by Merle Kröger
I could’ve yelled out to you: “Piss off, mate, get a move on!”
I could’ve, right, Kevin?
Look, I can control every camera in this building; I can move them and zoom in on every corner. Do you recognize this, Kevin? Your room?
That is where you died, three days later, after the plastic bullet destroyed your brain.
Kevin, best friend. Seamus lowers his camera. He feels dizzy. Even today, this is what happens whenever he thinks about the day Kevin…
Oh well, never mind.
“What’s wrong, luv?” Kelly pushes up her sunglasses and looks at him, concerned.
He shakes his head. “It’s just so bloody hot.”
And do they all have to keep screaming around him?
Perhaps he could go down to the Irish pub on the promenade and treat himself to an early pint. To be honest, he feels better down there than he does up here. It is dark and cool like at home. His Kelly and his brothers had pooled their money and given him this cruise for his fiftieth birthday, but Seamus misses Belfast, misses the rain.
Misses Kevin. Just like every other day for the past thirty-seven years.
He lifts the camera up one more time.
He has to look, has to see what is happening to the boys out there, has to pay attention. Kevin might be out there on that raft. Perhaps he is the one who keeps waving the red cloth around. Of course, that is complete and utter rot, but such ideas keep shooting through his mind. Who actually knows what is real?
Behind him, a British woman whines: “Why can’t we keep going? Who really wants them? Their own people should come and fish them out.”
Seamus presses the button. Recording.
He counts. “One, two, three—”
No, damn it. Can’t she shut up?
Fucking Brits.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…”
SPIRIT OF EUROPE | DECK 2 (SICK BAY)
Marwan Fakhouri
The ship’s engines are humming inside his head. He has swallowed the entirety of the huge ship, and now it is droning and stamping in rage. His head keeps expanding in order to accommodate the massive engines.
There, now. All in. Quiet outside his head, noise inside.
Marwan, concentrate.
“Fakhouri, diagnosis?” Is that the professor’s voice?
Panic. Go on instinct.
“Brain hemorrhage?”
The exam, he wants to pass the exam.
“Precision, Fakhouri, precision.”
“Arterial epidural hematoma.”
The professor is standing opposite him in the operating room. In a moment, they will begin to open his skull. The bleeding must be stopped.
Halt. Stop.
Go back.
It can’t be.
The professor had been hit by snipers, in his car on the way to the hospital in Aleppo. Blood everywhere; the bullet punctured his carotid artery. He bled to death at the traffic light. A coincidence, they said. Wrong place at the wrong time. Moments later came the Syrian army fighter jets and the bombing.
Another coincidence? They had treated the rebels. Rebels. Friends. Colleagues. Protesters. Patients. Kidnapped from the hospital by the security police.
Fast-forward: We operate day and night, in private homes, on dining room tables, alongside cupboards full of china, paintings on the walls.
Unbelievable.
We operate on provisional tables in mountain caves, with electricity from generators. At least until the lights go off. We will never let on where the secret clinics are. Never.
We do not trust anyone anymore.
“Where am I?”
Marwan sits up suddenly. The doctor, who is trying to take his blood pressure, jumps back, startled. His eyes dart around, trying to take in the room.
A hospital, all lit up. Bright fluorescents. Lighted cupboards. Instruments in sterile packaging. The woman is in green operating scrubs.
Marwan is terror-struck.
They got me.
Only Assad has hospitals like this, where the dissidents vanish. Forever.
I am lost.
SPIRIT OF EUROPE | DECK 12
Sybille Malinowski
He asks her to dance with him. It is already the third time this evening, and it has attracted attention. Thank goodness she came up with another way to jazz up that old outfit. No one will notice that it is the same one from last spring—the blouse with the buttons down the back and a bright sash at the waist. All eyes are on the two of them, and she is floating on air.
Sybille Malinowski does not want to wake up, not for anything in the world. Like an old horse reluctant to leave its stall, she is balking.
