A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall (33 page)

—First, welcome aboard. My colleague told me you were a last-minute addition to our registry.

Owen would later discover that his insinuating tone was because of the particulars of the arrangement Stevie had brokered. Because Stevie paid in cash, the stewards were able to keep the trip off the books and add the money to the tip share. The handwritten receipt, of which she had the original and Owen the carbon, was the only record of their presence.

—I'll keep this brief. Our welcoming reception is in thirty minutes. You may want to skip that. We set sail any minute now. You'll find all of the particulars of life on board in your welcome packet. You're in cabin 154. Here's your card. I'm afraid that in your case, I can only issue one. So don't lose it. Due to the nature of our arrangement, you will not be able to charge dining purchases to the room. Please don't forget that. It would cause problems for us all if we have to involve the hospitality manager. And if there's nothing else, enjoy yourselves. Many couples return year after year to get away.

Stevie said it before Owen could, as they were slinking downstairs to their cabin:

—So we're a couple now.

Stevie slid in the key, waited for the green light, and turned the handle.

Owen could respect that Valhalla Cruise Lines didn't disguise the deck plan: standard rooms on the lower deck with porthole windows; junior suites on the middle deck with bigger but inoperable windows; luxury suites on the upper deck with French windows. Stevie and Owen were standard,
Mustervolk
, who would see the grandeur of the Rhine Valley through an acrylic porthole.
Porthole
brought to mind far worse connotations than
window
, which was why Stevie, in appropriate cruise-pamphlet jargon, renamed it their Window to the Rhine. “Oh, look at the spray on our Window to the Rhine.” “I wish we could open our Window to the Rhine.” “Someone carved his initials on our Window to the Rhine.”

The room was lit amethyst. At first he thought it was more cruise kitsch. Then he thought the color was in his head and ignored it, trying to keep things normalish.

—It's not too late for me to hitchhike. That'd keep you safe.

Owen had to crouch to walk into the room. He put his bag down and sat on the bed. Stevie sat beside him and took his hand.

—Safe? If they were really after you, we wouldn't be here right now.

—You heard them say everything was okay on the police radio?

—Not really. The guy I saw answer was smirking when he spoke into his epaulet. They did send an ambulance to the pavilion. But I saw the police, and they were treating the scene like a movie set.

There was a second of silence. Then Owen asked the question a bolder man might have blown past:

—Then why did you stay here?

—In spite of all your flaws, you're clearly in love with the impossible. And I'm stupid enough to think there's something redeemable in that.

—It's more like I never learned how to give up a belief.

He hooked her belt loop and pulled her toward him. She smiled and unpeeled his finger with both hands.

—I didn't mean that as a line. I'm serious.

Owen tried to look serious. So did she.

—They probably put us in the stern to be as far from the staff as possible. I think the staff rooms are all on our level. But this works, right? I think this room is exactly your height. Stand up.

As Owen posted both arms to get up, Stevie straddled his waist and grabbed the front of his shirt.

She curled up to find his top lip and miss his beard. She lingered for minutes. As the ship left port, someone above lit a chain of Black Cats, two dozen snaps loosing the nightbirds. Champagne corks popped into the river, and a chorus of the cruise diaspora alighted upon the lingua franca of
Bon voyage!
Stevie pushed Owen's chest until he fell on his back. She looked down at him, his hands now laced behind his neck, biceps long plateaus.

—I swear to God that really just happened.

He laughed.

—You really are going to need to shave that. Like now.

Owen unglossed his lips with the back of his hand, then stood.

She tossed a pair of scissors on the bed.

—You might need these for your beard.

—I don't have a razor.

—Thought of that.

She tossed him silk-foam shaving cream and a pink Bic Lady, which with its single blade posed a challenge.

The bathroom was comically undersized. The shower was a quarter circle wedged into the corner, with a plastic door that slid in a poorly sealed arc. The shower nozzle was dead even with his sternum. He pointed the nozzle as high as it would go and slid the door open so that his ass was hanging in the wind and water spraying the floor.

