Pacifica Read online

  PACIFICA

  Jill Zeller

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Book View Café Edition

  January 8, 2016

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-573-1

  Copyright © 2016 Jill Zeller

  Part 1

  Seven Days to Haiti

  Leaving is the same as arriving.

  Those of us on the rail knocked arms and elbows, but no one minded. We laughed, cried, whistled, screamed over the blast of the vessel’s horn as tugs nudged the Leopardo away from New York Harbor.

  The setting sun ran a sword through my eyes, raw from lack of sleep. I could no longer see Mama where she stood on the dock waving a yellow handkerchief. In case she could still see me, I continued to wave my own matching monogrammed linen, strongly, back and forth, as if it would prevent me fainting and making a damn fool of myself.

  You’re off, Ondine, to pierce the perfect horizon, away from steel gray sea of New York girders.

  I would have to remember that, write it down, draw it. In my stateroom were packed my pencils, pad, and lap desk.

  A man’s handkerchief sailed past me in the wind; it planted itself against my chest. Laughing, I peeled it off, looking for its owner.

  And saw him, instantly. Coming toward me was a tall man in a dark suit, white shirt, formal tie. Not waving, like the others, and his thin blackness sliced through the crowd focused on the receding land. But his attention was focused on me, and he stared at me through beryl-green eyes. His black hair, parted in the middle, brushed his collar. He wore a thin mustache.

  “Pardon me, miss, but I believe you captured my handkerchief.”

  My chest captured it. But while I might think that, I didn’t dare to say it aloud. “How do I know it’s yours?”

  As soon as I said that, I wished I hadn’t. My mouth would always get me into trouble. One of his eyebrows twitched ever so slightly, but he didn’t get that look I’d seen on the faces of so many boys and men: leering, proprietary, as if all the world, including all the women in it, were theirs to own and use.

  He said, bowing his head, “If you examine it, you shall see P. P. P. embroidered along the hem in very tiny lettering.”

  I found these letters, aware he was looking down at me, standing close. Someone jostled me from behind, and my breast brushed his arm. I gave the linen back to him and looked away. The brown-brick walls of Lower Manhattan receded; between me and my former life lay a film of soiled harbor water. Sharp tinges of offal and smoke, grilled sausage and cologne began to clear away in fresh ocean breeze.

  “And yours,” the man standing beside me said. “Yours is monogrammed with the letters P. N. L. And you waved it at your mother, who has a matching one.”

  A familiar thrill prickled my spine. But as I turned to stare boldly at him, a look I knew could make men blush, the man smiled in a friendly way, stepped back and bowed with a flourish, and as his hand came up he held a gold-embossed card.

  “Philip Picou, Distinguished Illusionist, at your service, mademoiselle.”

  Was there a hint of France in his voice, or was it just one of his ‘illusions’? I had, of course, seen magicians perform their tricks at the Burlesque; I was even, once, pulled onto the stage to assist in sawing a woman in half.

  And only two years ago, I had seen Houdini himself perform his Chinese Water Torture Cell act on the stage of Carnegie Hall.

  Thinking of that night drew a dark shadow over me, and I turned away to look at the water only for a moment. It was not for my new companion to see.

  “And let me see.” His voice brushed my ears, like velvet. “The initials on the handkerchief. P. N. L. If I concentrate—”

  Turning back I saw him, finger on forehead, eyes closed. Oh, this will be good. What names will he come up with? Has he checked the ship’s register of passengers?

  “The ‘N’ is for No—Nola. The ‘L’ is Lynch!” He opened his eyes and grinned, happy like a child. Then his smile faded, eyebrows low and dark. “But the ‘P’ is hidden. Few know that name. You never use it. You don’t like it.”

  Skepticism flowed out of me; doubt took its place, nudged in beside its sad companion already there. How was he to know this?

  “Petula.” I kept my gaze on his, but it was difficult. “I go by Nola.”

  “Petula. Seeker. And what are you seeking, Miss Nola Lynch?”

  Now I had to look away. Sunlight burnished the water, garlanded the ship’s wake in gold. The city horizon shrank away—my old life, Mama and Papa, Garwood my brother. All behind me in the late summer of 1914 as I went seeking.

