Chapter 16
I’ve come to recognize there is a sort of divinity in the everyday, in the mundane.
His shaving kit. His favorite necktie. His gray woolen Chesterfield, still hanging in the closet, still scented of him.
That band of gold we took from his finger. Such a simple ring, so plain, a little scratched. Yet it bounded all my hopes and dreams.
ABOARD LUSITANIA
The next morning dawned magenta and flame atop a much calmer ocean, just as the staff captain had predicted. The roll of the ship was very nearly unnoticeable, so Rita decided to indulge in a seawater bath.
Lusitania sported few of the more modish amenities that had overtaken some other steamers.
Her passengers would find no Turkish spa onboard.
No swimming pool or racquetball court. No gymnasium.
None of the fashionable innovations (some critics sniffed newfangled nonsense) that had swept through the ocean liner industry in the short span of years since the Lusy had been christened.
Cunard’s flagship was a nimble, speedy lady.
A dashing lady, without question, brimming with elegance.
However, her passengers were expected to entertain themselves.
There was the Reading and Writing Room for the ladies, done up in tints of ivory and pink and pale oyster gray.
Rose du Barri curtains, Colonial Adam furniture, electric desk lamps with fringed shades.
Tall windows of etched glass and a glass dome above, so that, under clear skies, the room would flood with sunlight, and its occupants could bask in a heavenly glow.
The Smoking Room, for gentlemen only. They did more than smoke in there, of course.
There was gin and whiskey and port as well, poker games, speculation about certain businesses or certain women or else the stock market, always reliably the stock market.
All of it taking place in the dark luxury of walnut walls and pillars and deep red upholstery, under yet another stained-glass ceiling.
And a smallish library, for everyone. Everyone in saloon class, that was. Second and third had to provide their own reading materials.
But one fine feature the Lusitania did have was that her baths, in every class, were supplied not with freshwater but salt, straight from the sea, heated and delightful.
There was a ladies’ washroom not too far from Rita’s cabin, just an offshoot of a corridor away, but far enough so that, in her bathrobe, even very early or very late, anyone passing by would realize at a glance that she didn’t have an en-suite stateroom.
Damned, damned last-minute cabin.
But once she was in the washroom, it was actually quite nice.
Compact, of course. But marble counters and floors, polished fixtures, cut-glass sconces, much like the rest of the ship.
Everything clean and glistening. The tubs themselves were partitioned into narrow, separate chambers for privacy, with heavy damask curtains that could be either tied back or fall free, concealing the entrance.
Hooks for clothing, shelves for shampoo, soaps, beauty oils.
She was fortunate enough to have the whole washroom to herself.
Rita chose a bathtub, untied the curtain and loosened the spigots.
Water rushed into the tub clear as ice, splashing along the bottom and against the sides.
She opened the hot water tap farther and veins of steam began to rise and entwine, veiling the air.
As the tub filled, she balanced a hip along its edge, already savoring the scent of salt.
She tested the temperature with her fingertips and remembered, without warning but with acute clarity, the slippery caress of the Pacific along her skin, that body of water another world away.
The beat of the sun searing the top of her head.
How her sister’s nose had burned pink on the beach that day in Ocean Park and later began to delicately peel, enough so that the makeup artist for the photoplay had to apply extra layers of paint to hide it.
Rita flicked the wet from her fingers. She shrugged out of her robe and nightdress, hung them both on the brass hooks provided, then stepped, one foot at a time, into the bath.
SHE RETURNED TO her cabin scrubbed clean, her body relaxed, warm and supple, ready for the day.
Just as Eleanor finished all the careful details of Rita’s toilette, her hair arranged, her dress donned, her boots buttoned, the cabin-to-cabin telephone fixed to the wall let out a short, ringing trill.
Rita picked up the receiver, stood close enough to the mouthpiece to be heard.
“D-15, yes?”
“Dear girl,” said Charles, on the other end of the line, “come to my suite. We’ve got caviar and oysters on order, along with half a dozen bottles of excellent blanc de blancs.
” His voice grew distant; he must have shifted from the wall.
“Is that right, Justus? Six bottles?” Louder again.
