‘See here,’ Hans said and, face livid, hands working furiously, he unbuttoned his shirt and showed me a bruise across his ribs.
My mouth fell open. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Oh, I don’t think . . .’
Hans buttoned his shirt again, cheeks red.
‘Hanne?’
I looked past Hans and saw Thea peeling off from the steady stream of people now arriving in the lane beyond the cottage. She lifted her hands in greeting then, checking over her shoulder, slipped down the side of the house and ran towards us. Hans stepped aside as she approached and threw her arms around me, face shining.
‘Oh, I haven’t seen you for weeks!’
I glanced at Hans over Thea’s shoulder. He was standing there, staring at the ground, shirt buttoned to the neck, hands jammed into his pockets.
Thea untangled herself from me and faced him. ‘Good morning, Hans,’ she said.
‘Hello, Thea,’ Hans muttered. He nodded to us, then turned and walked away.
‘Is he all right?’ Thea asked, reaching for Hermine.
‘No,’ I said. I placed my arm around Thea’s shoulders. ‘I don’t think he is.’
The service was brief that morning. Christian and my father had decided against hymns, and so once the sermon – written by Elder Pasche himself and delivered by my father – was completed and the vows made, the congregation settled around the barn and began to help themselves to the wedding feast: fresh bread, boiled potatoes, Wurst and bacon, salads, pickled cucumbers and vegetables. There was beer, too, and as soon as the surrounding hum of conversation had eased away from formal beginnings, rousing into celebration, I left Hermine with my mother to find Thea. I found her watching the younger children climbing the haystacks.
‘Having fun?’ I asked her.
‘Not really,’ Thea said, frowning. ‘Christiana was asking me odd questions.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, about Mama.’
‘Do you want to tell me?’
Thea hesitated. ‘I’d rather just leave, to be honest.’ She leaned closer to me. ‘Do you want to go to the river?’
I smiled. Thea placed her hand in mine and, glancing around, pulled me quietly away from the benches of adults eating and talking in the barn and out into the joy of sunlight.
We could hear the river before we saw it, hidden as it was by a thick copse of birch. The familiar murmur of water grew louder as we walked between the slender trunks, tripping occasionally on fallen branches. Thea had kept her hand in mine, and every time I stumbled, she laughed at her failed attempts to keep me upright. ‘You’re like a newborn foal,’ she said. She peered to where the river lay, straining against its banks. ‘There’s someone there,’ she whispered.
‘It’s Hans,’ I replied. Thea and I watched as he bent to the ground, picked something up and hurled it into the water.
‘We should leave,’ I whispered.
‘Has something happened?’ Thea asked. ‘He seemed upset before. Oh, he’s seen us.’
‘Hanne?’ Hans’s voice called out over the sound of water.
Thea tugged at my arm. ‘Let’s go talk to him.’
Reluctantly, I followed her to the riverbank.
Hans was holding a stone in each hand and his face was red and sweaty, as though he had just run a long way. He wore the same expression I had seen on Matthias when our father, spine and heart Christ-filled, admonished him for falling asleep during the evening sermon: a combination of weariness, shame and anger.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked him.
Hans shrugged and offered me one of his stones.
I hesitated, then turned and hurled it into the river. The three of us watched as it disappeared into the current.
‘Feels good, doesn’t it?’ Hans asked.
I nodded.
‘We can do better than that,’ Thea said, and walked to a heavy stone wedged amongst pebbles and mud and grass. She squatted and dug at the sides of the boulder with her fingers.
Hans and I dropped to our knees beside her and together we scraped away the soil at the stone’s base, loosening it from the bank.
Breathing hard, we lugged it awkwardly to the water’s edge then, together, swung it out as far as we could. As we all let go, I stumbled and fell into the shallows. Thea and Hans waded in and hauled me to the bank, doubled over in laughter, and I felt a surge of happiness that made me want to cry.
We walked back to the Pasches’ in the afternoon, sodden, throwing stones at trees. As we approached, however, we could hear no sound of celebration from the barn, and inside there were only a few members of the congregation sitting in tight bunches, talking intently. Reinhardt Geschke looked up and, seeing Hans, beckoned him over. Elize stood and came up to Thea and me.
‘What happened to you?’ she asked, eyes wide.
‘Nothing,’ Thea said. ‘We were at the river. Hanne fell in and we pulled her out.’
‘Where is everyone?’ I asked.
Elize glanced back to where Reinhardt and Hans were speaking in hushed voices. ‘There has been news. People have gone home to talk it over.’
Thea and I glanced at each other.
‘What is it?’ Thea asked.
‘Go talk to your parents,’ Elize told us. ‘Go home, girls. You’ll catch your death.’
I stepped through the back door of the cottage and found my father, Mama and Matthias seated around the table in silence.
‘Where have you been?’ asked Papa.
‘At the river,’ I mumbled.
Mama pushed her chair back, the legs squealing against the boards, and pulled out the wildflowers Thea had threaded in my hair. She flung them onto the fire.
‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Elize said something’s happened.’
‘Elize saw you like this?’
I glanced at Matthias, expecting a look of amusement or solidarity, but he was staring at his hands, face blank.
‘Papa? What is it?’
‘Consent has been given.’ My father suddenly gave a great, gasping sob. ‘Consent has been given!’
I stood still, not understanding. Hermine began to cry in her cradle on the ground, but it was as though Mama could not hear her. She sank back into her chair.
Papa looked at me and I saw that his good eye was wet with tears. His smile was broad and pained. ‘Praise God, we shall be free, Hanne,’ he said. ‘We are free to leave.’
I watched as Mama slowly reached for the wrapped rye loaf on the table and held it, as though suddenly bewildered as to what it was there for, what purpose it served. ‘It is Russia then?’ she asked, voice soft.
Papa shook his head.
‘America?’
He reached across the table and took up Mama’s free hand. ‘A colony where we might make a new life of our own design. Where we may worship freely.’
My voice was a crack in the wall. ‘What place?’
‘The colony of South Australia.’
Matthias and I stared at each other, mouths open. We had been moulded in the crucible of our village and its allotments, the forest and the river. I had a sudden fear that if we were to leave our home, I would become formless, shapeless.
‘Where is that?’ my brother asked.
Hermine’s crying pitched higher. Mama withdrew her hand from Papa’s and picked her up off the floor.
‘It is not so far, Matthias,’ said Papa. ‘Pastor Flügel writes that the journey will take six months.’