Mama slapped at his shins. ‘Don’t talk like that. Here, come help. You can hang your father’s things on his hook.’ She placed Hermine on the mattress and began to pull out clothes.
I noticed that Reinhardt and Elize Geschke had been assigned the lower bunk next to me and my mother. Elize, breathing hard, gave me an apologetic look as she pinned a sheet into the wood to serve as a partition between us. ‘It’s the baby,’ she said. ‘She keeps me awake. You’ll be glad for this!’ The light from the open hatch cast her into silhouette against the cloth. I watched her shadow fuss at its corners.
‘How do you know it’s a girl?’ I asked.
‘Anna Maria,’ her voice whispered from behind the partition. There was a pause, and then the sheet was pulled to the side and Elize’s face appeared in the gap. ‘Don’t tell anyone I said so,’ she said.
‘Why not?’ I whispered. But Elize had disappeared, the sheet dropped between us.
With the cloth hoisted, I could no longer see Thea in the bow, although I heard the doctor assign Amalie and then Henriette to its quarters after Mutter Scheck was named as chaperone and agreed to serve as the girls’ guardian throughout the journey. Others, too, were sent to the bow – names I didn’t recognise. Women from Tschicherzig, I assumed.
The eight members of the Radtke family were assigned to four bunks on the other side of ours: Samuel and Magdalena on a lower berth immediately to my right, Samuel’s elderly parents on the lower berth next to theirs, with four children in the bunks above. I crawled out of the berth I was to share with Mama at the sound of Christiana quietly exclaiming.
She glanced down at me from her bed.
‘Who are you sharing with?’ I asked.
The round face of tiny Luise Radtke appeared over the edge, smiling. ‘Me.’
I smiled at Luise but felt a little spark of anger at the injustice of my having to share with Mama and Hermine, when Christiana only had the small body of her sister to put up with. Magdalena was making room for Elizabeth in the berth she would share with Samuel. Elizabeth was crying, skin pink and damp.
‘Don’t fall out and hurt yourself,’ I said to Christiana, my voice as flat as I dared.
She frowned.
‘Do you think we’ll be forced to stay here in our bunks most of the time?’ I glanced across to where Mutter Scheck was drawing the curtain across the bow.
Christiana sniffed. ‘Papa says that we will be permitted on deck when the weather is fine. But where else is there to go?’ She looked around the crowded quarters. ‘It’s not so bad,’ she added.
‘The air is very close down here,’ I said.
Christiana smoothed her hair back into her bonnet. ‘God only asks of us what we may bear.’
No sooner had each family been assigned a place to sleep and store belongings than the freighter came into the hatch and whistled loudly to attract everyone’s attention. In the brief halting of conversation, he explained that twenty-five chests of clothing would need to be returned and left behind.
There was an immediate clamour of protestation.
‘They will be sent after you!’ he cried. When no one paused to listen to him, he slammed his fist against the nearest bunk. ‘Stop! Listen! No one is stealing your things. There is simply not enough room and Captain Olsen has ordered that twenty-five chests be removed and sent after you in the next ship going to your destination.’
‘And how long will that be?’ cried Elder Radtke.
‘Captain’s orders!’ said the freighter. ‘Take it up with him.’ He started to climb back out on deck, then hesitated, wiping his brow with his sleeve. He gestured to the crowds of us standing in the thorough fares between berths and table, shoulder to shoulder, belongings still piled upon the long trestle meant for meals. ‘It is a long journey,’ he said kindly. ‘Do not make your passage more uncomfortable than it needs to be.’
Mama was rigid, her face pale. ‘But we have so little as it is.’
Papa bent low and whispered to her, ‘Johanne, we are not leaving the trunk here. Only delaying its passage.’ He looked up as Christian Pasche clasped him on the shoulder, face red.
‘Come with me to speak to the captain,’ he said. ‘We’ve a right to our belongings on arrival.’
Papa nodded. We watched them push through to the hatchway.
Mama closed her eyes for a long time. ‘They would make us leave even that.’ She pointed to the floor, to the trunks stowed in the hold under our feet.
Papa and Elder Pasche were not long. They returned, followed by several sailors who set to work opening the hold.
‘The twenty-five chests must be sent back,’ Papa said. ‘There is simply not enough room. We wanted to ask him if we could store some belongings on deck, but it is full too. There are sixty-five barrels for water alone. Hogsheads of vinegar, beer. It all must be stored in the open as the hold is already full.’
I thought of ropes breaking, barrels rolling in a storm, wood splintering.
‘But there is good news,’ Papa added. ‘Captain Olsen is not an unreasonable man. He has given his permission for us to store things in whatever sensible place we might find as well as on the hooks and under the berths.’ He rose from his seat. ‘Christian and I will spread the word. The twenty-five families with the greatest number of trunks below will have to send one back, but we may go through them first and remove things that we cannot do without. You may have your earthly belongings, Johanne.’
Silence fell below as many of the adults, anxious to part with as little as possible, sorted through the chests once more. As Papa would not be parted from his tools – ‘Or what will I build our house with?’ he asked as I pulled out his adze heads, already divorced from their handles to save room – it fell to Mama to decide what must be left behind. I took out items and presented them to her as she fed Hermine, waiting for her to nod or shake her head. Clothes. Pins. Some silverware.
‘This could be sent later,’ I said, taking out a bolt of black cloth. ‘What is it for, anyway?’
Mama passed Hermine to her other breast. ‘I bought it for you,’ she said, and gave me a sudden, warm smile.
‘For me?’
‘It is for your wedding dress.’
I snorted. ‘What?’
Mama said nothing. Her smile faded a little.
‘I’m only sixteen, Mama. It can be sent on later. If at all,’ I added under my breath.
‘You’ll be seventeen this year.’
‘Well, I won’t be getting married this year.’
‘I was sixteen when I married your father.’ She gave me a look with such an edge to it I felt like I’d been cut. ‘Put it under the mattress.’
I did as she said reluctantly, thinking that, if Mama was called away by Papa or one of the other women, I might have an opportunity to quickly pull the cloth back out and shove it into the chest that would be returning to the docks. The idea of sleeping on the material that would clothe me on my wedding day filled me with uneasiness.
But Mama did not shift from her seat, and the chest was nailed down by Papa before my eyes.