The Rebellious Tide Read online

  “Do you know why Diya Sharma left India to live here?” Sebastien’s tone sharpened. “Because she was being beaten by her husband. Do you know why Ilya Tereshchenko fled Ukraine? His friend was killed for being gay. Everyone on this ship has a story like theirs. This place isn’t just a job. It’s our refuge from the things we ran away from. Now that oppression is happening here. We can’t keep running.”

  Nikos tightened his hold on Sebastien’s body. “There’s injustice everywhere. You can’t escape it. It has existed since the beginning of the human race, and it will persist until we’re wiped out.” His tone was soft like a gentle breeze despite the brittle words.

  “But we can fight. Everyone on this ship knows that now. That’s what we’ve achieved. When we’re discriminated against, and abused, and punished, and forced into submission, forced to be quiet, we can choose to fight back.”

  “That stunt last night wasn’t fighting back. It was provocation.”

  “No. It was a warning.”

  Nikos was silent as he studied the face before him. It was his turn to decode the mystery in Sebastien’s eyes.

  “I can only do so much to protect you,” Nikos said.

  “I know.” Sebastien leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips. “Who was that woman you escorted out of Sirens last night?”

  He felt the muscles tighten slightly in Nikos’s body. There was a hesitation. “What woman?”

  “The young woman with the long dark hair. I saw Kostas order you to take her away. Then you pulled her through a hidden door in the wall. Who was she?”

  “I don’t know. I’d never seen her before. He told me to take her to A Deck. Some of the officers have family on board. I guess she’s with one of them.”

  “Where on A Deck?”

  “Sebastien, why are you so interested in this?”

  “Where exactly on A Deck did you take her?”

  Nikos took a deep breath, the blinking of his eyes more rapid than normal. “Just to the officers’ quarters. She told me she had a cabin key and could find her way.” His skin became warmer under Sebastien’s touch. He chose his words more carefully. “There are things that happen below decks that are better left behind closed doors. Even the security cameras down there don’t work. There are blind spots everywhere. I try to mind my own business. I’m discreet. We wouldn’t want everyone knowing about what we do here, would we?”

  “Why not?”

  Nikos wasn’t prepared for the challenge. Sebastien enjoyed watching him fumble for an answer.

  “Because it’s between you and me. It’s private. Nobody’s business but ours. I don’t want anyone disturbing what we have together.”

  “Just like Achilles and Patroclus,” Sebastien said. “People can speculate, but nobody will ever know the truth.”

  “Exactly.” He smiled, relieved.

  It wasn’t long until Nikos was curled up, asleep. His stomach rose and fell like he was a Greek god made mortal. Sebastien held him, unsure of what was hidden behind the soft skin and hardened armour. He felt the urge to hurt this man who thought of himself as invincible while being so eager to submit. The feeling was faint yet distinct, this power to inflict pain on someone vulnerable.

  He was careful as he reached for the officer’s pants beside him. Attached to a ring that held Nikos’s cards was the rectangle of black plastic he was looking for — the skeleton key.

  ELEVEN

  Backstage

  A calm would settle over the ship during the hour leading up to dinner. Guests were in their cabins getting ready for the evening. Staff and crew slipped out for cigarette breaks and micro-naps. It often felt like they were preparing for a battle to begin. They put on their armour and preserved energy to brace themselves for the impending onslaught.

  The casino was empty except for a few glassy-eyed passengers on the slot machines. Diya ducked into the Odeon and walked along the carpeted aisle toward the stage. Everything was muted in the still theatre. The plush turquoise velvet absorbed the sound of her footsteps.

  It was a peaceful sanctuary compared to the volatile scene that had played out earlier in the day. Kostas had exited the stage with a self-satisfied grin on his face. He must have felt the hostility emanating from the audience, but Diya knew he didn’t care. He probably expected they would soon turn on each other like a pack of hungry rats.

  She wanted him to continue thinking he was invincible, though. She knew it would turn out to be his greatest weakness.

