The Crossing

An excerpt from my memoir, Wherever the Road Leads.

ON AN APRIL AFTERNOON in 1972, Tom and I stood at the high counter of the ferry office in the North African port of Tunis. That morning we had eaten breakfast in our van, surrounded by the white, sun-gilded columns of Carthage. Before we embarked on further sightseeing, we needed to book passage to our next stop—Sicily.

The booking agent thumbed through his ledger. “A ferry leaves tonight,” he said. “Our newest vessel. Very nice. There is a dining room. The dinner menu is excellent. You will like it.”

Tom, always cautious when it came to security, asked if the vessel was a drive-on ferry. “Yes. For sure, sir. Drive on,” the agent assured him. He spread his hands wide and looked down at his ledger again. “The ship is almost full. For the overnight crossing, I only have bunks in shared cabins. So very sorry. Men’s cabin for you, sir. And women’s cabin for your lady. Six bunks per cabin.”

“We had hoped to spend more time in Tunisia,” I said. “When is the next ferry?”

The agent stroked his bristly mustache. “One ferry a week. Of course, if you want to wait seven days?” He shrugged. “For tonight, I only have four passenger bookings left and room for only one more car.” He paused. “You should book now if you want to go tonight.” He shrugged again.

Tom and I stepped away from the counter to consult. “What do you think?” he asked.

“We saw the best of North Africa in Morocco, and we’ve already seen Carthage,” I conceded. “There will be plenty more Greek ruins in Sicily and Roman ruins in Italy.”

“We’re low on cash,” Tom said. “I’d rather have my mom wire money to Rome than here.” I knew he was right about our rapidly dwindling stash of currency. Tom laid his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. “But what about the cabins? You OK with separate rooms?”

Since our wedding six months before, we had spent every night cozily cuddled together in our van home. “Can’t we sleep in the van?” I asked.

“They won’t like it. But we should have access. After dinner we can sneak down to the car level. No lights, but we could sleep in our own bed.” He smiled and took my hand. “Better security too. Anyone who tries to break in and steal our stuff will be surprised to see us.”

“If it doesn’t work out, I can handle one night apart.” I gave my husband a kiss on his bearded cheek. “Let’s book,” I said, eager for the rare pleasure of a restaurant meal. We were low on food and had planned to go to a market that afternoon, but Italy would be better.

We paid the $106 fare for two adults and one car. The agent handed us our tickets and launched into a long list of instructions.

“You must be at the dock no later than 6:00 p.m. You will see the long queue of cars. Sailing is at 8:30 p.m. Dinner is served on board until 10:00. You can pay for your meal with either Tunisian dinar or Italian lire. You’ll arrive in Trapani, Sicily, in time for breakfast.”

*

We returned to the dock a few hours later and joined the line of vehicles waiting behind a steel gate. The bulky terminal building blocked any view of the quayside. We nibbled crackers and waited for the line to begin moving. An indolent hour crept by and turned into an hour and a half. The line of cars remained immobile. Curious drivers wandered up and down the line, asking each other questions and speculating on the cause of the delay.

We were a mixed group of travelers. Dusky-complexioned, Arab men with piercing eyes sauntered by in their long, brown djellabas, their women at home or patiently waiting in the car. Young Italians in dark sunglasses and silk shirts talked among themselves in quick, strident voices. They moved on to gather with a group of American and French hippies with long hair, beads, and loosely woven shirts. A few older tourists leaned against dusty, European sedans, but it was an overwhelmingly under-thirty crowd.

We were all eager, adventurous travelers; otherwise, we wouldn’t have been in Tunis in line for a ferry to Sicily, an island known for Greek ruins, volcanoes, and the Mafia.

Tom checked his watch constantly. I rummaged through our seriously depleted stores for nibbles to quiet our rumbling stomachs.

