A Word In Edgewise: Attachments All The Way Down

When I was little, my folks often read to me or told me stories. Occasionally, Dad related history, most memorably the fate of a big ship, the biggest, most luxurious ever to sail: RMS Titanic. 

“She set out to take 2,223 souls across the Atlantic from England to New York,” he began …”but never made it. An iceberg breached her hull; passengers fought for space in lifeboats (too few). On the tilting deck the band stood fast playing Nearer, My God to Thee, as they slipped into Eternity.”

Come morning I was all afire to share with Miss Parisse, my kindergarten teacher who I adored. Too many beats passed before she asked, “Did that really happen?” I went home in high dudgeon for Dad’s assurance. 

“She never heard of the Titanic?” he exploded in a dudgeon higher than mine. I realize now, Dad would have been nine in 1912, when Titanic was right on the doorstep.

Titanic embedded itself somewhere inside me. Not a Titanic-phile, I rather absorbed a Titanic awareness. Whether I was in class, out roller-skating, reading Donald Duck comics, that vast ship remained immobile down there…somewhere.

In 1985, by chance, “Somewhere” turned out to be 12,500 feet down in the North Atlantic, some 400 nautical miles off Newfoundland. The bow lay  specifically at 41°43’57”N 49°56’49”W, numbers that meant nothing even to adult me, while dark, silent, alone resonated. That Titanic could now be seen, be visited even remotely by humans was powerful. What remained? Was anyone still there? 

Among the 57,000 photos and hours of video from submarine Alvin’s first manned descent in 1986 was a pair of shoes on the ocean floor. Their owner, like all others’ fleshly remains, long-ago consumed by the sea and its denizens.

I saw A Night to Remember in 1958 but not the later, flashier versions. What most recently made the doomed vessel surface in memory was the recent tragic–yet predictable–implosion of the Titan submersible and its five Titanic-bound “Mission Specialists” The biggest mystery, was the presence of Pierre-Henri Nargeolet. 

Considered by many “Titanic’s greatest explorer,” Nargeolet had made 37 descents to the Titanic’s remains, was Director of Underwater Research at RMS Titanic, Inc., holder of sole legal rights to items in the Titanic. Items on display through that company were discovered either under his supervision or personally. Widely and affectionately known as “Mr. Titanic,” why would he seal himself into jerry-rigged Titan?

Recent articles in The New York Times and Washington Post indicate in large large part his yearning to revisit the decaying eminence, as well as hoping he might be of some assistance if needed, although he–of all involved– knew how split-second that would be.

To a friend attempting to dissuade him, the 77-year-old Nargeolet replied he was an elderly widower, and, “If you have to go, that would be a good way. Instant.” Instant, and with the ship. In a photo taken 31 May, 2013, Nargeolet stands over a display case holding a small model of the disintegrating bow of RMS Titanic. A publicity shot at a Parisian exhibition, yes, but his is not a publicity face. One viscerally feels the pull of the vessel for the man, of the man’s yearning to join the mighty fallen.

Nargeolet’s own embedded attachment lives on in his belief that; “Everyone has a right to dream about TITANIC, to see the wreck if they want, and to see artifacts. It should not be the privilege of a small group of people.”