Conrad Aiken - Blue Voyage

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Faubion.

“The fleshpots of Egypt,” said Demarest swiftly. Why? Faubion = fleshpot.

“What!..”

Smith shook sadly his close-cropped gray head.

“Eating this dinner, he thinks of fleshpots!.. No. Give me a Creole chicken dinner. Okra soup.”

“Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, where we sat by the fleshpots … For we, alas, the Fleshpots love … Man cannot live by bread alone.”

“Shame!” cried Fleshpot. A flaming shame.

“It’s all the Bible I know.”

“Did you go to church this morning?” A finger uplifted, schoolteacherly.

“Certainly not. I played bridge.”

“Bridge! Oo aren’t we swell,” Daisy derisively caroled.

“He’s got too much brains,” said Smith. “He plays chess, too … But I beat him at drafts just the same, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“Got to hand it to the old man!.. Chess is an old lady’s game. I don’t like chess. Let the old ladies play it. But I’ll beat you at checkers any time. Yes, sir, I’m all right at checkers.”

“And what do you play, Mr. Barnes?” Daisy Dacey wriggled, jingled, slanted her long white face, and wide blue eyes, leaning against the tablecloth with phthisic breast. Mr. Barnes, tolerant, slow-smiling, with slow-burning eyes of amusement, looked down at the proffered head. Herod and Salome.

“Golf,” he said.

Daisy was disconcerted. Golf! What the devil was golf? She smiled a weak smile, too elastic, and looked sadly forgetful — Ophelia straying by the stream. Let me Ophelia pulse! There’s rosemary — that’s for remembrance. Wan, and oh so wistful. Weak, and oh so helpless. But no pansies — ah no: for never a thought had she. Straying with little white feet among the lilies. Oh, pity me, a shopworn Ophelia! Come and find me where I wander at twilight, sadly singing, or perchance weeping, among the cowslips! Put your strong arm around me, and hold me, hold me! Don’t let me remember — O God, don’t let me remember!.. When I was thirteen. It was dreadful!.. and I trusted him … Have you read the Rosary?… Where the cowslips, there slip I.

“… a clairvoyant,” Faubion was soberly saying.

“You don’t say,” said Smith. “Where?”

“Under the middle window, at the end of the table.” Window equals porthole.

A little mournful sallow face, dark-eyed and shy. A hurt and frightened little victim, eating stiffly.

“Yes,” said Demarest. “Silberstein was telling me about him.”

“What did he say? Is he a real one?”

“Don’t ask me! He told Silberstein that he’s going to England to sell chewing gum — which was correct. He’s also a clairaudient.”

“Clairaudient! What’s that?” Her dark eyes are wide and serious. Melodiously fluting.

“He hears things — at a distance. Voices. Probably hears what we’re saying about him.”

“Don’t be silly!.. I think they’re all fakes.” She looked witheringly toward the meek little clairvoyant.

“You can’t fool her, ” said Smith. “She’s from Missouri.”

“He predicts,” said Demarest, “a murder, on this ship.”

Daisy Dacey gave a little screech, pressing her hands together. A crumb of gorgonzola shot from her mouth into Mr. Barnes’s tumbler. She slapped a hand against her mouth, too late.

“Oh!” she cried, blushing. “Mr. Barnes! I’m so sorry!”

“Quite natural, I’m sure,” said Mr. Barnes. “Worse things might have happened, under the circumstances! A little upsetting to hear a murder predicted, what?…” He lowered his left lid at Demarest. Poor Pol.

“An old man came to him in a dream — an old man, pardon me — wearing pajamas; he had a hole in his head. He stretched out his hands to the clairvoyant, as if beseeching … The clairvoyant jumped out of his bunk — and probably bumped his head — thinking there was someone in the room. He turned on the light, and of course there was no one. But he says he’ll recognize the man when he sees him … Father!”

“ Don’t call me father!.. What.”

“…. Nothing … A goose walked over my grave. I think it must be me … ”

Why conceal it? He had suddenly thought — and thought vividly, with absurd apprehension — that it was Smith ! Ridiculous, both to entertain the thought and to suppress it … Nevertheless, he had seen Smith, with shattered forehead, blundering into the dark stateroom. Plenty other old men on the boat. Poor old Smith. What if it were true? There was nothing in such predictions, of course — if it proved true, it was simply a coincidence.

“I dream things myself,” he said. “I once dreamed three times in succession that a certain ship — the Polynesian —had sunk. I was shortly going to sail on her. The dream was confused, and it seemed to me in each case that she sank somehow in the dock — collided with it, or something … A few days after the third dream I was walking in London, and saw a headline (one of those posters the newsboys wear, like aprons) saying: Atlantic Liner Sunk. I knew, absolutely knew, it was my ship; and it was.”

“You’re making it up,” said Faubion.

“You never take my word, Mrs. Faubion! Why?”

She relented, smiling; but smiled coolly.

“When you dream about me, I’ll believe you,” she said, rising.

“I’ll have something for you at breakfast!”

She turned her dark head away. The cold shoulder. Humming, she walked slowly, with abstracted thought, lifting her cape to her round neck. A coarse lace blouse, slightly cheap, well filled, through which one saw bits of blue ribbon. Ah Faubion! Ah, Fleshpot! How attractive, how vulgar, how downright, and yet how mysterious you are! “ O Faubion, ” sang the evening stars … “ deep, deep Faubion !”

“Coming for a walk?” said Smith. “Beautiful air tonight — beautiful.”

“I’ll join you in fifteen minutes. In the smoking room?”

“All right. I’ll wait for you” … Smith departed sedately, brown eyes among the palm trees.

… A curious remark, that of Faubion’s—“When you dream about me —” Extraordinary, her instinctive directness; this observation of hers, and his reply (of which she had dictated the key) left their relationship changed and deepened. To sleep, perchance to dream — one dreamed only of those for whom one had profound feelings? “When I walk, I walk with Willy—” He had never dreamed of Anita — not once. But on several occasions he had dreamed, erotically, of women for whom he had never consciously felt any desire; and had found them, when next encountered, magically changed; they belonged thereafter to the race of salamanders, opalescent and fiery. But Faubion had now, in a sense, saved him the trouble of dreaming — the suggestion of the dream was sufficient. It was a tremendous step toward intimacy — intimacy of that sort … But a step (alas!) which perhaps meant, for her, little or nothing. She would say the same thing to everybody — to any male who was reasonably attractive? Was she, perhaps (as the Welsh Rarebit had suggested), under the “protection” of Barnes, and being handed about from one member of the crew to another? Such things, of course, were common enough. A special technique was always employed in such cases. The girl avoided the officers in the day-time — consorted only with the passengers; but after the lights were out — the dark ship sleeping, sleep walking on the dark sea — then it was her footstep which one heard, furtive and soft and quick, passing one’s door, or treading nocturnally over one’s head. Was Faubion leading this kind of double life? Time enough to find out. Meanwhile—