Aboard Read online

  He walked to the aft rail of the Main Deck, stripped off his tee shirt and sulu, put his sandals on top of them, and stood as if facing his class. There was a small amount of milling around among the others. James and Maria were the first to line up, but Ralph and Jeanne were right behind them, followed by Marcella, Ron, Jim, Paul and then the others. Only Mark abstained, sitting in a chair, sipping a pina colada and watching. Once again, twelve naked people began doing qi’ gong stretches, followed by the yang long form to “raise hands.” They repeated this much three times this evening, then did some more qi’ gong and quit. The crew would shortly be setting up for supper and they were expected to vacate the Main Deck for that process.

  Women shrugged back into their muumuus and flower necklaces, men back into tee shirts and sulus. The crew came to set out three tables for them to sit at, but the merest gesture by James and Paul was enough to convert them into a single long table, seating six on each side and one at the end.

  The crewmen shooed them away after receiving instructions on how to arrange the table, and invited them back at 7:00 on the dot. In the meantime, the Lautoka Lady had slowed, turned, approached a sand spit with three palm trees on it, and had pulled up onto the beach, just as the Fiji Queen would have done. Very soon after that, the sun had set in a blazing of red and orange glory. Again, it was darkly moonless after sunset. The stars were especially nice during the early evening hours before the moon rose and drowned so many of them out.

  The table was set with a table cloth and three candelabra with candles burning in them. The electric lights of the Main Deck were turned down just enough to create an atmosphere of elegance. They all sat, Marcella at the end of the table and the rest arrayed along its sides, where there were no place markers.

  The first course was a vichyssoise, served with an austere but faintly sweet white wine. The diners looked at one another, smiled, shrugged, and took a sip of the wine and several sips of the vichyssoise and were done with this first course. It was followed by fettuccini Alfredo, served with a full-bodied chardonnay. After this came a filet mignon, served on a medallion of eggplant, drenched in onion and mushroom gravy, with mashed potatoes and a medley of root vegetables, accompanied by a hearty cabernet sauvignon. A tossed green garden salad followed, with tomatoes, green onions, olives, artichoke hearts, chopped celery and carrots to enliven it. Then came a cheese plate with a selection of blue cheeses, sharp cheddar and Edam, served with toasted slices from a sourdough baguette and a pinot noir.

  Clearly, the only thing left was dessert. Ron conferred with the staff, asking for a few moments before dessert would be served.

  “There is one person here I particularly want to honor. There is a song, a song I sang once a number of years ago while acting in an amateur musical, which comes to my mind when I think of this person – only I think this person not only personifies this song better than the character who sang it, he also is much more successful. See if you can guess for whom I sing:

  “To dream the impossible dream ...

  “To fight the unbeatable foe ...

  “To bear with unbearable sorrow ...

  “To run where the brave dare not go ...

  “To right the unrightable wrong ...

  “To love pure and chaste from afar ...

  “To try when your arms are too weary ...

  “To reach the unreachable star ...

  “This is my quest, to follow that star ...

  “No matter how hopeless, no matter how far ...

  “To fight for the right, without question or pause ...

  “To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause ...

  “And I know if I'll only be true, to this glorious quest,

  “That my heart will lie will lie peaceful and calm,

  “When I'm laid to my rest ...

  “And the world will be better for this:

  “That one man, scorned and covered with scars,

  “Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,

  “To reach the unreachable star ...”

  Jeanne was the first: “Dr. James!”

  Ron: “Thanks, James. The world is better because you are walking on it. We have been blessed by having you among us.”

  Shelly: “Dr. James, we love you. It was you, your caring and your example that pulled all of us together into a community.”

  Ralph: “And that sense of community is the single greatest thing we lose by being rescued.”

  Paul: “But we do not lose it because we all take it with us as a great gift we have received while we were in Fiji, a gift that tells us something about how the world could be.”

  Roger: “I know you saved my life. I suspect many others feel the same way. Thank you.”

  James: “Whoa now! Don’t let’s get carried away. I love you all and I appreciate this testimony very much, but you are giving me much too much credit. I may have had a couple of good ideas, but you all did the heavy lifting. I never tried out for leader and I certainly never thought of myself as following a quest to righteousness. I am not Don Quixote. If I have contributed to the general welfare, I am happy to have done so, but I deserve no more recognition than any other person sitting at this table.” He held his glass aloft. “I drink to all of you, and all you did that helped to assure my survival.”

  Recognizing the embarrassment of their friend, Paul and Roger took up the cry, and glasses were raised all around “to all of us.” And they all stood. Paul took the lead again: “We are a community of friends. Let us all remember that as we move on in our separate lives. We have formed attachments here that will never be broken. Let us draw courage from those ties always to be the best we can be, always to bring love to those around us, always to care for those who need care and to protect those who need protection.”

