Authors: Stephen Hunter
“Good heavens,” said the count, “if you consider
that
chap European, Mr. Florry, you have extremely low standards.” He made a face as if he’d just swallowed a lemon, and followed it with a quick wink.
“Keep the pirates off Miss Lilliford, will you, count?” Florry called, leaving them.
He set out in search of the steward, but of course the old fellow was not always that easy to find. He was a seedy but kindly chap officially charged with attending to their needs on this short voyage from Marseilles to Barcelona and, more important, charged with helping the cook. He was not the sort of man who took duty seriously, however; he spent his time affixed to a secret
flask of peppermint schnapps, for he wore the odor of the liquor about him like a scarf.
Florry climbed down through the hatchway and made his way into the oily interior of the craft. Twice, he stopped to let jabbering Arabs by. They salaamed obsequiously, but he could see the mockery in their bright eyes. He pressed on, and the temperature rose and the atmosphere seemed to thicken with moisture; it was actually steamy.
He finally found the old man in the galley, where he sat hunched in his filthy uniform, slicing onions into a large pot and weeping copiously. As Florry approached he realized Gruenwald had really been on a toot this morning, for he smelled like a peppermint factory. He also gleamed with sweat, for the temperature in this room was even more grotesque than in the passageway. Florry mopped his face with a handkerchief, which came away transparent.
“I say, Mr. Gruenwald. The ship is no longer moving. Do you know why?”
“Hah?” replied old Gruenwald, scrunching up his face like a clown’s. “No can I quite hear.”
“We’ve stopped,” Florry shouted over the clamor of the engines. “In the water. No propeller. No move. Understand?”
“Stopped?
Wir halten, ja?”
“Yes. It’s upsetting. Is anything wrong?”
“Ach. Nothing is. Is nothing.
Nein
, is nothing.”
Old Herr Gruenwald leaped out of the galley—the Arab cook cursed him to Allah as he rose, but he paid no attention—and pulled Florry out through a hatchway onto a rusty lower deck—ah, fresh blast of salt air!—where he settled into the lee of a rotting lifeboat and bade Florry collapse beside him.
“Hah. You some schnapps want, ja, Englischman?”
“No, I think not. Awfully nice of you though,” Florry said. Take a swig of
that?
Revolting!
“Ach. You should relax, no? Relax. Old Gruenwald, he take care.” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his flask, swiftly unscrewed the lid, and took a swallow. His bony old Adam’s apple flexed like a fist as it worked. He handed the flask to Florry. “Go on. Is
gut.”
Florry looked at the thing with great reluctance but in the end didn’t want to seem an utter prig, and so took a swift gulp. It was awful. He coughed gaspingly and handed it back.
“Good,
nein?”
“Delicious,” Florry said.
“We stop because the Fascists sometime bomb docks in daylight. We stop here until five, ja. Then we go in in dark. So? Is okay?”
“Yes, I see.” Florry looked out across the flat, still water.
“Not so long to wait, eh, Herr Florry?”
“Not if safety’s the issue. I’d hate to think of what a bomb would do to this old tub.”
“Boom! No more tub, ja?” The old man laughed merrily, took another swig from his flask. “The
Queen Mary, nein
, eh, Herr Florry?” he said conspiratorially, gesturing down to the paint-flecked, rust-pitted deck.
“Nor, I trust, the
Lusitania.”
The old man laughed.
“I had a brother killed in the
Unterseeboots. Ja
. 1917.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Ach. No matter. He vas bastard, anyhow. Hah!”
Florry nodded sweetly, seeming to pay attention, and then said, “Come on, now, old fellow. The true reason. Don’t let’s play games.”
Gruenwald professed indignation and shock at the accusation.
“Hah. Gruenwald tell truth.
Ja, Ich—”
“Now, now, don’t get excited. Perhaps you are. On the other hand, I can’t imagine the owners of this wonderful oceangoing paradise would be too pleased to have it inspected terribly closely, would they? Unless my nose deceives me—and I’ve got a very good nose—I think I make out the undertang of tobacco amid the general welter of odors available below decks. Tobacco’s contraband, I believe, in Spain. That, I believe, is the reason for our delay. So that we can sneak in under cover of darkness. Damned interesting.” Florry gave the old man a sly look.
