The Law of Dreams (34 page)

They were nearing the head of the line, and people in front of them were
removing cloaks and jackets. When her turn came the old woman stepped forward, smiling
and nodding at the surgeon.

“Are you feeling quite well, mother?”

“Blessed I am, going for America.”

“Hold out your tongue. Passed. Next. Come along, miss.”

Molly hesitated and Fergus gave her a little push. The surgeon glanced at
her. “Are you feeling quite well? Show your tongue.”

She seemed unable to respond.

“Come, come,” the surgeon said impatiently. “Show your
tongue or I can't pass you!”

She didn't step forward and didn't open her mouth. The surgeon
snorted and got to his feet. The old woman, having her ticket stamped by the clerk,
glanced back at Molly. “Come across, come across,” she called out,
“don't fear the country of the waves! The day has its feet that will see you
on the other side.”

Frowning, Molly stepped forward. “Now hold out your tongue!”
the surgeon said. She stood stoically while he peered into her mouth, then unbuttoned
the
top of her gown and roughly pushed up her sleeves, searching
for fever rash.

You look at a girl and it's like seeing a road.
My life
,
you think,
here is my life
— curling away into distance, far beyond what
you can see.

“Passed.” The surgeon sat down with a grunt. “Next! Come
along, man. Are you feeling quite well?”

Fergus stepped forward. “I am.”

“Hold out your tongue.

“Passed. Next!”

FOR TEN
shillings they bought a battered sea chest at a
chandler's shop on the Goree, along with three pounds of tobacco and some gray
felt stuffing for extra warmth. Molly bargained for knives and spoons at a
tinker's cart in the Vauxhall, along with a pair of tin dishes, two noggins, and a
mended kettle.

Packing everything into the chest, they lugged it to Maguire's,
fighting off runners trying to seize it for a fare. Halfway there it started to rain,
cold rain sliding down their necks. When they finally reached the lodging house it was
noisy with a new set of German emigrants in from Hull. “One hundred twenty,”
Maguire said proudly, “all going for New Orleans and Missouri.”

They were surrounded by Germans with mountains of baggage, the women with
their squirming, red-faced babies. Shivering in her wet cloak, Molly looked white and
exhausted.

“The supper is almost ready. Take off that cloak, miss, come get a
piece of the fire.” Maguire took them each by the arm, leading them into the
parlor. “I'm burning coal, it's like burning money.” There were
Germans on every chair and bench, and some sitting on trunks, smoking their enormous
white pipes. Children were playing on the floor. Mothers nursing infants. A coal fire
buzzed at each end of the long room.

“Let the fire warm your bones.” Maguire helped Molly out of
her cloak, settled her on the bench closest to the fire, then took the cloak to the
kitchen to dry.

“Are you feeling all right, Moll?”

Rubbing her hands and knees, she was gazing at the coals.
“Cold,” she whispered. “Cold.”

Maguire returned with a mug of lemon tea for Molly
and a blanket he wrapped around her shoulders. “There, better, is it
not?”

“Yes. Better.”

“Don't let anyone push you away from the fire. Soak up the
warm.” He beckoned to Fergus. “You — come with me.”

Out in the kitchen, the landlord indicated a pile of supplies on the
table. “These provisions I have set aside. You'll find you can't live
on ship rations.”

“How much does it cost?”

“Turnips, carrots. Here are onions, a few apples, leeks. A jar of
whiskey. A cheese — cut off what rots, and eat the rest. Some hard bread. Plum
preserve in this jar. Honey. Salt and sugar in those sacks. Juice of lime.”

“How much, mister?”

“All this you can have. My gift. I won't charge you nothing.
No I won't, God help me. I'm rich enough to spare.”

“Thank you, mister.”

“Only see to that girl of yours. Do you remember
mi an
ocrais
, the hungry month?”

Fergus nodded.

“The old spuds is always finished weeks before you lift the new.
Well, your crossing may have its hungry month, so save what you can. If they feed you
the yellow meal for rations, make sure it is cooked soft or it'll kill you with
the gripes. Keep the berth fresh as you can. Bathe whenever possible. Change the straw.
And pack everything with felt, and don't let her freeze to death. What
ship?”

