The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine Read Online Free PDF Page A

staircase.
    “You go first,” she said, and Ballard moved through the frame while still holding the door. As soon as she was through, he stepped around her to grasp the gray metal rail and begin moving down the stairs.
    “What makes you so sure the galley’s downstairs?”
    “Galleys are always downstairs.”
    “And why do you want to go there, again?”
    “One: because they ordered us not to. Two: because I’m curious about what goes on in that kitchen. And three: I also want to get a look at the wine cellar. How can they keep giving us these amazing wines? Remember what we drank with lunch?”
    “Some stupid red. It tasted good, though.”
    “That stupid red was a ’fifty-five Château Petrus.”
    Ballard led her down perhaps another dozen steps, arrived at a landing, and saw one more long staircase leading down to yet another landing.
    “How far down can this galley be?” she asked.
    “Good question.”
    “This boat has a bottom, after all.”
    “It has a hull, yes.”
    “Shouldn’t we actually have gone past it by now? The bottom of the boat?”
    “You’d think so. Okay, maybe this is it.”
    The final stair ended at a gray landing that opened out into a narrow gray corridor leading to what appeared to be a large, empty room. Ballard looked down into the big space and experienced a violent reluctance, a mental and physical refusal to go down there and look farther into the room: it was prohibited by an actual taboo. That room was not for him; it was none of his business, period. Chilled, he turned from the corridor and at last saw what was directly before him. What had appeared to be a high gray wall was divided in the middle and bore two brass panels at roughly chest height. The wall was a doorway.
    “What do you want to do?” Sandrine asked.
    Ballard placed a hand on one of the panels and pushed. The door swung open, revealing a white tile floor, metal racks filled with cast-iron pans, steel bowls, and other cooking implements. The light was a low, diffused dimness. Against the side wall, three sinks of varying sizes bulged downward beneath their faucets. He could see the inner edge of a long, shiny metal counter. Far back, a yellow propane tank clung to a range with six burners, two ovens, and a big griddle. A faint mewing, a tiny
skritch, skritch, skritch
, came to him from the depths of the kitchen.
    “Look, is there any chance…?” Sandrine whispered.
    In a normal voice, Ballard said, “No. They’re not in here right now, whoever they are. I don’t think they are, anyhow.”
    “So does that mean we’re supposed to go inside?”
    “How would I know?” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Maybe we’re not
supposed
to do anything, and we just decide one way or the other. But here we are anyhow. I say we go in, right? If it feels wrong, smells wrong, whatever, we boogie on out.”
    “You first,” she said.
    Without opening the door any wider, Ballard slipped into the kitchen. Before he was all the way in, he reached back and grasped Sandrine’s wrist.
    “Come along now.”
    “You don’t have to drag me; I was right behind you. You bully.”
    “I’m not a bully; I just don’t want to be in here by myself.”
    “All bullies are cowards, too.”
    She edged in behind him and glanced quickly from side to side. “I didn’t think you could have a kitchen like this on a yacht.”
    “You can’t,” he said. “Look at that gas range. It must weigh a thousand pounds.”
    She yanked her wrist out of his hand. “It’s hard to see in here, though. Why is the light so fucking weird?”
    They were edging away from the door, Sandrine so close behind that Ballard could feel her breath on his neck.
    “There aren’t any light fixtures, see? No overhead lights, either.”
    He looked up and saw, far above, only a dim white-gray ceiling that stretched away a great distance on either side. Impossibly, the “galley” seemed much wider than the
Blinding Light
itself.
    “I don’t like