Leaving Ireland

by Ann Moore

  Grace felt a timid hand upon her arm.

  “Is that Missus Donnelly?”

  She turned and looked into the pale drawn face of a woman she barely recognized.

  “Alice?” she asked. “Is it Alice, then? From the hotel?”

  “Aye.” Alice smiled and Grace saw she’d lost most of her teeth. “’Twas your honeymoon, if I remember right. Did you not wear a velvet gown of midnight blue one evening, your hair all arranged with flowers?”

  Grace nodded, her hand moving self-consciously to the strands escaping her bun. “Aye. ’Twas a lifetime ago, that.” She nodded. “Dublin’s changed since then.”

  “The whole world’s changed,” Alice said grimly. “Nothing’s the same anymore.”

  “Have you lost your home, then? Is that why you’ve come away?”

  “Aye, and my work. But thank God, no family.” Alice crossed herself fervently. “My husband’s gone out to America a year ago now, so it’s just me and the two children.” She smiled at the little girl by her side. “This is Siobahn, and over there’s our Liam.”

  Standing apart from them was an equally thin, but determined-looking boy of nine or ten, hands jammed into his jacket pockets, collar up like the older toughs.

  “They’ll be happy to see their da.”

  “I only hope he’ll be happy to see them.” Alice frowned.

  “Sure and he will. Here he’s bringing you all over!”

  Alice pulled Siobahn closer to her side. “To tell you true, we’ve not had a word from him in all this time. But he’s alive,” she insisted. “Tally McGarrity had a letter from her man who said our one was in a boardinghouse on Cross Street. Spoke to him, and all.”

  “Does he know you’re coming?” Grace asked gently.

  “Oh, aye.” Alice’s eyes were bright with hope. “I had a letter written, saying we were come away—there was nothing to be done for it, no way to make a living no more, and no food for the children.”

  “Then he’ll be waiting for you,” Grace reassured her, though her heart was heavy as she looked again at the wary face of the boy; she looked into the trusting face of her own child by her side. “This is my Mary Kate. She’s a shy one, but happy for the company.”

  “Ah, but sure you’re traveling first-class, missus?” Alice glanced over her shoulder at the cabins. “We’ll not be seeing too much of you.”

  “As luck would have it, Alice, I’ve escaped first class and am traveling in the hold with all the other decent folk!” Grace laughed.

  “That never can be—your squire’s an Englishman!”

  “Was an Englishman,” Grace corrected. “He has died, and I have been turned out. No love lost for an Irish widow,” she added wryly. “So, I’m going to my brother.”

  “Ah, missus, you’ve suffered hardship, then.”

  “We’re none of us strangers to that, are we, Alice?”

  “No, ma’am,” Alice said gravely. “Not in these times.”

  Boardham eyed the two women still on deck with irritation. They should’ve gone down with the others long ago, but no—typical Irish, they did whatever they wanted. He started toward them, then stopped, caught off guard by how much the older one resembled his mother, his stomach churning suddenly at the thought of that bitch who’d ripped him away from the father he’d loved. Bile rose in his throat, sour acidity flooded his mouth, and he spat viciously; she’d been nothing but a whore, his mother, an Irish whore who didn’t know how good she’d had it. He remembered bitterly the day they sailed out of Liverpool, sailed without a word to anyone, leaving his father to come home from work and find nothing but a cold hearth and an empty home. His father—an Englishman, a gentleman with manners and an education. She’d run because he’d beaten her, but he beat her because she drank and whored; Boardham knew that, knew it and believed it true. He’d been only a boy and she’d lied to him, taking him back to Ireland, where everyone hated him because he was English and he hated everyone because they were not. It was two long years before he realized his father was not coming for him, had no idea where the boy even was, and so he’d run away, leaving the bitch drunk and on her back, only to find the old man had died. Died alone without the comfort of his son. Boardham never forgave her for that, and never would. He hoped she was dead, prayed for it, and the world well rid of her. As far as anyone else was concerned, he was an Englishman and nothing to do with all that trash in the hold.

