You Are Always Safe With Me

by Merrill Joan Gerber

  “God that feels so good,” Marianne said. “This man knows his business.”

  “I want to be next,” Jack Cotton called out. He and his wife had come up from below and were standing arm in arm, watching Izak perform the massage.

  Lilly felt somewhat dizzy, from the swim, from the heat of the sun, from seeing Izak on his hands and knees that way, like an animal. She had a sudden image of his private parts hanging down, soft and pink, replete with the seeds of life.

  “I want to be next,” Jane Cotton begged. “Please, Izak, can I be next?”

  Izak looked up and his eyes landed on Lilly. “You,” he said, bending his head once toward her. “You be the next.”

  *

  This was a test, she knew. Others would gather round, her mother would appear and watch. Harrison and Gerta would return from their kayaking and Gerta—in her tiny bikini—would observe Lilly with her wide, substantial buttocks on display for all to see. Every humiliation in her life came back to her and instructed her to demur, to refuse, to keep her dignity and go down the five steps to the galley, another five steps to her stateroom, to dress modestly for lunch, to appear cool and collected, with her hair combed and a touch of lipstick on her mouth.

  She stood rooted to the deck, smiling stupidly. “Okay,” she said softly. Then, in case he hadn’t heard her, she said, with more clarity in her voice, “Yes, I’d like to be next.”

  *

  Just then, they all became aware of the high cry of a child’s voice from the water at the side of the boat, something in Turkish, repeated two or three times.

  When Lilly looked over the railing, she saw that a small motorboat had pulled up beside the Ozymandias and in it was a Turkish woman, her head covered with a kerchief. She sat cross-legged on the boat’s bottom, with a round metal pan heating over some charcoal. The boy, perhaps her son, eleven or twelve years old, controlled the outboard motor, and called out the words again.

  Marianne—because now Izak was standing up and had indicated his massage was over—came over to the rails and exclaimed: “Oh, they’re making crepes. I’m absolutely starving. Does anyone have some money? I’ll pay it back, I promise.”

  Jack Cotton pulled some bills out of his pants pocket. “How much do you need?” he asked.

  “Four million,” the boy cried, smiling now that he had a potential customer.

  “What do you have?” Marianne called down to him.

  “Banana and honey, cheese and lemon, chocolate and sugar,” he recited in English, his lesson well-learned.

  “Izak,” Marianne said, “is lunch soon?”

  “Not so soon,” he said.

  “Good, then I’ll have banana and honey,” she told the boy. He relayed this information to his mother who slapped a piece of dough on a wooden board and rolled it flat with a rolling pin. When she laid it on the pan over the coals, it browned quickly. She flipped it over, laying slices of banana in its center and pouring honey from a bottle over the fruit. A moment later she folded the crepe expertly in quarters, wrapped it in a napkin, and handed it to the boy who climbed up the ladder, fast as a monkey, and delivered it to Marianne, who paid him the four one-million lire bills.

  “Oh,” Marianne said, biting into it. “This is heaven on earth.”

  “I’ll have cheese,” Jack Cotton called to the boy. “Make that two.”

  “And I’ll have chocolate and sugar,” said his wife.

  Lance and Lilly’s mother came to inquire at the crowd at the railing, and soon they, too, were ordering crepes. The boy was beaming as he collected money, his mother was busily rolling out the flat circles of dough, filling the crepes with ingredients from jars and cans kept on a small shelf on the side of the boat. The woman looked serene, legless under her wide shirt, satisfied with her child and his business skills.

  “You,” Izak said, touching Lilly on the shoulder. “You are getting crepes?”

  “No, not me,” Lilly said.

  “Then it’s your turn now for massage. They will eat. You will lie down.”

  PRAYER

  Lilly lay face down on the green canvas covering of the lounge cushion, closed her eyes, and prayed. What she prayed for she did not know. She was not a praying person. It was more as if she were begging: let me not be made fun of, let me not show what I am feeling, let him not think of me as ugly or fat or, worst of all, as a paying customer. (Because perhaps there was a fee for this service, perhaps it would be on her bill at the end of the voyage. He was a working man. Perhaps he sent money home to his mother. She knew, from Morat, that he had no wife or child.)

