In early June 1922 three days following commencement Henry Dorn had a quiet dinner alone with Doyle and Mary Franks and spent the night with them. The campus house had been emptied of his belongings which were in storage in the Franks’s attic. All he was responsible for now were the pair of cumbersome steamer trunks. Early next morning Doyle accompanied him to the station where he boarded a train for New York. If their parting was subdued it was merely an extension of the mood over and within Henry and so therefore his friends and the academic community the past few weeks.
The worst moment had not been the anniversary of the deaths, which was a peculiarly quiet afternoon of gentle spring rain, the day so long anticipated that its arrival brought no sudden thrust of grief but rather was almost consolation—in that year he’d passed all number of possible anniversaries that were unmarked and this was another he was helpless against, and the world went on raining—but had come unexpectedly just days before commencement when he was clearing what effects remained of his office, moving a last few volumes from a shelf to a cardboard carton when of a sudden he paused and turned, went to the open window and leaned there, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, his hands on the burnished oak sill as he looked out over the leafing campus, a version of a view that had been his for many years, as a dull bubbled panic rose and clutched within his chest. Below in the mild afternoon as always students in pairs or small groups, some hurrying alone, crossed from the library outward toward the other buildings and those same buildings seemed some way blurred, as if he couldn’t quite bring focus upon them and he realized this was a manifestation of the dullness within him throughout this last year, the sense of the automaton, the layers of words issuing from his throat as he tapped his pointer along the chalkboard or red-penciled papers or sat through individual conferences, a dullness so complete that once, over a small dinner gathering Emery Westmore had seemingly abruptly asked if he was all right and Henry had paused, looking at him a long moment before replying that he was fine. But now this afternoon what he’d been both denying and awaiting came together and the slender pile of his life came down upon him. As he realized the memory he was fast becoming was merely a larger extension of the memory of himself that went out every year, locked within those young women who had endured and acknowledged and, no doubt, some few admired, but nevertheless he was little more than that for most—a memory. Perhaps at least an induction for some into a life enriched by their understanding that language and the constructions made from language were the underpinnings of all human endeavor, be it fine or folly, but in brute honesty, for most he was already a vapor, a recession within those lives. And now, so shortly, he would become memory to all this, and this life also would become remembrance to him. The bulwark of a life. And even as he leaned thus his vision cleared and he could smell, as the year before, the freshly mown new grass and the maudlin shroud lifted. Or at least parted. He could see his way out.
Ten days later he disembarked at Penn Station and porter and trunks in tow hailed a cab and set off for the pier and the Veendam II. Which was to sail from New York harbor that night for Rotterdam. He’d booked passage first class the summer before after a week of misgiving—there was a difference between comfort and opulence and never in his life had he confused the two, never lusted after the frivolous. But it had been this very thing that sparked the decision—if he was to do something momentous once again in his life then let it be at an appropriate level of comfort. Once he’d wired the money for the ticket he woke and realized his justifications were merely old habit—the boat crossing offered what he had never once had—the anonymity of bearing—all else would be mystery to his fellow passengers. If there was vanity in this he decided it was a thimbleful. He had no intention of passing himself off as anything other than what he was. And finally there was enough of Nova Scotia left within him to recognize that this gesture of decadence was not the beginning of some irresponsible draining of funds but only a once-in-a-life experience, a journey of dreams.