  Behind the curtain of the stage was a world of trap doors and pulleys, machinery and painted landscapes. The things found here could make a mortal man fly and a goddess vanish into the sea. Diya had seen a few of the productions, wishing she could be a part of them. She imagined herself as a dancer in an elaborate costume, on a stage that would transform itself in the time it took for the curtain to close and open.

  She passed a bank of counters and mirrors where the cast would prepare for each show. They would apply finishing touches and scan their reflections one last time before shedding their individuality to become one tile of a brilliant mosaic.

  Diya entered a narrow hall. She was searching for their star.

  Light spilled out the partly open door of one room. Inside was an old-fashioned dressing table with curved legs and ornate drawers. Bright round bulbs lined the edges of the mirror. The woman sitting there wore a plain cotton top as she swiped concealer underneath her eyes. Her hair was tied back into a sleek ponytail. Diya could see her reflection.

  Contessa Bloor’s body went rigid, then relaxed. “Diya,” she said with a soft laugh. “You startled me.” She smiled, covering the look of surprise on her face. “Come in. I’m just getting ready for tonight. Cocktail hour in the Agora. I’m going to do this bluesy rendition of an old Killers’ song. Not sure if it’ll be the right crowd, but we’ll see how it goes.”

  Diya pulled up a seat beside her. “I’ll get right to the point. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something. Forgive me. It’s none of my business. But I know what it’s like having to plan what to wear, to find the right shade of concealer that won’t rub off, to keep track of the excuses to avoid repeating the same one twice — just to hide the evidence.”

  Diya looked at Contessa’s bare arm. It was covered in a thick layer of bronze makeup, but the purple underneath appeared angrier than it had the previous night. Contessa’s eyes darted to her hands on the surface of the table.

  “You can tell me that you bumped into a door frame,” Diya went on. “You can say you fell. I won’t question you. But I saw how Giorgos grabbed you at the protest. I saw how he looked at you. I know this much: any man who treats a woman like that in public will do much worse in private.”

  Contessa sat stiffly in her chair. She had wanted someone to confront her for months, to force the truth out of her so she could confront it herself. She had wished for someone to see through her makeup and her costumes. Now that it was finally happening, she found herself wanting to push it away, to reject the help, to deny it all.

  Diya shifted closer. “My husband, Rajan, seemed so kind when we met. He used to sing to me. He had a terrible voice, and he would always get the words mixed up, but it was sweet.

  “I was surprised the first time he hit me. It must have been an accident, I told myself, even though my face stung so badly I had tears in my eyes. After the second time, I told myself I must have done something wrong. It was my fault for angering him, even though he wasn’t the one left with bruises for days. I was so confused. How could this man who hurt me be the same man who used to sing to me?”

  Contessa’s body crumpled, her strong posture wilting like a flower. Her face remained composed, but now tears clung to her long black lashes. She reached for a porcelain teacup beside a bottle of brandy and took a long sip.

  “Giorgos was angry.” The confession spilled out of Contessa like water from a broken vase. “He said I shouldn’t have been involved in the protest. The same thing happened last night in his
cabin after Sirens. He thought I had something to do with it. I denied it, of course. He didn’t care.” She paused and looked into the mirror, the teacup clutched in her hands. “He’s never hit me, though. He just grabs me, shakes me by the arms. Sometimes he pins me to the floor. He’s so strong. I don’t think he realizes how much it hurts.”

  “You’re wrong,” Diya said. “He knows. He does it to hurt you, to dominate you.”

  “I don’t know what to do.” Contessa looked at Diya’s reflection in the mirror. She placed the teacup on the table. Her hands hovered above her chest, paralyzed and helpless.

  “Leave him. Why are you still with him?”

