The beat of the engines was transmitted through the deck, up the legs and into the chest, where it rattled the heart. The two red, white and blue funnels were pouring steam into the sky. It surged up in volcanic clouds, rolling across the sky and casting diaphanous veils of shadow over the multitudes below.
Toscanini stood grasping a stanchion, surrounded by his baggage. He’d had it brought up from the hold and placed on the deck near the gangplank. If there was no word from Carla, at the last minute, just before the ship cast off, he would have everything carried ashore. He and Carla would have to wait for the next sailing – if there was one.
The war news was terrifying. The Germans’ superiority was becoming established without doubt. Not only were their weapons more modern and more deadly, but their tactics had evolved since the last great conflict. It was becoming clear that they had no intentions of attacking the vast concrete fortifications of the much-vaunted Maginot Line, dug deep into the French earth to resist the Hun hordes. They were simply going to circumvent it. Their mechanised armies were already streaming around it, their warplanes were thundering over it. The concept of war as armies locked in trenches was as outdated as Homer. The new war was a lightning war. It would all be over in the blink of an eye. Hitler would be in Paris in three months, in a month, in a week, tomorrow.
The multifarious crowd below blurred in Toscanini’s vision. His head was spinning; his limbs were numb. They could no longer support him. He, who never sat down if he could help it, now sank on to his leather-bound trunk like an old man.
Mr Nightingale had arranged the tour. He had been reluctant at first, because as he pointed out, the engineers would not welcome a visit at this busy juncture, and there would be plenty of opportunity later on during the voyage; but the dollar bills Stravinsky had slipped into his hand had eased matters considerably.
As for Thomas König, he was trembling with excitement. It was all he could do to remember his manners, and offer to let Stravinsky go first. Gravely, Stravinsky declined the honour. They entered Manhattan’s forward engine room, the boy leading the way, the composer behind him.
The narrow corridor opened into a space as vast as a concert hall. The orchestra that was playing in it was deafening, overwhelming. Every range was filled, from the shrill hissing of cymbals to the thunder of basses and tubas, the deep concussions of kettledrums, the blare of brass and roar of cellos, the piping of flutes and piccolos.
They gazed up at the columns and pipes of steel that were producing this colossal symphony, the banks of glass gauges, the immense wheels which vibrated the very teeth in one’s head. Billowing steam, escaping from gleaming valves, made the air hot and damp. The painted metal surfaces dripped with it, the faces of the men shone with it as they gazed up at the hundreds of dials, writing down the readings of each.
‘The temperature in the furnace is currently three thousand, five hundred degrees,’ the engineer shouted, his voice barely audible over the symphony. ‘It will go even higher when we’re under way. At full power, the boilers can consume forty tons of fuel every hour, and produce a hundred and sixty thousand horsepower.’
Stravinsky was dazed. He could hear the hoof beats of those one hundred and sixty thousand horses, pounding out a rhythm of power and purpose. He had not expected this greatness, this might. He had wanted only to arrange a distraction for the boy, who had been crying again at the prospect of leaving everything he knew behind. They followed the engineer along the walkway between the towering banks of machinery. He was shouting out figures – seven hundred of this, fifty thousand of that – but his voice was mostly drowned out in the cacophony.
Thomas, however, was transfixed, his pale eyes shining, his mouth half-open with wonder as he worshiped in this cathedral of steel, this temple of energy. His thin hands clutched at railings, as though his knees were weak. So many glass dials, red-painted wheels, so many brass and iron and aluminium and bronze shapes that gleamed, so many thick springs that compressed and opened under pressure of unimaginable forces. He was overwhelmed. He did not need to hear the figures to understand that this was a dwelling place of gods and monsters. As they approached the turbines, he gripped Stravinsky’s hand tightly.
‘Saturated steam is produced in these tubes,’ the engineer bawled at them, mopping his brow with an oily rag, ‘and is then superheated in the furnace before being fed into the engines at four hundred pounds per square inch and seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The hot fumes from the furnace are vented through the funnels. That accounts for the smoke you can see being made.’
‘I feel like Jonah in the bowels of the whale,’ Stravinsky said to Thomas, but the boy either didn’t hear or didn’t understand.
‘The Manhattan has four propellers,’ the engineer continued. ‘The technical name is screws. They are made of manganese bronze, and each one is over thirty feet high – taller than a suburban house. The outer propellers are driven—’ He was interrupted by a subordinate who had hurried over to him with a clipboard. He fell silent, studying the figures.
The German boy was still clutching Stravinsky’s hand. They stood staring around them, feeling the thrumming of the giant turbine in their bodies. Stravinsky was suddenly aware that all this giant energy was devoted to one end – departure. This mighty engine had been set in motion for the single purpose of taking him – and some hundreds of other souls – from Europe to America.
The imminence of the voyage, which had somehow not seemed real to him until this moment, struck him like a physical blow. He felt dizzy, breathless. He was leaving France, leaving behind decades of his life, huge pieces of himself. He was leaving behind Vera and the dead. He was leaving everything that was his: and going to a world which was not his.
His mouth fell open stupidly as he grasped the immensity of it all. One life had ended. Another had yet to begin. He was as helpless as though his physical body had been caught in these giant machines, and was being flung God knew where. He felt heavy. He took off his steel-rimmed spectacles, and tremblingly put them in his breast pocket. The engine room became a blur, but he no longer wanted to see its gleaming precision, anyway. Thomas König’s hand was gripping his tightly. ‘We are two wayfarers,’ he said, turning to the boy. ‘We are about to be set adrift on the currents of the world.’
Thomas didn’t answer. The engineer checked his watch and turned to them, fist on hip. He stared at them with undisguised resentment.
‘I think he wants us to leave now,’ Stravinsky said to Thomas. The boy nodded obediently. He led Stravinsky out of the thundering chamber, carefully guiding the composer’s uncertain steps.
Standing in the shadow of the Cabin Class lifeboats, Masha and Rachel Morgenstern were receiving an unexpected visitor who had come to see them off: a distant relation, Moshe Perelman, who had once played second violin in the Berliner Philharmoniker, before he’d lost his job to a non-Jew. He was in his seventies, looking pinched in a coat that was too thin for the weather, and shoes that were down at heel. He seemed to have fallen on hard times. Neither of the girls had seen him for many years, and might not (as they later agreed) have recognised him, had they passed him on the street, though he had once been very distinguished-looking. But for his part, he seemed grateful to be received by them.
‘I’m hoping for a sailing in the next month or two,’ he told them, rubbing his ungloved hands together with a papery sound. ‘Only, my documents are not through yet. I have applied to America, to Great Britain and to Argentina. One waits, one waits, one waits.’