Finally, the line began to creep forward. In the gathering darkness, we inched toward the quay. Tom shifted in his seat. “Why is this line moving so slowly?” he growled. “How can driving up the ramp of a ferry be such a tediously slow process?” He glanced at his watch. “We should have sailed by now. It’s already 8:45!”

Tom knew the need for ships to stay on schedule. Before this trip, he had worked as an engineering officer on an ocean-going cargo ship. His impatience was based on knowledge.

Once through the gate and around the terminal building, we glimpsed our ship. It was not a ferry but a conventional bulk-cargo passenger freighter, not unlike the SS Donizetti on which we had crossed the Atlantic three months before, though much smaller than that Italian liner. In the gathering gloom of night, passengers struggled up the steep gangway. Most distressing was the way the cars were being loaded.

Aghast, we watched as the ship’s boom worked ponderously to lift a weathered, gray sedan with Italian license plates high above the heads of several shouting longshoremen. The car was loosely secured in the boom’s sling, and no rope lines guided the load. The dusty sedan hung precariously in the sea air, spinning and twirling as if in a dance.

“Oh, my God!” Tom’s face mirrored his dread. He sprang into action. “We have to secure the van,” he said. “You know what to do!”

Tom’s career on similar ships made him aware of the security issues we now faced. The ship’s crew required access to the cab and the ignition key for any cars transported in the hold in case they needed to move the vehicle. To keep our possessions safe from shipboard theft, Tom had devised a security partition to separate the cab of our van from the rear “living quarters.” We had used it once before on our Atlantic crossing. We both knew what to do. We must install the plywood barrier and move all our tools and personal items into the back of the van before our turn to load.

Only two cars waited ahead of us. There was no time for an orderly process. Tom first removed his stash of precious tools from the hidden floor storage in the cab and dumped them in a heap in the middle of the van. He held on to the one precious wrench needed to undo the bolts that held the plywood barrier to the outside of the van. I grabbed our daypacks and stuffed in our overnight necessities, a change of clothes for us both, our passports, and the tickets. I grabbed the two oranges and a hunk of cheese from the now empty refrigerator and turned it off.

Tom squeezed by me with the plywood barrier, locked it in place between the front seats, and tightened the six bolts with his wrench. “Lock the side door and get out,” he said.

I flipped the lever to lock the sliding door from the inside, crawled up onto the bed platform, and backed toward the open rear window, dragging the backpacks with me. Dressed for dinner on the ship, I ignored my mini-skirt which slid up as I maneuvered out. Feet first, I dropped to the ground.

Tom followed, also feet first. He locked the rear window with a padlock from the outside and carefully put the padlock key and his precious wrench in his pocket.

We barely made it. We were next in line to be loaded. But the head longshoreman waved us to one side and motioned the car behind us to move forward.

“He doesn’t know what to do with us,” Tom whispered. “These guys have never loaded cars before. They don’t know their asses from a hot rock.” This language from Tom was an indication things were not going well.

The smaller cars behind us were lifted one by one over the ship’s rail and lowered into the hold. Our van and an English travel trailer still waited. We stood with the young English couple as their sedan entered the bowels of the ship, followed by the rumbling of the hold cover closing. We watched in silence as their caravan twirled above us in the boom’s canvas sling and, with a thud, was set on the open deck. The two Brits wished us good luck and trudged up the gangway.

There was only a wedge of space left between the caravan and the ship’s rail. Tom went over to the group of longshoremen and hovered nearby to make sure our van was properly secured in the sling. I looked at my watch. It was after midnight.

Back at my side, Tom held out his hand, and I gripped it in mine. When the wheels of our home left the pavement, I heard a telltale clang of metal falling. Damn! I had left our hot water pot hanging from its hook over the sink. The clank indicated the pot had fallen, splashing water on the floor.

Tom’s attention was rivetted to the bouncing of our van as the longshoremen attempted to slip it into the tiny space left on deck. But like trying to place a jigsaw puzzle piece into the wrong spot, the van would not fit.

