Кейт Кристенсен - The Last Cruise

Mick hauled many pounds of thawed vacuum-sealed racks of lamb out of the cold storage room. At his station, he slid the first untrimmed rack from its plastic package. With his butcher’s knife, he removed the shoulder blade by paring it away. He made an incision at the rib-tip end where the shoulder blade had been removed, then peeled away the fat, slicing with the knife to free it gradually while using his other hand to pull it off in an unbroken swath. He set the pure white fat aside for sausages. Then he fine-trimmed the remaining fat and trimmed the tendon, scored the membrane down the center of each bone, and pulled fat away to expose the bones so they stuck out all in a row, naked and elegant. His attention had to be unbroken, his hand precise; if he slipped even a little, he could cut himself or wreck the expensive meat. This was New Zealand lamb, leaner and smaller than American and full of grassy, gamy flavor. His knife was freshly sharpened, its blade so keen it melted through the fat. He found himself humming under his breath.

He flipped the rack over and, with his boning knife, trimmed the flap of fat and membrane from the exposed two inches of bone. He used the butt-end of his knife to get the bones perfectly clean, as clean as ivory. He stacked the first beautifully frenched rib rack in a hotel pan and moved to the next and did the same thing all over again, and then again. Time melted by like the fat under his knife. Then he was aware of Consuelo at his side, restless. He glanced over at her.

“Hey,” he said. “Good morning.”

“Chef,” she said. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

“Let me finish these up.”

“You’re finished, it looks like.”

It was true; he was cleaning the bones of the last rack.

He set his knife down, going over the marinade recipe in his mind. “Go ahead.”

“This is a general question,” she said. She looked as bleary as Mick felt. Her face was puffy, and her eyes were bloodshot. “Why did you sign on with Cabaret?”

“Why not?” said Mick. “I wanted to get out of Budapest. I was going nowhere.”

“Okay. And where do you see yourself going after this? You asked me that last night. Now I’m asking you. Are you staying with Cabaret? They didn’t cancel your contract, right?”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly, squinting. “Maybe, maybe not.” He peeled off the gore-smeared latex gloves. “Now I’m ready to get back onto land again. Chef Laurens is opening a place in Amsterdam. But that’s out now, right. So I don’t know. No idea.”

Consuelo’s face was hard, blank, and her eyes stared into Mick’s. He couldn’t tell what she thought of this plan, or why it was so important for her to grill him about his future. And he didn’t have time to ask, because Laurens was there, silent and small and pale, inspecting everything and taking in the morning’s progress without seeming to look directly at anyone, but not missing a single detail. Mick was sure he’d notice if anyone had missed a spot shaving or was hung over, and would draw his own conclusions and keep his own counsel about them until it was appropriate for his own purposes to air them.

“What’s going in your marinade for the rack of lamb?” he asked Mick, standing at his elbow, checking the frenched racks. His tone was bland and everyday. He broadcast no punitive static. The air between them was clean.

Mick’s knees softened very slightly with relief. “Mustard, garlic, soy sauce, rosemary, olive oil,” he said.

“Good,” said Laurens.

Mick inhaled a full lungful of air for the first time, he felt, since the captain’s table dinner. His future was not wrecked. He’d overreacted: his ancient lizard brain had sent him into a fight-or-flight response to grave danger when there was, in reality, none. This was the downside of growing up with his father. Mick could pick up signals, but he couldn’t always interpret them correctly, since his internal decoder had been calibrated for his father alone. And he no longer existed for Mick, except in the past.

Consuelo had slipped back to her station. Laurens moved over to watch her stirring bacon, carrots, and onions in butter. Without looking over directly, Mick could sense her bristle at Laurens’s approach and then relax again as he moved on to Miguel. Between Mick and Consuelo, the air roughened slightly with turbulence caused by Laurens’s presence, then all at once it calmed down and everything was okay. Mick had no idea why. He went on putting together his marinade, but now he felt like himself again.

Miriam awoke from the deepest sleep she’d had in what felt like years to find herself in her and Isaac’s bed. It was late afternoon already. In the first instant of full consciousness, she discovered that she was naked. Worse, she seemed to be entwined around Isaac, her body curled around him, her front pressed to his back and her legs snaked around his, and he, horror upon horrors, was also naked. Then she awoke fully and nuzzled her face into the back of Sasha’s neck.

After their rehearsal in the chapel, Isaac had moved all his things across the hall and down four doors, and Sasha had done the reverse. The two old men were as gracious about it as possible. They tried very hard to banish awkwardness with as many jokes as they could tell, Isaac expanding on the theme he’d struck earlier about how miserable Sasha would be with Miriam and how glad he, Isaac, was to finally see her handed off to another man, and Sasha riffing with mild self-deprecation on his own lack of worthiness to take on such a formidable woman. Miriam laughed inwardly to overhear these two men discuss her, for the sake of their ancient friendship and Isaac’s pride, as if she were a valuable prize (Sasha), a cross to bear (Isaac), and a force to be reckoned with (both). Jakov had absented himself, wisely, and was sitting with Larry and Rivka in the buffet. The lunch special was beef Wellington, and Jakov had professed great excitement about this.

“Brioche crust, it said on the menu!” he said as he headed off to the dining room.

As for Miriam, she and Sasha fell into bed together as soon as the move was made. It was exciting, but also a bit anticlimactic. They did not have sex; they were both too overwhelmed with emotions and the strangeness of this and the newness of each other’s bodies and the beauty of falling in love so late with someone so well and deeply known, yet also unknown. It was an afternoon of sighs and gazes, caresses and embraces, many words, many silences, and a few brief spells of guilt over Sonia and Isaac. But those didn’t last long. For God’s sake, who had time to bemoan former spouses?

“Boker tov, yalda yafa,” Sasha muttered now.

“It’s the middle of the afternoon, and it’s Miriam,” she whispered. “Not your wife.”

He chuckled. “Did you think I was Isaac, just now?”

“For one terrible instant. So I didn’t want to give you that same shock, although for you, I know it wouldn’t have been terrible.”

She could feel his penis. His “cock”? It was hard, anyway, and she was glad of that. Starting tonight, they’d get to sleep together for the rest of the cruise, maybe the rest of their lives. When they got back to Tel Aviv, who knew what would happen. She had her place in the high-rise with Isaac several floors above her, and Sasha had his and Sonia’s house in Jaffa, but it would make more sense financially, as the quartet retired, for them to join forces. Also, she wanted to live with Sasha. Miriam had never been averse to getting ahead of herself, especially in financial and practical matters.

“Did you fall back to sleep?” Sasha asked. “Wake up, I miss you.”

She laughed. She loved him so much. “Where do you want to live after the cruise, when we get back home?”