Five Passengers from Lisbon, page 4
That had nothing to do with the murder of the third officer of a little Portuguese cargo ship. And he was waiting for a reply. Why hadn’t she returned to America sooner? Long ago when the war began?
Her thoughts went swiftly back over those war years that had seemed so long and so ugly, so filled with terror and despair, so tenuous with hope that Mickey would escape and would come to her—as eventually he did. In fact, of course, it was a very brief story, and not unusual.
“I hoped that...” She caught herself; she must say André Messac, not Mickey Banet; she must remember that. She went on: “I hoped that André would return. He was taken to a concentration camp when the Germans occupied Paris.” She paused. The man opposite was still tapping his pipe lightly, watching it. The small taps were like little periods, spacing and punctuating memories.
So many memories...Marcia’s mind went swiftly back five years, to the great gray ship, the Normandie, pulling out away from the pier on one of her last trips. Her father, on the pier, waving and laughing. It was actually her last glimpse of him. Teresa, a school friend, and Teresa’s aunt, their chaperon, beside her.
That day had launched the gay holiday voyage during which she had met Mickey.
There followed a packed and important—but very quickly passing—period of time. London and humid July weather and Mickey. Paris and August and Mickey. September and war, and Mickey telling her he loved her.
After that, naturally, she remained in France, and would not return to America with Teresa and her aunt, in spite of their pleading, in spite of the war, in spite of the frantic cables from her father. She could remember saying goodbye to Teresa and the older woman, in the wild turmoil of the Gare du Nord and her return to the small, very French hotel back of the Madeleine.
And then there was the first autumn of the war. She had walked with Mickey, lunched with Mickey, dined with Mickey; listened to Mickey practice at the great piano in his apartment for hours on end, and listened to Mickey and his friends talk of the war. She herself had been lulled as Paris was lulled that winter with the Maginot drug; but not Mickey and not a small select nucleus of his friends. All over Paris actually there were men who believed that they could see ahead; already that winter the seeds of what was later to be a vast organization for French resistance were sown.
She had not known actually, however, that Mickey was a part of that beginning movement. Up to then his only interest had been music; he was on the beginning wave of what would certainly have been a great career; already people were beginning to know his name, he had played in London and in New York with brilliant press notices; he was in fact returning from a series of American concert engagements including an almost spectacular reception at Carnegie Hall when Marcia met him on the ship. He was then a slender, gay, contentedly engrossed young man, with his tanned face and light, sun streaked hair and gray eyes which, Marcia had always thought, were exactly the color of the sea, as deep, as clear, as changeable; he had no thought of politics, no thought of anything but music. And the war ended that.
It ended his career in the first place because it brought all the bright world of the thirties crashing to an end. It ended his career later for a more specific reason.
In May the Germans entered Paris; Mickey and three other men she had known were arrested.
Captain Svendsen was still tapping the pipe lightly and precisely upon the tray. It seemed strange that her memory could travel so many weary months while a man waited and tapped tobacco from his pipe. He said, lifting the pipe at last to frown into the bowl: “You were in Paris, then, when the war began? And you went to Marseilles?”
“I went to Marseilles later, that summer, after the Germans occupied Paris. I was with a friend—Madame Renal. She had a car and we drove to her villa. It was on a hill just outside Marseilles.”
Again, as if a swift series of pictures flashed across some mental screen she remembered that flight from Paris. They had all intended to go together; at least that was what she thought when the plan was made. She and Mickey and Madame Renal—the kind, stout old Frenchwoman her father had cabled her to get in touch with; somehow, somewhere in business probably, he had known Madame Renal and her husband. Madame Renal had a car, gasoline and a villa near Marseilles; she was old and ill and she could not make the journey alone. Otherwise, Marcia would not have gone with her, for at the last Mickey did not come. She would never forget and she did not want to remember that day in Paris, the frantic, seething day of unutterable confusion while she tried to find Mickey, and in the end gave up and went with Madame Renal. They left Paris about nightfall; at five o'clock the next morning they were exactly three miles away, but by that time she could not have made her way back to the city. Mickey would find them; he knew where they were going; he knew the address—so Madame Renal assured her over and over again. Somewhere along the road they picked up three women, an old man and a cat. When they reached the villa, cold with its stony floors, Mickey was not there. A month later she learned that he had been arrested and sent to Germany.
