Blue Voyage

by Diana Renn

  Mom was gazing at them, too. “Selim said that’s a private charter. Those two people booked an entire luxury boat. Must have cost a small fortune.”

  I shrugged. It did seem extravagant to have a huge yacht with empty cabins, just for two people. But they were probably just eccentric rich people, like Victoria Windham. If you had enough money, you could buy all the privacy you wanted.

  Then my gaze shifted, distracted by a new person coming into view on the Anilar: a tanned younger guy wearing khaki shorts and a white polo shirt that showed off his strong biceps. He had a mop of dark hair, ruffled by the wind. He looked Turkish, though at this distance it was hard to tell. He was definitely unrelated to the couple. Maybe he was their first mate, their version of Selim. He began tying up lines on the back deck.

  “Why don’t you put on your suit and dive in,” Mom urged as Sage abruptly changed course away from the Anilar and began swimming toward the beach.

  “God, Mom, give it a rest! I just don’t feel like swimming!” I burst out.

  We sat opposite each other at the table, silently steaming. Mom rubbed regular sunscreen on her arms, vigorously. I scooted my chair back a few inches, then leaned over toward the cushioned seats to check out Sage’s books. You can learn a lot about a person by what they read, Dad always said.

  I hadn’t heard of either of the books. One was a dog-eared biography called Passionate Nomad. The other was called The Lycian Shore: A Turkish Odyssey by Freya Stark. Both were warped, as though they’d been out in damp air a long time. A hefty biography and a dense travel memoir about archaeological sites. Not exactly light beach reads.

  Anyway, it was no wonder Mom was pushing me to talk to this girl. Exchange student. Bookworm. Independent traveler. Athlete—probably a champion swimmer, judging by her perfect form. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Mom had actually hired her to make her good values rub off on me.

  Orhan approached and set out two steaming glasses of black tea, fussing over the tiny spoons and bowl of sugar cubes.

  “You don’t have any coffee, do you?” Mom asked. “I’m a little jet-lagged. Tea isn’t really going to do it for me, I’m afraid.”

  Orhan looked surprised, and I flinched. Sometimes both my parents got attitudes in restaurants, like they were royalty or something, asking to sit at a different table or sending their food back. I always hated that. And this wasn’t a restaurant. This was a family-owned and -operated boat. The food and drinks came from somebody’s kitchen.

  But Orhan nodded and said, “Of course.” He returned to the kitchen and came back minutes later with a cup of dark sludge for Mom. “Turkish coffee,” he explained when she stared at it. “But some Americans, they find it too strong. Maybe you will, too?”

  Mom seemed speechless, inspecting the glass of thick coffee, and suddenly I felt bad. Orhan had been trying to be nice to us since the moment we’d boarded the boat, offering things, asking us if we were okay. So I said thank you and then pointed to one of the phrases I’d found in Lonely Planet. Teekkür ederim. I had no idea how to pronounce it in Turkish, but I stumbled through.

  Orhan smiled. “You can say like this: tea sugar and a dream.”

  “Tea sugar and a dream,” I recited.

  “Tea sugar and a dream,” Mom echoed, as if suddenly waking up. She manufactured a smile. “And thank you for your cooking, too. The dinner you served last night was amazing.”

  Orhan beamed at her. “You enjoyed?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “It was imam bayildi. This means ‘fainting imam.’ Baked eggplant. I have many fine dishes planned for this Blue Voyage.” Orhan leaned against the table, suddenly in no hurry to leave, or to get back to whatever breakfast foods were sizzling in the kitchen. “I am only a student in culinary school, but I am nearly finished with my course. After this cruise, I return to the school in Dalaman and take my final exams.”

  “And then you’ll come back and work on this boat again?” Mom asked.

  He shrugged. “The boat is temporary job. I like it, but I want to cook bigger.” He made a grand gesture. “I hope to work for very nice restaurant, and someday have my own.”

  Mom finally smiled an authentic smile. She liked ambitious people. “Well, that’s wonderful, Orhan. Good luck with all that. I’m sure you’ll ace your exams.”

