Sailors on the Inward Sea (27 page)

Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.

When the time came, Barnes and I joined the line of mourners passing by the grave and I tossed in my handful of dirt, walking away blurry-eyed. Outside the church's entrance, where the limestone is carved with images of the apostles, Barnes and I ran into Jessie and Borys, who were with Conrad's Polish relatives and the austere count. A dozen or so people waited in line to offer their condolences and we joined them, inching toward Jessie, whose eyes were glazed with fatigue and grief. I remember thinking of how alone survivors always look no matter how many people hover nearby, offering comfort. She smiled and took my hand and I introduced Barnes, adding that he was one of the
Nellie
's gang. He choked up when he told Borys how sorry he was and then we passed on, relieved that we had gotten through the last ritual. Barnes asked if there was anything we could do for Jessie and I said I couldn't think of what it might be, not mentioning the manuscript. I should tell you that his question made me all the more determined to get
hold of it, for I was convinced that she'd find some comfort in those pages. It seemed to me that if I were Jessie I would very likely see Conrad's study as a shrine, the books, papers, pens, ink bottles, blotters, all his writer's implements as relics that held some portion of his spirit.

Barnes said he'd had enough and wanted to leave, preferring to lick his wounds in private. Seeing Jessie in that state had brought on a new spasm of grief for me as well, and I suggested that we find the others. A minute or so later I spotted Kepler and had just pointed him out when I noticed a lone figure coming up from the graveyard, one of several officers in attendance. He was walking fast, shoulders thrust forward, long legs fairly eating up the ground, as if he'd seen more than he had bargained for and wanted nothing more to do with death. I was wondering vaguely what he had been doing down there by himself—delivering some last word in private, perhaps, or just communing silently—when he turned and started toward us. I noticed captain's insignia, a square jaw, pale blue eyes, and in that instant something happened in my head, Ford. I seemed to be listening to Conrad once again describing Fox-Bourne to me in that meticulous way of his, the picture he was creating word by word now coming to life before my eyes. It was him, no doubt about it, his presence utterly improbable and thus all the more stunning. I stood flatfooted, immobilized, fascinated, watching him becoming larger as he bore down on us, thinking as the distance decreased between us that he might have singled me out of the crowd for some reason, when he reached a junction of the path and took the branch that passed through the rose garden, where he was immediately swallowed up to his chest in red blossoms. I wanted to know why he had come, what could have been strong enough, urgent enough to bring him to that spot where he was surrounded by people who had loved and respected Conrad, people whose feelings and memories were
surely at odds with his own. Vengeance, I thought; but how could he avenge himself on a corpse? A desire to desecrate the grave, deface the stone, dance on the freshly turned earth? Relief that the man who'd committed him to paper, his author, was dead and gone? Belated gratitude that Conrad had put the fate of the book in his hands? What I had seen of his face showed not the least trace of those emotions.

“Listen,” I told Barnes, “there's someone I have to speak to,” and set off across the lawn to the garden with its overpowering scent of roses, a wonderfully concentrated scent whose sweetness was at odds with the thoughts buzzing in my head, images of the
Valkerie'
s crew and Conrad. Fox-Bourne had not slowed down and I had to break into a trot to catch up, calling his name breathlessly. In the next instant he stopped dead in his tracks, his head going up as if he were sniffing the air, trying to identify a scent, deliberating whether to continue or face me. He turned around slowly, his eyes meeting mine, his sober, abstracted expression making clear that whatever he had been thinking was still on his mind and troubling him. I had the impression that he was looking at me through a screen of complex thoughts that agitated and distracted him, leaving him unsure what was happening. For all of that, Ford, he was still a piece of work; tall, almost handsome, solid, an exemplar of the officer class, his appearance practically shouting that the mere thought of veering away from the hallowed idea of a fixed stand of conduct was unspeakably repugnant to him. In a word, he reminded me of Jim, outwardly a representative of a superior human being. Now that I'd seen the living man, I understood far better than I had the depth of Conrad's surprise when he heard the chime of the
Brigadier
's telegraph. I had underestimated the power of Fox-Bourne's appearance, the perfection of this man who seemed the incarnation of all the values and beliefs Conrad held dear. Nothing in the man remotely suggested
that he was capable of changing the minesweeper's course and in the process defaming all of us who'd ever commanded a vessel. So it was clear to me that the sound of those chimes had been like an electric shock to Conrad. I was fairly tingling myself, trying to reconcile what I knew of the man with the way he looked.

