Mick had never been in the crew lounge during the daytime. Sunlight filtered in through small high windows to reveal a shabby little foxhole, institutional-looking, with scuffed linoleum floors dusted with cigarette ash, greasy particleboard bar, smeared laminated tabletops. At night, in the glow of electric candles, it had felt almost romantic in here, certainly cozy, sitting elbow to elbow with his crewmates, getting drunk to loud music. Now it reminded Mick of a social room in a low-security prison. He felt a burst of anger, but at whom, he wasn’t sure. The cruise line? Consuelo? Bad luck? It felt older, deeper somehow. Maybe it was Suzanne, or his father. Maybe it was himself.
Mick sat alone and ate in silence, listening to the others talking amongst themselves. They were speculating about the crew who’d walked out, most of them with scorn that was nonetheless, Mick sensed, tinged with reluctant envy. We have to keep it together, he thought, glancing around. Over the years, he had heard stories from other crewmembers of minor disasters on cruise ships, engine fires, shipwide viruses, people falling overboard, ships stranded and floating without power for four or five days, food and water shortages. But the passengers were what worried him the most. Invariably, whenever things went bad, they turned into a bunch of angry, abusive, hysterical toddlers en masse, demanding immediate solutions from the overworked crew, making their lives a living hell. What was going to happen with half the crew already refusing to work? This was going to be a nightmare.
He glanced over at Christine. She was sitting with three young crewmembers, eating as fast as the rest of his crew, swilling iced tea and looking very American and out of place. She could have stayed upstairs, where she would have been taken care of, but instead she was down here in the hot galley with a motley bunch of cooks. And she looked unperturbed about it, relieved even. He felt a half-reluctant sense of kinship. This was exactly what he would have done in her place.
When they finished lunch and went back to the galley, Kenji was waiting for them. “Chef Laurens is very sick,” he told Mick with his usual sangfroid. “He’s in the infirmary. I just came from seeing him. He’s going to leave the ship soon, a helicopter is coming, he needs a hospital.”
Mick stared at Kenji for a few seconds. Laurens was gone. No more shot at a job in Amsterdam. It was done, finished. Consuelo had scuttled his chances, and the engine fire had sunk them along with whatever stomach virus Laurens had caught. Oh well.
“So it’s just you and me then,” he said to Kenji.
“I guess so,” Kenji said. He quirked an eyebrow. “Your girl last night. She took a lot of people with her. They’re not working anymore. And Chef Jean-Luc told me to go fuck myself, he’s not working either.”
“Fuck Jean-Luc back,” said Mick. He had never liked that snooty asshole anyway. “And Consuelo’s not ‘my girl.’ ”
Kenji flashed him a sympathetic look and rested a fist on his shoulder. For him, Mick thought, this might have been the equivalent of a bear hug. “What are we doing for dinner, Chef?”
“Ceviche, grilled meat. We’ll use the braziers, cook on deck. We need to eat this stuff now before it goes bad.”
“Sounds good.”
While Kenji went off to direct the kids on the meat crew, Mick worked alone, salvaging the fish that was still edible, mixing it with citrus juice, minced red onion, and cilantro. He splashed lime juice a little too liberally in the bowl and looked up, half expecting Laurens to be hovering with an attitude of faint but chilly disapproval, questioning his decisions, frowning. But there was no one there.
He set the ceviche to steep in the still-cool walk-in. When he came out again, Jean-Luc and Paolo were standing by his station, arms folded. They weren’t wearing their whites. He hadn’t seen either of them since the previous night.
“Hey,” said Jean-Luc, chin set. “Mick.”
“What do you guys want?” Mick said.
Paolo gave a small bow; he was harmless, a diva. “Some meat,” he said. “And one of the braziers. We’re cooking on the main deck.”
“Why not on the pool deck with the rest of us?” Mick was aware of Kenji and the rest of his crew around him, watching this scene as they went on working. “It would be a lot easier that way.”
