Marjorie Morningstar (87 page)

“Right.” He got out of his chair as she jumped off the bed; they brushed each other
in passing and the contact felt pleasant. “What on earth’s happening to you, kid?”
she said to the mirror image that laughed and sparkled at her.

That whole day, their last day on the
Queen Mary
, was edged with gold. The sea was deep blue, the sunlight made sharp shadows on the
decks, a breeze blew from the southwest smelling like flowers, and land birds cried
and darted around the ship. The long broad wake of the
Queen Mary
stretched backward to the horizon, a trail of slick blue on the rough blue of the
waves, like a visible ribbon of passing time. Dolphins rolled glittering by the ship
all day. Everything they did was amusing and pleasant—deck tennis, talking with the
captain (the weather-beaten god in gold and blue came down from the bridge and chatted
with them on the sun deck for ten minutes, speaking as beautifully as George Arliss,
and laughing heartily at Mike’s jokes), lunching picnic-style on the boat deck in
the sunshine, swimming in the ship’s magnificently tiled indoor pool, listening to
Mozart quartets in the salon at tea-time—the day seemed to go on and on, bright and
clear and slow. In the cocktail hour, the bar being crowded, they ended at a table
with Jackie May and his wife. The comedian, stimulated by Marjorie’s pretty face,
made an enormous number of jokes, really funny ones, and she and Mike were almost
helpless with laughter for half an hour. In fact everybody appeared agreeable that
day to Marjorie; she even smiled at Hilda once and received a surprised, pleasant
smile in return. When the sun set at last in a holocaust of scarlet clouds, spilling
red gold on the purpling sea from horizon to horizon, Marjorie, standing at the rail
beside Eden, felt close to tears—not because the day was over, but because the last
moments were as perfect as the rest. She looked around at the vast ship, the great
red and black funnels, the line of lifeboats falling into purple shadow, and it was
as though her eyes were heavily printing the scene on her brain. She said to Eden,
after they had been quiet for perhaps a quarter of an hour, and the red in the sky
was almost all dulled to violet, “Why isn’t it always like this? For everyone?”

He put his arm around her shoulders. “It’s a nice sunset, but don’t get carried away.
The whole world can’t go riding around on the
Queen Mary
.”

After a while she said, “Maybe this is just a shipboard acquaintance, but I think
you’ll miss me a bit when it’s over. It can’t be so wholly one-sided.”

He said, “Marjorie, you have no idea how different, how incongruous, how unattractive
shipboard friends look, once you’re back on the land. It’s unbelievable. Their clothes
don’t seem to fit. They look fatter, and their manners are phony and pretentious.
You don’t like the way they laugh. They’re Republicans if you’re a Democrat, and vice
versa. Maybe you knew it on board ship, but it didn’t matter. Back on land it does.
They like the wrong movies. They insist on taking you to a wonderful restaurant, and
the food turns out lousy, and the waiter is rude, and the wine is vinegary, and the
bread is stale. You can’t for the life of you think of anything to talk about, and
the whole evening couldn’t be longer or more awful, and that’s the end.”

Marjorie said, laughing ruefully, “Always, always? It seems unlikely.”

“Invariably. It’s a fact of nature.”

“Well then,” Marjorie said, “let me tell you, in case that ever happens, that you
were a very nice illusion on the
Queen Mary
.”

“I should be saying the pretty things to you,” Eden said, “in a last all-out effort
to make you.”

“Don’t bother,” Marjorie said. “Though Lord knows you look like a wolf to me, and
have from the first moment—a gray wolf, the worst kind. If you’ve been giving me a
line, I hope you’ve kept notes. You can ruin girls for the next twenty years with
it. Isn’t it getting chilly?”

“I’ll miss you all right,” Eden said. “We’re never going to meet again, so there’s
no harm in telling you that. I wouldn’t see you on land for a million dollars. I don’t
know exactly what it is about you—you’re not like Anitra, really. She’s a scientist.
You’re a—”

“A nobody,” Marjorie said.

Eden smiled, and took his hand from her shoulders. “You’re right. It’s damned chilly.
All good things come to an end, especially sunsets. Time for dinner.”

