James Tabor - The Deep Zone

So now she breathed deeply and sat quite still in the bed, while the ship rolled slowly under her like a colossal thing stretching and waking. She kept her eyes fixed on one spot on the far wall of this suite done in red and gold, the colors of an ocean sunset. Once during the night she had come awake and been surprised by a constellation of glints and sparkles, moonlight flowing in through portholes and caught by the chamber’s mirrors and ornate gilt fixtures. Now she waited, breathing and staring, and after some minutes realized that her stomach felt better. Not fully normal, but better.

She wondered what time it might be, and then dismissed the thought. Time doesn’t matter anymore .

She had wanted to do something for a day now, but the seasickness had kept her from it. She got up, perused the half dozen outfits that had been waiting for her on board, and dressed in white linen slacks and a burgundy blouse, both of which fit perfectly. She started to slip on a pair of delicate gold sandals, but decided instead to go barefoot. Shoes were no longer required. Many things would no longer be required.

There was a discreet double knock on her suite’s door.

“Yes?”

The steward, a different one this morning, made a single, deferential step into the room. He was slim and dark-skinned, wearing black slacks, a starched white shirt with black studs, and white waistcoat. His black hair was slicked back so perfectly it looked as though someone might have painted his skull.

“Would mademoiselle care for coffee and breakfast now?” His accent was French, but his complexion and heavy features suggested some other nationality, she thought. Algerian, perhaps, or Egyptian.

The thought of coffee made her stomach lurch, and she shook her head quickly. It would be some time before she would feel no unease while conversing with servants. But she knew that this man expected her to feel superior, and that to act otherwise would discomfit him. She sensed that people of true quality would be neither haughty nor familiar with servants. Neutral, rather, but firm. So she said, in a tone she might have used addressing an Oklahoma horse, “I will have breakfast. How is the weather?”

“The weather is lovely, especially warm for March. A few clouds, bright sun, breezes light from the west.”

“Then I will have breakfast on the sundeck.”

“Very well. What would mademoiselle prefer for breakfast this morning?”

She almost asked him what her options were, but stopped. She no longer had to worry about options. I can have what I want. Whatever that might be .

“Freshly squeezed juice from blood oranges. Two freshly baked croissants. Unsalted butter. Fresh strawberries in champagne. Swiss chocolate. And Earl Grey tea.”

“Very well. Thank you, mademoiselle.” The steward half-bowed and backed out of her room.

The sundeck was the uppermost of the yacht’s four decks, an expanse of brown teak and chrome and white leather nearly as big as her entire apartment had been. Flemmer sat at a table placed for her in the middle of the deck, facing aft. She ate breakfast slowly and carefully, waiting for her stomach to reply to each bite before taking the next. The chocolate had been a mistake, and she left it alone after a tiny nibble. The croissants and strawberries, though, were delicious.

She knew that it must take a good-sized crew to operate a yacht like this, but they were so expert at performing their duties invisibly that she might as well have been alone on the boat. The steward had been right about the weather; it was as perfect a day as she was likely to see in the middle of the Atlantic this time of year. The bracing air and skin-warming sun complemented each other perfectly, and with the addition of a cream-colored cashmere sweater and navy windbreaker she was quite comfortable. She sat there excited and a little breathless from champagne so early, queen of a new realm, watching the white scar left by the boat’s screws hacking through dark water.

A leather bag the color of burnished brass, from some Italian designer whose name she could not pronounce, sat on the deck beside her chair. From it she took a brush with an onyx handle and brushed her hair over and over, something she had not done since she was a child. She put the brush back into her bag and pulled from it two framed photos of her parents. Other than the clothes on her back and her wallet, they were the only things she had taken from the apartment. Flemmer got up and walked as far aft as she could go on the sundeck. She stood there, thirty feet above the water. One after the other she dropped the pictures into the violent wake.

“Jocelene,” she said out loud, and the syllables tasted as sweet as the plump strawberries she had just eaten.

Flemmer spent the day reading and napping and jotting little entries into the black leather diary she had begun keeping. She liked the sense of suspension that stately travel induced, feeling weightless in time without needs or shoulds. She explored the yacht’s vast interior, ambling through passage after passage, peering into its guest suites, grand saloon, library, bars and lounges. She found no fewer than three huge Jacuzzis, their still water making them look like giant blue jewels. Here and there she encountered doors that were locked. No indiscreet “Do Not Enter” signs. Just locked. In all her wanderings she encountered not another person, nor saw evidence of any other. There were only the constant, subtle vibrations pushed by the engines through the vessel’s steel skeleton. She could not see those engines, but imagined they must be as big as buses to drive so huge a vessel as fast as this one was traveling.

She called for dinner when her stomach told her to. After dark, it was too cool on the aft sundeck, so she told the steward to serve her in the dining salon. The room’s floor— deck , she reminded herself as she entered—was some shining exotic wood from, she guessed, Africa. The walls were an elegant pearl white. Vases held fresh pink tulips, red roses, yellow chrysanthemums. The long table could have seated twenty, but only one place had been set, for her, at its head. There were no lights—the entire ceiling glowed—and mirrors ran the length of each wall. She had avoided looking into those mirrors when she’d entered. There would come a time when she would have no fear of mirrors, but not yet.

“Would mademoiselle care for a cocktail before dinner?” Yet a third steward was attending her this evening. Or was he the first one she had met when coming aboard? She couldn’t be sure.

“Yes.” Flemmer thought about that. What would she drink? “I will have a martini,” she said, and he turned to go. She stopped him. “Wait. With two olives.”

“Immediately, mademoiselle.” He reappeared in two minutes, white-gloved, with her drink on a silver tray.

“I have a question,” she said, when he had put the long-stemmed glass in front of her.

“Yes, mademoiselle?”

“Where are we? I mean, how long until we get to where we’re going?”

The steward looked at her as though she had said something that was funny without realizing it. But when he answered, she understood.

“We are almost exactly halfway, mademoiselle.” He half-bowed and left her.

The gin was so cold it stung her lips. She had never drunk a martini before, and couldn’t make up her mind whether she liked this one or not. The juniper’s perfume scent appealed, and she felt warm through and through after the first few sips. But the liquor did something strange in her throat, making it feel taut and a little numb. The suffusing warmth soon overwhelmed that, however, and before she knew it, she had finished the martini and ordered another.

The nausea began when she was halfway through the second cocktail. Right after came a headache, swift, sharp pain like a blow to the front of her skull. Her stomach moved.