The Man Who Went Down With His Ship Read Free Page B

pleasure at being shown to a first-class cabin when he had embarked at Cherbourg, having his photograph taken, and being asked by reporters who looked as if they could barely read or write about the little book of poems he had recently published, was hardly lessened by the fact that he felt that just by stepping on board this ship he was betraying everything his father had stood for, worked for and died for. Anymore than it was lessened by the fact that he knew perfectly well that if his father hadn’t been who he was, and died the death he had, notone of his fellow passengers in first-class would have given him more than a disdainful glance, nor would any of those reporters have so much as stepped out of his way, let alone asked him about a volume of poems.
    His father had been a hero; a martyr to the cause of liberty and equality; not to mention a romantically good-looking man with long, dark hair and, to judge by the photographs, a haughty expression. Whereas he—he was just a plump, none- too-attractive versifier; who, if he didn’t get used to the idea that he was not his father, would never be happy for a moment. All right, perhaps he was betraying everything Jean Albers had lived and died for. Yet hadn’t he also lived and died for the right of the gauche, overweight, unattractive and poor to be treated the same way as the sophisticated, sleek, beautiful and rich? Indeed , he had, the young Alfred answered himself, conscious of a certain speciousness in his argument, as he followed a steward down a corridor of polished wood. And what did it matter what had caused the eyes of some of those sleek and beautiful people to flicker with recognition as they saw him come on board, and would, he was certain, cause their lips to smile at him and issue invitations to him as soon as the ship had sailed? All right, they did it only because he was the son of a hero. Having greeted him, however, and having questioned him, might not one or two of those rich, titled and in some cases famous people, or one or two of those reporters, be tempted to go so far as actually to buy a copy of his little book, actually to open it, actually to read what was written there? There was at least a chance. Then if they did, and recognised that seed of truth he hoped was planted there, God willing that seed would take root, and grow, and put forth, however delicately, a flower. And if that happened—then his betrayal, if betrayal there had been, was justified, or even became an affirmation of all his father had stood for. So that far from feeling guilty about the way he was being treated, he would feel proud, and feel that he deserved such treatment; and feel that if his little flower in turn put outother seeds that scattered across the earth, and caused further flowers to grow, not only was he affirming his father’s life, but he was, in a sense, completing it for him. Through me, he told himself, as with a flush of excitement he recognised an American film star being shown to her cabin, my father might live again.
    This sense of pleasure mixed with a sense of betrayal, and a feeling that such betrayal could be reversed or annulled if only he was able to touch the souls of one or two of his fellow passengers, stayed with Alfred for the first three days of his Atlantic crossing; as he made his way towards a New York where he was being awaited—with flowers and a brass band, he’d been promised—by a man his father had helped escape from occupied France. A textile manufacturer who had, in the five years since the war had ended, made a fortune large enough to feel able to send a first-class liner ticket to a person he had never met, and promise that person the use of a duplex apartment on Fifth Avenue for just as long as he wanted to stay there. ‘And that means all your life, if you want, Alfred. Seriously.’
    Moreover, this feeling would probably have stayed with him for the entire duration of the crossing, if, for whatever reason, Alfred