Gruenwald was gravely offended. “Herr Florry, you must zay nothing of zis! You keep your nose clean.
Ja?
You are at risk if you go about—”
“Don’t worry, old fellow. I personally don’t care what’s done with the stuff, just so it doesn’t inconvenience me unduly. All right?”
“Herr Florry, you be careful. Barcelona is very dangerous.”
“Why, there’s no fighting there anymore.”
“You listen
gut
, Herr Florry, I like Englisch peoples, even if they kill my brother in 1917. Hah! You be careful. The man who own zis boat, he is very powerful. He would not like young Englisch gentleman go around town talk about tobacco.
Ja!
Bad trouble for someone who do this. There are many ways to die in Barcelona.”
“Well, that’s a fair warning given, and I shall take it to heart. Thank you, Herr Gruenwald.”
“Ja
, Gruenwald not zo zmart these days. I vas vunce real zmart. But in here, now, ist—how you say?”—he tapped
his head and leaned close to Florry, his pepperminty breath flooding all over the Englishman—
“luftmensch
. Ah—”
“Crazy, we would say.”
“Ja! Ja!
Crazy, I got blown up by the Frenchies in the great war. In here metal
ist
. A big plate. Like as you would
haben die zup
—eat your dinner off.
Ja
, metal in the head,
ja
!”
“Good heavens,” said Florry.
“In the war. The war was very bad.”
“Yes, I know.”
“How would you know, Herr Florry? You are too young for zuch things.”
“Yes, I suppose I am,” said Florry.
The old man took another swig on his flask and then another. His eyes seemed dead.
“Mr. Florry, where on earth have you
been?”
she asked, as he at last returned.
“I
am
sorry,” he said.
She lounged on a chaise in the pale sun. Count Witte, his jacket off and folded, a pair of circular sunglasses perched comically across his face, lay beside her. He was reading a book in Polish.
Florry quickly explained. “And so we sit,” he concluded. “I suppose if you choose a vessel that asks you no questions, then you must not ask questions of
it.”
“A good principle, Mr. Florry,” called Count Witte. “It’s as true of political parties as well. And also”—he added with another wink—“of women.”
“Count Witte, you are such an old charmer,” said Sylvia.
“Miss Lilliford, you make me wish I were a
young
charmer.”
“Well,” said Sylvia, “at least it will give me a chance
to get all this read by landfall.” She meant her pile of magazines. “At least then I shall have some understanding of things.”
“It is exactly when one thinks one understands a revolution,” said the count, “that the revolution changes into something that cannot be understood.”
“I certainly understand the basic principles,” boasted Florry. “They are threefold. It there’s shooting you duck and if there’s yelling you listen and if there’s singing you pretend you know the words.”
“Exactly,” said the count. “Mr. Florry, we shall make an international correspondent of you yet.”
The girl laughed. Florry pretended not to notice, as he’d been pretending not to notice since he came aboard three days earlier and discovered her on the deck. She was as slender as a blade, with a neck like a cocktail-glass stem. She had a mass of tawny, curled hair. She was about his own age, with gray green eyes. He did not think her terribly attractive, but nevertheless found himself taking great pleasure in the sound of her laughter or the sense of her attention when he talked politics with the sardonic old Witte.
“Oh, Mr. Florry,” she had said, boldly speaking first, “you know so
much.”
Florry knew it not to be true, but found himself smiling again.
By five, the
Akim
had begun to move again, and shortly before nightfall, the passengers could see the long, thin line of the Spanish coastline.
“Look, Mr. Florry,” Sylvia called from the rail. “There it is. At last.”
Florry went to her.
“Hmm, just looks like the other side of the Thames to me. One supposes one should feel some sense of a great
adventure beginning. I’d rather spend a night in a bed that doesn’t rock quite as much as this one.”
She laughed. “You’re such a cynic”—and she gave him a slightly oblique look from her oddly powerful eyes—“except that you
aren’t.”
“I tend to put my own comforts first, I suppose. Before politics and before history. And before long, I hope.”
