The Voyage (3 page)

And it rained on the ship, everything became slippery, they stayed in Delage’s cabin, a sofa, brown floor, metal desk, the small double bed. “I am not complaining”—gave his arm a little punch. The von Schalla houses in Vienna and Upper Austria were more like warehouses for oil paintings and furniture, cavernous corridors and galleries, the small drawing rooms where elderly servants crept in and out, the many details of lavishness spaced out to impose themselves, as required. He had seen her father’s desk, how it swarmed with scrollwork, entablature, gold-leaf flourishes, which had crept in from the city’s churches, its theaters, seat-of-empire buildings and fountains, leaving hardly enough room for a sheet of quarto, von Schalla’s legs barely fitting underneath. Behind his
head, a vast gold-framed mirror by a trick of perspective forced Frank Delage and any other visitor to be conscious of their distant positions. It was from this small desk that Konrad von Schalla, short, blue-eyed man, had directed his and his wife’s considerable fortunes into chemicals and made a chemical fortune, soon followed by a cement fortune, and built up from the same tiny desk a European-hotels-and-theme-park fortune, and on meeting Frank Delage he took the opportunity to make off-hand inquiries about the Queensland cattle industry. Through the portholes, other ships and Mediterranean fishing boats appeared as horizontal colors, dissolving in gray. “You are thinking maybe I’m soft,” Elisabeth sat up. “I would like you to know, I’ve camped out in the high forests. What do you know about snow?” Sometimes it is a matter of leaning back and not saying anything, not even smiling. Acceptance can be encouragement, it can be done by remaining quiet. Aside from a few piles of snow, the one subject Delage had, more or less, mastery of was the piano—inner workings of, unaltered (as if it was the best we could do) over centuries. Leave out the knowledge of the revolutionary construction of the Delage, its fresh sound appreciated by a few adherents, and his life was mostly blank. Until recently it had been difficult to think clearly about what was there, now it felt as if he were being led—to some area where it would be better for him, a small distance, but away from what he was beginning to sense himself to be. “I told your mother about my family. She wanted to know where the Delages came from.” “Delage” had an aura of Europe and European craftsmanship,
Benson or Cook or poor old Jones would simply not go with a piano, “the Benson piano,” or “the Cook piano,” or “the Jones concert grand,” it would not work, whereas the Delage was there on the lid in serifs and repeated in product brochures, invoices, business cards, signage, clearly a piano backed by a long tradition, look at the name and the serifs, even though the Delage Piano Company in an industrial suburb outside Sydney was barely fifteen years old. “In the 1920s, there was a car made in France called Delage,” he told Amalia von Schalla, “I think I am related.” At this she laughed. “Have you properly looked into this? Can you be sure?” “It was known as the French Rolls-Royce. That’s good enough.” The information had come down from his unreliable grandfather, the wool-buyer all the way from Lyon, on his first visit fell for a Sydney Rocks barmaid, never went back, he told Amalia von Schalla at the Sacher, while she recalled that her grandfather had owned a Delage, or some name like it, powder-blue, with maroon upholstery, in contrast to the other old families who remained loyal to the silver Mercedes. Seated there, Frank Delage could not escape the thought that if Amalia von Schalla as a young woman sat in the maroon leather of the Delage, she would have been sitting on him. His father, Sydney-born, a screen printer and a mason, did his best to neutralize the atmosphere which surrounded “Delage,” he referred to their second-hand Vanguard as “the Delage,” and at every opportunity liked to mock the fancy French, or Frenchness, or foreignness of his name, pressing it into common usage, instead of saying “large,” saying “a delage piece of that cake, if you don’t
mind,” or, “these trousers are too delage for me,” and other such nonsense, and gave his son the name Frank, plain and practical. At their first meeting, Delage did his best not to come across as an obsessive, not wanting to be the Jehovah’s Witness who has the black shoe in the front door, or the Mormons in the drip-dry shirts, their neatness and cleanliness illustrated the promise of paradise, ready with their tedious answers to every question, every objection, drab unhappy people, never feel sorry for them, at the same time it was necessary to describe the mechanical features of his new piano to explain why it produced a superior, or at least a different, sound; and when Amalia von Schalla showed patience and apparent interest, and ordered another round of the Sacher’s excellent pastries without even a glance at the waiter, it was easy for Frank Delage to believe he was not obsessive, not at all, but a person who had arrived with a possibility, and for a moment or two could keep talking with his mouth full. A person can go through an entire life without having a conversation with another person, nothing to show over the years than thousands of murmurings and mutterances, the distracted nodding, not entering, not taking part, so missing what waited within the other person—“the accumulating curiosity,” Delage had noted from one of the English newspapers at the Griensteidl. Changing position to have her back more to him took the weight off his tingling arm, sending it more or less unguided over her shoulder to drape, he was talking about her mother, to her breasts, first one, the other, a drape which has the feel of ownership, had he wanted it. “I have carpenter’s
