Devotion(54)

‘All right.’ I took her hand. It was hot and damp. ‘Think of the lives we have ahead of us. Imagine what they will be like. We will have to learn English, you know.’

There was a loud rumble of laughter from above, a shrill screeching from the pig.

‘Try not to listen,’ I said.

‘Do you know any English?’

‘I know the word for Wasser.’

‘What is it?’

‘It is “water”. Matthias taught me. I forget everything else.’

‘Tell me more about our lives.’

‘We will have our own farms one day,’ I said. ‘We’ll make sure they are side by side. And we will plant orchards. Nut trees. Fruit trees. Vines. Just think, we’ll be able to pick all the fruit we could ever want. Our children will play in the grass and climb the branches, and we will pick plums and apples and apricots. There will be fields of grain, too. And we won’t ever have to look at the ocean again.’

‘Keep going.’

‘And you don’t have to raise pigs. You can have cows. Chickens. Maybe a horse. A lovely calm horse to breathe on your fingers on cold winter mornings and warm them. Big dark eyes.’

‘That sounds nice.’

‘We will see each other every day. We will sit next to each other in church. I’ll name my daughter for you.’

Thea turned and pulled me into a tight, fierce hug. ‘Promise me,’ she said.

‘Promise what?’

‘Promise it will be as you say. Promise you will name your daughter for me.’

‘You can be her godmother.’

There was a loud cheering from the deck. The pig was silent.

‘I think it is dead now,’ I said.

‘Thank God.’ Thea exhaled. ‘Thank God for that.’


The air below decks was soon grey with smoke from the kitchens, viscid with pork fat. There were cheers and salutations over the unexpected meal. Bones sucked clean. Fat chewed on back teeth. Ears crisped to crackle.

Mutter Scheck came into the bow triumphant, holding a plate filled with tender, glistening pink. ‘Come, my girls,’ she said. ‘Come and have your treat!’

I glanced at Thea lying next to me. She shook her head.

‘Hanne!’ Mutter beckoned to me. ‘If you’re not quick it will all be gone.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ I said, and I felt Thea relax next to me.

‘Not hungry?’ Mutter bustled over and put a greasy hand to my forehead. ‘You’re quite hot. Thea? You too?’ She eyed us appraisingly. ‘Some meat might do you good. Give you some strength.’

‘Give it to the others,’ I said, lying back down. I felt Thea find my hand and hold it.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘The smell has been giving me a headache all day. I feel like someone has split my skull with a cleaver.’

‘Do you need some water?’

Thea nodded.

I pulled her mug from its hook and crawled out of the berth to the dipper. I could hear men laughing beyond the curtain, my father’s voice telling Rudolph Simmel to bring the boys on deck down for their share. Magdalena Radtke’s voice urged him to try the trotters. They were her specialty, she was saying.

I filled Thea’s mug and returned to her bunk, my stomach growling.

‘Everyone’s having a lovely time, aren’t they?’ she murmured, hand over her eyes.

‘They do seem a bit happier.’ I passed her the water.

Thea wrinkled her nose as she sipped.

‘What is it?’

She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. ‘Where did you get this from?’

‘The water barrel.’

‘It doesn’t taste right.’

‘Really?’ I took the mug from her hand and placed my lips where hers had been. It was dead water, whiskered water, and my stomach rose in revulsion. I spat it back into the mug. ‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Are you sure it is from the drinking barrel?’

‘Of course.’

‘It tastes poisonous.’

‘Did you swallow it?’

Thea opened her eyes and stared at me. ‘Yes.’


We told Mutter Scheck, who then informed the elders. Only a handful of the water barrels, it turned out, were new barrels. The rest were used and the water, while in store, had absorbed their histories: whiskey, wine, vinegar. There was nothing they could do about it, Dr Meissner told the elders. They must either wait for rain or put up with the taste – or thirst. He was not responsible for the mistakes of the shipping agent.

Uneasiness and displeasure swept throughout steerage as people repeated the doctor’s comments to one another.

Even Mutter Scheck could not hide her contempt. ‘The man is an idiot. He tells us to thirst and then orders us to take rations of salt fish.’

Thea’s headache persisted into the night and the next day, and I blamed the noxious drinking barrel. I asked Mutter Scheck’s permission to go into the main quarters and take water from the open barrels there, and for one and a half days I was able to convince myself that Thea was better for it. But when that barrel was emptied and the next opened, it was worse than the one in the bow.

As days passed and the temperatures grew even warmer, we forgot the taste of purity and blocked our noses by habit. I began to wait until thirst stuck my tongue to the roof of my mouth before picking up the dipper. My stomach swelled. Cramped. I became accustomed to clenching my fists against the narrow walls of the water closet. And I blamed the foul water for Thea’s persistent headache. For five days she grew increasingly listless and distracted, until finally her headache was so bad that she could not stop whimpering from the relentless pain of it. Anna Maria came every day and smoked her bed with juniper, offered her the last of her remedies, but I could see the Wend’s anxiety at having so little at her disposal.