Fergus showed the landlord their tickets. “Do you know
Laramie
?”

“No. Ships in the timber trade are old scows, they're not
famous. Sailing when?”

“Tomorrow from Princes Dock.”

“You be on the quay at daybreak, boy. There's early tide
tomorrow.”

“The clerk says she won't sail before midday.”

“He don't know and don't care — a clerk will say
anything to get you along. Any master collecting his crew in Liverpool will try to slip
out on the first tide, before they all change their minds and run away. No, you be on
the quay, bright and early. Watch that girl of yours! She's fragile!”
Maguire gave him a push. “Go
in and sit with her — I
pays for fire, it's a crime not to use it. See she gets plenty to eat.”

AS HE
came out of the kitchen, Fergus saw Molly heading
for the stairs. “Don't you want any supper?” he called.

“No.”

Bewildered, he followed her upstairs and along the chilly corridor. She
went into their room.

It was much colder in the upper reaches than down in the parlor, by
Maguire's opulent fire. The sleeping shelves were empty — everyone was
downstairs.

Unbuttoning her gown in the dim light, she stepped out of it, letting it
fall on the floor.

“What's wrong, Molly? Do you have a chill?”

“No.” Wearing her linen shift, she climbed up into the
crib.

Worried, he picked up her damp gown from the floor. She had wrapped
herself up in a blanket. She didn't look flushed or feverish. She wasn't
shivering anymore.

The supper bell began clanging downstairs.

“Come downstairs, Molly, get a bite of food. It's warmer down
there. We'll feed you up.”

“No.”

“I'll bring you something, then.”

“I don't want it. Just go away.”

“Well, I'll put your gown by the fire —”

“Go away.”

“Molly —”

“Go away! I need my thoughts.”

EATING BLOODY
beef with the German farmers, he decided
that she was afraid of the sea. Of course she was. That was her trouble. It was only
natural. She feared the crossing.

Nothing human in the sea.

The fear was in him too, but he had managed it by not thinking of it
directly, not handling it in his mind. He looked around at the farmers and wives and
children eating. Cheerful they seemed, blithe, despite the awful journey before them
all.

He remembered the old man on
Ruth
sobbing after they had lost
sight of land. And that crossing had been one day at sea, not forty.

WHEN HE
brought her supper on a tray she was asleep, or
pretending to sleep, facing the wall. Leaving the tray, he went back downstairs and
spent an hour in front of the fire, mixing ashes with kitchen fat, rubbing the paste
into their boots. Working coat after coat of grease into the pliant leather with his
hands.

He wished he might rub her with a healing wax, something to protect her,
to keep her warm and safe.

When he came back upstairs she hadn't touched the tray. Germans were
preparing for bed, rustling their heavy clothes, women undressing underneath cloaks,
boots dropping on the floor. People sighing in the dark as they settled in bed.

She didn't move when he climbed in beside her but lay facing the
wall, with her back to him, her little shoulders, frail white neck.

The last candle was blown out. Soon he could hear the long, rolling
breaths of the people asleep.

Longing burns down fear, consumes hesitation, ignores danger. You would
die for a passion, easy — for a scented, gluey cunt — but you want something
more from a girl, and can't name what it is.

HE AWOKE
in the middle of the night. She was asleep but
her body was burning, her shift soaked with sweat.

The air in the crowded room was moist with the breath of people
unconscious.

He thought of the ship waiting. How dark was the ocean, forty days
out?

It sounded brave, saying you would go for America.

He didn't feel so brave.

After a while he climbed down carefully from the crib, making as little
noise as possible, and picked a path through the clothes and luggage on the floor,
taking care not to awaken the sleeping farmers and their families.

THERE WERE
no Germans in the corridors. In darkness he
felt his way carefully, and came down the stairs. The only light in the house came from
an oil lamp glowing in the little vestibule where Maguire's night porter was
snoring on his bench.

