The Rebellious Tide

by Eddy Boudel Tan

  “Feels like we’re in the jungle,” Kostas said, unbuttoning the collar of his shirt.

  “Feels like I’m between your mother’s sweaty tits,” said his friend Milos. The other sailors laughed as they slapped each other’s palms.

  “At least my mother has a pair,” he said, elbowing Milos’s stomach hard enough to make his friend double over.

  The market was filled with the sounds and smells of Singapore. Smoke wafted into the sky from blackened grills covered in skewers of meat. Throngs of locals slurped noodles from bowls of fragrant laksa, scenting the air with shrimp paste and chilies. They sat at round plastic tables beneath a canopy of stringed lights while American pop music blared through the overhead speakers between crackles of static.

  Everyone turned to look when the young sailors entered the open-air space surrounded by hawker stalls. It was the reason they wore their uniforms. They interpreted the effect as admiration rather than suspicion.

  Sweat rolled down the bottles of beer the Greeks held as they seated themselves at a table near the centre of the market. The table was white like their uniforms but covered in a film of dirt. “Yamas!” they shouted, clinking their bottles together.

  “Well, boys, we might as well make ourselves at home,” Milos said, after emptying his bottle into his crooked mouth. “We’ve got two weeks of dry-dock to kill on this island.”

  “I don’t mind being on land for the time being,” Kostas said. “To remember what it’s like not being adrift.”

  “Little Gélio is just hungry for pussy.” Milos landed a playful punch on his shoulder while the other men howled like apes. Kostas felt his cheeks go red.

  The mocking was interrupted by a loud clatter as stacks of metal pans on a counter fell to the concrete floor. The sailors turned to see what was causing the commotion.

  A young woman ran along the perimeter of the market’s seating area. Her long hair, black as a nun’s habit, streamed behind her as the foam sandals on her feet pounded the pavement. She clutched a plastic bag in her hands.

  An older man in a blood-smeared apron followed close behind, shouting pointed daggers of Mandarin. A few bystanders feigned attempts at stopping the young woman, but nobody truly wanted to see her punished for whatever she’d done. There was a resilience in her panicked eyes. Everyone could see her crime would have been committed for survival rather than profit.

  The distance widened between the chaser and the chased, and it looked like she would escape the market untouched. She was only a few yards from the exit when a different man in an even bloodier apron leapt into her path from behind a stall. A guttural scream pierced the night air as she was grabbed by the shoulders. The plastic bag in her hand fell to the ground. She beat against his chest, but he held her with ease.

  “Let her go!”

  Kostas emerged from the seated crowd. He was neither tall nor large, and his boyish features hadn’t yet matured into manhood, but he had a way of carrying himself that commanded attention. The uniform emphasized the power in his expanded chest. Nobody but the other sailors could tell he was merely a low-ranking seaman.

  “She stole from us,” said the man in the apron, his hands still gripped around her wrists.

  The young woman didn’t try to defend herself. She looked at Kostas with defiance in her eyes, not the least bit pleading or apologetic, then grunted as she struggled to break free from the man’s grasp.

  Kostas plucked the bag from the ground and looked inside. Wrapped in clear plastic was a foam plate of poached chicken on a bed of rice. Each segment of meat was as smooth as ivory.

  Kostas looked at the man and reached into the pocket of his pants. “How much?”

  The man in the apron glared suspiciously at the young sailor, but he accepted the money that was placed in his wet palm. With a sneer, he let go of the woman.

  She took the plastic bag that Kostas held out to her. He offered a polite smile before retreating back to his table.

  “Wait.” There was a soft authority in the woman’s voice. “Thank you,” she said when he faced her.

  “You speak English?”

  An unrestrained laugh spilled from her mouth. “You westerners are all the same. This is Singapore, not Beijing. I’m probably more English than you are.”

  “My apologies,” he said, embarrassed. He paused for a second, then thrust his hand between them. “My name’s Kostas, but my friends call me Gélio.”

