Robert Butler - The Star of Istanbul

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.

And her hands fell upon my back, pressed me against her.

We held each other and we did not speak and I grew stupid once again. I figured it was me she’d been waiting for, figured she’d been lying here waiting in the midst of mortal chaos because she needed me to arrive before she could think to be saved.

But she was simply clinging to me.

“We need to go now,” I said.

She pulled away a little and looked me in the eyes, her face half in dark shadow, half in the light from the porthole, that half flickering with the shadows of the chaos outside.

“It’s too much for me,” she said.

“I’ll help you,” I said.

She shook her head faintly, and I could see her mouth make a thin, asymmetrical smile, an ironic smile, and though it was a leap, I didn’t think I was stupid about this: I felt pretty sure that what was “too much” for her was more than just finding a way to save herself from drowning; she was choosing whether or not to live, whether lying back down on this bed and dying was the only way for her to refuse to work for the Germans.

What did they have on her?

An irony was dawning on me as well: to talk her into escaping with me would be to preserve her for the Germans’ plan.

I embraced the irony. I said, “You have so much to live for.”

She put her hand on my chest. It wasn’t clear to me if it was a gesture of connection or a gentle Go away.

“Let’s do this together,” I said.

Her ironic smile again.

Voices outside the window.

She turned her face sharply in that direction.