Gabrielle Zevin: Elsewhere

Not wanting to further disturb the sleeping girl, Liz tiptoes across the room toward the bureau. The telltale sign that she is, indeed, at sea comes from the furniture: it is bolted to the floor. While she does not find the room unpleasant, Liz thinks it feels lonely and sad, as if many people had passed through it but none had decided to stay.

Liz opens the bureau drawers to see if they are empty. They are: not even a Bible. Although she tries to be very quiet, she loses her grip on the last drawer and it slams shut. This has the unfortunate effect of waking the sleeping girl again.

“People are sleeping here!” the girl yells.

“I’m sorry. I was just checking the drawers. In case you were wondering, they’re empty,” Liz apologizes, and sits on the lower bunk. “I like your hair by the way.”

The girl fingers her braids. “Thanks.”

“What’s your name?” Liz asks.

“Thandiwe Washington, but I’m called Thandi.”

“I’m Liz.”

Thandi yawns. “You sixteen?”

“In August,” Liz replies.

“I turned sixteen in January.” Thandi looks into Liz’s bunk. “Liz,” she says, turning the one syllable of Liz’s name into a slightly southern two, Li-iz , “you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“Not really.”

“The thing is”—Thandi pauses—“well, are you a skinhead or something?”

“A skinhead? No, of course not.” Liz raises a single eyebrow. “Why would you ask that?”

“Like, ’cause you don’t have hair.” Thandi points to Liz’s head which is completely bald except for the earliest sprouts of light blond growth.

Liz strokes her head with her hand, enjoying the odd smoothness of it. What hair there is feels like the feathers on a newborn chick. She gets out of bed and looks at her reflection in the mirror. Liz sees a slender girl of about sixteen with very pale skin and greenish blue eyes. The girl, indeed, has no hair.

“That’s strange,” Liz says. In real life, Liz has long, straight blond hair that tangles easily.

“Didn’t you know?” Thandi asks.

Liz considers Thandi’s question. In the very back of her mind, she recalls lying on a cot in the middle of a blindingly bright room as her father shaved her head. No. Liz remembers that it wasn’t her father. She thought it was her father, because it had been a man near her father’s age. Liz definitely remembers crying, and hearing her mother say, “Don’t worry, Lizzie, it will all grow back.” No, that isn’t right either. Liz hadn’t cried; her mother had been the one crying. For a moment, Liz tries to remember if this episode actually happened. She decides she doesn’t want to think about it any longer, so she asks Thandi, “Do you want to see what else is on the boat?”

“Why not? I’m up now.” Thandi climbs down from her bunk.

“I wonder if there’s a hat in here somewhere,” says Liz. Even in a dream, Liz isn’t sure she wants to be the freaky bald girl. She opens the closet and looks under the bed: both are as empty as the bureau.

“Don’t feel bad about your hair, Liz,” Thandi says gently.

“I don’t. I just think it’s weird,” Liz says.

“Hey, I’ve got weird things, too.” Thandi raises her canopy of braids like a theater curtain. “Ta da,” she says, revealing a small but deep, still-red wound at the base of her skull.

Although the wound is less than a half inch in diameter, Liz can tell it must have been the result of an extremely serious injury.

“God, Thandi, I hope that doesn’t hurt.”

“It did at first; it hurt like hell, but not anymore.” Thandi lowers her hair. “I think it’s getting better actually.”

“How did you get that?”

“Don’t remember,” says Thandi, rubbing the top of her head as if she could stimulate her memory with her hands. “It might have happened a long time ago, but it could have been yesterday, too, know what I mean?”

Liz nods. Although she doesn’t think Thandi makes any sense, Liz sees no point in arguing with the crazy sorts of people one meets in a dream.

“We should go,” Liz says.

On the way out, Thandi casts a cursory glance at herself in the mirror. “You think it matters that we’re both wearing pj’s?” she asks.

Liz looks at Thandi’s white nightgown. Liz herself is wearing white men’s-style pajamas. “Why would it matter?” Liz asks, thinking it far worse to be bald than underdressed. “Besides, Thandi, what else do you wear while you’re dreaming?” Liz places her hand on the doorknob. Someone somewhere once told Liz that she must never, under any circumstances, open a door in a dream. Since Liz can’t remember who the person was or why all doors must remain closed, she decides to ignore the advice.

Liz and Thandi find themselves in a hallway with hundreds of doors exactly like the one they just closed.

“How do you think we’ll find it again?” Thandi asks.

“I doubt I’ll have to,” Liz answers. “I’ll probably wake up before that, don’t you think?”

“Well, just in case you don’t, our room number’s 130002,” Thandi says.

Liz points to a hand-painted sign at the end of the hallway.

ATTENTION

ALL PASSAGERS OF THE SS NILE !

THE DINING ROOM IS UP THREE FLIGHTS

ON THE LIDO DECK

“Hungry?” Thandi asks.

“Starved.” Liz is surprised by her own response. She cannot recall being hungry in a dream before.

The most remarkable thing about the ship’s dining room is the people: they are all old. A few are her parents’ age, but most are even older than them. Gray hair or no hair, brown spots, and sagging skin are the norm. It is by far the largest number of old people Liz has ever seen gathered in one place, even counting visits to her grandmother in Boca. Liz scans the dining room. “Are we in the wrong place?” she asks.

Thandi shrugs. “Beats me, but they’re coming this way.” Sure enough, three women are making a beeline for Thandi and Liz. They remind Liz of the witches in Macbeth , a play she just finished reading for tenth-grade honors English.

“Hello, darlings,” says a pygmy-like woman with a New York accent, “I’m Doris, and this is Myrna, and this is Florence.” Standing on her tiptoes, Doris reaches up to pat Liz’s molted head. “Good Lord, would you look how young she is?”

Liz smiles politely but takes a step back so as to discourage further patting.

“How old are you?” Doris the pygmy squints up at Liz. “Twelve?”

“I’m fifteen,” Liz corrects her. “Almost sixteen. I look older with hair.”

The one called Florence pipes up, “What happened to you girls?” She has the scratchy voice of a lifelong smoker.

“What do you mean ‘happened’?” Liz demands.

“I was shot in the head, ma’am,” Thandi volunteers.

“Speak up,” says Myrna who has a fuzzy white caterpillar of a mustache. “My hearing’s not so good.”

“I WAS SHOT IN THE HEAD.”

Liz turns to Thandi. “I thought you said you didn’t remember how you got the hole in your head.”

Thandi apologizes, “I just remembered.”

“Shot in the head!” Florence-scratchy-voice says. “Oy, that’s rough.”

“Aw, it’s nothing special. Happens pretty regularly where I’m from,” Thandi says.

“WHAT?” asks Myrna with the mustache. “Say it toward my left ear, that’s the good one.”

“I SAID, ‘IT’S NOTHING SPECIAL,’” Thandi yells.

“Maybe you should go to the healing center?” Florence suggests. “There’s one on the Portofino deck. Myrna’s already been twice.”

Thandi shakes her head. “I think it’s healing just fine on its own.”