Текст книги "The Flood"

Автор книги: David Sachs

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

8

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please,” a black-jacketed officer called out to the crowded Grand Atrium from halfway up a staircase. “My name is Antonio Dipietro, and I’m the Festival’s Hotel Manager. We thank you for your patience and cooperation. First of all, if you look around for the signs, you will find our restrooms. You don’t even need to see the signs actually. Just look for the line-ups. I apologize for this inconvenience, but I’m sure these lines will go down soon. We will be able to keep you comfortable here until we learn when we can return to port. We are going to be bringing food out for you all. We’d like to ask for your patience, it will be about forty-five minutes longer and you will be able to eat. I will be back soon for the food service.”

Service doors which had been locked prior to the rescue were opened and an army of personnel came through, bearing tables which they set up all around the perimeter of the great hall.

Seeing the effort being made to keep them comfortable had a palpable effect on the crowd. They were not forgotten, and this was a competently run enterprise. Since the ship had left New York, the sadness of the refugees was quieted by the twin spirits, shock and fear. With the action of the crew, the spell seemed to break. There were smiles of relief, as well as long pent-up sobs.

Travis noticed the lines at the bathroom did shorten quickly, and soon the hotel manager appeared again on the staircase.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he called out. “I would like to ask you to wait just a few minutes more while our crew gets the food set up. When that is done, there will be an announcement to please come in an orderly fashion, line up for the buffet  and help yourselves. We’ll have pizzas, hot dogs and hamburgers, as well as water and juice. We aren’t quite sure when we’ll next have food ready to bring down as we have our regular guests to take care of as well, so please come and get your fill. Just wait till the signal. Thanks.”

The food came in, a grand procession of staff passing gleaming chafer dishes and trays to other staff already waiting to serve.

When the hotel manager called on the refugees to begin lining up, Travis’s group didn’t rush, while many others did. It was a long wait, but there was lots of food. There were stacks of pizzas at the end of each table, with several open boxes at a time. There were large trays piled with hamburgers and hot dogs, and coolers of juice and water.

“What’ll you have, champ?” Travis asked Darren.

“Hot dogs, please,” the boy said.

The four of them found a spot on the floor and sat down to eat. The marble was cold. Darren studied the metallic and crystalline lines in the tiles. The hot dogs were hot and good and made them feel better. A bit of strength came into each of them. Corrina looked up at the gem-cut skylight decks and decks above, and the tourists watching down from the railings, all the way up.

Corrina Adamson was a strikingly attractive woman, but only from close up. From afar, everything about her seemed average. She dressed and did her hair so that her beauty could not be seen but up close. She had long, light-brown hair, curling down across her forehead and cheek so that one did not see her face except directly from the front. You had to take the time to look at her to know her beauty.

She came from small town South Carolina and had swung between tomboy and girly-girl as a child. Even in high school she had been a multi-sport athlete, an adventurous and tough “guy’s girl” who loved putting on party dresses and make-up. As an adult, she had subtly hidden her looks, a bit of idiosyncratic defiance. Her ever-present smile and good humor, her raspy voice and rolling accent, and her fierce (and equally hidden) intelligence had bewitched both Travis and Gerry, and a few before them.

She had a temper, but had long ago begun to feel sorry for Travis more than angry.

After many of the refugees had gone back for seconds, the staff returned to clear off and remove the tables.

The intercom again came to life.

“This is Captain London. We are about to run the waves. We are in no danger, but I suggest you all prepare for a bumpy ride.”

There was a murmur of excitement in the crowd as individuals returned from wherever they were to rejoin their families or other groups. Travis and his group stayed together on the floor, Darren squeezing in between his mother and Gerry.

Without noise or warning, the floor gently rolled, and they all leaned a bit to stern. It lasted several heartbeats, and one held breath. A few things fell over and crashed, as well as a few people. Some fell from sitting. It calmed for a moment, and then there was a second wave, and they held their breath up and exhaled down. A third smaller roll and then a fourth. The voice came back on the intercom.

“This is Captain London. It may seem hard to believe, but that was the tsunami. The danger has passed-”

The crowd erupted into cheers, so that the rest of the captain’s message could not be heard. It was only the audible click of the intercom shutting off that forced that realization and quieted the crowd. Then they looked dumbly around wondering what they’d missed.

