German Night
My voice teacher in Budapest warned me. “Go out now and find a spot in Nepliget Park. Better to be a nice, clean prostitute than what you’ll have to do if you work on a cruise ship.” I already knew he would say that. I’d already taken the job.
He was training me for the Staatsoper, but the Staatsoper was showing very little sign of wanting me. In the meantime, my mother’s blindness, my father’s bad bowels. My son, now four. I come home to see him as often as I can.
Every musician on the ship thinks they’re too good for this work, and they are right. When Jan, my accompanist, launches into “Blue Suede Shoes,” there’s real pain on his face. He plays it well. There are twenty other pianists who call the cruise director every week, in case there’s an opening.
At least I don’t have to sing Elvis Presley. My primary job is to deliver “light classical,” a repertoire that includes “Strangers in the Night” and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” I try not to think of “Una voce poco fa,” which I spent two years learning, until my father begged me never, ever to make him hear it again. He didn’t mean to hurt me.
Often there are passengers on the ship who remind me of him. They are the ones I sing to—big men with reddened noses and knuckles, who look like home. I look at them and imagine the taste of paprika and my eyes flood. Another Hungarian would understand, but there are no other Hungarians.
The uncomfortable-looking men are here because their wives whined and hammered and complained until their men gave in. Others sling their big bodies onto the low lounge furniture, dig into the peanuts, and explain how they’ve always wanted to see the world, and now is their time. Their eyes take in the room, assessing the cost of the drapes, the highest-shelf whiskey behind the bar, me. They tell me to sing Abba songs and have no idea that they should leave a tip. One keeps asking for Frank Sinatra, who at least is musical.
They’re talking when Jan and I arrive onstage, and when I start to sing, they talk louder. My father would like these men. For them he would bring out his most cherished jokes and his Unicum. It would not be long before he would be telling them about his caterwauling daughter and her son, and the laughter would drop to a lower register. “She’s a good girl,” he would say eventually. I named my son for him.
Tonight is German Night, God help us. Once I called it Deutsche Night and was reproved by the Entertainment Director, who reminded me that our guests do not like to be made uncomfortable with foreign words. They pay top euro to look at Germany, not be in it. Now, for German Night, I leave myself an extra fifteen minutes to get into the dirndl that the Entertainment Director requires. I bought it from a sadistic Bavarian nationalist who kept handing me smaller sizes, insisting that it didn’t fit right until I couldn’t breathe. I came out with my breasts on display like a beer-hall girl’s. “Good,” she said, nodding. “That’s a proper balcony.”
Singers need to breathe. After a bad performance from both of us that almost cost us our jobs, Jan said that I huffed like a locomotive. At first that was a complaint and then it was a dig and now it is a joke, unless it’s a day when he’s feeling sorry for himself. I feel sorry for myself, too. We take different days.
No Schumann, no Schubert. No Liszt for Jan. On the shores of the Danube, no Strauss. One of the men is leaning forward, gesturing. He is saying, as my father would, that he likes music that makes him tap his foot. He is going to hate me, though he might like my balcony.
Poor Jan is wearing lederhosen, a terrible fate for a Pole. He thunders through a polka while I gently count the beat with my hand beside the keyboard. If a customer wants to dance with me, I will accept, so I try not to look like a girl a man would want to dance with. Avoiding eye contact helps.
After Jan finishes I smile at the audience and say, “Guten Abend!” as I have been instructed. This much German reassures the customers that they are abroad, and that they can understand German. “Do you like Germany?”
“Ja!” cries one bold, beaming man sitting near the front.
“You speak German! What else can you say?”
“Bier,” he says, and the audience whoops.
“Is good, yes? German beer?” I’m swishing my layers of skirt, wishing I could breathe.
Now the whole crowd is laughing. “Ja!”
“I can see you’ve been putting your time to good use,” I say, smiling like an American. “What else is good in Germany?”
This is a nice group, willing to play. “Pastries!” “Sausage!” “Soccer!”
“Oho! You mean football?” This achieves the desired groan of delight and derision. What fun we are having.
Striving to fill my lungs just once, I say, “There is one more thing in Germany that is good.” The waiters are assembled, trays of slender glasses already balanced. “Tonight we have for you our great national drink: schnapps!”
