Nothing But Blue

by Diane Lowman

  Certainly I was here to make Daddy happy. He had seen this as a once in a lifetime opportunity that I should not pass up. So, good girl that I was, I didn’t. But it didn’t necessarily assure his approval. He would just move on to the next thing. The fact is, I had no idea what this trip would entail, or what I wanted from it, and wondered, just like everyone around me, why I was here. Like the ship, slung into the locks and tethered to the mules by thick cables, I was largely going along for the ride.

  He offered up the newspaper he’d finished reading. I accepted, as thrilled with it as with the mango. Getting through that much print in Spanish would take many hours. I needed a way to fill all the hours alone in my cabin facing me on the other side of the Panama Canal.

  “Gracias, mucho gusto,” I said.

  “Nada, nada. Vaya con Dios,” he replied, and his broad smile lit up his face like a small child’s.

  I went reluctantly back inside to cool down and visit the head, rushing like a moviegoer loath to miss even a moment of a riveting film. Inside, another local man sat on an overturned bucket selling postcards, candies, and beer. Some of the crew surrounded him, perusing his wares. I wished I’d had money to buy some postcards to send home, but I didn’t want to waste the time it would take to go up to my cabin to retrieve it.

  I resumed my post at the bow, trying to avoid some of the more leering, lecherous-looking, dark-blue workers. I stuck closer to my own crew, and for the first time felt some safety near them.

  Once the locks had lifted us up to the higher water level, they loosed us into the section of the canal that looked like a lake, with seemingly unfathomably deep water, into a real-life version of Disneyworld’s Jungle Cruise.

  The banks overflowed with lush, dense, exotic greenery. Ibises and spoonbills, egrets and herons, frigate birds and falcons swam nearby and flew overhead. Lighthouses and small thatched huts dotted the shore. I half expected some animatronic Mowgli to peek mechanically in and out of one. We were on a smooth river cruise, in no rush to get anywhere, it seemed. The reality was very different. We had slowed from an open sea speed of twenty-two knots to a crawl closer to five knots in the relatively more confined canal. The ship had appointments to keep at six ports in Australia and New Zealand, but for now, the tight banks and thick traffic kept us from rushing.

  Other vessels kept us company and came into sharp focus as we neared and passed them going in the opposite direction, including several banana boats. I felt so ignorant not even knowing there was such a thing. Every day revealed how much I did not know.

  A long oil tanker trailed us all the way. I imagined no matter how many times I’d make the trip through this man-made continental breach, it would never become routine or mundane. There was something new and fascinating around every bend.

  The other vessels’ crews hung over the railings, as we did, to take it all in. We waved at each other like gentry promenading on the QEII, but the more I saw of the others, the happier I was to be with mine. They were greasier and dirtier, in wife beater tees and stained, ripped pants that no one on their ships mended for them. I imagined they smelled unsavory.

  Whenever they spotted me among the crowd, their looks changed to something more lascivious and their waves invited something darker than casual greeting. I did not see one other woman the entire day. As my relatively cleaner and clearly more disciplined crew stood steadfastly behind me, I shuddered to think how different my experience might have been on one of those other ships.

  The passage took all day. I went in only to eat quickly, and maintained my post for most of the trip. My slack-jawed awe and amazement amused the others.

  “Your first time?” asked Tim, with overtly sexual overtones. They all tittered.

  “Yes, Tim, I’m a canal virgin,” I answered, deciding not to cower at his kidding. More tittering.

  “You will not be so amused the next time.” I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to play.

  The canal narrowed from a lake to a wide river as we approached Panama City on the Pacific side. Those locks worked in reverse, letting us down easily. We approached and crossed under the vast bridge that made up part of the 19,000-mile Pan-American Highway, running from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina. Children swam in the water near the bank under the span and waved at us as we passed into the Pacific.

