The Corrections

Even for a big ship the sea this morning was poor footing. The regurgitative splats outside the Kierkegaard Room were almost rhythmic, a kind of music of chance, and Mrs. Nygren informatively brayed about the evils of caffeine and the quasi-bicamerality of the Storting, and the Söderblads arrived damp from intimate Swedish exertions, and somehow Al proved equal to conversation with Ted Roth. Enid and Sylvia resumed relations stiffly, their emotional muscles pulled and aching from last night’s overuse. They talked about the weather. An activities coordinator named Suzy Ghosh came by with orientative tidings and registration forms for the afternoon’s outings in Newport, Rhode Island. With a bright smile and anticipatory noises Enid signed up for a tour of the town’s historic homes, and then watched in dismay as everyone else but the Norwegian social lepers passed along the clipboard without registering. “Sylvia!” she chid, her voice shaking, “you’re not going on the tour?” Sylvia glanced at her bespectacled husband, who nodded like McGeorge Bundy green-lighting ground troops for Vietnam, and for a moment her blue eyes seemed to look inward; apparently she had that ability of the enviable, of the non-midwestern, of the moneyed, to assess her desires without regard to social expectations or moral imperatives. “OK, yes, good,” she said, “maybe I will.” Ordinarily Enid would have squirmed at the hint of charity here, but she was waiving the oral exam for gift horses today. She needed all the charity she could get. And so on up the day’s steep incline she labored, availing herself of a complimentary half-session of Swedish massage, watching coastal leaves senesce from the Ibsen Promenade, and downing six ibuprofens and a quart of coffee to prepare for her afternoon in charming and historic Newport! In which freshly rain-laundered port of call Alfred announced that his feet hurt too much to venture ashore, and Enid made him promise not to nap or he wouldn’t sleep at night, and she laughingly (for how could she admit that it was life and death?) implored Ted Roth to keep him awake, and Ted replied that getting the Nygrens off the ship ought to help with that.