There was a festive gold-lettered menu for the captain’s dinner, and the tables were
full of fresh flowers. Eden ordered a vegetable salad, though the steward tried to
tempt him with something more substantial. He was a short affable Cockney, and he
had taken to treating Marjorie and Mike with knowing fondness, obviously assuming
that they were having an affair. “Please use your hinfluence with him, Miss Morgenstern,”
he said. “Make him try just a bit of the roast beef, won’t you? Just this once.”

“I’ll have the roast beef,” Marjorie said. “He’s hopeless.” She added when the steward
was gone, “I guess that’s another mystery you’ll carry off the ship locked in your
bosom. You’re probably a secret follower of Gandhi.”

“Let me be,” Eden said. “We vegetarians will inherit the earth. Between Hitler and
Gandhi, how can we lose? We’ve got humanity bracketed.”

She ate a sumptuous dinner while he nibbled at the salad. “You really make me feel
carnal,” she said. “I wish you’d break down and eat something gross—an egg or something.”
He only laughed.

Later in the bar she said, “Well, I guess you make up for it with liquor.” He was
downing a fourth double brandy, showing as usual no effect beside a slightly warmer
tone when he talked. “I’ve never seen a guzzler like you. Noel in his best days, I
mean in his worst, when he was going through some crisis or other, never equalled
you. Bernard Shaw doesn’t drink, does he? I read somewhere in his books that he thinks
alcohol is poison. You’re utterly inconsistent.”

“Sure I am,” Eden said. “Who says you have to be consistent? About the nicest thing
God ever did was invent alcohol. He’s proud of it, too. The Bible’s full of kind remarks
about booze.”

She drank quite a bit, and she didn’t remember much about the dancing except that
it was heavenly. Around one o’clock in the morning they were on the boat deck, under
a high blue-white moon which rocked slowly from one side of the colossal funnels to
the other. The flower scent of the cold breeze had become stronger. There were a number
of shadowy couples frankly necking here and there.

“Will you look at all the smoochers?” Marjorie said. “We’re a pair of old fuddyduds.”

“I don’t know. I think there’s something hugely comical about all these double shadows,”
Eden said. “Blob after blob after blob. Each double blob quite sure that all this
squirming in the dark is a clever night’s work, that they’re doing something they
really want to do. When they’re all being shoved by body chemicals through a mindless
mechanical process, like so many pairs of stuck-together frogs. Don’t you agree it’s
funny?”

“Not at all,” Marjorie said. “In fact, at the moment you sound a little like a sophomore
at a dance without a date.”

Eden burst into such a roar of laughter that several of the double shadows near them
divided and straightened up. “If I were ten years younger and in any kind of mental
shape,” he said, “I would give Noel Airman a run for his money. Let’s stay up till
dawn and get all red-eyed and pallid and stewed, shall we?”

“Sure,” Marjorie said. “Aren’t the bars all closed?”

“Step this way.”

Hilda, the blonde, and Thaler were coming up the stairway to the boat deck as they
came down. Eden stepped aside to let the two Germans pass in silence. It was an awkward
moment. At the door of his cabin Eden hesitated, reaching in his pocket for the key,
and looked thoughtful. “I have a sudden positive memory that I didn’t lock this door.”
He turned the knob and the door opened. His glance at her was sharp and worried. “I
always have had a suicidal absent-mindedness. No doubt all the crown jewels are missing.
Well, come in.”

He looked around the room restlessly, but it was all in order: the bed turned down,
a single pink reading lamp lit at his bedside. “How do you like brandy and tap water?”

“My favorite drink.”

He snapped on his short-wave portable radio. After a moment of humming the loudspeaker
came to life with the shouting of a harsh strong hysterical voice in German. Mike
turned the sound down. The voice, barking and screaming, was interrupted by frightening
crowd roars. Marjorie said, “What’s that?”

“What do you think?”

“Hitler?”

“Hitler.”

“Two o’clock in the morning?”

“It’s a record.”

Marjorie regarded the radio with wide eyes, listening to the voice. She couldn’t quite
believe she was hearing it. “Turn it off.”

“Gladly.”

He kept looking around the room as he mixed the drinks. He went to the shelf of books
over the desk and stared at them; opened the desk drawers one by one, and leafed through
papers and folders. The lines of his face became sharp and deep. “Marjorie, I’m pretty
tired, after all. Let’s call it a night, shall we?”

“Throwing me out? Can’t I finish my drink?”

“Take it with you. Take the bottle.”