Jean-Luc made a clucking sound, shook his head. “I thought you had some balls, man. I thought you sympathized with us even if you didn’t join us. But I was wrong. You are Laurens’s puppy dog, just like Kenji.”
Paolo sniggered. Mick could feel the back of his neck getting hot. He didn’t look at Kenji, but he could feel his neutral, interested gaze from across the galley. Down the counter, Mick was aware of Christine listening too.
“Take what you need and get out of my kitchen,” he said.
“Thank you, Chef,” Paolo sang out. He turned to grab a platter of meat, but Jean-Luc held him back.
“One minute,” said Jean-Luc. “Hey, Mick. What do you think is going to happen to us when we get to land? Have you thought about what Cabaret will do to us, to make all this go away? I’ll tell you what. They are going to blame us for the fire, the sickness of Laurens, everything. They are going to prosecute us for sabotage, make us pay for the damages out of our own pockets. For something we didn’t do! They are even talking about throwing us in jail.”
“Bullshit,” said Mick. The suspicion he’d had the night before bloomed again anew. “How do I know you didn’t start the fire, anyway? Poison Laurens?”
“Of course we didn’t do that,” said Jean-Luc. “And you are being naive. The owner of the company is on board, you know. Everything I said? It comes straight from him, we heard this a little while ago. Cabaret will crush us. That’s what he said. And who do you think is going to be stuck with the bill, eh? That’s how it works. When there is trouble, when there is a disaster, we are the ones who pay.”
Mick looked around the galley. Kenji caught his eye and moved one shoulder, barely, as if to say, I’m not getting involved in this.
“So I want to ask you, all of you,” Jean-Luc was saying. “What are you going to do about it? Are you going to stand there and say nothing while your fellow workers are locked up like criminals? Do you really think they will let you keep your jobs for not standing with us? Of course not. You will all be fired, just like the rest of us. Heads will roll, man. This whole fucking ship. And if we don’t fight back now, those heads will be ours. All of ours.”
Mick could feel the anger coming off Jean-Luc in waves along with the rank smell of his sweat. The room was quiet and tense.
Christine’s voice broke the silence, clear and firm. “We have a boat full of people here waiting to get rescued. How is everyone going to eat if you all walk out? I’m on your side, I’m sure we all are, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to let people go hungry.”
“Who is this?” Jean-Luc said to Mick. “She’s not one of us.”
“I’m a passenger,” said Christine before Mick could answer. “And look, I know you guys are scared, but I think you’re overreacting. Even if what you say is true, even if Cabaret is going to come after you when you get back, there are journalists on board, like my friend Valerie, who I’m sure you’ve talked with, who can help you get the truth out. You obviously didn’t do anything. This is Cabaret’s fault for mistreating its workers and not having proper safety measures in place in case of an emergency. But honestly, all that is going to be much harder to sell if you start acting hostilely toward the passengers. That just makes it look like you have something to hide. It makes you look guilty as well as malicious.”
“She’s right,” Mick said, silently thanking her. “The passengers haven’t done anything to you, right? So if we want to keep working, that’s our fucking choice. And we all need to stick together now. We’re all in trouble.”
Jean-Luc’s neck puffed slightly. Then he shrugged. “Whatever. Allons-y, Paolo. Let’s get out of here.”
They ducked out of the galley, ea
ch carrying a platter stacked high with raw meat, Mick heard Jean-Luc mutter, “Poutain de merde.”
He looked around at his crew. “Everybody good?” They nodded. “Good,” he said. “All right. We need to start firing steaks in an hour. A couple of people can go up to get those grills going with Chef Kenji. The rest of you, let’s finish the meat prep.”
There was a reassuring chorus of “Yes, Chef” as they all resumed their tasks. After Kenji had gone off with his grill crew, Mick moved down the counter and stood next to Christine, who was scooping ground meat out of a large bowl and forming patties with it. “Thanks for saying that, earlier,” he said. “If you keep helping me out like that, I might have to promote you.”
“That would be great,” said Christine. “I want a raise, too. How do these burgers look?”
“A little big,” said Mick, reaching into the bowl. “About this size is better.”
