In Search of Anna

by Valerie Volk

  My ship, I could see from the quay, was no Augusta Victoria, but a much smaller affair, with only one funnel and two masts. Unlike the Schramms’ boat, with its two screw engines and capacity to take a thousand people, the Elberfeld was single screw and slower, eleven knots said the gossip in our lodgings.

  We were becoming quite knowledgeable about these ships. I puzzled over the word ‘screw’ that all seemed conversant with, until the men explained kindly that it was simply the term for the propeller. Little did I know then how important that piece of machinery was to become as the voyage proceeded.

  Other emigrants brought back reports as they watched the loading of the ship, and there was discussion of iron hulls and double bottoms, of steel decks sheathed in wood, of steam winches, steering gear and windlasses. They smiled patronisingly when I tried to join the discussions, a way of feeling closer to my son. These things were his life, and I began to understand the lure of steam.

  Our small community waited for the departure. There was talk of what was happening, most of it untrue. The captain was a drinking man, they said, who could not sail until he had sobered. The owners were not happy about the crew, who lacked experience. The new ship still needed to be fumigated before we could leave. Passengers did not have their passports, young men did not have their military clearance, more reasons for delay. So many stories, and most of them simply idle chatter from people who should have known better.

  I was eager to leave the emigrant lodging house. The food was not attractive, or wholesome, and the bunk beds in our compartments were crammed close to each other in long rows. Smells and noises in the night would have made even a comfortable bed unpleasant, and these were by no means comfortable!

  We had learned more about the ship that would take us to the other side of the earth. While much smaller than the Augusta Victoria, it was still large. There was accommodation for over three hundred people in the third class, and just a handful of first-class passengers’ cabins. I was glad I had resisted Lydia’s wish to get one of these for me, and fortunately all were taken before she began negotiations for my ticket. The people for those cabins, I was sure, would be waiting departure in big Hamburg hotels, not lodging in our emigrants’ quarters.

  In the time we waited, I had explored Hamburg, walking the streets and visiting many of the splendid churches and galleries. It was a revelation to me. Scenes I had read of in books now unfolded around me, and I was glad of the purse that Lydia had insisted on giving me. No matter how frugal I was, and how simply I chose to live, money had to be spent. If I had seen a way of working and earning money, I would have taken it, but work permits had to be applied for and took time, and were restricted to residents. I found myself, for the first time in many years, without the burden of daily toil, and free to spend hours in the library. I could have spent all day in the Stadtsbibliothek, with its rows on rows of shelving. Books! More books than I had seen before. And I had thought the Chateau library extensive!

  I wandered the Old Town, the Altstadt, and round the canal area, fascinated by the Deichstrasse, with its rows of tall narrow houses, built in the Dutch style. People were quick to tell me that fifty years ago a fire had devastated the area. I marvelled at the sense and thoughtfulness of those who had rebuilt these beautiful buildings from an older gracious way of life in the middle of a bustling port city, thronged with emigrants.

  Still we waited, but finally Herr Solomon came for me, with news that we could board next day. I was glad to have his help in getting my goods aboard, and his advice of keeping only what I needed for the voyage with me; my big chest could go in the hold. The compartment I had was small, with four bunks and little storage space. I waited in some trepidation to see just who I would be sharing this voyage with.

  As the Elberfeld slid past the wharves and warehouses that lined the riverbank, I waved a reluctant goodbye to the lodgings where I had learned I could be alone and happy. My homeland and all that was familiar slipped away, and the open sea and the unknown lay ahead.

  CHAPTER 14

  Aboard the Elberfeld, 1889

  This time, instead of watching a ship depart, I was aboard it. The world passed by us, as the pilot boat took us on our dignified progress down the Elbe towards Cuxhaven, where we knew the final formalities would take place. The last check of papers, and final medical inspections. No captain wanted the chance of a sickness outbreak on a voyage of this length, and I had heard he was less than happy that three of his passengers were in advanced pregnancy.

