Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (9 page)

The
Coralie
would depart with the outgoing tide and travel some thirty miles down the Loire to Paimboeuf on the seacoast.
 
There, she would take on more crew and exchange some of her cargo before Captain Grant pointed the bowsprit out into the wild Atlantic.

Ahead,
L’Homme aux Trois Malices
welcomed travelers with a glow of orange light from half-shuttered windows.
 
A droning hum of laughter and music came from inside.
 
Verne looked up at the sign hanging above the inn door, depicting a well-dressed man surrounded by a woman, a monkey, and a parrot.
 
It was like no place his father had ever taken him, too noisy, too smelly.

As he hesitated at the door, Nemo stepped out of the shadows.
 
“I wondered if you would come, Jules.”

“I told you I would.”
 
Verne swallowed a defensive tone.
 
“I promised.”

“I know -- but still, I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Nemo said with a smile.
 
“Come on, I’ve talked to the innkeeper.
 
My father used to know him, and as a good luck gesture, he’s buying us each a flagon of Breton ale.
 
I bet you’ve never had any of that in a goblet at your dinner table.
 
Let’s go have a toast.”

Uncertain, Verne followed his friend into the smoky room full of strangers and odd human odors, greasy cooking and sour old drink.
 
The thick rafters were stained with soot.
 
Someone was playing a squeezebox and singing off-key.
 
Others howled and laughed, pounding on tables.
 
Some played cards.
 
A few, dead drunk, snored in their chairs.

Seeing Nemo and his red-headed friend, the innkeeper filled two ceramic tankards from a keg behind the counter.
 
Nemo took them and handed one to his friend.
 
They clanked their flagons together.
 
The Verne family drank only French wine, usually diluted -- and the yeasty, hoppy taste weighed on his unsettled stomach.

The innkeeper gave a cheer as the boys slurped the foam.
 
“To two lads about to make their fortunes off at sea.”
 
The innkeeper drank from his own mug, then patted his belly.
 
A few others at the bar raised their tankards in the toast, but didn’t seem to realize
 
-- or care -- what they were celebrating.
 
Around them, the noise continued unabated.

“I thought our going was supposed to be a secret.”
 
Verne hunched away from the myriad bloodshot stares directed at him.
 
He didn’t dare let his father find out.

“The ship sails at dawn,” Nemo said.
 
“By the time word can get to your house and wake anybody up, it’ll be too late.”

Verne took a reflexive swallow of the bitter beer and felt its effects rush to his head.
 
For years, the two of them had concocted schemes to explore the world and go to the exotic places they read about in books and in illustrated Parisian magazines.
 
But now it was real --
too
real and too soon.

Panic began to rise within Verne, and he wanted to kick himself.
 
Nemo rested a hand on his friend’s forearm.
 
“I told you, you don’t have to go.”

“I do.
 
Yes, I have to go.”
 
Verne repeated it as if to reassure himself.
 
“I have to go . . . just in case you need rescuing.”

“All right then.”
 
Nemo drained his flagon and stood up.
 
He knew that his red-haired friend would never finish his ale.
 
“Now we have to go, Jules.
 
We have an appointment to say goodbye to Caroline.”
 

ix

Generations of successful French merchants and shipbuilders had built row houses along the main avenues of Ile Feydeau.
 
With the glory of Nantes as a great seaport fading, however, the waterside houses now canted like drunken sailors as foundations settled into the watery soil.
 
Scrolled facades, brick patterns, and ironwork balconies maintained the illusion of splendor.

“Third floor,” Nemo said, pointing up at a set of shutters high on the whitewashed bricks.
 
“Second window over.”

“Are you sure?” Verne said, then rounded on his friend.
 
“How do you know?”

“I listen to her play the piano sometimes,” he said casually, not admitting how often he came to talk with Caroline.
 
“Trust me.”
 
Nemo bent over to choose a small pebble and tossed it up at the window.
 
Verne did the same, but his stone missed, clinking against the stone walls.
 

With a flurry at the curtains, Caroline opened the sash and leaned out, dressed in her nightgown.
 
Seeing the two furtive young men waving at her from the street below, she signaled back and closed the double windows.

Verne hovered next to Nemo, away from the streetlamp’s blue-yellow gaslight.
 
He was afraid someone might see them, afraid Caroline’s father would chase them away.
 
He didn’t want to lose his chance of saying farewell to her.

When the tall, gold-inlaid door creaked open, Caroline stood there, her honey-on-fire hair tied back with a few colorful ribbons, a hastily donned robe of pink cashmere cinched at her waist.
 
A forced smile covered her sad expression.

And in the shadows behind her, Marie fussed about, trying to make the young lady look presentable while scolding her for unacceptable nocturnal activities, especially with two young men far beneath her station.
 
She thought her mistress should have been looking ahead to a good marriage and fine prospects.
 
