As if in response to this, the ship lurched and we grabbed each other.
‘God in Heaven.’
Mama glanced back at the hatch. ‘We shall be swimming soon. All this water.’
‘Mama, you’re hurting me.’
‘What?’
‘My arms.’
‘Oh.’ Mama let go, then lay down beside me. The ship plummeted and she closed her eyes. It was dark below decks, on account of the bad weather, but I could still see that the journey had thinned her face. It made her beauty a little harder, a little more jarring. I let my eyes fill with her, my mother, dark gem.
‘You are happy here with the other girls?’ She spoke without opening her eyes.
‘I am teaching Thea whitework. On calmer days, when we can hold a needle without the threat of taking out our eyes.’
‘Mutter Scheck takes good care of you?’
‘Yes.’
Mama opened her eyes and, taking my chin in her fingers, turned my face to hers.
‘What is it?’ I braced myself for warning. For criticism.
Her eyes looked black in the low light. Her gaze unnerved me.
‘What?’
‘I thank God for you,’ she said softly, more to herself than to me.
At that moment there was a cry from the hatchway. Both of us lifted our heads and saw that two people lay on the floor, water washing around them.
Mama sat up. ‘Oh no, it’s Elize,’ she said, and before I could respond she pulled herself out of the berth and rushed towards the main quarters, even as the ship tipped and sent her stumbling sideways through the curtain. She was gone.
Thea came into the bow after the lamps had been extinguished. I heard her stagger along the berths then crawl onto our mattress. I lifted the blanket and she lay down next to me.
‘Your feet are wet,’ I whispered.
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Here.’ I moved closer and placed my own feet over hers to warm them. ‘Better?’
‘Mm.’
‘What hour is it?’
‘Midnight.’
‘Where have you been? I thought you were in the kitchens.’
‘I was. Mama needed someone to try to keep the fire going in all this swell,’ Thea said. ‘But then Elize fell.’
‘I know. How is she?’
‘Georg Pasche fell down the hatch ladder and landed on her as she was walking to the water closet. Georg is fine, but Elize went into labour.’
‘She’s not at term.’
‘Five months.’ I felt Thea’s fingers move absently over the inside of my arm. ‘Reinhardt came and found Mama in the kitchens and I went with her to help. That’s why I was gone for so long. I helped her deliver the baby.’
‘Oh. Thea . . .’
Thea’s voice was small in the darkness. ‘Elize can hold her in one hand. I’ve never seen . . .’
‘She’s alive? She had a girl?’
Thea nodded. ‘But she’s so small, Hanne,’ she whispered. ‘I left. Mama and I left, so Elize and Reinhardt . . .’ She could not finish the sentence. I wrapped my arm about her and she cried into my shoulder.
Reinhardt and Elize named their daughter Esther, for Elize’s mother. We learned the next morning that Traugott had christened her minutes before she died. She had lived a full half-hour. The brick they used to weight the shroud was larger than her body.
The elders approached the captain after services, hoping to convince him to heed Dr Meissner’s rumoured petition and put in to the next port. We all stood in silence as they spoke to him, watching Olsen listen and nod. He seemed sympathetic. The morning sky was dark grey, the sea capped white by a blustery wind. I felt nervous, as though something was going to happen that I had little power to stop. A freak wave. Mutiny. The ocean was everywhere, restless, unquiet, sounding like a woman in anger.
‘What is he saying?’ Thea asked me, voice low.
‘I can’t hear,’ I replied. ‘It’s too windy.’
Mutter Scheck shushed us.
A few minutes later the captain broke away from the elders and addressed us as a group. ‘I understand that many of you desire to call at Port de Praia so that the ship might be cleaned of disease and the ill allowed to recover away from its regrettable discomforts.’
There was a general murmuring of agreement.
Olsen assumed a look of deep regret. ‘Unfortunately, I cannot assent to lie at anchor for as long as it will take the sick amongst you to recover. The delay would prove expensive. We do not have enough foreign currency on board to pay for the cleaning of the ship.’ He said something else, but the wind snatched the words from his mouth.
‘What?’ Daniel Pfeiffer cried. ‘Say again!’
The captain renewed his efforts. ‘We have no source of credit on the Cape Verde islands!’
People muttered in dismay. I had not thought of this either.
‘I understand that you are disappointed.’ Captain Olsen extended his hands in a gesture of apology. ‘I understand that many of you are afraid. And so, I would like to console you with the prospect of Brazil. Should the need become greater than it is now, or should my crew become unwell, I will consider Bahia.
‘You have my great sympathy,’ he continued. ‘And I would like to make a gift . . .’ Again, his voice was drowned out by the wind, a snapping sail. ‘I hope it might lift your spirits.’
‘What did he say?’ Mutter turned to me, frowning.
‘What is lifting our spirits?’ called Christian Pasche.
‘Louder, please, Captain!’
Captain Olsen gripped the balustrade and roared. ‘A pig! I’m giving you the pig!’
None of us had any livestock on the boat, although there were some chickens to provide eggs and fresh meat for the captain, as well as the pig, which we’d been told Olsen kept as a sort of pet, and a goat that bleated piteously every time waves emptied over the deck. Two days later, as soon as the weather had calmed and the pig had been fasted, Mutter Scheck insisted the girls in her charge come up on deck to take part in the occasion of its slaughter.
‘A nice pig,’ she said to herself as she climbed the hatchway. ‘We won’t know ourselves.’
The day was hot, with little wind, and in the rare stillness the sounds of people laughing and making as much of the event as possible were earnest and abrasive. Amalie, Christiana, Thea and I stood with three other women on deck, looking on as the young men squabbled in a good-natured way about who ought to be butcher, their fathers and the sailors goading them on.
Papa placed a rope around the pig’s neck, holding it still as Hans and Matthias wrenched the nails from its crate and brought one side free.
‘He’s very strong, isn’t he?’ Christiana murmured to no one in particular.
‘The pig?’ I asked.
‘I meant Hans,’ Christiana answered, rolling her eyes.
Mutter Scheck twitched in disapproval. ‘Halt’s Maul, so fliegt dir keine Mücke hinein. Close your mouth, so no mosquitoes will fly in, Christiana.’
The pig was led out of the crate. Everyone cheered and the animal, startled by the sudden noise, immediately lurched starboard, taking Papa by surprise so that he stumbled and was dragged on his knees. People laughed. Papa joined in, letting out a roar as he got back on his feet. He gave the animal a few slaps on its rear. It squealed and the passengers laughed again.