  Probably, I thought wryly, so were they, for while there was a ship’s doctor and a small hospital room, I doubted any woman would want to give birth on such a perilous journey. A pity that they could not have had first-class cabins, though there were few of these. The Elberfeld, Herr Solomon assured me with pride, had not planned to have a first-class section, but to provide good conditions for large numbers of emigrants.

  Yet we looked with envy at the top deck, with its well-appointed cabins and comfortable saloon. My travel companions were impressed.

  ‘They even,’ Ida was breathless with excitement, ‘have lounges to rest on during the day and proper beds for the nights.’

  I looked with resignation at our tiny cabin. Two double bunks either side, and only enough space in the middle for one of the four of us to dress at a time. Already my companions had strung strong ropes along each of their bunks to hang their clothes each evening. At least behind these shrouds, there was some privacy, and most of us quickly learned how to dress in modesty. Even if using the washbasin at the end of the cabin was a public event.

  The Elberfeld deserved its reputation as a new and modern boat, and we wandered around it marvelling at what it offered.

  ‘We would not have had this in the old days,’ I commented, looking at the walking area available to all who travelled on this boat, for the poop deck extended from bow to stern, and we were free to use it instead of being confined below decks.

  ‘Nor would we have had lighting,’ Margarethe added. ‘There’s electric light all through the boat.’

  ‘It is practical,’ Herr Solomon explained. ‘It is not only for passenger convenience, but it means they can continue loading during the night as well as daytime.’

  ‘And ventilation!’

  The little man was as proud as if he had constructed the vessel himself.

  ‘Ja. A very powerful ventilator so there will always be fresh cool air, even during the voyage through the tropics. And fresh water always available—there is a powerful condenser installed that distils a large quantity each day.’

  I was glad that on this boat there were, even for third-class passengers, lavatories and bathrooms and a common area in the saloons for us to sit and eat the food brought to us from the galley. Though I confess I sighed as I thought of the tiny restaurant on the upper deck, with its table linen and fine china.

  A small blessing, to have this four-bed compartment, so different from the old days of sailing ships where ship owners crammed, like cattle, as many bodies as they could fit into the big common area. Steerage, the English call it. Or Zwischendecke, that space built in under the main deck when they realised the growing trade of transporting people to the new world. These days regulations specify how much space we ‘between decks’ passengers must have, and the horror tales of previous times with vomit and faeces slopping around the floors in bad weather and hatches battened down so there was no air or light were, I hoped, well and truly over.

  Now, although the cabins were tight and cramped, at least there was some privacy, and the divisions were strict. Single men at one end of the ship, in the middle the married couples and families, and at the other end, the single women. And a matron to make sure there was close supervision and morality upheld.

  I heard Ida and Margarethe discussing the bunks.

  ‘Perhaps we should give Frau Werner a lower one,’ they agreed. ‘She is an older woman. To climb that ladder might be difficult for a woman her age.’

  ‘True.�
� Clara joined the conversation. ‘We could take turns in sleeping in the other bottom bunk, to make it fair.’

  ‘No need,’ said Ida. ‘I am quite happy to be up above. It will be less shut in, up there.’

  I could see her point. It was claustrophobic in the tight area below, especially with our makeshift curtaining. But I was touched by their consideration, though a little insulted that they should think me so elderly as to need it. After all, I am not yet fifty years.

  To them, I must seem old. There were not many single women on this boat, and the matron should have an easy time. Ida, fresh-faced, with her irrepressible curls refusing to be confined in her tight cap, had thoughts only for the man she was about to marry.

  ‘We have waited three years,’ she confided to us all in our first night in the space we were to share. ‘I have known Klaus since our schooldays, and when he planned to emigrate our thought was to marry and go together. But my parents said no, and that we should wait to see what would happen, that I was too young.’