The women drifted away; the old man and the cat stayed on with her and Madame Renal. The thought of those long, cold, waiting years was too close and too full of tragedy to bear remembering. She said to Captain Svendsen: “André finally escaped, just at the end of the war; he knew where I’d be, of course, and came to me there as soon as he could.”
The Captain began to refill his pipe. “Wouldn’t it have been better to wait in Lisbon until you could get passage directly home? If your people are there...”
It seemed to Marcia for an instant that the man sitting opposite her, watching her so closely over his pipe, was bent upon touching all the sore and poignant scars of the past years. She said: “My father died while I was in Marseilles; the first summer after the Germans entered Paris. I learned of it months later through the Red Cross.”
There was a slight pause; then the Captain said: “I’m sorry, Miss Colfax. Go on, please.”
Go on? Oh, yes, why had they taken passage on the little Portuguese ship bound for Buenos Aires instead of home? But how could she tell him or describe to him her anxiety about Mickey, the urgency of her wish for him to leave Europe, with all its inevitable and tragic souvenirs of war? New surroundings, any new surroundings, a fresh start, a different place...These things Mickey had to have, for his soul’s sake. His eyes were alight, his face had looked young and gay again, and full of hope and vitality for the first time when he had brought her, actually, another man’s passports and the news of the possibility of a Lisbon sailing.
Practically, however, there was another reason, one she hadn’t talked of to Mickey. She said slowly: “He had suffered greatly; I wanted him to be away from Europe as soon as possible. Also...” She hesitated; the passport situation would have to remain as it was, at least until she had talked to Mickey and they had decided together to tell the truth of it; but there was no harm in telling Mickey’s profession. She went on, being careful again to say “André”: “André, as he may have told you, was a musician, a pianist. Perhaps the Germans knew that; perhaps it was merely one of their unspeakable forms of torture. In any case, you’ve seen his hands; his fingernails and the ends of his fingers...”
Her throat grew rigid and hard, so she stopped; the Captain nodded, his face hardened. “I saw them. I’ve seen several such.”
“I want to get him to a plastic surgeon. I don’t think he can ever play again; but there may be some hope. It seemed important to get him home, by any means that we could, as soon as possible.”
“I see. Yes, I see that. There may be some hope. Miss Colfax, you are being quite frank with me?”
Mickey’s passport was not Mickey’s; she had not told him that. There had been, however, no other evasion. “Yes.”
“And there is really nothing you can tell me of the murder of this man Castiogne?”
She wondered briefly if he had questioned her, urged her to talk in the hope that she might inadvertently give him some grain of information relating to Castiogne. She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Very well then...”
Someone knocked, interrupting him, and Captain Svendsen said: “Yes? Oh, Colonel Morgan. Will you come in?”
A tall, well-built man, a patient obviously, for he wore a long crimson dressing gown, came into the room, followed by Major Williams, who closed the door again behind him. Captain Svendsen said: “Miss Colfax, this is Colonel Josh Morgan.”
The tall man in the red dressing gown turned to her quickly. She caught a flash of narrow and rather intent blue gray eyes before he bowed, and then took the hand she held out toward him—took it, however, with his left hand as his right arm was in a sling. He said, conventionally, except for that intent look in his browned face and in his level eyes: “How do you do, Miss Colfax?”
Captain Svendsen said: “You haven’t met before, I take it.”
“Why—no.” Colonel Morgan hesitated, looked at Marcia again directly, and said: “Or have we?”
