Mama was her usual doubtful self; like a stony island in a swelling sea, she fought back against change, even as it threatened to engulf her. Papa was the one who urged Anna to go, offering to pay Anna’s fare and telling her she’d earn the money back tenfold in America. He’d taken out loans, he admitted sheepishly, when the harvest was poor; if she could earn a good living for a year or two, it would help clear his debts. Even Emil managed to produce a convincing show of enthusiasm when Anna asked if she should come along. Either she didn’t irritate him as much as she thought, or he was simply grateful to be accompanied by another familiar face from home.
Anna knew she looked like a country bumpkin on the way to Göteborg. It was her first time away from home, her first ride on a train. But Sonja’s excitement was infectious. She’d bought a booklet of English phrases and insisted they practice, giggling at Anna’s attempts to form the unfamiliar sounds.
“How do you do?”
“Pleased to meet you.”
During the two-day sea voyage to the port of Hull, on the train across southern England, and at the Southampton docks, Anna stared and marveled: at the noise, the crowds, and the size of the ladies’ hats. But nothing prepared her for the immensity of the Titanic. She stepped closer to Sonja and Emil as they prepared to embark, needing the reassurance of their arms on either side.
“That’s a sight, isn’t it?” Emil asked. The farther they’d gotten from home, the more he’d shed his habitual sullenness; he actually looked happy.
Sonja smiled, but Anna could sense her apprehension. She felt more than a little nervous herself as they were swept into the maelstrom of third class and shunted off to their cabins. Unmarried women were housed in the back of the ship, unmarried men in the front, so Anna and Sonja exchanged hurried goodbyes with Emil and arranged to meet in the dining hall later. Anna wasn’t altogether sure what kind of accommodations their third-class tickets would buy; they’d joked about having to sleep in hammocks or on piles of hay on deck. To her delight, the cabin was bright and clean, the paint so fresh she could smell it. There were two sets of upper and lower berths, for a total of four passengers. Sonja tested out the faucet at the basin and called out joyfully, “Hot water!”
A girl with striking red hair tossed open the door, followed by a shorter, bosomy companion. The redhead said something that sounded like “Hello!” but her accent was so strange that Anna couldn’t be sure it was English. The red-haired girl flung her bag on the bottom-right bed, and asked Anna and Sonja a question. The two Swedish girls stared back, and their new cabinmates giggled, and finally Anna pointed to herself and said, “Anna. From Sweden.”
Like a flock of chattering birds, they were soon exchanging greetings and names. The redhead was Bridget, from Ireland; the other was Mary, her cousin. They had family in New York, and their reason for traveling was so intricate and confusing that Sonja’s phrase book was no help in figuring it out. But it didn’t seem to matter. Being around Bridget and Mary made Anna feel like laughing for no reason. Though she didn’t understand the words Bridget was using, Anna understood the essence of what she was saying: We are young and free, and we will have the most wonderful time.
Not all the third-class passengers mixed so easily. Countrymen tended to stick with countrymen, and Emil shared a cabin with three Norwegian men who kept to themselves. He ate with Sonja and Anna and lingered with them afterward, avoiding the smoking room where most of the other unmarried men spent their evenings.
“I can hardly breathe in there,” he said. “Besides, I don’t like crowds.”
Bridget and Mary were traveling with a group of young men from their hometown—all of whom, confusingly, seemed to be named Brian—but Emil didn’t seem interested in meeting them, or in listening to the music some of the other Irish passengers played one night after supper. Sonja’s eyes looked on longingly as couples paired up to dance. Emil was walking away, expecting the girls to follow, but Sonja hung back, delaying her exit. One of the Brians rushed forward, holding out his hands in invitation, and Sonja looked at Anna. I shouldn’t, should I? her eyes asked, and Anna silently answered, Go on, have fun. She turned her attention back to Emil, who was already out the door. It would be a kindness to Sonja to keep him distracted. He wouldn’t be pleased to see his brother’s intended dancing with someone else.
