I woke later, when it was dark. I was curled on the floor by Thea’s bed, body shifting as the ship rolled in steady rhythm. There was the sound of sleeping women around me. A light snore.
Scripture was crawling through my mind, muddled into poetry.
Many sparrows. I may tell all my bones. Be not far from me; for trouble is near and surely goodness and mercy shall follow me. Surely goodness and mercy. Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses. Turn thee unto me and many sparrows.
I rose to my feet and stood beside Thea’s bunk. There was enough light to see that Anna Maria was in bed with her, had an arm around her. They were both asleep. Both were still. But I could feel Thea’s distress coming off her like mist. I knew that if I touched her face I would find it swollen. Knew that, if the light were brighter, I would see something damaged in it. Fallen tree. Twisted branch.
‘Tender mercies,’ I whispered, and I brought my hand down until it hovered above her face. I felt the air warmed with her body, its close aura of life. ‘Lovingkindnesses,’ I said.
I had a sudden, animal panic to be free from my clothes. I undid my apron and undressed quickly, shrugging off my skirt and kicking it under Thea’s bed. The relief of standing only in my underwear was immediate. Mutter had long advised us to sleep in our clothes on account of the lack of privacy on board as well as the frequent need to rise in the night if the weather was bad, and I had forgotten how good it felt to remove the weight of wool and cotton and allow my body its full ease of movement. And then, partly because I felt numb with grief and no longer cared, and partly because I was curious, I removed my shift and stared down at my naked body.
It seemed exactly as it had been in life. My hands and arms were still browned from sun, my stomach and chest were milk. Long legs, small breasts, the freckle above my belly button remained. My feet were still hardened from that last spring in Kay; I sat down and examined my heels, thick and callused. But when I raised my arm to my face and tried to breathe in my skin, I smelled nothing but a slight brine, a suggestion of sea. I licked my palm, ran the tip of my tongue along my lifeline. Nothing. I tasted of nothing.
What has changed? I wondered. Will I still burn? Will I freckle in summer and pale in winter? If I am dead and my body gone, will this self I am looking down on, this false embodiment of life, slowly corrupt as my bones turn on the sea floor? Will it remain as old as I am, or had been – almost seventeen summers?
Seventeen summers.
My life was only ever a hand’s breadth. Only ever an inhalation.
I needed to see Matthias again, needed to make sure that I was dead to him, too. It seemed an impossibility that we were divided. For the first time in my life, I did not care about minding the rules that had governed me before and had kept us separated. Mutter Scheck had no sway over me anymore. I had spent days in careful imitation of my life since my funeral, and for what? The praise and approval of people who believed me dead?
Nothing matters anymore, I thought.
It was a clear night and the sky was loud with stars. The perfect chaos of light amidst the deep and purple night was so extraordinary that I was suddenly lifted above my grief and held by wonder. The sea was flat and it mirrored the sky’s glory, bringing the lights down to the horizon so that it seemed the ship was suspended in stars. It sailed through the night air and not ocean at all. Harmonies of light and water.
Tender mercies.
Stepping quietly over sleeping bodies, I found Matthias lying next to Hans and the Simmels, their beds not much more than a pile of blankets amongst the supplies and barrels roped for the final months of the journey. My brother looked beautiful.
I lay down behind him and breathed on his neck. I counted the freckles upon the ridge of his ear and rubbed my face into his hair.
‘Matthias, it’s Hanne. Your sister.’
He did not stir.
I pinched his upper arm. ‘Wake up.’
He felt nothing of me. He heard nothing of me.
It is true then, I thought, and I remembered Matthias thumping his heart with his fist between the packing cases. Water rose at the back of my teeth, but I swallowed it down. I wanted to guard him. I wanted to be soothed.
Matthias smelled good. He smelled familiar. I wrapped my arms around his broad back and breathed him in so that the calm of his closeness surrounded me.
We were together at the beginning of life, I thought. You have known me before I took breath. We shared our mother’s pulse.
The night rested its cheek against us and my pain was eased by its peace. No one would discover me sleeping by his side. So many nights I had lain awake in Kay, wishing I might be beside Matthias as we had been in the womb. His absence had unjointed me, had plagued me with wakefulness. If death meant I might finally return to his side, then I would do so. There was no one to forbid me from doing as I liked.