“I suppose.” She went back to the sewing, her dark lashes fanned out on her creamy skin. “Do you want children, Brynhild?”
“If I can.” I spoke before thinking. Had I not been so sick, I would have flushed from the slip. I put my hand to my jaw where he had hit me. It ached under my fingers.
“It’s not so hard, I’ve heard.” The silly goose giggled beside me. “You just have to make sure to get married first or else you’ll be in a lot of trouble.”
“That, at least, is the same everywhere.”
She gave me a puzzled look then; she truly was not bright. She fumbled with her needle and went back to the mending at hand. “Where did you serve before leaving?” She bent her head so all I could see was the white-gray top of her headscarf.
“R?dde.”
“Was it nice?”
“As good as any place, I suppose.” It was hard work and little rest. Not far enough from Selbu that they had not heard. They were already whispering when I arrived, not just about the child and the lake, but about me too. They thought me strange and easy to anger, a little bit touched—veins laced with bad blood. That is what they said.
“Will you miss it?” Sigrid cut the thread with her teeth.
“Not at all.” I had left it behind.
“Have you thought of a name yet?” Sigrid changed the subject. I had told her when we first boarded that I wanted to change my name, as my sister had done, and she had not let up asking since, hoping, perhaps, that she could have one I discarded. She did not have it in her to come up with anything on her own.
This time I nodded. “Bella,” I said.
“Bella? Oh, that’s pretty.” She smiled.
“It is,” I agreed. “Nellie said I had to pick one that could be said as easily in Norwegian as in English, and I decided on Bella even before we left Hull.”
“Did you?” Her eyes went wide with wonder.
“I did. It’s after the queen Isabella.” I had learned about her in school.
“Who?” She did not know, of course.
“A Spanish queen,” I told her patiently. “She conquered the new world alongside her husband.”
“Is that what you will do too?” The silly smile was back on her face.
“I aim to,” I said, as in jest.
* * *
—
In the bunk bed next to me in steerage, Anna, a young Norwegian woman from Telemark, slept with her small daughter. The child, Mari, was quick and lithe and had a head full of golden curls. I sometimes played with her and made her balls of yarn.
“You will be a good mother one day,” Anna said to me as I was sitting on my bed offering Mari a gray ball. Anna’s face was red and flaking, her matted hair twisted in a bun. “I’m sure you will find a nice Norwegian man in Chicago. There are more men than women there now, so it’ll be easy to find a good match.” She picked up her headscarf from the mattress and tied it at the back of her neck.
“Leave her be, Anna,” her sister, Martha, said. She shook out a pillow and smoothed the blanket on her bed. “Maybe the girl doesn’t want to marry.”
“Of course she does. Why else would she travel so far? She wants to settle better than she could back home. She is clever, you see; she won’t be happy with some poor man.”
“Even poor men are richer in America, I hear,” I agreed. “They say you can make your own fortune there. That it doesn’t matter if your father was a tenant or a lord.”
Anna nodded vigorously. “You can be your own man—”
“You still have to know the tools of your trade,” Martha cut in. “Hard work is necessary, even there.”
“I’m not afraid of work,” I told her, “and neither will my husband be. I have no patience with laziness.”
“Then I’m sure you’re going to prosper,” said Anna. “America was made for people like you.” She went on to tell me that they planned to settle and farm. They had humble dreams, shared by many, but I was not one of their lot.
“I’m going to my sister in Chicago.” I tossed another ball of yarn to Mari on the floor; the girl laughed and tried to catch it. “She is much older than me and has been there for years. She lives with her husband in an apartment where she takes in wash and does some mending. I’ll start there, helping her, but I won’t stay for long.”
“Just until you find a husband.” Anna laughed and lifted Mari into her lap.
“Just that,” I agreed, although I feared it would not be that easy. I was a plain woman, tall and broad. Suitable for a farmer who needed someone strong—but not for the sort of man that I wanted. A sudden thought of Anders then, his face slack in death. He would have married me in America, I was sure of it. Nothing would have stood between us then. Pity for him that did not happen. Pity for him he was dead.
“I’m not sorry to leave the old country,” Anna said, “but I am sorry to leave Mother behind. She will be lonely now, with both her daughters gone.”
“It’s the way it has to be,” Martha said behind her.
“Father too,” Anna continued. “His eyes have been failing him of late. I wonder how they’ll do without us.”
“They’ll manage.” Martha again.
“What about you, Brynhild? Will you miss your mother and father?”
“Of course.” I looked down in my lap, busied my fingers with pieces of yarn. “Mother cried when I left.” That was true, but she would change her mind soon enough when my letters started to arrive, telling her of my good fortune. “Father gave me his Bible and wished me luck.” This was a lie. “They only want us to be happy in the end. They know there’s nothing for us back home.”
“It’s a shame.” Anna shook her head and clutched her daughter to her chest.
Martha spoke up. “It’s not true what they say, that you should bend your neck and make do with what the Lord has granted. The Lord provides opportunities too.”
“Mother says America is an ungodly land.” Anna smirked and her eyebrow rose in a telling manner. They had been quarreling with their parents too, then, about this trip across the sea.
“They had no means to escape when they were young. It makes sense that they would think like that.” It was lazy of them, though, not to fight for something better.
“Anything to get them through the day.” Anna sighed.
“They should welcome it, the chance we got.” Martha shook her head.
“They don’t believe that fortune can be a friend,” I said. Little Mari smiled at me, clutching her new ball. “It’s dangerous to believe in luck when you have none.”
“And you, Brynhild, do you believe in luck?” Anna’s eyes shone in the dim light.
“I believe that luck can be made.”
* * *
—