  A coy smile appeared on her face as she placed her hand in his. The skin felt softer than anything his rough hands had ever touched.

  “I’m Ruby,” she said, “and I have no friends.”

  Most people spending their holiday on a ship like the Glacier wouldn’t realize there was a morgue on board. The truth is humans have a tendency to die, and it is no different at sea. Death on the Glacier was just part of the routine. Heart attacks happened. Suicides were alarmingly common. Even the occasional murder was known to spice up a sailing. The crew were trained to keep these incidents under wraps with code words, protecting guests from the grimness of reality. But the bodies needed to be stored somewhere. Thus, every cruise ship and luxury liner on the seas has a morgue, even if it is little more than a glorified freezer.

  Every ship also houses a miniature prison called a brig. As Sebastien made his way to the Glacier’s brig, deep in the bowels of C Deck, he reminded himself of how everything that exists on land can also be found at sea. A ship might seem like a refuge from the world — a suitable means of escape — but that would never be the case as long as humans are allowed on board. Wherever they go, humans bring all the good and evil in the world along with them.

  “Thank you,” he said to the young officer who led him through the maze of corridors to the heavy door before him. The officer gave him a dutiful nod.

  The cell in the brig was the size of a standard staff cabin with all the furniture removed. The floor was covered in orange carpet, a slightly darker shade than the orange vinyl that padded the walls and ceiling. The toilet was identical to the ones found throughout Hades, except that it sat exposed in a corner. A thin vinyl mattress lay on the floor.

  Sebastien stepped inside and closed the heavy door behind him. Sitting in the cell, on the mattress in the opposite corner from the toilet, was his father. The man didn’t look up at the sound. The regal uniform had been stripped from his body, leaving only his white undershirt and pants.

  “I knew who you were.” His voice hissed like a dying fire, eyes fixed at the floor in front of him. “You thought you were so clever, but I knew who you were as soon as I saw you. The hair. The eyes. The name. It was like you wanted me to know.”

  Sebastien seated himself on the carpeted floor and peered through the steel bars that separated them.

  “Maybe I did,” he said. “Maybe I knew it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

  Kostas raised his head. His skin was smeared with dried sweat. The rigid waves of hair were now a snarl of disheveled coils. “Why are you here?”

  Sebastien rested his forehead against the metal bars, savouring the coldness of their touch. “I thought we could have a talk. Just you and me. Father and son.”

  “You want to sit there and gloat, that’s what you want.” Kostas’s breathing grew heavier, the exhales more forceful than the inhales. “You may think you’re better than me, so proud and so righteous, but you’re wrong. I know who you are, Sebastien Goh. I see the anger inside you. And I know what you’ve done.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Marcel Lamoureux.” He let the words hang in the stale air of the cell. Sebastien felt the slightest twitch in the corners of his eyes, and he hoped Kostas hadn’t detected it.

  “He has nothing to do with anything,” Sebastien said, every muscle in his face hardening until only his lips moved. “He is nothing.”

  “Ever since you destroyed his kneecaps and his life, I suppose that’s true.” The corners of his mouth curled up ever so slightly. “I discovered a great deal ab
out you. Some of it was easy enough to find online, but a little committed digging helped me learn who you really are. It’s almost as if I’ve known you your whole life. So many behavioural problems. So much violence. Did the therapy help?”

  Sebastien glared at him, unmoving. His fingers dug into his knees.

  “You certainly didn’t make things easy for your mother,” Kostas went on.

  “Shut up.”

  A whiff of lunacy surrounded Kostas as he let out a hearty laugh. “Finally! The real Sebastien emerges from behind his honourable mask. You don’t have to explain yourself to me, boy. I would have beaten that man until he was ground into the dirt for what he did to your mother. They wouldn’t have been able to stop my arms from swinging. There is no judgment here.” He leaned forward with his arms around his knees. A calm, pragmatic expression settled over his face. “I just want you to understand that we are no different. You had your reasons for doing what you did, and I had my reasons, too. It’s easy to paint people as good or bad. It’s much more difficult to understand how complicated the truth can be. So don’t sit there and look at me like I’m so despicable.”

