Devotion(64)

What has changed? I wondered. Will I still burn? Will I freckle in summer and pale in winter? If I am dead and my body gone, will this self I am looking down on, this false embodiment of life, slowly corrupt as my bones turn on the sea floor? Will it remain as old as I am, or had been – almost seventeen summers?

Seventeen summers.

My life was only ever a hand’s breadth. Only ever an inhalation.

I needed to see Matthias again, needed to make sure that I was dead to him, too. It seemed an impossibility that we were divided. For the first time in my life, I did not care about minding the rules that had governed me before and had kept us separated. Mutter Scheck had no sway over me anymore. I had spent days in careful imitation of my life since my funeral, and for what? The praise and approval of people who believed me dead?

Nothing matters anymore, I thought.


It was a clear night and the sky was loud with stars. The perfect chaos of light amidst the deep and purple night was so extraordinary that I was suddenly lifted above my grief and held by wonder. The sea was flat and it mirrored the sky’s glory, bringing the lights down to the horizon so that it seemed the ship was suspended in stars. It sailed through the night air and not ocean at all. Harmonies of light and water.

Tender mercies.

Stepping quietly over sleeping bodies, I found Matthias lying next to Hans and the Simmels, their beds not much more than a pile of blankets amongst the supplies and barrels roped for the final months of the journey. My brother looked beautiful.

I lay down behind him and breathed on his neck. I counted the freckles upon the ridge of his ear and rubbed my face into his hair.

‘Matthias, it’s Hanne. Your sister.’

He did not stir.

I pinched his upper arm. ‘Wake up.’

He felt nothing of me. He heard nothing of me.

It is true then, I thought, and I remembered Matthias thumping his heart with his fist between the packing cases. Water rose at the back of my teeth, but I swallowed it down. I wanted to guard him. I wanted to be soothed.

Matthias smelled good. He smelled familiar. I wrapped my arms around his broad back and breathed him in so that the calm of his closeness surrounded me.

We were together at the beginning of life, I thought. You have known me before I took breath. We shared our mother’s pulse.

The night rested its cheek against us and my pain was eased by its peace. No one would discover me sleeping by his side. So many nights I had lain awake in Kay, wishing I might be beside Matthias as we had been in the womb. His absence had unjointed me, had plagued me with wakefulness. If death meant I might finally return to his side, then I would do so. There was no one to forbid me from doing as I liked.

I lay beside Matthias all night, watching the world’s slow turning until the stars died in the sea and dawn rose flaming in the east, a bonfire sucking air from sky. The men began to stir as soon as the sun shouldered the horizon, sleeping forms rousing into unkempt beards and coughs and yawning arms. Daniel Simmel rose and stumbled to the edge of the ship to relieve himself, arching his back as an arc of piss flew downwind. He returned to the group behind the barrels, stepping on Hans Pasche’s fingers. Hans sat up, tousle-headed, and shot Daniel a dirty look.

‘Sorry.’ Daniel waved a hand at him in apology. ‘Here, toss me my cup, would you?’

Hans flung the mug at his face. I noticed that something had changed in him since our days in Kay. His skin was a deep golden brown, pale lines around his eyes showing days of squint and sun above deck. His hair, too, had yellowed, and he had started to grow a beard, which was patchy and ruddy, and gave him a roguish, off-centred look. I realised that there was nothing of his father about him. None of Elder Pasche’s fastidiousness, his gaunt furrows of criticism. Looking at him, watching as he reached into his blankets and gently removed a small black kitten, its tail tipped in white, I realised I had never stopped to think how lonely Hans might have been, raised by a father so caustic in temperament.

Daniel returned, draining his cup. ‘Another night with the missus?’

‘She keeps me warm.’ Hans brought the kitten up to his chest, nuzzled it with his chin.

‘Up now, Matthias.’ Daniel nudged my brother with his foot, the toe of his boot passing through my body. I felt sick at the strangeness of it.

Matthias grunted and buried his head in his elbow.

‘Are you going to take her with you?’ asked Daniel.

Hans unfolded a handkerchief and fed the kitten with bacon fat. He smiled as the cat licked grease from his fingertip. ‘She belongs to the ship.’

Matthias lifted his head. ‘Looks like she belongs to you.’

‘Animals always like to be fed.’

‘Give us a hold?’

As Matthias sat up and reached for her, her tiny body went rigid with fear. Her eyes grazed over me. My stomach lurched. The cat opened her mouth, needle-teeth bared, and hissed.

‘What did you do to her?’ Hans asked.

‘Nothing!’ Matthias exclaimed. ‘I haven’t touched her.’

She sees me, I thought. She knows I am here. I leaned towards the kitten, staring her full in the face. She did not take her eyes off me. I extended a hand and the creature suddenly spat and fought her way out of Hans’s grip by scrambling up and over his neck.

‘Ow!’ Hans winced. ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’

She leaped onto the deck and bolted away. Little spots of blood beaded on Hans’s neck where the kitten had clawed her way to freedom.