The Ocean Liner

Le Havre, 1939

‘He’s a very ugly man,’ Rachel said. ‘Even uglier than his photographs.’

‘But look at his eyes,’ Masha replied. ‘They burn like coals.’

‘Well, I don’t find him impressive. And as for his music—’

‘You don’t like his music?’

‘Not in the slightest.’ Rachel, who had studied at the music conservatory in Leipzig before the Nazis had ejected her, had firm views on modern music. ‘If I wish to be disturbed, I shall go to the zoo and listen to the tigers roar.’

‘But that’s exactly my point. His music excites one, the way a dangerous animal excites one.’ The two girls had been craning over the railing to watch Stravinsky come aboard their ship. They thought of it as ‘theirs’, this magnificent American liner, even though it had so far carried them only from Bremen to Le Havre. But those five hundred nautical miles had already taken them into a new world.

Stravinsky was making slow progress up the gangplank, helped by a middle-aged woman, evidently his travelling companion. They were met by the charming senior steward, Mr Nightingale, immaculate in his white serge and gold buttons. Mr Nightingale attempted to take the composer’s bag, but he refused. ‘I’m sure it contains his latest work,’ Masha whispered to Rachel, ‘too precious to be entrusted to anyone.’

Perhaps sensing that he was being watched, Stravinsky looked up. His eyes met the girls’. They both darted back from the rail and began to walk along the deck swiftly, arm in arm, past the rows of loungers, embarrassed at having been caught staring at the great man.

‘I saw The Rite of Spring in Berlin, a few years ago,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s about a young girl who dances herself to death. I found it quite horrible.’

‘I’ve seen it too. I was electrified.’

‘Hardly a pleasant sensation, I should say. That’s how the Americans execute their criminals, isn’t it?’

‘I felt my heart beating so hard that I thought it was going to jump out of my chest. The Nazi papers said it was degenerate rubbish, of course.’

‘Well, one has to bow to the sublime taste of the Nazis. And it’s unfortunate that he’s a Jew. He is the kind of conceited Jew who gives all us Jews a bad name.’

‘As a matter of fact, my dear Rachel, he is Russian Orthodox, and a devout Christian.’

Rachel arched her plucked eyebrows satirically. ‘Oh, Masha! Not even a Jew, and you’re in love with him?’

‘I’m not in love with him – only with his music.’

‘I am distressed to see you already whoring after the Gentile,’ Rachel replied with a pious sniff.

‘You’re very naughty to make fun of Rabbi Moskovitz,’ Masha said. She had been warned for years that her cousin Rachel was ‘dangerous’, though nobody had explained quite what the danger was. Rachel was certainly very satirical. Masha was a vivacious young woman of twenty with a cloud of dark hair and bright hazel eyes. Her cousin was older by three years. While not so pretty, Rachel was blonde, which they both felt would be an advantage in America. They had the family name Morgenstern, and they were first cousins, although they had grown up in different cities: Rachel in Leipzig, Masha in Berlin.

Before leaving Bremen, both girls had been subjected to stern lectures on keeping themselves pure as they embarked on new lives. Rachel, who had a facility for quoting scraps of the Torah in a nasal chant, had made Rabbi Moskovitz the subject of a number of jokes.

‘Thy lewdness shall be uncovered, and mark my words, child’ – Rachel wagged her finger, squinting hideously like Rabbi Moskovitz – ‘thou shalt pluck off thine own breasts.’ They had reached the end of the promenade and now turned around. Despite herself, Masha was laughing at Rachel’s parody. It was unfortunate that just at that moment, Stravinsky had reached the deck.

Stravinsky glowered at the cousins, panting for breath after his slow climb. Masha realised with horror that the celebrated composer imagined he was the subject of their mirth. She clapped her hand over her mouth. That, however, made the situation even more uncomfortable.

Stravinsky’s companion, a spinsterish woman in a lavender-tweed suit, took his arm to steady him and steered him past the cousins. As they went by, Masha noted Stravinsky’s yellowed skin, faltering walk and general air of exhaustion. She felt a rush of pity.

‘He looks so ill,’ she exclaimed in an undertone to Rachel, ‘so broken – and he thought we were laughing at him. I’m mortified.’

Katharine Wolff helped Stravinsky down the companionway. His small feet, usually so light and neat in their motions, stumbled on the stairs. His shoes, usually gleaming, were dusty. His person, usually impeccable, was crumpled. He seemed to have reached the end of his strength.

The journey from Bordeaux to Le Havre had been difficult, the roads choked with vehicles. Since the declaration of war a fortnight earlier, the whole of France had been swarming like an ants’ nest disturbed by a wicked boy with a stick. The mighty German army was massing on the borders for an invasion. There had already been fighting at Saarbrucken. The British were sending an expeditionary force to bolster the French army, with its flimsy tanks and antiquated aircraft. A catastrophe loomed. All those who could were getting out.