  I listened with pangs of memory. So too had I been young in those far-off days when I had loved Kurt and married Otto. Younger, much younger than Ida, but no thought of delaying that necessary wedding.

  But now this girl was hurrying to a lover who had made his way in a new land and was waiting for a bride to come to the home he had built for them in wine-growing country in the southern areas. Barossa, she had called it, and her Klaus was working in vineyards and planning to plant his own vines on the land he had purchased.

  Margarethe was perturbed. ‘But you are travelling without a chaperone. Surely you cannot just travel across the world to marry with no family to care for you.’

  Ida giggled. She really was very young, I thought. ‘You do sound like Papa,’ she said. ‘He was not happy about it. But he knows Klaus’s uncle and aunt, who also live in that area, and I will live with them until the wedding. And Papa was most reassured that there was a matron to care for us on the voyage.’

  We had met Frau Schroeder, the third-class passenger matron, as we stowed the baggage in our room. She was the sister of the captain, she told us with some pride, as if this conferred a special status on her. I did not warm to this gimlet-eyed vinegary little woman, with her grey hair tightly screwed into the bun beneath her cap. She had given sharp instructions on the need to keep our cabins tidy and goods stowed under the bottom bunks, and our times to eat in the saloon common areas.

  ‘The men’s area at the other end of this deck is restricted access, just as this end is. But you may walk and take exercise on the open areas and I would strongly urge you to do so often. It is important to keep good health in the coming weeks.’

  Her tone was that of a schoolmistress with a class of potentially disobedient girls, though she looked uneasily at me. A woman of my age travelling alone was less familiar territory for her, and she was not quite sure what to make of me.

  ‘I am sure you are right,’ I agreed.

  But she was not to be disarmed. ‘Hmph,’ she sniffed, and left us to go to the next cabin, where the four women were already bickering noisily over use of the shared space.

  ‘Well,’ said Margarethe, ‘I think we have our orders.’

  I immediately liked this young woman with her frank open face and friendly manner. Her voice was particularly appealing, clear and melodious and I found myself listening to it with pleasure. She was a little older than the other two, closer to thirty I estimated, and I was interested to hear why she was making this voyage.

  She volunteered information with no reserve.

  ‘I have been a teacher for some years in Berlin, but most of my work has been as a governess in families who wished to have their daughters privately educated.’

  Clara was impressed, but Ida had reservations. ‘Did they make you feel like a servant?’ she asked.

  A somewhat crass question, I thought, but then, the girl was very young. It did not bother Margarethe.

  ‘On the contrary, I was always made to feel like one of the family, I have been very well treated. Always,’ she emphasised.

  ‘So why are you now going to the new world?’ asked Clara.

  ‘My last post has just finished, because Graf von Steckhold is taking his family to a new diplomatic posting in the East and his daughter is past the age for a governess. They asked if I would like to continue as her companion and travel with them, but it did not appeal.’

  ‘You see yourself as a teacher, I suspect,’ I offered.

  She nodded. ‘Genau! Exactly. So when they said that they had friends in Australia whose daughters had lost their governess, it seemed a good opportunity to do something different with my life.’

  ‘What happened to the other governess?’ Ida was a curious girl, keen for information.

  ‘She met someone in their city and has married and left them. They asked the von Steckholds to find a new governess for them. They wanted someone from home.’

  ‘Doesn’t it feel risky,’ asked Ida, ‘to be going to a family you don’t know in a strange country?’

  ‘No riskier than travelling to the other side of the world to marry someone you haven’t seen for three years!’

  Perhaps Margarethe’s tone had been sharper than she intended, because the younger woman flushed.

  ‘But we have written so often to each other. We know each other better than we did before.’ She was clearly defensive and Clara, the peacemaker, stepped in quickly.

  ‘Of course this is so. You can get to know someone really well through letters. And Margarethe, I am sure your previous family would not have sent you anywhere that would be less than happy for you. What do you know of them?’

