And how cold could the dining room be! Pleasing guests with all their foibles day in and day out was hard enough, but the dog-eat-dog world behind the scenes was dehumanizing. At dinner, waiters stood guard over silverware and flatware, lest they be stolen by roving packs of foreign waiters for their own stations. Nationalities banded together in groups called mafias, in order to better protect themselves and their property. This survival of the fittest, this Pancake Darwinism, was never more raw than during breakfast. Waiters squabbled over hash browns like hyenas fighting over scraps stolen from a lion’s kill. At sea, all warriors are cold warriors.
Such life took a toll on sanity. Oh, it was maddening! Months of Pancake Darwinism made Bianca live wary, like a cornered animal. She obviously needed some warmth more than ever, but refused to focus on anything but finishing her contract. Words of comfort hastily exchanged while changing uniforms lack oomph. Certainly romance was out of the question, and we couldn’t even share something as simple and comforting as a nap together, due to our tiny bunks.
Indeed, Bianca had switched fully into survival mode: all work and no play. Any pretense or appearance of being a wild and free party animal was gone. She was paying the piper for a house for her parents, for lavish vacations, for our torrid love affair across three continents. I wanted desperately to make the latter real every day, and not just a vacation fantasy. But I was new to ships, delighted at the vast differences from land life and still physically and emotionally fresh. Bianca had already spent years working her fingers to the bone, and in order to stave off despondency, had trained herself to shut off emotion when at sea.
5
Finally the time came for Bianca to sign off for a vacation mid-contract. She was a wreck. Her emotions were taut as a bowstring, her body fatigued beyond endurance. Even her hands were split open from the constant cleaning necessary for ship restaurants, requiring a prescription cream to help close the wounds.
We argued over her last lunch off in port. I wanted to spend Cozumel alone with her, and thought it justified considering how much I had altered my life to be with her. She had insisted on lunch with all of her paisanos—fellow countrymen—at their favorite restaurant, La Ceiba. She wanted to thank them for helping her through a tough contract. I reluctantly joined them, but was mostly ignored. They laughed at jokes in Romanian. I spoke English words of endearment to my octopus ceviche.
After lunch the group split, and I barely managed to carry Bianca off for a little personal time on the beach. We lay in the sun but said little. Now that she was alone with me she was quiet, as if she had used up her allotted laughter over lunch. Visions of her silence in Egypt came back to me, but this time I had no chance of luring her into conversation under threat of Bela.
“Do you still want me to go to Romania in June?” I finally asked, referring to our early arrangements to coincide our time off together. Crew were allowed an unpaid work break in the middle of their contract, so I would at least be able to share a few weeks with her while she was on vacation. But I didn’t know if I really wanted to go or not.
How ironic! The only thing on this sweat-ship I didn’t enjoy was being with Bianca! I felt far more love and affection from our emails when we were apart. I wanted her to get off the ship. Maybe the emails would allow me to return to our fantasy love affair again.
She did not immediately answer. She was saved the trouble when her friends arrived. Suddenly all smiles, Bianca invited them to join us. Lunch replayed. I left.
It all came to a head later that night in the crew bar—Bianca’a last night aboard. I snuck out of my post at midnight buffet and rushed down to the crew deck to find her. I grabbed her, tugged her into a dark corner of the crew bar, and began my interrogation. There was no more time for delay, and no way I was going to let her leave without getting her to talk.
“What is going on in your mind?” I asked roughly. “I don’t want to make any assumptions about anything, and I don’t want to be disappointed this June in Romania. Was this all a bad mistake? Do you really think it could possibly be the way it was before you ignored me here on Conquest?”
“Yes,” she answered shortly, “In Romania.”
“In Romania,” I repeated, rather harshly. “On vacation.”
“Not here,” she pleaded. “I felt my grumpiness beginning just before you arrived. I was worried this would happen with us.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Thanks for the warning,” I said, mocking her. “Honey, change your life entirely and work like a slave, and maybe there’s a small chance I won’t turn into an ice queen.’ What, are you training to be a judge in Romania? I really am stupid.”
