‘Are you afraid?’ I breathed. Her hand was cool in my own.
‘No,’ she whispered.
‘Me neither,’ I said.
Her fingers closed tightly about mine. ‘I wish you were my twin,’ she whispered. ‘I wish that I could have known you from birth, that we had all those years together. I wish that we had shared a crib like that.’
‘We’re sharing one now.’
Her thumb moved over my knuckle.
‘I hate that I’m older than you,’ Thea whispered.
‘Barely. Eighteen days.’
‘The saddest eighteen days of my life.’
I could feel her breath against my cheek, and a sudden vision of Thea in the forest, pulling away from me, the feel of her lips still so pronounced upon my own, came flooding back to me.
The ship rolled. We both braced against the force of the wave, and in the swinging of the safety lamp I saw that she was watching me, her eyes lit with something I wanted to ease, something I wanted to answer in my own.
‘Maybe, as God did not allow us to enter the world on the same day, He will give us the good grace to leave it together,’ I whispered, and immediately felt foolish.
Thea was silent for a long while. The ship’s passage eased, the lamp stilled, and her face fell back into shadow. I thought she had closed her eyes, that she had grown drowsy, when I heard her voice, soft and a little raw. ‘I hope we do,’ she whispered. ‘I hope we do.’
born of soil
Days on the ship took on a rhythm. Every morning those who were well enough would rise at seven o’clock and, if the weather allowed, meet amidst the boxes and barrels on the deck for morning services, held on rotation by elders of the various congregations. We sang and prayed, and I liked the way our voices were diluted by the rushing of the ocean around us, the way we were drowned out by a greater, more ancient voice in praise of itself. Hot water for coffee was ready at eight o’clock, and we would eat at the table, which had a lip at its edge to catch any plates that slid. We soon found, however, that it was difficult to eat at all when the ship was pitching. Inevitably our food would end up in our laps or spill across our neighbour’s. After breakfast we cleaned dishes and cutlery, drew rations and water, and were informed by Mutter Scheck whether it was our turn to soak salt meat, roast coffee or otherwise clean the compartment. We swilled and scrubbed the floors with sand at least once a week, and more if someone had been sick upon it.
Someone was always sick.
The women in the bow who remained confined to their beds were largely from Tschicherzig, and although Thea and I caught glimpses of these strangers gripping buckets and heard them groaning in the night, we knew them only from what Mutter Scheck intimated to us. Ottilie, who seemed to bring up every meal she attempted, was already widowed at twenty. Another two Johannes, a dressmaker and her cousin, were travelling together. Maria, a girl our age who was close to Ottilie, was orphaned. Christiana, Henriette, Amalie and Elsa we knew.
On fine days Mutter insisted that every able woman drag her mattress and blankets up onto the deck to air them out, allowing us to return them below only after she had brought her nose to the canvas and sniffed, a practice which mortified us, as did her enthusiastic applications of vinegar if the smell was found to be too unpleasant. We were to wash our faces and hands morning and night, and while she did not lean forwards and smell us, she was not above folding down our ears to ensure that we had cleaned thoroughly. We washed in sea water, which left my skin feeling tight and dry. Sometimes, in the light, I could see tidelines of salt ebbed upon Thea’s neck and forehead, and knew I had them too.
‘Mermaid,’ I whispered to her, the first time I saw them on her skin.
‘More like salted herring,’ she replied.
Mutter Scheck’s appraisal and insistence on cleanliness was not limited to our beds and bodies. Our moral scrupulousness was also closely watched. All single women were forbidden from breaching the confines of the bow at night and Mutter Scheck discouraged us from even lurching to the water closet set aside for our use. Instead she issued us with tin chamber-pots that slid under our bunks, and sometimes had to be fetched from the far wall by wriggling under the lower berths on our stomachs. The Guzunder, when finally found and filled, was to be emptied into the slop pails secured to the side of the berth by a hook, and all was to be voided and rinsed daily, weather permitting. Any woman who did not securely replace the lid to the slop found herself saddled with the responsibility of emptying it for a week or more, an unenviable task when the ship was rolling. Mutter Scheck inspected our cutlery and plates after washing and made us keep our dishes against the side of the berths. When Henriette complained about their constant rattling, Mutter produced some string to hold them fast, and my father inserted small hooks into the wood from which we might hang our cups, for ease of drying and reaching. Often times, at night, I would watch my and Thea’s mugs sway above my head, until sleep finally arrived, and occasionally, during swell, I would be woken by a plummeting handle smacking into the bridge of my nose.