  I couldn’t tell Philip Picou what I was seeking, as I didn’t quite know myself.

  I was lucky to be steaming for Panama in August, 1914. Tickets were hard to come by. Only last month the Canal had opened after 10 years of construction, and the pride of it shivered through the country. In truth, sailings for Panama, and further Pacific ports, had been sold out for a year.

  I had my ticket. My half-ticket. Half of what was to have been two tickets for a couple, a man and woman, for travel to San Francisco. I didn’t know what had happened to the other half-ticket, who was now to be my unknown and hidden companion. Perhaps it was Philip Picou, Philippe Magus, who bowed, smiled, and asked me to share his company for dinner.

  When I declined, claiming fatigue, I saw his eyebrows move again, up, then down as if deciding whether to press his case. Wind blasted across us as we moved into the vast harbor, nearing the Statue of Liberty holding aloft her empty torch. Mr. Picou’s hair, long and black, lashed across his face, and impatiently he swiped it away. A moment later he managed a smile.

  “I will look for you for lunch, then. If you aren’t seasick, of course.”

  And then he was gone, walking strongly through the crowd still hanging on the rail, regarding the landscape of receding city and setting sun.

  I found the telegraph office, and wrote two words: I’M GONE. Handed it to the clerk, who read it, a smirk on his young, pimpled face. If he recognized the name of the recipient, he didn’t show it.

  In the stateroom my mother’s money paid for, were flowers. They filled the place with opulent floral scent, heavy and rich, the way he liked things. Big gems. Big automobiles. Big money. There were two bouquets, and I knew without reading the cards who had sent each.

  But I read the cards anyway, my stomach knotting itself over and over.

  Nola, forgive me. I am a weak, stupid man. I can say nothing in my defense. Forgive me. Please. A.

  This one I tore into little pieces, and let them float out the porthole.

  The other was from my former employer, Silas McTavish, editor of The Splash and Windy Hill, two tabloids in which my illustrations were seen by thousands of New Yorkers.

  Go with the wind, my free spirit, and find it. FIND IT!

  There was also the envelope Mama had pressed into my hand as we parted on the wharf. My name on it in her fine, perfect handwriting. This I would read later, because now grief folded me up and I fell onto the bed, clutching my stomach, drawing my knees to my chest, and heaved great sobs, loud and strong, and hidden from others by the rumble of ship’s engines.

  When I woke it was full night. The engine’s steady hum filled my ears. My mouth tasted like dirty harbor water, and I took a quick swallow from the basin faucet, which didn’t taste much better. The SS Leopardo was fitted out with all the newest amenities, plumbing and even electric light.

  Getting up, I looked out my porthole at a night sea draped with starlight. The air was soft and cool to my cheek. I worried I was feverish. To get ill now would be a sin and a waste, as I was never ill. But inside a black illness grew, like nothing I had ever felt before.

  I needed a walk, and some food, but I doubted that I would find the latter at three in the morning
, as my watch informed me.

  Taking my small sketching book and pencil, I left my cabin and found my way to the deck. The Leopardo was a steamer for both passengers and cargo. Great cranes rose from her stern and amidships like grasshopper legs. One could walk from the first class cabin structure across an open deck beside one of the cargo hatches, to the bow where there was a promenade. It was not a luxurious ocean liner, but the ticket price helped me set a modicum of Mother’s money aside for my expenses.

  I headed toward this promenade, wondering if I would see any of New York City’s lights. But we were far out to sea. Not even the eastern seaboard was visible to me, only an infinity of stars above and the phosphorescent gleam of the ship’s wake.

  Two running lamps lit the promenade, achieved by a flight of steps from the cargo deck. I assumed I would be alone here, and clutching my sketchbook I went out on the boards, felt the wind against my cheek.

  Its cool breath flowed over me, and I went straight to the bow and stood looking over the rail as the vessel plowed the water. Through the night she would sail south, far out into the Atlantic sea lanes; we would call at Nassau, then sail through the Strait to Port au Prince.