“Hurry up. I have a play I want to discuss and at least two gentlemen begging for the honor of a dance with you.”
“Champagne and oysters? Dancing? Charles, it’s barely ten past nine.”
“In America, we call it brunch. See you soon.”
Far below them, in the dark and sooty bowels of the ship, down narrow corridors and stairwells that most of the passengers above never even thought of, never considered, the fires that fueled the mighty Lusitania burned, and the firemen and trimmers and greasers worked and worked, never ceasing, ensuring that there would always be coal shoveled into the furnaces.
Covered in coal dust, breathing and eating and pissing coal dust, until even their spit was tinged black.
They were hard men, strong men. Men eager to get ahead in this world no matter what it took, mostly through brutal labor in the stokehold.
Their time aboard trapped on the lowest decks was to be exchanged for a fair wage sent back home to their families, keeping food on the table for hundreds of hungry mouths.
The Lusitania was so famously fast because she was equipped with four massive boiler rooms instead of nearly everyone else’s one or two or three, powering four steam turbines that, in turn, powered four massive propellers.
Twenty-five boilers all together, equaling one hundred and ninety-two separate furnaces, all supplied with coal nonstop by these dirty, sweating men, shift after shift.
On average, the ship devoured about eight hundred and forty tons of coal a day.
She was a bullet along the surface of the ocean, swift as could be.
And that was what gave Lusy her advantage over every other bullet sailing the seas. That. Those boilers. Those men.
Their resolute dreams, bought one heavy shovelful at a time, tossed into an inferno before their faces.
RITA WOULD SOMETIMES wonder, later on, why she hadn’t taken better note of the golden days sliding away from her on that ship.
Why she hadn’t taken care to mark the hours, the dawns and dusks, the black-lacquered nights blazing with moonlight or stars.
But it was always like that on a longer sea voyage, at least for her.
The minutes melted away, the hours vanished, lost to the minutiae of meals and promenading and whist and conversation with people you barely knew, and would likely never see again.
Naps, when there was truly nothing else to do.
Only the wind remained constant. The water below the black metal sides of the ship, sliced apart and tossed skyward by the blade of the hull, cascading back and away in powerful, sheer sheets.
It did seem to her, however, that this particular voyage was taking longer than usual.
Longer than she thought it would, but then, no matter how many times Rita had crossed the Atlantic (a good many), she was no sailor.
She wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that the fourth of Lusitania’s famous four funnels never seemed to have smoke pouring from it, no matter when she checked.
She mentioned it to George, who said he’d already noticed, and already inquired.
“The fourth boiler room has been shut down. They’re trying to save on the cost of coal.”
“The cost of coal?” Jenny repeated incredulously.
It was Wednesday afternoon, well along on their journey.
The Lusitania was a tiny floating toy somewhere in the middle of a giant’s endless blue ocean, nothing else in view, not even clouds.
They were reclining in their rented deck chairs on B Deck, Rita and Jenny and George, letting the sunlight warm them, watching the sky glide by.
Rita had ensured that George was included in Charles’s glittering group, including the dinner table.
And George, in his seamless way, had blended in instantly, suddenly a performer again, a handsome fellow comrade of the stage.
More than once, Rita had caught Josephine Brandell looking at him askance through her lashes, her face lightly flushed.
Rita might have been a little indignant of behalf of her sister, but the truth was that George Vernon had eyes only for his wife, and Rita knew it. So let Jenny dream.
Her brother-in-law leaned back, laced his fingers over his chest. He rested his head against the wooden slats of the chair, his bowler pushed low over his forehead. In the slanting bright light, Rita noted the pale thread of a scar crossing his chin. A straight, short cut, some long-ago injury.
“Since the war,” George said from beneath his bowler, “transatlantic passenger traffic has dropped off considerably. Not just for Cunard, but all the lines. This is how Cunard decided to staunch the bleeding.”
Rita grimaced at the wording; he squinted at her from beneath the hat’s brim.
“Pardon me. I meant to say, this is the inevitable result of hours of meetings between desperate accountants and the ponderous powers that be.”
“So … we’re not on the fastest ship, after all,” Rita said.