Devotion(49)

Six women from the bow contributed to the number of ill on the ship. At first Mutter Scheck had thought they were taking longer than usual to recover from the woes that had plagued all of us at the beginning of our journey, but when Ottilie began contorting on her bunk, crying with pain, Mutter hastily told the rest of us to spend the remainder of the afternoon on the upper deck, on the condition that we occupied ourselves with sewing.

Thea and I emerged out of the hatchway into a hot and sullen day. The sea was still and, without any waves to clear the waste from the sides of the ship, the smell on deck was nearly as bad as below. There was no wind, the air so thick that breathing felt like an act of conscious will. Before us lay a horizon of water so large my eyes ached.

Thea and I stood to the side, out of the way of the sailors who were cleaning the deck. For some minutes we simply gazed out at the water. It was one thing to know that we were a long way from land, and yet to see only ocean ahead and behind was to understand how truly vulnerable and small we were. It made us quiet, reflective.

We have nothing but sky and each other, I thought.

Thea suddenly seized my shoulder. ‘Look,’ she said.

There was something moving just under the surface of the sea nearby. Earlier in the week we’d heard about the sighting of more dolphins, but this creature was of a size that belied imagination.

A sailor cried out and other passengers drew nearer, curious.

‘A leviathan,’ Thea said breathlessly.

Just at that moment, the whale burst through the surface of the sea, dark bulk gleaming, soaring – an impossible flight of weight. It was bigger than anything I had ever seen; my heart stuck to my chest. Thea crushed my arm. People cried out in awe, in terror, as the whale made its arc, made a fool out of the sky, then fell back into the ocean. In the enormous slap and ensuing rush of water I felt my soul briefly lift out of my body, as though, wonder-struck, it had soared into the divine. The whale was divine. Waves from its foaming disturbance reached the Kristi and rocked the ship as if it were nothing but a cork in a pond.

‘Ah, none of us will reach Australia,’ Gottfried Fr?hlich muttered. ‘We will all be put overboard.’

Thea turned and looked at me, eyes brilliant and shining. She did not say anything. Neither did I. We did not have to.


All talk that morning was of the whale. While some, like Thea and me, were awestruck and jubilant, seeing the whale’s breaching as a gift, others became Jeremiahs and wondered if the creature’s sighting was a sign of some disaster to come.

‘They’re afraid,’ Thea said, eyes following Elder Fr?hlich as he spat over the side and made his way back down the hatchway. ‘Word has spread that the doctor has asked to put into harbour.’ She gave me a heavy look.

‘How do you know?’ I asked.

‘Someone heard him and told some of the men, Papa included. Mama told me. Dr Meissner believes the ship needs to be thoroughly cleaned, that it will provide people with an opportunity to recuperate on shore. The doctor does not have a diagnosis, but Mama says that it is typhus.’

‘That is a bad one?’

She nodded. ‘But the captain said that as long as his crew remains healthy and there is no lack of food, he cannot warrant putting into harbour.’

‘Are you worried?’ I asked Thea.

‘I don’t know. I keep thinking of Ottilie.’

‘Mm. But the whale, Thea – doesn’t it fill you with hope?’

Thea smiled. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve, then leaned against my shoulder and pointed to the cloth in my hands. ‘What will this be?’

‘A pillow overcover. It will say, “Schlafe wohl”. Sleep well. See? This is the beginning of the first letter. And then, under that, I’ve also put my initial.’

‘Shouldn’t it be J for Johanne?’

‘No one calls me that.’

‘And I suppose you will add your husband’s?’ she said quietly. ‘When you know who he is?’

I stared at her. I had not told Thea about the black cloth lying under my mother’s mattress, even though much of the conversation amongst the women was about hope chests. In truth, since joining Thea’s berth I had not given much thought to the material brought in readiness for my own marriage. Neither of us contributed to the ongoing talk about weddings and the households they would lead to. Once, when the elder of the other Johannes asked her, Thea mentioned that she knew her mother had packed some things for her to have when she was married, but she had not shared what they were, and Johanne had not asked. We had never spoken of husbands to each other.

Thea was giving me a strange, pale look. ‘We will both marry, I suppose,’ she said.

I did not reply.

Thea dropped her eyes. I watched her try to thread her needle before taking the cotton and doing it for her.

‘Would you make me a pillow overcover?’ she asked. Her voice was small. ‘When you have finished yours?’

‘Won’t you want to make your own?’

‘I think it will take me the whole of this journey just to finish this handkerchief.’ She hesitated. ‘Besides, I would like to rest my head on a place your hands have been.’


The night after the whale appeared, I dreamed of our trees in Kay. I dreamed I had returned from the colony, had come back to see the walnut tree in our orchard. Years had passed; it was gnarled now, older.