  “Here, here!” They all drank.

  Roger: “And let us thank Ron for such a beautiful rendition of such a beautiful song. Thanks Ron.” Everyone drank again.

  They sat and in an instant dessert appeared – angel food cake, smothered in raspberries and whipped cream, served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a small glass of sweet sherry. It was wonderful, but no one ate more than a few small bites.

  As a group, they rose and carried chairs out to the aft end of the deck, where they could see the stars. They formed a circle and began to talk.

  Roger: “Let’s talk about what comes next.”

  Paul: “We’re going to go our different directions, aren’t we?”

  Shelly: “Let’s each describe what happens next in our own lives.”

  Roger: “I’ll start. I’m going to liquidate my business and start liquidating Jayne’s investments and work to figure out what’s next in my life.”

  James: “You may be skipping too much, Roger. First, we arrive in Lautoka. I presume they will put us up in a hotel and help us shop at least for something in the way of a wardrobe and some luggage and personal items. We will all need traveling documents, so there will be trips to embassies, unless they come to us, and duplicate passports to be made. I cannot imagine that will take less than a week, but the time will be very different depending upon which nation is involved and how much public recognition there has been in that country.

  “Then there will be the question of where we want to go. If we try to stay together, we will probably be allowed to stay together for a while, but sooner or later, Ralph and Jeanne are going back to Tasmania, and Paul, Roger, Ron and Jim to Australia – to Sydney I think. Mark and Julia will return to Los Angeles; Maria and I to Oregon. And it remains to be decided where Val and Shelly will go next. Marcella will, I suppose, want to return to France.

  “There will be families with desires and countries and newspapers with demands for information. I can imagine that in some areas, we will be a cause celebre. I suspect that Jeanne and Ralph will never find Tasmania quite the same place it was when they left it. On the other hand, the people of Maryland may not give a ho
ot about what happened to Val and Shelly – we don’t know yet, but we soon will.”

  Roger: “Yes, I see what you mean. Well, I would like for us to stick together as long as we can. I plan to return to Sydney. I’m not sure what comes after that, but I am absolutely certain I am not returning to the life I left.”

  Jim: “I, on the other hand, hope to return to Sydney and take up precisely where I left off.”

  Shelly: “I want to stay together as a group too – but I am going on with Val – where she goes, I go. The difference for me is that I follow Val as a rather different person with rather different reasons for wanting to be with her. But I am still following her.”

  Paul: “I guess James is right. I, too, would like to keep us together as long as we can. When I leave it will be to Sydney first, then back to my college. I think I will write a grant proposal to visit that town with the naked dancers. I think their experiment will be very interesting to the anthropologic community.”

  Ron: “I like our little community too. I think we will need one another more in the next few days than we have in the last few, as the world begins to tear at us, eager for their pound of flesh. I want another sketchbook and more colored pencils. And maybe some larger paper and some pastels. I am bursting with paintings crying to be painted and with feelings to share. Oh, yes, I will return to Sydney. Jim says he wants to take up where he left off, but he cannot do that. He has conducted us as a choir, and that experience will change how he conducts for the rest of his career. Further, he made new music on his recorder – new music he will need to do something with. I don’t know how much music writing he has done before, but he has a major creation on his hands – or in his mind. And so do I. My approach to portraiture will have changed. Whether that will make me a more or a less popular painter I don’t know – but I think it will have made me a better painter. Yes, I will go back as if I intend to take up exactly where I left off, but I know that will not be what happens. The world has changed. I have changed. I will find my way.”

  Ralph: “I have been thinking about what James said about Tasmania never again being quite the same place it was when we left. Well, you know, we live in a relatively small community and everyone will have known about our cruise ship being lost, and everyone will know that we survived. And you are right, we will always be celebrated in ways we cannot now imagine because of that. And Ron, I think that is part of what you were saying – that even in Sydney, people will think of you differently now. How do we pick up where we left off? I never wanted to be either rich or famous. I want to be a good carpenter and do my job. Will people understand that?”

  James: “If that is what you truly want, people will be amazed, but they will honor and respect you all the more for that, and you will probably be allowed to do it – though life will probably always be easier than it might have been.”

  Jeanne: “Oh, my. Ralph and I need to pull together and present a united front, don’t we? And support one another as much as we can? Well, I’m ready for that. I never wanted to be a princess – the wife of a good carpenter will do fine for me, thank you.”

