An Atlantic Crossing

This ship sails out of the past with a certain conception of service. The size of the crew on this journey reflects a now outdated method of running civilization. The old method was to put a human hand on every wheel, at every task, in every phase of operation-human beings creating an atmosphere for other human beings. As I write in the Lido Restaurant, on the Promenade deck aft, three waiters stand idle near me, not far from the bar where until five minutes ago several more waiters and a bartender waited. They are at every turn obliging, ingratiating, accommodating, indulgent.

We have a room steward to make over our room twice a day. We have a floor steward to oversee his actions. We have sweepers and squeegiers and housekeeping staff innumerable. There are 79 people just on the kitchen staff. When we sit to eat, a wine steward pours the wine, several waiters attend us.

The staterooms receive their daytime cleaning sometime around 1 p.m.: beds made, mail delivered, clutter straightened. In the early evening the stewards strike again, turning down the bed clothes, putting a chocolate on the pillow, and such notices as might be needed. Usually these notices are reminders to set clocks and watches back an hour, the ship having crossed another time zone. Six of our seven days at sea will have 25 hours in them.

There are shoe-shine, manicure and fitness people waiting to serve me, also a doctor, several shopkeepers, bartenders, waiters, movie projectionists, actors, comics, video technicians, librarians, chefs, cooks, food servers, sailors. We also have a golf pro, a dance troupe, at least a score of big band and lounge musicians, doctors, nurses, casino hosts and dealers, beauticians, travel agents, photographers, pool technicians, singers, comedians, shopkeepers including perfume specialists and art dealers, a naval historian or two, a chaplain, a rabbi, a masseuse and a foot masseur.

We have print technicians, administrators, writers and editors aboard to oversee the reception of the daily faxed newsletters. We receive, because we are American, a Comsat version of the New York Times, along with a ship-produced schedule called The Daily News, listing all the events of the day. Other nationalities receive faxed versions of their countries’ papers.

And, in what may be the largest gesture to a habit of life rapidly turning to memory, we also have a group of men who dance with the ladies in the Ritz-Carlton. These are men-middle-aged, trim, well-groomed-who have taken a small stipend in exchange for the work of sustaining a now outdated elegance. White Sharks, they are called by the crew. They dress in dapper white coats and hold themselves poised and available. They hover at the fringes of all dancing surfaces aboard ship, ready with an assent and an extended hand.

In the over-70 population at large, females outnumber males substantially. Aboard ship this imbalance is evident, many of these women having come here almost straight from the funerals of their husbands. The White Sharks ease the disparity gracefully to the music of Guy Lombardo’s Royal Canadians.

And if that fading age of elegance still communicates with us, certainly its preferred expression is dancing. Dancing takes place everywhere in the Ritz-Carlton, in the Tropic Bar, in the smaller bars, and in the cafes. So spirited is it, this will to dance, that one might easily mistake it for desperation.

There is a woman on board, for example, who calls herself Dancing Annie. She stands about four feet eight inches, dresses beautifully at all times, and has made a quest of dancing with every man on the ship. So thoroughly has she danced through the passenger list, that no new face escapes her notice, nor her persistent request for a new dancing partner.

One evening I followed three young women who work in the fitness room to the Ritz-Carlton, on a kind of good-will visit to Dancing Annie, stationed as always on the dance floor. For more than 50 years Annie was the wife of a popular Catskill comic, and since his passing in 1992 she has shipped with one grand voyage after another.

We sat and watched until Annie came over, the conversation began as it frequently did, Annie telling listeners about the bliss of her married life now gone. The young women listened in sympathy. Then Annie produced some photographs from her handbag, showing her husband, her husband and her, and both of them standing before their home in New York. “I miss him,” she said. “I don’t like to be alone.”