Nothing But Blue

by Diane Lowman

  The few marsupials that had gathered around me in search of snacks stayed and watched. Like Edith, perhaps they sensed my distress. We looked up at them with their little front paws held out and heads cocked to one side in question. We couldn’t help but laugh. I couldn’t keep crying with all these big, sweet eyes, including hers, staring at me with concern.

  “There, now” she said. “Let’s catch up with the others. They’re going to see the koalas.” I just wanted to sit there all day with my new friends, but when I stirred, their big muscular hind legs propelled them off, in cliché kangaroo style.

  I hoped to have a hug from the koalas, but I had to settle for petting them. The strong, sharp nails that served them so well when scaling eucalyptus trees could go right through our skin, our guide cautioned. But we could get close enough to caress their rough, dense fur, and see the joeys in their pouches, too. They were either inured to gawking tourists or too stoned on eucalyptus, or both, to mind our proximity, and sat, Cheshire Cat-like, balanced where the thick branches met, while we fussed and fawned over them. When it was time to go, I lamented leaving the sanctuary. I missed the unconditional love and cuddling that I’d found in abundance at Lone Pine.

  Just as we got back to the bus terminal, mine pulled away. Distraught at the thought of arriving back to the ship late, I appealed for help to the driver sitting in the next waiting bus, its door wide open. “Hop on!” he said, and before I could explain that I just needed to know when the next one would leave for the port, he shut the door behind me and took off on an action-movie chase down Queen Street until we caught up to the other bus. As he drove, he chatted away so quickly in an accent so thick that I could barely understand him. I just held on and nodded my head. He would take no fare when he stopped to let me out. I thanked him and told him there wasn’t a bus driver in the entire city of New York who would do what he had just done for me. “Ta, luv, you go on now and catch that bus!” he said, tipping his hat. I did, just barely, and when we reached the wharf, I dodged container-laden trains rolling in both directions to find the yellow path back to the ship. I arrived, breathless, just in time for steak and mushrooms.

  “Busy day, Fraulein Meyer?” Ingo asked. I just stuck my tongue out at him. He chuckled and wiped his hands on his apron as he walked back into the galley.

  The next morning, before I set out to explore town, I stopped by the galley. Herr Most rarely made me work in port unless he had something really important for me to do, but I always checked in out of respect. It was our little charade. He could have easily told me not to report the night before—to just take those days off—but I think he liked leaving me a little uncertain.

  “What do you do today?” he asked.

  “I’m just going to walk around Brisbane. Maybe go to a museum. Look for some souvenirs for my family.”

  “Hah. Souvenirs,” he said, focusing on his pointer finger and thumb touching. “What do they need from here? It is all junk.” He laughed again. “Before you go to waste your money, you stop at the Seafarers’ Mission, ya? They have books and newspapers in English. You can get coffee.”

  I had noticed, but hadn’t stopped in the one in Sydney. I wasn’t sure what it was or if I qualified as a “seafarer.” I felt odd about venturing in alone, but I realized that was a moot point given that I’d embarked on this whole journey alone.

  “It’s okay,” he assured me. “You just tell them the name of your ship.”

  The single story building, its stucco like vanilla icing on a cupcake, sat just outside the chain link fence that separated the port area from the road. It was unassuming and easy to miss. The flying angel that protected all us sea folk hovered over the entry, and the plaque said, Welcome. I entered tentatively, pulling the door open only a crack to peek in. It resembled the mission in Guys and Dolls, and I envisioned Marlon Brando greeting me in a double-breasted suit. It was also what I imagined a VFW club at home might look like. But instead of Jean Simmons, a small, prim, white-haired woman sat behind a large, old, wooden desk that made her look even more diminutive.

  “G’day, luv!” she said, her bright blue eyes registering surprise. “We don’t get many young ladies in here! What ship are you traveling on?”

  “Good morning. The TS Columbus Australia,” I said, trying to sound very official. “The big red one with the round white funnel,” I added.