  Seven

  LILY Free hurried down Cross Street, head lowered but eyes glancing left and right as she passed Murderer’s Alley and then the Old Brewery itself. Chased by a pack of ragged boys, a large sow squealed past her, squirted its muck on the walk, then darted into the street and startled the horses, who reared and stomped, causing their, drivers to curse the boys, who just laughed and yelled out their own curses. Lily kept moving, thanking God yet again for getting her out of that infamous tenement building and into rooms smaller, but windowed, over on Little Water Street. Despite its reputation for prostitutes and the bullies who kept them, Lily felt safer in Cow Bay, where blacks, whites, and mulattos mixed freely and didn’t ask too many questions. The few desperate times Lily had been forced to prostitute herself had been at the Old Brewery, just around the corner in the alley. She walked faster, pushing that memory off; runaway slaves have few options.

  The only good to come out of that time was Jakob Hesselbaum, a German Jew as different from other immigrants as herself—“We’re the only ones who don’t long for home,” he’d said. He’d actually talked to her after their quick coupling in the alley and, learning of her children, brought her small gifts of food for them, and finally the offer of a real job—selling fish from his stand on the docks, now that he’d done well enough to buy a horse and cart. She’d said yes, because there was no other choice, and because sex with one man was safer than sex with many. And so she had worked for him and he paid her a small wage—enough to move to a room with a window, with light and air and privacy—and she slept with him now and then and her children never knew, although God knew and she prayed He would forgive her.

  One rainy day, Jakob asked her to be his wife, but she had said no—no, because she had a husband, a good man who was still a slave in Georgia. And because she had two older children, also slaves, and would never rest until she had enough money to buy them out. She shook her head, remembering Jakob’s shocked face when she told him this, and then his own story of persecution, of a wife and children gone now, and what he’d give to have them back. She thought of this as she crossed Mott Street and ran down Pell to the Bowery, where she barely caught the omnibus to the dock. She smelled—she knew she did—of sweat and soot and grease and fish slime, but she didn’t care; everyone stank in the city, especially in the hot months. Let them move away from her on the bus, she didn’t care. Only that she was late, and Jakob would worry.

  After she told him about her husband, he no longer took her to bed, and yet he treated her as gently as if they were lovers, something she couldn’t begin to understand but for which she was grateful. It was he who insisted she take Captain Reinders up on his offer, he who advanced her his hard-earned dollars so that she might be reunited with her family. She frowned—she owed him so much, and it was almost more than she could bear now that the end was in sight. When the captain returned from Liverpool, he would sail down the coast and find a slave broker.…

  The bell clanged and Lily got off, pulling her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. She would never get used to the freezing cold of the North or the dark, bleak winter landscape, the ceaseless clamor of the city or the brutal exhaustion of scratching out a living; she would never get used to it, nor would she ever complain because now she was something she thought she’d never be, something she had only dreamed of for her children. The slave who had been Lillian was now Lily Free.

  “There you are at last.” Jakob’s accent was always thicker when he was worried, all heavy Z’s and V’s. “I been watching for an hour and still you do not come. I thi
nk maybe something happen, maybe you have some trouble.” He wiped his hands on his apron and looked her up and down. “Everything is all right, then?”

  She nodded. “We had police. Somebody find a body in the alley behind Stookey’s Saloon.”

  “That Stookey is a jackass, always waving that stupid knife, he is.” He handed her a large, clean apron.

  “I can do my own wash, Jakob,” she said, taking it guiltily.

  “I know.” He turned her around and tied the back. “But then all the clothes, they smell like fish … and all mein clothes”—he shrugged his shoulders—“they already smell like fish!” He let his hands rest on her hips for a moment. “Anyway, I want to, and you should let me. Besides, you have made me late. You and Stookey.”

  She laughed.

  “The police, they bother you?”

  “No,” she said, turning back. “But I didn’t like leaving Samuel and Ruth by theyselves in case somebody come round, asking questions.”

