Remembering the Titanic (19 page)

It wasn’t like that, Elizabeth cried silently. We weren’t that close to the victims, we didn’t ignore them in the water, not like that. At least, it hadn’t been like that around her lifeboat. If it had, she would never have forgotten it, never. Bad enough that she had heard the screaming. Still did hear it. Probably always would. But she had not seen what Max was depicting here.

He was clearly saying, “More people would have been saved if the survivors in the lifeboats had helped.” And that, too, was a truth. She knew that. Everyone knew it.

But only Max had painted it, which was the same as saying it aloud.

“No one’s going to buy these, Max,” Bledsoe finally said into the shocked silence. “As art work goes, they’re technically damn near perfect. The detail, the colors, they’re great. But no one’s going to buy them.”

Other people murmured agreement.

Max frowned. “I didn’t paint them to make money. I thought you’d understand that.” He glanced at Elizabeth. “
You
do, don’t you, Elizabeth?”

She didn’t. She had no idea why he’d painted them, couldn’t imagine a reason. There couldn’t
be
a reason. When the only response she could give him was a slow, sad shaking of her head, he looked hurt and confused.

Only Anne said, “I like them. They’re, well, they’re scary, but they’re good. I like them.”

You would, Elizabeth thought angrily. Anything to be different. But then, Anne, you weren’t
there
,
were
you? You have no idea how these paintings will twist the knife already imbedded in the heart of every survivor, in the heart of every relative of every victim. You don’t understand. How could you?

It was then she noticed something in the first painting that she’d missed, and it took her breath away. One of the faces waiting on the lifeboat line was her father’s face. There was no question about it. Max had captured his likeness perfectly. The face seemed incredibly sad but brave, the head up, the shoulders back. The eyes were gazing out at sea. She realized then that he was standing alone, that what he was looking at in the distance was a lifeboat already launched, in which sat, among other passengers, a young girl wearing a large red hat and an older woman in a similar hat of royal blue.

Their hats, hers and her mother’s, had been black. But Max had used brighter colors, just as he’d done in the other paintings.

Elizabeth began crying quietly. “Oh, Max,” she whispered, unable to look up at him.

Obviously reeling from an unexpected reaction to his months of work, Max bent stiffly toward her. “What? What did you say, Elizabeth?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

A tall boy named Gregory who had been sitting on the floor stood up and said, “You know what, Whittaker? I lost an uncle on the
Titanic
. I’m all for freedom of expression and all that, but I think you’ve crossed the line here. I thought the postcards and the songs and the souvenirs were bad, but this … this is a lot worse. If I were you, I’d burn every single one of these and start over. And pick a different subject next time, all right?” To his girlfriend, also climbing to her feet, he said brusquely, “C’mon, Libby, let’s get out of here, before our holiday mood is completely ruined.”

“I guess he doesn’t like my paintings,” Max said with forced lightness when the two had gone. “Well, I didn’t expect everyone to like them. And Bledsoe, it doesn’t matter if they don’t sell. That’s not why I painted them.”

Elizabeth lifted her head. “Why did you paint them, Max?”

Sensing a confrontation they had no desire to participate in, the other guests got up to leave, mumbling various excuses. Another holiday party … a concern about traffic in the falling snow … a rally to attend early the next day. One or two said, “Interesting work, Whittaker” or “I can see why you’ve been so busy lately,” but no one, not one person except Anne said they liked Max’s new work. And when Bledsoe, sending Elizabeth a sympathetic smile, led Anne from the apartment, she called over her shoulder, “Remember, Max, the important thing is to do as you please!” rather than complimenting him again on the work.

When they had all gone and Bledsoe had closed the door, Max knelt by Elizabeth’s side. Looking up into her face, he asked with concern, “You don’t like them either? You look upset. They’ve upset you? The paintings?”

Elizabeth jumped to her feet. “Of
course
they’ve upset me, Max! They’d upset anyone, even people who weren’t
on
the
Titanic
! They’re … they’re horrible! I don’t understand…” Her eyes caught sight of her father’s face again, and she began crying. “You painted my
father
. How do you think it makes me feel to see him standing on deck all alone, my mother and I already gone? Why didn’t you just
stab
me, Max? It couldn’t have hurt any worse than that painting hurts me.”