They had arrived at the harbour with frayed nerves after many hours on a hot road, still broken-hearted after parting from Nadia Boulanger and their circle of friends. The formalities of getting on board had been prolonged and had taken their toll on Stravinsky’s already depleted energies. Their baggage had not yet arrived from Bordeaux, nor their papers from the United States embassy in Paris. It was by no means certain that Stravinsky, who had just been released from quarantine, would be given the emergency visa he had applied for. Katharine, who was American, did not need one, but she had decided she would not leave France without Igor. If necessary, she would remain with him and face the consequences.

The willowy senior steward who had met them on the gangplank, and who was now leading the way, was garrulous and apologetic.

‘We’re going to be over capacity,’ he told them. ‘The Manhattan is fitted to take twelve hundred passengers. We’re going to have more than fifteen hundred by the time we leave Cobh. It’s not the way we like to do things, but under the circumstances, you understand—’

Katharine was impatient to get Igor to their cabin. ‘Our baggage hasn’t arrived yet and we’re due to sail on Saturday.’

‘Don’t worry about that, Miss Wolff. I’m sure it will arrive on time.’

‘What on earth makes you sure?’ she snapped.

‘Well, I’m expressing a hope—’

‘Your hope doesn’t help us in the slightest. If we have to leave without our baggage, it will be very difficult for us.’ They were making their way ever downward, into the bowels of the great ocean liner. Passengers and crew members crowded the stairs. She tried to shelter her charge as best she could from the jostling. ‘Is it much further, Mr Nightingale?’

‘Nearly there. What I’m getting at, Miss Wolff, is that the captain has made new rules.’

‘Rules?’

‘Mr Stravinsky is going to be sharing his cabin.’

‘Sharing? But we booked a stateroom.’

‘Commodore Randall’s orders, Miss Wolff. We’ve been instructed to turn nobody away. Sharing is the only way we can get the extra passengers on board. There will be refunds, of course. As for your good self—’

‘Don’t tell me I’ll be sharing too!’

‘I’m afraid so. You’ll be in a nearby cabin with some other ladies.’

‘No baggage – and sharing our cabins!’ Katharine glanced at Stravinsky, but he was impassive. He seemed dazed. ‘That’s outrageous!’

‘Very sorry for the inconvenience, but under the circumstances—’

‘Who will Stravinsky be sharing with?’

The steward consulted his list. ‘A Herr Thomas König is already in the cabin.’

‘A German!’

‘Yes. He embarked at Bremen. Here we are.’

They had stopped in front of a door. The steward drummed daintily on it with his varnished fingernails. There was no answer, so he opened it. Katharine, ever protective, bustled in ahead of Stravinsky. The cabin was occupied by a boy of around sixteen, in uniform, who was sitting on the edge of his bunk, his eyes wide. He jumped to his feet when he saw Katharine and raised his right hand in a salute. ‘Heil Hitler!’

Katharine pulled the upraised hand down brusquely. ‘How dare you?’

The boy seemed shocked. ‘I’m sorry, Fräulein—’

She only just restrained herself from slapping the thin, hard face. ‘This is France! None of that poisonous rubbish here.’

The boy’s prominent ears flushed beetroot red. Stravinsky had followed Katharine into the stateroom and was now examining his fellow traveller wearily. They made an odd pair: the composer in his creased brown suit, his face a contour map of folds and pouches, and the fresh-faced boy in his pseudo-military uniform of khaki shirt and short pants, his brown socks pulled up to his knobbly knees.

Katharine took the steward’s arm and pulled him back into the corridor. ‘This is intolerable, Mr Nightingale. Stravinsky cannot be expected to spend the voyage with a little Nazi.’

‘He’s travelling on his own,’ the steward murmured, leaning forward with a rush of peppermint breath. ‘There are no parents with him.’

‘Stravinsky is a banned composer in the Third Reich. Do you understand what that means?’ The steward fluttered his hands anxiously, opening his mouth, but Katharine cut him off. ‘If he were to be captured by Hitler’s hordes, he would be exterminated. How can he spend the voyage in the company of this – this exemplar of Hitler Youth?’

‘It will only be a week or two.’

‘I insist that he be removed at once.’

Mr Nightingale licked the tip of his little finger and nervously smoothed his eyebrows into place. ‘I will see what I can arrange.’

‘You do that.’

Katharine went back into the cabin. Stravinsky was shaking hands solemnly with the boy. ‘And may I ask, where are your parents?’ he enquired, with the courtesy he showed to everyone.

‘My father and mother are in Germany, sir,’ the boy replied, matching Stravinsky’s formality.

‘You seem rather young to be travelling on your own.’