  ‘The father, Herr Bauer, is in import-export trading and is, I think, a wealthy man. They have sent photographs of their house, which looks very fine, and of the two daughters. He wants them to have a German education rather than going to an English school in their city.’

  ‘Which city?’ I had wondered where these three were going.

  ‘Melbourne, capital of the south-eastern colony, Victoria, is large and wealthy. The name they call it, Herr Bauer’s letter said, is Marvellous Melbourne.’

  I felt a sense of relief. At least one of these women was also travelling to Melbourne. I would know one person there.

  A bell sounded, our summons to dinner, so we smoothed skirts and patted our hair into place before making our way to the dining area. By now the ship’s rocking was more pronounced, and I found myself swaying from side to side as we progressed down the corridor.

  We found ourselves spaces at the long benches that edged the trestle tables and waited with interest to see what we would get. With relief I saw the typically German meals, sauerkraut and dumplings with boiled pork that might have come from my own kitchen in Lewin. I was surprised by the homesickness I felt as the food was ladled from buckets onto plates and passed down the tables. Our boat was superior to the old times, with a pantry provided where we could make tea and coffee and water stations where we could get dippers of water to take to our cabins for washing in the washbasins provided. In all, better than I had expected.

  We were now well on our way, and the gentle rocking that had calmed us earlier was no more. We lurched our way back to a time of misery in the cramped space, and I was glad to be in a bottom bunk close to the basin and the bucket as bile rose and I competed for space to retch and vomit. Harder for those in top bunks, who had to swing their legs over the railing and climb down before disaster overtook them.

  ‘Will it be like this all the way?’ moaned Ida.

  ‘No,’ Clara assured her, between bouts of retching. ‘It’s just this part, until we get into the open sea. We’re now into the North Sea and it’s very rough.’

  As if to prove her right, the Elberfeld bucked and rolled, and nausea overtook us all. Only lying perfectly still in my bunk made life bearable, and I found it hard to accept that this would not be my whole voyage, prostrate in misery. I believe that if I had had the chance to listen to my
friends and advisors and change my mind, to go quietly home, I would have seized it. They were right, Hanna, Pastor Liebelt, Frau Schmidt, Herr Holstmayer, all those who had told me I would regret my actions. Oh, they were right!

  But when, almost as if by a miracle, several days later the ship stopped its wretched rolling and bucking, we were able to climb wearily from our bunks and even face breakfast in the dining area. Life improved. Happy just to walk, I pulled on the warm, thick mantle Lydia advised me to take and found my way with Clara to the main deck, where the aft area formed a promenade for the zwischendecke passengers. I wondered how the ship’s movements had affected those in the first-class cabins, but there was no way to know; they kept to themselves for walking and recreation. Did they, like us, come out now into the pale sunshine like troglodytes from their caves, as relieved as we were, or had their voyage been more peaceful?

  After Antwerp and the loading of cargo, our contact with our old way of life was over. We entered a strange existence, almost as if time had stopped and we were caught in another world. For the Elberfeld had its own laws and expectations, and a mini-society for our three-hundred zwischendecke inhabitants. We learned the times we could go for meals and walk the decks, and soon social groups were established.

  With weeks to live together, trapped in this new existence, people found others of like mind. Families tended to form a separate world, with care of children as its focus. Mothers banded in small clusters for sewing and sharing experiences. Music lovers found each other, and music-making groups sprang up. So too did the card players, and the deck game enthusiasts—even an artists’ group, whose members gathered outside in good weather to sketch the ship and endless seas.

  I had been lucky in my companions. Not all cabins were so harmonious and there were all the problems that enforced intimacy could bring. I sometimes wondered if the Sunday worship services that Captain Sass held on deck for those who wanted it gave people time to think about the bickering and tensions of the week. It was good to put on bonnets and Sunday clothes and to make our way into the sunshine to listen to him read from the good book, while one of the first-class passengers gave a short address. Almost like normal living for an hour.