3257 was the number on the door. When he knew he was near it, he felt the doors to find the number. At 3257 he opened the door and went inside.
“It’s me,” he said.
“We’re here,” Corrina’s voice came back to him.
He joined the others.
“There’s nothing for us out there,” he said. “At least not yet. There’s no one in charge, no order, no lights. Just guests locked in their rooms and refugees crying in the Atrium. We should wait here till morning.”
“What if the ship sinks?” Darren asked.
“We shouldn’t be in any danger, honey,” Corrina said. “These big ships have watertight compartments to seal off any leaks. And if anything does happen, there are lifeboats.”
“Oh.”
Vera insisted Darren and Corrina sleep in the bed. She found extra blankets and made a bed for herself on the couch. They watched her carefully, but she seemed completely composed, and never again mentioned Norman. Travis and Gerry stayed out on the balcony, uncovered on the lounge chairs in the cold. There was a break in the clouds and the moon showed through. That bare obtrusion of light made the sea sparkle and showed just how alone they were.
The men did not talk.
Shivering exhaustion finally overtook Travis as he thought that the previous night he had taken his pills and gone to sleep in his apartment in Brooklyn. He wished there were a pill that could make him wake up back there.
His sleep was tortured. He slept on his side, curled up, flipping sides constantly to stay warm.
He dreamt of New York. He imagined scenes of his childhood, and then the water would rush in and fill everything up. There was an image of New York streets filled with starving Sudanese, and he saw himself flying away before the water filled the streets and the black bodies floated up around the tips of the skyscrapers. He had the idea of the city as the capital of the world, the hub of all roads, all civilization.
He saw all the peoples of the world facing New York in their prayers, and then the water overtook the city and he didn’t know if that’s what the people were praying for. He heard the voice of the man with the gun, the killer. People like you have nightmares about the world burning. People like me have fantasies about it.
16
One day after the earthquake, Travis woke on a balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
The sun was still behind the ship, but the black of night had become grey, and then showed hints of blue. The air began slowly to warm. Like millions of others that day, Travis woke wondering where he was and then remembering. He made a noise as he rose and Gerry was waking too on the other lounge chair. They shared a look, sharing what they had in common.
Travis stretched and stepped to the railing.
“There’s lifeboats gone,” he said, looking over the side.
The lifeboats hung several decks below them. Travis pointed at empty spaces where boats had been the night before.
“Oil leak,” Gerry said looking down.
Travis followed his gaze to the stern and saw the inky black cloud on the water of the rear quarter of the ship. Gas had leaked, too, and spread farther, casting rainbows off each wave.
They went inside the cabin and woke the others, Vera on the couch, Darren and Corrina in the bed. Vera gave Darren an apple from the fridge.
“Norman?” she called. “Norman?”
Corrina took her hand and walked her to the balcony.
“Come, dear, come and see this view.”
It was still before 7:30 a.m. when they left the room as a group. There were a few people in the hallway, and Travis wondered if he looked as dazed as they did, wandering in the first grey light to reach the spaces of the ship.
“Is anyone in charge?” Gerry asked one man.
The man pointed down into the Atrium, which was just coming into view as they passed the obstruction along part of the interior walkway.
“People are down there.”
The Atrium was a natural gathering point. Many of the ship’s rooms opened up to views of it, and the bulk of the refugees considered it their base on the ship. It was where they returned.
With the skylight above they could see fully in this space, though the light was still grey.
The Atrium was already filling up the way it had the day before, only now there were more audible cries of pain as well as despair. Long shadows criss-crossed the scene, the writhing mass of injured and petrified. The light from the high crystal roof and the many mirrored surfaces created blocks in bright focus, highlighting personal traumas here and there.
As they walked down, Travis felt a quick comfort as he recognized Claude Bettman in the crowd, the man who had picked him and Darren up in the rush to get on the ship. Claude was a physical artifact of yesterday that was unchanged.
There numbered near a thousand in the Atrium, and hundreds watched from the walkways above.
Travis led them to Claude near the stairs, standing by himself. Claude had lost his overcoat during the night, and now wore just his brown suit with the jacket undone and his open-necked white shirt.
“Claude,” Travis said.
Claude looked them over, a quick assessment of how they’d made out.
“Did they come after you?” Darren said.
Claude smiled. “They did. But I’m all right. They got my coat though. Imagine that, Darren. What kind of pirates steal overcoats?”
Darren smiled.
Claude made a pirates growl at Darren.
“Arrr. Give us the overcoat! Or walk the plank, landlubber!” he said.
Claude saw the look on the face of the old woman who was with them now and stopped.
Travis was watching those immediately around them. He heard pained breathing and peered around some backs to see a man bleeding from the shoulder. He was half laying on the ground, his torso and head supported in the lap and arms of a woman who kneeled behind him. A man kneeled over him, tying a tourniquet inexpertly but solidly.
There was the little girl who had been rescued from the crashing tower on the deck, but not the man who had saved her. She was evidently with her parents now, and the man was not with them.
The captain and his team on the bridge were gone, Travis thought, but where were the other officers? Where was the hospitality manager? Time passed as they and all around felt the weight of those questions, and no one answering them. Travis saw uniformed crew here and there in the crowd, looking as lost as everyone else.
“You think you have a handle on the things that can kill you,” Claude Bettman said. “You watch what you eat, you don’t smoke. You worry about muggers and stay away from the dark parts of town. But you don’t know. You don’t know what could be falling from the sky at any moment of your life. I certainly didn’t bet on the tsunami-pirate double.”
“HEY!” a man’s voice came above the din of the group. Travis looked around.
“HEY!” the voice called out louder.
Travis saw that a man stood on a bar, perhaps fifty feet further into the Atrium than their group. Travis knew him. It was the hero. The man who had saved the girl on deck.
“Since we’re all standing around here and nobody really knows what to do,” the man yelled, “maybe we should get to work. There’s a lot of injured people right now, so first of all, can we have any medical workers please come down here, let’s get organized. Any doctors, nurses, or paramedics, come down here. If there’s any Festival officers or crew who can help us understand the condition of the ship, actually any military people, anyone else familiar with ship mechanics or electronics, please come down. I’m sure we could use some help figuring out how to efficiently assess the situation on the ship, the damage and the options, and take care of everyone’s needs.”
He saw the huge movement in the crowd and changed his mind.
“Wait. Let’s do the medical group first, give us some time to get that organized before any of the others come down. Medical professionals first.”