“I’m sorry,” she said weakly. “I know I’m different on the ships. Is the ships! I turn off all emotion here, is how I survive. I hate the ships and the life so much, and happiness just doesn’t belong here. I even yelled at Vio this morning because she’s in love with Adrien again and they are so happy and bubbly. And you! You are always happy! Always. I hate that.”
I stared at her, incredulous. “You are mad at me? Because I am happy? What the hell is that?”
“You are always so patient and understanding with me, and you never lose your sense of humor. How can you never let anything make you mad?”
“Who says I don’t?”
“Come to Romania. Is all planned already, let me make it up to you there. We can rekindle the magic! It was so amazing how we met, our trip to Egypt, please don’t let this be the end. Though I… I no blame you.”
I sighed. “I don’t want it to be the end, either, but this is absurd.”
“Come to Romania and let’s forget these ten weeks ever happened. It will be your thirtieth birthday. I take you to the Black Sea.”
I looked at her, torn. She was saying exactly what I wanted to hear, but was I just being foolish? I did want to go to Romania. I did want to find what he had before. Was it possible? I knew there was only one way to find out.
6
The crew bar of Carnival Conquest provided a tantalizing glimpse into the seedy, disreputable drinking establishments one imagined near the wharves in a port town. Copious amounts of cigarette smoke tarnished the inadequate lighting, creating dark recesses with dark forms and foreign tongues. One corner was brightened by a cluster of Italians in officer’s whites, another a shifting blur of Filipinos in boiler suits, and centered was a large, raucous group of Romanian waiters with unbuttoned vests. These last were the loudest, but who smoked the most was clearly open to debate.
With so little free time on ships, I was at first surprised the bar was so heavily populated. Yet this lack of time was precisely what fueled its patronage. The stress and excitement of working two dinner seatings nightly kept one buzzing far after the final napkin fold. The resulting mix of exhaustion and adrenaline lingered longer than waiters could afford, considering breakfast was at most a mere six hours away. A few shots of alcohol was an easy method of accelerating relaxation.
And cheap, as it turned out. Crew members were exempt from the customs-related headaches guests endured, allowing duty-free liquor to be enjoyed below the waterline. The crew bar, too, offered excellent prices. I was probably the only American onboard offered a bottle of Corona for merely one dollar. Add to this the presence at the bar of the ‘crew store’—the only onboard source for buying pre-packaged noodles for the Asians and cigarettes for everyone—and a robust clientele was guaranteed.
I was not a fan of the crew bar. This does not imply a less-than-hearty appetite for alcohol. That would be sheer folly. But loitering at the crew bar largely meant either seeking a new cabin-mate for the night or commiseration with paisanos. I had no intention of hooking up with anybody if not Bianca—despite the outlandish proposals—and I had no paisanos.
Fellow countrymen tended to group together at the end of a tough day. The urge to discuss shared tribulations in one’s native language was understandable. Most groups responded to the presence of an outsider with English, of course, but for some reason
the Romanians eschewed this courtesy. I had initially tried to join Bianca with the Romanian mafia, but found myself ignored, lonely among others. There was nothing to do but drink.
Because I worked midnight buffet, most nights I ran straight up to the Lido deck anyway. Isolated as I had become in the weeks prior to Bianca’s vacation, I felt prying her from boisterous paisanos would be selfish. She obviously needed them. As each day’s fatigue cast a shadow deeper into the next, Bianca’s joy retreated accordingly. By the end, her smile only showed amid Romanian laughter.
It hurt that I was unable to provide the comfort she required, but I understood. I was a new addition to a difficult routine hammered out ungainly over several contracts. Ship life was tough, very tough, and who was I to waltz in fresh and demand she give up the only thing that had allowed her to cope over the years? When living on the edge, even small pushes must be considered before being enacted. I felt so very, very sorry for my Bianca.
Alone as I had felt among the Romanian mafia, I was not the sole outsider. Surprisingly, Dan joined them every night. He, too, sat ignored among the jabbering, puffing Romanians. He, too, had nothing to do but drink—and he was a recovered alcoholic! The night after Bianca signed off, he waved me over.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing. Smoke arced from his burning cigarette. The seat beside him was cleared instantly, without his saying a word, as Vio took the opportunity to hop into Adrien’s lap. Dan took a slug from a can of Red Bull—probably his twentieth of the night.
