Crescent City Part 2

The other man smiled. "Artificial differences."

Again David felt the quick heat of embarra.s.sment, as if the doctor's remark, mild as it was, had been a reproof to Ferdinand. And, troubled, he looked away, out to the placid sea, which was at the moment barely moving, slowly tilting like liquid in a cup. The sight of it was soothing. The rigging hummed in the wind, vibrating like a violin.

Ferdinand rubbed his hands together. "It won't be long before you'll be home in Charleston, Doctor. After that, it's down the coast for us, into the Gulf and home." He took a deep, audible breath. "Ah, glorious! Glorious! This freedom you feel on the ocean! Who could believe we left Europe way back there only a few weeks ago? It's hard to remember that Europe exists at all!"

From the lower deck came a babble and rumble of voices. Everyone looked down to where a ma.s.s of humanity had gathered on the open deck below. They were mostly young men-immigrants, with here and there a cl.u.s.tered family: restless children, fathers in peasant clothing, women carrying infants. They were taking their allotted daily hour of air. Those above watched in silent curiosity; those below did not once glance up.

"Poor creatures! I hope," remarked the doctor, "they don't carelessly set fires with their cooking down there. I worry about that."

"It gets cold below," David said. "Either that or hot as a stove. I could hardly breathe in the heat one day when I was there."

"You were down there?" Ferdinand asked sharply. "What were you doing?"

"I brought them something to eat."

"To eat! They have food."

"It's not fit to eat, Papa. Even their water smells foul. Last week their meat was maggoty and they had to throw it overboard. It's not fair, you know! The captain promised these people decent food, but he makes them buy potatoes from him when they run out. They're thirsty and hungry. Up here in the cabins we get fresh meat and oranges from the Azores. It's not fair."

Dr. Carvalho murmured gently, "A great many things in this world aren't and never will be."

In earnest protest the boy's forehead wrinkled. "There's no reason why they shouldn't be!" he cried. "I asked one of the sailors how many people there were down there in that little s.p.a.ce. Four hundred! They're all crammed in. Two double rows of bunks, one above the other. There's a narrow aisle between. You can hardly squeeze through. And the s.p.a.ce is only five and a half feet high. If you're tall like me, you have to stoop to walk."

Ferdinand interrupted. "You're not to go down again, do you hear? They've got rats and dysentery. G.o.d knows what diseases you might have caught or given to the rest of us."

"Your father is right," Dr. Carvalho said. "Where the air is fetid, fever breeds. That's well known."

David was distressed. "But I promised to bring some oranges! I've had them every day; surely I can share a few, can't I?"

"Lower your voice before you bring disgrace on us," Ferdinand said, for David's voice had risen. The French bankers and their wives were staring.

"I haven't said anything disgraceful. I was only saying what I believed."

With conspicuous tact Dr. Carvalho moved away. And Ferdinand continued, "Your manners need mending. Jews especially need better manners, and it's time you learned some, David."

Anger mounted; the father's face flushed and his lips quivered; the son faced the father.

"Jews? Why should we especially cringe?"

"I'm not asking you to 'cringe,' as you put it. I'm only asking you not to make a spectacle of yourself and of us."

David persisted. Something in him wanted to avoid his father's anger. Something else drove him to goading. "But why? Why should just Jews have better manners? You still haven't told me."

"Because." Ferdinand spoke in a low, agitated tone. "Because to be Jewish is to be judged, to be a victim. Heine-you've read Heine?"

"Yes, I have. I've read his poems."

"Well. He himself said that to be a Jew is a misfortune. Heine said that. Read it for yourself."

"And you agree with him, Papa?"

"Certainly I agree. Look around you. It's only common sense."

The boy felt as if he had been bruised. "Yet you gave money to the synagogue at home."

Ferdinand shrugged. "For old times' sake. For your mother's sake. I never go to the synagogue."

"You're a Christian, then?"

"Certainly not. I would never convert. What do you take me for? It's simply that-it's just that-none of it means that much to me. None of it. And least of all that foolishness of the dietary laws; you think G.o.d cares what you put in your stomach? That any man who eats pork is an evil man?"

"I don't think that at all, Papa. For myself, I obey because it's a reminder of who I am. It's hard to explain-"

"Well, don't try," Ferdinand grumbled.

David turned frowning into the western sun. He stood for a long time at the prow. A line of gulls which had been following the ship past Bermuda rode with the wind over the phosph.o.r.escent, gleaming sea. A flying fish sprang upward, flashing silver, then curved back into the water.

G.o.d is a great strength, the boy thought. We move with Him. The gulls move through the air and the fish through water, but we move with Him. We feel large then; we feel proud.

But his father had made him feel small and ashamed. Tears came to his eyes. He saw a chasm opening between himself and his father.

