I wondered for a moment about him, about what skills he might have to save himself. I knew the further trouble we were all in. From our list to starboard, the lifeboats on this side of the ship had swung out on their davits to the farthest extent of their snubbing chains and would be brutally difficult to launch, especially as our momentum would carry us for miles yet, sucking in the sea, and on the portside the lifeboats would be pinned against the hull and be even harder to launch.
I had to go in through the doors to the Main Staircase. And I had to stop thinking. There were two sets of double doors, double but narrow, fine for elegant comings and goings but this was the Boat Deck and everyone from the Lounge and the Writing Room were already jammed here, and the Main Staircase was no doubt filling with the upsurge of people from the lower decks who were mobbing up behind, and everyone was pressing hard, trying to get to the lifeboats.
I didn’t want to cross the current of that mob inside to get to the forward-leading corridor, so I danced through the dispersing flow of bodies out here on the promenade and then planted myself on the far side of the jamb on the forward set of double doors, beside the desperate outrush of bodies. I took a breath — like preparing to leap from a trench on the front — and I turned my shoulder forward and I concentrated on the seam between jamb and emerging body and I inserted my shoulder there, braced my legs, pressed forward to lever myself inside, and a man’s shoulder met mine hard and he was coming from above me by the angle of our list and he drove me back around.
And I did it again, this time with a woman emerging, all seal coat and honeysuckle scent, and she was coming out straight and I wedged at the seam and turned her sideways just enough, putting my hands onto her arms so she would not fall, and she continued on out as I slid across her and around the door frame, and I was in a tiny vestibule and the slow thick flow of bodies pressed me against the side wall and I edged inward and then to another door jamb and to a small man in a rain slicker who I turned sideways and he was all right and sidling away and I levered my way inside and the crowd surged from behind and I was slammed hard into the wall, but it was only a short few sideways-driving steps more and I curled to the right around the corner, and I was free of the mob.
The doors to the Writing Room and Library were before me. I stepped to them and through them and the list made it hard to sprint but I moved as fast as I could, skirting tipped chairs and scattered books, and now half a dozen bodies were lurching toward me, strapped into their life jackets, heading away from their blocked door onto the Boat Deck, and I jinked between and around them. I passed through the forward doors of the Writing Room and into the starboard forward-leading corridor, and as I did, I finally was struck by the brightness of the space I’d just left. The room’s portholes, which were square and large as proper windows, were filled with the afternoon sun, which meant the outside porthole covers were open. The quick sinking would escalate even faster without a chance to execute porthole discipline across the ship.
Now the false assurance of the dimness of the cabin corridor warned me of a different imminent danger. The electric lights blinked off and everything went black and they flickered back on. The crossway to the portside was just ahead and I stepped to the intersection and two more bodies bumped into me and then veered past, heading aft, ignoring our collision, a woman weeping heavily and a man murmuring “It’s all right” and “It’s all right, my darling.”
I stood at this juncture — before me was Brauer’s suite and beyond was my own stateroom — and I took a quick inventory. My money belt was strapped to me. I patted the pockets of my sack coat and felt, deep in an inside pocket, my leather-pouched set of lock picks. I gave one brief thought to the things still in my cabin. Only my Corona Portable Number 3 and the words I’d written on it these past few days gave me a twist of serious regret, but this was, in fact, a meaningless exercise. There was no time. It was impossible now to do anything except turn and press on, which I did, my legs suddenly heavy from the incline, as heavy as in a bad dream.
As if they’d been trapped belowdecks and finally found the staircase, a couple of fears scrambled up into my chest and then into my head: She’s probably already gone. And you have no plan even if you find her.
But I knew this from the wars I’d covered: thinking is how you die. You react. And either you do things right or you don’t. But nobody can think fast enough to live.
A few steps more and I turned into the portside forward-running corridor and then I was at her door and I pounded on it.
From outside, from the portside promenade, I heard men suddenly cry out together, men in some heavy, physical, coordinated task, and then a scraping and a scuffling and then shouts and a clanking and creaking and suddenly very nearby a massive clang of struck iron and a crack of wood and the corridor quaked beneath my feet and many voices were screaming, and I could picture in my head the whole quick terrible sequence: some crewmen tried to launch a lifeboat against the list of the ship, tried to push it out together and away and the men working the falls failed to let the ropes out in their split second of opportunity and the lifeboat swung back on board on its davits and crushed the crew and threw the passengers against the deck wall.
Selene could have been out there.
She might have just this moment died.
I was crazy. Why was I knocking? I tried Selene’s door and it was locked.
This was good. She wouldn’t rush out in these circumstances and then lock her door behind her. She was inside.
“Selene!” I cried. And again: “Selene!” I backed away to kick the door in. It would be up the incline and I struggled to secure my footing — the opposite corridor wall was too far away to brace myself — and I planted my foot on the floor as best I could, straining into the rubberized tiles, and I kicked hard just below the door lock.
A little give. But it was still locked. I kicked again and stumbled forward. The cries went on from the deck. The electric lights flickered and went out. And stayed out. The generator was dead. My throat clamped shut.
I couldn’t see the door. It was before me but I needed to aim well to kick this thing open. But around a corner about fifty feet aft was the door to the promenade. Its porthole spilled a little light that seeped just far enough into the corridor that it let my eyes begin to adjust.
I set myself once more and kicked, and I set and kicked again and the door popped open and instantly banged back shut. But the lock was breached. I stepped forward and pushed through into Selene’s suite.
I flinched at the light.
The door slammed behind me.
The portholes were lace-curtained but unshuttered, letting the day pour in.
Shadows flashed there at the windows. A jumble of sharp voices and moaning. Clanking of chains. I made them blur away from me.
I turned.
The sofa. The chair. The whole parlor. Empty. Selene was gone.
But there was one more room.
I stepped quickly across the floor and into the bedroom.
And I saw her.
She was lying on her back on the farther of the two foot-to-foot beds. She was dressed in shirtwaist and skirt and flat shoes. Her hands were crossed on her chest. She was very still.
I thought of goddamn Juliet and plunged forward, sat down beside her.
She stirred.
I put my hands behind her shoulders and pulled her up, pulled her against my chest. She was warm. She was moving. I put my mouth against her ear. “Selene,” I said.