“Catch me walking through the ship with a bottle of brandy! No, thanks—”

He slammed a drawer shut so hard that books piled on the desk tumbled to the deck,
spilling little papers from among their leaves. The papers rolled on the deck, curling
like shavings. A stream of bitter frigid obscenity burst from his lips as he scooped
at books and papers with both hands, dropping to his knees. Marjorie put down her
drink and stood, shocked and terrified, staring at him. In a few moments he sat in
the chair again, the books and papers helter-skelter in his lap, and returned her
stare. His face had a greenish cast, his eyes were white-rimmed, his scar looked like
a fresh purple gash. She came to him hesitantly and touched his face. “Mike, what’s
the matter?”

He stood and, one after another, hurled the books across the room at the door. He
flung himself on the bed face down, burying his face in the pillow. Marjorie realized
in amazement that she was hearing stifled screams. He kicked his legs. His body writhed.
She had to suppress a wild impulse to laugh; the sight was as ridiculous as it was
dreadful. She thought of fleeing from the room but she couldn’t. Her hair prickled,
her mouth went dry, she shuddered violently, but she stood where she was. “Mike! Mike!”
He did not answer; but in a minute or so he became still. He rolled over and sat up
then, his eyes glassy. He staggered to the bathroom, and she saw him take a hypodermic
needle from a black case before he convulsively kicked shut the door.

She threw the brandy and water into an empty pitcher, poured straight brandy, and
gulped it. Sinking into an armchair, she lit a cigarette and waited, her body racked
by an occasional shiver.

It seemed a long time before he came out, though the cigarette was only half smoked.
He looked better, but still fearfully pale. He was in his shirtsleeves, and he had
taken off the black tie and stiff collar, so that he looked half undressed. He shook
his head at her and smiled wretchedly. From the shelf of medicines near the bed he
took down a bottle of dark brown capsules. He peered at her face for several seconds,
holding the bottle in a wavering hand. “Well, I was meaning to talk to you anyway.”
He took two capsules; slipped into a maroon dressing gown that lay on the bed, lit
a cigar, poured brandy for himself, and settled in a chair opposite her. In that small
space of time he recovered astoundingly. Color returned to his face; the hand that
held the cigar was steady; and the fingers of the other hand lay relaxed on the arm
of the chair, not drumming, and not trembling in the least. He said, “I’ve probably
shocked you out of a year’s growth,” and his tone was pleasant and even.

“I’m a little concerned for you,” Marjorie said. “I can’t help that, I’m afraid—”

“I’m not a drug addict, Marjorie. I’ve learned to live with a pretty unstable nervous
system, that’s all.” He looked at her, and laughed. “You’re skeptical. I don’t blame
you. We Americans always disapprove of anything that lightens the rub of life on the
nerves—anything from painkillers for a woman in labor, to booze for the downcast.
We get it from the Puritans. I can’t imagine how we ever became reconciled to cigarettes.
Advertising, I guess. We don’t smoke tobacco, we smoke pretty girls. You know, a sensible
Chinese smokes twenty pipes of opium a day and we think he’s an Oriental degenerate,
but believe me, he’ll live longer and be happier than a two-pack-a-day man in the
States.” Eden yawned, smiled in apology, and began to talk about the traditional drug
plants and their properties, and about the new synthetic drugs made from coal tar.
His knowledge was encyclopedic, and for a while Marjorie was interested. She was waiting,
of course, for an explanation of his horrifying panic seizure, thinking that this
talk was a mere delay while he collected himself.

But he went on and on in this vein, calm and copious, and she began to get a little
sleepy. He took from his bedside table a fat volume,
The Anatomy of Melancholy
, and read from it a long passage in wild archaic English about drug plants. What
happened next she was never quite sure. When she opened her eyes the porthole showed
bluish-gray, and she was lying on a bed, still in her evening dress, covered by her
camel’s hair coat and by a light quilt. Eden sat in an armchair beside her, reading
by lamplight, freshly shaved, and dressed in the gray tweed suit he had worn on the
first day of the voyage. She sat up, exclaiming, “My God!” Eden told her she had staggered
to the bed midway in his reading of the
Anatomy
, muttering that she would be more comfortable lying down, and had fallen asleep in
thirty seconds. “I hadn’t the heart to wake you, it was only a couple of hours to
dawn, anyway. We ought to be able to see land now. How about coming topside?”