His face went bone-white, and he took a step backward, away from her. He had put up a puny, scraggly Christmas tree in one corner of the room and decorated it haphazardly with large red colored lights. They were on, and the reflected red playing across his features contrasted sharply with the sudden loss of color. “Elizabeth, I…”

“All these months you’ve been saying how hard you were working, and you never once even hinted that you were painting something like this. You didn’t tell me because you knew I couldn’t bear it,” she accused. “And you’re right. I can’t. It’s cruel, Max, it’s so cruel. People are trying to recover, to get on with their lives, to put that terrible night behind them. And then,” she waved a hand to include the paintings, “you bring it all back.”

His lean, handsome face twisted in pain. “Oh, God,” he breathed, “is
that
what you think? That I was trying to bring it all
back
? I wasn’t, Elizabeth, that’s not what I was doing.” Looking ill himself, he sank into the wicker chair, putting his head in his hands.

Elizabeth fought a desperate desire to rush over and put her arms around him. This was Max, whom she loved. There had to be a reason why he had done this. It was cruel, and Max was not cruel. Never cruel. “Then what
were
you trying to do?”

He didn’t answer for a few minutes. When he lifted his head, his face looked so tortured, so torn, Elizabeth nearly wept for him. “What, Max?” she persisted quietly. “What were you trying to do?”

“Get rid of it,” he said, his voice anguished. He put his head in his hands again. “I was trying to get rid of it. All of it. So I put it on canvas. I didn’t know how else to do it.”

“Get rid of it?” Hadn’t he already done that, months ago? He’d seemed to. And he’d told her to stop thinking about it. As if that were possible.

Maybe it hadn’t been possible for him, either. Maybe she’d been wrong….

Max nodded. “Yes. Get
rid
of it.” He shook his head, and when he lifted his face to her again, she saw tears in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have done it. The minute I saw the look on your face, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. They are as ugly as that night was, I can see that now. But when I was painting them, I wasn’t thinking that way. I was just trying to get it all out, away from
me
. So that I could sleep at night again. So the attacks would stop.”

She did move toward him then, sinking to the floor beside his chair to look up at him. “Attacks?”

He described then, in agonizing detail, the nightmares he suffered from, terrible, black dreams of drowning in a deep, dark pit whose walls were as slippery as silk. But worse, he told her, were the episodes when he was fully awake. They came upon him without warning, and they came often. “It’s as if I’m suffocating. It’s the same way I felt when I was under the water, before my drunken rescuer came along to snatch me up to the surface and drag me to a lifeboat. I can’t breathe, any more than I could then. My chest feels like the
Titanic
itself is sitting on top of it. Most often, it happens at dusk, just as the sky begins to darken. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t dusk when I was tossed into the ocean. But when it happens, I can’t breathe, or swallow, or talk. Sometimes it hits me when I’m painting, or eating, or talking on the telephone. It’s as if every last breath of air has been stolen from all around me and my lungs are filled with cotton … or, more likely, saltwater. Dark, frigid, saltwater.”

Elizabeth reached up to touch his hand. “Max, why didn’t you say anything? You never told me.”

“It has even happened,” he continued, “when I’ve been with you. I would have to stop talking in the middle of a sentence, trying to get my breath back. You never noticed.”

“I’m sorry. You should have said something. I had no idea. You hid it well.”

He shrugged, seeming a bit calmer. “You couldn’t have helped. I guess that’s why I never told anyone, not even you, because I knew it was something I had to handle on my own. When nothing I tried worked, that’s when I came up with the idea of the paintings. I figured, other artists paint reality, why not me? I knew I could do it. The pictures were so clear in my head.” He shuddered. “Very clear. Anything that I hadn’t seen with my own eyes, I just pictured from what I’d heard and read afterward.”

