I dream of Bach

In the gathering cabin gloom, I wait. The dinner bell is struck sharply at six and it brings with it instant salivation. Who would have thought such muck could entice even my taste buds?

Father has retired for an aperitif (vermouth no doubt) on the starboard deck with the German. I can hear their muted conversation through the half-open porthole. (Incidentally, it is one thing to know it's the starboard deck, but the fact I insist on being precise about it, annoys me. Why can't I just call it the right side of the ship? Have the captain's silent stares somehow fashioned a nautical bent in me? Am I to be a sailor? Better than missionary, I suppose. Although, frankly, I'd rather walk the plank than fall into either profession.)

I dismiss the thought as irrelevant and roll onto my stomach so as to gain a clearer ear to their discussion. The German, Herr Hanz Oppenheim, who cuts a mysterious, elegant figure under a sloping fedora, is in full swing. 'I dream of Bach,' he says, in his heavily accented way. 'That is to say, I hear him in my sleep und indeed as soon as I wake. He is as constant, I should say, as the moon. It is the robust muscularity of the tone, you see. Ah, the way the music transports you ... no schooner can take you there.'

Try as I might, I cannot hear my father's response, his voice is snatched up by the wind and scattered at sea. But I am certain I can guess his tone and manner. Congenial. Pleasant to a fault. That's my father. Mild-mannered on the surface and yet, underneath, certain of himself. Of his cause. Of his beliefs. His ... not mine. Let me make that clear. We are not in this together. I am shanghaied by my father. He has dragged me here unwillingly and unwilling I intend to remain.

'Oh the bombast!' the German declares. 'The sheer outrageous pomp of the man. One can only marvel.' I assume he speaks of Bach, but the timing is quite perfect.

From the dipping musty corridor, comes the resonating donnnnng of a struck bell, and I salivate.