Fergus went quietly to the boxroom and tried the door. It was locked.
Going back to the vestibule, he lifted the key from its hook without disturbing the
porter's snores, then returned to the storeroom and unlocked the door. After
lubricating the iron hinges with spit, he eased the door ajar.

The storeroom racks were crowded with canvas sacks, bundles of tools, sea
chests, casks, wooden crates the size of coffins. The crates were nailed shut and the
chests fastened with locks and iron straps or bound with knotted rope. Canvas sacks,
lumpy and heavy with the goods inside, were sewn shut.

He found their sea chest, opened it, and took out the steel knife. Groping
at the canvas sacks, he tried guessing what might be inside. Slitting one open, he began
pulling out woolen shirts and woolen stockings. The soft German clothing smelled clean.
Some of it was wrapped around books. Laying the books aside, he began stuffing the
woolens into their sea chest.

Slitting open another sack, he found a set of embroidered blankets wrapped
around jars of pickled onions. He packed the blankets and the onions into their chest,
then slit open another sack and found a great yellow wheel of cheese wrapped in yards of
fine cloth. He added the cheese to their chest and began rearranging the sacks so the
room would appear undisturbed. Locking the door, he replaced the key without awakening
the porter and went upstairs quietly.

Climbing in beside her, he felt new and strange. He put his arm around
her, his hand on her little round belly, pushing his leg between her warm thighs.

IRISH SEA AND NORTH ATLANTIC, APRIL
–
MAY
1847

IT WAS STILL DARK
when Maguire summoned them. Pulling on their boots and coats, they went downstairs quietly in the dark. The Germans were asleep.

In the kitchen the landlord gave them slices of bread smeared with butter and honey. The night porter was still asleep when Maguire took the key from its hook and unlocked the box room. Fergus slung the canvas grip over his shoulder, and he and Molly each took one handle of the chest.

Maguire held open the front door, saying “God be with you,” then shutting it firmly the moment they were outside.

It was cold. They struggled along the glistening street, lugging the chest between them.

“It seems so very heavy. We ought to hire a runner, Fergus.”

“Waste of money. We can do it ourselves.”

“No, it's too heavy, I'm going to bust my arm.”

As soon as she saw a runner lurking in a doorway she hired him to bring their baggage to Princes Dock. Hurling the chest and the grip into his barrow, the fellow set off at top speed and they hurried after, afraid to lose sight of him. The white mist was crammed in the alleys, and Fergus tasted the salt of the sea.

WAITING IN
the pack of emigrants on the quay at Princes Dock, he told himself that no matter what hand reached out for the rest of them, he and Molly
would survive. Their boots were greased, their clothes stuffed with felt, extra woolens in the sea chest, excellent stores; he and Molly would preserve themselves. They could live in the coldest thoughts, in the dark bottom of themselves. Whatever was necessary. Stone partners they were, tough and hard. They would survive.

THEY STOOD
all morning on the quay, guarding their baggage and watching dockers humping sacks and barrels aboard
Laramie
. The dock basin was surrounded by warehouses, “built of iron, with no lumber in their works, not a twig, so they never will burn down,” the Cattarackwee boy informed them. “Full of treasure. Packed.”

“What sort of treasure?” Molly wanted to know.

“Everything. Cotton, sugar, black men, gold — but here we are, here's the push!” The boy eagerly picked up his satchel. An officer was paying off dockers who were quitting the ship. As the last man came off, the crowd surged for the gangway and a fight broke out. The crowd kept pressing from behind. They were getting squeezed, and Fergus could hear small children caught in the crush moaning like cattle.

A few people began heaving their baggage over the ship's rail and clambering aboard. An officer in a black suit and an old man observed from the afterdeck without trying to stop them.

“Come on, no use waiting like sheep,” Molly said.

Dozens of passengers were now scrambling over the sides, passing baggage and hoisting children across.

Dragging their chest to the edge of the quay, they hoisted it onto the ship's rail, then scrambled over themselves and lifted it down. They were aboard.