They worked side by side forming burgers, trimming chops, making a dry rub for the ribs. Mick felt a strange sense of ease working with her, almost as if this were all natural, as if they were getting ready for a Sunday barbecue in the backyard instead of throwing together a meal of the most perishable stores for a few hundred scared people on a dead ship in the middle of the ocean.
At one point, more passengers trickled into the galley to volunteer for kitchen duty: Dora and John, an elderly black couple in matching baggy white T-shirts and tracksuit pants; and Freddie, a middle-aged white woman with a frizzy fuchsia-and-silver mane and a creased, bronzed face. “I cooked in my kids’ cafeteria,” she announced in a husky smoker’s voice. Dora was slightly stooped from the weight of her shelf-like chest, and big glasses hid almost half of her face. John looked even older than his wife; his grizzled face shone with sweat. But they all three seemed game and willing, despite the heat, so Mick gave them clean whites and put them to work.
When everything was ready for service, he sent a few of his crew ahead with tongs and grill tools to coordinate with Sidney and whatever was left of his service team, sent others to run trays of hamburger buns and condiments, ceviche and salads to the pool deck upstairs, and then climbed up with Christine, Kenji, Lester, and Camille, each of them carrying a platter.
The sun had set and the ship rested on a flat field of water whose edges disappeared into the darkening horizon all around it, just turning violet, pure, without a hint of a sunset. The pool shimmered in the light from the tiki torches, its surface still and undisturbed. A crowd of younger passengers had gathered by the bar, their faces glowing in the light from the tiki flames, looking weirdly carefree in their summer camp outfits and tousled hair and tans. They looked as if they were at an actual party. Mick recognized Trevor behind the bar, kittenish as always, but instead of a Cabaret uniform he wore a tight black short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned to his clavicle, and a white pukka necklace to show off his brown chest. His hair was gelled into little ringlets. He could have been on his way to a Caribbean beach nightclub. Standing with him behind the bar was that friend of Christine’s, the writer who’d interviewed Consuelo. She was splashing various liquors into plastic cups, stirring mixers into them, garnishing them haphazardly, and handing them out to one and all, taking slugs of her own drink all the while.
Mick and Christine set the meat down next to one of the smoking braziers while Lester and Camille and Kenji took the other. The third grill was missing; Jean-Luc and Paolo must have moved it down to the main deck for the walkouts to use.
“Your friend,” said Mick to Christine as they slapped their steaks onto the smoking grill, “seems to be our new bartender.”
“Tell Valerie to make me a nice strong vodka,” said Christine. She looked good with her sleeves rolled up, her hair pinned back, a pair of tongs in her hand. Too bad she was married, and a passenger, thought Mick. Really too bad.
“What are you drinking?” he called over to Lester and Camille, who were pouring more charcoal briquettes from bags into the other grill.
“Maybe a beer?” said Lester.
“Two beers, please,” said Camille. “Thank you, Chef.”
“Beer,” Kenji said as he passed by with a hotel pan full of marinating chicken parts.
Mick moved through the crowd. At the bar, he waited for Christine’s friend Valerie to finish serving a guy in shorts and a T-shirt, smoking a cigarette. Mick envied him. His own pack was still in his jacket in his galley locker. He considered bumming one, but despite everything, he was still on duty.
He caught Trevor’s eye as he spun a martini shaker. “Hey. Why aren’t you down with the rest of your friends?”
“Tips,” Trevor said with a smirk.
“Me too,” said Valerie, joining in.
“Did Alexei and Natalya quit?” Mick asked.
“They started the whole thing,” said Valerie. Her eyes were bright behind her glasses. “They were the leaders. Along with Consuelo and two other Mexicans. You’re Mick, right? Didn’t she used to work for you?”
“Wait. So half the crew quit?” asked the guy in the shorts with the cigarette before Mick could answer. “Right at the same time as the fire started?”
“They told me they didn’t start the fire,” said Valerie. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”
“They told me that too,” said Mick skeptically.
“Where are they all now?” asked the shorts-wearing guy.
