The Captain's Quest. Hans Mateboer

meet her expectations. Secretly I glanced at my watch, and then looked over to the husband who seemed very eager to say something.

      “Yes, sir. Sorry for ignoring you.” I prayed that he would be a bit more understanding of all these horrible errors and mistakes my poor crew had made. I was very glad that indeed he was, saying he hadn’t noticed any problems at all as he looked askance at his wife.

      I sighed with relief, thinking he would be the savior of the evening. Indeed, this turned out to be true but in a rather different way than I anticipated.

      In fact, he was very keen to get involved in the conversation and had been holding back on what he had to say much longer than was wise. Now, in his eagerness to share his thoughts, he didn’t wait until he finished a mouthful of food before speaking. This was a bit of a concern to me, because if some food went down the wrong way, I pictured myself doing a Heimlich maneuver on him. Then this concern turned into delight. When he spoke in my direction, little pieces of salmon mixed with broccoli landed halfway between him and me. And this halfway spot was exactly where his wife was sitting! She had noticed, too, and discreetly plucked the little particles from her glittery dress. With a strained smile on her face, she tried in vain to divert her husband’s attention from me toward the lady on his other side.

      I had to devote some attention to the others at the table. That’s when I discovered that a guest across the table was a most interesting professor who was an expert on a subject so intricate that it never became entirely clear to me what exactly it was all about. He even went so far as to etch formulas and conclusions onto the white tablecloth with the tip of his knife. I nodded as if I understood everything he was talking about, but nothing was less true. Almost from the very beginning he had lost me. The steward who inconsiderately erased all the tablecloth equations with his breadcrumb remover saved me.

      Somebody tugged the sleeve of my jacket. The lady on my left, not having talked with me for a whole five minutes had used that time constructively by remembering quite a few more things that had gone wrong during the cruise. This time I was prepared and included her husband in the conversation right away. Needless to say, this strategic action resulted in few specks of tiramisu being freely distributed on her dress. I fully admit that what I did was not very gentleman-like, but it did effectively reduce the number of issues she brought up, and I felt quite pleased with myself.

      One lady near my professor had been trying to get my attention for a while, but it was a bit difficult to converse with people in a noisy dining room. Finally she took the plunge.

      “I’ve been knitting a sweater for you!” she yelled. She was so loud that her voice could be heard throughout the dining room. Just about everyone stopped his own conversation and turned to see what this was all about. I wasn’t sure whether I had heard it right.

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “A sweater! I knitted one for you! Need to check the size now. Come over!” Her voice hadn’t diminished in volume and the general chatter in the dining room hadn’t started again either, so every person, except me of course, was very interested in further developments. She now reached below the table and from a big plastic bag came a bright yellow sweater. Even from a distance, anyone could clearly see that the art of knitting had somehow escaped her. The left side hung down a lot more than the right and I could see ends of thread sticking out everywhere.

      “Come over here. Take that jacket off and try it on.”

      “But this is my formal jacket and part of my uniform. I can’t…”

      “Oh! Nonsense. Take it off!” she commanded.

      “Well, what the heck?” I thought. “I’d better get this over with!”

      A minute later I was covered in yellow. Sure enough, the left sleeve covered my hand, while the right sleeve ended at my elbow. Loud applause came from all around.

      “Looks quite good,” she observed.

      I completely agreed with her on one thing – the sweater was a rare piece of workmanship.

      Shortly after that, we gave our good-byes and the evening came to a grateful close.

      I looked all around the dining room, and I noticed that by some coincidence my manager was nowhere to be seen.