|
"What I find hardest to take," commented Natalia after she had had her own interview with him, "is his damn politeness while in fact he means to kill you. How can this bastard smile and talk so smoothly and politely while he rams his sword deep into your soul that he seeks to destroy? He is attacking my integrity, denying my intelligence, blocking my right to acknowledge what I honestly feel, even to grow up as a human being who aims to understand his existence."
She stopped for a moment. She obviously had to. She was getting angrier by the minute. Eventually she commented that she had never seen dishonesty more 'voluptuously' displayed, and more eloquently voiced than by him, by our sweet little Johnny.
Three times he had tried to get Natalia removed from her post at the bio-plant, and had failed. Since I was more accessible to him as part of the structural maintenance crew, I received the brunt of his silent rage. I was recommended for the worst jobs that could be found. I even wondered if my selection to the work crew in the pit was inspired by the same motives. If it was, this was criminal, for I was by no means the most experienced metallurgist on board. There should have been a team formed, consisting of the very best.
Naturally, his vendetta against us became public knowledge. For some reasons, he lashed out against us most often in public, apparently to embarrass us. Once he cornered us in the restaurant. One can't just leave when the captain comes and sits at ones table. As usual, within minutes, he offered one of his snide remarks. "Why must you always be so 'coohtchy coohtchy' together?" he practically scolded us, right at the supper table.
"Could you please translate this?" said one of the engineers who was more embarrassed by his captain's manners than we should have been, according to his intent.
"Well... You know..." He made some gestures with his hands.
He looked at us, set his glasses in order, and let his hands drop. Instead of answering further the engineer's question, he spoke to Natalia and to me. "I hope you two are aware that your behavior has been recorded, and made reference to in your service log."
"Oh, and in the captain's log too?" Natalia asked.
"Underlined in red," he said, as though he joked.
"Did you also explain the cause for which you have disregarded the constitution?" Natalia asked. Anyone could see that she found it hard to suppress a smile. "And captain, did you also explain in your log why you appointed only a single person to the task of creating the new metal for the generator bearings on which our lives depend every day? You may get the Golden Medal of Honor for this when we get home."
Poor Johnny! He put his spoon down and left the table. Had he ever misjudged Natalia! She had handled the Communists in Russia, renowned for their brute power and relentless persistence. Poor little Johnny, did he not realize that he was like a baby compared to them?
Actually, I had misjudged Natalia myself. I would never have dreamed that she would get herself half undressed for my sake, in a public place as the pool area was, regardless of the fact that we were the only ones there with the exception of the security cameras.
As I pondered these things, the strange metal object came to mind again. It struck me that her bathing suit top now lay on my towel; very close to where the metal object had been that was no longer there. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Nothing changed. There was only my towel and her bathing suit top, and nothing more.
In a way I was glad that the object had disappeared. Now I didn't have to deal with it anymore, waste any thought over it. Natalia, on the other hand, was real and worth pondering over. Her presence always commanded attention, the kind of attention that was gladly given. Maybe under different circumstances I might have wondered about the mystery of this small metal object that I was sure I had seen. Not this time. Having Natalia on the ship was compensation for everything I found lacking in this flying palace of steel and high-tech machinery. She was my link to a world we all had chosen to leave behind. I had no idea, then, what such a sacrifice would mean.
Next Page
|| - page index -
|| - chapter index -
|| - Exit -
||
 |
Stories
about
Healing
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
|
|
|