Touched by Fire

by Irene N. Watts

  A large figure looms in the doorway. A woman enters. I recognize her immediately. Her presence and demanding voice seem to take up whatever small space there is.

  “Good, you’ve got room in here. I need a bottom bunk. Do you mind taking the middle one opposite, so I can have yours?” the woman asks Anna. What nerve!

  Eva answers quickly, “I’m afraid that is not possible. My sister is going to have a baby. This is the easiest bunk for her to climb in and out of. Please take your case off her bed.”

  The woman turns to Essie’s mother. “What about you then, missus?” Fanny hesitates. Will she refuse? I hope she does.

  Fanny searches for the right words. “Well, I would, but I’ve just settled the child,” she says. “I’m sure there is room farther on. I’m sorry.” Without another word, the woman leaves. I’m just telling the others how she treated me on the stairs and what a lucky escape we’ve had, when the last berth is taken. A woman, who reminds me of a school teacher I had when I was a little girl in Kiev, has come in. She terrified me, rapping my knuckles for the smallest fault.

  She is tall, thin, and stern looking. She says her name is Pearl Kurtz, and she is from Minsk, in Russia, where she kept house for her brother, with whom she is traveling. Does she ever smile?

  “Where is the porthole?” she asks.

  Porthole – is there is a hole in the ship? I don’t know what she’s talking about.

  She stares at our blank faces. “The window. I must have fresh air,” she says.

  “The windows are in second class, ma’am, this is steerage. Are you sure your ticket is for steerage?” Riva says, barely able to keep from laughing.

  Pearl takes no notice of her, picks up her pillow, sniffs, turns, and examines the mattress. Grudgingly, she says, “Better than nothing, I suppose. My idiot of a brother is going to work on a chicken farm in the Catskills. I’m forced to accompany him; there is no one else. I had better get used to hardship. This is a fool’s journey, I’m sure.” She starts to unpack, merely nodding her head in acknowledgment when we introduce ourselves. “I hope no one snores, I’m a poor sleeper,” Pearl announces. No one says anything.

  Rosie whispers, “Come outside. Let’s look for the washroom before the crowds gather.”

  Mama had reminded me that no towel would be provided. Mine is at the top of my bundle. We find the washroom along the corridor. There are only six toilets between hundreds of women, and each one is in the narrowest of cubicles. Rosie and I are so disgusted, we can barely look at each other.

  “An open trough and that high iron step – I’ve never used anything like this. Where I worked in Hamburg, there was a flush toilet. I didn’t expect anything grand, but this is awful,” Rosie says.

  We wash under one of the cold-water faucets, one for each of the ten basins – five on each side of the wall. Several women are there already. One wipes her little girl’s face, and the child puts out her tongue to lick the water.

  “Mama, it tastes of salt!” Her mother explains to her that the water comes straight from the sea. Bubbe would say salt is healthy!

  We wash as best we can, hurrying to make way for the line of women waiting for us to finish. There are no cloths to clean the basins. How are so many of us going to wash and do our laundry? Ten basins are not very many. Next time, I’m going to bring a rag to wipe the basin before I use it, even if I have to tear it from my petticoat!

  “Can you imagine what this place is going to look and smell like after a few days at sea?” Rosie says.

  “I’d rather not, Rosie. In his first letter to us, Papa hinted about steerage conditions on board. I didn’t expect much, but this is pretty horrible. I am glad Mama and Devora are not here. Papa and I will have to save up more, so that they can travel second-class. Oh, my goodness, just listen to me! If my grandmother were here, she’d say, ‘Who do you think you are, a rich American lady, already?’ ”

  “Come on, let’s get out of here and explore a bit. Mamma mia, Miriam, the ship is moving.” Rosie grabs my arm. “The floor is sliding away from us.” Engines clatter and jangle, and the ship sways, tilting from one side to the other. We are on our way to the other side of the world!

  A bell rings, and I almost collide with the steward, who calls out that supper is being served in the dining room.

  “Go all the way along the alleyway, straight ahead,” he says.