  She felt him against her side, felt him move his body so that his knees were on either side of her thighs, felt him pour oil on the small of her back, just above the curve of her bathing suit.

  No one had ever touched her body in this way. Even her two long-ago lovers, if she could call them that, had never, either one, laid such a gentle hand on her skin. How could a woman allow herself to submit to this kind of intimacy, arrange to be touched this way by a stranger, by hire and for pay? She knew friends who often sought massages for purposes of relaxation, for the cure of pulled muscles, for the sake of health or as a gift to oneself, to be pampered and attended to for a pre-arranged hour. She had never considered it a possibility for herself. Her discomfort of mind would easily cancel the comfort her body might receive.

  Izak was silent, working above her. The others had all disappeared toward the attractions of the crepe boat. She could hear their voices coming from the far end of the boat where they must be eating their crepes at the dining table, exclaiming about how delicious they were, yelling down to the boy and his mother in the boat for another round of them.

  Where she and Izak were, there were tiny, quiet sounds, the slide of his hand along her spine, the tiny squish of her skin between his fingers. Above her, the rolled sails of the boat squeaked as the wind played with the wooden masts that held them wrapped tightly.

  Izak moved up and down her back as if it were an instrument and he were playing it. Her ribs made muted music as his fingers slid along each bone of her rib cage. She gave herself up to his fingers, to the wind, to the towering sails above them and the sound of his breath.

  She floated as she had in the sea, weightless under his weight. He moved lower on her body, sitting now to the side of her, using pressure on her calves, massaging her feet, moving his fingers, one by one, between her toes.

  He had turned her to liquid by the end. She could not sit up, all her strength flowed outward, like a current of electricity. When he helped her to her feet, she could barely stand and certainly not walk.

  He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Lilly. What you said—how we make family on boat. Here you be my family.”

  What did he mean? She could only nod as he supported her jelly-limbs down the steps to her cabin, opened the door for her, guided her inside, sat her on the foam mattress of the lower bunk. “You rest,” he said. “I prepare the table now for lunch—though I tell Morat, not too much food for this meal after so many crepes.”

  *

  Lilly slept through lunch and through the afternoon till dinner, a sleep so deep she could hardly be roused by her mother whom she felt shaking her shoulders and saying, over and over, “Lilly, are you sick?”

  “I think it’s jet-lag, it’s nothing—some kind of exhaustion came over me. Maybe too much sun.”

  She struggled to her feet. There was hardly room for the two of them in the cabin. Her mother had named their stateroom “the big cupboard”—an upper and lower bunk, a tiny porthole near the ceiling (which was just inches over their heads), a small motor-driven machine under the bunk which was supposed to (but didn’t really) air-condition the room, and a tiny cabinet where Lilly and her mother had stuffed whatever could fit in it. All the rest of their belongings, their suitcases, their clothes, were strewn on the upper bunk.

  “Let me shower, Mother. You go up to the deck. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  *r />
  The entire bathroom was the shower. A hand-held sprayer, which served as the sink-faucet, could be pulled up on a coil and held over one’s head. When Lilly turned on the faucet, water flooded the tiny cubicle, making the floor dangerous and slippery. Unless she kept the spray pointing downward, the towels hanging on two hooks on the wall were also drenched.

  She tried not to look into the toilet which had proven itself unreliable in its flushing capabilities. Waste water sometimes flowed between cabins.

  Better not to be too fastidious here. Better to look out the small oval porthole above the sink and see what could be a watercolor of astounding beauty framed there—a view of the cliffs, of craggy rocks, of goats on the slopes, of trees stretching toward a sky purple with sunset.

