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Aboard the Aqua Meridian
You Make Me Feel So Young
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THE KEY I was given at Customer Service opens the door to a well-appointed cubicle with a porthole that looks out on nothing but water. I try the bed and find it more than satisfactory. There’s a built-in chest, a comfortable chair, and a bedside table where I place Dr. Rabinowitz’s book. I peek into the bathroom and glimpse a walk-in shower, and a vanity supplied with soap and little bottles of shampoo and lotions. There’s even a toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste. Very considerate, they really have made an effort.
When I open the closet to stow my hat, I’m surprised to find a pair of white cotton pajamas and a terrycloth robe all bearing the ship’s logo. This is really astonishing. They’ve thought of everything. Out of curiosity I open a dresser drawer and discover neat piles of sport shirts, slacks, and shorts in various colors. I unfold one of the shirts to check the size and find that it looks about right. Another drawer contains fresh underwear and socks still in their original packaging.
I sit down in the armchair to think about what all this means. It’s too extraordinary. It’s simply too much. Even the best hotels don’t provide clothing for their guests. Or maybe they do. Bess and I never stayed in a truly first-class hotel, so who knows? This might be quite normal and expected in the upper echelons, but I have an uneasy feeling that it isn’t. Besides, I’m in tourist class. What do they provide first-class passengers? Ball gowns and evening jackets? I check another drawer where I find a swimsuit and beach towels emblazoned with the Aqua Meridian logo. I stare at them for a long minute before reaching out to touch one of the towels. It’s a soft terrycloth like you’d find in the best hotels. I close the drawer, wondering if I’ll have the nerve to put on the suit and look for the pool tomorrow.
I go into the bathroom, to throw some cold water on my face and comb my hair before joining Dawson in the lounge. I catch sight of myself in the mirror and freeze. The face in the mirror is familiar, but not one I ever expected to see again. Gathering my courage, I lean forward to examine myself more closely. There’s almost no light in the bathroom, but still, it’s not my imagination. I look years younger than when I woke up this morning. I touch my face and feel the skin, smooth and resilient. It’s not just a trick of the light. My eyes are clear, and my hair shows just a hint of gray. Is this the face that Dawson’s been looking at all afternoon? I raise my eyebrows, wink, and stick out my tongue. The face works, but my knees have gone a bit wobbly.
I lie down on the bed and close my eyes. I wish Bessie were here with me now, or even Michael. No, not Michael, I wouldn’t want him to see me like this. It’s not right for a father to look younger than his son. Should I mention this transformation to someone? What would I say? I may look like a man in his prime, but I’m really an old codger. How would that go over? Not well, I expect. I open my eyes and examine my hands. They’re small for a man, but suddenly well-muscled and strong, not veiny and knobbed by arthritis. They’re the hands I remember digging shards of pottery from the ruins of Crete, holding the tiller steady when we sailed, cupping Bessie’s breasts at night in bed. They were good hands and here they are again, only now . . .
I stagger to the porthole and look out. There’s nothing but rain and endless water in all directions. Where the hell am I? Is this some sort of trick? Someone’s idea of a practical joke? An idea strikes me, and I go back to the bathroom to examine the mirror more closely. It seems perfectly normal and besides, what trick mirror would explain my hands? As I stare at the good looking fellow in the glass, my nerves settle and my knees stop shaking. He looks so confident and self-possessed that I have to smile at him. He smiles back and I feel reassured. My initial alarm gives way to gratitude for this unexpected gift. Maybe it’s the light, maybe it’s my eyes, or maybe my mind’s going. It doesn’t matter. It is what it is. My heart stops racing, I take a few deep breaths and decide to enjoy this newfound prowess while it lasts. What else is there to do? “Here’s looking at you, kid,” I say to my reflection. Then I stride out into the corridor to look for Dawson and the smoking lounge.
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THE LOUNGE IS crowded and filled with smoke, but I have no trouble recognizing the trio of men laughing loudly and waving cigars as they talk. The atmosphere is decidedly masculine, and I notice that there are no ladies in attendance.
