The Puzzle King, page 27
Aboard the SS Aquitania: March 1936
A boutonniere for you, sir? A bouquet for the lady?” The offer was extravagant, and Simon and Flora exchanged puzzled looks. The ship’s steward wouldn’t be put off. “It is customary, when we pull into Marseilles, for the captain to give flowers to his first-class passengers, to show his appreciation,” he said, making a slight bow while shoving the flowers in front of them. “Come now, you wouldn’t want to insult the captain, would you?”
“No thank you for the boutonniere,” said Simon. “Roses aren’t my cup of tea, but I’m sure the lady would be honored to accept your bouquet.”
Flora lowered her eyes, ashamed that Simon could see how they darted with excitement. Yellow roses in March: they were as lavish as the lobsters, the gilded headboards on the double beds, and the linen napkins folded to look like mountain peaks that had populated their world over the past two weeks.
Flora reveled in these luxuries and Simon took his pleasure by indulging her. That night, their last at sea, Flora and Simon were scheduled for the second seating at dinner. As he waited for her at the bar, he pulled a pen out of his vest pocket and began sketching on the paper napkin beneath his glass of champagne. He drew a picture of a ship filled with rotund ladies weighted down with fur and diamonds and pot-bellied men smoking cigars and sporting oversized pinky rings. The ship was forging ahead through the flames of hell that surrounded it. On its bow he’d written in large capital letters: THE SS DECADENT.
Simon had meant to crumple up the napkin before Flora came, but she had snuck up behind him. “It’s that bad, huh?” she’d said, pulling up the stool next to him and draping her arm around his shoulder. “Sorry you’ve had to suffer so.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. She smelled like licorice and soap and a child fresh from its bath. “Oh, you know how I like to scribble.” He tried to take in more of her smell. He could never get enough of that smell.
“Lucky for you, this hell will be over tomorrow morning,” she said, “and then …” They stared at each other quizzically.
That night, they sat at the captain’s table. When the waiter placed a small white plate with gold-leaf trim and a thistly artichoke in front of him, Simon looked to Flora to see how she was managing it. Simon disliked food that was complicated or messy and had managed to keep away from the unruly artichoke. Now he watched as Flora dipped the leaf in the butter sauce, scraped out the meat from the inside of the leaf with her teeth, and dropped the remainder into a small soup bowl. Simon only half-listened to the conversation she was having with the gentleman on her left. Conquering the artichoke took all of his attention. Only when Flora answered one of her dinner partner’s questions did he look up from the spiky mound of leaves in front of him.
“Oh, our people are Jewish. My sister and I came from Germany almost thirty years ago,” she’d said, dabbing some butter from her lips. Simon raised his eyebrows and stared at the stranger with the gold watch chain dangling from his pocket. Why, he’d wondered, had he asked Flora if she was Jewish. That was the kind of question no one asked unless there was trouble behind it.
Flora was never calculating in that way and answered every question put to her. “Every question deserves an honest answer,” she’d say. As reserved as usual, in these times Simon was especially suspicious. But despite his reticence and odd formality, passengers on this crossing finagled a way to be seated next to him at dinner, and he was the one who got photographed for the ship’s newsletter, “In the Same Boat.” The caption read:
Dapper Simon Phelps enjoyed a round of shuffle-board on deck yesterday afternoon with his lovely wife, Flora. When asked why they were traveling from New York to Marseilles, Mr. Phelps answered, “There is so much to see and so many family and friends to visit.”
These days, few people—particularly Jewish people—were taking pleasure cruises to Europe. Yet none of the first-class passengers wanted to talk about the unpleasantness, not when they’d paid nearly five hundred dollars to wash down their foie gras with French champagne. So on that night, they wrapped their arms around their partners and stared through half-closed eyes at the moonlight spilling into the black water while the orchestra played “The Way You Look Tonight.” For those few moments they could believe that life was as sweet and rich as the music they were hearing, and they had already started to yearn with nostalgia for the time that was passing. The orchestra broke into a brisk version of “All of Me.” Simon and Flora were dancing close enough to Flora’s dinner partner, the man with the gold watch chain, to overhear him say to his wife: “The führer frowns on this kind of Negroized music.” The wife nodded and said something that made him jerk his head back and make a disapproving tsking sound. As the two of them stopped dancing and headed back toward the table, Simon hugged Flora closer to him.
“What was that all about?” she asked. Simon hummed in her ear. “Keep dancing,” he whispered, “and smile like you’re having the time of your life.”
THE FOG BLURRED the Marseille coastline as the ship pulled close to shore. Flora stuck one of the steward’s roses into her lapel, another into the brim of her hat. The rest she held in both hands. “You don’t think me frivolous for accepting the flowers?”
Simon put his hand around her waist and squeezed it. “If it were up to me, I would cover you in rose petals every morning and bathe you in them every night.”
The early morning mist carried with it the briny air and burning fuel from the ship’s engine. Even with the smell of roses wafting under his nose, Simon was mostly aware of the black smoke that huffed out of the funnels and settled heavy over them.
