Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter Read Free Book Online Page A

building up a case against this fatuous foreigner which she would have well prepared when the time came to quarrel. He watched her small, neat figure, harmonious as a little classic statue; the round head with the knot of black hair, the rather stiff, modest walk, which managed to conceal or misrepresent everything he believed he knew about Jenny. She might, by that walk, be a prim little schoolteacher who kept in mind that she must carry her shoulders straight and her hips smoothly.
    David looked at his watch and decided it was time for the first drink of the day, the hour towards which he lived of late, and went in the bar, feeling all at once surrounded and smothered by the sea, which he hated, and which now filled him with a quiet deep horror. There was no place, no place at all to go.
    This whole wild escapade to Europe was Jenny’s idea; he had never intended to leave Mexico at all, but he had let her lead him by the nose, as usual. Still, not altogether, he reflected, when the first slug of whiskey had begun to take hold. She planned, taking his assent for granted, to go first to France; he at once determined, if he went anywhere at all, to go to Spain. They had two or three violent quarrels about it, and then compromised on Germany, which neither of them wanted to see. That is, they drew one from three named straws of different lengths—he held the straws and Jenny drew one—and the shortest straw, named Germany, came out. They were both so bitterly disappointed they quarreled again, and then drank a little too much, and then made love fiercely half the night as if in a revengeful rage against whatever it was that kept them apart; and all of it had settled nothing. They both stuck obstinately to the chance decision, so here they were—yet even so, Jenny had her plans. She came in one afternoon announcing gaily that in case they changed their minds, they could still get visas for France from the French Consul at Vigo. The German ship’s agent at North German Lloyd’s had sworn to her that this was a fact.
    â€œWhat about just being allowed to get off at Vigo for Spain?” asked David.
    â€œI’m not going to Spain, remember?” said Jenny.
    Well, if she felt better with an ace up her sleeve, let her. She might go to France if she liked. He would go to Spain. She’d find out in time whether she was going to have it all her own way.
    â€œ Bitte ,” said Mrs. Treadwell, timidly, thinking she might as well begin brushing up on her German, to the small round woman with the glossy braids and the gold necklace who was having tea at a small table by herself. Opposite her was the only empty chair. The bar was crowded, it looked festival enough, but the silence was rather odd Even those persons obviously related in whatever way sat mute as if with strangers.
    An amiable but vacant little smile spread over the plump fresh face with its soft features. A competent white hand was lifted, palm out, gently. “No, no,” she said, “don’t trouble yourself. I speak English for years now. I taught English even—do sit down please—in the German school in Guadalajara. My husband taught there also. But mathematics.”
    â€œTea, please,” said Mrs. Treadwell to the steward. She had changed from dark blue to pale gray linen, with still shorter sleeves, and the disgraceful-looking big blotch on her arm was quite livid.
    â€œI am Frau Otto Schmitt,” said the round woman, stirring her tea and dropping more sugar in it. “I was from Nürnberg in my youth and I am returning there at last. It was to have been my great happiness, my husband’s long-looked-for joy, but now it is only grief and disappointment after all; and I am tempted though I know it is a sin sometimes to ask myself—what is life but that, after all?” She spoke in a low voice without complaint, but as if she wished even the merest chance acquaintance to identify her at once