Uncertain Voyage Read online

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Melissa—GO,” she said aloud, angrily.

  She walked out, closing the door firmly behind her.

  * * *

  —

  She was tired, and in the courtyard of the National Museum Melissa bought a soft drink from the vendor and carried it to a bench under the trees and sat down. The sun was mercifully shining now. In the far corner of her mind lurked the thought—she would not allow it entry—that it was only three o’clock in the afternoon and that ahead of her yawned the rest of a tourist’s day and then a next and then another until dear God she would have to move on to another new city and again take a walk and visit a museum. This dread had the familiarity of an old friend waiting at her door, but she had learned from Dr. Szym that it was possible to select one’s thoughts as well as one’s friends. Coolly she lit a cigarette and coolly she took stock of both herself and her situation. She was, actually, doing a very good job with her day, but she admitted the temptation to return to the hotel now, carrying with her this sense of achievement to cherish for the rest of the day. It was as if she had gone just so far and must stop, saying to an invisible audience, “See how well I’ve done!” She was not sure who the audience was before whom she performed, but she suspected that, denied a touchable, physical presence she was performing now for God. There had to be someone, didn’t there? It was all wrong—she knew this—it threw all her motives off-key, it ought to be herself for whom she made these efforts but the horrid truth was that she did not yet have enough of a self for whom to perform.

  Yet something was consolidating within her, she could feel it: in Hamburg a fragile new toughness had been born out of her despair, and was deepening hour by hour. It was as if, denied contact with Dr. Szym, she had been forced to draw upon untapped reserves inside of her. To return now to her hotel at this hour would be a giving up—she saw this clearly—for if she returned at three o’clock today then she might return at two tomorrow, and at one the next day, and not go out at all the following day. No, it was very necessary for her to keep going, mindlessly and mechanically perhaps, but to keep going.

  She drew on her cigarette and looked back upon the last few hours: she had visited the Carlsberg Glyptopek, lunched just inside Tivoli Garden at the Konditori, and a few moments ago had completed a tour of the National Museum. Enthralled by the Islamic costumes in the museum, she had even brought out her sketchbook and colored pencils to jot down their patterns and marvelous colors—one would almost have believed her to be normal. At the Glyptopek the early Gauguins had struck her as being interesting but entirely disillusioning, and she was pleased to have reached such a conclusion because it was an opinion. She had enjoyed her day so far in a surprisingly contented—if self-conscious—way. She knew that if she were with Charles he would be checking off ten museums on a list and urging her joylessly and dutifully toward an eleventh: she was therefore becoming aware that traveling alone could have advantages, and this too was a conclusion entirely her own. Considering the satisfaction that lay in having collected two opinions, she pushed out her feet and happily wriggled her toes. Yes there just might be compensations in traveling alone if she looked upon the more comfortable, even voluptuously comfortable, aspects of freedom. If she could be enough to herself.

  She decided to try it for a little longer, and to encourage this new resistance to ease, and at the same time rest her tired feet, she would risk the four o’clock bus tour of Copenhagen. It had the advantage of being a happy compromise because nothing would be demanded of her except that she sit on a bus and be guided about the city; there was no possible chance of her becoming lost, and it would keep her occupied until six, after which she would have earned the right to feel absolutely safe with a quiet dinner in the hotel’s dining room, a long hot bath, and reading in bed.

  She jumped to her feet and with real zest strode across the square to the office of the tour company to buy a ticket. “The bus sits there,” said the young man, pointing toward the plaza.

  “Tak!” she cried gaily, and for the first time felt gay, in command of her life and capable of making decisions. She climbed into the nearly empty bus and chose a seat in the center, next to the window. As she seated herself she opened her purse to extract cigarettes and to her chagrin ores and kroners fell out and rolled across the floor. “Oh dear,” she gasped.

  “You,” said the young woman across the aisle, “are American.”

  Melissa glanced up and smiled. “You too?”

  “You need some help.” She leaned from her seat and gathered up a few coins for Melissa. “I’m from Los Angeles.”

  “Massachusetts,” said Melissa, on her knees. The girl wore slacks and a fur coat, her honey-colored hair was long and unkempt, and she spoke with the affected drawl of an Eastern finishing school but she spoke English, and she was alone. “For how long are you traveling?”

  “The summer,” the girl said in a beautifully throaty, rueful voice. “And you?”

  “Three weeks. Are you traveling alone or with your family?”

  “Good God, alone. Is there any other way?”

  Melissa winced at this remark, and dropping the last of the coins into her purse returned to her own seat beside the window. “What countries have you been visiting?”

  A man walked up the aisle, glanced at the vacant seat beside the Californian and then at the vacant seat beside Melissa, and chose the latter. It placed a wall between her and the girl, and with a feeling of acute dislike toward the man Melissa had to lean forward to hear the girl’s reply. “Spain, and then Portugal, and I just flew in from Paris.”

