Beast (15 page)

The sea was too rough to allow them a stationary repair. What this meant was that the forward part of the ship would have to be shut down of all nonessential power. Everyone was asked, please, to put up gracefully with the inconvenience of no electricity in those areas of the ship for a short time; a boiler was out, which affected the main generator. These too could be put back into service. No one was going to die. The ship would not sink. The
Concordia
was the safest, most modern vessel on the ocean, and she had just proven herself by taking a mighty swipe that would have sent lesser ships to the bottom of the sea.

The captain addressed a few questions. Yes, everything as usual, just a slight list to the starboard side till the repairs are made and limited electricity till the disabled generator is back in use. Yes. there are oil lamps for emergencies, but alas this, the first sailing, had set off without oil. An oversight. We are very sorry, but it should be of minimal inconvenience, just a short time. We will have full operation as soon as we can. Thus, the captain, this man in charge of the ship, their lives, assured them for a few more minutes, then said he had to return to the bridge. After which, he turned smartly on his heels and marched out.

Louise wandered back toward her room in a daze. alone, the shaking still with her. On the way, she stopped by Mary's room; Mary was well consoled in the bosom of her family. Then by her own parents suite: Louise's mother and father welcomed her into their room. With the bump of the ship, her father had hit his head, badly enough that it bled and now rose in an egg. Though he and her mother invited Louise to stay with them, she wouldn't. Her father reveled in her mother's attendance. They were all right. And sufficient unto themselves, as usual. They noticed nothing out of the ordinary about their daughter, didn't ask or look beyond her nodding,
Yes, I'm all right
. Louise hugged them both. (They smelled vile, sick.) They patted her back. What a trip this would be to remember. Then, smiling and agreeing that all was fine, she left. A quaking zombie, she walked across the hallway to her own room.

Her maid was nowhere to be found when Louise entered. But another presence was: The heavy scent of jasmine assailed her, the like of which she had never smelled. The scent was sweet, strong, heady. It drew her over to her own wastebasket. There, she bent down into the dark, picked up the bundle of wilting, blooming flowers, then thought to try her light.

It blinked on. She found herself standing before a mirror, clutching the flowers, looking like her own ghost. Pale, hollow-eyed. Alone and quietly shaking. Cold with fright, though fright of what exactly she wasn't sure.

In the mirror, she caught a glimpse of something. Darkness.
I am the darkness, my own darkness. I
know nothing about myself
. She turned her head. Beyond her iron-framed windows, the sea was black. A sea that would not swallow her up. Not tonight. She was alive; a reprieve.

The telephone rang.

When she picked it up, the voice said, "The phone works." His voice. The voice of her pasha, deep, gentle, self-assured. "Are you all right?" he asked. There seemed to be genuine concern in the question.

"No." she said. After a pause, she asked, "Who are you?"

"Why do you keep asking this? You know I'm not going to tell you." He waited, then said, laughing,

"You know, we could meet anywhere in half the ship right now. From midship forward every deck is cave-like, not even the ship's running lights. A bat could sleep happily and sail with us."

She didn't smile; she couldn't. All she could say was. "I don't really like the dark."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then he answered. "No. I imagine you don't. But you should get on better terms with it. It's as natural as daylight."

"i hate it. It makes me feel stupid."

"You did fine with it this afternoon."

His arguments and encouragements, if that's what they were, made her want to weep, to scream at him.

But instead, all she said was. angrily, idiotically, "If God had wanted us to live in darkness half the time He wouldn't have given us electricity."

He chuckled, as if this were a good jest, then said, "Well, tonight He taketh away. Louise"—his smooth voice became understanding, patient—"light would mean nothing without darkness. They define each other." With hardly more than a pause, he continued. "I'm not too fond of the kennel anymore. It has electricity; you could actually put those lights on. So now, since God has provided me with this wonderful opportunity, what do you say to the ballroom or maybe the library. I frankly don't think anyone would intrude. Which do you think?"

She didn't answer. She couldn't; her throat felt too tight to speak.

"Do you hear me?" He asked again, "Are you all right?"

She stood there, holding the earpiece in one hand, the fragrant, blooming branches in the other. Then his question made her aware of something: Though she was hardly calm, neither was she shaking inside any longer as if she'd swallowed the tail of a rattlesnake.

"So where will it be?" he said. "I rather like the idea of the ballroom. Can you find your way there at midnight?"

In a voice that sounded distant even to her own ears, she said, "No. I'm not meeting you—"

"You've met me once already."

"I didn't—"

"What are you afraid of?"

"The obvious."

"Which is?"

Her argument, her words, she realized, were her mother's, all her mother would have told her to say:

"You're a stranger. I don't know you. You could strangle me or worse."