hands, look. But all I do is walk through the factory, shouting instructions to everybody. That’s become my life, looking over shoulders and pointing out expensive bloody mistakes.” The morning he’d had to snap his fingers in front of the apprentice for falling asleep on the job! Across the table, her hands remained alongside the suede gloves, a pair of fixed crimson shadows almost parallel to her hands. “I want to say, if this piano is so good, why is it you do not have an agent selling it for you? We have piano agents in Vienna. Why do such work yourself?” “Good point. That should be the next stage.” “It requires local knowledge”—she straightened her gloves—“which you do not have.” The local product enjoyed the home-grown advantage of manufacturers’ names polished darkly by the legendary pianists in thousands and thousands of concert performances, not only across all of Europe, in the Americas, Japan, Australia, New Zealand too: the Bösendorfer piano, the Bechstein, Faziolis, a long succession of Steinway & Sons. Now add the Delage (Sydney), Delage said, though he did not actually come out with the words. “Each in its own way a Mount Everest. Do you have any idea?” In Vienna he had to keep reminding himself, do not get into the technicalities, people are not interested, even if he was interested, it’s too difficult, and anyway not the point, all a person had to do was sit down and listen to his piano being played, notice the different tone, cleaner, there was one under wraps in Vienna, transported from Sydney at enormous expense for the very purpose. At first he thought Amalia von Schalla was one of the best listeners he had come across; on the other hand, the attention she
paid to his ambitions may have merely been the habit of aristocracy which made her “come down” to a conversation, just as the Queen of England is said to be wonderful at dispatching all sorts of onerous tasks, at the same time being a most wonderful conversationalist. It wasn’t merely a new person revealing themselves. Across the starched table in the Sacher, she seemed to stretch and become taller, her lines became straight lines, more alert, more of a presence, to the point where Delage wondered what there was about him that could possibly interest her. “Oh, I have a free day,” she said, after shaking her head at the exaggerated stories about his family (sister), the harbor city, man-eating sharks, his knowledge of music, of old Europe, “unless you have somewhere else to go.” But diffidence ran deep in the family, it was seen as a virtue. Frank Delage’s father went around with a permanent wince, as if he had been punched in the stomach, turning his wife still more inward, protected by the walls of the kitchen, it was she who insisted on a piano and lessons for their son Frank, there biting the bottom lip, now sliding his eyes from the faces of women in case he was caught—ordinary male shyness, or hopelessness, widespread in Sydney, even more in the rest of Australia—and when, as in Vienna, circumstances made it necessary to depart from this inherited shyness, Frank Delage managed it awkwardly, departing too little or too much. Coming to Vienna had not been a wise decision, there had to be a better way to introduce a revolutionary new piano. Habits develop which become part of what we are, difficult to change, “pianists and conductors, concert promoters are amongst the worst,” ticking off points on his fingers, at the
same time not wanting to appear relentless. “The composers keep on inventing, or reinventing, and there is some sort of progress in science, I’m told, while the actual playing of music is stuck in the mud, coming out with the same old sounds.” By way of agreement or to cool him down she reached across with a napkin and removed a flake of pastry from his chin, the advancing shadow of a stout woman, large nose, small eyes, tan feather in her hat, seemed to pause before enveloping the table. “Amalia, can we expect you tomorrow?” Without turning, Amalia von Schalla introduced Delage, “I think we need to call you an inventor. Clever man. He has come all the way from Sydney. Tomorrow evening, yes.” To Delage, “Berthe will have some people it is important for you to meet.” The large woman glanced at Delage, “Thank you, Amalia, thank you.” And later, after Delage finally succumbed to the technicalities of what gave his piano superiority, describing the shorter distances of the hammer movements, the different surface of the hammers, the different frame and hardwoods used as a consequence, these were real improvements, and of an unexpected kind, only then after listening carefully, or appearing to, Delage all the while managing to keep his eyes on her, more or less, she didn’t mind, she accepted perhaps even understood his gaze, did she suggest lunch the following day or perhaps the day after at the Hotel Bristol not the Sacher, by which time she’d think about what he’d said. Elisabeth had placed her hand between his legs, “My mother and father had nothing more than a business marriage. I still cannot work them out. I do not know that I ever will.” The pregnant bookkeeper’s thrift