She laughed again, which pleased him. Then she said, “I don’t feel the adventure, either, to tell the truth. What I feel is a sense of confusion. This war is a terrible mess. Only this fellow Julian Raines, the poet, can seem to make any sense of it. Did you read his piece on Barcelona?”
The name struck him uneasily.
“Brilliant fellow,” he said uncomfortably, hoping to be done with the subject.
“His explanations are the clearest,” she said with what seemed to be a kind of admiration. “What an extraordinary place it must be. On the occasion of the army rebellion, the armed workers beat them down. Then they refused to turn the guns over to the government and established a revolutionary society and are preparing for the next step. Which would be the establishment of a true classless society.”
“God, what a nauseating prospect,” said the count. “No, my dear, you’ll see. The tension will mount between the Russian Communists and the libertarian, anti-Stalinist Anarchists and Socialists, and there’ll be an explosion.”
“In which case,” Florry said, “we all obey Florry’s First Rule of Revolution, which is: when the bombs go bang, find a deep hole.”
They both laughed.
“You make it sound like a war, Mr. Florry. You have
been reading your Julian Raines, too. He’s very pessimistic about the Popular Front. He feels that—”
“Yes, I know, Sylvia. I
have
read all of Julian’s pieces. He’s awfully good, I admit it.”
“It’s a surprise, actually. I loathe his poetry. I loathe ‘Achilles, Fool,’ the poem about his poor father on the wire. My father also died in the Great War, and I don’t see it as a game at all.”
“Julian inspires passions,” said Florry, looking out across the sea at the dark jut of land, profoundly aware that he himself did not.
“Oh, do you know him, Mr. Florry?” She squealed with delight, vivid animation coming into her eyes. Florry stared at the life on her face, hating it.
“We were at school together,” he said. “Rather close, at one time, actually.”
“He must be the most brilliant writer of his generation,” she said. “Oh, could you possibly
introduce
me. He could teach me so much.”
“Yes, I suppose. One never knows, of course, how these things will work out, but I suppose I might be able to. He’ll be quite busy, of course. As will I.”
“Oh, of course. As will I.” She laughed. “To imagine, learning from
both
Robert Florry and Julian Raines. What an unusually lucky chance. The correspondent from
The Spectator
and from
Signature.”
She laughed again. “I feel so lucky.”
Florry looked at her. There was something about her slim neck that attracted him enormously. I’m the lucky one, he thought and watched her go back to her cabin.
Florry stood at the railing, nursing his vague feeling of unease, and was there still several minutes later when Count Witte approached.
“Mr. Florry, I must say I envy you. That’s a lovely young woman.”
“Yes, she’s quite special, I agree.”
“I envy you her feelings for you.”
“Well, it’s not gone to that. She seems to be drawn to adventure. She’s evidently got some money for travel. She says she wants to be a writer.”
“Whatever it is, I must say I can think of better spots to take a beautiful young woman than a volatile city like Barcelona. Perhaps she is the sort who feels most alive in danger. Still, I’d be careful if I were you.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
With that comment, the old count went to his cabin.
Florry turned back to the sea. It was almost dark now; the sun had left a vivid smear where it had disappeared into the ocean; the Spanish coast looked much closer now. Florry knew he ought to go to his cabin and pack.
But he looked at it one more time. Spain. Red Spain, in the year 1937.
What the devil, he thought, am I doing here?
Then he went back to his cabin to pack for the arrival.
Florry gathered his tweed jacket about him, wishing he had a scarf. He could feel the ludicrous revolver hanging in the ludicrous holster under his arm. He lit a cigarette. The night was cool and calm, full of moon which reflected off the sea in a gleam that was incandescent, fluttering, almost mesmerizing. It was absurdly beautiful, almost as bright as day. Before him, he could see the land mass, looming larger. He could see the light of the harbor and make out in the light what appeared to be the hulk of a low mountain off on one side, Monjuich it would be called. There was another mountain, one behind the city, called Tibidabo, but he could not see it.
He leaned forward on the railing, wondering how in the world he’d handle it with Julian.
Julian, old man.
Robert, good God, it’s been bloody
ages
.
Been reading your stuff in
Signature
. Damned good. I’m out for
The Spectator
myself.
Oh, and how’s the bloody awful Denis Mason? Hated that man.
Been absolutely topping with me, old sport—