A shoebox enclosure, two narrow bunks stacked on either side, the top ones mere inches beneath a stained ceiling glowing murky brown in the pale light of a single bulb. The smell of rancid wax overlaid that of accumulated metal polish. Two young women, one pallid, one flushed, sat opposite each other, their knees touching in the confined space, and looked up as Giovanna stood hesitating in the doorway of the cabin. Tallness seems to generate an immediate response of apprehension in all species—as now did Giovanna’s. Possibly this imposing creature would threaten their possession of the coveted lower berths they had claimed for themselves. Eyes speculative, they looked her over. Friend or foe?
Entering, Giovanna removed her hat, placed it and her suitcase on one of the top bunks.
“Hello,” said the one, whose curly hair matched the rosy color of her cheeks. “My name is Megan Flannigan from County Cork and me husband is waiting for me in a place they call Virginia. Have you maybe heard of it? … Oh—I do hope you can understand English!” Her pretty mouth in a petulant pout, pointing to the girl across from her, she lamented, “This one doesn’t!”
Loudly enunciating every syllable as though to one hard of hearing, Giovanna introduced herself in Italian—and got nowhere. So she tried it in French. The transformation in the pallid one was cataclysmic. Eyes alight, sparkling with sudden life, she babbled in relieved abandon that she was French and her name was Eugenie—after the beautiful princess of course—although her dearest Maman had wished to name her eldest daughter, which she was … Oh, Mon Dieu! What had she been “en train de” to relate? … oh, yes, of course, her name. Most dearest Maman had wished her to be Josephine but Monsieur Le Papa had been adamant—no offspring of his would ever carry a name associated with that usurper Napoleon Bonaparte, so here she was, Eugenie, on her way to join the loyal husband who had sent for her where they would live in a fine house in an elegant city called Philadelphia of course, she must have heard of it, as it was such a well-known place, where her Etienne, now a most successful salesman of ladies’ shoes, had promised he would give her a maid of her very own. Catching her breath, her violet eyes misting at the very thought of such awaiting luxury, looking up at Giovanna, Eugenie asked, “This Philadelphia … do you know where one finds it?”
When Giovanna informed her that she would ask her husband, who was on the ship personally accompanying her to their destination, she saw envy in the French girl’s eyes.
Wondering who would be the fourth to share their tiny cabin, the three girls busied themselves stowing their few belongings into the meager space available to them.
Ship’s bells began their call announcing departure.
“Oh, it is time. France … I must wave au revoir to my beautiful France. I may never, ever see her again—oh, what a tragedy that would be! My heart breaks even now at the very thought … you come too, yes?” and out dashed Eugenie, lyric drama in high-button shoes and straw boater. Giovanna, not knowing where the men’s quarters were located, followed as did Megan, still pouting at not having understood a single word of all that talk between her fellow travelers, yet as eager to witness their ship leaving the harbor.
The great ship shivered, as though, tied in its stall, it wanted to tear loose its fetters and run free! Four funnels belching, it began to move. Passengers crowded the open decks to catch the last glimpse of land; that split moment when vague regret mingles with the excitement of anticipated adventure united their faces before individuality took over. The waving of those who had someone left behind to wave to, the tears, the shouts of words left unsaid before, now needing to be said even if impossible to be heard above the din, the joyous laughter of those shedding the old world for the new. Slowly, the ship moved its human cargo into the Channel and out onto the Atlantic Ocean.
Megan’s excellent sense of direction brought the girls safely back down to their small cabin, where they surprised a very buxom woman unpacking her belongings into a cubicle allotted to one of the lower bunks. Megan’s eyes blazed, “OH NO! That one’s mine! I was here first!” The fourth fellow traveler of their cabin, her potato face taking on the color of her accuser’s hair as she wielded a very large salami, threatening mayhem, braced for a fight like the bull terrier she resembled, growling a language none of them had ever heard before. Giovanna tried to take charge in oil-upon-the-waters Italian, Eugenie twittered in philosophical French, Megan cursed in merciless Gaelic, while the as yet nameless terrier spluttered Polish. “Me Bela, ten-year wife of Lotar Zankowsky, iron miner, Missouri!”
The cabin door opened and Giovanni stood surveying the Tower of female Babel before him. Suddenly, with a man in their midst, docile female silence was instantly restored.
“Giovanna! I leave you to get properly settled and what happens? I find you squabbling like some peasant. This is NOT the behavior I expect from my wife!” and not waiting for any explanation, Giovanna’s husband strode out, slamming the heavy door behind him. As a man’s angry disapproval belongs to that unassailable realm of universal language, making translation unnecessary, the women duly chastised, eyes downcast, careful not to bump into each other, arranged their individual spaces without another word. Bela Zankowsky tossed her sausage up onto the remaining bunk and laboriously climbed the precarious ladder with Slavic resignation.
The first days out, when the trumpet sounded for meals, no one in Giovanna’s cabin paid the slightest attention—all were seasick. Fortunately, not all at once, so those not yet could minister to those not caring if they lived or died. Bela was the first to become seaworthy and, true to her name if not exactly her looks, took on the labors of ministering angel. Held foreheads over chamber pots, fetched water from some discovered source, applied cool compresses, patted limp hands reassuringly, and, when nothing else seemed to do as well, sang soft lullabies, mothering her young as though they were really hers. Giovanna shared her precious lemon with nonhesitant generosity and everyone agreed that it and Bela were the sole reasons they eventually survived the demon sea. Eugenie did continue to linger on the brink, whenever the steam from boiling cabbage, so necessary to all German ships, drifted by her sensitive nose, but as she claimed she was actually sensitive all over, soon no one took any notice of her daily vapors.
The first evening after a dinner that had miraculously stayed down, Giovanna approached her husband as he sat smoking in the men’s section.
“Giovanni, I need to ask a favor.”