Whatever dread he was feeling, he kept it in check behind his steady gray-blue eyes and his wire-rim glasses. As she packed up the last of their shampoo and aftershave, Flora stared at the bunch of yellow roses that she had stuck into a water cup in the bathroom. “I wouldn’t mind staying here a few more days, or forever,” she said, rubbing her fingers across the polished mahogany shelf in the bathroom. “Who can blame you?” he asked, careful to keep the crease as he folded one of his shirts. He glanced up to see if she caught the falseness in his voice. But Flora was watching his fingers, surprisingly long for a man of his height. She still loved the way his hands were always busy—and usually ink stained. “Let’s put all the necessary documents in the small valise,” he said, picking up a white case with tan stripes and placing it on the bed.
He knew that Flora was apprehensive about the days ahead, not knowing exactly what they held. If he hurried her along, she’d sense his anxiety, and there was no point to that. He wanted her to enjoy what time there was left, though time was the one thing he did not have to spare. He was ready to be off this ship and away from these people.
“I’ll bet Edith and Werner have been waiting out there since daybreak,” he said. They both smiled at the thought of Edith.
Flora took the roses out of the water cup and wrapped them in a white washcloth that had the words ss aquitania embroidered on it in gold script. “I hate to leave these behind,” she said, holding them up to the light coming from the porthole. “Edith will like them. Yellow’s a good color for her, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” he said, “I’m sure she’ll love them.” There was a knock on the door as he snapped closed the smallest of their five valises.
The porter piled their suitcases on his cart in size order. They were each made of rich leather with the same brass rivets and snaps and two leather straps that secured them shut. Inside, they were lined with gray silk and had compartments where you could store everything from combs and socks to shoes and books. These were the kinds of things that gave Simon pleasure and served as markers in his life between the present and the past.
He took Flora’s arm as they stepped into the morning air. His fingers were wrapped around her wrist, and he could tell how quickly her heart was beating. She was so beautiful in her maroon cloche with the yellow rose stuck in its headband, so alive in her gold-and-orange tweed coat and blue silk blouse, this lady on his arm with the smile that feasted on life. Heads turned toward her as they walked onto the deck and made their way down onto the gangplank. She was America: all porcelain pink and robust. He watched the mass of arms and faces below waving and hollering, and he searched to find the ones that were searching for him. This time, he was not alone. Not like the last time, when he was as alone as it is ever possible to be.
Marseille, France: March 1936
The first thing Edith noticed when she woke up in the morning was that the yellow rose petals had all dropped to the nightstand, leaving only the disrobed stalks in the vase. Flora and Simon. She smiled at the thought of them getting off the ship the day before: how Simon had taken Flora’s arm, how he’d looked at her as if he still couldn’t believe that he had this gorgeous woman by his side, how excited Flora had been to give Edith the roses she’d gotten onboard. “They remind me of you,” she’d said. To the left of the bud vase was the royal blue Yankee hat with the white interlocking ny letters that Simon had given her. “You’re still a Yankee fan, I presume,” he’d said. “I am and I always will be,” she’d answered, placing the hat on her head and refusing to take it off until bedtime.
She thought about how Simon had jumped to his feet and yelled “Attaboy, Babe” when Babe Ruth hit that homerun at the game they’d attended. She remembered envying how much a part of the game he must have felt in order to shout out that way. She had been a lonely girl then. Just back from being sick, trying so hard to fit in, not being able to find her place.
It was different now. She looked over at Werner. In sleep his lips were slightly parted, and he made an airy whistling sound as he exhaled. She watched him and said his name softly. She wondered how many times in her life she would say Werner. Some things were impossible to count. The number of times a child calls for his mother, how often a person cries out “oh” in surprise. A whole lifetime with this man. The realization made her happy until she tried to picture what their lives would be like and no picture came. With things the way they were, she wondered what he would do when they got back. How would they support themselves? She pushed away these thoughts and retreated to her fresh memories, of the two of them feeding the pigeons in the Piazza San Marco, riding the mules in Palestine, nibbling escargot in Paris. Werner had promised her she would love the taste of escargots, and he had been right.
Lost in her daydreams, she didn’t notice that Werner had woken up. He rolled on his side, put his arm around her waist, and pulled her into a dozy sleep. When they awoke again it was 9:10. They had twenty minutes to shower and dress and meet Flora and Simon in the hotel restaurant for breakfast.
Simon and Flora were already sipping coffee when the two of them arrived, hair wet, arms entwined.
“Well, well, it’s the lovebirds,” said Flora. Simon put down the newspaper he was reading. He looked up and smiled at them. “I hope you’re wearing your walking shoes. We’ve got two days to see this place, and I intend to see every part of it.” That morning, they walked past the famous old fort and around the Quai des Belges, where Werner and Simon pretended not to notice the street girls. At lunch, they chose a fish house close to the port and ordered bouillabaisse. They laughed over the fact that none of them liked fish, but how could they come to Marseille and not eat the famous stew?
Simon ordered a bottle of dry white wine. After the waiter uncorked the bottle and they’d clinked glasses for a toast to the future, Simon pulled out a notepad. Edith could recognize his graceful script anywhere. On these pages, words were crammed together and there were places where he had circled a word or underlined a sentence so vigorously that the paper was punctuated with rips and holes.
