hours on a hot road, still broken-hearted after parting from Nadia Boulanger and their circle of friends. The formalities of getting on board had been prolonged and had taken their toll on Stravinsky’s already depleted energies. Their baggage had not yet arrived from Bordeaux, nor their papers from the United States embassy in Paris. It was by no means certain that Stravinsky, who had just been released from quarantine, would be given the emergency visa he had applied for. Katharine, who was American, did not need one, but she had decided she would not leave France without Igor. If necessary, she would remain with him and face the consequences.
The willowy senior steward who had met them on the gangplank, and who was now leading the way, was garrulous and apologetic.
‘We’re going to be over capacity,’ he told them. ‘The Manhattan is fitted to take twelve hundred passengers. We’re going to have more than fifteen hundred by the time we leave Cobh. It’s not the way we like to do things, but under the circumstances, you understand—’
Katharine was impatient to get Igor to their cabin. ‘Our baggage hasn’t arrived yet and we’re due to sail on Saturday.’
‘Don’t worry about that, Miss Wolff. I’m sure it will arrive on time.’
‘What on earth makes you sure?’ she snapped.
‘Well, I’m expressing a hope—’
‘Your hope doesn’t help us in the slightest. If we have to leave without our baggage, it will be very difficult for us.’ They were making their way ever downward, into the bowels of the great ocean liner. Passengers and crew members crowded the stairs. She tried to shelter her charge as best she could from the jostling. ‘Is it much further, Mr Nightingale?’
‘Nearly there. What I’m getting at, Miss Wolff, is that the captain has made new rules.’
‘Rules?’
‘Mr Stravinsky is going to be sharing his cabin.’
‘Sharing? But we booked a stateroom.’
‘Commodore Randall’s orders, Miss Wolff. We’ve been instructed to turn nobody away. Sharing is the only way we can get the extra passengers on board. There will be refunds, of course. As for your good self—’