She had met, casually, many Americans in Paris before the war, and in Marseilles after the Americans came. But she would have remembered this man, she thought suddenly; his black hair, the curve of his mouth; his quick, direct look; something strong and substantial and yet daring and youthful about him, that suggested imagination and inventiveness held in reserve, weighed and tested by a matter-off-act good sense; she would have remembered him for all that. But also there was some spark, some extra bit of electricity in the air between them; it was curious, a small and unimportant fact, but a fact. She knew that she’d have remembered him. She said slowly: “No, no, I’m sure we’ve not met,” and Colonel Josh Morgan said: “No, of course not. I’d have remembered you,” and smiled briefly.
It was, merely, a conventional, pleasant compliment, but it startled her a little, because it was so near her own thought. She met his eyes for an instant that suddenly seemed a long time; as if she had met that deep and direct look, unguarded, with no barriers between many, many times. Which was nonsense! She turned abruptly toward Captain Svendsen, who said: “Colonel Morgan was a newspaperman in civilian life. He spent considerable time in Paris before the war. I thought conceivably you might have met.”
Marcia thought swiftly: he is trying to check my story, my identity. Why?
Josh Morgan said shortly: “Paris is a big place.”
“Yes,” said Captain Svendsen, heavily. “Yes. Still the American colony was not large. One often knows one’s compatriots in any city. There were some other Americans on the lifeboat we picked up, Colonel.”
“Oh, is Miss Colfax one of the Lerida survivors?” said Colonel Morgan.
Captain Svendsen nodded. “There were five passengers,” he said exactly. “And two seamen, besides the man who was killed. They were”—Captain Svendsen’s blue eyes watched Colonel Morgan sharply as he named them—“a Mr. and Mrs. Cates, Americans. I mean United States citizens. Gili Duvrey, French. Miss Colfax, here. An André Messac—French also.”
It seemed to Marcia that a flash of something like surprise came into Colonel Morgan’s eyes. When he spoke, however, his voice was flat and impersonal. “The Cates?” He asked. “The famous Cates? I think his name is Luther.”
“Yes. Do you know them?”
Colonel Morgan reached for cigarettes and with his free hand managed to extract one. “I knew of them. It’s a famous name. Tons of money—patrons of the arts—fashionable, smart. Rather decent as I remember. But I never knew them.” “Well,” the Captain sighed and rose. “I won’t trouble you further just now, Miss Colfax. I hope you are comfortable. I see they’ve made a nurse of you. There was no civilian clothing for any of you; the Geneva Convention forbids us to carry civilians. But we couldn’t leave you to float around in a life boat!”
There was a faint brief twinkle in those deep-set, far-seeing blue eyes. She said quickly: “I haven’t thanked you, Captain Svendsen...”
He would have none of that. He made a brusque motion with the great hand that held the pipe. “Part of my job, part of my job. Fortunate we happened upon you and saw your rocket. Unfortunately, once we’d rescued you we cast the Lerida lifeboat adrift. That was before the doctor attending you discovered the fact about Castiogne. So”—he lifted his massive shoulders—“if there were any clues to his murder in the lifeboat they are gone now. Well, that’s all now. Thank you....”
Major Williams opened the door. Colonel Morgan made a sort of motion toward her, stopped, and said: “I hope we’ll meet again, Miss Colfax.”
“You’re very likely to,” said Captain Svendsen rather dryly. “The ship is not a large one.”
Major Williams at the door, looking very young and thin and tall, and smiling down at her in a friendly way, said: “Do you feel all right? Shall I take you to your cabin...?”
“I’m quite all right, thank you, Major.” She took up the nurse’s coat which had slid back upon the chair.
Colonel Josh Morgan turned to watch her leave. Captain Svendsen, very thoughtful-looking, returned to his pipe. The door closed behind her and she walked along the narrow, shining, gray passage.
Murder, in that tossing, frantic lifeboat with the crash of wind and waves all around them—while they sat huddled together; while they watched. Only, of course, they hadn’t watched, really. Anything could have happened during, say, one of those blinded, frantic forays of wind and waves and terror.
