Jakov twanged the C-string of his cello. It gave a deep burp. “Sure,” he said. “Fight away. Only you’re not fighting. You’re divorced, or so you say. Well then, why can’t I say something? This quartet, it’s my entire livelihood. You think it’s funny? Be my guest, laugh.”
“Why is this bad for the quartet?” Sasha asked mildly. “What Miriam and I choose to do in our personal lives is our business. We’re telling you as a courtesy.”
“Actually,” said Miriam, “we’re telling you because we want to switch staterooms. To be honest.” God, it felt good to just say it, after tiptoeing around in secrecy for two days. She went on boldly, “In fact, Sasha wants to switch with Isaac. We want to share a room.”
There was a silence. The room’s walls seemed to vibrate a little from the shock waves emanating from Isaac and Jakov.
“Sleep together,” said Isaac, pale, his laughter gone. He clutched his viola in both hands against his belly and stroked it as if it were an upset, high-strung cat.
“That’s right,” said Sasha, as if he’d just realized that he had a part in this little drama too. “It’s true. Do you mind changing rooms with me, Isaac? We can do it this afternoon.”
“Do I mind,” said Isaac in a daze, “do I mind.”
“Of course he minds,” said Jakov, “and I do too. I don’t want to bunk with you, Isaac. You snore.”
“He does snore,” said Miriam. “But Jakov, I’m sure you do too. And anyway, why should I have to put up with it? I put up with it for years already.”
“I can’t hear myself,” said Jakov. “But him, I’ll hear.”
“Stop it,” said Isaac. “This isn’t funny. What do you mean, sleep together? You two? In the same bed? Sasha. Tell me. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes,” said Sasha, “and what are you, her father? Am I some boy come courting her? I’m asking you to switch rooms with me, that’s all. You don’t need to know anything else. It doesn’t concern you.”
Miriam looked around the airless, ugly room with its mustard-yellow rug and hideous paneling and ridiculous little pulpit. As a place of worship, it was sadly lacking. As a place of high interpersonal drama, it was comic. Isaac’s thin hair floated in wisps above his scalp and caught the light. Jakov’s shirt had some egg yolk on it from breakfast, and his face was crumpled from his pillow. Even Sasha looked old and funny in this room, and Miriam was certain that she did too. A giggle rose in her throat. She couldn’t hold it down.
Isaac began to weep. He looked down at his viola, careful not to let tears splash onto the glossy wood. His thin chest heaved. His soft stomach convulsed. “Miriam,” he said. His voice was plaintive and stricken. “You would do this to me now?”
Miriam crossed the room and put her hand on his back and rubbed gently between his shoulder blades as she’d done for their children when they were sick or upset. “Shhhh,” she said as he leaned into her. “This doesn’t mean I don’t still love you, neshama. You’re my children’s father. You’re my life’s mate. Don’t cry. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be loved by a man. You and I, that part of us is over, remember? But you’re family to me still, and you always will be.”
Isaac took a breath and shook his head. “I know that, Miriam. I know. I just needed a minute. Now we should rehearse and no more talk about this.” He wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. “And yes, Sasha, I will exchange rooms with you, and Jakov, we will snore together in beautiful harmony.”
Miriam felt she had never loved Isaac as much as she loved him right then. His back had been quivering. She could feel what a blow this was to him and how much it cost him to summon his generosity. But he had done it. This was a demonstration of love he had never shown her when they were married.
Miriam looked over at Jakov. He was gazing at her with tender, stricken sorrow. But he had no say in the matter, and everyone knew it, Jakov most of all.
They all sat in their seats and ran through the Six-Day War Quartet, and for the first time, they played it without a single mistake.
* * *
*
Valerie was sitting up in bed, staring into her laptop screen, tapping away with one earbud in her ear. A pot of coffee sat on a tray on the nightstand.
“Did you read the history of the ship in the brochure?” Christine asked as she brushed her hair.
“No, why?”
“It’s an interesting story,” said Christine. “You might want to talk about it in your story about the cruise.”
“This ship is only interesting because it’s old.”
