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‘Khodaya!
My God!’
She got dressed quickly and in a state of disorder. I had to keep her calm, tell
her to slow down, that we were not in such a hurry. However when we arrived
on the bridge there was an atmosphere of turmoil and passengers were being
directed toward the life-boats.
The steward I had met earlier was there. I went over to him. He had lost none
of his cheeriness.
‘Women and children first,’ he said, in a tone that poked fun at the phrase.
I took Shireen by the hand, to try and lead her over to the boats, but she

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refused to move.
‘The manuscript’, she pleaded.
‘We would run the risk of losing it in all the crush! It is better off in the safe!’
‘I will not leave without it!’
‘There is no question of leaving,’ the steward interjected. ‘We are getting the
passengers off the ship for an hour or two. If you want my advice, even that is
not necessary. But the captain is the master of the ship …’
I would not say that she was convinced by that, but she simply let herself be
pulled along by the hand without putting up any resistance – as far as the
forecastle where an officer called me.
‘Sir, over here, we need you.’
I went up to him.
‘This life-boat needs a man. Can you row?’
‘I have rowed for years in Chesapeake Bay.’
Satisfied by that, he invited me to get into the boat and helped Shireen to
clamber in. There were about thirty people in it; with as many places still empty,
but the orders were only to load the women – and some experienced rowers.
We were winched down to the ocean somewhat abruptly to my taste, but I
managed to keep the boat steady and began to row. But where to, or toward what
point in this black void? I did not have the least idea and neither did the men
handling the evacuation. I decided just to get away from the ship and to wait at a
distance of half a mile for some signal to call me back.
During the first minutes everyone’s concern was how we could all protect
ourselves against the cold. There was an icy breeze blowing which prevented us
hearing the tune which the ship’s orchestra was still playing. However, when we
stopped, at what seemed to me an adequate distance, the truth suddenly dawned
on us: the 
Titanic
was leaning distinctly forwards and her lights were gradually
fading. We were all dumbfounded. Suddenly there was a call from a man who
was swimming; I manoeuvered the life-boat towards him; Shireen and another
passenger helped me to drag him on board. Soon other survivors were making
signs to us and we went to haul them out. While we were occupied with this
task, Shireen gave out a cry. The 
Titanic
was now in a vertical position and its
lights had dimmed. She stayed like that for five endless minutes and then
solemnly plunged towards her destiny.
We were flat out, exhausted and surrounded by forlorn faces when the sun
surprised us on 15 April. We were on board the 
Carpathia
, which on receiving a
distress call had rushed over to pick up the survivors from the wreck. Shireen

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was at my side, silent. Since we had seen the 
Titanic
go down she had not
spoken a word, and her eyes were avoiding me. I wanted to shake her, to remind
her that we had been saved miraculously, that most of the passengers had
perished, and that there were around us on this bridge women who had just lost
their husbands and children who were now orphans.
However I stopped myself preaching to her. I knew that the manuscript was
for her, as it was for me, more than a jewel, more than a precious antique – that
it was, to some extent, our reason for being together. Its disappearance, come
after so many misfortunes, had to have a serious effect on Shireen. I felt it would
be wiser to let time heal.
As we drew close to the port of New York, late on the evening of 18 April, a
noisy reception was awaiting us: reporters had come to meet us on rented boats,
and, with the aid of megaphones, they shouted questions over to us and some of
the passengers cupped their hands to their mouths and tried to shout back
answers.
When the 
Carpathia
had berthed, other journalists hurried over to the
survivors, all trying to guess which might be the truest, or most sensational,
account. It was a very young writer from the 
Evening Sun
who chose me. He
was particularly interested in Captain Smith’s behaviour as well as that of crew
members at the time of the catastrophe. Had they succumbed to panic? In their
exchanges with the passengers, had they covered up the truth? Was it true that
the first class passengers had been saved first? Each of his questions made me
think back and rack my memory; we spoke for a long time, first as we were
disembarking, then standing up on the quay. Shireen had stayed for a moment at
my side, still not saying a word, then she slipped away. I had no reason to worry,
she could not really have gone far, surely she was somewhere nearby, hidden
behind this photographer who was focusing a blinding flash at me.
As he left me, the journalist complimented me on the quality of my account
and took my address in order to get in touch with me later. Then I looked all
around, and called out louder and louder. Shireen was no longer there. I decided
not to move from the spot where she had left me so that she would be able to
find me again. I waited for an hour, for two hours. The quay gradually emptied.
Where should I look? First of all I went to the office of White Star, the
company to which the 
Titanic
belonged. Then I checked all the hotels where the
survivors had been lodged for the night. However, yet again I found no sign of
my wife. I returned to the quays. They were deserted.
Then I decided to set off for the only place whose address she knew, and

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where, once she had calmed down, she would know to find me: my house in
Annapolis.
I waited for some sign of Shireen for a long time, but she never came. She
did not write to me. No one mentioned her name any more in front of me.
Today I wonder: Did she exist? Was she anything other than the fruit of my
oriental obsessions? At night, in the solitude of my overlarge bedroom, when
doubt rises up in me, when my memory clouds over and I feel my reason waver,
I get up and turn on all the lights. I rush and take out the letters of yesteryear
which I pretend to open as if I had just received them. I breathe in their perfume
and re-read some pages; the very coldness of the letters’ tone comforts me, and
gives me the illusion that I am experiencing anew the birth of love. Then alone,
and soothed, I put them in order and dive back into the dark, ready to give
myself over without fright to the dazzling sights of the past: a phrase uttered in a
Constantinople sitting-room, two sleepless nights in Tabriz, a brazier in the
winter in Zarganda. And this scene from our last trip: we had gone up on to the
walkway, into a dark and deserted corner where we had exchanged a long kiss.
In order to take her face in my hands, I had placed the manuscript flat on a
bollard. When she noticed it, Shireen burst out laughing. She stepped away from
me and with a theatrical gesture she shouted to the sky:
‘The 
Rubaiyaat
on the 
Titanic!
The flower of the Orient borne by the jewel of
the Occident! Khayyam, if you could only see what a beautiful moment has been
granted to us!’

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