had forced a delay in Delage’s departure, which allowed Elisabeth to join the
Romance
at Piraeus, although she could have caught the ship farther on, at Port Said or Singapore, for example, Delage was stepping down the corrugated gangway thinking he might walk into Athens, a city he had seen so often in photographs, or at least the noble ruins of it holding up against the blue sky, always perfect blue sky, along the streets he would observe the many local customs, he would take his time—from the top of the gangway he saw Elisabeth looking up, expecting someone to take her three suitcases. The ship had been left unattended by the German officers and crew who had piled into taxis heading in different directions for the brothels. When he told Elisabeth, she said, “But aren’t they married?” The sky was thick with clouds, the sea dark, almost black, it rained, it stopped, rained again—pelting the ship as it passed through. In the Mediterranean, Delage expected to be amongst lumps of land broken off what is called Greece, white stony islands everywhere, the ones which appeared here in the rain blurred into the color of half-submerged legs and shoulders of lamb. “Please don’t look surprised. You know what I’m like.” Against the stained concrete of the wharf, a gantry began to move, Elisabeth appeared as paleness and softness, well satisfied with her decisiveness, already a success, Frank Delage trying to fix a smile, although it only revealed a confusion, he knew, he hardly knew her, Elisabeth von Schalla, not in three weeks, not nearly enough time, although from the first word at the soirée he had liked her, Elisabeth of the Schalla family, and went down to carry up her suitcases. “What have you got in
here?” They weighed a ton. Also she brought her own pillow made of goose down, the pillows in a cargo ship would undoubtedly be hard, if they had any pillows at all, away from home Elisabeth was always accompanied by her pillow filled with goose down, even having it under her arm entering the best five-star hotels, a display of feminine sensibility Delage almost admired and she ignored. “I told you I was coming. And you decided not to believe me.” “Your mother, does she know about this?” “You left in a hurry”—although she wasn’t really cross, it was too interesting being on a ship. The epaulettes on the dress gave her a faint Germanic touch, there is still the military residue, diminished by the thin yellow belt, and a small maroon lizard- or crocodile-skin handbag, which added to her gaiety. The ship bulged and shifted against the wharf, straining to depart. And yet he had had every intention of keeping to himself, settle the thoughts, to gather them, as people used to say, he was “gathering his thoughts,” going over what had happened in Vienna along with what should have happened in Vienna, sliced across by a tram, how he had responded to each situation and so on, what he should have said and done, but had not, instead had done something else. To do this it was necessary to be alone, not easy on the ship, on any ship. From La Spezia he had spent hours leaning over the rail following the waves, the five other passengers he looked upon at meal times with careful politeness, making the smallest conversation, little more, before returning to his cabin where he stretched out on the bed, or sat in a chair, all the time aware of the ship driving forward; now Elisabeth on board
would require him to talk, take an interest and so forth. It is difficult anywhere to do nothing but think, it’s difficult even to gather thoughts, it is more and more impossible to be clear, there are too many alternatives, Delage had always skipped from one thing to another, a “grasshopper mind,” father liked to point out, just as it is impossible to remain in a stationary position anywhere on earth without hearing a sound. Delage was shown to the table at the Hotel Bristol, Amalia von Schalla arrived late, she tugged off her gloves, a different pair (different suit, speckled blouse, no miniature hat with fascinator), briefly acknowledged his presence. It had been her idea, her invitation, now she was unhappy over something nobody else had a clue about, perhaps she wondered why she was seeing him again, at the Sacher sipping coffee, while he ate the pastries, she had got on too easily with him. And here he was again in his one-and-only two-button suit, from a faraway place she could not imagine, a tall open-faced man who looked as if he should be missing a front tooth, a salesman walking the streets of her city, knocking on doors (unsuccessfully), if it had been hardware, or boots made from kangaroo hides, not something to do with music, a piano with a revolutionary new sound, she would not have given him five minutes, let alone lunch at the Bristol. “There’s also a car called Bristol,” he said, leaping onto yesterday’s conversation, for he believed it had been a success. “I’ve seen a purple one driving about in Sydney sometimes. They were built by an airplane company in England, and made special use of aluminum.” At the mention of “aluminum,” Delage thought she would walk out. “Aluminum!