Miriam, in her childish way, was troubled, too. She had heard it all. Oh, how shocked Opa would be to know what Papa had just said! Still, why did David make Papa angry? He couldn't possibly win, so why start? This was like being home with Aunt Dinah's complaining and Opa's snapping at her to be quiet. One could hear their quarreling voices even with a wall between. She had such dread of angry voices. When they fought at home, she'd pick Gretel up and hold her close. The soft, licking tongue, the small warm life, were such comfort against angry voices.

Now, leaning over the rail, Miriam pressed the dog to her chest. "Ah, Gretel, little Gretel, you and I-Gretel! Gretel! Oh, G.o.d!" she screamed.

The scream tore the air. All faces turned to her, all feet rushed to her, not knowing, not understanding, until she pointed.

Far, far below, the dog's head bobbed in the water.

"David!" It was to him, not to her father, that she turned. "She only wiggled a little, slipped away! Oh, David!"

"Good G.o.d!" Ferdinand cried. "The boy's gone mad!"

For David had on the instant stripped off his jacket, climbed over the rail, and, feet first, plunged overboard. Sailors shouted from the rigging as, helplessly, the boy thrashed in the swelling sea. And with sudden comprehension, Ferdinand screamed in horror.

"He can't swim!"

Two sailors raced down the deck with a rope ladder and began to climb down, but before they had gone a quarter of the way, young Gabriel had also gone over the side, diving in an expert arc to where, only a few feet away, David's head had already gone under. The cheering, frightened, fascinated watchers on the deck saw the boy grasp David's shirt, saw the sailors pulling, hoisting David up the ladder, and saw Gabriel pluck the dog up to safety.

It had all taken no longer than five minutes. Of such minutes eternities are made.

Retching and gasping, David lay stretched on the deck. Whirling through his descent, he had fallen flat upon the water and his belly was tight with pain. He lay unspeaking. n.o.body expected him to speak. From his supine position he could see Miriam clutching the bedraggled dog. Legs loomed above him, his father's and Dr. Carvalho's on either side. The nuns in their heavy black skirts glided past as if there were no legs inside the skirts. The French ladies were chirping admiration at Gabriel, heroic Gabriel.

The only difference between him and me is that he knows how to swim. I look like an idiot.

After a while he was able to sit up, and Ferdinand, immensely relieved, attacked him at once.

"You fool, David! What did you think you could do down there? And this warm ocean full of sharks, too! Don't you ever think before you speak or act? Don't you ever think?"

"She loves the dog," David muttered stubbornly.

"She may love it, but is a dog worth your life? I don't understand you. And your friend, young Carvalho, he risked his life for you. He's a hero. At least he can swim, and he was risking himself for a human life, not a dog's."

David was silent. Ferdinand paced up and down. When again he stood over David, he had calmed himself.

"Yes, it was good of you to think of your sister. I shall try to look at it that way. A big, impulsive heart. Not a bad thing to have." He tried to smile. "But, my G.o.d, you would have died if it weren't for Gabriel. The sailors were too slow and Maxim and Chanute were belowdecks."

The incident had darkened the afternoon. Quietly, as if chastened, people stood like the wooden lady on the prow, looking out to the west.

Someone brought a stool for Miriam, and there she sat, facing westward like the rest, with Gretel, now fastened by a chain, beside her. Shock silenced her. David had almost died. And the other boy, too. How brave they had been, both of them. And Gabriel only a stranger.

He had gone to sit with David. Catching her look, he waved to her. Had she thanked him enough? Could one thank him enough? He looked so nice like that with his hands clasped around his knees and his hair ruffled in the wind. She wished David would be quiet like him; not that David wasn't gentle and sometimes quite silent; but when he had an idea, he was so excited, he wouldn't be still, would just go on arguing and never give up! He had been like that at home with Opa and it was plain he would go right on being like that with Papa.

"Your father doesn't get angry at you the way mine does," David was saying to Gabriel.

"Today, you mean? Well, he did scold me a little in the cabin when I was changing my clothes. But he was proud of me all the same." Gabriel spoke almost shyly.

"When I think about it, I see that it was wrong of me, but I would nevar admit that to my father. Never. And do you know why?"

"Tell me."

"Because I don't like the way he talks to me about-about things. It's because he doesn't understand."

"Understand what?"

David hesitated. "I just feel that he is too different from me, and I from him."

"But you hardly know each other. Why don't you wait to find out more?" Gabriel asked.

David leaned over and whispered. "In the morning, when I take out the phylacteries, he looks scornful and walks away. Do you think that's right?"

"Well, no," Gabriel answered doubtfully. "But then, I don't know much about-"

"I forgot. You don't do it, either."

"But we are Jews as much as you are. Our customs are only-well, newer, that's all."

David thought, The "customs," which is what he called the Laws, have been fixed once and forever. It is absolutely forbidden to change .... And his indignation simmered.

"Newer? So you must find the older ridiculous?"

"Not at all. If you believe in something, you have to follow it all the way, with all your heart."

Gabriel's frank sympathy made David ashamed of his momentary indignation.