  Melissa nodded. “I go to Paris next, and then to Majorca. How did you find Spain?”

  “Dirty, of course,” replied the girl, “but I had friends there who took me to Granada. It’s utterly out of this world. Compelling. Marvelous.” She pronounced it mahvlas.

  It was tiring to lean forward. Melissa smiled and sank back. The man beside her said, “You will enjoy Majorca, you know. It’s beautiful beyond description.” He had the clipped accent of an Englishman.

  She stiffened. She had thought his manners abominable when he inserted himself between her and the girl across the aisle; now it seemed that he eavesdropped as well. The new Melissa, heady with opinions and conclusions, turned cold with disdain. “You’ve been there then,” she said with such indifference that her words could almost have been yawned at him.

  “Yes, a few years ago.” He seemed oblivious of her rejection; he brought a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and before removing one for himself held out the packet to her. The gesture was an assumption of intimacy that affronted Melissa. Intimacy was always a threat that sent her into flight. “No, thank you,” she said scornfully, but in the act of refusing she looked into the man’s face and it surprised her enough to weaken her defenses, which always doubled at signs of aggression. He appeared pleasant, relaxed, friendly, even distinguished, with a look of inborn fastidiousness. She noted a square face and jaw and a pair of expressive black eyebrows. His hair was thick and liberally salted with gray. No devil’s horns at all, she told herself dryly and felt suddenly narrow-minded and provincial.

  “Have you been long in Copenhagen?” he asked.

  She said politely, “Since late yesterday afternoon. And you?”

  “I flew in this morning from Berlin.”

  “You must have seen the Wall then.”

  He nodded. “Extremely depressing. I shouldn’t have liked to miss it but I was quite happy to leave.”

  The driver of the tour bus climbed into his seat and a young woman in uniform followed and began testing the small hand microphone. “It looks as if we’re about to leave,” her companion said.

  “Yes, it does.” To fill the interval she gave him her last polite question, for she had been traveling long enough to understand that very few people went beyond the amenities of where have you been and for how long ar
e you traveling. “And for how long are you traveling?” she asked.

  He crossed his legs comfortably and drew on his cigarette, allowing the smoke to stream from his nostrils. “I’m traveling around the world,” he said. “A six-month tour which is nearing its end now. I shall be at home by late August.”

  “Six months,” she echoed. It was a surprisingly long time, and a dozen questions rose in her. Curiosity won and she said, “But how could you arrange to be away for so long, and have you grown tired of traveling? Did you plan the trip for yourself or are you with an organized tour?”

  He smiled. “Oh, quite alone. Yes, I grow jaded at times but never for long. I inherited a little money last year and decided to do something very important to me, and so I asked for a sabbatical. I’m an archaeologist, you see, and—”

  “Archaeologist!” she repeated warmly. “But I once fully intended to become one, I really did—I was all of thirteen at the time,” she added humorously. “Except I turned to art instead.”

  He glanced at her quickly. “Did you really! What sort of art?”

  “Painting primarily—I’m a painter.” Even this had lost its meaning for her but saying it aloud to this man made it seem real again.

  “Professional?”

  “I have been in the past,” she said. “Several New York gallery exhibits among others—but not lately,” she added honestly. “Nothing lately.” Vividly she recalled Charles’ growing irritation over her work: you used to paint such gay, charming, childlike pictures, he would say, but now they’re gloomy, dark, with just one lonely figure, you’re not like that, I don’t like it. Her lips curved ironically as she remembered.

  “Then you must be very talented,” the man said, regarding her with appreciation.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” said the bright young tour guide, smiling at them. “Today we are taking you on a land and water tour of Copenhagen, in which you will see, among other things…”

  “Do you dig up corbeled vaults and disc barrows?” she asked impulsively, the words coming back to her from long ago, “or do you work in a museum?”

  “You really do know something about it,” he said, giving her a quizzical glance. “Actually you might say that art is my line, too, but ancient pre-historic art rather than historical. Yes, I work in a museum but I frequently go off to the excavations when I feel stale.”

  “The digs,” said Melissa, smiling.

  “Yes.” He smiled, too.

  “You’re English, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I live in Greece at present. It feels quite comfortable—I was born there—and it’s where I shall return in August. You of course are American. For how long are you traveling?”

  “Only three weeks.”

  “Alone?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “I am surprised. Do you find it lonely?”

  Melissa hesitated, then firmly turned her back on yesterday. She said instead, shyly, “Of course I’m only two days off the ship but I was just thinking as I boarded the bus how free I feel quite suddenly. Free to go exactly where I choose to go and not where someone else wants me to go. To please them.” It was a declaration of independence hurled at the world, it was an acknowledgment of her realization that she need no longer perpetuate the child image that Charles had insisted upon until its weight nearly destroyed her.

  He had finished his cigarette; he brought out another and this time she accepted one. “But don’t you,” he said thoughtfully, “don’t you at times miss there being someone with whom to share the beautiful moments?”