Nevertheless his stateroom was near overwhelming and once his trunks were delivered he fled it for the upper promenade and stood there, in a light tweed against the water breeze as the liner was moved down the harbor at dusk, the array of lights of the city spreading on all sides and the heaving island of Manhattan was reduced to the columns of buildings against a blue twilight sky and ever so slowly they made their way out of the harbor, passing Lady Liberty and he gazed upon her and then back at the land now a glow of lights and recalled that for upwards of one hundred and fifty years his people had made their homes here, had in fact owned much of what he could see although even if he’d known the precise tracts he could not point them out. It did not matter. That ancestor, Abraham van Doorn who fled the fledged experiment for the brutal safety of British Canada, had, like most men in most times made the best guess he could and acted upon it. Henry doubted this migration had less to do with the new ideas and ideals of the American experiment than it did with the now unknown losses he might have undergone through the Revolution, or, conversely or in concordance, the gains offered by the Crown. In any event, Henry thought, the Lady growing smaller and the land now a mere smudge of light in the sky, it was not possible to say the man had made a mistake. The generations evolve from such actions but that does not mean there is a right or wrong to be guessed or arrived at. If that long-ago Abraham had not made his choice, would there even be this man leaning against the rail as the liner came churning smoothly onto the open ocean and the tugs peeled away and retreated back into the night? Was he inevitable or simply the end result of this man meeting this woman and procreating and thus on downward through the years? As well ask if accident is design or design, accident. And to what difference? Our fathers who art in heaven might know. But do the dead care?
He was the last to know. He was also the last to leave the deck and retreat, not as others did down the long broad stairs that opened at the bottom like a fan, flanked by huge potted palms and the dining room but back to his stateroom. He was not hungry. He was in a curious state. He might as well have been that seventeen year-old boy going south all those years ago. Leaving behind all he knew.
A short time passed. Perhaps an hour. There was a knock at his door. When he opened it there was a steward in immaculate whites, holding at shoulder height a large oval tray. Henry surveyed the man and waited. The steward was not put off by this silence but spoke.
“I beg pardon, sir. The Captain couldn’t help but notice you did not attend dinner this evening. And while you may ring at any time for whatever you might like, he thought perhaps you would require refreshment. May I?”
Henry was embarrassed he had kept this man with his burden standing and so stepped aside and said, “Why thank you. And the Captain as well. I forgot dinner altogether with the excitement of departure.”
The steward entered and set the tray on the table, the three serving platters all covered with domed lids. At one end of the tray was a bottle of champagne, in ice but uncorked. The steward ran his hand in the air over the bottle and said, “It’s pre-war Clicquot. A lovely vintage and we’re in international waters. There is no prohibition here. Please, sir, enjoy yourself. And if I may, my experience is that passengers who eat the first day are less likely to suffer if we should encounter rougher waters later in the crossing.”
Henry said, “I’ve sailed in smaller ships in far worse conditions than we’ll encounter on this island of steel and turbines. But thank you.” And began to dig into his pocket but the steward had bowed his head to reveal a finely greased part in his hair and a small thinning spot on the top of his head and then retreated through the door. Leaving Henry with a frayed dollar in his hand and a sense that he already was in debt to the man.
He ate the oysters on the half-shell and the lobster in cream sauce over rice and fine flaked rolls. The champagne was superb.
In his pajamas he stood a final time before his porthole, more truly a window, and gazed upon the water. Silver tipped as far as he could see. Then pulled the soft heavy cloth over the window and felt his way in the dark and lay upon the bed. He was exhausted. On the bed it seemed to him that he could feel not only the faint thrum of the engines but beneath that also the depths and wild currents, the brutal unforgiving discriminating ocean beneath. It was everything he wanted.
In the morning the dining room was little more than an oversized version of the better hotel dining rooms he’d been in and out of over his years of academic travel. But the soft boiled egg was hot and perfect and the toast was hot and perfect. Then he toured the promenade of outer decks, passing people stretched in wicker lounges tucked with light blankets against the sea breeze and a group of women performing calisthenics and a net-enclosed tennis court and beyond that the swimming pool, all these things promised in the promotional materials he’d received the summer before but now, once faced with them, striking him as mildly improbable. They were at sea for God’s sake. But then, what would these landlocked people expect to do for the days of crossing? He went as far forward as possible and stood gazing out at the ocean. This boat held no resemblance to those he had known in his youth—those were working boats, all of a piece with the ocean, sometimes too much so. But this was merely a behemoth of comfort designed to convey people from land to land with a minimum of understanding that they were even at sea. Except for the water stretching in a vast circle that seemed at the horizon to actually dip downward. And the high fleets of clouds. The water below was nearly abstract—the tips of waves soundless white feathers. He turned his back on the sea and faced again the humanity of the ship. For that, he realized, was what it was. Barring disaster this vessel was merely a slow moving bridge. The small ships and fishing boats of his youth were bicycles on a cowpath compared to this locomotive on near silent tracks.