“Bring it back down! I can take off the spare tire on the front,” Tom yelled at the dock workers. The van swung out again and landed intact back on the dock.

In one swift movement, Tom opened the padlock and scrambled inside through the rear window. In less than a minute, he backed out with the lug wrench and ran to the front of the car to unfasten the spare tire.

With Tom already in a foul mood, I knew the water on the floor would exacerbate his displeasure. I often forgot to move the water pot to the sink when we started driving, and it always made him snappish. Perhaps there was time for me to wipe up the spilled water.

I stepped onto the bumper.

“Let me help!” I heard a longshoreman offer and felt his push on my rear through the fabric of my mini skirt. But I didn’t care. I was on a mission. I grabbed a towel, mopped up the puddle, and plopped onto the dock just as Tom returned, rolling the spare tire ahead of him. He stuffed the tire and the lug wrench into the van, locked it up again, closed the rear window, and padlocked it. For a second time, our van home lifted into the air and swung over the bulwark. Success! This time, it fit snuggly into the remaining sliver of space.

We were the last passengers to board. The captain released a loud blast from the ship’s funnel, and the vessel moved away from the dock. Thirsty and exhausted, I longed for a cup of hot tea, and Tom wanted a beer. We peered at the rows of bottles and glasses behind the locked glass of the ship’s bar and nibbled our cheese and orange. A young man in a stained white steward’s jacket brought us a glass of water and showed us how to find our cabins. Sleeping in our comfortable van was no longer an option.

In the ladies’ cabin, all was dark except for a dim nightlight that revealed a sink and six bunks, two unoccupied. There was no sound except for the breathing of the four, unknown, sleeping women and the slap of the waves against the hull.

I climbed to the top bunk and collapsed. I could feel the up-and-down movement of the ship as I fell asleep in my dress, my daypack clutched to my chest.

When I woke, the cabin was empty. I pulled on my jeans and T-shirt, wadded my dress into the bag, and climbed the companionway. Tom was in the lounge, looking tired and unhappy. The few seats available were taken by exhausted passengers, while other travelers sat on their backpacks and leaned against the walls. Tom rose when I approached and gave me his chair. “You, OK? How’d you sleep?”

“I’ll live. My cabinmates were asleep when I arrived and gone when I woke up.”

“I had more than enough of my bunkmates,” Tom said. “They drank arak, smoked, and talked most of the night. One guy was seasick and kept jumping up and running to the head.”

“Gross!”

Tom’s complexion was a bit green as he spoke. “I wasn’t feeling so good myself, and the head was disgusting.”

I looked around tentatively. “Is there any coffee or tea? . . . Or breakfast?”

Tom shook his head. “Not likely. This ship has nothing. The first mate told me it was thrown into service because of a major mechanical snafu with the ferry we bought tickets for. There was coffee earlier, but they ran out.”

“If we’d left on time, we’d be in Sicily by now,” I said. “Have you been able to discover when we’ll arrive?”

“Best guess . . . late morning.”

We passed the breakwater at Trapani and entered the harbor well after 10:00 am. Another thirty minutes passed before the Italian officials boarded the ship, collected everyone’s passports, and returned down the gangway—their arms loaded with documents.

The buzz of disgruntled passenger talk filled the ship’s lounge. Shortly before noon, the officials returned. Stamped passports in hand, we hurried to the dock where our van waited, crusted with dried salt spray and marked by only one new dent.

We needed two things — food and sleep. After a quick stop at a neighborhood market, we drove into the countryside and stopped at the first narrow lane branching off the highway. I scrambled six eggs and fried slices of bread in the skillet. Once we wolfed down every bite, we crawled into bed.

We did not wake up until the next day when bright sunlight streamed through the cracks between our curtains. Our Mediterranean crossing would become the stuff of dinner party tales. But, that morning, we simply greeted the romantic land of Italy stretched out before us . . . waiting . . .

To learn what happens next, read A Man In Love with His Wife on Substack.

To read the full memoir, Wherever the Road Leads: