Passage

“You can’t go back yet,” she said aloud, her hands gripping the stair rail. “You have to find out for sure if it’s the Titanic.” And the deck’s not listing yet, the stairs are still dry. There’s plenty of time. And there has to be an entrance to the Grand Staircase from the Promenade Deck.

She forced herself to walk back up the stairs to the restaurant and along the passage. It ended in a door, and she opened it and went out on the Promenade Deck. It was dark, but there was light coming from windows farther along. Stained-glass windows. They shone in patterns of red and yellow, blue and green, on the wooden deck. She walked down to them and looked in the windows.

It was a bar of some sort. It was dimly lit and smoky, and over against one wall, she could see a mirrored mahogany bar with ranks of liquor bottles and glittering glasses. At one of the tables a man in evening dress with a dark mustache sat, dealing out a hand of cards. He dealt them one at a time, facedown, and then picked them up, stared at them, arranged his hand, stared at them again. After a while he shuffled his hand into the deck, and dealt another hand.

I could go ask him what the name of the ship is, Joanna thought. Unlike Greg Menotti, he looked like he had no illusions about where he was and what he was doing here, but something in his face made her drop her hand from the door and leave him there, dealing, shuffling, dealing again.

There was no one in the next room, which was even more elegant than the bar. The walls and the white pillars were decorated with gold filigree, and the chairs and sofas were upholstered in gold brocade. Yellow-silk-shaded lamps stood next to the chairs and on small tables, casting a golden light over the whole room. Books lay on the tables and stood in glassed-in bookcases lining both end walls.

The ship’s library, Joanna thought, or some sort of writing room. On the far wall, next to the deck windows, was a row of desks. They had lamps, too, and neatly arranged pens and envelopes and cream-colored writing paper. The name of the ship will be on the stationery, Joanna thought.

She pushed open the beveled-glass door and walked in and across to the nearest desk. Too late, she saw the room wasn’t deserted after all. A man sat at the last writing desk, bent earnestly over a letter. She could see his graying hair and the white sleeve of his shirt as he dipped his pen in the ink bottle, wrote, dipped it again.

She hesitated, but he hadn’t looked up as she came across the room. He dipped his pen in the ink again, poised it above the paper again. Joanna tiptoed to the nearest desk. The envelopes and writing paper lay in cubbyholes. She reached to pull out a sheet of the paper.

“Do you have a hall pass, Ms. Lander?” the man said sternly, and Joanna wheeled.

“Mr. Briarley!” she gasped.

“Joanna Lander,” Mr. Briarley said, smiling broadly. “I had no idea you were here!” He stood up and started toward her, knocking against the desk as he did. The ink bottle wobbled, and the pen rolled off onto the gold carpet. He steadied the ink bottle and then clasped her hand in both of his. “How delightful! Sit down, sit down,” he said, pulling a chair over from one of the other desks. “I had no idea you were on board.”

“You remember me?” Joanna said.

“I remember all my students,” he said, “even though there were hordes of them, gleaming in purple and gold. You were in second period. You were fond of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ as I recall. ‘Alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea.’ And you never asked, ‘Will this be on the final?’ ”

“That was because I knew what you’d say,” Joanna smiled. “You always said, ‘It will all be on the final.’ ”

“And so it will,” Mr. Briarley said. “Knowing that did not stop Ricky Inman from asking, however. Tell me, does he still rock back in his chair and overbalance?”

“I don’t know,” Joanna said, laughing. “He’s a stockbroker these days.”

“And you?” Mr. Briarley asked. “Let me see, as I recall, you intended to major in psychology.”

“I did,” Joanna said, thinking joyfully, He remembers. This is the old Mr. Briarley, the way he ought to be, funny and acerbic and smart, and this is the conversation we ought to have had that day at the house. “I’m at Mercy General now. I’m working on a research project involving near-death experiences.”

“Which would explain why you were not on the passenger list,” he said. “I was certain I hadn’t seen your name. Near-death experiences. Accounts of those who have returned to tell the tale. ‘The times have been that, when the brains were out, the man would die, and there an end, but now they rise again.’ And what have you learned from these voyages to ‘the country from whose bourn no traveler returns’?”

“I — ” Joanna said, and, across the library, the door opened, and the steward came in.

He walked quickly up to them. “I beg your pardon, miss,” he said to Joanna and turned to Mr. Briarley. “If I might speak to you a moment, sir.”