TITANIC: A STORY TOLD
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jack and Rose walked side by side. They
passed people reading and talking in steamer chairs, some of whom glanced
curiously at the mismatched couple.
"So I’ve been on my own since I was
fifteen, since my folks died. I have no brothers and sisters, or close kin in
that part of the country, no reason to stay, so I lit out an’ never been back
since."
"So you don’t have a home of any
kind?"
"Naw, I’m like a tumbleweed, blowin’ in
the wind. Listen, Rose, we’ve walked about a mile around this boat deck and
we’ve chewed over how I grew up and how great the weather’s been, but I reckon
that’s not why you came to talk to me."
There was an awkward pause.
"Mr. Dawson, I--"
"Jack."
"Jack...I feel like such an idiot. It
took me all morning to get up the nerve to face you."
He looked her in the eye.
Rose took a deep breath. "I...I want to
thank you for what you did. Not just for...for pulling me back. But for your
discretion."
"You’re welcome. Rose."
"Look, I know what you must be thinking!
Poor little rich girl. What does she know about misery?"
"That’s not what I was thinking. What I
was thinking was...what could have happened to hurt this girl so much she
thought she had no way out."
"I don’t...you see, it wasn’t just one
thing. It was everything. It was my whole world and all the people in it. And
the inertia of my life, plunging ahead and me powerless to stop it."
She held up her engagement ring.
"God, look at that thing! You would have
gone straight to the bottom."
"Five hundred invitations have gone out.
All of Philadelphia society will be there. And all the while I feel like I’m
standing in the middle of a crowded room screaming at the top of my lungs and
no one even looks up." She continued in a rush. "Last night I felt so
trapped. I just had to get away...just run and run and run...and then I was at
the back rail and there was no more ship...even the Titanic wasn’t big enough.
And before I’d really thought about it, I was over the rail. I was so furious.
I’ll teach them not to listen. They’ll be sorry."
"They’ll be sorry. ‘Course you’ll be
dead."
Rose was embarrassed. "Oh God, I am such
an utter fool."
"So you’re stuck on a train you can’t
get off cause you’re marryin’ this fellow. So don’t marry him."
"If only it were that simple."
"It is that simple."
"No, Jack. No, no, no, no. I’m sorry, I
can’t expect you to understand how things work in my life."
"Do you love him?"
Rose looked at him in shock. "Pardon
me?"
"Do you love him?"
She was flustered by his directness.
"You’re being very rude. You shouldn’t be asking me this."
"Well, it’s simple. Do you love him or
not?"
"This is not a suitable
conversation."
"Why can’t you just answer the
question?"
"This is absurd. You don’t know me and I
don’t know you and we are not having this conversation at all. You are rude and
uncouth and presumptuous and I’m leaving now. Jack...Mr. Dawson...it’s been a
pleasure. I sought you out to thank you and now I have thanked you--"
"And you’ve insulted me--"
"Well, you deserve it."
"Right. Right." He grinned. "I
thought you were leaving."
Rose started to laugh in spite of herself.
"I am. You are so annoying. Wait! I don’t have to leave. This is my part
of the ship. You leave!"
"Well, well, well. Now who’s being
rude?"
"What’s that stupid thing you’re
carrying around?"
The question was rhetorical because she had
already grabbed the sketchbook. She opened it.
"What are you, an artist or
something?"
Each of Jack’s sketches was an expressive
little bit of humanity: an old woman’s hands, a sleeping man, a father and
daughter at the rail. The faces were luminous and alive. His book was a
celebration of the human condition.
"Well, these are rather good." She
looked at some more. "They’re very good actually."
"They didn’t think too much of ‘em in
old Paree."
"Paris? You do get around. For a...a
person of...well...limited means."
"Go on, go on. A poor guy. You can say
it."
>Some loose sketches fell out and were
taken by the wind. Jack scrambled after them...catching two, but the rest were
gone, over the rail.
"Oh, no! Oh, I’m so sorry. Truly!"
"Don’t worry about it. Plenty more where
they came from."
He snapped his wrist, shaking his drawing
hand in a flourish.
"I just seem to spew ‘em out. Besides,
they’re not worth a damn anyway."
For emphasis he threw away the two he caught.
They sailed off.
Rose laughed. "You’re deranged!"
She went back to the book, turning a page.
"Well, well...well."
She had come upon a series of nudes. Rose was
transfixed by the languid beauty he had created. His nudes were soulful, real,
with expressive hands and eyes. They felt more like portraits than studies of
the human form...almost uncomfortably intimate. Rose blushed, raising the book
as some strollers went by.
Trying to be very adult, she asked, "And
these were drawn from life?"
"Yup. That’s one of the good things
about Paris. Lots of girls willing to take their clothes off."
She studied one drawing in particular, the
girl posed half in sunlight, half in shadow. Her hands lay at her chin, one
furled and one open like a flower, languid and graceful. The drawing was like
an Alfred Steiglitz print of Georgia O’Keefe.
"You liked this woman. Some of her soul
is in this one. You used her several times."
"She had beautiful hands, see?"
Rose smiled. "I think you must have had
a love affair with her..."
Jack laughed. "No, no! Just with her
hands. She was a one-legged prostitute." He showed her a full body pose.
"See. Good sense of humor though, huh?" He showed her a sketch of a
sad, dumpy old woman. "And this lady here...we used to see her every night
in this bar, wearing every piece of jewelry she owned, waiting for her lost
love. We called her Madame Bijoux. Her clothes were all moth eaten."
"You have a gift, Jack. You do."
She looked up from the drawings. "You see people."
"I see you."
There it was. That piercing gaze again.
"And...?" She thought he meant as
an artist’s subject...now she was playful but he was serious again.
"You wouldn’t a jumped."