  “Is that so? That’s lovely!” she said, as she scribbled the name of the ship in her log. “Now that’s an adventure, isn’t it? How did you come to be so far from home at such a young age?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, and explained again, for what seemed like the hundredth time, my circumstances. It no longer irritated me that people asked. I understood the curiosity. And each time I crafted the answer it felt more accurate, so that I understood it better, too. What started as simply a way to fill the summer months had morphed into more. Into a test of my strength, a way to show my mettle. A chance to stand on my own two feet, however wobbly they might be at times, and to start taking steps toward independence on them. I was traveling to myself.

  I spared her the esotericism, though, and stuck to the basics. She seemed delighted and came around to give me a hug and a tour of the facility, however unnecessary, since it consisted of mostly one large room that I could easily see from where we stood.

  “And over here we have a little lounge area,” she said, pointing to four forest-green, vinyl sofas forming a square around a laminate coffee table.

  “Anyone currently working on a ship—or who ever has—can come in and relax. We have postal services, too, if you have anything to mail.” Several older men reclined on the hardly comfortable looking couches, and read, chatted, or played cards.

  “And there we have tea or coffee, and there is our library. Take a book or leave a book as you please.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said. Herr Most had told me about the book exchange, so I’d come prepared with a Michener I’d just finished to leave, and perused the selection for new material to occupy me. She returned to her desk, and I noticed that some of the men were looking up at me and then at each other, askance. I suddenly felt self-conscious and a little out of place again, but they smiled and nodded, welcoming me to their fraternity. Anyone who walks through those doors, tested by the gods and protected by the saints of the sea, is a bona fide member for life. I belonged.

  I selected a title or two, got some coffee, and sat down for a while. Although I was anxious to get into town, I didn’t want to seem ungracious or unappreciative of the hospitality. I thanked the receptionist on the way out, and waved at the men, who sent me on my way with a chorus of “G’day, luv!”

  I adored Brisbane, whose residents were as warm as the weather. I stopped into a museum briefly, but spent the better part of the day souvenir shopping. I found a plastic-sleeved copy of Roger Daltrey’s Ride a Rock Horse and Be Bop Deluxe’s Moroccan Roll. I was thrilled with these finds so far from home, and couldn’t wait to show them to my friends at school, especially the ones at the radio station where I was a DJ. I hurried back to the ship, always just a little afraid that when I disembarked from the bus at the terminal, she’d be gone, subjected to some last-minute change in schedule. I sighed with relief to see her still tethered and waiting for me.

  On the way to Melbourne, heading south, we sailed close enough to land to receive communication signals. I enjoyed “the best rock in Tasmania!” as we passed that Australian island state, while I mended linens in the lounge. I modeled my college radio shows on my idol, Alison Steele, the “Night-bird,” from WNEW-FM, 102.7, in New York. I could hardly mimic her gravelly, sultry voice—I had neither smoked nor experienced enough—but I aspired to her cool delivery. I got a coveted ten-to-midnight shift, to which a lot of people listened while they studied. I played what was then current, but is now considered “classic” rock, in themed sets. I might play Roxy Music’s “Angel Eyes” with Elvis Costello’s “The Angels Want to Wear My Red Shoes” and The Rolling Stones’ “Ang
ie.” Or Lou Reed’s “Take a Walk on the Wild Side” with Springsteen’s “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” and “Wild Thing” by the Troggs. I was sure some listeners thought these combinations contrived, but it was sort of my trademark, and I amused myself concocting them. A small following tuned in regularly.

  Now, sitting and sewing half way around the world from WRMC-FM, listening to a Tasmanian radio station playing a curious mix of American, British, and Australian tunes, I missed Middlebury acutely. I missed spinning LPs in that tiny studio with George and Lou. I missed eating bad food in Proctor Hall with my roommate Randy, and drinking three-dollar pitchers of watered-down beer at the Rosebud Café. I felt very far away, but knew that dwelling on it would only make me feel further away. I switched the radio off and tuned in Martina Navratilova battling Chris Evert on a tennis court on the television instead. It must have been Wimbledon. I just let the rhythmically bouncing ball pull me back into the lounge.