This was how Stevie found her man.

She laughed.

Owen stood too quickly and raked his back on the curtain track at the top of the door.

—
Ooph
. You've got to stop hurting yourself. I'm going up for food.

—Thanks.

Owen toweled off and wiped the steam from the mirror. Hunchbacked to fit in the frame, he cut wet clumps of beard into the sink. A few patches remained, burling his cheek with rosettes. His ears popped when he pulled his chin, revealing previously inaudible whispers and rolled guitars from the clock radio in the other room. Eardrums scarred by a lifetime in cold water meant his hearing was mostly garbage. These little pops of clarity were always a welcome surprise. He shaved in a goatee. He wrung out the water and combed it with his fingers.

Wind rushed from the closing door and cooled his cheek. Stevie was back. She turned him around.

—Getting there. But I still can't see your lips. And that's the part I want.

—Had to see how that looked. Not good.

—I'll leave you to it.

Owen's hair had almost grown to his shoulders in the past eight months. He took a handful in one hand, scissors in the other. Then thought of Jim Morrison: “Some of my worst decisions have been haircuts.” He trimmed and shaved the bottom half of the goatee, keeping a Mark Spitz mustache. He looked like a '70s surfer. Had a kind of
Morning of the Earth
look that he should have tried in college.

—You missed a spot.

—I'm putting my top lip on notice. I'll probably shave it tomorrow.

—I never realized you were so vain.

—Everyone's vain in front of a mirror.

—Why wear an eye patch, then?

—I don't know. What do you want from me? It's just shitty. My only options are shitty or creepy. I used to think, “It's just a face. What's the big deal? It's just a face, not a person.”

—I still think that. Do whatever you want. Except, please, shave that goddamn mustache.

—It's cruise wear.

—Ugh. You're worried about an artificial eye making you creepy? I'm checking the ledger and it looks like . . . yep, you owe me negative one mustache.

Owen relented. He scraped away the last trace of the past six months. Clean-faced, chest pink and mottled from hot water, towel still around his waist, Owen turned back into the room to find Stevie propped up on a fluffed pillow, one leg outside the covers gleaming in the soft light of the bedside lamp, one leg underneath, tracing small circles with her toes.

A waltzing brush up to her hip, then slow and more fitting as the web of his hand pushed the pulse down to her knee, then a broken chord, one finger at a time up her inner leg in a glowing trace. Beneath the rayon comforter, a brightness, the infant-tender orange of a hand over a flashlight, the living colors that only a body can produce. His fingers combed the electric, just above her skin.

—Your hands have finally stopped trembling.

Which was one way of looking at a world where every tremble is orchestrated, a dual cascade with someone else who was a flat steel bar before, a single tine dampened, but now, now mated like a tuning fork, resonates and rises up to sing.

O
wen rolled into the bright light on Stevie's side of the bed. This wasn't early morning light. This was smothering midsummer afternoon light. He sat straight up and found Stevie drinking coffee in the lone upholstered armchair. She was back in her chambray shirt, smiling through the coffee steam.

A new feeling rose up Owen's chest to the base of his throat. It was the first time he could remember finding more of himself, rather than less, like kicking aside some weathered old planks and uncovering an abandoned well. He smiled awake.

Then he panicked.

—Promise me you didn't check the papers.

—Good morning to you too.

—I can't see the news. You can't see the news. Okay?

—Looking at it won't change anything. It never hurts to have more information.

—What would we possibly gain from that?

—It would help to know what's coming.

—Maybe I don't want to know what's coming.

Stevie looked at him. She needed him to acknowledge that she was trying to help. He dug a finger under the elastic band and rubbed his forehead. His lower lip shook.

—What do you want me to say?

—How about, “Wow, you look even better in the morning, and what's that? Coffee. You got me one too? You're so sweet. I should really have a cup before I start yelling. Last night was amazing, and now I'm here with you on the Rhine and I'm just going to enjoy it and be happy.”