  She gave him a startled glance. She had lived so long among people who could not feel life that his words caught her unaware. Beauty was a word very private to her, its meaning something she was accustomed to containing within herself; yet this man brought out the word as he might draw a pebble from his pocket to finger, to reflect upon and acknowledge. “Yes, that can be true,” she said very softly. “I’ve felt that.” She realized she was almost whispering.

  “There was a moment in Hong Kong that literally took my breath away,” he said. “A sunset impossible to describe without leaning on clichés. I don’t carry a camera—”

  “Nor do I,” she said with surprise. “It seemed more important to see if I could carry away all of this inside of me—”

  He turned and looked at her with pleasure. “But exactly! That was precisely my feeling, too.”

  The tour guide continued to smile and explain to them what they were seeing of Copenhagen but neither the man nor Melissa were listening; they were making discoveries of their own. She liked him, she could talk to him, and conversation flowed between them with ease. Vividly Melissa recalled the dozens of people with whom she had made arduous conversation since her trip began, she remembered the underlying sense of loneliness, of frustration and confinement that she had felt in talking with them. It was missing now. Why, wondered Melissa; what different, more magical ingredients were brought to this conversation? There were truly no similarities between them in either background or experience, it had to be a thing of the spirit, it was the only explanation she could find.

  He said suddenly, “You know, before this tour I bought a ticket to the evening’s performance at Tivoli Garden, which happens to be a singer of whom I’m quite fond. I’m sure I can exchange my single for two if you’d care to join me.”

  “But I’d enjoy that very much,” she told him honestly.

  “Good!”

  Where had her shyness gone? She was accustomed to feeling it hug her like a cloak and instead she felt light, buoyant, free. Only an hour ago she had decided that she could manage life alone and presto! this man had appeared out of nowhere. Perhaps renunciation was the magic formula, she thought with a faint smile; and woven into this thought like a glittering thread was the supposition that a man who traveled for six months alone could surely not be married. Was this to be her reward at last for the suffering of the past months, and for this heroic attempt to fight her way back to life?

  * * *

  —

  When the bus returned to the Raadhuspladsen, where the tour had begun, they had just reached the subject of psychiatry: Melissa had quoted something of Dr. Szym’s and had identified him as her psychiatrist; it was the first reference to any personal life that had entered their conversation. Helping her descend from the bus he said, “We don’t have many psychiatrists in Greece, you know. It’s quite a different world there. It interests me, your having visited one. I hope you’ll tell me about it.” They paused on the sidewalk. “You said you’d like to change before we dine. In which direction is your hotel?”

  Indeed, Melissa had announced, with an assertiveness quite new to her, that she would like to change before dinner. “Up that street,” she said, and leaning over his map she punctured with a fingernail the location of her hotel.

  “But that’s very near mine,” he said. “We can take this tram that’s coming.”

  Tram—she enjoyed the phrases he used which emphasized his accent. He grasped her hand and they raced toward the trolley to climb aboard. As she sat down, Melissa considered the direction in which their conversation was heading: she looked ahead to the barrier called Sunnybrook and considered it judiciously. It had been all very well to hurl it like an epithet at Mrs. Comfort but this man was not Mrs. Comfort and she did not want either to alarm or bore him. If Sunnybrook had ended six months ago she would leave it there, rooted in the past.

  “What took you to a psychiatrist?” he was asking, with no alarm at all.

  “Depression,” she told him. “I grew very depressed over a period of two years.”

  “Interesting. I assume you mean something far deeper than the depressions we all feel now and then.”

  “Oh yes. I looked the word up in the dictionary once,” she confided. “I was surprised to find that it means to degrade or to pull down. It fe
lt just like that: a terrible weight.”

  “But what caused it?”

  She laughed at him. “You ask—just like that—when it’s taken a year of visits and hundreds of dollars to find out. But in capsule form it came from a fear of being myself, and therefore from too many wrong turnings in my life.”

  “To thine own self you weren’t true,” he said.

  “Exactly.” As they jumped off the tram she thought how quick he was at grasping concepts and she told him so. “Has traveling alone for six months sharpened your perceptions or are you always this way?”

  He said seriously, “Actually I haven’t been alone for the entire six months, my wife traveled with me for the first five weeks and then returned to Greece.”

  His wife…Not by a flicker of an eyelash did she show her terrible disappointment, her reaction to this shattering interruption of a dream. Was nothing to be as she hoped, she wondered; was reality nothing but adjustment to one disillusionment after another? For just one second she allowed bitterness to enter, noted cynically the calculated timing of this man’s announcement, when she was already committed to an evening with him; and then, recovering, acknowledged the fact that he need not have mentioned a wife at all. But was there to be no one at all to rescue her from her aloneness? A wave of anger passed over her, directed entirely at Charles, her husband, for inadvertently thrusting her into this harsh, cold world that had not, after all, been waiting for her to wake up, nor was standing by now to reward her for her awakening.