  It was four days from Brisbane to Melbourne, where we would stay for only a short time since we had little to drop off or pick up, according to Herr Most. I was sorry because I especially liked that alluring city on the Port Phillip Bay, just north of Tasmania. It had a European feel, with its wide ornate bridges spanning the Yarra River. During my exploration, I spotted a theater whose marquis announced a run of Strindberg’s Miss Julie. When the box office clerk said tickets were still available for that evening’s performance, I bought one immediately, figuring I would just spring for a taxi back to the ship rather than taking the bus that late at night. My parents had given me a fixed amount of spending money for the trip, so I watched my budget carefully.

  I’d studied Strindberg, Ibsen, and Chekov the previous semester with my favorite English Professor Bertolini. I couldn’t believe the coincidence of it playing here now. I couldn’t wait to see this Aussie production, and to tell Professor Bertolini about it when I got back.

  It did not disappoint. I sat very close to the action in the small, intimate theater. Jean and Julie played out their struggle over sex and class. Her despair and demise devastated me. It made me think about my situation on the ship; how easy it would be to feel guilty because I came from a higher social stratum than many of the crew. And how easy it would be to acquiesce and sleep with one of them just to keep the peace and minimize the tension on the return trip. But, as the taxi drove on the left side of the night streets after the play, taking me back to my own drama, I dug in the heels of my flip-flops. No, I’d be damned if I was going to apologize for an accident of birth that I not only didn’t flaunt, but made an effort to minimize. And I would be double-damned if they thought I’d sell myself like the gaggle of call girls just to appease them in exchange for some fragile détente. No. No razor blade for me. Fuck them all. Or not, in this case. I intended to keep my pride and integrity in tact.

  The next evening before we left, I sat in the lounge and watched Aussie Rules football on TV. I wished I’d gotten to a live match; it baffled me. It looked like a rule-less melee, an odd lovechild of a ménage-a-trois between American football, rugby, and soccer. The announcers’ accents mesmerized me as much as the players’ mystifying muscled motion.

  We left the Australian continent behind on July 12, and I watched the match until the signal faded, trying to hold onto the connection for as long as I could.

  Friday the thirteenth dawned with foreboding. The sea, now tumultuous, tossed us as it had not before, and continued to do so for the four-day crossing to Port Chalmers on the south island of New Zealand. The dark, sharp-edged waves taunted the ship like young men with switchblades. Nothing stayed in place, including my body. Everything and everyone slipped, shook, and swayed constantly. I felt off, not so much from the motion as from the lack of sleep. Thanks to the bed’s position facing the porthole rather than the bow, I never fell out, but the sea swelled strongly enough to pull me down to the foot of the bed and shuttle me back to the head all night long. If I wasn’t moving, then the one item I’d neglected to secure or that had worked its way free would fall and startle me. All of us, even those most experienced, were a little bleary-eyed from the tumbling, and now in addition to steadying ourselves, we seemed always to need to reach for something that was about to fall, or to pick up something that had. I was juggling on a wobbly tightrope.

  The worst was a day out of Melbourne when we came to a full stop. Without any forward motion, the ship rocked like a bathtub toy at the mercy of an energetic toddler. I held on to the galley’s stainless steel counters to steady myself amid the frantic rock and roll, as I asked Herr Most, who seemed delighted to see my distress, “What’s going on? Why did we stop?”

  He stood steadily planted on the thick soles of those black shoes, rooted to the rubber floor, too tough to touch anything for balance. “Nicht. They need to replace something. In the boiler I think. We go soon, don’t worry, you won’t miss school! You look a little . . . lavender?”

  “No, I’m fine,” I lied. “And I’m not worried, just curious.”

  “Good. So from now we start to wind back the clock one hour every other day, so it will be darker in the morning. You start on the bridge at 0700 hours instead of 0600. Starting tomorrow,” he said, almost reluctantly. I looked forward to the extra hour of sleep. He knew it, and thus hated it.

  “Ya, ya!” I replied, unable to mask my smile.