  She shook her head. Her gaze drifted past the mirror to something distant. “It felt like a romance novel in the beginning. The dashing officer and his mistress. We stole kisses when nobody was looking. He’d sneak me into his cabin in the commanders’ wing. I felt desired.” Youthfulness washed over her face as she spoke, as though youth were an emotion rather than an age. “Now I know I’m a fool. What used to be forbidden and exciting just feels desperate.” The last word blew past her lips like cigarette smoke. “I’m thirty-seven. I have no family of my own, no companion. I share a bed with another woman’s husband, but is it better to be alone?”

  “I left Rajan knowing no other man in my country would look at me again,” Diya said. “I would be marked. I knew my family and friends would turn their backs on me. It didn’t matter. What mattered was never having to wake up being afraid. So, yes, it’s better to be alone than to be someone’s possession.”

  Contessa took another long draw from her teacup. “I’m not strong like you,” she said, her voice quiet. “Sometimes I wonder who I am. The shining star that everyone sees in the spotlight? Or the weak woman hiding backstage? Maybe I’m neither, or both. I can’t tell anymore.” She let out a mocking laugh. “I was never like this before Giorgos. He makes me feel small. It’s like I’m in a crowded room with a locked door whenever I’m with him. He tells me how old I’m beginning to look, that nobody would want me anymore. He tells me how much he loves his wife. He wants me to remember that I’m nobody to him — just here to keep him amused while he’s at sea.” There was a note of surrender in her sigh as she looked at her hands. “I don’t have a say in the matter. Giorgos is a powerful man. He said once he would kill me if I tried to leave him. At the very least I’d be terrorized. What can I do?”

  Diya could feel Rajan’s hands around her neck. They trembled, itching to squeeze tighter until they crushed what they held. Maybe then he would be free, his anger released into the wind now that he’d killed what he hated.

  She faced Contessa and leaned in close. “You make the fucker pay.”

  TWELVE

  Family Portrait

  “Smile!”

  Click.

  Preview.

  “Come back in an hour.”

  It hadn’t taken long for the work to become monotonous. After a tiring shift at Sebastien’s photo station in the atrium, the passengers of the Glacier began to look like carbon copies of each other.

  “Smile!” he would say, remembering to smile himself. His cheeks would hurt by the end of the day.

  Click. The camera would flash. Their faces would be frozen in whatever stiff pose they had chosen, often with their eyes opened unnaturally wide.

  Preview. They would always want to see how they looked. He calculated that six of every ten shots would be unsatisfactory and retaken. Roughly one third of those would have to be reshot yet again. The people in this category would often blame him, offering unhelpful tips to improve his photographic competence.

  “Come back in an hour,” he would tell them once they were happy with the final shot. “It’ll be ready for purchase in the portrait gallery.”

  Sebastien was used to uninspiring photography assignments. After all, he had taken portraits of almost every family in Petit Géant’s upper crust while working at Camera Obscura. He knew how to capture them looking as happy as they wished they were. He would imagine how he’d want his own family to look, then replicate it with his clients. Sometimes his imagination would insert himself in the picture, often standing beside the father or kneeling in front with the brother.

  Jérôme would usually be in the shop with him, stifling laughs as Sebastien shot him coded glances, and that would make the work easy to enjoy.

  “Come back in an hour,” he said to a British couple who looked like brother and sister. “It’ll be ready for purchase in the portrait gallery.”

  “Mr. Goh!”

  Blood surged through his arteries as he looked up to see Kostas. He was dressed for the evening in his finest white uniform. His wife stood beside him. Her hair was pulled tightly around her head, curling up at the top like a conch shell. She was elegant, as always, in a simple black gown that pooled at her ankles. Her nose pointed at him like an arrow.

  The daughter’s mind was somewhere distant, judging by her crossed arms and floating gaze.

  The boy was more present. Kristo smiled easily, revealing dimples in his cheeks and one missing tooth. His wild hair was weighed down by shiny wax. The little navy-blue suit he wore was a perfect fit.

  “Kostas, sir,” he said. “I see you brought the whole family.”

  Do they know about your other one?