Although there was no mistaking the salt-density of the air, the wind ruffling and thickening his hair as he stood. With a rueful smile he reminded himself he had made this choice. He had not, for instance, taken passage on a tramp steamer, as Robert had done off for the war. For a moment he wondered why not. But that was the feat of an eighteen-year old. He was, he had to admit, where he was supposed to be.
A woman in the tight knee-length and sleeveless calisthenics outfit suddenly came upon him, loping in a steady slapping of bare feet. She was beaded with perspiration and her short almost-copper hair was at angle from her head, pushed from her eyes back as he watched. She glanced at him as she passed but the glance was empty as if she were looking toward some far distance greater even than the horizon. He leaned against a lifeboat up on its trucks and pulleys and watched her go. The suit fit snugly and her body was clear to him as she went away. He felt his mouth tug down. The girls at Elmira were required to wear skirted athletic outfits. And then he held paired thoughts—he was not responsible for anyone anymore and, more clearly, intriguingly, how had he missed the very simple and obvious equation that if women were to be truly equal to men, not simply to vote or have education or pursue careers, why did he expect that they would not also embrace the sensual, the beauty of form, the elevation of body as part of those rights? After all, women were made the way they were for reasons. And his ideas, up until that very moment had been cast in the eye of men—that women were to be attractive to attract, that their beauty was primarily for the sake of men, that they should not flaunt or simply enjoy this as a part and measure of their lives. Women, if they ever had been and he knew they had not, had ceased to be the statues of virtue that the men of his generation and the ones before him had cast them to be. It was a bad analogy but one in the circumstance he could not avoid: Men were the great vessels that passed over an ocean as if it were only there to be passed over; women were the scrappy schooners of his childhood, not only down in the trough of the waves but riding up to the tips and sloughing down again. It was a hair’s-breadth of truth and he recognized it as such. Yet truth by a hair is better than layered cushioned falsehoods of comfort.
It was only when his shoulder grew sore from leaning against the chocks of the lifeboat that he realized he was waiting to see if she would pass again.
She did not and it took a prolonged moment to realize how long he had waited to see if she would. When he descended again into the dining room it was near empty and the waiters were cleaning and resetting tables for dinner but he found the steward from the night before and without pretense palmed a bill to him and asked if he might have an apple and a pair of hard rolls for his lunch. The man looked at him and Henry knew the steward was trying to determine if that was what this man before him really wanted or if he should offer late luncheon. Henry said, “I don’t mean to interfere with your duties. But a light lunch has long been a habit of mine.” And so shortly, with apple and rolls wrapped in a linen napkin he retreated to his state-room after a pause to pick up an assortment of New York weeklies. After eating and exhausting most of the meager contents of the papers, he took a long hot bath. For the simple reason that he imagined he was the first Dorn ever to have a hot bath at sea and then rested on his bed. There was an excitement within that he had not truly known since he was a youth. His body was aging, his brain was full of facts, information, ideas, arcane baubles and brilliance, all this overlaid and scored with the experience of living but still there remained a simple truth—his essence might be informed but was not changed.
Also, he could not rid himself of the image of the young woman of the late morning. It was not lurid—she was not a child, not a student, not an innocent off for her tour of Europe. That was clear from the radiation of self-possession that trailed her. Or preceded her. He could not say. Except that he lay on his bed and conjured her over and again. This conjure not erotic and he could not say if this was a function purely of his own mind or a portion of her radiance. As if she dared him reduce her so.