Nikolai, with whom I spent a night once and who has been trying to get me to repeat that mistake ever since, is flying around the room, centering a tiny glass before each customer. He was a terrible lover, but he knows how to serve schnapps. All around the lounge, women are coughing and fanning their throats. Men are smacking their lips and pounding the low white tables, helping themselves to their wives’ barely touched glasses. Even my father would scorn this performance. The schnapps is not good, merely strong, like lighter fluid.
“We Germans love to drink schnapps, and when we do, we love to sing together. Will you sing with me tonight, like real Germans?” German Night is in my contract. Hungary would never make me wear this dress.
Jan plays the opening triplet and several women in the audience brighten; it doesn’t take long to recognize the song if you know it. I smile at them, beckoning. Join in! It is so much better when we sing together!
Amazingly, a few of them do. We have some real singers tonight, and they don’t scorn “Edelweiss,” a song made in Hollywood that pretends to be a folk song. It couldn’t be more perfect for this group. The singing spreads like a stain; almost as soon as one couch joins in, the next one starts. Their voices braid and hold me, sustaining the phrases I can’t hold because my German dress is too tight.
Hearing what is happening, Jan adds one more refrain, but the song is short, and soon everyone is clapping and clinking their glasses of awful schnapps and talking about how Europeans know how to live, really live. Their faces are glowing.
There is no reason for the tears in my eyes. Germans are sentimental. That is the reason.
Millionaires
The lady in the room next to ours is pretty, even in the morning, when Mom says nobody should be required to wear lipstick. The lady next door has something new on every day—a different blouse or skirt. Mom says it’s to prove that she changed her clothes. Fifteen days, and something new every day.
I wear the same pink corduroys. When we were still at home, Mom told me to “pack light.” I put a nightgown and two changes of underwear in my suitcase, and she told me, “Not that light.” She meant I should have enough clothes to get through a week without a wash. It’s a three-week trip, and so far I haven’t gotten into week two’s clothes. I like these corduroys.
When I packed I was afraid that I’d stick out, the American kid in Europe, but once we got on board I realized that nobody was going to see me at all. It’s like being on a field trip. Nobody notices one kid in particular at the science museum; they just notice the class staring at the dinosaur skeleton while the teacher talks about vertebrates. Here the lectures are about history, but it’s the same thing. Mom and Dad stand together, of course, and our new friends the Potters. They agree that the lectures are broadening. I don’t stand with anybody, but I don’t have to. I’m the kid.
The lady in the room next to ours doesn’t come on the field trips. A taxi is waiting for her when our ship docks, and she jumps in without looking at anybody, which is kind of against the ship’s code and makes her seem like a spy. She takes a taxi back to the boat, too. I watch. Twice the boat has had to wait for her to come back, and the second time, Elisabetta, the Guest Manager, was waiting for her. “That one needs to get managed,” Dad said, and Mom told him to watch himself. I hope she didn’t think she was protecting me.
Mom thinks I don’t know about sex, which is my own fault because I asked her what circumcision means after I saw it in a book. She got quiet and stared out the windshield and later came into my room and we had a terrible conversation about penises and women’s parts. My friends and I screamed with laughter the next day. That was fun, at least.
She thinks I don’t know that the lady in the room next to ours is meeting men every time the ship docks: in Budapest, in Vienna, even in little Bamberg, where the rest of us took a tour led by a guy in lederhosen who had legs way too skinny to show off in shorts. The tour guide was not up to the standards of a lady who walks like twenty steps, gangplank to taxi, in her high heels.
“Why is she even on the cruise?” She drives Mom crazy, which is another reason I pay attention to her. “It’s not as if she’s interested in European culture.”
“Who said anything about culture?” Dad asked, and Mom said, “Oh, David.” They’re more affectionate on this trip than usual, which makes me take lots of walks up on the Sun Deck, even though the sun is never out and my corduroys aren’t warm enough. It’s not that I think they’re having sex. I just think they’re snuggled up together watching our TV while Germany streams past outside the window. So far I’ve taken pictures of forty-seven castles. When school starts and it’s time for a social studies presentation, I’m going to clean up.
Today is the first day we’ve been on the river all day. The crew have knocked themselves out creating stuff for us to do. Last night a lady sang classical music and made us sing along, and for the rest of the night Mom kept singing the song as if she wasn’t drunk. Today it’s like Activities Day at school—there’s been a napkin-folding demonstration, and a class in navigation that Dad said he was interested in but didn’t go to, and later there’s going to be wine tasting. The lady in the room next to ours must be going out of her mind. Napkin folding isn’t going to do it for her.