“I am ready to clear your work break,” Dan said. “You’ll come back as a full assistant maitre d’, training done. But you know the break won’t look good. You sure you want to do it?”
He was right, of course. Bianca had fought tooth and nail to convince Carnival management that I could handle the work load. Now, only halfway into my first contract, I was asking for time off. My reasons had nothing to do with Carnival’s big fear—that I would quit—but they had no way of knowing it, nor reason to believe it if they did. I wanted to reassure Carnival that an American could handle ships, but that was not my priority.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said suddenly, “Everyone says you’re a recovered alcoholic. You’re in a bar with cheap booze, surrounded by people ignoring you. So why are you here?”
Dan gave me a sly grin and said, “Recovered? What’s that? I am an alcoholic, whether I drink or not. So was my father, and his father. Hell, we’re Irish. I was happy to live in the past. I kept it close, hid it, didn’t talk about it. I had a problem. When I finally chose to deal with my past head-on, that’s when I overcame it.”
Dan smashed out his cigarette and lit another.
“A little advice for you, mate,” Dan said, squinting as he took a long drag. “Everybody comes to ships because they’re running from something. Everybody, whether they know it or not. Some of us clam up to ourselves, to our loved ones. Others face it. I sit in a bar because the temptation is less than when I’m hiding, alone, in my cabin.”
He watched the smoke from his cigarette join the cloud that rolled along the ceiling.
“It only looks bad to those who don’t know,” he finished. “But they ain’t fighting my fight. For me, it’s the right thing to do.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That answers my question. And yours as well.”
Chapter 10. In the Hall of the Mustard King
1
Despite concerns regarding Bianca’s and my initial failure as a couple, I was excited about another visit to Romania. Further, signing off a cruise ship, whether you enjoyed your work or not, was an enervating experience. The awareness of approaching freedom was profound, the anticipation heady. My sense of adventure had been tweaked to such a pitch, in fact, I even delivered a rather humiliating strip tease to guests in the dining room on my last night as a waiter. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
Bianca greeted me at the airport with a loving embrace and no indication that anything had ever gone wrong between us. I enthusiastically went with it. With three weeks granted for my work break, there would be plenty of time to get to the bottom of our Conquest misstep. Even without seeing Bianca’s cheeky smile, Romania in June seemed as fine a place to be as any I could imagine. The weather was simply marvelous, with sun and warmth aplenty.
The drive out of Bucharest was far better this time around than my first. Bianca had released her inner angry donut regarding her nation’s capital. She was so bubbly, in fact, I secretly wondered if she was sucking up. But when Albișoara chugged out of the plains and into the verdant foothills of the southern Carpathians, I began to understand Bianca’s almost euphoric happiness.
The land stretched away in row upon row of richly forested mountains behind field after field of meadows. The countryside was refreshingly unmarred by civilization and filled with green, green, green. Countless acres just sat there, waiting to be viewed and enjoyed, not exploited. Urban sprawl was foreign. This made the cities crowded, but out here the tall grasses rippled in the breeze, making the world shimmer like a mirage. It was so idyllic that I nearly forgot about the weapon in the glovebox.
And we talked. Oh, how wonderful it was to communicate with my Bianca! By the end of Conquest, she had become nearly mute. Now she couldn’t stop talking about the beauty of summer in Transylvania, how Lucky had planted a million and a half flowers around the house in Sighișoara, and how exciting it would be to help me celebrate my 30th birthday vacationing on the Black Sea.
“I’m so glad my parents are living in the house in Sighișoara now,” Bianca commented with a proud wiggle behind the wheel. “The apartment in Brașov was home for a long time, but it will stay empty until we sell it. Besides, you’ll like living in the house so much better than in the apartment.”
“As long as Piti brings those TV guides with the topless women, I’ll be happy anywhere.”