  And right beside us, as if on cue from Herr Rose, the iridescent, fantastical flying fish appeared, leaping alongside the hull as if to escort us out into our seventeen-day transoceanic crossing. They lifted out of the spray at rhythmic intervals, like choreographed lords a-leaping, thin fin membranes spread open eighteen inches wide like wings. They alternated jumping out, gliding, and diving back in with their schoolmates, so the surface shone and quivered with their ballet. Airborne for what seemed like an extraordinarily long time—thirty or forty seconds—their dance welcomed us to this side and sent us on our way. Once through the canal, we’d have nothing more than a very few dots of islands to see for seventeen days. Nothing but blue. Sea, sky, and me.

  Maybe because I was aware that the Pacific was nearly twice the size of the Atlantic, the horizon seemed to loom larger and longer once we’d sailed under that bridge. This was it. The point of no return. I was leaving my country, my continent, and everything familiar behind. We were way out to sea. Up until then, there had been frequent and somewhat familiar touch points to anticipate—visible signs of progress. But once the canal was in the rear view mirror, the only thing I’d see before Sydney would be a brief glimpse of the Galapagos and Tahiti. The ship and its inhabitants would be my world, which in this almost incomprehensible vastness, suddenly shrunk, containing and confining me. Like an inmate, hands cuffed, I could hear the prison gates slam shut behind me.

  A post-partum-like depression settled in after the excitement of the canal as I returned to my cabin. I was rank with sweat, having sweltered for nearly eight hours in the searing sun. The water had broken, the cord was cut, and I was soon to emerge into a new hemisphere. I made my way inside slowly, reluctantly, a little suspicious of what lie ahead. Every step of the nearly vertical internal staircase and down the blue hallway stretched out like the twists and turns in a distorted funhouse.

  If my head hadn’t hung down as I approached, I’d have seen it. But as it was I nearly stumbled over the bulk as I went to insert my key in the lock. My eight-track tape player, with a note from Herr Stuhlemmer, sat at my feet.

  “Fraulein Meyer:

  Electrician Hoeldlmoser spliced the wires and attached the correct plug. Your machine should now work. We can replace the old plug when we return to New York if you desire.”

  My music. I fumbled with the key as I cradled the cumbersome cube in my arms. Kicking off my flip-flops, I dropped to my knees, plugged the machine in, and slid it into the cubby in my nightstand. I grabbed a tape—one of only a few I’d brought on board—pushed the power button, and the “on” light smiled at me. Magic. No longer completely alone in my cabin, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and a few other familiar friends would keep me company.

  The song came on.

  Like Peter Gabriel, I too, wondered where, indeed, did my country lie? I may not have been homeless, but I was temporarily stateless.

  The lyrics filled the air, filled my ears, and released something I’d been holding back for a week: tears. Even through the cheap tinny speakers, it was the sweetest sound I felt I’d ever heard. The melody mingled with my tears.

  Selling England by the Pound. Genesis. I sang along to the endless loop of music that, as I dove deep into this ocean, offered some salvation. A thread I could grasp to maintain a tenuous connection to the people, places, and language I knew. To the life that felt comfortable and familiar, not so foreign in every way as this one.

  It made me think of my high school friends Lauri and Sharon. We had listened to this record until we’d worn the grooves bare. Sharon and I were huge Genesis fans. We’d seen them on the Wind and Wuthering Tour at Madison Square Garden. Sharon drown
ed on her birthday in a bathtub during an epileptic fit. In such a small volume of water. And me here alone drowning, in a different way, surrounded by so much of it. Her six-year-old brother found her. She’d said that she didn’t want to turn nineteen. She’d stopped taking her medication. I didn’t go to the funeral because I was afraid to see my friend in a coffin. To see my friend buried. Being mid-semester at Middlebury was a convenient excuse that I felt guilty about forever. Lauri flew down to Texas where Sharon had recently moved and more recently died. I’d never forgive myself for not going. Now just Lauri and I were left from that triad.

  I lay on the floor and listened to the album all the way through, over and over, the words washing away the grime of the day, the tears, and the fear. To this day, no other album has a more visceral effect on me.

