The Fire Blossom (The Fire Blossom Saga)

by Sarah Lark

  “Every girl gets married,” she said in a soft voice, “as God wills. And her devotion to her husband . . . that comes with time. Ottfried is appropriate for me. He is a craftsman, he is devout . . . My father says we fit together. Everything else will follow.” Ida searched Karl’s eyes, as if for his approval.

  “But what about your heart, Ida?” he insisted. “You must feel something for your future husband! Did anyone even ask you if you wanted to marry him? Did he ask you?”

  Karl couldn’t hold back the questions that had been torturing him ever since her betrothal had been announced. At the same time, he was terrified Ida would intuit his feelings for her, and it would be hopelessly embarrassing.

  “Ottfried is a good man,” Ida repeated. “He gave me a gift last Christmas, and we’ve often held hands after church. He fits with me. He—he comes from a good Lutheran household.”

  Karl knew he should give up. Either Ida didn’t understand what he was trying to say, or she didn’t want to deal with it. In any case, she didn’t seem to question her father’s decision that she should marry Ottfried Brandmann. Ottfried, too, seemed to be ready to accept the fate that Jakob Lange and Peter Brandmann had chosen for their children. After all, the fathers’ deal enabled him to marry the most beautiful girl in the village.

  “So you’re going to emigrate with Ottfried?” Karl said unhappily. “To New Zealand? That’s farther away than America.”

  Ida attempted to nod and shrug simultaneously. “It’s much farther away than America,” she confirmed. “I think it takes around three or four months by ship. But I don’t know yet if the Brandmanns are going. The men want to talk about it this evening . . . Thank you for carrying my sack, Karl.”

  The Langes’ house had just appeared from behind the curtain of snow, and Ida reached toward Karl to take the sack full of food. Apparently, she didn’t want to be seen with him. However, there was no danger of that. The snow was still falling heavily, and the Langes’ house was surrounded by a dense bramble hedge.

  Karl gave the sack back to Ida, but still wasn’t ready to let her go. “What if the Brandmanns don’t go? Then—then you won’t be marrying Ottfried?” he asked.

  The young man didn’t know what to wish for. Ida in a distant land but still free, or here, tied to a man he didn’t think much of—and for whom she obviously didn’t have any feelings, except perhaps a certain kind of respect based on her father’s opinion.

  “I will be marrying Ottfried, regardless,” Ida said, clarifying. “If the Brandmanns don’t emigrate, I’ll stay here with him. But then we’ll have to marry quickly. I think the ship is going to sail later this month.” She turned to go.

  “But what do you wish for?” Karl called after Ida, in one last attempt to free her from her armor of obedience and self-sacrifice. “What would you prefer?”

  Ida turned once more and looked directly into Karl’s eyes. Her expression of sadness and resignation struck him to the marrow.

  “I don’t wish for anything,” she said determinedly. “Wishes are for dreamers and fantasts who steal time from the Lord.”

  “And what do you pray for?” Karl asked desperately.

  “Humility,” Ida whispered. “I pray for humility.”

  When Ida arrived, most of the cottagers from Raben Steinfeld were already seated around the big table in the Langes’ sitting room. She recognized Mr. Beckmann, the saddler; Mr. Schieb, the baker; and Mr. Busche, the shoemaker. And of course, the Brandmanns.

  Ida apologized for her tardiness and greeted the men. Ottfried held her hand a little longer than necessary and squeezed it possessively. As he did so, he gave her a conspiratorial smile. Ida tried to return the smile without giving the impression of shamelessly flirting with her betrothed. She caught herself making a cool assessment of the young man.

  Ottfried was a stocky young man, much more heavily built than Karl was. He would probably someday become as portly as his father. He also resembled Peter Brandmann in other ways. His face was rather round, and his features were agreeable. Perhaps his eyes were a little too closely set, but otherwise, they were attractive. Ida noticed for the first time that they were brown. Ottfried’s mouth was large, his lips fleshy. Ida blushed at the thought that he would soon be kissing her with them. His nose was straight, neither too small nor too large, and his hair was brown and not very thick. His father’s hair was already thinning, as Ottfried’s surely would be when he reached middle age.

