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A waiter entered and said tea was being served in the dining room. I thanked him and said I wouldn't have anything.

The ship pitched and rolled and quivered and sometimes leaped, seeming to withdraw entirely from the surface of the water. I was frightened at the violence and my inability to control any part of the experience except myself and there was no certainty that my mental discipline would outlast the physical anxiety. But at least I wasn't ill.

The purser pushed his head in the door. “Dinner is being served. I suggest that you eat. Again the plain bread. And again a small piece of meat. No wine. No water.” His head disappeared as the vessel rolled over on its side.

Although I had no appetite I decided to continue following his suggestions. The dining room was not quite empty. The captain and his officers sat quietly in their corner; a few teetotalers from Porgy and Bess were at separate tables; and two men whose faces I recognized from British movies occupied a table near the wall. I joined Ruby Green and Barbara Ann and ate sparingly.

Barbara asked, “Where have you been? You haven't been sick?”

I told her I'd been reading and I wasn't sick because I didn't drink the champagne.

“You ought to see downstairs. Everybody's sick. I mean, people are moaning like they're dying. The poor doctor no sooner leaves one room than they call him to another. That man's got his work cut out for him. See, here he comes now. Poor thing. Just now getting a chance to eat his dinner.”

I looked up, following her gaze, and saw the voluptuous face that had startled me at lunchtime.

“That's the doctor?” I would have more easily believed him to be a gigolo, a professional Casanova.

“Yes. And he's very courteous. He gives the same attention to the men that he gives to the women.”

I looked at his retreating back and wondered if Barbara in her naïveté had described the man better than she could have imagined.

After a somber dinner we went below, where the groans of suffering escaped mournfully from each room. I paused before my friends' doors, but I knew I could do nothing for them except sympathize and I could do that without disturbing their agony.

There was a soft rap on my door. When I opened it and saw the purser, I thought he expected me to compensate him for my sound health. I held the door and asked icily, “Yes, what do you want?”

He said meekly, “Mrs. Angelos, I want to show you how to strap yourself in the bed so that you won't fall out and be hurt.”

I started to let him in and thought better of it. “No, thanks. I was planning to sleep on the floor. I'll be all right. Thanks, anyway.”

He shot his hand in the narrow door opening and grabbed my arm.

“Mrs. Angelos, thank you. You are very sad and very beautiful.” He bowed and kissed my hand and released it. I slammed the door. How could he tell I was sad? That was a strange romantic come-on.

I made my actions fit the lie. I stripped mattress and covers from the bed and lay down on the floor to sleep in miserable fits and starts.

The morning was dreary and wet, but the sea was more restrained. The purser was waiting for me outside the dining room door.

“Mrs. Angelos, good morning. You may eat a full breakfast. We will have good weather by evening.” He looked at me lovingly, concern seeping out of his pores. “How did you sleep?”

“Beautifully, thank you. Just beautifully.”

Some members of our company who had survived the storm exchanged stories of the night before.

“Honey, I was so sick I tried to jump overboard!”

“Did you hear Betty? She prayed half the night, then she got mad and screamed, ‘Jesus Christ, this ain't no way for you to act so close to your birthday!’”

My visits to Martha's and Lillian's cabins were not welcome, so I made them brief, staying only long enough to see that although their faces were the color of old leather boots, they would survive. I walked around the ship, enjoying the luxury of solitude. For the first time, there was a tender behind the bar and I ordered an apéritif.