Yet it was still impossible, really, to comprehend it. Who would have wanted to murder Alfred Castiogne? Who cared, just then, about anything in the world but the next wave, the next breath of air, the next pulse of life?
She reached the central passageway with its flights of open, ladder-like stairways going up and down, and Mickey was waiting for her, lounging against a bulkhead, smoking and talking to Luther Cates and a young lieutenant with the golden, spoked wheel of the Army Transport Corps on his sleeve. Mickey sprang forward when she emerged.
“Okay, Marcia? Let’s get out on deck. Better put on that coat. It’s still cold.”
Luther Cates had followed him; the young lieutenant gave them a brief look and disappeared into an office near at hand. Luther looked tired and old, as if the previous night had added years. His face was drawn and gray; there were deep pouches under his pale-blue, rather bewildered eyes, but he was freshly shaved and the thin gray hair over his temples was plastered down neatly. He too wore an army uniform from which the insignia had been removed and managed somehow to look, as he had done in black beret and shabby topcoat on the Portuguese ship, exactly as if he had stepped—although rather wearily—from the pages of Esquire. He took her hand in his own thin and boneless clasp. “How are you, my dear? Better? Daisy Belle said you were sleeping so none of us called you. I suppose they’ve been questioning you about this man, Castiogne?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve questioned all of us. Daisy Belle was quite annoyed; said the only thing she knew of him was that he smelled of garlic. Well, well, it’s a queer thing, of course. I can’t understand it myself. I don’t remember anything at all that is suggestive; I had no idea he was dead. But obviously one of the two seamen did it. Nobody else would have had a motive.”
“How is Daisy Belle?”
“Oh, she’s all right. She always says she has the constitution of a horse. More than I’ve got....” He coughed a little, apologetically. “I think she’s in the dining salon now. With—er—Miss Duvrey.”
Mickey took her coat and slipped it over her shoulders. Luther added, smiling: “You make a very beautiful nurse, my dear. Daisy Belle is quite enchanted with her uniform. They seem to have taken up a collection for us in the way of clothing. I believe we are the only civilians aboard. And very lucky to be aboard, I’m sure.”
He waved as they turned toward the deck.
The air was fresh and cold, suddenly, on her face. It was night and the sea was very black, but the ship was lighted everywhere. The Red Crosses painted on her sides and on her smokestack were brilliantly outlined with red lights; portholes all along the decks were lighted; floodlights shone down further to illuminate the enormous Red Crosses. Those painted, lighted symbols of mercy had been the ship’s protection. The sound of a radio came from an open port nearby; somewhere in the distance some men were singing.
The storm was over, although the sea was still so heavy the ship rolled a little. Marcia slipped her arm through Mickey’s and they crossed the slippery deck and stopped to lean over the railing. The sky was cloudy with scarcely a star showing, but the radiance of the lighted Red Crosses on the ship touched the black water so they seemed to move in a glittering track of red and gold light. Mickey, his shoulder pressing against hers, said suddenly: “What did the Captain say? What happened? Did you tell him that I am using André Messac’s name?”
“No. No, but, Mickey...”
“André, darling.”
“That’s it, Mickey. We’ve got to tell them your real name.” He sighed and took out a package of cigarettes. He had never got used to having cigarettes, plenty of cigarettes, all he wanted. He said now again, as he had said so many times in the past weeks: “Cigarettes! Think of it! Real cigarettes! Have one?”
She took it and bent to the small flame in his cupped hands. As she did so, she saw the mangled, twisted scar tissue of the fingers. She wanted to put her lips upon them; she mustn’t do that and wound his pride, or let him know how terribly that sight wrenched at her heart. He said: “I wanted a chance to talk to you before the Captain did and simply couldn’t make one. The first I knew of the murder was when they got me up there in the Captain’s quarters and I couldn’t get away to warn you not to tell them that I’m using a borrowed passport.”