“That was it,” Gerry said. “I can’t believe it. All that fear of the tsunami, and we were completely safe.”

“You were right,” Corrina said to Travis.

“I’m sorry,” Gerry said. “You were right.”

“Can we take a nap, Momma?” Darren asked. “I’m tired.”

He had been kept excited all day, and with the passing of this fear of the tidal wave, he suddenly was very tired and his eyes drooped.

“Me too, sweetie. Let’s lie down.”

Gerry removed his jacket and lay it over his wife and her son in her arms. The two closed their eyes.

A new voice came over the crowd, a woman’s voice.

“-all those in unaffected areas to donate canned goods, blankets and especially cash to your local Red Cross office.”

The twelve-foot wood columns supporting the open walkways of the decks above fringed the Atrium like a Roman courtyard. Televisions bolted to several of them around the Atrium had come on, showing a news anchor at his desk, his eyes down at the papers in his hands. It was an unknown face, from a local station news-desk far from the East coast. The familiar network studios were missing from the broadcast.

Corrina and Darren sat back up.

“The reports we’re getting are devastating. We’re– I’m sorry, there are just so many reports coming in, it’s very hard to keep on top of this, but we’re doing the best we can. We’ve been told that the first warnings of the disaster came from over a dozen earthquake monitoring stations. One on Antarctica recorded this as a 9.6 on the Richter scale, which would make this the largest earthquake ever recorded. We still do not understand if the earthquake along the mid-Atlantic ridge caused the calving of the ice shelf, or if that event triggered the earthquake. We have reports of major tsunami waves all along the coast of South America this morning. We hope to have footage of that for you shortly.”

The news anchor looked distracted for a moment.

“Now this: we are getting eyewitness reports that the Staten Island Ferry has been hijacked during its evacuation efforts. There have been shots fired; it's unclear if anyone has been hurt. It's unclear where the ferry is being taken, or why.  And we’ve just gotten the latest report from the meteorological center in Colorado...”

The anchor gave the next news all but stunned, satellite images big and colorful on the wall behind him. The Florida Keys were gone, as was much of the southern panhandle.  Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, Jacksonville all were severely flooded. Disney World was flooded. It continued along the Gulf coast, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Fort Myers and Tallahassee.

The Florida panhandle filled the screen, but it was not the Florida anyone would have recognized.

In the crowd, noise began to rise. A few cried loudly, others hushed to hear more.

“We have just received a bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security, there is an update on refugee centers, we’ll be putting that on the screen in just a moment. We’re now being told that there are twelve American deaths so far, from a bus crash in Virginia. That’s twelve tsunami deaths so far… this is obviously outdated, we know those numbers will be much higher. At the top of the hour we’ll be reviewing what we know from South America and that will give us some idea of what to expect in the coming hours.

“The devastation, particularly in Brazil with its enormous coastal population, has been unprecedented. We are looking at satellite images of South America and it is incredible, you can see Tierra del Fuego is gone and miles of shoreline have just disappeared. We have reports now from New York – helicopter reports are saying that the highways are moving again, traffic is at a snail’s pace in the tunnels, but it is moving. It seems the peak of traffic is over, and we believe that most of the city has been evacuated, incredible in the short time we’ve had. The Tappan Zee is still stopped, there is a major accident on the 87 they are trying to clear, they only have half an hour to get that bridge clear, and traffic is blocked well back into Yonkers.”

“How are they going to get off the bridge?” Darren said.

“I don’t know, honey,” Travis said. “Please be quiet for a moment.”

“I’m sorry,” the newscaster continued, “this is very difficult, these horrible reports keep coming in.”

Darren tugged at his father, “No, but Daddy, how are they going to get off the bridge?”

“I don’t know, honey.”

His arm went around the boy’s shoulder and he gave it a squeeze as the news went on.

“We believe the tsunami is just minutes away from Washington, D.C. and we can only imagine the damage this will cause our great monuments. Let’s take a look at Twitter reaction to this, obviously this is the topic. We have dozens of celebrities stuck in evacuation, tweeting their situation and thoughts.”

Those who connected the images and words with themselves or their families cried. Those who kept their minds closed to those connections just tried to hold the information in, to make sense of it.

The news went on for forty minutes, mostly looping through the same summaries of events over and over and then the screens went black and Captain London’s voice came over the speakers.