“There he is,” Dawson bellows as I approach their table. “We’ve been waiting for you. Let the games begin.”
“Hello.” I extend my hand to a lumpy looking fellow with a receding hairline. His face is a florid, purple and he exposes large horsey teeth when he laughs, which he does constantly. Beads of sweat dribble down his forehead. The man is clearly drunk, but I smile amiably. “I’m Jacob Kanter.”
“Jacob Kanter,” he echoes, laughing, as though my name were the punchline of a joke. “Well, Jake, take a load off and sit down.”
“Sorry. Let me introduce you. This is Harvey Newcome.” Dawson nods at the fleshy man whose thick, damp hand still has hold of mine. “And this is his brother-in-law, Jack Lewis. They’re from New Jersey. Do I have that right? They have a company that manufactures light fixtures.”
“Where in New Jersey?” I ask. My wife and I once spent a week at Cape May.
“Trenton,” Jack Lewis replies. Like his brother-in-law, he’s a hefty guy, but sober. He’s managed to button his shirt straight and looks like he may be the brains of the operation.
“Yeah, Trenton.” Harvey guffaws as though this news is hilarious.
I extract my hand from Harvey’s oversized paw, extend it to Jack, and then take a seat. I feel a surge of energy, the pure animal pleasure of inhabiting a young man’s body. “What are we drinking?”
“We’re drinking beer, but I hear they make a good Martini,” Jack replies, exhaling a plume of pungent smoke.
“Beer’s fine.” I look around for a waiter, place my order, and grab a handful of peanuts to test the limits of my new stomach.
Dawson puts a deck of cards in the center of the table. “OK then, let’s get started. Cut for dealer.”
It turns out that Dawson and I aren’t a bad team considering we’ve never played together. At one time I wasn’t half bad, and I’m surprised how much comes back to me. The fact is, bridge kept me in pocket money during the war. We wouldn’t do well against real competition, but poor Jack is partnered with a drunk and doesn’t stand a chance. Too bad we’re not playing for money. Dawson and I would walk off with a bundle and apparently our companions have money to lose.
“The thing with light fixtures,” Harvey’s saying, “is that you can make them out of anything. Not the old-fashioned kind with all those dangly crystal things, but the new modern ones. We’ve got a whole line made from nothing but scrap metal. We buy old brass pipe for peanuts, drill a few holes, wire them together and voila, I give you our new Serena Series. I’m telling you, we can’t keep ’em in stock.”
“Give credit where credit’s due, Harvey.” Jack takes a trick with the nine of diamonds and leads with the King of Spades. I’m not worried since I still have five good trump cards in my hand.
“OK, you’re right.” Jack takes another handful of peanuts and washes them down with the rest of his beer. “We were selling auto parts until my sister, Harvey’s wife, decides to decorate the house. They’re short of cash, but she says, don’t worry, I’ll make everything myself. Next thing he knows, there’s a hand-made chandelier hanging from the dining room ceiling, and her friends are swooning over it. They all want her to make them fixtures too. As they say, the rest is history. Now we have a whole catalogue of upscale lighting for the modern home. She does the little drawings and artsy stuff. Jack and I run the business, and a sweet little business it is. It’s paid for a ten-bedroom house in Essex Falls, a Porsche turbo, and a Cessna Citation.”
“We should never have bought that plane.” Harvey throws away the queen, making his brother-in-law wince.” You’re no pilot. What made you think you could fly that thing?”
“Hey, I took lessons. I would’ve had my license in another month if we hadn’t run into weather.”
“Too late now. That plane is toast. I don’t know how we’re even sitting here. So, what do you guys do for a living?”
I catch Dawson’s eye, and we exchange wry smiles as he takes the trick with his king. “We just met this afternoon, but it turns out we’re both professors. I’m a linguist, he’s an archaeologist.”
“Whoa, we better be careful what we say around these guys. I don’t want professors flunking us for bad grammar.”