  “That’s right,” Jakob agreed. “We don’t want trouble, not with Captain Reinders here soon.”

  Lily looked out at the wharves and the ships coming in. “Has something gone wrong, Jakob, do you think?”

  “Ach, no. He’s fine. It’s the wintertime. Storms happen, ships get delayed. All the time, they get delayed. He’ll be here. I promise you.”

  “You can’t promise that,” Lily reminded him.

  “Sure I can!” He grinned at her and waggled his fingers. “And now I am going, or that damned Moushevsky will take all my customers. So good-bye, and sell all that fish before I come back, Missus Free!”

  He put the last of the buckets in the back of his cart, climbed up, and started off, tipping his hat to her before turning the corner that led out to the avenue. What a good man, she thought again.

  “Are you buying, Lily?” A couple little boys stood before the stand, a sloshing bucket of mussels between the two of them.

  “I might be,” she said. “How fresh?”

  “Just this morning, Lily! Honest!” The oldest one plunged his hand into the freezing water, then offered her a fistful.

  She took one, looked it over, gave it a sniff, then nodded. “All right then, you two. Same bargain as before?”

  They nodded simultaneously, and brought their bucket round the back, pouring out its contents into one of her tubs. She gave them some pennies and tried not to smile when their eyes went wide—it was two more than usual, but Hesselbaum had told her to do it; his mother had been a Polish Jew like these boys and he knew what kind of life they’d left behind.

  “Ah, good morning to you, Lily!” Tara Ogue smiled as the little boys ran off. “If those are fresh mussels you’ve got there, I’ll take them right off your hands, I will!”

  Lily spread out a thickness of newspaper and wrapped up the order. “Fresh this morning, the boy says.” She liked this Missus Ogue, but was wary of the Irish in general—they were the drinkers and brawlers in her neighborhood and had no love for the blacks, with whom they fought for the lowest rung on the economic ladder. She never went into their saloons and didn’t ever talk to them if she didn’t have to, but Missus Ogue was nice enough and a good customer, buying as she did for the place they had on Chatham Street.

  “Sure and I’ll make a nice stew with this. Something to fill up those old sods at the bar, eh, Lily?” Tara winked. “How are the children? Boy and a girl, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lily said, always caught off guard by the woman’s ability to extract information.

  “Mind you forget the ‘ma’am’-ing me.” Tara stuffed the parcel into her basket. “I was once a widow myself, you know.”

  Lily nodded, feeling guilty about the lie but not enough to correct it; as far as anyone was concerned—especially the bondsmen—she and her children were legally free, and she had the forged papers to prove it.

  “’Twasn’t so long ago I was making my own way in the city, same as you. I know the hardship of it. I didn’t have the worry of children, mind you, nor did I their comfort.” She stepped closer and leaned over the buckets. “God will look out for you,” she assured Lily. “Didn’t He bring me my own dear Dugan Ogue, just when I thought there’d be nothing for it but grief and loneliness? He did,” she said firmly. “And He’ll do the same for you.”

  Tara’s words, rare kindness in a city of strangers, took Lily by surprise. “Thank you,” she said truthfully.

  “Tara.” Missus Ogue smiled and stepped back, adjusting the basket on her arm. “And now I must be going, as our lodger—a fine boy, our Sean—he’s expecting his sister any day now and I promised to check the boards. Bound in from Ireland, she is, and I hope soon or he’ll die for the worry of it!”

  Lily knew the feeling. “Good luck,” she offered. “And”—she hesitated—“see you next time, Tara.”

  She watched Missus Ogue walk down toward the landing offices, and thought that it was good to know that life sometimes worked out, that this woman had suffered loss and felt despair, and yet she had survived it. Not only survived, but was living happily. It gave Lily hope, and she looked past Tara—now a figure among many on the wharf—down past the docks and out to the sea, where even now a ship was coming in.

  Eight

  “TARA says they weren’t listed.”

  Sean’s face fell. Ogue poured him a whiskey straight up, then slid it across the massive oak bar and into the young man’s waiting hand.