  Lilly pulled off her bathing suit and tossed it into the sink. As she sprayed her hair and felt it cling to her face, she recalled seeing Izak on deck yesterday, showering with a hose. She had just fastened some damp towels with clothespins to the coiled wires used for drying small items when he had come up from the little trap door in the deck that led to the crews’ quarters. With his back toward her, he planted his bare feet on the wooden planks and sprayed himself full in the face, taking water into his mouth, then spouting it out as if through a whale’s blow-hole. His bathing trunks clung to his body, the hairs on his upper body and legs flattened and darkened. She moved away and went below quickly before he could see her there.

  But the memory of his image was burned into her mind. Every simple scene here was imbued with momentous portent. Perhaps this was the meaning of travel: everything new, everything significant. Mystery and majesty everywhere, in a goat on a hill, in a tomato carved like a rose, in a crepe cooking on a tin pan over burning coals, in the view of her own body in the mirror in the bathroom of the gulet, a woman naked in a wooden boat floating like a cork in the midst of the Mediterranean Sea.

  *

  At dinner, as Morat passed the platters of lamb stew, rice, and spinach baked in pastry triangles, and while Barish brought the tray with a teapot, tea bags, sugar and cups, Fiona O’Hara clapped her hands and called for attention.

  “Harrison and Gerta have a special announcement to make to us.”

  Harrison, tall, thin, slickly handsome in his crisp white shirt, perfectly trimmed mustache, and wearing a heavy gold chain around his neck, stood and pulled Gerta to her feet. She blushed, she bent her head down. As usual, she had her waist-length hair braided to perfection and pinned up like a crown upon her head. Her full breasts, tiny waist, delicate hips were a reproach to every woman on board. But her shyness seemed to apologize for her beauty, and even for the way Harrison displayed her and paraded her before them.

  “Well, this is our news,” Harrison said. “We’re going to have a baby!”

  Lance yelled “Hurrah!!” and began to applaud, and the rest of them joined in.

  “When is the blessed event to be?” asked Jane Cotton.

  “In four weeks!” said Harrison. “Our little girl will be born in four weeks.”

  They all stared at Gerta. Fiona O’Hara laughed, apparently pleased by everyone’s confusion.

  “Izak, will you bring some wine to the table, please? We want to toast the parents-to-be?”

  “Spill it,” Marianne said. “We don’t get it. This gorgeous girl is not pregnant in the least.”

  “Oh, I see—you must be adopting,” Jane Cotton said.

  “Not on your life,” Harrison told her. “Do you think we’d give up Gerta’s gorgeous genes and my genius genes for some unknown mystery kid?”

  “So what’s going on?” Marianne stared him down. “What’s the joke?”

  “Tell them,” Fiona O’Hara said. “You’ll never believe this.”

  “You tell them,” Harrison said.

  “Well, my son and Gerta are having their baby through a surrogate mother,” she said. “They’ve been working with a famous fertility doctor who got Harrison’s sperm and Gerta’s egg together—you know how they do that these days—and their baby daughter is growing in someone else’s belly. In a month she’ll be born. This way Gerta doesn’t lose her figure. And she doesn’t have the pain or danger of childbirth. It all works out perfectly.”

  Lilly and her mother looked at one another. This was vanity in another dimension. This was insanity.

  “So I guess you won’t be nursing,” Marianne said, dryly.

  Gerta giggled.

  “We wouldn’t want those glorious breasts of hers to lose their perfection,” Harrison said. Clearly he was serious and believed they all agreed with him.

  Izak had just before this announcement brought small sugar cakes to the table and was setting them down on the table, one by one, beside each person. Lilly wondered if he had heard this revelation and had understood it.

  What she would give to grow a baby in her womb. What she would give if…

  But this fantasizing was pointless and useless. She filled her mouth with a sugar cake, stuffing it in, trying to take in all the sweetness at once to blot out the truth, to distract herself from her own hollowness.

  *

  When the dishes were cleared, only Fiona, Harriet and Lilly were left sitting at the table.

  “Darling,” Fiona said. “I’ve been wanting to ask you something for a long time now. Don’t be offended, I’ve known you since the day you were born and you’re like a daughter to me. That’s why I worry about you. Don’t you think it’s time you found a husband and settled down?”

  “Fiona!” Harriet said. “She’s my own daughter and I would never ask her such a question.”

