I heard my papa’s voice then, deep and sure and loud, and within moments all the voices around me collapsed into a hymn of praise. As soon as it had finished, another song began. I had never heard the congregation sing like this before; it gave me gooseflesh. Even as the ship passed the island and began to buck in the strait like a horse desperate to shed its rider, heading towards the mainland, the congregation remained on the open deck, pouring their voices into the sky until even the air seemed to glisten with music.
South Australia. It seemed miraculous in its unmoving certainty. I stood on the deck, head full of the sound of my people mingling with the song pouring off the country ahead of us. When I heard Thea’s voice rising through the chorale, I made my way through the crowd to find her sitting in Mutter Scheck’s huddle of single women, eyes watering from the wind, a broad smile on her face. I kneeled at her feet, laid my head in her lap and closed my eyes. I wanted to memorise the sensation of the full sails driving the ship forwards. I wanted to remember the motion which had accompanied my last days of living. Of living with Thea, of us in the dark. All the love I had felt for her, before I even knew it was love.
‘You’re here,’ I said, looking at the exhilarated faces of the congregation. ‘You’re free.’
‘Amen,’ they sang. ‘Amen.’
The Kristi anchored in the gulf that evening. My father led the service, lifting his hands towards the shoreline and praying as his body was coated in golden light from the setting sun behind us. I climbed the rigging and watched them in their devotions until the sun sank below the water and the world was plunged into a purpling darkness. From my height I could see small lights from the land ahead. I could see my mother kneeling, head covered with her good bonnet. Matthias helped her rise when the prayers were concluded. I imagined my papa smiling at him with his good eye.
I did not go below deck that night, even after the captain addressed the passengers by lamplight and advised them to set their berths in order. I did not want to be part of the haste towards order and departure. In truth, now that the ship had arrived, I was afraid. Thea was leaving behind everything that might remind her of me. There would be no more pine forest, no path to the cottage, no stone set upon a fence post or snow blessing our faces. She would lie down in new places and that berth in the bow, that little cradle of sickness and midnight whispers, would be forgotten. I would be forgotten. She would walk paths I could never mark with my own footprints; she would walk out and away from the life she had known me in.
I watched the sailors smoke below, their pipes extinguishing into the darkness one by one, soon followed by the lights from the mainland. Hours passed and I did not heed them. I sat amidst the ropes and watched the moon rise and strike loveliness onto the shifting surface of the sea, and I was calmed by it.
What happens now? I wondered, again and again. What happens to me?
Captain Olsen rowed out to the mainland at first light and returned in the evening with news. The anchorage was bad in the bay. The passengers, excited and impatient, crowded the deck, watching Olsen send the first mate and four sailors back into the boat to find the pilot station up the gulf. Two days later, once the water was high enough to allow the pilot to guide the ship safely over the bar, the Kristi found the entrance to the harbour and anchored.
I had expected that the ship would immediately be loosed of its passengers and cargo; the journey had been so long. Instead, there seemed to be a strange etiquette of arrival. The captain asked that the passengers return to the tween deck and ensure everything was as clean and neat as possible, and within the hour several sunburned Englishmen stepped down the hatchway with Captain Olsen following. I climbed up onto the scrubbed trestle table to get a better look as they made their way through the space, peering into the kitchens and bunks.
That night, three sheep were rowed out to the Kristi. The passengers laughed to see the woolly faces peering behind the rowing sailors.
‘What? More Englishmen?’ roared Gottfried Volkmann. The mood was euphoric.
The sheep were hoisted on deck by ropes, bleating in bewilderment, their legs dangling.
‘They’ve been sent for your refreshment,’ the captain explained. ‘You all made an excellent impression.’
That last night on board the ship stank of mutton fat. People talked until late in the evening, then fell asleep in their clothes, ready for disembarkation in the morning. Neat bags lay ready at the foot of each bunk, and without the usual bunting of drying washing and sheets and belongings, the tween deck looked forlorn and bare. Even the curtain separating the bow from the other quarters had been taken down.
As I sat cross-legged on Thea’s bunk, a vision of my body appeared in my mind’s eye. Hair suspended in the water like a dark aura. Bubble of air trapped in my eyelashes, fish peering into the whorl of my ear, canvas shroud torn and caught about my legs. Skin milking into nothingness.
I could feel salt stinging my gums as I lay down next to her. Water pearled down my neck, dripped into the blankets. I felt something under my tongue and pulled a fragment of abalone shell from my mouth. It glistened.
‘Don’t forget me,’ I said. And I slipped the shell into Thea’s mouth as she slept.
There was no wharf at the port. One after another, passengers threw their legs over the side of the Kristi and climbed down a rope ladder to where the sailors waited in a small boat, which then was rowed out until the water was waist-height. It was windy and hot – the oarsmen struggled to keep the boat in the channel. Once as close as possible to the firmer ground of the sandhills, the sailors and men climbed out, splashing through the shallows and mud of the marsh, trying not to drop their wives and children and luggage. I lifted my legs over the gunwale and perched on its edge, watching everyone leave in handfuls.
Visions of my body buried at sea kept me clinging to the rail. What would happen if I fell into the water? Would I be drawn back to those turning bones, whittled clean by wave and creatures sucking the flesh from them? How would I follow if I could not swim?
I felt myself tip towards the sea beneath. If I fall, do I disappear? Do I sight God? Do I remain?
There was a ruffle of suppressed laughter on deck and I looked up to see that Magdalena Radtke, who had just been rowed out with her family, was refusing to be carried at all. She had jumped into the water from the boat, skirt and blouse immediately soaking and heavy, pulling her down with every step. She waded to shore, kicking through the shallows, whipping her head behind her as if she could hear the remaining passengers chuckling at her expense. Everyone pretended not to see when she stumbled forwards onto her knees, drenching herself entirely. I watched her haul herself to her feet, wipe the mud off her hands on the shoulders of her jerkin and set off grimly once more.