The air outside was chilly but refreshing after the stuffy, crowded hall. Anna followed Emil along the deck and paused alongside him at the railing. She expected him to ask where Sonja was, but he seemed content to stand there quietly, enjoying a respite from the noise. Anna looked out at the stars and tried to find the constellations Papa had shown her. Maybe he was outside right now, staring at the same night sky.
“Do you want to hear the music?” Emil asked. “We can go back, if you like.”
“It’s nice here,” Anna said.
“You are enjoying the voyage?”
Anna could feel the effort it took for him to make even simple conversation. Since leaving the farm, Emil had tried to smarten himself up, smoothing down his unruly hair and making sure his shirts were neatly tucked. Nonetheless, he was still the same Emil she’d always known: tongue-tied with strangers, and awkward even when talking to Anna, despite their history together. Anna had never been much of a talker herself, but she felt like a chatterbox compared to Emil.
“Oh yes,” Anna said. “The boat’s so much nicer than I expected. I do miss home, though. I was just thinking of Papa.”
“Yes,” Emil said. The silence that followed was so long that Anna was ready to suggest they go hear the music after all. Then, finally, Emil said, “I’m glad you came.”
He didn’t look at her as he said it. If he was glad, why did he look so miserable?
“How do you think it will be for us?” she asked. “In America?”
She’d hoped the question would distract Emil from his mysteriously pensive mood, but it only seemed to make him more uncomfortable. He shifted his belt around his waist, as if that would help him straighten his thoughts. “Good. I hope.”
Bridget would be driven to distraction by a man like Emil, but Anna was more patient. “It will be strange at first,” Anna said. “But we’ll grow accustomed to it, don’t you think? Like the ship. The first day, I couldn’t believe the food at supper. So many choices! Now, it seems normal.”
Emil nodded.
“And Josef will be there.”
Saying his name was an indulgence. Anna tried not to do it too often, because the thrill of picturing Josef only rarely outweighed the sadness that inevitably followed. Emil shuffled his feet, and his hand skimmed the railing until he was almost touching Anna’s. She looked over at his tensed shoulders and pink cheeks and suddenly understood the reason for his twitchy unease. Hadn’t she always felt similarly tongue-tied around Josef?
Poor Emil.
He stammered, “When Josef and Sonja are married . . .”
Another self-conscious silence, as if Emil were hoping Anna would guess the rest.
“Yes?” she prodded. If she didn’t nudge him along, he’d never get around to saying it.
“We could marry, too.”
Though Emil had summoned the courage to declare himself, he still hadn’t looked directly at Anna. Remembering all too well the sting of rejection, she tried to think of the kindest way to turn him down.
“Think how many pretty girls you’ll meet in America!” she said, with a teasing smile.
“I don’t want to marry an American girl,” Emil said. “I want a good Swedish wife.”
“Like your brother.”
Now it felt as if Josef were standing alongside them, an invisible but unmistakable presence.
“I’m in no rush to marry,” Anna said.
“Say you’ll consider it.” Emil leaned toward Anna, and now his eyes were gazing into hers, pleading. She hated herself for inflicting such hurt, but it would be crueler to lead him on. Emil was a child in her eyes, an overgrown boy playing at adult emotions.
/> “I am grateful for your kindness, but . . .”
“It’s not kindness!” Anna had never heard Emil speak so decisively. “I have wanted to marry you for as long as I can remember.” Emil forged on, undeterred by Anna’s shocked silence. “I wasn’t going to say anything until after we were settled. I wanted to prove I could take care of myself first. But I don’t want you to go back to Sweden—I want you to stay.” Dropping his voice, he added, “I’ll do whatever I can to make you happy.”
In a rush of gratitude, Anna grabbed his hand. She wanted to tell him that she admired his honesty and would always care for him. But that might only raise his hopes. The affection she had for Emil would always be a dim shadow of what she felt for his brother.
“Emil, I can’t. Josef . . .”
