A whale swam in clear view. Another gust of water erupted from its blowhole as it briefly rose to the surface.
‘Henriette,’ Thea said, eyes not leaving the cutting water, ‘Henriette, come and see.’
‘I saw.’ Henriette got to her feet and backed away a little.
Thea turned. ‘You can’t see it from there.’
‘Do you think it might upset the ship?’
‘No.’
Henriette stepped forwards and peered out to the ocean, eyebrows lowered.
‘Here, stand where I am. Can you see it?’
‘It’s so big.’
Thea grinned at her and jealousy spiked through me. Water from the whale had blown over the ship: a fine mist hung in her hair and her face was damp and beautiful. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’
‘I don’t like to see them so close.’ Henriette returned to her sewing.
I noticed Thea’s face fall, just a little, and there was satisfaction in that. I knew that she was thinking of me, that I would have loved the whale too. And so I stayed beside her and told her that I was with her, that the whale was all song, weightless mass and gentle power. Its music reverberated through my blood.
The humpback remained within sight of the Kristi all morning. Henriette dropped her needle, losing it between the boards, and soon tired. She tried to convince Thea to return downstairs and then, annoyed, left without her. Thea hardly noticed. She stood watching the whale breach again and again, the sight of it filling her like air, like colour.
I leaned into Thea’s side. ‘This is a blessing.’ When she smiled, I pretended it was in answer to my voice, and then I saw her hand reach into her skirt pocket and pull out the pillow overcover I had left unfinished. I had not known she’d been carrying it with her.
Thea ran her hands over the cloth until she found my completed initial amongst the white. She traced the stitches of it with a fingertip, and I tried to remember what it had been like to be touched by her, the pressure of her hands. It seemed miraculous that they had ever held my own.
Such a thing happened to me, I thought. Those hands hold a memory of me.
Thea quickly, furtively brought the initial to her lips and kissed it, and then, leaning over the side of the gunwale, dangled the cloth as though to cast it into the sea.
She waited. The whale breached again, tail slapping the water. I watched the embroidery flap as the wind tried to snatch it from her fingers. Still, Thea did not let go. She began to cry. She cried in a way I had never seen, all at once, as though she could not breathe, as though she was being pulled apart. She brought the whitework back over the side and pressed it to her face, clinging to my initial as though it were a buoy that might keep her afloat.
The whale lifted to the surface. Joyful cluster of barnacle. Steadying. Full of grace.
After the whale, Thea spent more and more time above deck. The sea air swept an appetite back into her stomach, and the roundness returned to her face. Still, I felt compelled to keep watch over Thea in the shifting hours. Every night I sprawled my limbs next to her body until I felt her rest in sleep. Her breathing seemed to fall in harmony with the creaking of the ship, until it seemed as though the boat were lifting and falling by her lungs alone. At dawn, too, I made sure I was by her side so that I was there as she woke. I listened to the sound of her voice as she prayed, her lips puckering over God’s name.
It was only in the hours when the lamps were out and Thea’s breathing steady, her limbs heavy against my own, that I left her to find my brother above deck.
It was a rare and curious thing to suddenly be able to listen to the conversations of men. As soon as Gottlob died, Matthias had been pulled into the fields and I had been swept into the house. Men were for the outside world of tillage and labour and politics and society, and women were for Kinder, Küche und Kirche. Women stood to one side at church, men at the other. I knew as well as any farmer’s child what occurred between animals. I knew what was done in order to beget stock and I knew what Gottfried Fr?hlich meant when he complained about Samuel Radtke’s bull being a ‘dry blower’。 I also knew that this act was the preserve of marriage, and that the separation of the unmarried was to ensure this remained so.
All of this had made me apprehensive about men. I imagined that they were a little dangerous and, while I could not reconcile this with Matthias, or with Hans, it was partly a desire to see if this was true that kept me coming above deck to sleep amongst them. Fear that I might be found out did not dissipate for weeks. I imagined Mutter Scheck appearing, red-faced and breathless, her little glasses fogged with fear at finding me in their company. I expected alarming discoveries: low language and lower behaviour.