  “Ah, now, don’t give up hope, boy,” he urged. “She’ll be turning up any day now, sure as the sun rises. ’Tis a hard crossing, you know, and nigh unpredictable with winter as it is.”

  Sean looked even worse.

  “Ah, don’t listen to me.” Ogue shook his head, disgusted with himself. Then his face brightened. “Wait, now! There’s a packet come for you, might be good news. Watch the counter for me, boyo, and I’ll get it from the wife.”

  Sean barely heard him. The packet would be from O’Sullivan—notes for an article on English transportation of grain out of a starving Ireland, as well as a copy of Duyckinck’s last speech; none of it seemingly important in light of Grace’s predicament.

  She simply had not arrived in time to sail, Captain Applegate reported when the Lydia docked in Manhattan. Sean had stood on the dock for hours, questioning passengers—sea-weary, gaunt, and hollow-eyed, already defeated by the swirl of activity that now surrounded them. Glad as they were to shake the hand of a landed Irishman, no one knew Grace Donnelly or her little daughter.

  He went each day to the harbor to read through the passenger lists; ships docked by the hour, and his eyes burned with the strain of squinting at every female form that came down those ramps, afraid to blink for fear of missing her in the crowd of stunned immigrants. Only with great reluctance did he end his search in the dark of late afternoon, haunted by the thought that she was ill, possibly delirious, and had not been allowed to land but was lying in the marine hospital out on Staten Island. Landed immigrants could travel back out by ferry to be with detained family members, but the practice was not encouraged; typhus and cholera were real threats. He was now so desperate, however, that he resolved to make the trip at week’s end if she had not arrived.

  He also feared she would disembark moments after his departure, easy prey to the throngs of runners with their green neckties and thick accents, the shoulder men waiting to take advantage of confused and disoriented passengers. To him, the worst of these were the Irish who had come before and now waited in green hats and waistcoats, brogue spread thick no matter how many years they’d been in America, inviting their former countrymen to buy tickets for trains and boats that didn’t exist, or taking a small fee to lead them to “friendly Irish boardinghouses” along Greenwich Street—houses that were little more than dilapidated, filthy, three-story tenement buildings just off the waterfront, often with a grog shop on the ground floor, where the newly arrived family was invited to partake after their long journey. They’d be shown a room that already housed two
other families, urged to settle in and reassured that payment could come later, after work had been found. Relieved, the immigrant family would lay down their bundles and sleep on the floor, prayers of thanksgiving falling from their lips even after sleep had shut their eyes.

  The truth would come out later—after one or more had found work through the Labor Exchange—that a tab had been running from the first sip of grog, through every meal of broth and hard bread, to the room they shared with as many as twenty others. By the time the rent was paid and food bought, there was nothing left for next week’s rent and into debt they went once more, unable to square up and get out. Only then would they realize they’d merely traded one cheating landlord in Ireland for another in America. If Grace disappeared into the maze of tenements, it would be nearly impossible to find her. A man could walk the city streets for weeks without seeing the same face twice. He could only hope she would check the notice board in front of the Labor Exchange—he left his name and address there every day, repasting it over the others that had erased yesterday’s desperate notes.

  Scanning the passenger lists was an exercise in turmoil—as much as he longed to find her name, he did not want to find it crossed out. And there were so many of those. He could not bear to think that she and Mary Kate had not survived the voyage—even worse, that Mary Kate had been left to fend for herself with Grace dead. It would be terrible for the child; he’d seen the bodies of mother’s sewn into sailcloth and dropped overboard or, if no cloth remained or the crew was too busy, dropped without even this last shred of dignity, watched as the body bobbed in the wake, food for sharks and whatever else lurked in the deep sea.

  It was the horror of his own crossing that fed these nightmares, the reason he’d insisted she sail on an American ship with an American captain. The Americans were rough, but their reputation for cruelty was nothing compared to the English—the crews out of Liverpool were, by all accounts, the worst.