  He smiled wider, displaying white, even teeth. “Thank you. If I do, perhaps you will celebrate with me, yes? I can meet you in Fethiye. There are nice restaurants there.”

  “Oh!” Mom looked startled. “Thank you. But no. We’re going to Fethiye and then back to Marmaris. Round-trip.”

  “Ah. Fethiye,” said Orhan. “This place is beautiful. But the Blue Voyage stop will not give you so much time there. You should extend your journey and see more of it.”

  “It’s a lovely idea,” said Mom. “But I’m afraid we’re completely inflexible. We’re on my sister’s schedule.”

  “She has to get back to work in Istanbul,” I added. “My aunt runs the Hotel Mavi Konak, and— What?” I hissed, as Mom shot me a sharp look.

  Orhan’s face fell. “Then I must try to make my best meals first.”

  “Is something burning on the stove?” Mom asked, sniffing.

  “Oh! Excuse me!” Orhan hurried away, frowning.

  Mom gave me a long look. “First lesson of travel, Zan. We do not tell strange men details about our itinerary. Okay?”

  “But he’s not a strange man, he’s the cook on this boat. And all I said was—”

  “I’m serious. We’re women traveling alone in a foreign country. You saw what happened at the docks yesterday. We’re man-magnets. We look like rich American tourists. Which we kind of are. So there’s no reason for Orhan to know we’re going to Istanbul later. Got it?”

  Now I was the one to give Mom a long look. “Wow. Paranoid much?”

  “Not paranoid. Just cautious. It never hurts to be cautious.”

  Orhan grinned at us from the galley kitchen window and gave us a thumbs-up. “All okay!” he called out. “Nothing burned! Not to worry! I will not disappoint!” He winked at Mom.

  “I think Orhan has the hots for you,” I whispered when he turned away.

  “Oh, Zan. Please. He must be ten years younger than me.”

  But she smoothed her hair and smiled, just a little. And suddenly our eyes met and we burst into laughter. Loud, snorting guffaws. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d really laughed together like that. It actually felt pretty good. For a moment.

  Then I remembered all the stuff she’d said about how I had to earn back her trust. And the way she was micromanaging every moment of my life here. And how she didn’t even believe her own sister. This trip was an endurance event, not a pleasure cruise. I put on my scowling mask and tied it on tight.

  5

  Orhan’s breakfast temporarily took the edge off my mood. The sizzling on the stove had been something called sucuk, he told us: a Turkish sausage made of ground beef and spices like cumin. He stepped back and watched our faces carefully to gauge our reactions.

  “Wow. The sucuk is amazing,” gushed the alien who had replaced my mother. Mom normally logged her calories on an app. Now she was practically inhaling this sausage, and looking at Orhan with an expression of rapture.

  “Sucuk doesn’t suck,” I agreed, reaching for seconds.

  “You like it? You really like it? I am so glad!” Orhan exclaimed.

  Orhan also served up fresh bread, halvah, eggs, olives, and the richest yogurt and honey I’d ever had. It was a weird breakfast because it seemed more like lunch, but he said it was very traditional. Everyone feasted, having seconds and thirds. Except Aunt Jackie, who only drank tea and picked at a hard-boiled egg. “I get a little seasick on boats,” she explained.

  Mom frowned. “Jackie, you skipped dinner last night. You really should eat more.”

 
; Aunt Jackie took another sip of tea. “Later. Takes my stomach a while to wake up.”

  Sage returned from her swim at the end of the meal, when Orhan was clearing the dishes. She threw on a cover-up tunic and followed him to the kitchen. Through the window, I saw her loading up a plate with food. For some reason, my eyes kept drifting her way. Maybe it was because she was pretty, with that long red hair—I’d always wanted hair like that. Or maybe it was the way she took up space with her body, as if she had every right to be there, in that kitchen, helping herself to food. I felt like such a timid traveler in comparison.

  “Bit of a loner, that girl,” said Alice, the older of the two British women, with a sniff. “You’d think she’d be glad for our company. But she seems to prefer her own, doesn’t she.”