“I’d like to first thank you for your patience. I have gotten reports from the staff, and we experienced no damage from the emergency docking or the tsunami. We have received notice from the Coast Guard that the tsunami has not yet hit New York, and it may be hours or longer before they can gather information on where they would like us to come in. I will update you as information comes in but for now, we will remain at sea. We are again opening the ship to our guests. For our booked passengers, restaurant service has again begun. Feel free to leave your cabins. For our evacuees, we have a wonderful staff who will do their best to take care of you. We encourage you to go above on deck and relax. There is a medical center on board, please ask any of our staff for directions if you need aid. Our facilities are at your disposal, and I guarantee the air on deck will help you recover some strength. We ask only that you do not use the interior restaurants, as we do not have the capacity. Dinner will again be brought to the Atrium and Theater between eight and nine this evening.”

The captain looked out over the ocean, one and eternal, filling all he could see. Here, events and people on land always seemed distant, as if a story he’d been told about someone else. He’d sailed many types of vessels, and even on a cruise ship, the feeling out on the ocean didn’t change. Whatever happened, this thing never changed. London knew he could ever only understand its surface.

9

Many in the crowd followed the captain’s advice. They were spreading back up onto the stairways and lining up around the see-through elevators when the last cell phones still getting signals went out. The realization spread through the bulk of the crowd within just seconds, but in pockets they did not understand and reacted to the exclamations by asking strangers, “What happened?”

Some spoke their worst fears aloud, while others shrugged it off as expected given what they’d seen on the screen. Before any mood could prevail, the captain’s voice was back.

“As many of you probably know, we’ve lost cell phones. I just want to let you all know that we still have a satellite link with the folks back home. The cell networks are down. Well, it doesn’t take much to do that in the best of times. The ship is still able to receive information and instructions, and to communicate our position. So please, once again, enjoy the Festival.”

The refugees and the paying guests mixed on the upper Sky Deck among the deck chairs, around the bar and pool, and by the railing. You could still tell them apart, somehow. The refugees had been in life and death panic just hours before. For the guests, the whole thing was still theoretical. It was too big to be real. Many had traveled from inland for the cruise, and imagined their own homes and families safe. For the refugees, it was much easier to believe that they were the lucky ones, that their friends had not escaped.

The guests were still on the ship, the refugees were still on the shore.

Around the ship, the near thousand-strong crew was made stalwart by their ship’s master. There were tasks that continued, and tasks that were stopped. The staff captain and hotel manager made these decisions, so live entertainment programs were cancelled, the casino and shops stayed closed, while babysitting stayed open, along with the basketball court and golf simulators. The library and movie theater were open, and housekeeping went on in the cabins and public areas.

The off-duty crew too were pressed into service to the refugees: supporting the galleys in their massive new responsibilities, carrying the tables and foodstuffs, the jugs of water and juice, and an improvised responsibility that many picked up: mingling on deck. The staff were there to serve, and they felt it, even if that meant bringing some better cheer.

Travis rested in a deck chair, watching his ex-wife at the railing with his son and Gerry Adamson. That threesome peered off the rear deck, at the sun setting behind them. It was a glorious sunset, flowing its spectrum over the low clouds in the distance. Travis felt their moving away from the light.

It was funny, looking around: the running track, the swimming pool and climbing wall, the tiki bar, water slides, and the basketball court in the distance. That was different from the refugee camps he’d been in. No goats. The guests seemed embarrassed by the ship’s facilities now, a little ashamed of the opulence and frivolity of their home to the poverty– and disaster-stricken guests. Still, some kids played basketball and others swam, their parents trying to maintain normalcy and smiles in their children.

While a few of the ship-guests jogged grim-faced on the track, most of the adults had no stomach to enjoy themselves.

Travis’s head was turned and he stared hypnotized at the basketball court and the three-on-three game being played by teenagers. The ball was dribbled and Travis nodded to the rhythm of it from the boy’s palm to the court. He had his boy, and he was happy. The world could be ending, but he felt lucky.

Most of those on the Festival were trying to keep away thoughts of the overwhelming whole. Travis tried to focus back on the smallest pieces of the present. To his left, he watched an attractive woman consoling a man who was sobbing silently, as though his grief had taken away his sound. His head was tucked into her breast and she stroked his hair while tears very slowly lined her cheeks.