  “Tell me, then.” Sebastien mirrored his father’s pose without thinking. “What is the complicated truth?”

  Something clouded the intensity in the man’s deep green eyes. “The truth is I loved your mother.”

  The Atlantic felt different to young Ruby Goh. The Pacific had been smooth as they sailed from Singapore to Hong Kong to Honolulu. They had encountered a few stormy patches on the way to Panama, but they were nothing compared to the constant lashing of the Atlantic. She could hear the waves pound against the steel hull of the cargo ship that had become her home.

  “Don’t worry,” Kostas said. “This ship can take a beating. I’ve been through much worse.”

  Ruby wrapped the threadbare blanket over her shoulders, glancing around her barren cabin. “I’ll be happy to get back on land. Where are we now?”

  “Two days from Québec City. That’s in Canada.”

  “I know where it is.” She flicked her wrist and gave him a playful slap on the chest. “Your move.”

  Kostas studied the checkerboard on the table between them. Ruby had taught him how to play shortly after departing Singapore. She had been undefeated for the first few weeks, but he was slowly improving. They’d taped little strips of rubber underneath the checker pieces to keep them from sliding off the board as the ship swayed.

  “You have to admit,” he said as he moved one of his pieces forward. “I’m getting better.”

  “I would hope so,” she said with a teasing smile. “We’ve been playing for months now.” With a swift movement of her wrist, she snatched up two of his pieces.

  Kostas cursed. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  Their hands gripped the sides of their chairs reflexively as the ship struck an enormous wave. The fixtures and bolts of the cabin creaked, the sounds echoing around them.

  “How long will it take to sail from Québec to France?” Ruby asked with a vexed expression on her face. “I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.”

  Kostas glanced into her eyes, then lowered his gaze to the checkerboard. “It should take only twenty-two days.”

  “What’s wrong? You always tell me not to worry,” she said, “but all I see on your face is worry. You haven’t been the same since we left Singapore. Even when you smile, I see something hiding behind it.”

  He reached across the table and held her by the hands, but he couldn’t find the words.

  All he’d wanted was a way to escape the life he’d been born into. When he jumped at the chance to work on board a ship, he didn’t realize the full extent of its cargo. He ignored the signs and pretended there was nothing sinister happening all around him, but it wasn’t long before he was expected to pull his weight. He was easy to trust, a rare quality among the crew.

  He didn’t want anything to do with it, but he couldn’t bear the thought of returning to his dead-end life in Greece. Catching fish. Drying fish. Selling fish and smelling like fish. He told himself he was merely helping these women find work, though he avoided thinking about the work itself or the conditions of consent.

  It hadn’t taken much to convince Ruby to leave her life behind. The prospect of travelling to France with a handsome sailor was an opportunity that would come around only once. Kostas understood her more than she realized.

  The captain knew it was in the group’s best interest to keep the girls pacified, which is why they were kept apart from one another. Ruby didn’t know the others existed. Each girl thought she was special, that she was on an adventure to France. This dream was nurtured to be believable even when they were locked behind doors and their belongings were confiscated. The crew played their roles well. The girls would ignore their suspicions until it was too late because they wanted so badly to believe this dream. They wanted to trust these men.

  The reality was always undeniable the moment the girls were branded.

  Ruby hadn’t been branded yet, but Kostas knew it would happen soon. With Marseilles less than a month away, it wouldn’t be long before the dream was revealed as exactly that — a dream.

  “I’ve just been tired,” he finally said, straining a smile.

  “You’ve changed your mind. You don’t want me to come to France with you.” It was a test. She tried to read his deep green eyes, but the man was a mystery.

  “That’s not true.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  The words lingered between them. It took a few seconds for Kostas to comprehend what she had said. When he did, his eyelids fluttered and his lips parted. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew then what he was going to do.