  When I showered for dinner, what I saw in the mirror horrified me. The sun cream that Herr Most had given me got no nearer my skin than the men hanging over the railings of the ships we’d passed. I was mahogany. I did not recognize myself, and understood why my friend Manuel thought I was Panamanian. I thanked my Greek heritage for the fact that I was not glowing radioactive red, and I was also very grateful that my mom could not see me now. She’d be furious. And Herr Most would surely be so in her stead.

  At dinner the men’s mood felt lighter than mine, lighter than it had been before the canal. The passage seemed to have loosened some unseen tension valve. A bottle of the ubiquitous Holsten beer sat at each place. Usually, the captain treated everyone to a beer on a crew member’s birthday, but we found out about those early in the day. On the single sheet of onion paper announcing the ship news that greeted us at breakfast. I was unaware of any celebrations that day.

  Ingo came over, amused by my surprise as I gaped at the beer, unsure if it were for me and if I ought to drink it. “Prost! Drink up!” he said. “Herr Kapitän Beucking is relieved to be though the canal. It can be tense for captains, you know; they are not in charge of their ship.”

  I nodded my head, even though I had no clue how ship captains felt.

  “Now he is happy that we go full speed. So he treats everyone to a beer!”

  I touched my fingertips to the droplets of condensed water dripping down the side of the dark brown bottle. Its logo, a black knight with a feathered helmet atop a rearing steed, armored with a red shield with a white “H” emblazoned on it, adhered to the glass. Red and white, just like the ship.

  “You have tasted Holsten before?” He asked.

  “No, never.”

  “You have tasted beer before, Fraulein Meyer?” He asked, his grin impish.

  “Yes, Ingo, I have tasted beer before.”

  “Drink then! Prost!” he said, and he released one of his deep resonant belly laughs.

  “Prost!” We clinked bottles.

  Oh, that beer! It was as icy as the day was sultry, manna from Holsten Brauerei, AG. So different from the Miller my father drank. The few clandestine sips I’d had of that had kept me away from beer until we all started drinking whatever cheap brew someone’s older brother snuck through the small basement windows in high school. At Middlebury we sipped watered-down piss that we ordered by the pitcher for $3 at the Rosebud Café, or dispensed from frat party kegs. I never knew what real beer tasted like before that first Holsten, and it delighted my palate and set me up for disappointment for the next two years at college. By the time I’d finished it, my shoulders had un-hunched, and I began to think the next seventeen days might not be so bad.

  On his way out of the mess hall, Tim stopped and put a hand on my table.

  “Abend, Diane.”

  I looked up, surprised. He and most of the crew had only greeted me casually and in passing. I didn’t realize he even knew my first name.

  “Abend,” I said.

  Long, lean, and lanky, Tim was a skeleton hanging in an anatomy class thinly cloaked in skin. His coveralls were always too baggy and too short. He corralled his shoulder-length strands of dirty blond hair with a dingy red bandana tied across his forehead. His downward-focused, doleful eyes made me think of it more like a crown of thorns. He had an air of Christ about him: the suffering, not the sacrifice. The puncture marks on his limbs were not from spikes but from heroin needles. This ship was his treatment center. He was here to rehab. His spider-leg fingers spoke of the work he did, the lowest kind on board. Paint, grime, and calluses competed for space, all equally reluctant to give up or go away. He was hard. Hardened. Weathered, like the ship that he and his mates painted on every single round trip to ameliorate the impact of the punishing salt air. But he was not so lucky. No amount of paint could erase the damage that his life had inflicted on his face.

  He was British, but his tenure on board had teased the cockney accent out of him and created some sinister hybrid, an unnatural GMO sound, neither here nor there, like him. Did his wife and daughter miss him? If so, he did not seem to reciprocate. Tim was Cool Hand Luke. The hard-living, soft-spoken leader of the pack. He saw all and answered to none.

  “We’re having a small party in our cabin tonight. We’ll play chess and talk. You can join us,” he said. Not so much of an invitation as an edict.