He laughed his deep-chested laugh. "What could possibly be worse?" Then he softened his tone and said, "And I'm not a stranger. Not any longer. Besides, I could have hurt you already if I had wanted to.

Think about it."

She did, unable to locate any of her own objections. A dry sob came up from her chest, like a tiny breath of air from deep beneath the sea, popping to the surface. "I don't even know what you look like,"

she offered feebly.

"I look like whatever you want me to look like. I've told you. I'll be what you want me to be. Come now. Louise, use your imagination."

Her name. It seemed natural that he would use it, soothe her with it. No, he didn't feel like a stranger. In this instant, he felt like her only friend. A decision settled over her. And with it there was release. Blood began to flow again, a warming.

Her decision. Her own choice. Not her mother's or father's or even this man's on the ship's telephone.

"No," she said, "I won't meet you in the ballroom or in the kennel or anywhere else like that."

Louise hung up quickly before she could change her mind.

She broke off a piece of jasmine, dumping the rest of the branches onto the bed (destroying Mary's cat's peace of mind—with a mew of indignity, it leapt to the floor). Louise ignored this and every other piece of her real life. She left her gloves and shawl and evening bag behind as, tucking the jasmine sprig into her hair, she hurried out her stateroom, then turned into a darkened corridor.

Charles was still holding the telephone's earpiece, staring at the mystifying thing that held the female voice he had so grown used to. when the knock came at his door. Barefoot and bare-chested, he thought to pull on his gallibiya as he went to answer the sound. He thought it must be the steward who had brought the champagne—and the details a while ago of an iceberg that had sideswiped the ship. He thought it was more information in the wake of an extremely generous tip.

When he opened his door, though, he was almost glad for the small, submerged chunk of ice. No light thankfully. No steward either.

Surprised was
not the word for what Charles felt—stunned, floored, blown away and lost on a sea of astonishment—as a slim, jasmine-scented shadow walked past him, into his suite of rooms.

He turned around, his full weight falling back against the door, closing it literally with amazement. While Louise Vandermeer, or the willowy movement of her lightless intimation, asked, "So what shall I call you?

Do you have a name? Or shall I just refer to you as 'my pasha' from here on?"

I want to tell you, soft enchantress,

Of the diverse graces that somehow

circumvent your youth;

I want to paint for you your beauty,

Where your girlishness flips over inexplicably

to womanhood.

Set upon your plump, round shoulders,

atop the long curve of your neck,

Your head shows off its spectacle of wonders

As, with a placid air of triumph,

You go your own way, majestic child…

Your breasts advance and strain the stretch

of watered silk, Triumphant breasts… like polished shields

with rosy points Behind which lie coffers brimming with

sweet secrets, delectables…

Enough to make hearts and minds delirious!

Your noble legs, beneath the flutterings

that they chase, Torment the dark desires that they

themselves evoke,

Like two sorcerers stirring up

A black love potion in the unseen depths

of a crinoline-jar.

Charles Baudelaire

55 of Les
Fleurs du Mal

DuJauc translation

Pease Press. London, 1889

All the electric fixtures in Charles's rooms had blinked off almost at the moment of impact. His sitting room, like his bedroom beyond it, was lit by moonlight alone. Even this illumination came from the far side of the ship, through a filter of storm clouds and rain, then passed through drawn curtains, drawn to keep in the heat—the radiators were out. What small visibility existed in these two outside rooms was faint, to say the least. The inside rooms, of course—the dining room, the alcove study, the marble bath and water closet—were pitch black. Having roved his suite for the last forty-five minutes, looking for oil or candles or something, Charles could attest that, without electricity, nary a room, not a drawer or cupboard, contained anything that might shed light. Not so much as a match. Even the ship's search beams were out; he hadn't seen a glimmer of their sweep yet. The
Concordia
ploughed through a rugged sea blind. Or half-blind, since the stern of the ship seemed to have light. She listed slightly, enough that Charles could feel a degree or two in the slope of his floor. What irony. This great ship that carried all their fates upon her steel and rivets sailed like a compeer under him, half-blind with a limp.

Across from him now, in the dark, with the raucous rain and ocean at the terrace doors behind her.

Louise Vandermeer waited stoically. She'd asked for a name—more importantly, she expected an Arab name. Charles stood there, trying to come up with one.

"Ran," he said. The first to penetrate his dumbstruck mind, that of a friend in Tunisia.

"Just Ran?"

He frowned and folded his arms. Arab names should be long and involved, he thought; Rafi's went on forever. He added, "Hamid"—a form of Muhammad,
If you have a hundred sons, name them all
Muhammad
—"Abd-al-Rahman." This sounded like an appropriate mouthful. He could only pray the young Louise was as ignorant as he on the subject.