Anna felt much better walking out of the radio room after talking to her father.
"You look stunning, Miss Bouras," said an officer on the deck.
"Why thank you, sir," replied a pleased Anna as she walked past with her long soft hair blowing in the gentle wind. The salty warm Atlantic air refreshed her as she took deep breaths and flung open her arms to embrace it.
Walking along the slightly damp wooden deck, she watched happy young couples kissing and whispering intimately in the shadows left by the full moon. She felt a tremendous lust for life, realizing that her teen years were almost up, and how little she had seen of them. But tonight, she felt her age, enjoying the feeling of becoming a young woman: a sense of freedom in her metamorphosis, growing up and leaving behind the 'daddy's girl' she had always been. "When I get to California, I will fall in love with a tall, handsome, blond man," she wished aloud.
The ship's powerful engines were at full speed, easily cutting through the dark waters of the Atlantic, creating white foam that sprayed salty mist into the calm air of the dawn. Anna leaned over the ship's railings, deep in her thoughts, and took pleasure in cruising the high seas.
***
"Cruelty knows no borders," thought Nikolas. "Neither Greek, Turk, nor Jew. It flourishes everywhere and tonight it resided in Melpo's unbecoming behavior. Nikolas could not believe the unfortunate events of the evening. He sat on a bench on the main deck, watching the endless sea for hours, searching for some answers. He thought about his life in Smyrna as a child: born in Turkey, but a Greek. The murder of his father by the Turks, the uprooting of the rest of his family, the destruction of Smyrna, and the massacre by the Turks of thousands of Greeks.
The events had made Nikolas very sensitive to mental and physical cruelties. He swore to himself never to inflict harm on another human or animal unnecessarily. His career with the Greek Navy was going well, and he was hoping the mission to America to secure U.S. Navy ships for the Greek Navy would be successful.
When he checked his watch, he discovered that it was almost 4:30 a.m. "Oh my God, it can't be!" he thought to himself. The silhouette of a woman grasping the ship's railing, her hair flowing with the wind, drew his attention. The moon's silver-blue glow upon her hair gave it a radiant light, like that of a saint in a Byzantine icon. Her face glowed like a soft peach in the approaching early light from the east. Nikolas sat there gazing, his mouth partly open. She was like a lovely mystical nymph. He wanted to say something to her, but his words were tangled at the sight of her.