CV

1

When Emily Woodruff first saw Sea Venture on a blue November day, her heart jumped, and she said, “It’s so big'.” Her husband Jim, who misunderstood her or perhaps understood her in a different way, said reverently, “Nothing but the best.” as if he were talking about a new car or a motor home. But none of the brochures had prepared her for this: Sea Venture was incredibly, impossibly big, looming there beyond the heads of the people like some fantastic cloud castle against the sky. The white wall curved up and back; above it were other curves, and beyond them she could see pennants snapping in the sun, and a tall white cylinder, with gulls soaring over it.

Jim was sixty-five, a pink-faced man with white hair brushed smoothly back against his skull. They had been married thirty-five years, good years, on the whole. Their children were grown, and they had grandchildren. Last August Jim had sold his dealerships for a sum that took Emily’s breath away, and he said, “Let’s have a real vacation. Let’s run over to Honolulu for a couple of weeks and then take a cruise on Sea Venture.”

Now, looking at the height she had to ascend, she said, “Jim, I don’t think I can go up there.”

“Yes, you by God can,” he said in his other voice. Then two white-uniformed young women, one more beautiful than the other, were helping them onto the moving ramp, and up they went into the sky, like children on a Ferris wheel. When they reached the top, two other young women ushered them into a carpeted lobby, perfumed, echoing with voices. They got into a line that ended at a desk where a uniformed man took their tickets and turned them over to another man. brown-skinned and white-jacketed, who smiled and said, “Please follow me, Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff.” They went down a softly lit blue corridor to an elevator that bore them up smoothly, and paused, and sighed into stillness. Then, down another blue corridor that led them to a paneled door; the brown man opened it, bowed them in, and handed Jim the keys. “Welcome to Sea Venture,” he said. “Your luggage will be up shortly. I hope you will have a very pleasant voyage.”

Emily turned slowly. The room was smaller somehow than the pictures had led her to expect. The walls were papered in a blue-and-cream floral pattern; the carpet was royal blue. There were twin beds with quilted covers, and a window through which she could see the boarding area and the brown-hazed skyline of Waikiki beyond it. At the far end of the room there was a desk with a computer terminal and a wall screen.

Jim Woodruff was moving nervously around the room, hands in his pockets. “Why don’t you take a little nap?” he said. “I'm going to go down and see what’s what.”

He paused at the door. “Is that all right?”

“Of course, Jim,” she said.

When he was gone, Emily stood without moving for a moment, then roused herself to look into the closet. There was a little refrigerator, and there were plenty of hangers, including some nice padded ones. She hung up her jacket, then inspected the bathroom: tub, shower, toilet, and a curious thing that she supposed must be a bidet—she had never seen one. Towels neatly folded.

She went back into the room and sat experimentally on one of the beds. On the wall beside her was a panel with push buttons marked STEWARD, MAID, TV, MUSIC, AIR CONDITIONING, WINDOW. Did the window open? She pushed the button, and the window went black, as if a weightless curtain had descended over it instantly and silently. She was frightened, and pushed the button again; the blue sky reappeared. Then she realized how foolish she had been. The “window” was only a cleverly recessed 3-D television screen. She remembered the great, curving, unbroken white wall they had seen from the boarding ramp: there were no windows in Sea Venture.

Emily looked at the blue carpet between her feet. It was really very nice, she told herself, this little room in which she was to spend the next three months of her life.