  I am surprised. I don’t really know what I was expecting – that we’d line up along the corridor, I mean alleyway, and pass bowls of food along from hand to hand?

  When we get to the dining room, we see long wooden tables and benches set up in rows. A knife, fork, and spoon and a bowl and mug are laid for each person. On the tables are baskets of fresh white bread, dishes of jam, and jugs of cocoa. The stewards bring big tin pots filled with potato and vegetable stew. It is a welcome meal, the first for many hours. We help ourselves and eat as fast as possible, taking our empty plates to a side table, so that clean utensils can be set for the women waiting their turn. There are too many of us to be fed at one sitting. Women with children are served first, but Fanny noticed us and took Essie on her knee, so that we could squeeze in beside her.

  We take a long time settling down after supper. The cabin is small, and it is hard for all of us to sort our belongings and get into our bunks. My arm throbs, and there is a red bump where the doctor injected the needle. The engines grind, and the noise is so close to my ear that, even on the top bunk, I feel as if I am resting right on top of the machinery. Next door, a baby wails. I am too excited to go to sleep. The lightbulb dims.

  Rosie and I whisper about our plans for tomorrow. We are going to go up on deck as soon as breakfast is over.

  Pearl’s voice interrupts us, “Are you planning to talk all night? I need my sleep.”

  I don’t know why, but she makes me want to laugh. I try to stifle my giggles in my pillow.

  “Don’t, you’ll suffocate in the seaweed,” Rosie whispers, and that starts me off again.

  Pearl sits up. She sounds exactly like my old teacher. “I warn you, girls, I’ll call the steward if you don’t stop talking!”

  “Shame on you, Pearl,” Tanya says, “inviting men into the women’s quarters.”

  Now everyone is laughing, except for her. But, ten minutes later, when she begins to snore, Riva shakes her by the shoulder and tells her to be quiet. Magically, Pearl is silent from then on!

  12

  “WRETCHED REFUSE”

  This morning, there is no laughter. Anna, Essie, and I are the only ones who manage to get up. The others moan in agonies of seasickness. I help Essie to fasten the buttons on her dress. Then the three of us make our way down the alleyway, hearing pitiful wails from the cabins. We join a line of pale-faced women, waiting to use the washroom.

  Walking to the dining room, I feel the ship toss and sway. I am amazed that, even though I feel a bit off balance, I am perfectly well and very hungry again!

  “How long will the ship bounce and rock?” Anna asks the steward.

  He laughs. “This is nothing. We are on the Atlantic Ocean, and conditions are good. You have to expect the open sea to be a bit choppy at this time of year. There is bound to be much worse weather before we arrive.”

  The dining room is almost empty. We help ourselves to porridge, bread and butter, apples, and tea. I put two apples in my pocket, one each for Rosie and Fanny. Anna eats heartily, and so do I. She pats her stomach.

  “At home, I felt sick every morning, but now I’m fine,” she says. “I think the baby likes the rocking of the ship.”

  Before we return to the cabin, I ask one of the dining room stewards if I may please take some tea up to my friend and to the little girl’s mother. Anna begs for some too, for her sister. He sighs impatiently and is about to refuse us, but Essie puts her hands together and smiles up at him.

  “Please?” she whispers.

  “We can’t be bringing tea to the passengers, not in steerage,” the steward says gruffly.
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  “Please, sir, just this once – won’t you make an exception?” I ask.

  The steward softens. He goes off into the galley and comes back with a jug of tea and some mugs. “Don’t make a habit of asking for favors,” he says, turning away before we can thank him.

  Anna persuades her sister and Fanny to swallow a bit of the tea, and I do my best with Rosie.

  “Leave me alone – I want to die! Why did I ever leave Hamburg?” Rosie cries.

  I encourage her to swallow a few sips, and she actually manages to keep the tea down. Then I help her from her bunk and out of our cramped quarters. We kept our clothes on last night because we were so cold. Rosie hangs on to my arm for balance. She is trembling, and her face is ghostly white. I repeat what the steward said, that this is normal weather.

