An excerpt from a novel-in-progress by James Tucker ’92
Chapter 1
June 1939
He’d noticed the wealthy men gazing at Laura Powell as she sang in the ship’s lounge. They probably imagined kissing her small nose that turned up slightly at the tip, or touching her slender figure that showed off her black dress with its sheer sleeves. To them she must have seemed flawless. But they didn’t know her as he did.
Her audience tonight had seen only surfaces: the shoulder-length blond hair that brushed the right side of her face as her voice held them in a kind of trance. They couldn’t guess that although he and Laura were clearly together, her father — who was also his employer — had forbidden any physical contact.
But that was all right. He hated her, and he was certain that she despised him.
I’m not going to sit here like a worshiper, he’d thought as he left their table in the lounge. She doesn’t deserve it.
Out on the promenade deck he lit a cigarette. The air in the middle of the Atlantic was filled with salt. Even in summer the night was brisk as frigid spray came over the side. He looked out and saw a yellow disc on the swells that was different from the moon’s pale shimmer. Perhaps another ship, or worse: a U-boat, one of Germany’s deadly submarines. He repressed his fear. No U-boat had attacked a passenger ship — not yet. A moment later the light flickered and disappeared, and he imagined a submarine plowing through the deep, below the le de France which was carrying them to Le Havre. He gripped the railing and readied himself for impact.
But the ship continued forward, unhindered. He shook his head.
You shouldn’t worry, he told himself. There won’t be another war. Everyone remembers the last one all too well.
Park 1 (2013).
To his left, a diminutive man approached. As the figure drew close he saw it was a boy, of perhaps eleven or twelve, dressed in a suit much too large for him. In the lights over the deck he could see the flicker of the metallic pins used to shorten the coat sleeves, the dirty white shirt and maroon tie, the tangled and dusty hair and face dim with grime. The boy’s eyes fastened on Henry’s Cartier tank watch and gold cufflinks shaped like apples.
Golden apples, he thought Tempting for a boy from steerage.
“Hello, Mister,” the boy said in a high clear voice. His accent was unplaceable, neither American nor English, possibly German.
“Good evening,” Henry said.
“Are you from New York, sir?”
“No.”
“But you went to school in New York, or was it Boston?” When Henry shrugged, the boy moved nearer. “Your cufflinks, sir. May I have a look at them?”
Shifting his cigarette to his left hand — to hide his wristwatch — he held up his right sleeve and cuff. The boy peered at the link as if he were a jeweler. Slowly, maybe involuntarily, his small hands reached up toward the golden apple. His index finger stroked it gently, as if it were magic and by touching it his wishes would come true. When at last he withdrew his hand, there were smudges on Henry’s cuff. At this point Henry realized the boy wasn’t from steerage but was a stowaway or had in some manner, short of paying the fare, gotten himself onto the ship.
Henry was about to say goodnight and return to the lounge, when a white-haired man and woman walked out onto the deck. This starchy couple had been at the table next to the one he’d shared with Laura. The man wore a dinner jacket and his wife a simple midnight blue gown, a matching blue jacket, and around her neck, thick silver chains. The jacket was decorated with a dazzling pin in the shape of a dragonfly. Over the past hour this older woman had several times looked at him severely when he laughed too loudly. Now she saw the boy.
“Young man, you don’t belong here, do you?” she said. “Did you climb over the turnstiles?”
Her focus on distinctions angered Henry, for his own origins were modest. He cleared his throat and said, “The boy is with me.”
She glared at him, knew he was lying, but turned away. Her husband said, “You’d better return to the bar. Your wife is becoming friendly with the band.”
Henry smiled to mask his anger. “She isn’t my wife.”
The old woman’s mouth fell open and the gentleman’s eyes narrowed. As if in silent agreement, they turned and hurried away.
“Thank you, Mister,” the boy said.
Henry looked down at him and saw the possibility of revenge. “You’re good with your hands, aren’t you?”
The boy nodded.
“You might have had my cufflinks if I’d been careless.”
“Maybe I still could.”
“Probably not,” Henry said. Of course it was wrong, what he was considering, but he felt hostile toward people like the old woman and Laura, people who’d been given so much money they looked down on those who hadn’t. He asked the boy, “Did you see the handsome pin the old lady was wearing?”
“Oh yes, sir.”
“Do you think it’s valuable?”
“Yes, valuable and rare. It was made in the twenties by Lalique, if I’m not mistaken. My father,” the boy explained, “was a jeweler.”