  Alice’s daughter Fiona whispered something about Sage being a “sad case, adrift and alone,” but I couldn’t hear it all because suddenly people were pushing back chairs and getting up from the table. Everyone shifted to stake out their territory with beach towels, bottles, and books. The Norwegian retirees sat on the sundeck up front, sharing a pair of binoculars to scan for birds around the cove. The Australian Lobsters sat at starboard. Milton muttered a steady stream of snarky remarks about the “rich bastards over there on the Anilar.”

  “What are you on about now, Milton?” his wife, Maeve, complained.

  “We’ve got ten bloody people over here, on twenty-eight meters of an un-air-conditioned vessel that we paid far too much for. Those two over there have got forty meters all to themselves! And eight empty rooms!”

  “How do you even know that?” Maeve demanded.

  “I went on board. I was out for my constitutional swim. The couple—Americans, nice folks actually—saw me and invited me up. I say the Lycian Society ought to contract with that boat. Then they could move some of us over there to the Anilar, let us have more breathing room, and some air-conditioning. And satellite television. I’ll be telling Mr. Tabak that when we see him next. They owe us!” He shook his fist.

  “Oh, give it a rest, Milton. Honestly.” Maeve pursed her lips and returned to her book.

  Fiona and Alice played cards at one end of the breakfast table, and I had a sudden vision of a nightmarish future in which I spent every summer for the rest of my life taking vacations with Mom.

  Sage emerged from the kitchen. She retreated with her plate of food and her books to a plastic chair on the port side of the boat, even though there was room on the cushions where Mom, Aunt Jackie, and I had set up camp. She had to be aware that she and I were the only young people on the boat, and that we should be allies. But obviously she’d rather sit and read than get to know me. Fine. I didn’t need to get to know her, either.

  I curled up on the cushion under the awning, next to Mom and Aunt Jackie, who silently gave me the most shade from the sun. They were draped over wicker chairs, reading self-help books Mom had brought. Conversations with Difficult Men for Mom, Getting Past Grief for Aunt Jackie. Good times.

  I leafed through the Lonely Planet guide, past the Turkish Riviera section and on to the section about Cappadocia. Even though we weren’t going there at all, I was curious about where Uncle Berk had lost his life. Aunt Jackie had said he had gone for a job interview with the Ministry of Tourism, and gone hiking right after the interview.

  I learned that Cappadocia was about an hour east of Istanbul by plane. The photos showed a wild and almost lunar landscape made up of canyons and hills. It was considered a paradise for hikers, balloonists—and rock climbers, I noted with a pang. Also, according to the guidebook, archaeologists flocked there, and archaeological treasures were still being excavated all the time. Caves and tunnels threaded through the region, and some of the caves went down eight stories deep! It sounded like the perfect place for my uncle. I looked at pictures of weird rock formations called fairy chimneys, and mesas and cliffs, morbidly wondering which one he might have fallen from.

  Well, that was totally depressing. So I flipped back to the Turkish Riviera section, hunting for activities we could do off the boat, in case Mom ever granted me shore leave from this floating prison. I found a pen on the deck and underlined places of interest. I flipped to the Notes section in the back of the book to make a list of the top attractions. Writing took so much effort on a yacht bobbing in the Mediterranean sunshine. I yawned. My list deteriorated into doodles.

  Every now and then I looked up and toward the fancier yacht, hoping to catch sight of that hot first mate on the Gulet Anilar. There he was, polishing a railing. Maybe he’d look my way again, which would at least be some form of entertainment. I stretched out my legs and reclined on the bolster. Then I realized there was absolutely nothing alluring about someone covered head to toe on the back of a boat. If he looked at anyone on this cruise, it would be Sage, who was in the sun, wearing a swimsuit that showed off her curves. So I tried sketching him instead, from afar, even though I’ve never been a great artist. My hand ached for my phone, and for friends to share the view with.

  Aunt Jackie tossed her book aside. It hit the deck, startling me.

  “Read on,” Mom urged. “It’s got great advice. It helped me when Marcus’s parents died.”

  “Wow. You’re really comparing your in-laws to the love of my life?”