"My trouble is, and I know it, that I'm not patient, Gabriel. Anyway, regardless of anything else, I owe you a debt for my life. And my sister owes you for her dog."

"She's a pretty little girl."

"You think so? Her nose is too big," David said affectionately.

"My father says she has the look of an aristocrat."

"Oho! She can be a nuisance. Anyone who has a younger sister can tell you that."

"I don't know. My sister's so much older. You'll probably get to know her in New Orleans."

"Is New Orleans as wonderful as my father says?"

"Of course. Why do you doubt it?"

"Because he exaggerates things."

"Oh, you will have to stop suspecting him all the time, David."

"Do you know, I think you're probably a very good influence for me. I wish you were going to live in New Orleans."

"But I'll see you. We'll stay Mends. I'm sure to visit my sister again. And in the meantime we'll write to each other. You'll write in French." Gabriel laughed. "And I'll send back the corrections."

"I'll write in English, too. No matter what my father says, I plan to learn English."

So they talked with the simple honesty of the young who have not yet learned to choose friends for advantage, prestige, or any reason but honest liking, one for the other.

From across the deck Ferdinand was observing his children. The girl was very quiet, clutching her dog. Poor little thing! And he understood that the animal was a link between the unknown and all she had ever known. However, she was a cheerful soul. There would be no trouble with her, and a good deal of pleasure, he was certain. Yes, he thought, Miriam will be a brightness in the house, which has had no child.

Ah, but David! David is another story. So righteous, with those penetrating eyes, as if he were examining me, looking inside my head! If one were to judge him by his righteous talk, one would have to say he was an obnoxious young prig. But prigs don't do the things he does, bringing food belowdecks, making himself a part of the misery down there, and G.o.d knows, and I should know, how miserable it is! Oh, a kind boy, yes, but still, it's not his business to interfere with those poor people. There's nothing we can do about them, nothing. A few oranges don't help their wretchedness; they may only make it seem worse. He wouldn't understand that. Such indignation in him, as if he were ready to explode! That frown: two deep-cut lines across the forehead, and the Adam's apple bobbing in his skinny neck. He's got down on his upper Up, feels himself a man, no doubt. It's not going to be easy living with him. I hope he won't make too great a difference in our lives, poor fellow. I hope he won't talk this way around my wife. She won't like it. There's no grace in the way he looks, either. All those new clothes I bought for him before we sailed! And yet he's always rumpled, he looks as if he'd slept in them! Oh, I should have taken him with me when his mother died and taught him my ways. But he was too young. I never could have survived or done what I did with him along. I had to keep him safe until I had something to offer him, didn't I?

Well, now I've got something to offer. What would he be in Europe? A peddler, probably. A peddler till he got too old to drag himself from place to place. In Europe peddlers don't turn themselves into commission merchants. Now he can be a doctor or anything he wants. He'll have everything young Carvalho has.

And a smile of satisfaction touched Ferdinand's soft mouth. David was smiling, too, now, talking to his friend, the Sephardic aristocrat. My son has a beautiful smile. If he would just learn to use it more! One thing-he's not like other people.

An evening wind roughened the sea and began to chill the air. Ferdinand moved away from the rail to seek shelter inside. He would remember this day. When this voyage was far in the past, this one day would stand out. It was always so. Out of long forgotten years, here and there, a single day blazes, a day on which portents are given, unrecognized at the time, but clear and undeniable when, years afterward, one looks back.

The air was tropical, clinging like damp silk to the skin. In the Gulf dolphins reappeared, racing with the ship, rising and plunging in some vigorous aquatic game. The southern sunset came abruptly; with a sweep of a dark brush, all pink, all gold and violet, were wiped out of the sky and the thick night came down.

Now that the voyage was almost over, the pa.s.sengers, both eager to arrive and already regretting the end of their easy days, began to feel a troubling restlessness. The Carvalhos having left the ship in Charleston, Miriam and David were surrounded by adults and feeling the same restlessness. The nuns, who throughout the voyage had seldom looked up from their murmured prayers as they paced and told their beads, now scanned the west as if they, too, were anxious about what awaited them. Even the bankers and their vivacious wives grew quiet.

But Ferdinand exulted. "Home!" he cried every morning as he emerged on deck. "Home! It won't be long now."

And so, on one of these mornings, they came at last to the mouth of the great river. Everyone came early on deck to look.

"See there," Ferdinand said, "how the water changes color. It's the river mingling with the Gulf."

A long brown ribbon ran, wavering and blurring, into blue. In the river's open mouth a hundred tiny islands had been scattered. Taming and curving among them, the Mirabelle began to move upstream.

Bayous and creeks led into darkness; uprooted trees lay crumbling in the swamps, where shredded moss hung from standing cypress; water stood motionless on land. And over all lay an intense and gloomy silence. David strained to hear and see. Yes, it was as his father had said, primeval and wild; nowhere in the farthest countryside of Europe was there anything like this.

"Oh, look! Oh, look!" Miriam whispered.