“Sybille, we’ve got money, we’re independent. We can fulfill all our dreams!” A dream. Ha! This is supposed to be a dream? Swaying through the knight’s hall in the arms of a young nobleman, that is a dream! Even if the aristocrat has lost everything he ever possessed in the East and the knight’s hall is only a public boarding school dining hall with its furniture removed. Sybille knew this, even at the age of sixteen. The reality did not matter, since she was living her dream.
Everything here is a pale imitation, mass merchandise, clearance goods. In the past, cruises had style. This here is… the words fail her… absurd. Absurd and depressing. She tugs the back of her lounge chair upright, a movement that costs her an eternity.
What is going on? Why are they making such a racket? She is alone in the roped-off area reserved for the suite guests, with its good view of the pool and the area in front of it. The musicians have stopped playing, and that horrible competition in which the half-naked proletarians make fools of themselves is also over, thankfully. She had closed her eyes and been forced to use earplugs. Otherwise, she probably would have started screaming, not that she can even do that anymore.
Imagine you are helplessly exposed to such a situation. You cannot get away or call for help. In your mind, you stand up; perhaps you are already over there, on the way down to your cabin. But your foot is stuck here and refuses to turn. Won’t turn just ninety degrees, to let me stand up. I scream, but only incoherent babbling emerges from my mouth, which remains pointed at the floor anyway because I can no longer lift my neck. Babbling.
People think that I’m crazy, a prattling creature in a wheelchair. However, my mind is crystal clear. I see, hear, understand everything, perhaps more sharply and acutely than I ever have in my entire life, because all that remains are my thoughts.
Humility, Sybille. Be humble and grateful for the Mediterranean sun that warms you, for the places you can still visit, for the people who are around you.
Grateful? You talking to me, Parkinson’s? You talking to me? Frau Malinowski, if you please. That is what you should call me. I never was one for familiarities.
So what is this racket? And why are they all standing over there at the railing?
Sybille—no, Frau Malinowski—cannot see well because of all the people.
Dolphins again? Something else must have happened. The ship is not moving, and the music has stopped. They are always playing music here, day and night, either live or over the speakers. Unbearably loud, horrible music. What is going on? Hello?
The girl from the security team does not hear me, nobody does. Where is she going in such a hurry? She has beautiful hair, like silk. Her face looks Indian, or is it Mongolian? I think she is pretty. I was pretty once, too.
That is quite a crowd at the railing. I do not want to get stuck in it with my wheelchair. Where is my water bottle? I am supposed to drink a lot. Oh yes, that’s better. Something must be going on! The man with the red hair and the crew cut has been filming the whole time. Now he is looking over at me. If only I—if only he could show me what he is recording.
Ulrich also liked to film things. Narrow film, I think they called it Super 8. We traveled to so many conferences, always meeting the same people in similar hotels, whether in Japan or Mexico. Striking off on your own was not all that easy, espe
cially for women.
On the Baltic in the summer, skiing in the winter, the same thing year in, year out. It was nice for the children, no doubt, and my husband could relax. But my heart was often heavy.
Wiltrud was right about that: I would have preferred to travel to cities, and I should be grateful that I can do that now. These cruises are real godsends for those of us in wheelchairs. We start in Hamburg and ultimately land in Monaco. I have to suffer through only one flight and am spared the search for a hotel that is handicapped accessible.
But that is the beauty of it, isn’t it? To stroll along the lanes of a foreign city, drifting, until you find a small inn with a garden overrun by wild ivy. To clamber up a steep staircase, to sip a cup of coffee in an enchanted little nook.
Instead… have you ever descended on a city with three thousand other people, like a swarm of locusts? The locals set everything out in their shop windows, like oblations, anything that can be sold: trinkets, folklore, kitsch. Just so we can swoop down on it and then vanish as quickly as possible back on to our ship, but only after we have plucked everything bare. We are not guests whom anyone would welcome, to whom beautiful and valuable items are offered. We are like a storm that you have to weather. Plants may need the rain, but nobody welcomes its arrival. Each time we board the Spirit of Europe, I feel more sordid. I do not want to be connected with this monstrosity. Not me.