  His mind was a whirlpool of thoughts when he walked down the corridor away from Ruby’s cabin. He almost passed three of his crewmates without a pause before he stopped, suddenly realizing where they were headed.

  “No!” he shouted, spinning around. They turned to face him. “Please. Don’t do it.”

  “Sorry, Gélio,” said the man holding the ink-stained pouch. “Captain’s orders. We warned you, didn’t we? Never fall in love with the freight.”

  The Saint Lawrence River was eerily still two days later. They seemed to be sailing across the night sky. The cargo ship pulled into the port of Québec City hours before sunrise.

  Young Kostas crept into the dark cabin and shook the woman lying in the berth. “Ruby,” he whispered hoarsely into her ear. “Wake up. We need to go.”

  “What’s happening?” She swiped the back of her hands across her eyes.

  “Quiet. Gather your things. We’re in danger. We need to go, now.”

  One look into his eyes and she knew he was serious. She changed into a pair of jeans and a hooded sweatshirt he had lent her. Kostas cringed when he saw the lines of black ink carved into the red, raw skin of her neck. She saw where he was looking and covered the mark with her hair.

  “Put this on,” he said, helping her into the stiff white jacket of his uniform. The shoulders were emblazoned with a single golden stripe with a diamond shape in the centre.

  He guided her by the hand through the unfamiliar passageways. It was her first time seeing what lay beyond her isolated corner of the hulking ship.

  Their path wound through the vessel over stairs and around corners. Kostas knew how to minimize their chance of coming across another crew member, but there was no guaranteed route. Beads of sweat dripped down the sides of his forehead. They were almost there.

  The cold autumn air stunned the skin on their faces as they stepped onto the gangplank. Ruby shivered beneath the jacket, wrapping her arms protectively across her belly.

  The tension that hummed steadily throughout Kostas’s body melted when he saw who stood in front of them.

  “What’s this?” The shout came from his friend, Milos. He stepped onto the end of the gangplank, blocking their way to the concrete dock below.

  Kostas motioned for Ruby to stand be
hind him. “You never saw us,” he said to his friend. “Just let us through.”

  He shook his head. “Tsk, tsk, Gélio. What have you done now?”

  “Get out of my way.”

  “I can’t do that.” Milos stood up straight with his chest out. He was a few inches taller with twenty extra pounds.

  “She’s pregnant.” Desperation lit flares in his eyes. “Please. We need to let her go.”

  “That’s not how this works,” Milos said, gripping the rails in his hands. “She isn’t just freight. Now she’s a witness. People might ask questions we don’t want answered. If I let her go, we’re all in trouble.”

  Kostas took a step back, defeat written on his face. To the surprise of both Milos and Ruby, he laughed. His shoulders bounced up and down as if he were riding a jackhammer.

  “What’s so funny?” Milos asked, looking like he was afraid of missing the joke.

  “Sometimes the only thing left to do is laugh or cry,” Kostas said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Let me laugh.”

  Milos didn’t see the fist swing from the side. It connected with such precision that his body nearly lifted off the gangplank by the momentum of his face. His head dangled over the edge as he struggled to regain his vision.

  There was just enough room beside Milos’s dazed body to squeeze past. Kostas pinned him against the railing and pulled Ruby forward. She gathered the jacket tight around her torso before pushing her way past the two men. Her shoes clanged against the corrugated metal of the gangplank.

  “Let’s go,” he said breathlessly as he followed her. Their feet stepped onto the firm ground when they heard a roar from behind. Kostas landed on the dock with a dull thud, his chin grazing the pavement. He could barely move with the weight of Milos on top of him. His friend’s arms wrapped around his stomach like an iron claw.

  Ruby looked at him, her eyes frantic, not knowing what to do. He took in her beauty as she stood on the frigid pier, this woman in the oversized jacket so far from the context of her tropical home. Her long black hair danced in the wind. The skin of her cheeks blushed red against the cold, matching her name. He took a photograph with his mind, etching every contour of her face and tone of her skin into his memory, because he knew he would never see her again.