Until We Reach Home (10 page)

“Good, I wanted the top,” Kirsten said. She scrambled up as if climbing a tree, while Sofia and Elin sat down on the two lower beds, gripping their satchels.

Children swarmed all over the cramped space, bouncing on the bunks to test the mattresses, pushing and teasing each other. Sofia tried to count how many of them belonged to the woman in the scarf—at least five or six—but it was like trying to count minnows in a stream. One of the smallest boys fell down as he tried to climb onto a bed with his brothers, landing on the floor with a thud. Sofia reached instinctively to soothe him, but the woman quickly snatched him up.

Another one of the children, a little girl about four years old, started to climb onto Sofia’s bed, but she shooed her away. “No, go away. This is my bed. Go find your own.”

The girl flopped around on Sofia’s mattress for a few more seconds, then jumped onto another bed. All of the children except the oldest boy were making a game of tumbling across the beds, ignoring their mother. The boy, who Sofia guessed to be around eight years old, had a nagging cough and appeared unwell. Instead of jumping around with the other children, he lay down on the bottom bunk beside Elin’s bed and draped his scrawny arm over his face to shield his eyes. Sofia instinctively covered her nose and mouth, wondering how she could possibly avoid catching whatever disease he had in such cramped living conditions.

“This is a terrible place,” Sofia said. “These people are so dirty! Don’t they ever bathe?”

“They can’t help it that they’re poor,” Elin said. “That’s why they’re going to America—for a better life.”

“Well, we aren’t rich, either, but at least we use soap.”

Kirsten leaned down from her bunk above Sofia’s. “They wouldn’t be so poor if they didn’t have so many children. Look at them all. They’re like a litter of piglets.”

“Be nice, Kirsten,” Elin said, frowning.

“Why? They can’t understand a word I say.”

The odors seemed to grow in strength as more and more passengers streamed into the room, milling around, heaving their bundles onto the beds. “This place smells worse than our barn!” Sofia said. She stood, fighting the urge to run outside.

“No, don’t get off the bed yet,” Elin said, waving her down. “Someone will steal it if you do.”

Sofia sat down again, holding a corner of her shawl over her nose and mouth to block out the smell. Passengers continued to pour into the room, glancing all around as they searched for empty beds.

“There’s no privacy at all,” Elin said. “How will we ever sleep?”

“Never mind privacy; it’s too noisy to sleep,” Kirsten said.

“I can’t breathe,” Sofia said, her eyes filling with tears. “I want to get out of here! Please, let’s go home.”

Elin reached over from her bed and patted Sofia’s knee. “Why don’t you do something to take your mind off the smell. What about your embroidery?”

Sofia shook her head. Her hands were shaking too hard to manage a needle and thread. She considered reading from Mama’s Bible, which she still carried in her bag, but the last time she had opened it and had read about a shipwreck it made her feel worse, not better. She knew there was also a story in the Bible about a man who was swallowed by a giant fish. No, she wouldn’t try reading from it again. She listened to the children’s voices and to their mother’s constant yelling and wondered what language they were speaking.

Gradually, the flow of passengers slowed to a trickle, then halted. The porters helped several families shuffle around so they had beds close to one another until at last, everyone seemed to have found a bed and claimed their territory. Sofia wanted to stand up again but the deep ache in her stomach made her too sick to move.

The ship’s engines made a deep, rumbling sound and she was aware of a steady tremor beneath her feet. She wondered how long it would take to get used to the incessant throbbing and if it would grow worse once the ship actually got underway. Elin had taken out her needlework, but Sofia’s thoughts were too distracted to concentrate. She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.

Please, Jesus, please . . .

She couldn’t finish. She had no idea what to pray for. If only she would wake up and discover that this had all been a very bad dream.

Finally, the whistle blew.

“We’re going to set sail,” Kirsten said, sliding down from the top bunk. “Come on, let’s go up on deck and watch.”

“Why?” Elin asked. “It’s not our homeland we’re leaving. There’s no one to wave good-bye to us, and besides, we can’t leave our trunk.”

Kirsten stomped her foot. “Don’t tell me you’re going to make us stay down here for the next two weeks guarding our stupid trunk. I’ll go insane!”

