Uncertain Voyage Page 8

  She reached her hotel and then her room and locked the door behind her. And now—now, too late!—the words she had buried came back to her with blinding clarity. “Why me?” She had asked Stearns, and he had replied, “Because I begin to suspect that I may not get through to Majorca.”

  And then, urgently, “There may be others after this; if they put two and two together, if they know for instance that you also go to Majorca, and that we sat at the same table…”

  “Others…oh God,” she thought, and caught in her breath sharply, feeling her body writhe as if even physically she had to retreat from the implication of those words. But when she had been with Adam those very same words, remotely recalled, had appeared laughable: how was this possible? Now they assumed frightening authority in this lonely hotel room because she was alone again, as she had been alone when she met Stearns. And now Stearns was dead—murdered—and she had just seen The Pale One again. It was like a nightmare. Life was moving too quickly for her; she felt like a figure strapped to a chair in front of a moving picture screen and forced to endure the accelerated images of nightmare events that one after another rushed at her from the screen. She must get out of Copenhagen.

  She went to the window and looked out but there was no one standing below watching, as they did in the movies. She sat down on the bed and put her head into her hands, wishing she was not such a hollow of innocence, wishing she had solidity inside and wasn’t so unlived, so unsure. There must be people who could say of her encounter with Stearns “Yes, you should be frightened,” or “No, you are imagining too much,” but she couldn’t evaluate it, it was all too difficult to grasp when so many of her small terrors were projections of her fear of aloneness.

  Suddenly nothing felt real, not even the bed upon which she sat, and she lifted her head because if nothing was feeling real then it meant that she was losing touch again. “Dr. Szym, where are you,” she whispered despairingly, or did she mean God, or were they intermingled now, these two symbolic Caring Ones, except neither of them was real because they were not here, and if they weren’t here then they didn’t care, either.

  It was going to be a very bad attack, she realized, gritting her teeth: everything slippery, sliding around, coated with glass, untouchable, unfeelable, unpossessable, unreal.

  If there were just one person—one person—to whom she could turn—

  There wasn’t. There never would be. She began to pace the floor and then she sat down and gripped the arms of the chair, forcing herself to unclench the muscles of her knotted stomach, and to expand her lungs with deep slow breaths. Slowly, softly, she literally drew together the pieces of her torn self until presently the intolerable became almost endurable. After this she cried and knew the luxury of feeling again, and then came anger—the blessed healing catharsis of anger—and she became a person again.

  7

  The plane waited on the field like a small silver bird. Staring at it Melissa thought with dismay, “This is what will lift me from Copenhagen to Paris?” and she regarded it with fascinated revulsion, knowing that she had to deliver herself to it with no trust at all. She felt already diminished by the loss of her suitcase. They had taken it from her inside the terminal, given it a small numbered tag and dropped it at the lip of a dark chute that had instantly carried it away, surely never to be seen again. How could she possibly trust a numbered paper tag to carry her belongings from Copenhagen to Paris when the world was so huge, and how could she trust this plane to carry her safely to Paris when it was so small? She had never before realized the extent of trust needed for traveling. As she mounted the steps to the plane, she resigned herself to both the loss of her suitcase and her life, and of the two she felt the more peevishly involved with the suitcase, which had been taken from her, for in such moments of anxiety the symbol became more real than the actual.

  “I will be strong for Adam,” she thought, forgetting that it was for herself that she had to be strong, and then to comfort herself: “If this plane takes me away from Adam at least it also removes me from The Pale One.”

  She sat down in her seat over the wing, and presently stood up to allow a slender blond boy to take the seat beside her. When each of them began at the same time to read the instructions for emergency landings, and then to examine seat belts, Melissa said with a faint smile, “Your first trip by air?”

  He looked at her and grinned. “Yes. It is perhaps yours, too?” He spoke in careful schoolboy English.

  She nodded. “Yes. We will suffer together then.”

  He was from a small town in Denmark, he said, and he was going out of his country for the first time, to Paris to join a film company in which his cousin had a position. “He has got for me a small acting part.”

  She nodded, seeing what appeal he would have. He was very attractive, very innocent and guileless and young. “Perhaps you will become a star,” she suggested.

  His smile shared with her the absurdity of such a pretentious thought yet implied dreams already dreamed of such a hope. “It would be—like a fairy tale, no?” he said softly.

  “Very definitely.”

  “And you—you are an American?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps I get to America, too,” he said, smiling shyly, warmly.

  She felt better for the young man’s presence, it made all the difference to her between panic and calm. Why was it, she wondered, that with people she could be so friendly; shy of course and yet, once welcomed, so infinitely compassionate and whole; did she draw nourishment from them?

  “Yes—like a parasite,” she reminded herself bitterly, for it was reassurance they gave her, the reassurance that she existed. With apologies to Descartes they saw her, therefore she was, but when they left they took her with them, leaving only a shell behind. Yet she remembered that on a few occasions she had experienced wholeness when she was alone: it had happened very briefly at times during therapy, when something inside of her had knitted together, all tension had fled, and she had experienced a deep tranquillity; and one night on the ship, in the midst of terror at disembarking, there had come the sensation of a hand placed gently upon her heart, soothing her, and she had lain in her berth and reflected quietly upon all the people she had ever known and they had felt very real and close to her, a part of her for always. But then they had gone away, leaving her empty and alone again. Had they been real, did they still exist somewhere? It was so difficult to know if one was uncertain of one’s own existence….