The man looked about forty, his black hair streaked with grey. His body shuddered as regularly or irregularly as a heartbeat, and it shook her each time. She was younger, in her late twenties, and Travis saw in her face that she was a refugee too. There was something she’d left behind, her own thoughts were not on the man.

Travis got up and walked to the tiki bar. Only as he came right under the overhanging palm-leaf roof did he hear the reggae music playing shyly from the bar stereo. He sat at a bolted down bar stool and ordered a beer. Beside him, a small man smiled and nodded hello. The bartender opened a bottle and passed it to Travis with a frosted mug.

“How much?” Travis asked the bartender.

“Well, this ship is all inclusive sir, so you just enjoy and relax.”

“Welcome aboard,” the man at the next stool said, watching Travis’s face to judge his willingness to converse. “I’m Rick Dumas.”

The man was about fifty. His still-blonde hair was thinning and cut short so that his scalp showed through.

“Travis Cooke,” he answered. “You were a guest aboard?”

“Yeah. Trans-Atlantic special, they only do it once a year to get the ship from the Caribbean to Europe for the summer. Twenty-one day cruise. You know what day we’re on? Two. We were supposed to go to Boston today, then do the crossing. Christ, we left from Key West, I wonder if it even exists any more. Sorry, I don’t know if you have any people there. You from New York I guess?”

“Yes. You?”

“Dallas. Four hundred sixty three feet elevation.”

The man had distracted Travis enough that he didn’t notice he was halfway through his beer.

“Sounds like a nice place to be, right about now.”

“I’m in real estate. The market is gonna explode. Every few years when there’s a flood bad enough in the south, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, we always get a little burp in the market. This will be off the charts – the entire East coast is gonna be homeless.”

Rick saw the discomfort in Travis’s face.

“We were on the Great Cities of Northern Europe tour,” Rick said. “Boston, Dublin, Oslo, Copenhagen, Gdansk, Riga, Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg. Quite an itinerary, huh? I was in the Captain’s Club too, that gets you special cocktail parties, complimentary massages, Egyptian cotton towels, champagne, the works.”

“I’m glad Boston was on that list or you might be halfway across the ocean right now and we’d still be on the dock. Wet.”

“Hey, do you see that?” Rick said, pointing out to sea. “Is that another ship? Hey, maybe you guys can hitch a ride back with them and we can get on with our cruise.”

He paused, then smiled gently. “Just kidding, guy. Seriously though, I mean, if the damage isn’t too bad, I wonder if we’ll get back out when we drop you off. I mean, they haven’t told us that yet. We’d only be one day behind.”

Travis looked out at the other ship. At least they weren’t the only ones to follow this plan.

The sun was dipping below the horizon behind them, and the shadows were long all around them, those of the closed umbrellas looking like an array of spears.

By the railing, Corrina stood with her hand on Darren’s shoulder. In her young life she had enjoyed all the advantages of a beautiful girl, but she’d eventually begun to feel disadvantages, too. As she looked out on the open water, she wondered at the feelings she’d had as a child, when everyone was so nice to her that the world seemed a kind place, and her opportunities, the possible spread of her future life, seemed as wide as this ocean.

The world had not been always kind or open in the course of her years, but she had treasured life and discarded fears.

Now, she thought of her mom and sister, down in South Carolina. The Carolinas would have been hit sooner, with less warning than New York. She thought of her coworkers at the temp office, and all the resumes she'd filed each day and who they belonged to. She thought of her friend Sasha, who she had known since kindergarten, who had eaten a caterpillar in grade three on a dare, who she had moved to NY with, and who had introduced her to Travis, and eleven years later, to Gerry.

One in four were dead, Corrina decided, and those faces came by, with her other friends, her neighbors, the kids in Darren’s class and his teachers and the parents. One in four were dead, and the faces died in that ratio in her mind.

This was happening all over the Sky Deck, where many refugees and tourists had been drawn, and more and more conversations dried up as individuals were imagining who was dead and who spared.  Each man, woman and child played God, deciding whom the flood had taken.

Corrina realized Darren was no longer next to her. She turned in a split-second panic and saw Claude Bettman sitting with Darren on a lounge chair, a little travel chess board set up between them. He was showing Darren how the pieces moved, Gerry watching.

Looking back out over the railing, Corrina felt that childhood excitement for the open space and the possibilities it contained, as a ghost of a memory passing through her. It made her shiver.