  Am I, except for the crew, the only waking being on board? Me and the creatures below Leopardo’s keel, racing with her to the south?

  Holding my flapping page down on the rail, in the dim light I sketched Arthur’s face, as I had numerous times. Some of them I had given to him, the rest were blackened flakes of ash in our fireplace at home. Steel-gray eyes, narrow and shrewd, friendly pliable mouth, strong hands to grip during lovemaking.

  Tearing it from my book, I looked at it; I had drawn him looking down, away, in shame and guilt, as was only right. Kissing the page, I set it free.

  Eager wind tore it from my fingers and flung it over the bridge into the night. I could see him flicker in pale flight in the running lights, and then the sea wind took him. Turning my back, I pulled my coat closer, chilled.

  Below the bow promenade was a deck for passengers, with chairs, and arras to protect from rain and sun. Partly sheltered from the wind.

  Under the arras out of the light, I found a deck chair and huddled in it. I didn’t want to go back to my cabin yet, with its flowers and loneliness. A wool blanket couched me, and I listened to Leopardo's growls and the plash of water against her sides.

  Thus, I must have dozed, because I woke having pulled the blanket over my head. I was toasty warm, feeling content. Dim light coated the ship bulkheads with pearl. But it wasn’t the coming of dawn that woke me, rather voices, quick, urgent. A woman’s, and then a man’s.

  I couldn’t make out the woman’s words, but the man’s voice was clear, as if he faced me, with the wind, somewhere near the rail. And the voice was familiar.

  “I don’t care what the cards told you. We have our second chance, right here.”

  The woman replied, her voice distraught, worried.

  “Listen to me,” the man said, and I recognized Philippe Magus, Distinguished Illusionist. “Nothing will ever tear us apart, not even the most vicious claws of society. Nothing. I will always take care of you.”

  Again, his companion murmured. I risked movement, pushing the wool blanket away from my eyes, and saw them standing beside the rail.

  He held her in an embrace, his back to the breeze, hair wildly whipping. She was also tall, like him, face buried in his shoulder concealed by a hood. Her skirt displayed an elaborate pattern of spangled lines, capturing tiny hints of light that fascinated me. I thought this starlight stamped in the folds, stars whipped by wind.

  Taking the woman by the shoulders, Philip Picou turned and walked her away toward the bow.

  They did not appear at breakfast. I thought it interesting that Mr. Picou had invited me to dine with him when he had a wife—or lover—traveling with him as he steamed to Panama.

  Famished, I ate whatever the waiter brought me. He was a smiling West Indian named Armand who appeared to like me very much. Of course, he was being paid, in tips, to like every passenger, but he seemed to delight in telling me, whenever the chief steward wasn’t looking, about his home in Haiti.

  A light burned inside me, as if my night of dark soul-pain had flown away with a bit of Arthur in her teeth, taking with it my companions Dread and Grief. And it was probably aided, I feared to admit, by a sip of Dr. Lynch’s Tonic when I got back to my stateroom.

  Papa supplied me with it ever since my seventeenth birthday and my famous breakdown, which had nothing to do with a nervous condition—I was tougher, I believed, than my brother Garwood. But melancholy hit me strongly then, a combination of disappointment in love and outright fear of embarking on my life.

  Opium, chloral hydrate, and cocaine. A delightful small cocktail of joy. I was careful in my use of it, seeing how it was destroying my father, Dr. Lynch, one molecule after another.

  The day was sunny and bright, and the air palpably warmer. We were, according to the board, roughly 600 nautical miles from Nassau. After breakfast I strolled the deck with the other passengers. I had packed for warmer weather, and wore my linen blouse and loose skirt, piled my hair on my head with aid of rolls and pins, and took my straw boater.

  Black smoke sailed from the smokestack, streamed back toward New York City, leagues behind. A covert of gulls kept pace with us off the stern, and excitement filled all of us on the deck that morning. I looked for Mr. Picou and his companion with the night-sky skirt, but they did not appear.