  “I expect you feel sick, Rosie, because it’s your first time on a liner. The train we were on was worse than this, the way it stopped, started, and jolted. We just have to move with the boat. Breathe deeply once we’re on deck, and don’t look at the water. Look at the horizon.” I sound like Bubbe. I can’t think where I got this advice from. Rosie nods bravely, determined to try.

  “Let me wrap your shawl round you. Now, just a few steps up the stairs, and we will be on deck. You will feel heaps better soon.” The steps are slick with seawater, but we succeed in climbing up and onto the open deck.

  It is magnificent out here, with nothing to look at but waves, churning and foaming, as the ship parts the ocean. The sky above us seems to go on forever. It changes constantly, clouds making pictures over our heads.

  There are only a few men and women outside – relatives seeking each other out, I imagine. It is very cold, but a different cold from the cabin. Here, the wind blows fresh and clean, gusts whip our skirts, and we have difficulty holding them down.

  I find a sheltered spot under an overhanging lifeboat. There are no seats anywhere, and we huddle together on the wooden boards of the deck. This is the lowest deck, the only one steerage passengers may use. I take an apple out of my pocket, grateful for the knife Bubbe packed for me. I slice the apple thinly and feed Rosie as if she were Devora. She is able to keep a few slices down.

  To take her mind off her nausea, I pull out my dictionary and read the lines of the poem that Kolya copied down for me. It is called “The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus, New York, 1883. Next to the original poem, he has translated each English word into German, to make it easier for me to understand.

  “Who is this Kolya?” Rosie asks. “Why have you not mentioned him before?”

  I tell her, “Kolya escaped from the police, when he was studying at the University of Vilna. In Berlin, he is an apprentice in a publishing house. Kolya knows all kinds of things about books and manuscripts. He speaks several languages.

  “He has been teaching English to my family for two years and boards with us since Papa left.” I realize how much I am going to miss him in America.

  We read and discuss the poem, which is about the Statue of Liberty. The poet calls her the “Mother of Exiles” because she welcomes rich and poor alike to America. The poem, Kolya writes, is engraved on a plaque inside the pedestal on which the statue stands. Together, Rosie and I try reading some of the English words aloud:

  “Give me your tired, your poor,

  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

  “That’s what I am, how you say? ‘Tempest-tossed,’ ” Rosie says.

  “We are not homeless, are we, Rosie? Let’s exchange addresses, so that we will never lose each other.”

  Rosie’s brother lives on Cherry Street, where she says many Italian families have settled. I hope Clinton Street is not far away from her, so we can visit each other.

  We are alone on deck now. It is too cold and windy to stay here any longer.

  As we walk along the alleyway, back to our cabin, Rosie nudges me. “That sailor is loitering outside the washrooms again,” she whispers. “I noticed him last night, trying to catch sight of a pair of ankles. He’s got no business down here – these are women’s quarters. He’s not the one who rings the bell for meals. Up to no good, I bet. Be careful – don’t give him even a glance.”

  “Oh, Rosie, you are as bad as Mama. She thinks every man is a kidnapper,” I say.

  “I’m serious, Miriam,” Rosie says, “no one would hear if … well if anything happened, so let’s stick together. I know you like to wander the ship, but try to wait till I’m with you.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I say, laughing at her.

  The days and nights pass slowly, but at the end of our first week on board, a violent storm shakes us awake. The ship plunges and rears, and little Essie rolls out of the bunk she shares with her mother. We are terrified. The vessel creaks and groans; the machinery beneath us grinds, clatters, and rasps. The moans and cries from cabins on either side of us, and from our own, seem to signal the end of the world.

  I stumble, heaving, shaking, to the washroom, joining scores of girls and women. The thought of going back to our fetid cabin is dreadful. Instead, I drag myself in almost total darkness to the stairs, craving just one breath of air. The floor around the bottom of the steps leading to the deck is ankle-deep in water. My skirt hem is soaked. I climb the stairs, grateful for a gulp of air at the top. The wind almost blows me over. A sailor shouts at me to go down again, before I’m washed overboard. I do as I’m told, unsure if I’m awake or having a nightmare. All along the alleyway, wretched women and children are crying hopelessly and vomiting.