“Babaloo,” she chided. Then she added with a smirk, “At least in the house we have our own bedroom.”
“Oh, before I forget,” she added suddenly. “I got your gift for my parents. I wanted it to be something special to celebrate your return. They are very excited, you know.”
“We all are,” I agreed. “What did we get them?”
“An electric lawnmower.”
“An electric lawnmower?” I repeated, surprised. “With a cord? Wouldn’t you, you know, run over the cord or something?”
“As careful as my father is?” Bianca replied. “It takes him five minutes to arrange tomatoes on his plate.”
Summer Sighișoara was even more awe-inspiring than the countryside. Every drop of sunlight not greedily snatched up by blooming trees gleamed off the cobblestone streets. I was nearly blinded by reflections off the towering white cathedral on the banks of the river Târnava. Albișoara rattled up the bricks to the old town and turned onto Strada Crișan. Bianca’s house at the end was blocked from view by a neighbor’s cherry tree, which was exploding with ripe fruit. Above all rose the plateau, where even the ancient oaks beamed with renewed life.
Amazingly, I think the parents Pop were happier to see me than even Bianca. They were giddy with excitement, as were we all after several glasses of țuica. Lucky had prepared quite a feast for our arrival, which was most welcome after so long a journey. We had driven straight through to Sighișoara, which was no small hop after flying from New Orleans to New York to Frankfort to Bucharest on two hours of sleep. We ate similar pigs, then after the sun set went outside to enjoy the stars and—more importantly—the wine. Piti’s homemade stuff went down fast, unhindered by any dubious additives such as Coca Cola.
At one point while fetching something, I happened to notice on the refrigerator a number of magnetic letter ‘P’s. Most had little palm trees and beach scenes with them, but one magnet was a Carnival ship with the letter ‘P’ in the clouds above it.
“What are these?” I asked Bianca.
She laughed. “Oh, those are for Pop. I send one to my parents each contract from somewhere cool.
Lucky, noting our conversation, stepped forward and said, “Check! Las Vegas.”
Sure enough, one letter ‘P’ was nestled amid the skyline of the Las Vegas Strip.
“Remember how I left Las Vegas early for you?” Bianca asked.
I did, indeed. Just after we first met in Reno, by accident, really, Bianca had cut short her trip to Las Vegas in order to spend more time with me. How’s that for sacrifice?
The four of us laughed and shared recollections of our previous time together. Eventually Bianca remembered her parents’ gift, and asked me to retrieve it from Albișoara’s trunk. I complied, despite extreme lethargy. I was not prepared for the ensuing excitement.
Piti was thrilled beyond belief at the lawn mower. He was so enthused, in fact, that he nearly spun in circles like a Dervish. In one alcohol-induced, frenzied motion, Piti rushed into the house, returned with his cowboy hat, plugged in the lawnmower, pushed it into the dark backyard, abandoned it, jumped into Albișoara, backed her out of the garage, oriented her headlights to illumine the yard, and returned to his new toy. He started mowing. It was 10 p.m.
“Think we should stop him?” I asked. “Mowing while drunk doesn’t seem too wise. I know somebody who cut open his foot doing that.”
“When Dad’s drunk, he does some crazy things,” Bianca admitted. “I remember one winter he and my Godfather slid down Tâmpa beneath the funicular.”
“That’s like a thousand feet almost straight down!”
“Da,” Bianca agreed. “And had they no been naked, I think my mother would have been impressed. Instead she had to spoon feed him chicken soup and boiled țuica for a week.”
I thought a cold sounded vastly preferable to boiled țuica, but kept that to myself.
After Lucky had successfully hauled Piti back in the house and to bed, Bianca and I sat on her porch swing and listened to the crickets serenade each other. We did the same. I abandoned my impatience to discuss our failed first stab at a relationship. We were too busy talking about everything else in the world. When 3 a.m. came, I was exhausted but not sleepy—New Orleans time was eight hours earlier. But that was not the reason for our late night. Whenever Bianca and I got to talking, hours passed like minutes. Eventually she left, returning in her pajamas.
Unsinkable Mister Brown (Cruise Confidential 3) Page 16