  “That’s because you can’t. But since I’m not her mother, I can. I just did.”

  Lilly’s face was burning.

  “It’s just that old biological clock,” Fiona said. “She has to recognize that it’s running down.”

  “I’m sure Lilly can tell time,” Harriet replied. “Lilly knows exactly how old she is.”

  “Oh please!” Lilly said, drawing her knees up on the foam bad and staring between them, keeping her head down.

  “Sometimes it takes nudge from someone to make it clear,” Fiona said. “We women go along thinking ‘someday’ and then we look up and someday has passed and it’s too late. Look at me! I should have accepted any of a number of suitors after I was widowed and I didn’t. I’m still gorgeous, of course, but not as gorgeous as I was. But Lilly, you’re still gorgeous. Solid, but gorgeous. Voluptuous, if you stretch a point. Your eyes are a very excellent feature—though, if you don’t mind my saying, a little eye shadow, a little mascara, could do wonders for them. Your hair could use some highlights, a little frosting on the edges to play up the blonde.”

  “I think that’s enough,” Harriet said. “You’ve embarrassed her.”

  “Well, if she doesn’t want a man, there are other things a woman can do. She can have a one night stand and have herself a baby. I’d pick someone good-looking and smart, of course, but he doesn’t have to stay around. Just get a sperm donation, and send him on his way. Lots of older single women are doing this. Who needs a man anyway? A nanny, some good day care, will do the trick. Lilly must make a good salary. Am I right, darling?”

  “Excuse me, I’m going down to the cabin,” Lilly said. “I appreciate your concern, Fiona, but I don’t really want to talk about it.

  “I didn’t hurt your feelings, did I?”

  “Don’t worry,” Lilly said. “Why would you think I had feelings?”

  CLIFF TOMBS

  Just after sunrise the next day, Izak brought the Ozymandias out of its cove and motored to the next port city where he scanned the docking area for a slot to bring in his boat.

  Generally he preferred to drop anchor in the various coves of the southern tip of Turkey where it was clean and safe to swim, peaceful for the guests of the Ozymandias to read or rest on the deck, and far quieter to sleep at night then packed in among a hundred other pleasure boats. If they were near a city and the guests wanted to explore it, he would
deploy the little inflated boat—the Zodiac—and run the guests in groups of four or five from the Ozymandias to shore. This transfer involved two of the crew, usually Barish, who held the boat firm against the ladder which the guests descended, one by one, and Izak, who helped them into the little boat and settled them onto its rounded edge.

  This maneuver involved Izak’s reaching up to the ladder to support each person briefly while instructing her how to step in. One foot first, followed quickly by the other—or the result would be one foot in the boat, and one foot stranded on the step of the ladder. Too long a delay and the person would do an involuntary split as the little boat drifted outward. There was always much laughter and protesting while this transfer occurred, though Barish and Izak assisted each person in the businesslike way in which they always conducted themselves. The men usually got in quickly, without fuss and with a brief helping hand from Izak.

  More than once as Lilly had stepped into the Zodiac she had felt herself lunge against Izak’s chest as he helped her get her balance and guided her to sit on the inflated boat’s edge, instructed her to grasp a rope to hold for security so as not to fall backwards into the sea when the boat began to motor toward shore.

  Today, as he helped load the women first, Jane Cotton, Gerta, Marianne, Lilly’s mother, and then herself, Lilly felt Izak reach up for her with two arms. For a long few seconds, he held her close to himself, and then set her gently down on the rubberized seat. Briefly her head nestled into the curve of his neck as he leaned over her.

  “Take the rope,” he said, as he instructed each person each time they did this maneuver, and she reached her hands under her knees to grab it. It seemed not to be there. She felt for it but did not find it.

  “One moment,” Izak said, and knelt at her feet, his head almost in her lap as he reached behind her calves to pull on the taut rope for some slack so she could grasp it.

  Marianne, who sat next to Lilly, watched him kneeling there and when he stood to start the outboard motor she elbowed Lilly with her arm.