“She’s beautiful, too. And a lot of famous people have sailed on her.”
“You’re such an elitist,” said Valerie breezily, still typing.
“Why is that so bad?” said Christine. “So I like some things more than others because they’re better, so what?”
Valerie didn’t answer, so Christine went into the bathroom and closed the door. She looked into the mirror as she brushed her teeth and made a snarling face. Her mouth was misshapen by the brush, rabid-looking with the foaming toothpaste. She had been reveling in dressing for dinner every night in beautiful clothes, and drinking martinis and dancing and being flirted with by Brooklyn hipster dudes and cruise-ship captains. It had all reminded her that she was still youngish and even attractive. But this morning she had woken up with a sense of caution, hearing her mother’s voice telling her to know her place, not stick her neck out, act right so people wouldn’t talk. She vowed to reclaim her low-profile New England humility. She was much more comfortable that way.
“Maybe you should include a chapter about farmers in Maine,” she said to Valerie as she took her bathing suit off the balcony railing where it had been drying and stuffed it into her bag. “We’re struggling low-level workers, by any standards. It’s hard to raise crops and livestock in rocky, thin, acidic soil and Zone Four winters and short growing seasons. It’s kind of insane that we do it at all, much less succeed at it.”
Valerie went on typing as if Christine hadn’t spoken. Her silence wasn’t hostile, Christine thought, but more like the oblivious absorption of a professional to whom a layperson was speaking words that had nothing to do with her, and were therefore outside of the realm of her attention.
“And speaking of struggling,” Christine went on, opening the door, “it’s time for my busy day by the pool. You coming?”
“I’ll meet you up there in a bit,” Valerie said without looking up. “I just have to finish this. God, I wish there were fucking Internet in this fucking ocean. I’m kind of dying without it. Or cell service at least. I can’t even text anyone.”
“Who would you text if there was?”
“No one,” Valerie said. “You.”
They both laughed as Christine headed out the door.
chapter twelve
Mick arrived eighteen minutes early for his shift. Laurens hadn’t shown up yet, but that was normal. Still, Mick’s mouth was dry and his heart was beating too quickly. He wanted to dive into work immediately, immerse and submerge himself in physical labor, the harder, the better. It was the best way, really the only way, to block out mental stress. And he was nervous and on edge. It wasn’t just Laurens’s curt dismissal of him after his fuckup, dashing his hopes for a job in Amsterdam, nor was it whatever he’d been sensing in the crew lounge last night, the anger and tension of the layoffs. Mick was angry at himself. What the hell was he doing on this cruise, anyway? Why had he agreed like a lapdog to forgo his vacation, bribed by a promotion that meant nothing in the end? And no extra pay. And no Suzanne, no Paris.
Consuelo was already on the line, prepping braised pork chops. She flicked a look over at Mick, but didn’t say anything. The rest of the crew was there too, hard at work. No one seemed startled to see Mick arrive early. They were all involved with their various meat projects, searing and breaking down and braising. A gla
nce at the meat station was like a snapshot of controlled carnage: flesh, bone, blood, gristle, skin. It was like a surgery room, all gleaming stainless steel and sharp, specialized instruments, and the chefs were swathed in white like doctors, working silently as if they were saving and healing live bodies rather than cutting up dead ones.
Mick hauled many pounds of thawed vacuum-sealed racks of lamb out of the cold storage room. At his station, he slid the first untrimmed rack from its plastic package. With his butcher’s knife, he removed the shoulder blade by paring it away. He made an incision at the rib-tip end where the shoulder blade had been removed, then peeled away the fat, slicing with the knife to free it gradually while using his other hand to pull it off in an unbroken swath. He set the pure white fat aside for sausages. Then he fine-trimmed the remaining fat and trimmed the tendon, scored the membrane down the center of each bone, and pulled fat away to expose the bones so they stuck out all in a row, naked and elegant. His attention had to be unbroken, his hand precise; if he slipped even a little, he could cut himself or wreck the expensive meat. This was New Zealand lamb, leaner and smaller than American and full of grassy, gamy flavor. His knife was freshly sharpened, its blade so keen it melted through the fat. He found himself humming under his breath.