  A voice came over the loudspeaker and Melissa felt the boy stiffen beside her. They listened together as the pilot introduced himself, described their route and cheerfully asked them to fasten their seat belts. The plane began to move. It taxied down the long runway and came to a stop. Melissa waited, a dreadful excitement gripping her. She started to say, “I think perhaps now—” and then the plane seemed to pull itself together, it moved with purpose, like a rubber band released from a sling. Feeling both frightened and exhilarated Melissa looked beyond the window, saw the runway blur, heard a strident, deafening, whistling noise, and then the ground began to fall away from them. As they climbed higher she turned to look at the boy and they exchanged embarrassed, optimistic, congratulatory smiles. “I think we’re up,” she said.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  They were indeed up, the plane banking for its sweep over Copenhagen, and as Melissa leaned with the plane against the blue sky she felt something break with joy inside of her, as if all her fears had been contained in a small compartment which pure sensation had shattered. “But it is a beautiful thing to fly,” she thought in astonishment and at this moment of release, this sensation of purest freedom, she looked down upon her life and could not understand why she had made of it such a stunted, haunted affair. She saw life to be as limitless as the sky, a tapestry into which brilliantly colored possibilities could be woven into patterns of grandeur. She felt dimensions of her mind
dissolve, open up, slip aside so that she was able to look back upon Adam with joy and gratitude and for the first time to move her thoughts toward the future and meet with no dreads. She was capable of feeling the future, the excitement of its possibilities, and the splendor of its choices. It was for this then that she had been freed: this joy of life, this exaltation; it was this that had been confined during all those years of burial until decay hurled her back to life. Words came to her from Millay’s Renascence: “the world stands out on either side no wider than the heart is wide, Above the world is stretched the sky, no higher than the soul is high.” Her soul felt very high, her heart very wide, she felt near to bursting in this moment and scarcely able to contain the beauty of the world.

  Tenderly she brought out her sketchbook and pen, and for the sheer joy of it interrupted the stillness of a white page with slashing lines of ink. Another, and then another: colors spun through her head dizzily—if only she had canvas and paint! At last, joy settling into contentment, she began to place the profile of the boy on paper: the mop of bright golden hair, the tenderness of his profile, the dreams in his eyes.

  “But you are an artist,” he said, turning to watch.

  “Yes,” she agreed blissfully.

  “We are both artists then.”

  “Yes.” She said it flatly, without equivocation.

  He said solemnly, “I intend to be a very good actor.”

  She paused and looked at him, nodding. “And I am going to be a very good painter.”

  He smiled and they both broke into delighted laughter, two children sharing in blood-oaths, and tearing the inkedin portrait from her notebook she thrust it at him. “From a very great painter to a very great actor,” she told him. “In memory of our first plane ride.”

  * * *

  —

  Melissa and the boy parted at Le Bourget, formally shaking hands at the passport counter and wishing each other well. Later, following him toward the gates, she saw him warmly embraced by two men as bright-headed and Scandinavian as he, and she slowed her pace to watch, admiring the family scene. But when her gaze moved past and beyond them she caught in her breath sharply and froze. She thought for an instant that she had seen The Pale One hurrying through the doors but that was impossible, her imagination was playing tricks on her for The Pale One had been firmly left behind in Copenhagen. How could he be here—indeed how could he?—when he had certainly not been on the plane with her and could not know her destination even if he had been aware of her departure. Was she going to imagine him everywhere, she wondered?

  She resumed walking, humorously resigned to the fact that every small man with glasses and a pale face would for a time remind her of her Copenhagen phantom. Feeling lighthearted again, she walked out of the building and climbed into the bus that would take her to the heart of the city.

  She had reached Paris, and in her very survival there was surprise and joy.

  At Air Invalides she converted Danish money into French, and went by taxi to her hotel, a small, family-run affair on the Left Bank, chosen by her long ago for some reason already forgotten—doubtless as another exercise in self-sufficiency, she thought now, wryly. Entering its doors she was disheartened by its smallness, however; she saw at once that it lacked a dining room to which she could repair when she tired of ordering omelet, the sitting room was prim and small, there was almost no lobby and the elevator was no larger than a closet.

  “Ah—oui, Madame Aubrey,” murmured the young man behind the desk, and going to a door he whistled for the old man who toiled up the stairs from the cellar to grasp Melissa’s suitcase and key. She was placed in the narrow wire lift while the man climbed the two flights to her floor—she could see the top of his head as she was carried up with infinite slowness. They met again in a long, dark corridor. “Ze lavatory,” he said in difficult English, pointing up the hall. “If you want ze bath you question at ze desk.” He unlocked the door and swung it wide for her, placing her suitcase just inside before he went away, closing the door behind him.