  Still feeling badly that I’d demurred after Kino Night, and before I thought much about it, I said, “Thanks, where’s your cabin?” I really hoped to socialize more and spend less time alone on the long crossing. He gave me the cabin number and told me to come down any time after dinner. But my shoulders re-hunched after accepting. I had no idea what to expect, or what I might have gotten myself into. I dreaded wallowing my way across the Pacific in isolation, but the alternative scared me, too. I dressed down so as not to rile anyone up.

  The mood in the cabin was festive, the lights, muted. The captain’s relief must have trickled down to the common folk who intended to revel in it.

  The difference between my lush digs and this hovel filled me with guilt, the way the hoppy smell of spilt beer filled my lungs. The entire cabin would fit twice in mine. I wondered if they knew this. Wondered if they hated me for it. The twin beds, narrower than mine, took up much of the uncarpeted floor space. The only light, day or night, since inside cabins had no portholes, came from a dim overhead fixture and reading lamps affixed to the wall above each bed, making the scene look like it had been shot with a cheesecloth-covered camera.

  Ten or so people crowded into the narrow space, using every available surface: the beds, the small built in desk, and the two desk chairs. Elton John sang in my ear: “They’re packed pretty tight in here tonight,” as Tim introduced me around. I was relieved to see Claudia; at least I wasn’t the only female in the space.

  I recognized Chris, a cute friend of Tim’s, who reminded me of the guys at college. He was tall, fit, and carefully groomed. He smiled easily, and laughed guilelessly. His doppelgänger, Roland, was shorter, slighter, and very reserved. He always looked caved in on himself. He could have joined any hair band with his shoulder length brown curly locks. His eyes, always at half-mast like those on The Great Gatsby billboard, saw and judged everything, silently. Chris was a happy, wagging, yappy puppy; Roland, a distant, inscrutable Cheshire Cat.

  Tim handed me my second beer and sat me down. I watched Roland beat one of the others in only a few moves at a chessboard they’d set up between the beds. His hands barely moved, his face even less.

  “I’ll play you,” said Tim when they’d finished.

  “Oh, no, I. . . .” but again, it was more of a statement than a question.

  I played, with all eyes on me, especially Roland’s. He winced almost imperceptibly at every move I made. Tim made quick work of me, and Chris said,

  “Let me play her! Let me play!”

  Someone handed me another beer—that was three, and not having had a sip since leaving school, I was feeling just fine. Maybe too fine. I did a little better against Chris, but still lost.

  “You go, Rollie, you play her,” Chris said to Roland, as if I were a chew toy he wanted to share. Roland looked down fro
m the corner where he stood, and shook his head, like Rick denying a patron access to his Café Americain in Casablanca. Chris drooped as if he’d been whacked on the bottom by a rolled-up newspaper.

  I moved over to sit near Claudia.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hello.”

  “How are you?” I asked, feeling awkward and strained, but very much wanting to make friends with the only other girl I felt I had even a small chance to connect with. I never saw Ana on board, except sometimes by the small pool in a smaller string bikini.

  “Good,” she said, after a gulp of beer. “You?”

  I felt certain that out of everyone on board, it was likely that she felt most wonder about why I would put myself voluntarily into a situation that she pretty clearly did not relish. She was Austrian, as was her husband, Bruno. I supposed that if I’d understood German I’d have detected a different accent, but my ear was blind to it.

  “Where is Bruno?” I asked, and then regretted the too-personal intrusion.

  “Oh, he sleeps. He wakes very early to make breakfast, and. . . .” She paused and took another swallow. “And he does not like so much, um, a party,” she finished, and looked down at her beer.

  There was something sad about her, and something she wasn’t telling me, but I sensed that it wasn’t because she couldn’t figure out how to say it in English. I didn’t want to pry, so I shifted the focus to me.

  “Yeah, I wasn’t sure if I should come down. It’s a little weird for me on board.”

  She looked up at me.

  “Ya, ya, for me too sometimes.”

  “But at least you speak German,” I said.

  She smiled. “Ya, ya, it is better.”