Open ocean in June the afternoon went on forever. At his usual dinner hour he rose and washed and dressed carefully, made three very slow measured revolutions of the promenade and went down to dinner.
He requested and was seated at a small table well off to the side, declining an invitation to dine at the captain’s table—a vast slab on a dais surrounded by several other solitaires as well as couples in evening wear and the captain in a brilliant uniform, the table heavy with crystal and floral arrangements and altogether too much forced cheer— Henry had been at too many of those tables, regardless of the circumstances, to voluntarily place himself there. He had grown used to eating alone.
He was waiting his soup when he looked sideways and saw her escorted by the steward across the room, her own face turned in profile as she spoke with the steward and then not so much as if she felt his eyes but as if she had been directed toward him all along turned her head just enough to meet his modest gaze. Henry made a slight nod and looked down to his table, moving a bread plate a quarter inch. All the while aware of her progress. There were three other tables for two lined under the same archway as his own. A waiter slipped in from behind and placed the soup before him. A tomato bisque. A favorite food and this version pretty to look at with strands of shredded basil in the center of the bowl.
He reached for his soup spoon and stopped. She had also stopped, unmoving, a dozen feet from his table. The steward escorting her for a moment seemed to be in the process of catching up. She was looking directly at Henry. Now he returned her gaze.
She was in a black sheath dress with bare arms, a lace white shawl providing sufficient decorum. The dress seemed to square her upper body but as it fell became overwhelmingly feminine with the low waist that then radiated in simple pleats to her knees. There was certainly nothing staid about this dress and yet it was purely elegant, lacking the popular overt sexuality of the outfits many young women recently favored. Although even as he took it in he understood perhaps it was less the dress that stated this than the woman wearing it.
She turned and spoke to the steward and, alone, came to his table.
“Good evening,” he stood, his tone carefully neutral, not inviting but pleasant.
“You’re the man beside the lifeboat earlier.” Then having delicately and deftly pinpointed her awareness of his watching her she went on. “I’m Lydia Pearce. And despite how it might appear not forward and also not as young as you might think. And in a minute I’m going to be sitting one table away from you where we can both eat our dinners in peace and quiet. Which is preferable to being in a party of baboons but lacks the pleasantry of company and conversation, which, at least to my mind, enhances any meal. Except breakfast which I always eat alone—”
Almost a puppet of manners he said, “I’m Henry Dorn. And I might be rusty but some pleasantry over dinner would be welcome.”
And like a man she held out her hand and said “I’m pleased to meet you Henry Dorn.”
But when he did reach and take her hand it was nothing like shaking hands with a man and the thoughts twinned I’ve not been touched like this in longer than I can remember and Be wary. He said, “Let’s try it, shall we?”
And started around the table to seat her even as the steward did the same but she only pulled out her chair and sat and looked up at both with a crinkle of amusement as if to ask what these two men were doing colliding around her. She looked at the steward and said, “Please, Perrier Brut and oysters.” She glanced at Henry and then back. “A dozen please. With horseradish.”
Then they were alone. She was looking directly at him. His hands were in his lap, folding gently into his napkin. Then she laughed and said, “Please. Eat your soup. Cold soup is dreadful. Although you’d probably enjoy sharing the oysters more. Do you like oysters?”
“I do,” he said.
“Leave the soup then,” she said. “Oysters should be eaten only with champagne.”
He cocked his head but only smiled.
“Now,” she went on. “Let me see. You’re married but traveling alone. Your shirt isn’t stuffed but you have a certain bearing about you. Certainly not in business. But this is your first trip abroad and for some reason you’re not quite sure what exactly it is you’re up to. How’m I doing?”
“My wife died a little more than a year ago.”
Her eyes flicked down, then up again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not for you to be sorry about. I still wear the ring for reasons both private and obvious. I’m a retired professor of English and making a foolhardy trip to Holland where my ancestors came from three hundred years ago.”
