Ship of Fools (17 page)

Lizzi Spöckenkieker, running as if pursued and looking back over her shoulder, dashed full tilt into Captain Thiele, who had chosen to show himself on deck that morning. He was unmistakably the Captain even to the most landlubberly eye. In stiff immaculate white with bits of gold braid and lettering disposed hieratically upon his chest, collar and shoulders, he bore himself rigidly, and his face was that of a pompous minor god: a god who had grown somewhat petulant and more than a little mean in his efforts to maintain his authority. Every feature of his face was ill-humored, from the narrow forehead, the little eyes close-set and crafty, to the long sharp nose casting its shadow over the tight mouth and stubborn chin. It was as if his own nature had shaped his face to match itself: and there he walked, alone, returning the respectful salutations of the passengers with reluctant little jerks of his head, upon which sat a monumental ornate cap, white as plaster.

Lizzi almost overturned him in her career, slipped, and would have fallen if the Captain had not braced himself with instant presence of mind and balance. He threw an arm about her stiffly, his face a dark furious red; and Lizzi, blushing, whinnying, cackling, scrambling, embraced him around the neck wildly as if she were drowning. Then she let go and backed away, crying shrilly, “Oh Captain Thiele, how frightful of me—oh I
beg
of you—good heavens, how could I be so awkward?”

The Captain glared at her bitterly, said, “It is nothing, dear Fräulein, nothing,” and moved on majestically annoyed, biting his underlip. When Herr Löwenthal rather nervously ventured to salute him the Captain looked straight through him. Löwenthal, thinking himself snubbed, was cut to the marrow, his heart broke, the very nerves of his back teeth began to ache, and this state went on for hours. He went to the stern of the ship and leaning his head on his arms he brooded over the water in silence and wished for death, or thought he did. He retired into the dark and airless ghetto of his soul and lamented with all the grieving wailing company he found there; for he was never alone in that place. He sat down there head in hand and mourned in one voice with his fated people, wordlessly he bewailed their nameless eternal wrongs and sorrows; then feeling somewhat soothed, the inspired core of his being began to search for its ancient justification and its means of revenge. But it should be slow and secret.

When a shadow fell upon his shoulder, he moved away without turning his face, not wishing to meet another blank hostile eye. A flat American voice said in ordinary tones: “Is this your first trip over?” and Löwenthal, cheered almost instantly, was able to say with pride: “I make this trip twice a year now for ten years; I have a little international kind of business, I go everywhere.” The American was Herr Denny. He lounged over and seemed perfectly friendly and harmless.

“Golly,” said Denny, looking really interested, “you do?”

“South America,” said Löwenthal, “all parts of Europe, Spain, and of course, Mexico. Mexico is headquarters: less taxes, cheaper labor, cheaper rent, less overhead all around, cheaper materials, and those peons, they turn out high-class articles out of nearly nothing, so you should see what they can do when you give them good stuff to work on. Anywhere there is a Catholic church,” said Löwenthal, “I can make money. Rosaries, plaster and wooden saint statues, some of them painted and decorated with real gold and silver; altar furnishings of all kinds. There's money in it. Indians not got enough to eat will buy a saint statue! I'd like to show you my samples: rosaries alone,” he said, “I got every grade from just plain wooden ones up to handmade silver ones. Some I designed myself and they're really pieces of jewelry already, with opals and amber and even that Mexican jade. I even tried some of that obsidian, but it don't pay to work it—too hard. But there's a market for all this stuff, never fails.”

He stopped; for over Denny's face there was moving an unpleasant, prejudiced look. Deeply disturbed, mystified, Löwenthal watched it grow. Then Denny said, “If there's one religion on this earth that I despise, it's those Catholics. I don't like anything about 'em. Where I come from, only the lowest kind of people, greasers and wops and polacks, are Catholics, and I say they can have it—it's good enough for 'em.”

