Мариус Габриэль: The Ocean Liner

‘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—’

‘Don’t tell me I’ll be sharing too!’

‘I’m afraid so. You’ll be in a nearby cabin with some other ladies.’

‘No baggage – and sharing our cabins!’ Katharine glanced at Stravinsky, but he was impassive. He seemed dazed. ‘That’s outrageous!’

‘Very sorry for the inconvenience, but under the circumstances—’

‘Who will Stravinsky be sharing with?’

The steward consulted his list. ‘A Herr Thomas König is already in the cabin.’

‘A German!’

‘Yes. He embarked at Bremen. Here we are.’

They had stopped in front of a door. The steward drummed daintily on it with his varnished fingernails. There was no answer, so he opened it. Katharine, ever protective, bustled in ahead of Stravinsky. The cabin was occupied by a boy of around sixteen, in uniform, who was sitting on the edge of his bunk, his eyes wide. He jumped to his feet when he saw Katharine and raised his right hand in a salute. ‘Heil Hitler!’

Katharine pulled the upraised hand down brusquely. ‘How dare you?’

The boy seemed shocked. ‘I’m sorry, Fräulein—’

She only just restrained herself from slapping the thin, hard face. ‘This is France! None of that poisonous rubbish here.’

The boy’s prominent ears flushed beetroot red. Stravinsky had followed Katharine into the stateroom and was now examining his fellow traveller wearily. They made an odd pair: the composer in his creased brown suit, his face a contour map of folds and pouches, and the fresh-faced boy in his pseudo-military uniform of khaki shirt and short pants, his brown socks pulled up to his knobbly knees.

Katharine took the steward’s arm and pulled him back into the corridor. ‘This is intolerable, Mr Nightingale. Stravinsky cannot be expected to spend the voyage with a little Nazi.’

‘He’s travelling on his own,’ the steward murmured, leaning forward with a rush of peppermint breath. ‘There are no parents with him.’

‘Stravinsky is a banned composer in the Third Reich. Do you understand what that means?’ The steward fluttered his hands anxiously, opening his mouth, but Katharine cut him off. ‘If he were to be captured by Hitler’s hordes, he would be exterminated. How can he spend the voyage in the company of this – this exemplar of Hitler Youth?’

‘It will only be a week or two.’

‘I insist that he be removed at once.’

Mr Nightingale licked the tip of his little finger and nervously smoothed his eyebrows into place. ‘I will see what I can arrange.’

‘You do that.’

Katharine went back into the cabin. Stravinsky was shaking hands solemnly with the boy. ‘And may I ask, where are your parents?’ he enquired, with the courtesy he showed to everyone.

‘My father and mother are in Germany, sir,’ the boy replied, matching Stravinsky’s formality.

‘You seem rather young to be travelling on your own.’

‘I am eighteen, sir.’ When Stravinsky looked sceptical at that, the boy squared his lean shoulders. Katharine saw that there was a little enamel swastika pinned to his lapel. ‘I am going to visit the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows,’ he said proudly, as though announcing that he was being sent as Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the League of Nations.

‘Oh well, that’s very fine,’ Stravinsky replied, nodding tiredly.

Katharine looked around the cabin. It was small. There was a china washstand, an electric fan fastened on the bulkhead, a wool rug and other signs of modest comfort. Stravinsky had not been able to afford Cabin Class. She had offered to pay the difference, but he had refused. She hadn’t liked to press the matter. He was very proud and felt his financial troubles keenly.

The boy gestured at the bunk he had been sitting on, which was covered with the adventure books he had been reading. ‘I took this one because it’s the smallest, but if you prefer it, please take it. It has the porthole, you see.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Stravinsky said, ‘but I think you should have the porthole. I will take this one next to you, if it’s all the same to you.’ He sat on the bed and looked up at Katharine with hollow eyes. ‘I think I would like to rest a little now, chérie.’

‘Yes, of course, Igor.’ Katharine knelt down and began unlacing one of his shoes.

‘I can do that myself,’ he said, but he made no move to stop her. After a moment, the German boy knelt beside Katharine and began unlacing the other shoe. Stravinsky watched them in silence, his eyelids heavy, his lower lip drooping open.

Mr Nightingale put his knee on the bunk to draw the shades across the porthole, blocking out the bright autumn sun and casting the cabin into an ochre twilight. Katharine helped Stravinsky take off his jacket and his round-rimmed spectacles. He lay back on the pillows, closing his eyes. His features sagged, his eyes seeming to sink inward, his full lips drooping so that his teeth were exposed under his clipped moustache. His straw-coloured hair was thin. He was only fifty-seven, but Katharine had a sudden terror that he was already dying. He murmured, ‘Thank you, chérie,’ and waved her away.

Mr Nightingale was anxious to show her to her own cabin, so she was forced to leave him there, in the company of the German boy. She gave him a last, suspicious glare before leaving.

Mr Nightingale was gossipy as they hurried along. ‘It’s a great honour to have Mr Stravinsky on board, a great honour. We have quite a number of celebrities with us this trip, Miss Wolff, quite a number. Toscanini came on board yesterday. The conductor, you know.’

‘Yes, I know who Toscanini is,’ she said, trying to avoid the elbows of other passengers.

‘He’s in Cabin Class. But he’s very successful, of course. Perhaps he’s a pal of Mr Stravinsky’s?’

‘Toscanini has conducted Stravinsky’s works on a number of occasions,’ Katharine said stiffly. ‘They have the greatest respect for one another.’

‘Well, I’m sure they’ll be keen to make each other’s acquaintance again. A cruise is ideal for that, of course. Getting there is half the fun, isn’t it? And then in Southampton we’re going to be joined by the Kennedy family. Mrs Joseph P. Kennedy, the wife of the American Ambassador to Britain, and her children. They’re going back to the States to get away from the bombs.’

‘The bombs!’

‘German air raids on London are anticipated momentarily,’ the steward said with relish. He was a pretty, pink-cheeked man with carefully slicked red hair and an ingratiating manner. ‘The Kennedys are quite the most glamorous family. Our American royalty. We had them on board coming out, when the Ambassador took up his post. Enchanting girls, delightful boys. I don’t know what the London society papers will write about once they’ve left.’ He took Katharine’s arm to steer her through a particularly crowded area. ‘Do you by any chance dance, Miss Wolff? I’m a keen dancer, myself. Red-hot on the rhumba.’ He tittered. ‘We shall have dancing every night, if the Captain lets us.’

Katharine was not interested in dancing. ‘Are we in any danger from submarines?’

Mr Nightingale winced. ‘None at all, dear lady.’

‘But the Athenia . All those people, all those children, drowned.’

He coughed to silence her and lowered his voice. ‘We don’t know that it was a submarine.’

‘What else could it have been but a submarine?’ Katharine demanded. ‘And quite clearly a passenger ship, full of civilians!’