Week 9: Friends

"He gets us all together and says we must work as one and help each other. We must be a team." Aleksander is frustrated and shakes his head. He is talking about a meeting the wait staff had with the Maitre D'. "But in a team, you do your job and I do my job. I don't do your job."

Aleksander is upset from the meeting. He has a huge build and an expressionless face – an Eastern European manner where smiling does not come naturally. I think he is intimidating to people and my first impression of him was – what a thug - but I am so glad to know him. He has the calmest kindest eyes, but what he says next just shocks me. He is coming to the realization that his ability to advance in his work has been made difficult. His original placement was in a position where is he seldom visible to his superiors. "It just hurts," he says.

I watch him during my late night snack as he stacks cups. Always stacking cups. Not complaining. Not unaware, but patient to a level that would be difficult for me. He is 34. He has seen war in his country and worked in Africa, in Rwanda even, soon before he joined the ship. He'll see me and we'll wave to each other and there's a deal of friendship in that wave. Aleksander has now changed shifts. He works in the buffet on the top deck in the morning and in the staff mess where I can see him in the afternoon and evening. "I get to see the sun," he says.

Aleksander makes a point to buy my drink at the crew bar. Two months and our shifts have only now allowed us to share a drink together. It's past twelve and, still, he has to get up at 6 am, but he's making an exception for me. "I don't know how much more I can take. I've got to figure something out." He is mad because his capabilities are not being utilized. It hurts to be where he is. "Look Dave. I'm an assistant waiter!"

"Yes," I agree. You can do better." I immediately regret what I just said. He was telling me he was capable of more and I was telling him he could do more. These are very different things, and I was doing no justice at all to the hole he is in. Who am I to have placed any sort of judgment on the course of his life, his country's recent history, or the long and difficult path that led him here? That led him to me. That led him to the galley of the cruise ship.

In a way, Aleksander is socialism and I am capitalism. I am dreams and wild ambition and he is the practicality of simply wanting to have a companion and support her and a family. His father was a worker, his mother was a worker too, and they have passed on these simple honorable values to him. But still, this giant of a man, looks sadly at his bottle of beer. "You can only take so much." You can take it Alecksander, I am thinking. If anyone can you can. It is not too much to ask for. As strong and solid as he is, he might as well be the statue of a powerful socialist figure presiding over some town square. He has wrapped around him, the ropes of the failed socialist system and the conversion to capitalism. I cannot bear to watch him fall.

Sunil sits with me at lunch and it is the same. I'll be washing my hands before I eat (hand washing is big here) and someone will tickle my sides. I imagine it to be some beautiful women, but no, it is just Sunil with a big smile – the next best thing. The Indians love to touch. He can't stop laughing and his audience makes even me a comedian. But as conversations do, it goes into a lull. I catch Sunil looking at the ground. "What is it?" I ask. The others at our table do not pick up on this exchange. "You know," he says as he goes back to smiling.

It is the same with Sunil as it is for Aleksander. The same - but different. It is the same for everyone on the ship. We are all in the process of going somewhere, in the condition of wanting to be in a woman's arms, and in the way of wishing for a place called home that we can sustain.

But it's not all so sad. I have been graced by some good friendships on this ship and walking into the crew party or the staff mess I'm no longer a stranger. I still occasionally sit by myself in the mess, but more often than not someone will come to keep me company. There have been moments where there are too many people to talk to and I must be careful not to let one of them go unrecognized. I'll never be Mr. Popular on this ship. I don't have it in me and besides, that's the cruise director's job. But that makes these moments so much better.

And Aleksander today in the staff mess joking with me as I order food from him. "Alright sir. Right away." And me joking when he comes back with my sandwich, but not really - "don't ever do that again."