‘No. The ship woke me. I haven’t slept a night through yet.’
‘I never sleep well anyway,’ I said. ‘Even back at home. Ever since my parents separated Matthias and me.’
‘You shared a bed?’
‘Until we were ten. Mama said that even as babies we would cry all night if put in separate cribs, and so Papa made a cot large enough for the both of us. They gave us separate beds when we grew, but I would always climb out and find Matthias. I’d crawl in next to him, and then get back in my own bed by morning.’
I waited for Thea to say something, but she only smiled, waiting for me to continue. I felt a wave of affection for her then, the way she listened so absolutely.
‘For years, we found ways to sleep together. But then he was moved to the loft. I went up there sometimes, but’ – I hesitated, feeling a little flush of shame at the memory of Mama’s expression – ‘Mama found me there and forbade it.’
Thea wriggled closer to me. ‘I wish I had a twin.’
I heard Mutter Scheck cough again and raised my head to see if she was awake, but it was too dark to tell.
‘She can’t hear you,’ Thea whispered. ‘Everyone’s asleep but us. If she heard us talking, we’d know about it.’
I felt her smile in the dark and smiled back at her.
‘It must be nice having Matthias. Someone who knows you to your marrow. Someone who loves you as you are.’
‘We used to hold hands, too,’ I said, my voice more breath than sound. ‘As we slept, or when one of us was scared, or simply because we wanted to. But we can’t now.’
We listened to the groaning of boards. The whistle of the wind. Someone was snoring loudly in the main steerage quarters. ‘Who is that?’
‘Probably Eleonore Volkmann.’
I laughed.
‘What? She has such large nostrils. Have you noticed how she flares them whenever her husband orders her about? Like a horse.’
‘Shh, Henriette will hear you.’
‘Henriette has them too. And her sisters. A whole stable of nostrils.’
I snorted and both of us clapped our hands to our mouths.
The ship lurched then. A baby started crying. Thea rolled against me, and even though the ship began to surge and I heard the muted calling of the night watch above us upon the deck, my heart did not beat with fear, but with a pattern of sudden longing I did not understand.
Thea’s hand searched for mine in the dark. I threaded my fingers through hers.
‘Are you afraid?’ I breathed. Her hand was cool in my own.
‘No,’ she whispered.
‘Me neither,’ I said.
Her fingers closed tightly about mine. ‘I wish you were my twin,’ she whispered. ‘I wish that I could have known you from birth, that we had all those years together. I wish that we had shared a crib like that.’
‘We’re sharing one now.’
Her thumb moved over my knuckle.
‘I hate that I’m older than you,’ Thea whispered.
‘Barely. Eighteen days.’
‘The saddest eighteen days of my life.’
I could feel her breath against my cheek, and a sudden vision of Thea in the forest, pulling away from me, the feel of her lips still so pronounced upon my own, came flooding back to me.
The ship rolled. We both braced against the force of the wave, and in the swinging of the safety lamp I saw that she was watching me, her eyes lit with something I wanted to ease, something I wanted to answer in my own.
‘Maybe, as God did not allow us to enter the world on the same day, He will give us the good grace to leave it together,’ I whispered, and immediately felt foolish.
Thea was silent for a long while. The ship’s passage eased, the lamp stilled, and her face fell back into shadow. I thought she had closed her eyes, that she had grown drowsy, when I heard her voice, soft and a little raw. ‘I hope we do,’ she whispered. ‘I hope we do.’
born of soil
Days on the ship took on a rhythm. Every morning those who were well enough would rise at seven o’clock and, if the weather allowed, meet amidst the boxes and barrels on the deck for morning services, held on rotation by elders of the various congregations. We sang and prayed, and I liked the way our voices were diluted by the rushing of the ocean around us, the way we were drowned out by a greater, more ancient voice in praise of itself. Hot water for coffee was ready at eight o’clock, and we would eat at the table, which had a lip at its edge to catch any plates that slid. We soon found, however, that it was difficult to eat at all when the ship was pitching. Inevitably our food would end up in our laps or spill across our neighbour’s. After breakfast we cleaned dishes and cutlery, drew rations and water, and were informed by Mutter Scheck whether it was our turn to soak salt meat, roast coffee or otherwise clean the compartment. We swilled and scrubbed the floors with sand at least once a week, and more if someone had been sick upon it.
Someone was always sick.
The women in the bow who remained confined to their beds were largely from Tschicherzig, and although Thea and I caught glimpses of these strangers gripping buckets and heard them groaning in the night, we knew them only from what Mutter Scheck intimated to us. Ottilie, who seemed to bring up every meal she attempted, was already widowed at twenty. Another two Johannes, a dressmaker and her cousin, were travelling together. Maria, a girl our age who was close to Ottilie, was orphaned. Christiana, Henriette, Amalie and Elsa we knew.
On fine days Mutter insisted that every able woman drag her mattress and blankets up onto the deck to air them out, allowing us to return them below only after she had brought her nose to the canvas and sniffed, a practice which mortified us, as did her enthusiastic applications of vinegar if the smell was found to be too unpleasant. We were to wash our faces and hands morning and night, and while she did not lean forwards and smell us, she was not above folding down our ears to ensure that we had cleaned thoroughly. We washed in sea water, which left my skin feeling tight and dry. Sometimes, in the light, I could see tidelines of salt ebbed upon Thea’s neck and forehead, and knew I had them too.
‘Mermaid,’ I whispered to her, the first time I saw them on her skin.