  “Yes, yes,” he said with a laugh. “This is my lovely wife, Alexis. The beautiful young lady beside her is Katerina. And this little devil is Kristo. He’s going to run this ship one day.”

  “I could do it now,” the boy said with a flippant shrug of the shoulders.

  I’m sure you’d run it to the ground, just like our father.

  “You’re eleven! What’s the hurry?” Kostas shook his head as though Kristo were exceptional in some way that wasn’t obvious to Sebastien.

  “It’s nice to meet the family. He doesn’t talk about you much.”

  Kostas crinkled his forehead. “We’re here to get our annual family portrait, Mr. Goh. These two will be taller than their father soon, so let’s catch them before that happens.”

  Unlike most guests, they chose the atrium as their backdrop. Sebastien arranged them so that husband and wife were flanked by their two darling children. It was the same order they usually stood in their photos. He had studied them for hours over the years. He knew every distinguishing feature, read the looks in their eyes. Kristo had a little brown mole on the left slope of his nose. Katerina’s head always tilted to the right, toward her mother. He knew this family intimately. He was almost part of it himself.

  “Smile!”

  Alexis peered at Sebastien, and he knew she remembered him from Sirens the other night and the elevator on embarkation day. She wouldn’t forget those eyes.

  He couldn’t imagine a woman less like his mother. Alexis held herself like she expected only the best out of life, though her face implied she didn’t care for any of it. She had a family she had chosen, but Sebastien knew it wasn’t good enough for her. The way she sighed whenever anybody looked at her, the way her lips tightened at the sound of her husband’s voice. She had floated through life, accumulating things that other people had to fight for. She wouldn’t know how it felt to be abandoned and unwanted.

  She offered Sebastien a tight-lipped smile as they parted ways. He watched the Kourakis family hurry off together toward the dining hall. There was so much pride contained between these four people. It wasn’t fair.

  “Kostas!”

  His father turned around to face Sebastien with an expectant expression.

  What makes them good enough?

  “Come back in an hour. It’ll be ready for purchase in the portrait gallery.”

  Sebastien’s life started to look promising right before it began to crumble. Wasn’t that always the way? Things went up before they went down, like a cosmic rollercoaster, the universe rebalancing itself with little regard for those who got crushed along the way.

  This was before he and Sophie would officially become the most cont
roversial young couple in Petit Géant, and many years before Jérôme would return to town. Before the black-and-white photographs. Before the red paint.

  It was Sebastien’s nineteenth birthday. In a few weeks he would graduate, near the top of his class. In a few months he would move three hundred kilometres away to attend university in Québec City, bringing his mother along with him. At least, that was the plan at the time.

  He would never have been able to afford it himself, but he had applied for every scholarship he could find. The fatherless child with the wild hair had grown up to be an intelligent young man, a formidable lacrosse player, and a student hell-bent on making the most of himself. The people in town still avoided him but they took notice, not that he ever wasted a brain cell worrying about what they thought.

  “Happy birthday, son.” Ruby leaned across their kitchen table and held his hand. The smoke from the blown-out candles meandered through the air like snakes from a charmer’s basket. “I’m so proud of you.”

  Sebastien was proud, too. It hadn’t been easy. He had feared something would go wrong — that the work wouldn’t pay off, that the scholarship would be withdrawn, every school application rejected — but it looked like he was going to pull it off.

  They removed the candles, sucking the frosting off the bottoms just as they had done every birthday before. Ruby had made his favourite cake: white confetti from the box with cream cheese frosting. Below the sugary handwritten message of Happy 19th Birthday Son was a plastic toy boat floating in an ocean of bright blue glaze.

  Sebastien served each of them a large wedge of cake. They devoured it, staining their lips and teeth blue.

  “I have a surprise for you.” She gave him a mischievous smile and skipped into her bedroom before returning seconds later with a package in her hands. It was a gift. Little red-suited Santas covered the box, on cheap paper left over from Christmas.

  “You hid this from me?”

  “I didn’t want you peeking.”