‘I am eighteen, sir.’ When Stravinsky looked sceptical at that, the boy squared his lean shoulders. Katharine saw that there was a little enamel swastika pinned to his lapel. ‘I am going to visit the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows,’ he said proudly, as though announcing that he was being sent as Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the League of Nations.

‘Oh well, that’s very fine,’ Stravinsky replied, nodding tiredly.

Katharine looked around the cabin. It was small. There was a china washstand, an electric fan fastened on the bulkhead, a wool rug and other signs of modest comfort. Stravinsky had not been able to afford Cabin Class. She had offered to pay the difference, but he had refused. She hadn’t liked to press the matter. He was very proud and felt his financial troubles keenly.

The boy gestured at the bunk he had been sitting on, which was covered with the adventure books he had been reading. ‘I took this one because it’s the smallest, but if you prefer it, please take it. It has the porthole, you see.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Stravinsky said, ‘but I think you should have the porthole. I will take this one next to you, if it’s all the same to you.’ He sat on the bed and looked up at Katharine with hollow eyes. ‘I think I would like to rest a little now, chérie.’

‘Yes, of course, Igor.’ Katharine knelt down and began unlacing one of his shoes.

‘I can do that myself,’ he said, but he made no move to stop her. After a moment, the German boy knelt beside Katharine and began unlacing the other shoe. Stravinsky watched them in silence, his eyelids heavy, his lower lip drooping open.

Mr Nightingale put his knee on the bunk to draw the shades across the porthole, blocking out the bright autumn sun and casting the cabin into an ochre twilight. Katharine helped Stravinsky take off his jacket and his round-rimmed spectacles. He lay back on the pillows, closing his eyes. His features sagged, his eyes seeming to sink inward, his full lips drooping so that his teeth were exposed under his clipped moustache. His straw-coloured hair was thin. He was only fifty-seven, but Katharine had a sudden terror that he was already dying. He murmured, ‘Thank you, chérie,’ and waved her away.

Mr Nightingale was anxious to show her to her own cabin, so she was forced to leave him there, in the company of the German boy. She gave him a last, suspicious glare before leaving.

Mr Nightingale was gossipy as they hurried along. ‘It’s a great honour to have Mr Stravinsky on board, a great honour. We have quite a number of celebrities with us this trip, Miss Wolff, quite a number. Toscanini came on board yesterday. The conductor, you know.’

‘Yes, I know who Toscanini is,’ she said, trying to avoid the elbows of other passengers.

‘He’s in Cabin Class. But he’s very successful, of course. Perhaps he’s a pal of Mr Stravinsky’s?’

‘Toscanini has conducted Stravinsky’s works on a number of occasions,’ Katharine said stiffly. ‘They have the greatest respect for one another.’

‘Well, I’m sure they’ll be keen to make each other’s acquaintance again. A cruise is ideal for that, of course. Getting there is half the fun, isn’t it? And then in Southampton we’re going to be joined by the Kennedy family. Mrs Joseph P. Kennedy, the wife of the American Ambassador to Britain, and her children. They’re going back to the States to get away from the bombs.’

‘The bombs!’

‘German air raids on London are anticipated momentarily,’ the steward said with relish. He was a pretty, pink-cheeked man with carefully slicked red hair and an ingratiating manner. ‘The Kennedys are quite the most glamorous family. Our American royalty. We had them on board coming out, when the Ambassador took up his post. Enchanting girls, delightful boys. I don’t know what the London society papers will write about once they’ve left.’ He took Katharine’s arm to steer her through a particularly crowded area. ‘Do you by any chance dance, Miss Wolff? I’m a keen dancer, myself. Red-hot on the rhumba.’ He tittered. ‘We shall have dancing every night, if the Captain lets us.’

Katharine was not interested in dancing. ‘Are we in any danger from submarines?’

Mr Nightingale winced. ‘None at all, dear lady.’

‘But the Athenia. All those people, all those children, drowned.’

He coughed to silence her and lowered his voice. ‘We don’t know that it was a submarine.’

‘What else could it have been but a submarine?’ Katharine demanded. ‘And quite clearly a passenger ship, full of civilians!’

‘The Germans say Mr Churchill did it, trying to make Mr Hitler look bad.’

‘Oh, what rubbish. You must be a fool if you believe Nazi propaganda.’

‘Well, perhaps we’ll find it was a dreadful mistake.’ Mr Nightingale looked relieved to have arrived at Katharine’s cabin. ‘Here we are. This is yours, dear lady.’ He knocked. Katharine waited to see what sort of person she had been billeted with. After a moment, the door was opened by a woman evidently halfway through her toilette, clutching a peignoir around herself. She peered at Katharine, one eye thickly rimmed with mascara, the other naked and watery.

‘I hope you like gin,’ she said. ‘We’ve drunk everything else.’