When the Night Comes by Favel Parrett Page B

the last onion. He finished quickly, then slid the pile of sliced onions into a huge metal pot. It was blackened and dented on the outside, but shiny bright on the inside. He wiped the counter down, wiped down the slicer, and then stood over the sink of water. He blinkedhis eyes. Huge tears squeezed out and they ran down his cheeks but he did not wipe them away.
    â€œI don’t like to make French onion soup,” he said. “So many onions! It tastes so sweet, but it comes from pain!”
    I had never had French onion soup. I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t like the sound of it, but when Bo’s eyes were clear and he had washed his hands and set the big pot on the gas ring, he added a whole packet of butter and the smell of the onions gently sweating in the butter made me change my mind about the soup.
    There was garlic, lots of crushed garlic, and then more butter. Stock from another pot, clear and brown, that Bo ladled in, and then red wine, a big spoonful of flour. A pile of herbs, like little trees tied together with string, and then Bo stirred. He stirred until the mixture bubbled and then he put the lid on.
    The smell was sweet and sour, warm butter and salt and onions.
    Bo washed his hands again, wiped them on a tea towel. He stood opposite me, hands down on the counter.
    â€œWhen I was just a mess boy, maybe seventeen, on my first ship, I had to do lots of the prep in the galley. Cutting onions was one job I always had. I always hated this job! My eyes used to really weep. I could hardly even keep them open. There were no portholes to open in the galley, because it was low down, somewhere under the waterline—by five or six onions I could not see. I would have to keep stopping. I would take so long to just cut the onions. I would get yelled at every time.
    â€œOne day, one of the cooks told me that if I wanted to cure myself of onion sting, all I had to do was rub onion in my eyes hard for about thirty seconds. He told me, ‘You will cry and cry but after, you will never cry again!’
    â€œThe cook who told me this didn’t mean to be nasty—in fact he was a nice man. He never imagined I would be stupid enough to do it. He feltso bad. I think he almost cried when he saw me. When we got to Gothenburg in Sweden two days later, he took me to a bar and bought me lots of drinks. Anyway, my eyes swelled up and closed so that I could not open them at all. I was like this for hours. The first officer told me I was an idiot. He washed my eyes out with water and gave me strong painkillers that put me to sleep.
    â€œI was very young. I never had any reason to doubt what people told me. That was how I grew up—on my island you knew most of the people nearby and they knew you and you trusted what they said. I knew that I would have to toughen up a bit after that, get a bit smarter. I learnt a good lesson.”
    I looked up at him, at Bo—his eyes watching the past, somewhere distant. Somewhere I could not go.
    â€œI always believed what people told me,” Bo said again. “It feels like a long time ago now.”

    Bo opened a cupboard and the top shelf was full of Danish coffee, stacked in rows. Shiny red and silver foil like Christmas decorations.
    â€œTime for coffee,” he said.
    I knew he would make me a cup of tea, and he’d say, “Tea? I don’t understand tea.” But he’d make it for me anyway and put in milk and sugar. He would have thick black coffee in his cup, which was stained and cracked and always had a teaspoon in it.
    â€œShall we sit here or go to the mess?” he asked.
    We stayed in the galley. I liked it there. The portholes were large and square and let in all the light, and the red booth was soft and lived-in.
    Bo opened an orange packet of biscuits and they were round and golden. I dunked one in my tea.
    â€œI keep these for when the expeditioners are sick,” Bo said. “If they areseasick, I make them