Please don’t make me say it, Anna silently pleaded. During all those years spent together, Emil must have guessed. He’d been there when Anna trailed Josef around the farm, watching him with lovesick longing. He’d been there when Papa read Josef’s letter declaring his choice of wife. Emil had to have seen the devastation on Anna’s face.
“I know you hoped to marry Josef.” Emil didn’t look upset, only determined. “Don’t you see? If you marry me, we can still be together, all of us. Josef and Sonja and you and I can live near each other, raise our children together. A family.”
At last, Anna understood the full implications of Emil’s offer. He knew she was in love with Josef, and he accepted it, because he understood. Didn’t Emil idolize Josef just as much as Anna? Emil was accustomed to being second best.
Anna gently pulled away. She knew she should refuse him. But she wasn’t ready to say no, either. She couldn’t deny the emotions that Emil’s declaration had stirred up, emotions that were far from sisterly. In the moonlight, Emil looked older, the angles of his face heightened, and she could see the outline of the man he would become. The solemnness that hung so heavy on him as a boy would make him look distinguished as he aged. And she knew, with utter certainty, that he would always be kind.
Could a marriage be built on a mutual love of someone else?
So many questions and no clear answers. Now was not the time to resolve them.
“I’m not sure,” Anna said. It was the simplest form of the truth.
Emil’s relief was clear in the speed of his response. “Wait as long as you want. We won’t speak of it again till you’re ready.”
“We should see what Sonja’s gotten up to.”
Emil was as anxious as Anna to end the conversation, because he was quick to lead the way back to the stairs. They found Sonja standing by Bridget in the dining saloon, her face flushed. Sonja told them she was tired, and if Emil wondered why Sonja’s face was damp with sweat, he didn’t ask. Anna said good night to Emil and followed Sonja down the hall to the women’s quarters. A quick, careless departure that Anna regretted for the rest of her life. Why hadn’t she stayed? She’d wanted to dance, and Emil would have joined her if she had asked. She would have known what it felt like to be held in his arms, and that might have been enough to tell her whether she could one day grow to love him. If only she had that one happy memory, to counter all the others.
There was no dancing the next night; Sundays were intended for more godly pursuits. Still, it was impossible to suppress third class into a suitably holy silence. After supper, a pianist started banging out cheerful hymns, and the stewards turned a blind eye to the card games that were officially forbidden on the Lord’s day. Anna and Emil were polite but distant with each other, and both turned to Sonja as a distraction from their unresolved future. Sonja, hungry to know more about her intended, urged them to talk about Josef’s childhood, so Anna told her about the time Josef chased a runaway piglet halfway through the village, and Emil described how stubborn young Josef could be with their equally stubborn father. Each memory was a thread that wove Anna and Emil together. Before, she never would have said she had been happy as a child. She’d been loved and cared for by her parents and sisters, but her days were a constant progression of duties in which she had no choice or say. Anna saw things differently now, through Sonja’s eyes. Amid all the demands of farm life, there had been moments of contentment, even of joy. Moments she had overlooked until she remembered them with Emil.
The public rooms closed at ten o’clock on Sunday nights, but Anna retired to her cabin an hour earlier to study her English phrase book. As their arrival drew closer, she was becoming more nervous about the challenges ahead: finding their way from the boat dock to the train station, making the right connections, getting directions to the boarding house in Saint Paul where Josef was supposed to meet them. Her last clear memory before the crash was of practicing the question Is this the train to Chicago?
She must have fallen asleep with the book across her chest, because it thumped against the floor when she started awake. Voices were chattering just outside the door. Anna looked across the cabin at Mary, who was pulling herself upright.
“What is it?” Mary asked.
Words simple enough for Anna to understand. She shrugged. Bridget and Sonja leaned down from the top berths, asking similar questions in English and Swedish. Bridget, not surprisingly, was the first to climb out of bed and go outside to investigate. When she came back, jumpy with exhilaration, Anna couldn’t understand what she was saying; the word “iceberg” wasn’t in the phrasebook. She heard the Swedish-speaking steward marching down the corridor, shouting, “Stay in your cabins! Back to your cabins!”