  Mom sighed and closed her book. “Hey,” she said in her cheery changing-the-subject voice. “The captain said we might see cliff tombs when we move to a new cove this afternoon.”

  I looked up. Presumably cliff tombs were found on cliffs. And that sounded interesting. Maybe I could climb! I didn’t have ropes, of course, but I could do a little free bouldering, not so high off the ground.

  “This area feels familiar to me. I think we are getting close,” said Aunt Jackie. “Let me show you what I brought for the ceremony.” She fished in her bag and extracted a small, elaborately carved urn. It was about eight inches high, with a handle on either side that reminded me of a woman with her hands on her hips. There was a lid on top, with a little knob. The gold was dull, but even so the urn seemed to glow, as if it might feel warm to the touch.

  “What an unusual urn!” Mom exclaimed.

  “Was it Uncle Berk’s?” I asked, leaning forward to see.

  Aunt Jackie nodded. “It was a teaching tool he used for his lectures. He collected replicas like this one so people could really get a feel for the motifs and styles of ancient artifacts. Some he had specially commissioned for his talks, when he ran the education programs at the museum. He thought slides put people to sleep, but if they could touch or hold an object similar to what artisans made centuries ago, history would feel more alive to them. Would you like to hold it?”

  “Of course.” Mom reached out to take the urn from Aunt Jackie. She turned it carefully in her hands, admiring the details. “Exquisite craftsmanship,” she said. “Real gold?”

  “Gold plate,” said Aunt Jackie. “Metal underneath. It would be too expensive to use solid gold objects just for educational purposes.”

  “Can I see it?” I asked, and Mom passed it to me.

  The urn was surprisingly heavy, considering how delicate it looked. Filigree, loops, and whorls encircled the base and top. The handles were shaped like seahorses, and you could even see little scales. The seahorses had wings, and mouths that almost appeared to be smiling. The knob on top of the lid resembled an acorn. Maybe it was all the talk about Uncle Berk, but suddenly the urn seemed to radiate energy, to feel alive. Or was that the sun heating it up?

  Then a memory jolted me. I was in first grade, playing at a friend’s house. There was an urn, plain and white but about the same size as the one I was holding, on the mantel. My friend and I climbed a chair and got it down. For an hour we played with the fine whitish powder inside, dumping it on the floor and setting our Barbies up in a beach scene, until my friend’s extremely freaked-out mother ran into the room and made us stop for reasons she didn’t explain
. We found out several years later that we’d been playing with the cremated remains of my friend’s grandpa.

  Shuddering, I handed the urn back to Aunt Jackie. “Is it, um, what I think it is?”

  “Oh, no. They don’t do cremation in Turkey. He was buried in the traditional way. In a Muslim ceremony.” She lifted the lid. “See?”

  I looked inside and saw a piece of folded paper.

  “That’s just a certificate saying it’s a replica of an antique,” Aunt Jackie explained. She lifted it to show withered pieces of flower petals. “And these are dried rose petals from a bouquet Berk gave me the day he proposed. I’ll be scattering them as a symbolic gesture.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “At the cliff tombs in Fethiye. Berk loved that area. His doctoral thesis was on Ancient Lycian art motifs. And that’s where he proposed to me, on a Blue Voyage ten years ago. It’s the perfect place to hold a memorial.”

  “Can you climb the cliffs there?” I immediately felt a twinge of guilt for asking. We’d been talking about Uncle Berk, and his soul, and I was asking about rock climbing. Aunt Jackie probably thought I was shallow and selfish, and Mom shot me a sharp look.

  But Aunt Jackie had no big reaction. “There are some trails, but they’re pretty steep,” she said. “Mostly they’re sheer rock cliffs. The Lycians built many of their tombs into them, and styled entryways and windows to look like houses.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “They believed a winged spirit would come to pick up the souls of their deceased loved ones and carry them to the next world. I’d take that over a traditional funeral any day.” She sighed. “Berk’s funeral was arranged by his parents and siblings. They didn’t really involve me. And I didn’t feel very connected to it. I wanted to do something more personal.”