He flipped the rack over and, with his boning knife, trimmed the flap of fat and membrane from the exposed two inches of bone. He used the butt-end of his knife to get the bones perfectly clean, as clean as ivory. He stacked the first beautifully frenched rib rack in a hotel pan and moved to the next and did the same thing all over again, and then again. Time melted by like the fat under his knife. Then he was aware of Consuelo at his side, restless. He glanced over at her.
“Hey,” he said. “Good morning.”
“Chef,” she said. “Can I talk to you a minute?”
“Let me finish these up.”
“You’re finished, it looks like.”
It was true; he was cleaning the bones of the last rack.
He set his knife down, going over the marinade recipe in his mind. “Go ahead.”
“This is a general question,” she said. She looked as bleary as Mick felt. Her face was puffy, and her eyes were bloodshot. “Why did you sign on with Cabaret?”
“Why not?” said Mick. “I wanted to get out of Budapest. I was going nowhere.”
“Okay. And where do you see yourself going after this? You asked me that last night. Now I’m asking you. Are you staying with Cabaret? They didn’t cancel your contract, right?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly, squinting. “Maybe, maybe not.” He peeled off the gore-smeared latex gloves. “Now I’m ready to get back onto land again. Chef Laurens is opening a place in Amsterdam. But that’s out now, right. So I don’t know. No idea.”
Consuelo’s face was hard, blank, and her eyes stared into Mick’s. He couldn’t tell what she thought of this plan, or why it was so important for her to grill him about his future. And he didn’t have time to ask, because Laurens was there, silent and small and pale, inspecting everything and taking in the morning’s progress without seeming to look directly at anyone, but not missing a single detail. Mick was sure he’d notice if anyone had missed a spot shaving or was hung over, and would draw his own conclusions and keep his own counsel about them until it was appropriate for his own purposes to air them.
“What’s going in your marinade for the rack of lamb?” he asked Mick, standing at his elbow, checking the frenched racks. His tone was bland and everyday. He broadcast no punitive static. The air between them was clean.
Mick’s knees softened very slightly with relief. “Mustard, garlic, soy sauce, rosemary, olive oil,” he said.
“Good,” said Laurens.
Mick inhaled a full lungful of air for the first time, he felt, since the captain’s table dinner. His future was not wrecked. He’d overreacted: his ancient lizard brain had sent him into a fight-or-flight response to grave danger when there was, in reality, none. This was the downside of growing up with his father. Mick could pick up signals, but he couldn’t always interpret them correctly, since his internal decoder had been calibrated for his father alone. And he no longer existed for Mick, except in the past.
Consuelo had slipped back to her station. Laurens moved over to watch her stirring bacon, carrots, and onions in butter. Without looking over directly, Mick could sense her bristle at Laurens’s approach and then relax again as he moved on to Miguel. Between Mick and Consuelo, the air roughened slightly with turbulence caused by Laurens’s presence, then all at once it calmed down and everything was okay. Mick had no idea why. He went on putting together his marinade, but now he felt like himself again.
* * *
*
Miriam awoke from the deepest sleep she’d had in what felt like years to find herself in her and Isaac’s bed. It was late afternoon already. In the first instant of full consciousness, she discovered that she was naked. Worse, she seemed to be entwined around Isaac, her body curled around him, her front pressed to his back and her legs snaked around his, and he, horror upon horrors, was also naked. Then she awoke fully and nuzzled her face into the back of Sasha’s neck.
After their rehearsal in the chapel, Isaac had moved all his things across the hall and down four doors, and Sasha had done the reverse. The two old men were as gracious about it as possible. They tried very hard to banish awkwardness with as many jokes as they could tell, Isaac expanding on the theme he’d struck earlier about how miserable Sasha would be with Miriam and how glad he, Isaac, was to finally see her handed off to another man, and Sasha riffing with mild self-deprecation on his own lack of worthiness to take on such a formidable woman. Miriam laughed inwardly to overhear these two men discuss her, for the sake of their ancient friendship and Isaac’s pride, as if she were a valuable prize (Sasha), a cross to bear (Isaac), and a force to be reckoned with (both). Jakov had absented himself, wisely, and was sitting with Larry and Rivka in the buffet. The lunch special was beef Wellington, and Jakov had professed great excitement about this.