Löwenthal smiled, his thick curly lips and heavy-lidded eyes formed a grin that drew all his features to the center of his face. With relief he seized upon this common sympathy between them, and they spent a profitable few minutes putting the Catholic Church in its place. The conduct of priests towards young women in the confessional, the secrets of monasteries and convents, the sale of Masses for the dead, the worship of images, all these failings were aired again and denounced thoroughly. Löwenthal even expanded to the point where he told how his sweet old grandmother from Cracow—“finest woman I ever knew,” he said, “the best—” had warned him many times when he was a little boy, never in his life to pass a Catholic church at midnight, for at that hour the doors opened and the ghosts of all the congregations who had died that year would pour forth in the shape of swine and they would eat him, then and there. For years his hair stood up in fright when he passed a Catholic church, even in daytime. He remembered his revered grandmother's exact words: “The dirty cannibal Goyim—they even eat their own brothers—the pigs! Then they turn into pigs when they die and eat little Jewish boys!”

Denny frowned at this, slanted an eye at Löwenthal as if remembering something suddenly from the back of his mind, and said with a touch of censoriousness: “I wonder why you are in that business if you feel like that about them. I think that one religion oughtn't to make fun of another. I don't believe in any of them so I can say what I please. I just happen specially to hate Catholics, that's all, and I wouldn't want to handle their goods.”

Löwenthal, excited, flung up his hands palms upward and said, “The way I look at it, it's a business. There is nothing personal in it at all. The way I look at it, the business is there, and if I don't sell them, somebody else will. So why not I sell them? It's got nothing to do with religion, anyway, from my standpoint. From my standpoint, it's not a religion. What I say is, well, it's just straight business and there's nothing personal in it.”

Denny, stirring himself as if about to move on, agreed halfway. “Oh yes, I can see that. Business is business. But just for myself, I wouldn't like it.”

Löwenthal watched him go with a feeling that the conversation had been a failure, after all; maybe he said something wrong, or maybe the fellow didn't like his looks—Löwenthal hadn't much liked Denny's either, but that was another matter. At any rate, he went on feeling baffled and sore; he had taken no pleasure in Denny's society, yet still thought they might have gone on and had a drink together. Maybe his mistake was in not offering him a drink.… Well, next time, maybe better luck.

His feelings about the Captain came back, but in the shape of anger this time. That swine. And the steward, putting him at a table by himself. And the dirty things they offered him to eat—he had to live on eggs, fruit, and broiled herring. On many boats he had been able to get kosher food. Ah, he needed to be more careful and clever than he was—he suffered waves of fright sometimes because he feared he was not clever enough, they would play him a trick someday and he would not know until it was too late. It occurred to him often that he was living in a world so dangerous he wondered how he dared to go to sleep at night. But he was sleepy at that very moment.

Rolling steadily and balancing on his short legs, feet turned out and slapping the deck lightly, he went to his chair and settled himself, sighing, full of shapeless worries, running his hand over his hair crisped in tight waves and standing up in a ridge at the crown of his head. He would sleep and forget his troubles. He would sleep until lunchtime, and then there would be eggs or fish, sometimes fish from a tin. He longed for Düsseldorf and his cousin Sarah's good comfortable house and the good solid clean food.

Elsa's mother gave her a firm kind motherly talk early in the morning, before breakfast, telling her there was no need for her to be too stiff in her manner towards the men. Naturally she was not expected even to glance at those terrible Spaniards or those crazy students from Cuba, but after all there were some nice men on board. Herr Freytag even if married was a good dancer, there was no harm in a little modest dancing with a good partner, married or not; Herr Denny, though American, might do; at least she could try him once. Then there was Herr Hansen, no objection whatever to him. “When I say to you, be modest, be discreet, I don't mean you are to sit without a word, or a look around you, Elsa, and Herr Hansen is a man I would trust. He is the kind of man a girl may depend upon to be a gentleman in whatever circumstances.”

Elsa said with surprising spirit, “I don't like his looks, he's too cross.”

“I would never pick a man for looks,” said her mother. “Handsome men are often deceitful. When you think of marrying, you must look for one who has a firm character who could be the head of his own house. A steady, real man. I do not think Herr Hansen is cross, he is just serious. As to most of the others on this boat, I think I never saw a worse lot—all those male dancers, la de da deda! with all those loose dancing women—it is a scandal.”