She doesn’t appear until after lunch, wearing a swishy dress and green high heels. Mom and Mrs. Potter, both wearing sweatshirts, quit talking and raise their eyebrows at each other. By this time everybody on the ship except me, the kid, has made friends with somebody. All the buddied-up people look up from their armchairs and playing cards and drinks. The lady moves straight to the bar, and Mom makes a low growl. It’s not like she hasn’t been drinking g and t’s since noon.
Everybody’s staring at the lady’s back and she’s got to be uncomfortable, so I go and pull myself onto a barstool next to her. Even talking to a kid is better than having a shipful of people stare at you and think about your sex life. “My name’s Mindy.”
“I know. I hear your parents through the wall. This trip is broadening, and you need to wear a jacket if you’re going outside. You want something to drink?”
I love her and I don’t even know her name. “A manhattan, please.” It’s what Mom orders. The lady turns to the bartender to order a manhattan, and I would walk through a wall of flame for her.
“I’m Cynthia,” she says before I can ask. “I’m a flight attendant. I took this trip to see what it’s like to travel the slow way.”
“What do you think?”
She lowers her voice so we’re having a secret in front of everybody, and believe me, they’re watching. “It’s boring.”
“I know. But we can’t admit that. This trip cost a fortune.”
“I thought I’d meet a millionaire on board.” She shrugs.
I glance back across the lounge. All the men look like Dad, with sports shirts pulling against their bellies, and all the women look like Mom, wearing flat shoes they bought for the cobblestones. “Can you tell by looking?”
“Yes.”
“When you get off the ship, do you look for millionaires?”
“I go find other flight attendants, and we cruise the bars. I might as well still be at work.” She raises her drink—a martini, or at least it’s in a martini glass—and I pick up my manhattan. Instantly, Mom is at my elbow.
“Put. That. Down.” And then, looking at Cynthia, “What do you think you’re doing? She’s ten years old.”
“I’m letting her taste a manhattan. Which she won’t want to finish. The kids who aren’t allowed to drink are the ones who become drinkers, don’t you think? Mindy, do you want this manhattan?”
“Yes.”
“One sip,” Mom growls.
I take two, and my mouth is on fire.
“Want any more?” Cynthia says serenely.
“Not right now.” My throat full of flame, I can’t say any more, though I fish the cherry out of the glass. I watch while Cynthia introduces herself to Mom, who reluctantly shakes her hand and points out Dad. He waves. Cynthia doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that Mom and Mrs. Potter will spend the rest of the night hissing about her, or that the whole ship is watching her sip her martini and gently swing her foot in its strappy green high heel.
I’ve never been this close to pure sex before, and I like how it feels. When I get home I’ll tell my friends that I had a manhattan and watched a woman capture the eyes of every person in this crowded room, even the ancient guy with the oxygen tank whose eyes helplessly follow Cynthia’s tick-tocking foot.
I got a little drunk, I’ll tell them. I got a buzz on. Even though Mom is right next to me, I barely hear her saying I’ll have to go to bed right after dinner tonight, it’s been a big day. I’m in Cynthia’s force field, and wait to hear her say something else.
“Travel teaches us about the world. It’s broadening. Don’t you think?”
Mom grabs my wrist, but it’s too late. I’ve already put the cherry in my mouth.
The Beautiful Things
He likes rare single malts. She likes margaritas.
He likes to sit in the lounge. She likes to stand up in the bow, where she can see.
He chose this trip so they could relax. He’s worked enough. In the mornings I hear her overhead on the Sun Deck, logging laps. It’s nine laps to a mile. He cheerfully says she’s going to wear the track out, crash through the ceiling, and ruin things for everybody, like usual. I grin and add a little bump to his coffee. It’s only ten o’clock, but we understand each other.
She’s already on the Sun Deck. The lounge is officially open around the clock, but this is a small ship and people watch, so he’s sure not to arrive too early. This is a respectable time; a number of ladies drift in and ask for club sodas or orange juice, maybe an Aperol spritz, while they study maps and plan their afternoon excursions. He is a genial presence, calling out recommendations to the ladies while she, glowing from her time on the track, bats his arm and shushes him. I grin.