“Brioche crust, it said on the menu!” he said as he headed off to the dining room.
As for Miriam, she and Sasha fell into bed together as soon as the move was made. It was exciting, but also a bit anticlimactic. They did not have sex; they were both too overwhelmed with emotions and the strangeness of this and the newness of each other’s bodies and the beauty of falling in love so late with someone so well and deeply known, yet also unknown. It was an afternoon of sighs and gazes, caresses and embraces, many words, many silences, and a few brief spells of guilt over Sonia and Isaac. But those didn’t last long. For God’s sake, who had time to bemoan former spouses?
“Boker tov, yalda yafa,” Sasha muttered now.
“It’s the middle of the afternoon, and it’s Miriam,” she whispered. “Not your wife.”
He chuckled. “Did you think I was Isaac, just now?”
“For one terrible instant. So I didn’t want to give you that same shock, although for you, I know it wouldn’t have been terrible.”
She could feel his penis. His “cock”? It was hard, anyway, and she was glad of that. Starting tonight, they’d get to sleep together for the rest of the cruise, maybe the rest of their lives. When they got back to Tel Aviv, who knew what would happen. She had her place in the high-rise with Isaac several floors above her, and Sasha had his and Sonia’s house in Jaffa, but it would make more sense financially, as the quartet retired, for them to join forces. Also, she wanted to live with Sasha. Miriam had never been averse to getting ahead of herself, especially in financial and practical matters.
“Did you fall back to sleep?” Sasha asked. “Wake up, I miss you.”
She laughed. She loved him so much. “Where do you want to live after the cruise, when we get back home?”
He didn’t hesitate. “With you. Can you come to my place? We can’t live near Isaac. We shoul
d get married, anything you like.”
Her chest warm with joy, she said, “As a proposal, it’s maybe a little casual. But as a proposition, I accept.”
A little while later, they got out of bed and dressed without showering, looking at each other’s bodies with childlike curiosity and unabashed love.
“I remember in the 1970s, at the Dead Sea,” said Sasha. “Remember? You wore that black bathing suit. So sexy! Like Sophia Loren. For Sonia’s sake I had to look away. You look exactly the same to me now. I can’t believe I finally get to see you like this. I finally get to sleep with you.”
She waved away the compliment, laughing.
“Tonight,” he said seriously. “Tonight, I promise to make love to you. Don’t worry, I still can. With you, I can do anything.”
Dressed, their hair combed, but without any other attention to their appearance, they ventured into the hallway hand in hand. They didn’t say so, but they both hoped they could spare Isaac the sight of them together, so soon.
Isaac was nowhere to be seen. But there was Rivka Weiss, of all people, coming toward them along the hallway, wearing a tailored white silk pantsuit, her hair impeccably mussed under a broad white hat.
Miriam saw her first, then Sasha. Then Rivka saw the two of them, coming out of the same stateroom hand in hand, looking rumpled in the manner of people who have been naked together carnally and recently. People who, in Rivka’s eyes, had absolutely no business doing so.
“Oh!” she cried, her sculpted eyebrows raised as high into her taut forehead as her recent Botox treatments would allow, which wasn’t very. “Where is Isaac? I was—I was just looking for him. To see if he wanted to take a walk along the promenade before the talent show.”
“Good evening, Rivka,” said Miriam calmly. “I have no idea where Isaac is, I’m sorry.”
“All right,” said Rivka, still looking askance at Miriam.
“By the way, we got divorced more than twenty years ago,” Miriam added in her own defense, but Rivka didn’t hear her. She had dashed off on her spidery legs, teetering on her wedge sandals, fleeing from the sight of these wicked adulterers, from such insurrection on the part of her very own musicians.
The Last Cruise Page 15