“Down on the main deck, having their own party,” said Trevor. “Getting some fresh air.”
“How many people are down there?”
“Fifty maybe,” said Trevor, looking directly at Mick. “Sixty, seventy, something like that. More joined today.”
“I’m calling it Occupy Main Deck. Like Occupy Wall Street,” said Valerie. “Did you have any Occupy stuff where you’re from?”
“We have TV news. America is very entertaining.”
“I talked to them earlier. Then I tried to get the rich-guy owner of Cabaret who’s on board to negotiate with them, but he totally shut me. He threatened to have them all arrested for sabotage. He’s a prick.” She turned to Mick. “What are you drinking?”
“Two vodkas, three beers. One vodka is for your friend Christine.”
“Where is she?” Valerie asked.
“At the grill over there.”
“Excellent,” she said. She handed him the drinks one by one, her eyes locked on his. Out of nowhere, an electric-eel jolt zinged his groin and shocked him. He remembered his vow to himself to get laid on this cruise. God, that had been a million years ago, on the docks at Long Beach. “I’ll trade you all this booze for a rare steak. I like it bloody.”
“Sure,” he said, turning around quickly.
Holding the drinks to his chest, he squirmed his way through the crowd. People thronged the grills, drawn to the smoke and the smell of meat. The band near the pool was playing a rollicking gypsy tune Mick recognized from childhood. Hearing an accordion among the horns, he looked over and saw Kimmi, of all people, squeezing the bellows and working the keys like an old beer-hall pro.
After he distributed the beers, he handed Christine her vodka. She knocked her plastic cup against his in a sideways toast and took a slug. “Thanks,” she said. “I needed this.”
“Why aren’t you over there? If I were a passenger, I’d be getting drunk with that crowd.”
“I’m not good at being a passenger. Doing nothing.”
“I thought that was the point of cruises. Doing nothing.”
“That’s not so good for me,” she said. “If I don’t stay busy, I think too much, and if I think too much…”
She fell silent. They worked side by side without speaking for a while, flipping hot steaks onto a platter, slapping fresh raw ones with a sizzle onto the hot grill.
“This way, I can drink while I work and have the best of both worlds,” said Christine. She had evidently been follow
ing her own train of thought.
“I know what you mean,” said Mick, going along with it. “Cheers to that.”
She laughed, a rich chuckle. He grinned at her and felt a spark ignite in the air between them. She clenched her jaw and looked down at the steaks, and he remembered again, with even more regret this time, that she was married. Maybe she had felt that spark just now too. And maybe he was flattering himself.
A crackling squawk came from above. Everyone looked up to see a young deck officer in a white uniform and cap standing on the catwalk, shouting through a megaphone. “Everybody, a helicopter is approaching. For your safety, we need you to please clear the aft deck. That’s the back. Please move to the front of the ship, everyone.”
Mick heard the chopper before he saw it, ratcheting its way over the ocean, coming low out of the twilit sky. Bridge officers appeared on the pool deck and began herding everyone forward. The crowd streamed toward the railing, chattering, with their drinks and plates of food, as the chopper made a downward arc with a stuttering roar and came to a stop, hovering with a slight wobble thirty feet above the decking outside the solarium. The gigantic, whirring blades washed the top decks of the ship with gusts of downdraft. Mick closed the hood of the brazier to keep ashes from flying everywhere while his crew scurried around, securing paper plates and cups and napkins.
Slowly, a large cage-like basket descended toward the decking, and Mick watched as two officers helped Laurens van Buyten into it. He was holding his stomach, looking weak and unstable. The basket was winched skyward. From the open door to the body of the helicopter, a pair of arms reached out and helped Laurens into the cabin, and he disappeared. The basket descended again, and when it hit the deck, a tall man Mick didn’t recognize climbed into it and shook the hand of the captain. The basket was winched aloft a second time as the captain stepped back and gave a brief upward wave that was almost a salute. The second man vanished the same way Laurens had, through the door into the cabin, without even a glance down at all the people watching him go.
The Last Cruise Page 21