The waiter returns with my beer as I lay my hand face down on the table. “You’re safe,” I reassure him, before taking a long, satisfying swig. “Academics aren’t the strait-laced prigs you imagine. We’re actually a pretty disorderly bunch. Believe me, if I could put up with Christopher Hollis all those years, I can certainly—”
“You knew Hollis? I worked with him on the Kish Tablets. His name is on three of my papers, but I couldn’t agree more. He was a pain in the ass.”
“You must have been with him at Tell Uhaimir. I’d love to know what he was like back then. I knew he’d done a lot of work on Sumerian cuneiform, but we never discussed it. My work was mainly in Crete.”
“At Knossos? You knew Pendleton?” Dawson’s eyes gleam with excitement.
“Hey, it’s your play.” Jack blows a cloud of smoke in my direction. “Could you guys talk shop another time? I don’t want to be here all night.”
“Sorry, of course.” Dawson examines his hand and tosses out the two of clubs.
Jack follows with the four of clubs. I’m about to play the jack when a woman walks into the lounge. She’s wearing a green cocktail dress like the one Bess used to wear and she has dark hair bobbed the way Bess wore hers when she was young. I watch, waiting for the woman to turn around so I can see that she’s a stranger. This happens to me all the time. The year Bess died every woman with short, gray hair, every woman wearing a red coat or carrying a large tapestry bag would make my heart stop for one hopeful moment until I saw she was no one that I knew at all. This woman is different. She doesn’t look the way Bess did in her old age. She looks like the young Bess in our wedding album. She never turns, and I continue to stare as she orders a glass of wine and walks away.
It’s crazy, but I jump up from the table. “Excuse me, I think I see someone I know. I’ll be back in a minute.” I sprint into the hallway, hoping to catch her, needing to see her face, but all I see is a flash of green as the elevator doors close. It’s a stupid thing to do and I feel foolish as I rejoin my companions. “False alarm. A case of mistaken identity.” I play the jack, take the trick, and wonder how Bess is getting on wherever she is now.
It’s dark outside, but I can see the rain as it continues to fall relentlessly through the beams of the ship’s running lights. We’re rocking a bit, but the motion is soothing like being in a massive cradle, although my own equilibrium is utterly shaken. The woman couldn’t have been Bess, yet I can hardly control an impulse to jump up again and search for her.
“Wake up. It’s your turn. You’ve fallen asleep at the switch.” Jack sounds more amused than annoyed. “Thinking about that woman, aren’t you? I’ve never seen a man move so fast. Too bad it was the wrong one.”
“Yes, it is too bad. Are there any peanuts left?”
Two hours later we’re tallying up the final scores and saying our good-byes. It’s been a pleasant evening and it’s taken my mind off more disturbing thoughts. I really should get out more. Maybe I’ll join a bridge club and start playing again. The rain hasn’t let up, but no one seems to mind.
“I’ll look for you tomorrow,” Dawson says, shaking my hand. “It seems we have a lot to talk about. Will you be coming down for breakfast?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Well, then, I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”
“Good night.” As I turn to leave the lounge, I notice the young man who’d forgotten his textbook standing by the window. I walk over and tap him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, but I believe I have something of yours.”
“Oh, please tell me it’s a physiology textbook.”
“You left it beside your table when it started to rain. I picked it up so it wouldn’t get ruined. It’s in my cabin if you want it.”
“That’s wonderful, but would it be okay if I pick it up tomorrow? It’s been a long day and I’m exhausted now.”
“Of course, I’ll bring it down to breakfast in the morning.”
“I can’t thank you enough. I have a big exam coming up and I really need that book.” He holds out his hand to me. “Samuel Rabinowitz.”
“I know. It’s written on the inside cover. Jacob Kanter,” I say as I take his hand. “I’m glad I could rescue it for you. It would have been soaked in this downpour.” We turn toward the window where the rain continues to come down in sheets. “This rain just won’t let up. It’s hard to believe it was sunny all afternoon.”
“Yeah, it’s been the oddest day,” he says.
“It certainly has,” I agree. “Well, I’ll look for you at breakfast.”
“Thanks again, I feel as though I’ve been forgetting things all day.”
“Really?” I’m already heading toward the exit, but I turn back to see him still standing by the window. “It’s been just the opposite for me. All I’ve done is remember.”