The quartet had agreed on the sweetly gorgeous, deceptively simple Borodin for tonight’s program, followed by Rochberg’s modern offbeat variations on Pachelbel’s overplayed Canon, and then the Tchaikovsky as a digestif, because it was exciting and sparkling and energetic and would send everyone away in a good mood. These three quartets were easygoing staples of the Sabra’s repertoire, not too taxing for any of them, which was all to the good, because both Isaac and Jakov claimed they’d come down with mild stomach bugs. Miriam suspected it was just a touch of seasickness, pure and simple, but they both adamantly denied it, as they always did, on every cruise.
During the Borodin’s first movement, the dinner guests drifted into the dining room with the captain and senior officers. As Christine walked in, Miriam ogled her admiringly, noting how well she carried herself. The green dress suited her figure, and she had the height and the curves to carry it off and the broad shoulders to offset the strapless bodice. And the girl next to her, the friend who had brought her on the cruise, what was her name? Nicole? Melanie? Valerie. She looked exactly the way Miriam had expected her to look, based on Christine’s brief description of her: slinky, audacious, twitching with self-regard. Miriam watched her position herself vis-à-vis Christine and flick a glance at her friend, a quick naked dart of some pure emotion that was almost certainly envy.
Miriam could empathize. She herself had been sexy as a young woman, a “dish” as they called it back then, but she’d never been a beauty; she’d always known it and had focused on cultivating both style and moxie, and not worrying too much about her looks themselves. And as she got old, she accepted the double-edged necessity and luxury of fading away into the background to observe invisibly, as she was doing now. Had she been beautiful, she would have mourned the loss. Instead, she had achieved over her lifetime a cheerful, confident ease in herself that felt, in old age, like female triumph.
As the first movement ended, Miriam watched Larry Weiss come into the dining room, tall and imposing in a tuxedo, with Rivka tottering on his arm in very high heels and a fitted cream-colored sparkly dress, the usual gauzy scarf fluttering over her bony shoulders. The Weisses as a matter of course glanced over at the quartet with impersonal, proprietary affection, but did not, apparently, notice Miriam watching them. Larry went over to the bar while Rivka and Valerie introduced themselves and stood chatting. To Miriam, watching from afar, they seemed to be two of a kind: ambitious, shrewd, stylish women. Rivka, like Valerie, had a dramatic, near-skeletal chicness that offset her own odd looks. But unlike Miriam, she had refused to accept invisibility in her old age, and she was rich enough to have the luxury of any and every mitigating means available. Her armor included plastic surgery, a subtly youthful coif, flowing scarves, eye-catching jewelry. Like Valerie, she was all tautness and attitude. Both of them caught and held attention like bare fishhooks hung with glittering lures.
Sasha lifted his violin and glanced to his left. As she had done for fifty years, Miriam turned to the right and caught his eye, the signal. As the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, she almost melted with love, but, always professional, she only nodded back at him slightly, as did Jakov and Isaac to her left. Instantly, the quartet was a unit, coalesced. Sasha brought his violin down to bring them all in, and the scherzo began.
Christine found herself seated between Tye the Yale historian and a dashing chief officer named Tom. The captain sat at the head of the table flanked by Rivka Weiss and Cynthia Perez, with Kimmi at the foot between Larry Weiss and Philip the hotel director, a slender man who had a voice so deep it sounded like a foghorn. Christine had been sure at first that he was just putting it on to be funny, but he’d kept it up all night.
All four of the ship’s top-ranking officers were American, white, male, ostensibly Christian, and ostensibly straight, although of course you never knew. And all of tonight’s guests were a mixture of black, Hispanic, female, Jewish, and possibly gay. Christine noticed this with the same half-conscious bemusement with which she speculated about the waiters. Were they Filipino, Mexican, Malaysian, or Dominican? They were all dark-haired and -skinned, but according to Valerie, Cabaret hiring practice dictated that there couldn’t be too many people from the same country, or who spoke the same language, to prevent them from organizing against their working conditions. So Christine deduced that Cabaret deliberately hired a variety of similar-looking waiters who spoke different languages, which she found disturbing on several levels.
The waiters, wherever they were from, moved efficiently around the table with hand-lettered menus, pouring wine. “Oh, lobster thermidor,” said Tye Blevins on Christine’s right. “They served it once in New Haven. An even blacker black tie event. It’s cool. It comes right in the lobster shell.”
The muted, entangled, melodic sounds from the stringed instruments, the wafting heat from the candles, and all the wine made Christine feel overheated. She slipped off her shawl, intending to drape it over the back of her chair, but a waiter was there at her elbow to take it. “Let me know when you’d like to have it again, miss,” he said very quietly.
As the salads were served, iceberg wedge with Roquefort dressing, Christine glanced at the head of the table and met the captain’s eyes. She realized with a flattered rush that his gaze felt frankly lustful. She leaned forward with feigned innocent absorption in what James was saying across the table from her, to show off her cleavage. Inwardly, she was laughing at herself for being so blatant, but she was totally unable to resist this temptation. The captain’s blue eyes looked hot and glinting when she darted a glance back to him to see whether he was still watching. All through the dinner, as she ate the luscious lobster dish and drank her wine and made conversation with everyone around her, there was a thin, buzzing wire stretched tightly between her and Captain Jack, so tightly that if one of them leaned back, the other felt the pull. Christine allowed herself to enjoy this even as her wedding ring shone on her left hand. She was far from her husband, in the middle of the ocean, and this was harmless, for God’s sake.
At the foot of the table, Larry Weiss had assumed control of the conversation. His voice was penetrating, sharp as a radio. Christine had never met a billionaire before. She wondered if they all, like Larry, existed in this weird ultra-concentrated, individually wrapped atmosphere. It was nothing he said or did. He was understated and subtle. But his abstract, intangible assets somehow magnetized him, transferred themselves to his body itself, so he was able to be rich and powerful without doing anything. He seemed preternaturally relaxed. He laughed, a full, genuine laugh, ringing and merry and warm, and for some reason, against Christine’s own will, she laughed along with him although she hadn’t heard the joke. It was impossible not to.
Between the entrées and dessert, Kimmi stood and dinged her wineglass. The table went quiet. “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you the chef whose cuisine you’ve been enjoying on this cruise—coming to us from Brussels, Belgium, Chef Laurens van Buyten!”
A pale, slight, bespectacled man swathed in white materialized behind her from out of the candlelight.
“Thank you,” said the chef, formally, in a clipped, accented voice. “It is nice to see you all. I am very honored and delighted to be the executive chef on the famous Queen Isabella for her last voyage.” He paused with professional calm for the patter of applause, then went on. “I have brought Chef Miklos Szabo to talk a little bit about one of the dishes we’ve made for you tonight.”
And there was that guy Christine had seen in Long Beach, in the hotel bar. He was swathed in white like his boss, but he was as different-looking from him as one European white man could be from another of roughly the same age. Laurens looked like someone who’d been bullied and teased in school and was touchy and sensitive because of it. Mick, by contrast, was broad-chested and pugnacious-looking. He looked like he could have been doing the bullying.