  Another city, another hotel room…This room was so small it had been impossible to give it style and none had been attempted. Along the left wall stood a large old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe, a small writing table, and a sink. The opposite wall was filled by her couch. Melissa took a few steps into the room and stopped. She knew this feeling, this sudden, curious sense of lostness, this sadness. “We are becoming friends, this feeling and I,” she thought with a smile, but it was different now—all of her life was going to be different now—because she carried Adam with her. There could be no panic here.

  “You must be someone very special,” he had said.

  “With you I know I have come nearer to loving than with any woman in my life,” he had said.

  Adam was proof to her that the unknown lying just around the corner could be beautiful as well as frightening. Adam was proof to her that she could be free inside, as she had been free on the plane over Copenhagen when her heart stretched beyond all boundaries.

  “I will attack Paris with zest,” she thought, and decided to go out very quickly, before the sadness of their parting returned and before this strange and empty room came to feel more safe to her than what lay outside. She must do a very good job with Paris…as Adam would do.

  * * *

  —

  Only a block away lay the Seine, and across its splintered brightness she could see the towers of Notre Dame. She began to walk along the quay, map in hand, realizing that Paris contained more light and sky and water than she had ever imagined. Yet its people looked more strange and foreign to her than any that she had seen so far, even in Denmark: they seemed to her a race apart, like Martians. This was the Left Bank, and she saw brutal, sensuous faces, remote eyes, men with beards, mustaches, turtlenecks, jeans, string ties, boots, sandals; she saw women with shorn hair, hair to their waists, slacks, pullovers, high cheekbones, white lips, pink lips, purple lips. She reached a boulevard and when she passed a restaurant—it was already half-past six—she threaded her way among its outdoor tables and entered the dim interior. Parisians would dine at eight, she supposed, but she was hungry. “Diner?” she confidently inquired of the man behind the bar.

  “Oui,” he said, smiling, and with a nod rang a bell.

  From the rear issued a man with a small Chaplinesque mustache across his upper lip and a white napkin folded over one arm. He bowed and escorted her into a dining room empty of all but white-clad tables. Handing her a menu he spoke rapidly in French.

  Melissa looked up at him. She could reply only in pantomine, understanding nothing, and she lifted her arms and shoulders in an exaggerated and helpless shrug. A twinkle appeared in the man’s eyes. He replied by stepping back and throwing up his hands in mock horror, his face utterly deadpan, his eyes amused and twinkling—and going to the rear he returned with an English menu, depositing it before her with a bow.

  Melissa sipped her vermouth feeling like a queen reigning over an empty kingdom while her waiter—prim again—stood in the rear with napkin over his arm. But the moment that she put down her glass he was at her side and with grave humor they tackled the next course. “Onion soup,” she decided, pointing to the French translation beside the English.

  “Mmmm—oui,” he cried in congratulatory delight and presently from the cellar—still with the napkin over his arm—he brought a tray. It was taken to the rear, plates wiped and polished with his napkin, and then the steaming cauldron was brought to her table. With a marvelous flourish that would have leveled any passerby, he deposited plates before her and filled one with soup, standing by to await her reaction.

  She did not disappoint him. “Oui—mmm,” she said, grinning at him.

  He bowed solemnly, eyes twinkling back at her.

  Steadily, course by course, they moved through the menu until at last Melissa put down her coffee cup and dredged up a long-forgotten word from old French
movies. She said to him, “Enchantée!”

  He did not smile—she had not yet seen him smile—but his eyes spoke for him, brimming with delight as he bowed. Something had been created, she thought as she left, still smiling; a moment, a mood, a joy. This man had proven to her that Paris was manageable and might even be a delight, and she was grateful. Feeling luxuriously filled with both food and confidence she walked into her hotel and paused at the desk for her key. This evening the attendant was a handsome Frenchwoman whose English was very good. Handing over the key she said, “I am sorry, Madame Aubrey, there was a letter waiting for you this afternoon that my brother did not give you.”

  Melissa laughed. “No, no, you must be mistaken, no one knows where—”

  But the woman did not respond. “It is there, behind you in the letterboxes. There, you see? Your room number is fourteen, do you see box fourteen?” She was leaning across the desk to point with a pencil, determined to see the letter delivered and her responsibility discharged.

  There was indeed a white envelope in box fourteen. Melissa thought suddenly, hopefully, Adam? Adam had once asked where she was to stay in Paris, but hearing the name of the hotel he had shaken his head, saying it was not a name that he knew. Was it possible that he had memorized the name and written to her? Removing the letter from the box she looked at it. It was indeed for Mrs. Melissa Aubrey but her heart sank for it had arrived airmail from America. Printed in the top left-hand corner were the words Carmichael Travel Agency, Bruxton, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

  Her travel agents…the people who had made out her itinerary for her, and the only people who would know where she was each day of her trip. With a sigh she slit the envelope and scanned the contents of the brief typewritten letter.

  June 30th

  Dear Mrs. Aubrey,

  Your cablegram startled us this afternoon. Having only an hour ago cabled your lost itinerary to you, it occurs to me now that you really should have other copies in case such an accident happens to you again. I am therefore enclosing two typed copies, and speeding them airmail toward your Paris hotel. I suggest that you carry one in your purse and one in your suitcase. Better luck this time.