Sybille won’t leave the ship at Palma de Mallorca. It won’t matter to Wiltrud. She grew tired of pushing the wheelchair through the heat up steep lanes a long time ago.
Sybille had been surprised to learn her sister had a gambling addiction. Over the years, you turn into strangers, growing apart.
She has to go to the bathroom, but Wiltrud is playing bingo. The smallest things have become major problems. She has to practice being patient. She has to learn to ask for help.
SPIRIT OF EUROPE | DECK 4
Nikhil Mehta
Juhu Beach, Mumbai. At sunset, the air is laden with the heavy smell of oil for frying panipuri. Incense sticks and jasmine, threaded into the women’s braids. The air hums with all the languages of the Indian subcontinent and hundreds of dialects, sprinkled with English and other components of the diaspora. Slot machines blink and spit out the future for people who want to believe that robots divine their fates. As a security guard, you find yourself in a never-ending nightmare. Just imagine, an imminent attack, and you have to locate the assassin: young, inconspicuous, Muslim. Of course! Just say it. Every one of them is a suspect. Mother India, stand by us.
Deck 4, the lower outer deck, overflows with people, reminds him of Juhu Beach on a Friday night. Slowly but forcefully, Nike pushes himself through the mass of pink bodies. They have a strong odor, the Europeans, of sweat, suntan lotion, and alcohol, despite the fact that on this ship they use more water than a midsized town in India. Like a herd, they surge forward. Having seen enough, the first row makes its way back. Attention spans are short: on average, they stare at the rubber raft for about thirty seconds. Dolphins normally keep their interest longer, but only when they appear in large groups. “Look, someone’s waving!”
Some wave back.
A fat woman looks at him, her gaze brushing over his uniform and toned body. She briefly checks her reflection in his mirrored sunglasses, as she pushes her fake blond hair out of her face. “Excuse me, officer!” Her voice is faded. Those who are not already alcoholics join the club once on board, as they are downright bombarded with drink offers. Alcohol costs extra, and every extra counts in Miami.
Smile. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Officer”—fluttering her eyelids—“are we taking these… these Africans on board?”
“No, ma’am. We’re waiting for the coast guard to arrive.”
She nods, relieved. “You know, officer, they might be armed. Imagine if they were carrying swords…” She opens her eyes wide.
“Don’t worry, ma’am.” Nike momentarily rests his hand on her arm and feels her shiver. “Nothing will happen to you.”
Another scrutinizing look, but she seems to have calmed down. Anything but panic right now—that security scenario is far worse than a few rusty swords. Those are way down on the list. At the top: A deadly virus. An actual terrorist attack. Fire.
Move on.
Nike walks on, radioing his team that all is well on the upper decks, people are already starting to lose interest. He calls the bridge. The old man is finally there. With all due respect, the passengers want to hear the voice of their captain right now, not one of the young guns.
“Get him to make an announcement,” Nike barks at the duty officer. “Anything.”
Move on.
The loudspeakers crackle. The captain has an idiotic German accent that he has been cultivating for decades, although everyone knows he has a house in Miami, but the guests love it. It makes them feel safe, just like the constant repetition.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain, Björn-Helmut Krüger, speaking from the bridge. Today, on this day at sea, we have a special highlight for you.” Bingo! He announces the final round of bingo. Nice move. That will get people away from the railing. Greed trumps curiosity.
Move on.
Nike casts a parting glance over the emptying deck and disappears through a door labeled FOR CREW ONLY, taking the stairs down to the sick bay. The guests are given the impression that there is something like a hospital here, but in reality, the section consists of two quarantine units and the profitable onboard pharmacy. Whenever an operation or intensive care is absolutely necessary, they quietly remove the patient at the next port, ideally along with the relatives. Nobody wants to experience human tragedy up close, not on their vacation.