“I see,” Henry said, not sure if he should believe him. “Perhaps we should have that woman’s pin. If you get it for me, you’ll have five dollars for your effort.”
The boy’s eyebrows went up in dramatic fashion as he appraised Henry for honesty. Then with a slight bow, he left in pursuit of the older couple who’d walked a dozen yards along the teak planks.
Henry took out his platinum cigarette case and moved closer to the railing. He was beginning to be cold, but the stars and moon glowed with an intensity he’d never seen, even in the woods and fields surrounding St. Paul, Minnesota, where he’d been born and had lived except during his years as a scholarship student at Harvard. He felt relieved to be away from home, an ever-present reminder of his parents who, less than a year ago, had been struck by a car in an evening snowstorm. The postman had discovered them the next morning, covered with a blanket of white.
Behind him, a door opened and the sound of Count Basie’s “One O’Clock Jump” drifted out into the cold night air. He was disappointed to catch the scent of Laura’s Chanel perfume.
As Horizon, As Elsewhere 2 (2020).
Chapter 2
“I looked around and you’d disappeared.” Her voice was rich, in the middle range, and she’d cultivated a smoky, almost hoarse tone that belied her youth and impressed those who heard her sing.
He turned toward her. “I needed some air.”
“And I need a cigarette.” In an unnerving and maddening gesture of familiarity, she plucked the cigarette from his fingers and lifted it to her mouth. He watched the orange tip brighten as she inhaled. He wanted to walk away, to tell her that she couldn’t take things from him just because her father employed him and was paying for this tour, but he kept his mouth shut.
She surveyed the empty deck. “Lots going on out here, I see.”
“More than meets the eye,” he replied in a clipped voice.
She gave him the cigarette and watched his lips go where hers had just been. It’s like kissing him, she realized, and rubbed her own mouth as if to remove any trace of his own. He was handsome — she’d admit that to anyone. His brown hair, worn a little too long, his slightly dark complexion and broad shoulders, his flat stomach and almond-colored eyes couldn’t fail to make an impression on a woman. His nose was a bit crooked, the result of a youthful fight, but it kept him from being pretty. He never raised his low voice, and always seemed calm — a trait that made her angry and want to disrupt his peaceful demeanor. God knew she was sore at him. Wasn’t he taking advantage of her father by going on this trip? He didn’t strictly need to go to Europe and didn’t deserve all her father had given him.
He’s a hanger-on, a parasite, and nothing more, she thought, gripping the railing tightly, angrily. And I don’t need a chaperone.
Chaperones, she knew, were for prep school girls and old ladies, not for competent, twenty-three-year-old women such as herself. Part of her even wished that he hadn’t been in the lounge when she’d sung. Whenever her eyes had caught his, she’d felt herself flush, and this effect infuriated her. For a moment she worried: he’d report her singing — a blatant violation of her parents’ wishes — and her father would make her return to St. Paul.
She said, “A man came up to me after I sang.”
Henry shrugged. “Who?”
“Louis Bellegarde,” she replied, “the owner of a nightclub called La Pomme. He’s asked me to audition.”
“Congratulations,” he said flatly.
“I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
But he did, though he wouldn’t confess that, like her, he felt this was his time. Though he wanted his life to be filled with adventure and mystery and purpose, he saw no way for that to happen. He turned in the direction the older couple had strolled.
They were standing under the lights by one of the suspended lifeboats. The boy was with them, practically up against them, and Henry saw the man draw back, although the boy’s target was the woman. The boy seemed to embrace her and then give another of his artificial bows, before turning toward Henry and Laura, a flash of metal disappearing into his pocket.
Henry rested an arm on the railing and again faced her. “Probably, you won’t care, and you don’t deserve it anyway. But I asked this boy to deliver a gift for you.”
“Right,” she laughed. “A gift. Out here?”
He nodded. “But you shouldn’t wear it until we’re in Paris.”
Now she believed him. Her eyes widened. “It’s stolen?”
“Yes.”
“Just now?”
He smiled to hide his annoyance with himself, for hoping to receive her admiration. “We’ve taken it from that nasty old biddy who was sitting next to us in the lounge.”
“Her dragonfly pin?”
“The very one.”
“You’ve surprised me,” she said. “I didn’t think you could.”
He could feel her gaze, but he kept his eyes averted. He still disliked her hauteur and condescending attitude, yet what else could he do with the pin? And it wouldn’t hurt for them to get along with some measure of civility: they’d be spending several months together.