Owen raised his hands and gripped the air like it was a plank of wood.

—
WORLD-FAMOUS ARTIST ATTACKED BY MONSTER, COWARD FLEES
!

—
WILD APE DESTROYS ART FAIR, FLEES WITH BEAUTY
!

—
COWARD FLEES WITH BEAUTY WHO PROMISES TO STAY AWAY FROM NEWS REPORTS
.

Stevie sat by him on the bed. She took his hand.

—Mine sounds more believable.

—Still. Do me a favor, no news. This way, if anything happens, you might have plausible deniability. How plausible will probably depend on how good your lawyer is.

—I don't have a lawyer anymore. You may have killed his biggest client, remember?

Neither one could speak. After a minute of looking at each other, Stevie continued her thought:

—Which means you can't go back to Berlin.

—I think it means
we
can't go back to Berlin.

Stevie flipped her lighter over her fingers. She looked at the freckles and fingernail scars on his shoulder and wondered if he knew everything this meant.

She caught herself biting her lip and looked away. He put his arm around her when she needed to be kissed.

—I don't drop things. I hold things. Good and bad.

—You don't even remember how we met.

—We met when we got away from the bar with the others. We met over coffee. I said ridiculous things—

—No. You were tripping over yourself, stumbled, and caught yourself with my legs. Right here. With electric hands. Then you looked at me. And there was something impossible in the way you looked at me, and it was all going to spin away if I didn't look back the same way. But I did, and
that's
what you should hold on to.

He kissed her just before the moment slipped away.

After they surfaced, she looked at him and guessed what he was thinking.

—No. I didn't look at the news.

T
he
Saga
was scheduled to dock in Strasbourg at 14:45. Backthrust roiled the water at that exact minute. The air in the cabin suddenly felt spent. Stevie rolled from one shoulder to another, put one leg on top of the sheet, then ballooned into him and deflated, like a jellyfish fighting an eddy. She threw off the sheet.

—Do you think they pipe in chemicals when we're docked to get people to leave the ship and follow the itinerary?

—What?

—You aren't antsy?

Through their window, Owen saw the white plaster walls of half-timbered houses, writing a story along the Rhine in runic beams. Stevie emptied her bag on the dresser. She looked as if she'd found a specific item missing.

—We need provisions.

—I'll go. You stay here.

—That's stupid. The only people you need to avoid are the tourists on this ship, and they're all going to be at their most observant just after we dock.

—What do we need that we don't have here?

—Music, for one. I've only got the CD in my Discman and a pair of headphones.

—Deejay loose in a record store. How could I say no to that?

Stevie thought about it. Her curiosity to see what he'd choose was too great to ignore.

They dressed and then waited for the last of the cruisers to cross the plank. They walked the quay beside coral, ochre, and sea-green houses, all with timber braces tessellating MXY in house-length ruled lines. Down cobbled streets, curved wooden roofs overlapped, giving the impression of oncoming gulls.

She spotted a small record store near the Place du Corbeau. She stopped and turned Owen's chin.

—The music isn't really what we need. What we need is harder to explain.

—What's the problem?

—Right now it's too easy.

—Something's easy?

—It's easy to think you're falling for someone when you know he's going to be gone in a few days. There are no real consequences, no consequences for us, since you're never going back to Berlin.

—For me, it's the other way, at least in theory. Why open yourself to someone you're never going to see again?

—Because the rest of your life will go back to normal right after that. The ephemerality never registers. It's a dream without clocks.

Stevie began laying out her plan as they walked into the record shop.

—All right. Here's how the deal works. We have seven days left on the ship. We need to get six albums. Today we listen to whatever is in the Discman. I think it's Iron and Wine, but it might be Bonnie Prince Billy. Don't get either of those.

Owen felt the shop owner's stare. He gripped a handful of CDs next to the
BEATLES
tab.