With the significant dowry Monsieur Aronnax could provide, Caroline would have her pick of all the suitable young men in Nantes.

Caroline shushed her maidservant, though, and stepped out onto the tiled porch, pulling the door shut behind her and leaving Marie inside.
 
She looked searchingly at Nemo, then over at Verne in outright surprise.
 
“So you are really going, Jules?
 
I hope you are not just doing this as a lark.”

“We might not be back for three years.”
 
Verne’s voice was raw, as if he could barely believe it himself.
 
He squared his shoulders.

She sighed and looked at Nemo.
 
“André, I wish there was some other way to help you.
 
I just could not think of --”
 
Her voice broke as, leaning toward him, she whispered, “You must come back home.”

He took one step closer.
 
“Caroline, you have saved my life.
 
You’ve given me a chance -- and I promise I will come back to you.”

“So will I!” Verne said.

“I will remember you,” Caroline said, fighting back tears.
 
“Both of you.
 
That is a promise.”
 
She embraced Verne and then Nemo -- perhaps for just a little longer -- and stepped back to take a long look at them, as if she were making a daguerreotype in her mind.
 
On impulse, she snatched two ribbons from her hair.
 
“Take these and think of me.”
 
She handed a red one to Nemo, a green one to Verne.
 
“I wish I had thought of something else to give you.”

Nemo accepted his and kissed her on the cheek, feeling his lips burn; she moved, wanting more, but then Verne also tried to be gallant, taking her hand like a fancy lord and kissing it as he blushed.

“Be safe, both of you, and watch over each other.”
 
As if it required the last of her composure, she forced a smile.
 
“Remember, you promised me a coral necklace.”
 
Caroline hurried back inside her house before sorrow overwhelmed her, murmuring, “Oh, why did I not plan for this better?”

Nemo and Verne stood disconcerted for several minutes before they walked together toward the docks.
 
Each tied the precious hair-ribbon around his wrist, where he could see it every day.
 
Verne sniffed it, trying to catch a scent of Caroline’s perfume.

Passing the dock guard and stating their business, they crossed a creaking gangplank onto the deck of the ship that would be their world for the next several years.

#

At dawn the
Coralie
weighed anchor, cast off her mooring ropes, and sailed down the Loire toward the ocean.

x

Pierre Verne awoke as usual, breakfasted on croissants, berries, and soft cheese served by his wife, and then strode off with a long-legged gait to his business offices.
 
Every day the same, all of life in its place.
 

At midmorning, though, his younger son Paul came running through town with an urgent message from Sophie Verne.
 
Jules had disappeared.
 
Pierre threw himself into the problem with all the forthrightness and sturdy determination reserved for his daily routine, his legal challenges, and any other business he conducted.

At first, he believed it was a false alarm, that Jules had gotten some crazy notion into his head.
 
The young man was flighty and irresponsible, with his head in the clouds; he would have to buckle down and get serious if ever he was to become an attorney.
 
Today, Jules must have climbed out of bed at dawn and gone to follow his imagination without bothering to let anyone know.
 
He often skipped his breakfast.

Pierre didn’t doubt the scheme was some unwise idea concocted by that shipbuilder’s son.
 
Despite Pierre Verne’s obvious disapproval, the two young men remained incomprehensibly attached to one another.
 
And he understood even less why the daughter of Monsieur Aronnax chose to associate with such a pair.
 
Jules, at least, came from a respectable home -- but that Nemo boy . . .

With a scowl and a sigh, he shut the doors of his law offices, though he still had much to do, thanks to the legal matters attending the
Cynthia
disaster.
 
Pierre suspected he would be back within an hour, Jules dragged home from his absentminded truancy and punished for his own good.
 
Then Sophie would be calmed again, and all would return to normal.

Scowling, he marched along the docks, brusquely interrogating sailors from one ship and another, asking if a red-headed young man, perhaps accompanied by a dark-haired boy of the same age, had been seen in the vicinity.
 
Pierre Verne knew that the friends often played down here among the noise and the dirt and the smells.

Pierre shook his head as he strode along.
 
Such activities made perfect sense for André Nemo, since his father had been a shipbuilder and the boy could hope for nothing better in his life.
 
For Jules, though, there could be no benefit in understanding ships if he intended to practice law in Nantes.

Shielding his eyes from the hot sun and wrinkling his nose at the smell of fish and the sluggish summer river, he saw one of the sailors whose papers he had filed after the
Cynthia
disaster.
 
This man had worked with Nemo’s father; perhaps he had seen the two.
 
Pierre strode up and introduced himself briskly, while the sailor continued to repair frayed rope and lash heavy cords into knots.

“I remember ye,” the sailor said.

“And you certainly knew Jacques Nemo, who died aboard the
Cynthia
.”

“Aye.
 
A good man, he was.”