  One night Claudia fell ill, and Herr Most asked me to help serve dinner upstairs. I hoped she was okay but was thrilled to have something more to do. And relieved that he hadn’t asked me to work downstairs; that would have been humiliating, and would really have given the boys a chance to have at me. I imagined Ingo and Bruno resentfully handling everything down there while I helped upstairs. I tidied myself up a bit more than usual and felt honored to serve the officers, most of whom had treated me cordially throughout the trip. They all dressed in their uniforms for dinner, and ignored me less than they had when I’d first stumbled into their space. They greeted me quietly or nodded, and thanked me genuinely. Their murmured conversation contrasted with the boisterous repartee and periodic taunting downstairs, and they took their time eating instead of shoveling the food in like coal into a boiler. The human contact and activity made me feel productive. It beat sitting in my cabin all night, wondering if I’d get home in time for school, and missing everything and everybody there. Herr Most seemed so pleased and relieved that I hadn’t spilled anything on anyone or embarrassed him in some other way. It dawned on me that he might not have realized that I was actually fairly intelligent and responsible. He had no way of knowing that. And although I thought I’d proven it every day since I’d joined his team, this seemed to ice the cupcake of my competence, I suppose because pleasing the officers was of paramount importance to him. He gave me a whole bowl of yummy red cabbage salad and an entire carafe of green tea to take to my room, and added that I could take one any time. Now he tells me? As if I’d passed some test that I wished he’d given me much earlier. He also offered me a Holstens as he commented on my expanding waistline. Tempted though I was, I declined and retreated to my cabin, wishing I could serve meals every day.

  Deciding that I needed a project to pass the oceanic hours during the trans-Pacific return trip, I’d begun to amass material for a collage of my experiences, including memorabilia like coasters, bus and attraction tickets, maps from each port, and images of the ship. I’d picked up several issues of Cleo, an Australian women’s magazine, and planned to clip some pictures from them to include. I still had to gather raw material from the three ports in New Zealand, but I wanted to plan the layout. Karl had cut a three-by-three-foot piece of plywood for me to use as a base . I would look for glue and small scissors in Dunedin. I hoped that this, along with the poem transcription and the newly refreshed book supply, would keep me occupied on the crossing.

  The next morning, after a particularly rough night, Betz had bridge duty. The ship swayed ferociously—the higher up in the superstructure you were, the more pronounced the movement. Every t
ime I looked up and out at the vast expanse of now churlish, churning graphite-gray water, I could see the bow rise and slap back down like a whale’s tail trying to quell the waves.

  I watched the messy ocean, wondering when it would settle down, and halfheartedly polishing the burled control panel wood, when he said, “At this speed we go, you will never get home.” Then he chuckled.

  I stopped polishing, and looked down at the controls. Could I just push the lever to the proverbial “full steam ahead”? Would they make me walk the plank? Throw me in the clink? Thankfully, he did not see my despair because I had my back to him. I knew he wished he could.

  “Ya, we will not arrive in New York until August twenty-seven by my calculation.” He added.

  Fuck your calculation, I thought, but I said, “Oh, that’s okay. I will still have plenty of time to get back to school.” Technically, I supposed I would, but it would leave me virtually no time to spend with my family or friends before I had to pack and return to Middlebury just after Labor Day. But what if we were delayed further? I did not want him to see my anguish, so I finished up quickly, left the bridge and fretted on my own. Bastard. Could I fly back home from Auckland? I had no clue how much that would cost, or if my parents would go for it. I hated to even let myself think how much the idea appealed to me. Just to cut the whole thing short and get off this ship and skip the return trip and get back to everything quotidian.

  But I also had this strong sense that I needed to finish what I’d started. I did not want to cave just because the seas and the environment had become unfriendly. I kept thinking how lame I’d feel to tell the story of half a journey on a container ship. I dreaded disappointing my parents, not to mention burdening them with the extra expense. And how would I possibly get all my stuff on an airplane? I couldn’t, so we’d have to meet the ship when it finally did dock in New York to collect the rest. That would feel like such an immense, humiliating failure.