I had to take two interviews to get this job. The first was the easy one, when I demonstrated how to make a Long Island iced tea and explained the difference between a martini and a dry martini, American-style. Any boy who grew up running errands for Manila hotels could make martinis by the time he was ten, and drink them by ten and a half. It wasn’t till I got to the second interview that my hands were damp and my breath jumping. By then I knew that the company would send me all over the world to learn about different whiskeys, that even though a bartender isn’t a sommelier I still would have to know a lot more about wine, that eight months of cruising would pay my mother’s rent and send all of my kids to school.
“You’ve got two men flirting with the same woman. What do you do?”
“A customer has drunk too much and can’t stand up. What do you do?”
My friend Marco already had a ship job. “Make it okay,” he had said. “No matter what, make it okay.”
So I grinned at the two men and the woman asking me questions. “It’s okay! Let me just help you, sir. The ship can be a little unstable underfoot if you’re not used to it.” The interviewers like that, and so do the passengers. Now I escort so many of them to their staterooms that I’m given a universal key.
All of us are required to learn the passengers’ names by the second day. There are quizzes. Servers are expected to remember what passengers ordered and liked before, so they can make recommendations as the trip goes on. That’s hard, I’m not disputing it, but to tend bar requires more finesse than waiting tables. It’s not just brute memory; I make judgment calls.
He likes nighttime. She likes mornings.
He likes Frank Sinatra. She does, too.
They thought about bringing their kids on this trip—both grown now, out of college and on their own—“But I thought they should learn what it’s like to pay for something themselves.” She bats his arm and I grin.
She says, “Do you have kids, Luis? Children of your own?”
“I do. Four.”
“Four! You were busy,” he says.
They always say that. Not so very busy.
“Isn’t it hard, being away from them for so long?”
“I see them whenever I can. And this is a very good job.” A year ago Ynez had an infection in her mouth that Maria couldn’t make better with salt water and poultices. Ynez had to go to the hospital. If not for this job, she would be dead. Smiling is easy.
“I don’t think that I could—” She looks away from me.
She likes historical romances. He likes military history. “We both like history!”
“You are a beautiful couple.” I set them up with complimentary champagne. He passed the free-drink threshold on the third day.
I am not surprised when she wants to show me pictures of their children and their houses. The surprise comes when he pulls out his own selection of pictures, different from hers. Older. I see how their daughter had a bold, toothy smile, their son a chest like a broomstick. Took after his mother. Now no one races to twine skinny arms around their father’s legs when he returns from work.
He adds, “Nobody says, ‘What did you bring me?’”
She laughs. “They’re all grown up. Now it’s the grandchildren. I hate to be away from them. They’re growing up—”
I wait to hear without us.
“—so fast.”
I polish a glass, an excellent way to hide the quick tremor in my hands.
From down the bar, the ship scandal beckons me and orders a manhattan for the little girl sitting beside her. It happens at least once a cruise. Some bartenders refuse to serve kids, but I serve and then watch. One of these days the child will drink the whole glass, and then I’ll be in trouble.
When I rejoin my couple, she frowns. “Do you let your own children drink liquor?”
“Communion wine.” A racy joke, but they let it pass.
“She’s trouble, that one. I wouldn’t let my daughter sit with her.”
“You really think you could stop her, Mama?” he asks. For the first time, I see her glance at him with annoyance.
“She’s not a good influence.”
“That’s exactly why the child likes her.”
The passengers see more than you think.
He says, “When she grows up she’ll come home to visit and they’ll laugh about the older woman she was half in love with on this cruise.”
“Only half?”
“At least she’ll come home.”
“Don’t.” I didn’t know her voice could drop so low.
If I rub this glass any harder, it will crack. Maria doesn’t let me wash dishes when I’m home. “That’s my job,” she says. Now Ynez is old enough to help her. I sit in the kitchen and watch.
I say, “More champagne?”
She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. Her tears haven’t spilled over, so her eyes look as glassy as a doll’s.
He says, “Let’s go up on the Sun Deck. Let’s look at this view I paid for.”
I say, “Wait five minutes. There is an especially beautiful castle coming around the next bend.”
She says, “You have them all memorized! You know everything.”
“Some things.”
“Every beautiful thing.”
I think of Ynez, whose smile is full of light. Every time I see her, she has changed. Soon there will be boys. Maybe already. The woman sitting in front of me wants me to tell her that she is beautiful. I smile for her. “It’s a good job.”