Bridget and Mary were pulling on their shoes, and Anna wondered if the English steward was giving out different orders. When the Irish girls held the door open for Anna and Sonja to follow them, Sonja shook her head.
“We should do as we’re told,” she told Anna.
And so they waited. Anna was never sure how long they sat there, listening to the commotion outside, wondering if the steward would ever come back and tell them what to do. It felt like hours. Then they heard footsteps clanging along the corridor, and Emil lurched through the doorway. His shirt hung loose from his trousers, and his hair was as wild as Anna had ever seen it.
“What are you doing here?” Sonja demanded. It was a serious infraction for a young man to be found in the women’s quarters.
“There’s water,” Emil gasped between breaths. “Up front.”
Anna followed his eyes as he tilted his head down. The fabric at the bottom of his trousers was wet.
“It’s splashing around some of the cabins. I looked for you everywhere.”
“The steward said . . .”
“You’ve got to get out!” Emil urged. “Now!”
Anna nodded and pulled on her shawl and boots, not bothering to tie the laces. Sonja grabbed her bag, ignoring Emil’s protests. The women of the village had all given her wedding gifts—embroidered napkins and nightgowns, a beautiful linen tablecloth—and she refused to leave them behind. Anna and Sonja followed Emil toward the stairs. They passed a group of women in dark headscarves, forming a circle around a huddle of young children. One of the women asked Anna a question in a harsh-sounding language, and Anna could only shake her head. Everyone was looking for answers, it seemed, but no one had any to give.
Anna felt the icy air waft toward her as they approached the door that led outside. Emil took hold of her arm and pulled her along. As they stepped onto the deck, he asked, “Now do you see?”
Chunks of ice were scattered across the open expanse of wood and piled in haphazard towers along the railing. Anna wondered where it had all come from, and how it had ended up on the ship. A nearby thud made her jump, but a quick-to-follow laugh told her Bridget was nearby. Anna looked toward the sound and saw her cabinmate across the way, part of a loud, lively group tossing chunks at each other. Beyond them, on the first-class deck higher up, Anna could see figures looking down on the scene. Turning up their noses at such antics, most likely.
“I’m freezing,” Sonja said, with an exaggerated shiver. “Let’s go inside.”
&n
bsp; Emil escorted them to the dining hall, which had become the main gathering place for confused third-class passengers. A cacophony of voices, speaking a dozen different languages, asked the same questions and shared the same uncertain news. Was it true they hit a whale? Where were they supposed to go? The ship was about to sink; the ship had been only slightly damaged and would soon be repaired. Anna heard the name Marconi several times, and when she asked Emil what it meant, he told her the Titanic’s wireless operators were sending messages to other nearby ships.
Reassured, Anna squeezed Sonja’s hand. Help was on the way.
A group of stewards walked in, their arms piled with bulky white objects. As the men were set upon by anxious passengers, they called out orders in English, their words immediately translated and murmured throughout the room: Life belts. Lifeboats. Captain’s orders. Emil helped Sonja and Anna fasten the straps on their vests before pulling on his own.
“Let’s go,” he said, urging the girls toward the door, where people were already pushing against each other in their frenzy to get through.
A harried-looking steward was guiding people toward a staircase that was usually closed off by a metal gate.
“Women and children,” he repeated. “Women and children.” For those who didn’t speak English, the message was made clear by a sailor who grabbed hold of a man who tried to pass. The sailor shoved the man away, causing a rippling effect of stumbles and shouts.
Sonja stepped away from the crush. “We should stay together,” she said.
“Go!” Emil ordered her. “I’ll find you later.”
All around them, similar arguments erupted: fathers and mothers and sons and daughters, urging each other to go or stay. Anna had accepted Emil as her protector without question; in her world, women did as their men ordered. But leaving him there, amid the confusion, felt soul-crushingly wrong. He was family.
They bickered as the water poured relentlessly through the gash below the waterline, not knowing how little time they had left. Finally, Emil let out a frustrated sigh and said, “I have an idea.”
On a Cold Dark Sea Page 9