  No one comes down to help us clean up, to bring a little tea or water, a word of comfort. “Wretched refuse,” Emma Lazarus calls us, and that is how we are treated. Somehow I crawl back up to my bunk.

  The hours pass. I can’t tell day from night. I close my eyes and dream that Mama is here. She places a cool cloth on my forehead. Washes me with sweet-smelling soap, changes my gown. Mama lifts a glass of water to my cracked lips. I thank her and hold out my arms, but she is not there. I want my mother. I want to go home.

  I grip the side of my bunk, afraid to roll off. The overhead bulb dims and brightens or goes out, swaying with the movement of the ship. It is as if a giant is toying with us. Will he get tired of us? Will we drown before we reach the Golden Land?

  The storm lasts all the next day and night. Listening to the foghorn’s eerie warning, I think that nothing can ever happen to me worse than this. I could hide from the pogrom, but I can’t hide from the storm.

  On the second night, there is a scream so piercing and tragic that Rosie and I manage to raise our heads. Later, I wish that I had slithered down from my bunk to help, but that was after we found out what had caused that agonizing cry.

  We wake up to calm seas. For the first time in days, passengers crowd the dining room for breakfast. When we go up on deck, everything smells fresh and clean, unlike below.

  A small group of men and women stand protectively around a grief-stricken mother. Her baby son died in the night. He has already been buried at sea. We hear that a rabbi spoke a kaddish for the baby. His father was not there to say the prayer for the dead. The mother’s friends do their best to console her. Two little girls cling to her skirts. How I pity the mother, losing her baby and having to break such news to her husband when she arrives in America. It must have been her scream we heard in the night.…

  Whenever the weather permits, the deck is busy: groups of men play cards, others play the harmonica. Girls sing, a few even dance. Women make friends and gossip with each other. Families walk round the deck, and children shout and play freely. I can’t help thinking Yuri should be playing chase round the deck, clambering on the railings with the other boys, enjoying the freedom and fresh sea air.

  In a short while, we will arrive. Rosie and I teach each other words in English and Italian. Today, for the first tim
e, even Pearl is talking with a group of older women. This is unusual for her. She likes to keep to herself or lies in wait for her brother, no doubt to make him miserable with her nagging.

  Tonight, after our meager supper, which gets worse each day, I share the last of Bubbe’s honey cake with our cabin mates. Even her black bread, when dipped in salt water to soften, is not that bad. We have hardly seen more than a cupful of fresh water for days, and the milk is only for the youngest children.

  We get ready for bed, talking over the day’s events. Pearl is the last one to return to the cabin, bursting to share some gossip she’s picked up on deck. Full of her own importance, she asks us if we’ve heard what happened to the Polish girl in the cabin three doors down from us. We don’t give her any encouragement, guessing it’s something unpleasant.

  “Let this be a lesson to girls who are too friendly with the crew,” she says. “No one knows if the girl arranged to meet the sailor or if he just happened to be there and she encouraged him with her fancy ways.… She was almost raped, I hear. Her blouse was torn and …” She pauses dramatically. Essie is listening with the rest of us, her eyes wide. Fanny puts her hands over the child’s ears.

  “If her mother had not come looking for her, wondering why she was so long returning to her cabin, and dragged her away, who knows what might have occurred. Of course, it’s not for me to say, but I hear she encouraged him. That girl is always showing herself off, flouncing around, making eyes at the men on deck, smiling at the stewards and crew. No wonder one of them thought his attentions would be welcome.”

  “You are just spreading rumors,” I say. “You weren’t there, were you? She probably just said good night, politely. Why are you trying to give the girl a bad name?”

  “It seems to me, you and your friend here,” Pearl says, pointing at Rosie, “are no better. It’s a disgrace letting young girls travel alone on a ship, speaking to strange men, asking them for favors. You think I haven’t noticed?”

  Tanya and Riva go into action. They get up from their bunks, daring Pearl to say another word.