Elizabeth thought for a moment, wanting desperately to say the right thing, words that would make Max feel better. “The paintings are very … accurate. I don’t think photographs could be any clearer than the images you put on canvas. You are very, very talented, Max. They’re very good. It’s just…”

He nodded. “I know. The subject matter. Not fit for human eyes. But people should know. I never meant to hurt
you
. The look on your face…”

“It’s all right, Max.” She held his hand tightly, fixing her eyes on his. “I know you never meant to hurt me. You wouldn’t ever do that, not on purpose.” She paused, then asked, “Did it work?” She waved her free hand to encompass the paintings. “Did painting these scenes do what you’d hoped? Are the nightmares gone? Have you had any attacks since you finished the last scene? When
did
you finish?”

“This morning. I put the finishing touches on the last one this morning. So I don’t know if it worked or not, not yet. But…” He leaned forward to touch Elizabeth’s cheek. “Just telling you helped. That’s pretty strange. I never expected that. I thought talking about it would make it worse. I was sure that bringing it out into the open would somehow make it bigger, more real, something … give it life, I guess. Not that it didn’t already have a life of its own.”

“I just wish you’d said something sooner,” said Elizabeth. “What’s the point of having someone to love if important things aren’t shared? I don’t expect you to tell me everything, Max. You have a right to your private feelings, just as I do. But we were both suffering. It might have been easier if we’d shared that.”

“I couldn’t.”

“I know. But it still makes me feel bad. Knowing you were going through all that and not being able to help you.” Elizabeth smiled. “I was mad because I thought you weren’t feeling anything. You kept telling me to forget about that night, put it behind me. And the whole time you were doing
this
.” She waved at the paintings again. “
I
should be really mad at you now, just for making me think you were getting over it and I wasn’t. You know that wasn’t fair.”

“No, it wasn’t. And it was stupid. I should have been more honest.”

They sat in silence for a while, heads together, Max’s arm around Elizabeth. “So, you forgive me?” he asked finally, sitting up straight but maintaining his hold on her hand. “You don’t hate me?”

“No, Max, I love you. Just don’t keep things from me, all right? Not big things, anyway.” Elizabeth paused, then asked, “What are you going to do with these?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think about it.”

Elizabeth hesitated, then said, “Don’t destroy the one of my father. I don’t want it just now. I’m not ready. But could you please keep it? Maybe later, when it doesn’t hurt so much, I might want it.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure. But I think maybe … it’s a wonderful likeness of him, Max. He looks so … brave.”

“He was brave. Right up until the very last minute. I’ll keep the painting for you, Elizabeth. You just let me know when you’re ready to own it, and it’s yours.”

“Thank you. I’ll be careful not to hang it where my mother can see it. I don’t think she could stand it. But then,” Elizabeth added with a wry smile, “that won’t be difficult, since I won’t be living in her house.”

Then she told Max everything that had happened before she arrived at his apartment.

“T
HEY SEEMED LIKE NICE
enough people,” Flo commented on the drive back to Brooklyn after the Farr Christmas party. The snow had ceased to fall, but a suck, light coating of it covered the road, forcing Flo to drive slower than usual. “And a fine house it was. Shame about the father.
Titanic
, it was. Terrible thing.”

“I was on that ship,” Katie said without meaning to. The words slipped out easily, surprising her. She never talked about it anymore. She had learned not to, from Paddy. And then, although John was a good enough listener, he hadn’t been there that night, so what was the point in speaking to him of it?

Flo was so shocked, the car swerved on the road. “Go on, you weren’t! On
that
ship! And never mentioned it before?”

“You never brought it up before. And anyways, it’s not such a good thing to talk about. ’Twas a terrible night, not somethin’ people take any joy in remembering.”

“But you survived. One of the lucky ones, sitting right here in my car. That’s a wonder.”

“Yes, I was lucky. And Paddy, too.”

Flo glanced over at her sharply. “I thought it was John you were keeping company with now. Thought you were all over Paddy.”

“I am. I was just sayin’, he survived, too. His brother didn’t. And his body wasn’t recovered, like some of them. But Paddy survived.”

“That must be a hurt,” Flo commented. “Losing his brother in such a way. Wouldn’t
that
give you nightmares, though? Thinking of your own brother, down there in the deep, dark sea.” She shuddered. “Wouldn’t imagine your Paddy ever gets a good night’s sleep.”