“Herr Hansen never takes his eyes off the one they call Amparo,” said Elsa, hopelessly. “If he likes her, Mama, you know he can never like me. I saw them standing very close together this morning, and he was giving her money; I am sure it was that.”

“Elsa,” said her mother, shocked. “What do you mean? Do you know what you are saying? You are not supposed to see such things!”

“I couldn't help it,” said Elsa, with a grieved face. “I was just coming out of my cabin and there they were, in the passage, not ten feet away, I had to walk right past them. They did not pay any attention. But I cannot believe that Herr Hansen will like me.”

“Never you mind, my dear little girl,” said her mother, “you have your own virtues and qualities, never you be afraid of wicked women. Men always come back to the good ones at last. You will have a fine husband someday when she will be in the ditch. Don't you worry.”

Instead of raising Elsa's spirits, this conversation seemed to dampen them completely. The prospect of following Amparo in Herr Hansen's affections somehow was not attractive. She drooped and folded her hands on her knees. Her mother said, after a sad little pause, “Look, if it will make you happier, I will buy you a box of face powder when we get home. After all, it is perhaps time for you to be a real young lady, now that we are going to be among our own kind once more. Yes, you shall have face powder, any shade you prefer.”

“They have it for sale in the barbershop here,” said Elsa, timidly, “all kinds, some of it perfumed with lily of the valley. It is Rachel number one, just my shade exactly. I just happened to notice it when I was having my hair washed … I …” she trailed off, losing courage.

“How much did it cost?” asked her mother, opening her purse.

“Four marks,” said Elsa, and she stood up stammering with amazement and joy. “Oh, M-M-Mama, d-do you m-mean I am really to have it?”

“Didn't I say so?” asked her mother, and put the money in her hand. “Now go and make yourself pretty and come to breakfast.”

Elsa threw her big arms around her chubby mother and hugged and squeezed her and kissed her face, her eyes trembling with tears. “No, no, now, that's enough,” said her mother, “don't act like a big baby.”

All the way to the barbershop Elsa fought to control her tears. She appeared at breakfast with her hair fluffed out under a child-sized white beret, her face, neck, arms and hands covered smoothly with a thick coat of flesh-colored powder. She had also ventured a tiny crooked smear on her lips with one of Jenny's lipsticks. Her mother said censoriously, “I did not say paint, Elsa—that is going a little far—but let it be for the present.”

Elsa blushed and her father said, “Ah, so that is why my Elsa is looking so pretty this morning. Now, there remains only to get your hair wound up on bobbins, and the next thing you know—” He beamed and wagged a finger at her. “Ah ah now, be careful!” Elsa smiled in quiet rapture and ate a fine breakfast.

Arne Hansen hardly knew how it happened, but as he left the dining room the Lutzes were with him, he was walking beside Elsa, and Frau Lutz was saying that a short turn around the deck might be very pleasant in the morning air—would he join them? He glanced back at Amparo like a man expecting the worst. She, with elbows on table, managed an impressive display of pantomime at high speed: pity for him or perhaps his stupidity, contempt for the Lutzes, warning, insult, false commiseration, and finally, just simple ridicule.

He turned away and lunged forward. The big plain girl at his side hung her head with her eyes so cast down she seemed to be asleep. The gay little procession advanced, but after one lap around Herr Lutz moved up abreast of Herr Hansen, and Frau Lutz walked with her daughter, it being quite clear that the young people were not making any headway in conversation.

Herr Lutz, whose mind, when not exercising its peculiar form of humor, stuck pretty consistently to the practical considerations of life, always led off his first talk with any stranger by inquiring how he got his living. The more unpretentious and immediate the means proved to be, the sooner the stranger established himself in Herr Lutz's esteem. He learned with delight that Herr Hansen had been in the dairy business in Mexico. “Ah ha,” he exclaimed, “we go well together. I deal in bread, you in butter. I ran an inn near Lake Chapala, but you see, we have thought better of that. And how did you find the dairy business, in Mexico?”

“I found it so poor,” said Hansen, “I sold out and am going back to Sweden. However, I made enough on the deal to start again at home, and there at least I shall know the tricks and know how to look out for them. In Mexico, they change the rules every day.”