I waited until he had returned to the doctor’s side before turning to Mama. ‘How am I going to fit if Hermine’s cot will be fixed to our bunk? My ankles will be dangling over her head!’
‘You’ll have to put up with it, Hanne.’
‘Can’t she just sleep with us? Between us? Then I will have room to –’
‘No, Hanne. Hermine will need some protection. The boat will rock on the open sea.’
‘Perhaps I could join Thea. In the bow, I mean.’
My mother said nothing.
I sat down on the berth. The mattress was thin and I tried to imagine sleeping there for six months, legs tucked up around me. I heard the creaking of wood above my head as my father climbed onto the upper berth.
‘Johanne?’ he called out.
‘How is it?’ asked my mother.
‘They haven’t given us a lot of room.’
Matthias stepped up onto our bunk, gripping the struts like a ladder, to peer overhead. ‘You look like you’re in a coffin, Papa.’
Mama slapped at his shins. ‘Don’t talk like that. Here, come help. You can hang your father’s things on his hook.’ She placed Hermine on the mattress and began to pull out clothes.
I noticed that Reinhardt and Elize Geschke had been assigned the lower bunk next to me and my mother. Elize, breathing hard, gave me an apologetic look as she pinned a sheet into the wood to serve as a partition between us. ‘It’s the baby,’ she said. ‘She keeps me awake. You’ll be glad for this!’ The light from the open hatch cast her into silhouette against the cloth. I watched her shadow fuss at its corners.
‘How do you know it’s a girl?’ I asked.
‘Anna Maria,’ her voice whispered from behind the partition. There was a pause, and then the sheet was pulled to the side and Elize’s face appeared in the gap. ‘Don’t tell anyone I said so,’ she said.
‘Why not?’ I whispered. But Elize had disappeared, the sheet dropped between us.
With the cloth hoisted, I could no longer see Thea in the bow, although I heard the doctor assign Amalie and then Henriette to its quarters after Mutter Scheck was named as chaperone and agreed to serve as the girls’ guardian throughout the journey. Others, too, were sent to the bow – names I didn’t recognise. Women from Tschicherzig, I assumed.
The eight members of the Radtke family were assigned to four bunks on the other side of ours: Samuel and Magdalena on a lower berth immediately to my right, Samuel’s elderly parents on the lower berth next to theirs, with four children in the bunks above. I crawled out of the berth I was to share with Mama at the sound of Christiana quietly exclaiming.
She glanced down at me from her bed.
‘Who are you sharing with?’ I asked.
The round face of tiny Luise Radtke appeared over the edge, smiling. ‘Me.’
I smiled at Luise but felt a little spark of anger at the injustice of my having to share with Mama and Hermine, when Christiana only had the small body of her sister to put up with. Magdalena was making room for Elizabeth in the berth she would share with Samuel. Elizabeth was crying, skin pink and damp.
‘Don’t fall out and hurt yourself,’ I said to Christiana, my voice as flat as I dared.
She frowned.
‘Do you think we’ll be forced to stay here in our bunks most of the time?’ I glanced across to where Mutter Scheck was drawing the curtain across the bow.
Christiana sniffed. ‘Papa says that we will be permitted on deck when the weather is fine. But where else is there to go?’ She looked around the crowded quarters. ‘It’s not so bad,’ she added.
‘The air is very close down here,’ I said.
Christiana smoothed her hair back into her bonnet. ‘God only asks of us what we may bear.’
No sooner had each family been assigned a place to sleep and store belongings than the freighter came into the hatch and whistled loudly to attract everyone’s attention. In the brief halting of conversation, he explained that twenty-five chests of clothing would need to be returned and left behind.
There was an immediate clamour of protestation.
‘They will be sent after you!’ he cried. When no one paused to listen to him, he slammed his fist against the nearest bunk. ‘Stop! Listen! No one is stealing your things. There is simply not enough room and Captain Olsen has ordered that twenty-five chests be removed and sent after you in the next ship going to your destination.’
‘And how long will that be?’ cried Elder Radtke.
‘Captain’s orders!’ said the freighter. ‘Take it up with him.’ He started to climb back out on deck, then hesitated, wiping his brow with his sleeve. He gestured to the crowds of us standing in the thorough fares between berths and table, shoulder to shoulder, belongings still piled upon the long trestle meant for meals. ‘It is a long journey,’ he said kindly. ‘Do not make your passage more uncomfortable than it needs to be.’