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Where once I roamed the
Majestic
’s decks, now I sit in a sealed cabin, its door locked from the outside. The ship’s roster pretends I am the ship’s log-keeper. Thus: I keep a log. This is a Skylark Mk II typewriter, made inSaint Paul, Minnesota, a place I once visited. Under a red sky, I played Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Song of India.” The applause was like a net of fish being drawn from the brine.
    When I was last atop the Atlantic, I imagined New York as a single row of gold and brass buildings, a panel of architecture nestled against the shore. Beyond these buildings—desert, cowboys, Indians. Ten thousand miles of sand, spurs, and feather headdresses. I was not seeking love or fortune, just a new frontier, just open country for young inventions, just a long, clear course to serve the Revolution.
    In the end I found much more than that, and less.

    WE LANDED IN NEW YORK on December 20, 1927. There were photographers, newsmen, a quartet of harpists. The harpists and the newsmen did not get along. At every angelic strum, the journalists’ grimaces deepened, like retraced drawings. They shouldered past the musicians, blocking their view, blocking my view of them—and I was eager to see them, the Queens and Brooklyn harpists, the first American women on whom I had ever cast my eyes.
    Of course I had no idea why there were harpists playing for us. The winds blew harshly from Ellis Island and we were all shivering as we left the ship, tucked into coats and hats. I had expected to go quietly to a car but instead—this small crowd. People yelling my name, yelling questions in squawky New York accents. Camera flashes going off. I was shocked. I was delighted. I strained to see the harpists. I had no idea Rudolph Wurlitzer had hired them to butter me up; I assumed that in America, harpists greet every ship. It was only later, plunging into a lunch at the Grove, also paid for by Wurlitzer, that I found out he wasresponsible. In his coughing Germanic English he said he had read an article about me, an interview in London, in which I spoke of my love for the harp. I have no idea what he was talking about. I have no love for the harp. “You spoke with such fine
arteeculation
, Dr Theremin,” he said. He coughed. “You were like a deegneetary for science.”
    He wanted a demonstration, of course he did; he wanted to license the theremin for his company. He had papers in a crocodile-skin attaché, ready for me to sign right then and there. But I didn’t; of course I didn’t. I gave Pash a pre-emptive glare. I wanted to wait and see. I wanted to speak with other Yankee gentlemen. Perhaps things would have gone differently if I had signed with Mr Wurlitzer. Perhaps there would be a theremin in every home. He said he wanted to introduce me to Thomas Edison, “the Theremin of America!” At the Grove, 10:30 in the morning, he ordered a steak (well done).
    One more recollection of our arrival: as we crossed the gangplank to the pier, I could see the covered rows of the West Street Market, tables piled with sweet potatoes, buckets of oats, fish on ice. Men stood smoking. Horses waited. I gazed at these first tableaux of New York City and Pash gazed too, both of us newcomers, awed and curious. I glanced at my companion and abruptly I saw him darken, straighten, not because of me but because of something he had seen. Pash was suddenly more like himself. He stared out past the journalists, the musicians, to where the tugboats were docked, scuffed and beetle-like. A figure in a slate-grey trench coat stood on the timber pier, in the boats’ wide shadows. He was tall. He was almost motionless. He looked as if someone had placed him there. Through binoculars, he watched us.
    “Who is that?” I murmured.
    Pash continued down the gangplank. It did not seem as if he was going to answer me. He put his hands in his pockets and lowered his head. I followed. “Pash?”
    He looked back over his shoulder. “The enemy.”

    I HAD MY DEBUT