“You and Sofia can go up if you want to. I’ll stay here.”

As much as Sofia longed for fresh air and open space, she was afraid to move from the bed. “H-how will we find our way back? We’ll get lost!”

Kirsten tugged on her hand. “Oh, come on. How hard can it be? We’ll just keep climbing stairs until we reach the end of them, then turn around and go back the same way we came. This dormitory is so noisy, I’m sure we’ll hear the racket a mile away.”

Sofia let Kirsten lead her up through the maze of passageways until she was certain they would never find their way out again. But at last she felt cool, salty air blowing down the stairwell and saw blue sky and sunlight ahead. Passengers crowded the deck, especially along the rail, but at least Sofia could breathe fresh air and see billowing white clouds above her.

When she and Kirsten finally pushed their way forward and found a spot near the rail, Sofia made the mistake of looking down at the water. They were so high up that the water seemed miles below them. She felt as though she were falling. She gripped the rail and closed her eyes as a wave of vertigo rocked through her. When she opened them again, she decided to stare straight ahead at the horizon instead of down at the sea. The breeze felt wonderful against her face, the sun warm overhead. She watched the coastline slowly shrink into the distance as the expanse of water between her ship and the port of Liverpool grew wider and wider.

“Isn’t this great?” Kirsten asked.

Sofia couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat.

“Say something, Sofia.”

“I-I miss our home. I miss walking down to the barn in the morning to milk the cows and then drinking the milk while it’s still warm. I miss going to the chicken coop for eggs and eating them for breakfast, and eating the fish Nils used to catch for dinner. I miss going to church on Sunday and . . . and praying by Mama’s grave . . .”

“I know, I know. But isn’t this also fun, in a way? Sailing across the ocean and exploring new places? Everything was always the same back home. Every day the same.”

“That’s why I liked it.”

“I give up,” Kirsten said with a sigh. “Be miserable for the rest of your life, if you want to. I don’t care. I didn’t want to leave . . . um . . . my friends, either—but here we are and I’m going to make the best of it.”

Sofia tried to make the best of it for the next couple of days, but no matter where she went there were always hordes of foul-smelling people reeking of perspiration packed tightly beside her like herring in a barrel. In good weather, everyone crowded up on deck and the men smoked pungent cigarettes, making it impossible to breathe the clean ocean air. Sofia had taken the aroma of sweet, fresh air for granted all her life, but now she hungered for just a tiny whiff of hay or pine trees or even the barnyard.

Down below in steerage, the smell of garlic and other foreign spices was so strong that Sofia had little appetite for the food they’d brought from home. The ship’s water tasted like a rusty tin can, and she had to force herself to drink it. The latrines had stayed fresh for barely a day before they had begun to smell, too, forcing her to wash as quickly as possible every morning and evening. The foul, humid air down in steerage made her scalp feel itchy.

The smells in the dormitory were even worse at night, when the air turned damp and clammy from too many sweating people. Sofia tossed in her bed, barely able to sleep through the buzz of snoring men and the constant wail of babies. She didn’t know what the lumpy burlap-covered mattress was stuffed with, but it smelled like hundreds of poor people had slept on it before she had. Elin had unpacked their own bedding from the trunk, and at first the thick linen sheets had smelled like sunlight and pine-scented breezes and the soap they’d always used back home. But it hadn’t taken long for the smell of home to fade and for the stench of the mattress to work its way up through the bedding to Sofia’s nostrils.

“Why does everyone talk so loudly?” Kirsten complained as they shared their meal the next evening. Elin always spread a cloth across the top of their trunk and set the food on it as if it were their kitchen table. She made them bow their heads and recite a blessing before they ate—although it was a mystery to Sofia why God would suddenly decide to bless their food after He had denied all of her other requests.

“Was it just our family that was so soft-spoken or was everyone in Sweden quieter than these people?” Kirsten asked. “I can barely remember.”

“No, you’re right,” Elin said, breaking off a chunk of
knäckebröd
. “People back home never talked this loudly.” She offered Sofia a piece, but she shook her head. She hadn’t had any appetite at all since they’d boarded. “Yes, take it,” Elin insisted. “You have to eat something.”