She said, “You know what I hate, Henry Dorn?”
“What’s that?”
“Obfuscation.”
He tipped his head in agreement. And then said, “But isn’t that how we all try ourselves out with strangers? To see how much we should reveal and how much to withhold?”
“That’s the convention. But to what purpose? To save ourselves? And from what?”
“Well,” he said. “Sometimes a potential disaster. Or embarrassment. For instance, you already know a good deal more of me than I do of you.”
“Perhaps.” She lifted her eyebrows and smiled. “But we do have to start somewhere, don’t we? Look, here’s the food.”
The soup was removed. The platter of oysters resting on their shells suddenly made the table very small. The glasses were filled and then Lydia Pearce turned her face up to the waiter and rattled out a lengthy listing in French which Henry was only in part able to follow and then she turned back to him and said, “I ordered for both of us. Does that offend you?”
“Of course,” he said.
She smiled and said, “Remind me to ask you again when we’re done.” She took up an oyster and sucked it from the shell, her tongue a quick pink scoop. All the while with her eyes on him. Such eyes he thought. So full of laughter and enjoyment, pure pleasure at what she was doing. But within her laughter a quality otherwise—she was not laughing at him, nor at herself for imposing upon him and winning that imposition but most clearly laughter just that—a delight of life as if everything around her was arrayed for her pleasure and yet he sensed in other circumstances her displeasure could be acute. He thought. And thought then of Olivia and what she would have made of all this—the woman, the food, the wine and sadly how he wished she were here. And drank again from the flute and ate another oyster. And looked at the young woman who it seemed now had been seeking him and said, “So, Lydia Pearce. Who are you?”
She was busy with the oysters. She looked up at him and said, “Company over dinner, Henry Dorn.” Then, knowing this was near abrupt she did not retreat, and he supposed she never had nor would, but reached swiftly and covered a hand with one of hers and said, “Perhaps that’s a story for later. Or not. It’s fair to say I’m more than most men ascribe to me and less than others do. And that’s enough for now.” She took her hand away, reaching for another oyster and between touching the oyster shell and raising it, flared a smile that was not intended to flatter or tease but a gesture of friendship, even comradely concern.
The food began to arrive, in multiples of small servings, not much more than mouthfuls. Lobes of foie gras seared in butter, sweetbreads with morels, quail in a nest of puff pastry, miniature ham and asparagus tarts and finally crème brulee, each with time between to sip their filled wine glasses and chat, which they did.
“What a wonderful way to eat.”
“You’ve never had French food?”
“No. Yes, I mean. But never like this. The portions ...”
“Are you one of those men who needs a great slab of meat bleeding off the sides of your plate?”
He smiled. “I’m capable of it. But no, this is delightful.”
“I’ll tell you a secret.” She smiled back and leaned forward, her wineglass extended up between them. “I can eat like a horse, myself. And sometimes do. I love nothing more than to consume an entire rack of lamb. When the occasion calls for that. But this, this is just what I wanted, tonight. Lots of bits of delicious things. I’m full of energy tonight. What about you?”
He studied her a moment and then said, “Did you have something in mind?”
She pulled back. Then she said, “I always have plans. Even if I’m making them up as I go along. At the moment I’m thinking of a long stroll about the promenade.”
“Would you care for company?”
“I’d be delighted. But I don’t care for that glassed-in section that keeps you from the sun and breeze.”
He arched his eyebrows. “That’s for the old people. I prefer the forecastle deck myself.”
She studied him again, her dark eyes sparkling. He thought, My God, who is this? She said, “Why don’t we meet there in ten minutes?”
Old people indeed, he thought. He smiled again and said, “By the lifeboats?”
Later, on the deck, strolling with the other after-dinner walkers, the sun huge, hovering, not moving, spilling the waters surrounding the boat with gold. The liner was suddenly small. The sun sank a little, sucking into itself, growing a muted scarlet. The air changed, not cooling but thickening.
And so it began.