“I have many questions about you and your family that I dared not ask in a letter,” he began. He wanted to know about Frederick’s “retirement.” Edith told him that he’d been forced from his job. “What’s this about Seema and church?” Werner and Edith exchanged looks. “Seema’s a Catholic now,” said Edith. “She’s converted.” Flora leaned forward and started to speak, but Simon shushed her. “Not now, Flora. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
“And what about this Karl fellow and his car with the crazy horn, Tee-poo-peep-pa? What’s that got to do with anything?” Edith shrugged. Werner answered matter of factly: “Only government cars are outfitted with that horn.”
Simon looked down at his notes and drew four exclamation points so hard that they too perforated the paper.
“And your wedding. Why did you have it on a Sunday and why are there no pictures?”
Again Werner spoke. “We were playing it safe. We didn’t want to call more attention to ourselves than we already had.”
Simon put down his notebook. He took a sip of wine and ran his tongue over his lips. “So how do you see your future? Werner, do you even have a future?”
Werner rubbed the place above his eye with the heel of his hand. “It’s hard, Mr. Phelps, to know what the future will bring.”
“I am not asking you kids this,” said Simon deliberately. “I am begging you. Please come to America. Soon. We read the papers; we’re involved with Jewish organizations.” He held up the piece of paper with his notes and shook it in their faces. “Surely you’re not blind to what is happening right before your eyes. You don’t have time to see what the future will bring.”
The table fell quiet. There was no place else for this conversation to go. Werner asked the waiter for more bread and Edith tapped his leg with her foot. He wasn’t sure whether this meant she agreed with Simon or that she wanted him to break the uncomfortable silence. “It’s not an easy thing for any of us to pick up and go to America, just like that,” said Werner. “There are visas, and affidavits …”
“Yes, I know all that,” said Simon impatiently. “And we are prepared to help you. As happy as we are to see you both, Flora and I didn’t come here for a pleasure cruise. You must know that.”
“I thought that might be the case,” said Werner.
“Hmm, I thought you came over just to see us,” said Edith.
“We did,” said Simon. “But we hoped you’d come home with us. Aside from everything else, our reasons for wanting you to come are selfish. You are family, the closest family that I have. Please, think about it.”
THEY SPENT THE REST of the afternoon walking around the port. The subject of America did not come up again. Instead, they wandered around to the covered markets and the town square, where the jugglers and fortune-tellers preyed on tourists and, for a few cents, promised a rosy tomorrow. They made small talk about the weather and the fashions in America. Edith and Werner were quiet, filled with sadness that their honeymoon would end the next day and with dread about what Simon had told them. Simon noticed that Flora was uncharacteristically uninterested in window-shopping, and Flora saw that Simon was tired and pausing to rest every few minutes. When, at her suggestion, they stopped for a late afternoon cup of coffee and piece of cake, he fell into his chair with a perceptible “ahh.”
They had dinner early. The train to Frankfurt was leaving at six the next morning. The rain started as they walked back to the hotel. Flora and Simon packed up their bags, putting all the documents they would need in Germany in the small white valise with tan stripes that Simon had brought for precisely this purpose. She went through her wallet to make sure all her papers were there and found the piece of paper she’d been carrying around with her for nearly thirty years. By now, it was torn and faded and yellowed in the creases. “Look at this,” she said, careful to unfold it. “The first drawing you ever gave me.” It was a picture of the two of them, and underneath he had written: “Mr. Blockhead and the lovely Miss Chatterbug.”
Simon had already taken off his glasses, so he squinted and brought the drawing right up to his eyes. “Why do you carry around this one?” he asked. “It’s not even particularly well crafted.”
“I like that you look goofy and I look young,” she said. “And it makes me remember how happy we were.”
“We are,” Simon said, correcting her. “How happy we are.”
ALTHOUGH IT WAS the nicest hotel in Marseille, the Grand Hotel was an old structure that couldn’t keep out the cold and dampness that seeped through its mullioned glass windows. Even under the goose-feather quilt, they were chilled and Flora’s feet were practically numb with cold. They lay in each other’s arms, Flora’s feet tucked next to his. The sound of the rain soothed them until they were warm and sleeping and breathing as one.
It was not yet light when Flora woke up the next morning. It was still raining and her arm was around Simon’s chest as it was when they fell asleep. It was cold. He was cold. She carefully extricated herself. She looked at the clock. He had ten more minutes to sleep. She tucked the quilt around him as she went to the bathroom. When she came back, she sat by the side of the bed and placed her hand on his arm. “Simon sweetie, it’s time to get up.” She shook him gently and said it again. When she said it a third time, he still didn’t move, and she became aware of how stiff his arm was. She checked to see if he was breathing. He was not. She shook his body and shouted his name. She heard the panic in her voice and felt an icy fear spread through the pit of her stomach. She ran down the hall and banged on Werner and Edith’s door. She didn’t wait for them to answer. “Come quickly, quickly. It’s Simon,” she shouted.