“You can always tell the Germans—like that family over there,” Kirsten continued, nodding in their direction. “They sound angry when they talk, even when they’re not. And the Italians talk very rapidly, with everyone speaking at once. They’re always gesturing with their hands, like this.” She made wild, swooping motions in imitation until Elin pulled her hands down.

“Careful, you’ll upset our dinner.”

“I miss the deep silence of the woods at home,” Kirsten said with a sigh. “It was so quiet sometimes you could hear the snowflakes falling from the tree branches and make that hissing sound when they landed on the ground, remember? I’m so tired of all this noise—people arguing and babies crying and women yelling at their children. I don’t remember Mama yelling at us all the time, do you?”

She had addressed the question to Sofia, but she shrugged and shook her head in reply. Elin caressed Sofia’s face, then lifted her chin, forcing her to look up.

“Talk to us, Sofia. You barely say a word anymore.”

“I don’t feel like it,” she murmured. Talking made her cry, and if she started crying again she feared she would never stop. Besides, she had nothing to say except “I want to go home,” and Elin got mad whenever she said it.

She saw Elin and Kirsten exchange glances. They finished their evening meal, and after Elin packed away the leftover food, she stood and reached for Sofia’s hand, pulling her to her feet.

“Come on, let’s all go up on deck for a walk.” Her offer surprised Sofia. Elin usually chose to stay below whenever Kirsten and Sofia went outside for air. Kirsten looked surprised, too.

“You mean it?” she asked.

“Lead the way, Kirsten.” Elin pushed Sofia forward, out of the crowded steerage hold and up the stairs.

Once they were outside, Sofia was glad she had come. The deck wasn’t overcrowded for once, and millions of stars filled the night sky. The moon was nearly full, and it perched on the horizon like a huge broken dinner plate, casting a ribbon of light across the gently tossing waves. The water looked as though you could walk on it.

“Look up,” Elin told Sofia. “Those are the same stars and the same moon that shone above our home in Sweden. They’re following us to our new home.”

“You know what tonight is?” Kirsten asked. “
Walpurgis
Eve.”

“You’re right,” Elin said. “I’ve nearly lost track of what day it is, but tomorrow is the first of May.”

“Everyone back home is probably gathering around the village bonfire,” Kirsten said. She gazed at the horizon as if expecting to see a column of sparks swirling toward heaven in the distance.

Sofia used to love gathering with her friends and family on
Walpurgis
Eve to celebrate the return of the sun and warm weather. She loved singing the old familiar songs, saying farewell to winter’s long, dark nights. The tears that filled her eyes at this reminder of home made the stars shimmer and whirl like snowflakes.

“So,” Elin said after a long pause, “the past is behind us, just like the long, cold winter. It’s time for us to make some new plans. Let’s watch for a shooting star and everyone can make a wish. What would you wish for, Sofia?”

“She wants to go home,” Kirsten said in a whining imitation.

“Be quiet and let her talk. Go on, Sofia.”

“Let Kirsten go first,” she mumbled.

“Fine,” Kirsten sighed. “Let’s see . . . I want . . . I want to marry the most wonderful man in the whole world and be as rich as a queen just to show all those stupid people back in the village that I don’t need any of them. I wish they would all be sorry that they didn’t think we were good enough to marry their ugly old sons—but by then it will be too late.”

That’s it?” Elin asked. “You could have any wish in the world and you’d pick retribution?”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Kirsten said, waving her hand. “I wish this journey would make everything new for us, and that crossing this ocean would wash everything old away. I want a new home with Uncle Lars and Aunt Hilma, and a new village to live in. And new adventures!”

“That’s better. Now it’s your turn, Sofia. Forget about all the things we’ve had to endure and think ahead. Dream big dreams. What do you wish for in America?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug.

“Come on, Sofia. You must long for something.”

“I want things to be the way they were when Mama and—”

“No, Sofia. You can’t live in the past. Even if we’d stayed in Sweden, we could never have Mama back and things could never be the way they were. Change is part of life, don’t you see? Remember how quickly everything changed after Mama died? And then Papa gave up and the farm fell into ruin and everything changed again. Then Uncle Sven came and . . . and things were very different. Nothing ever stays the same. Try to remember what you used to dream of before Mama and Papa died.”