On a Cold Dark Sea(51)
After a breakfast of rye bread and cheese, Anna’s benefactor gave her the supplies for the next stage in her journey: train tickets to Chicago and Saint Paul, and a bag containing two dresses, undergarments, and a new pair of shoes. The woman’s daughters added a few of their hair ribbons. Anna tried to protest—it was far more than she deserved—until she was told the aid society had been inundated with donations for Titanic survivors. Everyone wanted to help in whatever way they could.
The train station was overwhelming, with crowds of people swarming in every direction. To Anna, it was a monstrous maze, where she might be propelled off course and herded onto the wrong track before she knew it. Hugging her bag in front of her with both arms, she found a porter and showed him her ticket. He looked her over, finding the result disappointing—there’d be no tip as a reward for this good deed—but grudgingly led her to the right platform. The train to Chicago wasn’t very crowded, and the only other travelers in Anna’s compartment were an older American couple, who were content to read once they learned she didn’t speak English. The husband nodded Anna toward a window seat, and it was there that she began her journey across America.
She thought of the other survivors, scattering in different directions like dragonflies creating whirling trails across a lake. The grief was still there, an eternal, unwelcome companion, but it no longer dragged at her heart. For the first time in days, she felt something close to contentment. She stared out the window, knowing she’d be expected to write Mama and Papa about her impressions of this new country. But all through Ohio and Indiana and Wisconsin, she saw only isolated images: red barns, smokestacks, fields reaching to the horizon. She couldn’t fit what she saw into a neat description.
Josef lived on his uncle Tomas’s farm outside Saint Paul, and in his last letter to Sweden before Anna sailed, Josef wrote that he had arranged rooms at a boarding house run by a Mrs. Norling, where he would meet them when they arrived. The Saint Paul train station was almost as busy as New York’s, but more welcoming to a girl who spoke little English. A ticket agent answered her hesitant questions in a flood of fluent Swedish; his mother, he told her, had emigrated from Halland thirty years before. The agent directed Anna to the streetcar stop out front and told her Mrs. Norling’s house was on Payne Avenue. It wouldn’t take long.
Anna took in the new city with nervous wariness, but her fear eased somewhat as she approached her destination. Payne Avenue was lined with Swedish businesses, from bakeries to dance halls, and though the buildings looked nothing like the village where she’d grown up, it felt like a homecoming. Here, she could read all the signs and ask for help without being stared at in confusion. She was no longer a stranger.
Mrs. Norling’s house was shabby compared to its neighbors, with peeling white paint that revealed strips of bare wood. The front steps tilted to one side, and the narrow front yard had more weeds than flowers. Still, it was palatial compared to Anna’s home in Sweden. She counted eight windows, up and down, and the front porch looked big enough to seat a dozen people.
Mrs. Norling opened the door and grimaced at Anna. It wasn’t what Anna expected from a woman who sold hospitality for a living, and she nervously explained who she was. Mrs. Norling sprang immediately to life, waving Anna inside as her head nodded up and down like a parrot’s.
“Oh yes, of course, come in,” Mrs. Norling said, leading Anna into the front parlor. “You poor little thing. And poor Josef. It’s been very difficult for him.”
Anna felt her chest tighten. Was Josef here?
“There’s been nothing but the Titanic in the papers for days! It’s all anyone’s talking about.” Mrs. Norling motioned toward an end table that was barely visible under a pile of newspapers. “I’ve saved them all, if you want to look?”
Anna saw a photograph of the ship on the top page; she nearly shuddered with revulsion. “No, thank you,” she managed, glancing away.
“Ah well, here you are, safe and sound. What a blessing.”
“Josef knows about his brother, then?”
Mrs. Norling nodded. So Anna needn’t worry about telling him the news. The clicking of the Carpathia’s wireless—all those lists of lost and saved—had traveled all the way to a Minnesota farm.
“Josef came here, soon after he’d heard about the sinking,” Mrs. Norling continued. “His uncle’s wife, Agneta, is my niece—I’ve known Josef since he came from Sweden. Such a fine young man, as I’m sure you know yourself. They said there was a great loss of life, but we had no way of knowing who’d lived and who’d died. It was awful to see Josef so worried, pacing back and forth, but all we could do was wait. Finally—a few days later—the newspaper printed an official list of survivors. He read it right here. He found your name, but not the others.”
Oh, Josef. He must have gone over that list again and again, hoping there’d been a mistake. He would have been brave, Anna knew. He wouldn’t have cried.
“He’d been so happy, when he made the arrangements for you to stay,” Mrs. Norling said. “It breaks my heart to think of it. He was eager to see the young lady he was going to marry, of course, but he told me all about you, too. Said you’d grown up together, like a sister and brother. I said the girls can stay as long as they need while the wedding plans are made, and he told me he hoped it wouldn’t be long. You could see he was nervous—as most men are, beforehand—but I knew he’d make a good husband. He’d started building his own house, you know. Couldn’t wait to show it off to his new bride . . .”