Мариус Габриэль - The Ocean Liner

‘Of course you do,’ Stravinsky replied. ‘So do I. Music is nothing but rules and regulations. They are the very first thing every musician learns. The lines, the dots, the numbers; so many beats to a bar, so many notes to a stave, the iron laws of key and tonality. Without these rules and regulations, music is impossible. You would just have noise. And yet—’ Stravinsky lit another cigarette. ‘And yet there is space for human creativity to creep between those iron bars. We bend them, we slip through them from time to time. Without those moments of mercy, all of music would be merely a prison. And so would the world be merely a prison.’

‘You’re asking me to break the rules.’

‘Merely to bend them. If it’s of any relevance, Captain, Thomas König is among the more decent human beings I have come across in a long life. I believe he would be an asset to your country. More importantly, his death would impoverish the world to no purpose.’

‘I’m not planning to kill him.’

‘Others are. You know that.’

‘That’s not my business.’

‘Here,’ Masha said. She leaned forward and laid something on O’Leary’s desk. It was a string of small, deep-red rubies. They lay like beads of blood among the tarnished gilt and creased leather of the multifarious passports. ‘Take these. Let him go.’

‘No, Masha!’ Stravinsky said urgently. But it was too late to withdraw the gesture.

O’Leary laid down his cigar and picked up the string of rubies. He cupped them in his palm, admiring their colour. ‘These look valuable.’

‘My father was a jeweller. They are called pigeon’s blood rubies. They come from Burma. They’re rare. They are all we have left.’

‘And this kid – whom you met on board ship – is worth it to you?’

‘I have learned the value of a human life,’ Masha replied.

‘This wasn’t a very wise thing to do, young lady. Trying to bribe a public official in this country will get you ten years in jail.’ O’Leary spilled the stones back on to the desk. ‘Put them away, now.’

Masha took back the necklace with shaking fingers.

O’Leary stretched his arms above his head. They could hear his joints clicking. ‘I’m retiring in three weeks’ time. I could lose my pension over this.’ Masha and Stravinsky said nothing. The officer opened Thomas’s file and thumped a stamp into the passport. He rose tiredly to his feet. ‘I’m going home to my dinner now. Take the kid home to his.’

Stravinsky put his arm around the boy’s shoulders as they walked back up the gangplank. ‘Have you eaten today?’

The boy shook his head. ‘I can’t stop thinking about them. I think they are all dead by now.’

Stravinsky could make no comment on that, except to say, ‘But you are alive.’

‘Thomas,’ Masha said, clinging to his other arm, ‘we almost lost you!’

Rachel met them at the top of the gangplank. ‘I see you have rescued little Adolf,’ she greeted them ironically.

‘Really, Rachel,’ Masha snapped with unaccustomed fierceness, ‘you can be obnoxious sometimes.’

The arrival of Manhattan at the Chelsea Piers the next morning was a grand occasion. Mr Nightingale and his staff distributed streamers and confetti for the passengers to throw over the side of the ship; and a tumultuous welcome was waiting on Pier 86 as the liner docked. The large crowd was made up of joyous relations and friends who had been waiting anxiously since the outbreak of the war for their loved ones to return, reporters from all the New York papers eager to interview the many celebrities on board, and hundreds more who had no connection to the Manhattan , but who loved spectacles such as this one, and who had come to be swept up in the emotion of the occasion, as autumn leaves are swept up by the wind.

News of the ship’s encounter with the German submarine had preceded her arrival. Commodore Randall’s coolness was the toast of the harbour. Horns, sirens and hooters praised him in a deafening chorus. Fireboats sprayed high arcs of water, making rainbows dance in the morning air, and altogether the occasion was more reminiscent of the first launch of a great ship than a quiet return to harbour.

In the staterooms and cabins, and in the crowded public areas, all was bustle and preparation to disembark – for some, preparation for a new life. For many, it was also a time for farewells.

Masha and Rachel came to Stravinsky and Thomas’s cabin. Masha was carrying Stravinsky’s manuscript, together with the fair copy she had made so laboriously.

‘I managed to finish it last night,’ she said, smiling, ‘and there are no mistakes, I promise.’ She handed the bundle to him. ‘I know that you gave me this work to distract me from my unhappiness during the voyage. It helped me a great deal. I will never forget your kindness.’

Stravinsky took the manuscripts from Masha and uncapped his pen. He wrote something on the original, and then handed it back to her. ‘I will keep your fair copy, Fräulein. You may keep this thing of mine as a memento.’

Masha stared at the manuscript, upon which he had written, in his large, sprawling hand, ‘To my friend Masha Morgenstern, SS Manhattan , September 1939.’

‘I cannot accept this,’ she said, turning pale. ‘I’m not worthy of the honour.’

‘In my eyes you are worthy,’ he replied. ‘It may be useful to you. I hope it does you some good one day.’

Thomas, too, had a gift – for Rachel. He unpinned the little enamel swastika from his lapel, and gave it to her. ‘My mother asked me to wear this until I arrived in America,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s the last thing I have of her. I want you to keep it.’

Rachel, who now knew what had been revealed at Ellis Island, accepted the gift awkwardly. ‘I wasn’t very nice to you during the voyage, was I? But then, I didn’t look beneath the surface.’ She closed her fingers around the pin. ‘I will keep this nasty thing to remind me to take nothing for granted.’ She kissed him.

Arturo Toscanini tapped at his wife’s stateroom door. He heard her voice from within, and turned the handle.

Carla was lying on her bunk with a black satin sleep mask over her eyes, the curtains drawn across the porthole. The light inside was dull, even though it was a bright winter’s afternoon.

‘We are about to dock,’ he said. ‘You should get ready, Carla.’

‘There is no hurry.’ She didn’t remove the mask.

He stood at her bedside, looking down at her. ‘I didn’t mean you to find those letters.’

‘Of course you didn’t,’ she replied dryly.

‘I mean that I would have burned them. I had intended to burn them. But everything happened so quickly. I forgot all about them. I left them behind.’ He hesitated. ‘It had already ended between me and Ada. When Neppach shot Gretel, the shock was terrible. You were right in what you said. We couldn’t go on after that.’

‘So it took the death of a young woman to prise you away from her.’

‘I am sorry, Carla. Truly sorry. I never wanted to wound you.’

‘But you were too selfish to avoid it.’

‘I was in love, Carla.’

‘Ah,’ she said quietly. ‘That explains everything.’

He sat on the bed beside her, and took her hand, with its short, unvarnished nails. ‘I love you. But I was in love with her. The difference is…’

‘You need not tell me what the difference is, Artú.’