He walks straight to the cabin designated for patients with contagious diseases. The young female doctor, from somewhere in the Baltic countries, is wearing a protective mask. Panic flickers in the eyes above it. “He was lashing out. I had to tie him down.”
The frail Arab is lying on the white sheets and mumbling incoherently. He is emaciated, although they have been feeding him up in the crew canteen.
Nike gently slaps him on the cheek. What was this Syrian’s name again? “Marwan! Wake up!”
Shakily, the doctor’s hand takes the pulse. This is something different from some old codger who’s suffered a heart attack or a broken arm. “I’m afraid he has a brain hemorrhage.”
Again, with the beseeching look. Nike does not have to ask, since he already knows what this means. After all, as head of security, you do more than just take a first aid course. The emergency plan reels off in his mind: the closest port is Palma de Mallorca, not reachable before tomorrow morning.
Too late.
First, call a helicopter and have him flown out to Alicante or Almería. That will cost a fortune, not to mention the operation.
Miami will hold him responsible.
The end of his career. Urmila and the children need him. The flat in Andheri West is not paid off yet. And Mumbai’s property taxes are rising. School fees. The two nannies and the cook. The car. The chauffeur. His fitness studio.
Wait a moment.
Still no email from India.
Today. Surely it will come today.
He can feel it.
His karma.
“I’ll take care of this.” Nike has to think, but not with this woman here, who looks like she is going to pass out any minute. “No worries, Doctor.”
How often does he say that? No worries. Ma’am, don’t you worry, the weather will surely get better. Sir, no worries, the cargo ship over there isn’t too close to us. No worries, we won’t run aground. We won’t sink. We won’t be attacked by pirates. They are calling the bridge. They are tugging at the sleeves of his uniform. They are disrupting his work. They are writing to Miami. They are exchanging comments on their forums. They know everything better. Better than Nikhil Mehta, a.k.a. Mr. Fix-It.
His father had started out with a small cricket supplies shop, and that is where his
nickname came from. Who in India had real Nikes before the economic liberalization? It was a large monotonous country without choices, without ambitions.
Now his family owns a sporting goods store in Ahmedabad’s largest shopping mall. His older brother manages the company. He knows how to leverage his contacts to make a profit, and soon he will open a second store.
Nike slips out of the room. He needs space to think, to run through scenarios. The best place is the casino, since it is still empty this time of day. He sprints up the stairs. No problem, you have to work on keeping fit whenever you can. Nike spends every spare minute doing this. The fitness room for the crew is on the shoddy side, given that every last dishwasher works out there. But as a senior officer, Nike has access to the Emerald Spa: weight room, top-quality machines, treadmill with a view of the endless horizon. The whirlpool is only for passengers, but Nike does not waste time on that sort of junk anyway. Action is his credo. Keep moving. He was the one who started pickup basketball games for the crew, a chance to let off some steam after-hours, and it feels great to get slapped on the back, just one of the gang. Head of security is a lonely job; you can use all the allies you can get.
There is no comparison, however, with the regimen he follows at the club when he’s back home, focusing on a different muscle group each day. In depth, A to Z. Trains his reflexes at the sandbag. Stocks up on protein snacks—you need those if you are a strict vegetarian. Urmila is happy when he ducks out of the house for a couple of hours. That is her sphere: the kitchen, the staff, the children. Nike is almost always glad when the ten weeks of vacation are over. A man like him needs challenges.
This situation is one. First rule: Never let them see you sweat. The head of security stays calm in any situation. He is a role model. The multihued LED lights draw Nike into the semidarkness as he strolls into the casino. On sea days, it is open all day long, but now it is virtually empty. The gambling addicts have been lured to the final round of bingo; the jackpot beckons. A very young pair is seated at the blackjack table, Russian oligarch kids from the Royal Suite. She is wearing a very short black skirt above thin white legs and extremely high heels. Above, a girlish face with hamster