He was trying to identify me, put a name to my face and my face to a context, the task having pushed whatever else was going on in his mind into the background for the moment, and he was drawing a blank, his curiosity turning to irritation as he waited for his brain to make the connection. A few seconds passed and he gave up. A rather suspicious gleam came into his eyes.

“Excuse me,” he said in a pleasant voice, softer than I'd imagined, refined, on the verge of posh, “I'm afraid I don't know you.”

“Jack Malone,” I answered, surprising myself when I held out my hand, coerced into the offer by his immaculate facade. He gripped it just long enough for a decent shake, both of us letting go at the same time. I was on the verge of losing my advantage, knowing him while he still had no idea who I really was, and much as I wanted to hold on to it the confrontation proceeded as it had to, leading to the next level.

“How do you know who I am?”

The question was predictable of course, inevitable, the only one he could ask at that point. If I'd had my wits about me, I would have had a response ready, something casual and low-key so as not to upset him any more than I had to, but my wits were conspicuously absent.

“From Conrad,” I told him. “We were old friends.”

His eyes flickered and something came into them, or rather returned, the gaze similar to what I'd seen when he'd turned around. I thought that was enough information for him to infer what else I knew, that the rest would fall into place by itself, but if he made the connection he gave no sign, said nothing, standing there with his
eyes on me, waiting. I was acutely uncomfortable for all sorts of reasons, but I seem to remember feeling especially bad about compromising myself by shaking hands with him, as if some of his taint could have rubbed off.

“I recognized you from his descriptions,” I said.

“Descriptions?”

“From his book.” I saw no reason to explain that Conrad had told it to me. “That's why I followed you. Whatever you've decided, his wife will want it back to add to his papers. I'd planned to get hold of you but this saves the trouble.” I paused then, and no sooner did I do so than a range of emotions flickered across his eyes—shock, surprise, chagrin all mixed up together. “I suppose you've made up your mind,” I continued, unable to hold back. “I'd be interested to hear.”

I had caught him off balance—knocked him off balance is probably a better way to describe the effect of my words—and he was having a hard time righting himself. With no apparent idea of what to say or do, he just stood there staring at me, holding his ground even though it must have seemed as if it were shifting beneath his feet. The next thing I knew he executed an about-face, the gravel crunching beneath his shoes. He didn't stop after I caught up and I was obliged to walk beside him, matching his strides, irritated that he'd run off but glad, too, because it meant I no longer had to watch my words.

“Listen,” I said in a jerky voice, “whatever you do is between you and your conscience, but I want that manuscript for Jessie. He didn't give it to you, he lent it in good faith. It belongs with his papers. Jessie will respect your wishes.”

Stony-faced, eyes fixed on a row of cars parked just ahead of us on the side of the road, Fox-Bourne quickened his pace without a word. Once again I caught up and this time grabbed his arm, holding on when he tried to break my grip. That stopped him.

“I advise you to let go,” he said.

I knew that tone from barroom brawls, Ford. It was serious, a warning, a prelude, even, I suppose, an invitation, which I would have happily accepted if he weren't fit enough to make short work of me. I was aware of how utterly ridiculous and inappropriate the confrontation was. There we were, toeing an invisible line, while the gravediggers were probably still tossing dirt onto Conrad's coffin, on the verge of a fight that couldn't be prettied up by thinking that I was standing up for Conrad, making a reasonable request for his heirs and posterity. To top it off, a cricket game was in progress in a nearby field, the crack of the bat reaching us along with the shouts of the crowd.

“That was stupid of me,” I said, releasing my grip. I fumbled in my pocket for my wallet, took out a card, offered it to him, saying, “Please send it to me. I'll see that Jessie gets it.”