  Maria: “James and I also live in a small town where we are known to lots and lots of people and where the newspapers will have made a big deal of our disappearance and reappearance. However, we have the advantage of long tenure in town as a known entity and James’ professional stature that will help us. I certainly don’t want to be celebrated or famous. I want to go back to the life I once led, though I will carry all of you with me, and I will cherish you and my memories of our time together for the rest of my life.”

  Val: “I would like to stay together for a few more days, anyway. I have been thinking about what Shelly said. She and I need to talk about our relationship. I don’t want to be the boss, and I don’t want her as camp follower. I want her to be my partner. I don’t care if Mom wants to pay her for being my chaperone – let Mom do whatever crazy thing she wants, we can talk to her about that when we get home. Shelly, dear, I want a partner – please be what you are, my equal in every way; take my hand and we’ll guide one another.”

  Julia: “I guess I’d like to go home and start in again where I left off, but I agree we can’t do that. I am going to be interested to see how my obsessive and compulsive tendencies manifest themselves now. But I don’t want to be the center of attention. I hope we can avoid that.”

  Mark: “I agree. I like all of you. I think staying close together for a few days is going to be crucial. They’ll eat us alive if we let them.”

  James: “Marcella?”

  “I have been thinking what I would like to do. Since I entered the employment of Madame Thorpe, I have just flowed with whatever came. Maybe that will still happen, I don’t know. I would like to go home to see my parents and my brothers and sisters – it has been years. They will not know of my being here because they have no radio, no television and they do not get a newspaper.”

  James: “And I intend to return to my practice and take up exactly where I left off and the guy who wants to get in my way had better watch out. I agree with Mark, for the moment, we need to stick together, and if any of us are going to talk to the news media, we should insist that all of us be involved.”

  Paul and Roger, almost together as a single voice: “I’ll second that.” All heads nodded.

  “Well,” Jim said in a sprightly tone, “Let’s sing!”

  Singing

  Jim started them off singing Spirit of Life. It was in hot competition with Dona Nobis Pacem for impact. He loved it, and so did they.

  “OK. We have one more song to learn, and it is called ‘Come Sing a Song With Me.’ James and Maria will sing it. Please sing only the first verse. As I recollect, once we have that, we can do almost anything for subsequent verses and it will work.”

  “True,” agreed Maria and James simultaneously. They sang:

  “Come sing a song with me,

  “Come sing a song with me,

  “Come sing a song with me,

  “That I might know your mind.

  “And I’ll bring you hope

  “When hope is hard to find.

  “And I’ll bring a song of love

  “And a rose in the winter time.”

  Jim did as little arranging as he felt he could. Once again, Maria and James had outlined two parts – soprano and (uncharacteristically for James) tenor. Jim used what they had sung, interpolated an alto role and added a bass line. Soon, they were all singing in their parts.

  Jim invited Maria to lead them into three more verses, which she did – each verse being different only in that the first three lines changed to be a repetition of the first line she sang:

  “ Come dream a dream with me.”

  “Come walk in rain with me.”

  “Come share a rose with me.”

  “Come live on an isle with me,” somehow followed, and as they sang, voices broke, tears began to flow, the singing came to a halt.

  It was a few minutes before anyone was ready to sing again, and they shifted back to “We Laugh, We Cry,” which, somehow, did not elicit the same tearfulness.

  They all filed off the Main Deck, down stairs and around corners to their staterooms, to sleep in beds, surrounded by walls, for the first time in two weeks.

  Epilogue

  The next day they rose early, disembarked off of the prow of the Lautoka Lady and lined up on the beach on the opposite side of the sand bar for tai chi. Again, Roger taught nothing new, but worked on drilling what they had already learned so that they could remember it.

  Later, on the Main Deck, they had breakfast, clad again in their “returning home uniforms.” The Lautoka Lady backed off of the sand bar during breakfast and they were under way again. With the weary miles churning away beneath them, they drifted into separate activities – little conversations among small groups punctuated by time in the cabins. Everyone showered again. What a pleasure a shower was.

  They stopped for l
unch at the island just outside of the Lautoka harbor. Lunch was a buffet with a variety of breads, cheeses, lunchmeats, makings for salads, salad dressings and condiments for sandwiches. A representative of the Fiji Foreign Office came on board to talk to them, and did so while they were eating. The gist of it was that he heartily congratulated them on their survival and told them the whole world was waiting to hear from them and wanting to help them. They would be situated in a hotel near downtown Lautoka and provided with assistance and funds for shopping for clothes and other necessities while their respective consulates were reissuing them passports and any other documents they might need. As their documentation became complete, arrangements would be made for their travel. If they needed any assistance, he would personally be available to help them – he gave them each a copy of his card, with a telephone number.