Confused, Alma said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Oh, come now, I hear congratulations are in order. Girls, wish Miss Brauer congratulations. She’s to be married. To Inspector Lambert.”
Their voices formed a chorus of best wishes.
Alma blushed hotly. How had Mrs. Keller already learned of her engagement? She hadn’t even spoken to John about it yet!
“I think I can speak for all of us when I say we’re glad to see him choose a bride,” Mrs. Keller said, continuing down the line of women, plucking at stray lint and smoothing wrinkles.
More giggles rippled through the room. Someone snorted. Helene, however, did not look amused.
“I haven’t consented yet!” Alma blurted out.
The giggles stopped.
“I haven’t given my reply, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk about it.” But even as she said it, she knew her marriage would soon be a foregone conclusion. The whispers came next, and the titter of laughter.
She fixed her eyes on the door. She wanted to flee, and the moment Mrs. Keller had assigned her duties, she would.
“All right, ladies.” Mrs. Keller’s voice took on a stern edge. “Enough now. Off to work with you.”
As the matrons poured into the hall, Alma felt her chest heat with indignation. She’d be forced to listen to their feigned delight all day.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Helene tugged Alma’s sleeve.
“I was hoping it would go away,” she said glumly as they walked to their stations. “John came by the bierhaus for dinner, and the next thing I know, my stepfather is telling me I’m engaged. No one bothered to ask me what I want.” She sighed heavily. “Lambert must have told everyone here at work. I was trying not to think about it until I figured out what to do.”
Helene grabbed Alma’s arm and pulled her out of the flow of traffic into a more private nook opposite the matron’s office. “Wait, Lambert never asked you?”
She shook her head. “After he left for the night, my stepfather told me.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to marry him! I hope he’ll be a better husband than a chief officer.”
Alma went still. “What do you mean?”
Helene paused, looking as if she was deciding whether or not to say more. “He’s… Well… You must have heard the rumors about him. He’s very tough on the staff unless they’re part of his group of friends or other Germans. And there are other things…”
“What do you mean by ‘other things’?”
Helene started to reply—hesitated—and stopped.
It wasn’t like Helene to withhold anything. She loved nothing more than sharing a secret.
Alma clutched her friend’s arm. “Come on, Helene, tell me. What is it?”
Helene shook her head, sending the wisps of blond hair that had escaped her cap dancing around her neck. “It’s nothing. We’d better get to work. See you at lunch, Mrs. Lambert.”
Mrs. Lambert. Alma wanted to scream!
Helene saw her expression and laughed. “It was just a joke. I’m sorry. That wasn’t funny.”
“Not funny at all.” She gritted her teeth and strode through the halls to her post. In her weeks at Ellis Island, she’d grown used to a certain degree of autonomy, but now she felt powerless over her future all over again. A future she had begun to believe in. She’d known Robert had wanted her out of the house for ages, but she thought surrendering her wages would be enough to satisfy him. For many years she’d tried to puzzle out what she’d done to offend him and had finally come to the conclusion that she hadn’t done anything wrong.
The truth was, Robert Brauer simply wanted to erase any reminder of Wilhelm Klein—Alma’s and Fritz’s father and the love of her mother’s life—from memory. Johanna hadn’t hidden the fact that she’d loved Alma’s father passionately and was devastated when he died. She’d mentioned Papa in conversation for some time, even after she’d married Robert, but eventually it had lessened and now it was unnatural to bring him up at all. Some days, it felt as if Alma’s papa had never existed.
Struggling to control her emotions, Alma headed to the clerk’s office, where she was asked to check on some paperwork. The halls and the registry office were mercifully quiet, the latest ship not having arrived yet. Still, the hum of hundreds of workers going about their business echoed against the tiled floors and concrete walls in the cavernous building. At times, the building felt alive, watchful as it surveyed all that took place within its walls. Dreams and fears and lost chances, and the most dangerous emotion of all: hope. But all she felt at the moment was despair.
As Alma turned the corner, a voice came from behind her.
“What’s happened? You look as if a cart ran over your favorite cousin.”
Jeremy.
She managed a weak smile in spite of herself. “I suppose that means I’m scowling.”
“I’ve seen you sunnier. Rough mornin’?” His dark-blue eyes were kind, attentive.
“You could say that.”
He fell into step beside her. After a few moments of silence, he realized she wasn’t going to volunteer more and changed the subject. “How’s your Russian coming along?”
She brightened a little. “Why don’t you test me?”
“All right.” He rattled off a series of rapid-fire questions.
She laughed. “One at a time!”
He grinned and began again, slowly, and one by one, she replied, mixing her tenses only once and missing just a handful of words.
“You’re learning quickly!”
She warmed to the praise. “I tend to do that. Learn quickly, that is, but it’s never been considered a good thing at home. It hasn’t been easy to stand out that way, actually.” She paused, surprised she’d shared such an intimate thought with him.
“Well, that’s a shame. It’s an excellent quality of yours, Miss Brauer. One of many.” He winked.
She smiled, a genuine smile this time. He thought she had many qualities? She felt an inkling of gratitude for this cheerful man and his kind words. He made her feel proud of her talents instead of like an odd duckling that should be scolded and shunned, or shipped off to any man who would lower himself enough to have her.
“Thank you,” she said, eliciting a smile from him. “Going to the offices?”
“Aye.”
They started in that direction, their lanky strides in lockstep with each other.
“Jeremy,” she said, “what if I wanted to become an interpreter? In an official way.”
He cast her a sidelong glance. “Well, you’d need proper schooling, o’course, and you’ll have to take a series of tests from the Bureau of Immigration. Speaking, reading, writing, and comprehension for each language.”