Conrad Aiken: Blue Voyage

It was the brown woolen muffler and gray eyes which most disturbed him. Gray eyes, and brown muffler, on a ship’s deck, in sunlight, at sea — this meant one thing to him: Cynthia. Cynthia, on the Silurian, had worn such a muffler: throwing it languidly over one shoulder and around her throat as she started forward, with that odd look of distance and somber detachment in her gray eyes, sea-gazing and imperious. Good God, what an absurd pang the mere visual thought of her still gave him after a year! A disgraceful weakness. He sank into the corner seat nearest the door of the smoking room, dropping his book on the table. The pianist of the ship orchestra sat next to him, a small golden harp embroidered on the sleeve of his soiled and stained blue coat. He was a pale, ill-shaven young man, with reddish hair slicked back from his clammy forehead and watery blue eyes behind thick spectacles. His mouth was small, curled and petulant, and his voice had a complaining quality. He was leaning forward on the table, talking to an extraordinary-looking young woman whom Demarest had not noticed before.

“You’re Welsh aren’t you?”

The young woman looked at him sidelong in a manner intended to be vampirine. Her green eyes were by nature narrow and gleaming under long black lashes, and she deliberately over exaggerated this effect. An extraordinarily lascivious face, thought Demarest — the eyes cunning and treacherous, and the mouth, which might have been beautiful had it been more moderate, extravagantly red and rich and extravagantly and cruelly curved downward at the corners. A vampire, a serpent, a lamia, a carrion flower — yes, a mouth like a carrion flower, and giving out poisonous juices; for as she laughed, Demarest noticed that the lower lip, which was undershot, was wet with saliva. She lifted her strange face to laugh, giving only two short musical sounds, then lowered her face again and wiped her mouth with a crumpled handkerchief.

“Welsh? Why do you think I’m Welsh?… You ought to be Welsh, with a harp on your sleeve!”

She gave another laugh, eying Demarest; and Demarest noticed, as she again lifted and dropped her head, that her throat was singularly beautiful. The pianist turned to look at Demarest, smiled, and went on:

“Well, I don’t know if you look Welsh: except that you’re dark. But you asked if I had any Welsh songs, so what could be simpler? Eh?… What could be simpler?…” The pianist smiled oilily, showing three gold teeth. He knitted his white plump fingers together before him on the table. “What’s your name?” he then went on.

The young woman assumed an air at the same time injured and arch. She drew back a little, narrowed her eyes at the pianist’s thick spectacles, then directed suddenly at Demarest a serpentine smile, at the same time giving him a gleaming wink quick as the eye of a Kodak.

“Isn’t he smart?… And personal!.. sweet hour.”

Demarest smiled, lighting his pipe. He was taken aback, but somewhat excited. The creature was so obviously — What? While she turned, half rising, to look out of a porthole at the sea (again wiping her juicy mouth) he tried to analyze the effect she had on him. Tropical. He had never encountered at such close quarters so scarlet-flowering and rank a growth. The invitation, certainly, was tremendous. Here, close at hand, was the rich jungle — poisonous and naïve, treacherous and rich, with its tenacious creepers, its bright voracious birds, and its fleshlike fruit. Should he enter? He recognized, also, the pressure exerted upon him to do so by the mere fact of the pianist’s presence, the pianist’s prior pursuit and inquisitiveness. His impulse was to compete with the pianist: to be at the same time more tactful, more humorous, and more charming: to snatch the scarlet flower from under his very nose.

Against all this — ah! the manifold complications! For it was easy to foresee that this girl would be swarmed about by the men on the ship; swarmed about as by flies; would be talked about by every one, sniggeringly—“Yes, sir, she’s a warm baby!”—and would be signally avoided by the women. To attach one’s self to her too publicly — and any attachment would inevitably involve a publicity sufficiently rank — would be to make one’s self conspicuous and a little ridiculous … Smiling, he picked up his book and opened it. He would neither refuse nor accept.

“Oh well,” he murmured, more to the pianist than to the girl. “We’re all personal on a ship! What else is there to do?”

“Right!” beamed the pianist. “What the devil can we do if we don’t talk?”

“Talk!” sneered the vampire. “A lot of good talking does.”

“What’s wrong with it? There are worse things than talking.”

“Ha — ha!” She laughed, lifting her throat. This amused her intensely, and she contrived without much subtlety to suggest that it was a little wicked of her to be amused. Her chief means to this end was another rapid green wink at Demarest. “Worse things — I should hope so!”

The pianist grinned sharply, eager to take her up on this.

“What do you mean?” he said, leaning toward her.

“Mean?” She drew back, her face becoming hard and distant. She was rebuking him. The rebuke, however, seemed to grow with difficulty in her mind, and before it had flowered into speech (as for a moment Demarest thought it would) she relented, changed her purpose, and again gave her short empty musical laugh.

“What’s he talking about?” she said to Demarest. “I mean worse things, that’s all!..”

“He’s got an evil mind,” said Demarest. “He thought you meant a particular kind of worseness.”

The girl’s undershot jaw dropped. This was too deep for her.

“Are you talking English, or am I crazy?”

“He’s talking Welsh,” the pianist went on … “You haven’t told me your name. I’ll bet it’s Evans or Jones.”

“No, Davis, Peggy. You can call me Peggy, as we’re old friends.”

“Help! I’m married already.”

“ You married?” she cried. “Well, you do look sort of married, come to think of it.”

“Oh, I say!”

“Don’t you think so? He has that look — you know, sort of meek.” She gave a hoot behind her handkerchief, gleaming at him askance. “I’ll bet he washes the dishes.” She hooted again.

The pianist flushed, grinning. “What about you? Are you married, too? I’ll bet you’re married to a dozen!”

“No, I’m a widow. My husband died last month, in Providence — that’s where we lived.”

“A widow!.. You’re a widow?” The pianist was unembarrassed.

“Yes. I had a good job too, but my brother thought I’d better come back.”

“A brother in Wales?”

“Mm! A miner. Oo, such a fine, big boy. He’s going to meet me at Liverpool.”

… Abstracting himself from the persistent dialogue, Demarest tried to read. A phrase — a sentence — but the dull dialogue which kept intruding, mingled with shouts and laughter blowing through the open porthole, and the softened sh sh of the sea, prevented him from much concentration. Malvolio, the bar steward, smirking, made a pretense of wiping the table and chairs; opened another port, smirked again at the girl; rearranged the brass spittoons, pushing them with his foot; then came and leaned his long black-haired hands (the wrists bony) on the table, the dusting cloth under one palm. He addressed Demarest ingratiatingly.

“Your friend was looking for you.”

“My friend?”

“The old man,” said Malvolio confidentially. “The one you played drafts with. He said he had something particular to say to you.”

“Oh, did he!”

“Yes. Something about those two young ladies, I think he said it was.”