I could feel his strength, the warmth of him behind his drenched clothing.
‘Hanne, listen to me.’ He looked into my face. ‘Do you have faith?’
‘Yes, Papa, but –’
‘Only those who have forsaken their faith need be afraid.’ Papa wedged himself against the side of the ship for balance and brought his hand to my cheek. ‘Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight.’ He was talking quickly, breathlessly. ‘But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows.
‘Hanne, go back to your bunk and pray, and know that He who sees all has His eye upon you.’ And with that he waited until the ship had righted itself and then pushed me back into the gloom of the bow.
The squall lasted all night and continued into the next day. By morning, the air between decks had grown so close I felt light-headed. I lay as still as I was able on Ottilie’s bunk, letting my body roll with the movement of the ship, keeping my eyes focused on Thea. I could hear her laboured breathing even over the sound of the elders arguing behind the curtain. My father and Christian Pasche were adamant the hatches remain closed to prevent damage to the stores. Samuel Radtke was afraid the sick would suffocate.
Spare her, I thought. Spare her.
I imagined Thea’s lungs, willed them full. Held my breath to take in less air so that she might breathe a little more.
I wondered where Anna Maria had put her book.
Hours passed. It was hell. My vision became starred with creeping darkness, heart pounding through my body so that I felt my flesh pulse with the echoing beat of it, the ricochet of blood. I soon became insensitive to anything other than my struggle to breathe. The heat was a hand over my mouth. We would all die. We would all be smothered. We would drown in air or water.
I was vaguely aware of the captain’s voice and the answering cry, ‘Have the hatches opened again or we will all suffocate!’ before slipping into unconsciousness. My last sight was Thea, white candle-flame in the darkness.
Water from the storm ruined nine sacks of bread. I know this, because it is the last thing I remember clearly before the warp of illness upon my memory.
Mutter Scheck stands at the foot of my berth with a brush. She tells me the storm has ruined some of the supplies. Nine sacks of ship biscuit have turned in the humidity, and it is the captain’s orders that passengers go above deck to scrub them of mould so that they might yet be eaten.
I tell her I will rise, or I think I tell her. I am unsure if I have spoken; my mouth is so dry I cannot properly swallow. There is a fist about my throat. I see Mutter look at me, then drop the brush and place a hand on my head.
Her hand is cool, deliciously cool, and when she removes it, I hear myself whimper for the loss of such soothing.
She fetches water. I drink, and feel it come up again, whiskey water, turned water. My pillow is wet. I turn my cheek into it to cool the fire in my skin, to halt the thrumming pulse in my temple.
Mutter leaves. I feel the weight of the brush against my foot.
Nine sacks of bread, I think. Bread of life. Water of life. Flesh and blood, all turned, all ruined.
I remember other things, too, but I cannot know if they happened.
I remember being lifted from my mattress and carried. I remember the pressure of hands under my body and the discomfort of that. It must have happened. I remember opening my eyes and seeing Thea beside me. They must have moved one or both of us. I know we were placed together. A sick ward? Were there others? I remember only her eyes and the ocean in them and the flare of love I felt knowing she was still there, still alive, still with me.
Mama’s hands at my mouth, fingers at my teeth, prising them apart, and the sound of my own voice protesting. I know now she was perhaps hoping to feed me. The smell of broth in my pillow. Pork bones.
Darkness. Lights in places I did not expect them. A man’s voice and the hair in his nostrils as he looked upon me. Adam’s apple held in check by a neckcloth; the sight of it made me feel as though I were being choked, as though there were pressure upon my own neck.
Heat coming from Thea’s body beside me. Sun. Fire. Exploding star.
Lamps lit and extinguished. A terrible thirst. Coarse, grinding hours of darkness that I sweated into, saw shapes emerge from. Figures. Rats running across my neck, biting my lips. Thrashing and screaming for all the rats upon me, hearing my own voice and thinking it was a stranger’s, feeling pity for the poor soul screaming.
Anna Maria kissing me on the forehead. The sound of her kissing Thea.