It was all I could think to do. I half expected him to brush my hand aside but he took the card, read it, stuffed it into his pocket and was off again. This time I didn't try to catch up, there was no point. I followed him down to the road, where he opened the driver's-side door of a green car and slipped in. A woman was in the passenger seat, a quite lovely woman in a black hat. I vaguely recollected seeing her in the church and wondered why she hadn't stayed with Fox-Bourne. Had they argued? Had he told her to wait in the car while he went alone to the grave and stood over the freshly turned earth? It was like arriving late at a theater just as the last act begins. I had no idea what was going on. His wife was no help, her face as blank as a porcelain statuette's, a geisha's. Fox-Bourne gripped the steering wheel. When he spoke she turned to him, her face suddenly animated, red lips moving as she gently touched his shoulder and he turned his face upward so that he was gazing at the roof, still talking to her. I would have given anything to know what he was saying,
what she knew, and I watched, fascinated, even though I knew that this tableau, this intimacy between husband and wife, was not for me to see.

Suddenly he started the motor and I heard the crunch of gears as the car shot away from the curb directly into the path of another vehicle. The driver veered sharply to avoid a collision, his car bouncing over the shoulder of the road into a field, where the dust pluming behind it filled with a vision of the
Valkerie
disappearing beneath the minesweeper's bow while the yellow cylinder hovered in the background like a wraith. Inexplicably, my attention drifted into an imageless gray space. Something was there, Ford, I felt it in my bones, and then I realized that Fox-Bourne had destroyed the manuscript. It was neither a presentiment nor a guess nor a hunch but absolute, unshakable certainty. I imagined him standing on the fan-tail of the
Brigadier,
feeding one page at a time to the air and watching them float off like gulls, circle, rise on updrafts, and eventually fall into the sea, where they were drowned by the ship's wake. He could have done it at home, stuffed the pages into a blazing fireplace, the words readable for a second or two before the paper flared and curled into ash. Or he simply could have dropped the manuscript into a dustbin as he might a bag of rubbish. I should have known. I should have warned Conrad, but even if I had it would have been too late. Besides, the possibility had surely crossed his mind—it had to have occurred to him.

At that point the driver staggered around to the front of his car. He did not appear to have been hurt but I went over to make sure. Fox-Bourne's recklessness was at least in part due to my hounding.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I'm fine,” he snapped, dusting himself off. “No thanks to that bloody idiot.”

“Well, no harm done.”

“There could have been.”

“Yes.”

“That's always the way, isn't it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The ones who make a mess just get off like nothing's happened, like a law of nature.”

“Generally, I suppose.”

“Generally? He's gone, isn't he? He won't be paying for any damage, will he? The undercarriage hit something. I might be leaking oil. He wouldn't care, would he?”

I suggested that he start the motor and keep his eye on the oil gauge. It sounded fine when it turned over.

“Is the needle where it's supposed to be?”

He nodded.

“Well, then, you'll be fine.”

I walked up through the perfect roses, not a withered petal in sight, not a fallen leaf or twig, the rake marks reminding me of a Zen monastery I once visited in Kyoto whose gravel courtyard was supposed to make one think of the sea. I suppose that was why I imagined once again the pages of the manuscript floating off to the four corners of the world, the words washing off the pages, infusing the sea with a terrible story of the sea. It seemed to me at that moment that Conrad had to know what Fox-Bourne might do with his work. It was an unconscionable risk sending it to him, irresponsible, but only if he cared about the future of the manuscript as I did and he had not. The only reader who mattered to him was Fox-Bourne. Had the words stayed in his mind, I wondered, had he believed them or found some way to discredit Conrad's views? I would have to know Fox-Bourne better than I did to be certain, but I knew what I wanted: I wanted him to hear those sentences ringing as loudly as church bells every day, wanted him to be visited by the ghostly cries of the
Germans every night, wanted the story to do the work the board of inquiry had failed to do. I was certain that if he remembered even a fraction of those words, justice would be served more keenly than if he were imprisoned or drummed out of the service.