  My mother sent a message that I received in the afternoon. My father and brother were angry and hurt that I had left without saying good-by, but it wasn’t a secret that I was planning such a move. She said nothing of Arthur. If he had come to see her she kept that close to herself. No, he was glad to be rid of me, I thought as I sat with my sketch book capturing passengers on the sly. He’s made it up to his wife and is home with his children. He blamed me for her finding out about us, but I had nothing to do with it. She knew, as wives do, that he was lying to her about his late nights at work or staying overnight in the city during the summer.

  After dinner there was to be entertainment. I looked at the playbill with a handful of others, half-expecting to see Philippe Magus, Distinguished Illusionist, listed there. But it was a singer, and a pair of comedians, and a dog act.

  “Did you hear there was a fortune-teller on board?” a woman behind me was telling a man standing beside her. They were an older couple, she portly, he thin, well-dressed, and seemingly too well-off for this poor steamer Leopardo, but passage to the Caribbean and ports beyond was more of an adventure than comfortable transoceanic transport.

  “She reads cards, tells fortunes. I heard one of the ladies in the salon talking about it.”

  “I’ll warrant she has nothing against the houncis I saw while I was working the Canal,” the man replied. “They could frighten your Christian faith out of you with just a look.”

  The woman laughed, and I turned to smile at them. I liked them, and we made quick introductions. Mr. and Mrs. Farragut were from Philadelphia, she a teacher and he a mechanical engineer who had worked in the early days of the building of the Panama Canal. They were on their way to sail through the completed Eighth Wonder of the World, as President Wilson championed it, using words attributed to Teddy Roosevelt.

  I felt Mrs. Farragut’s keen gaze. She fought her good manners, I thought, wanting to know with whom I might be traveling. A young woman, alone on a steamer, how dangerous and strange. But then, I little cared what other people thought of me. My mother had taught me well.

  In which case, since I didn’t volunteer to enlighten her, they decided to take me under their wing. That evening we dined together, and as the waiter Armand brought our soup, Philip Picou entered the salon.

  In the shaded electric lights he stood tall and arresting as he pulled off his black Homberg and gave it to the steward. In contrast with the rest of the passengers in our lawn and silks, he was all blackness, in serge jacket and trousers.

>   It seemed to me he saw me first thing, before anyone else in the room. I even felt some heat flow into my cheeks, and it was not from the spoon of soup I held near my mouth.

  After a quick word to the steward Mr. Picou approached our table, bowed.

  “Miss Lynch. Enchanted.”

  Old world and elegant; is this a game with him, or does he really think this way? Quickly he introduced himself, and with a flourish—everything he did was with a flourish as if his entire life was a dance—he invited himself to join us.

  Mr. Farragut, I noticed, narrowed his eyes, gazed strongly at Mr. Picou through his gold-rimmed glasses. Mrs. Farragut’s full lips twisted in amusement as she raised her eyebrows. Again I thought she saw through me, into my very soul, adding up a quantity of facts that might or might not be true.

  As I watched him answer Mr. and Mrs. Farragut’s eager questions, the list of skills Philippe Magus purported to have mastered ran through my mind. I had read them all on his card. First on my list was mesmerism, and he was certainly mesmerizing my supper guests with his stories of travel through France, Italy, even Russia, performing with theater troupes.

  Then there came hypnotism, and I noticed his attention never leaving my companions' faces, a bright, clear gaze. I had to admit his eyes were a startling color, and this was the first thing I had noticed about him when I captured his handkerchief on the rail.

  Escape artist. I wondered how he would escape from us, after supper was over. Or perhaps, more to the point, how I would escape him, because I had a feeling it wouldn’t be easy.

  Finally, sleight of hand. He demonstrated now, with a spoon disappearing into Mrs. Farragut’s hat, even astonishingly making Mr. Farragut’s glasses vanish off his face. How he did that, I could never imagine, but people at neighboring tables applauded after the spectacles reappeared in my empty soup bowl.

  Vanishing act. This final skill might not have been on the list but somehow Mr. Picou accomplished it. After card tricks and the appearance of a real, red rose out of thin air that he presented to Mrs. Farragut, my new friends laughed, shook their heads, claimed the pleasant weariness of a sea voyage, and left me alone with Philippe Magus.