  Ida concluded that Ottfried didn’t disgust her, even if he didn’t exactly make her heart beat faster. When she’d seen Karl, she had felt her heart pounding, but that surely was just due to meeting by surprise and because she knew she was risking her father’s ire. On the other hand, she had always known that Karl’s eyes were green. They were a brilliant, rich green like meadows in summer.

  “What makes you so sure that Beit isn’t a swindler?” Peter Brandmann said.

  Ida went to the kitchen. She heard their loud voices as she cut the bread and laid it on a platter with the sausages and ham. She thought a little guiltily of Karl, who had carried all the delicacies for her, even though once he got home he would surely be hungry. Perhaps she should have offered him some, but he probably would have refused.

  “He’s backed by the New Zealand Company,” Jakob Lange was saying as Ida carried the food into the room. “And a trading firm from Hamburg as well. De Chapeaurouge & Co. will provide the ship. Beit has authentication and confirmation letters from every imaginable source. He is certainly no crook.”

  “Is he of the correct religious persuasion?” the shoemaker inquired.

  Lange shrugged. “I didn’t ask. But he’s a family man, and his wife and children will be traveling with us. There will be two missionaries as well, so we won’t be without spiritual guidance aboard the ship.”

  “Proper guidance?” Busche asked sternly.

  “Mr. Beit assured me that, in the area around Nelson, where our reserved land lies, there is already a missionary station. It’s occupied by clergy who fled the domination of the Prussian king. They are certainly not reformists. What’s more, Beit promised me that we will be able to found our own commonwealth. If we emigrate together, we can continue our community life as we are accustomed.” Lange took a piece of bread from the plate and spread it with a thick layer of liverwurst. “Everything will be just the way it is here. We can keep our languages and traditions—”

  “In New Zealand it’s summer now.” Ida bit her tongue in self-reproach as soon as she’d spoken, but she’d had to say it. It wouldn’t be “just the way it is here.” It was a different country. There were different plants, different animals . . . even different stars! She thought of the book about Captain Cook.

  The men laughed benignly.

  “Well, that’s a good reason to go!” said Horst Friesmann, the farmer whose barn had collapsed under the weight of snow the day before.

  “There are many good reasons!” Lange said with a snort, and cast his daughter a warning glance. “Especially for farmers. Seriously, Friesmann, think about it. How much land do you have here? Seven acres. More than a craftsman, but that’s barely enough to live off as a farmer if you don’t also work for the squire all summer like a dirty day laborer. But there! You’ll have twenty acres immediately, and as much to buy afterward as you could possibly want. Free, wild land for miles that’s just waiting for us to tame it!”

  “When you say ‘wild’ it makes me think about the natives,” Beckmann, the saddler, said. “How are things there with the—Indians?”

  The other men nodded. They’d all heard the horror stories about the atrocities in America.

  “There are no Indians, Beit tells me,” Lange said. “In New Zealand there were originally no people at all. Before the English arrived, only a few natives from some nearby islands came. But they are supposed to be harmless. And if they happen to be settled on any of the land that we want, apparently we can buy it from them for a few strings of glass beads.”

  Id
a bit her tongue again. The book about Captain Cook had said something different. According to the seafaring man, the natives of Polynesia were very territorial. There had even been talk of cannibalism.

  “Sounds like paradise,” Brandmann said acerbically. “A paradise for three hundred English pounds. But is that God’s will, Lange? Does it come with his blessings?”

  Jakob Lange folded his hands. “He who receives the gift of God’s grace in faith shall be redeemed,” he said. “Not the fainthearted, Peter. Not the doubters! We must trust in Jesus Christ. We must trust God to lead us, and that it was he who led me to Schwerin just as John Nicholas Beit was giving his speech. We have always been loyal to the true teachings—it’s only right and just if God rewards us for that. You don’t have to decide immediately, but soon.” He pointed at the brochures lying on the table. “Take these with you and read them. I have a few posters that I will hang up outside, as soon as the snow stops. And now let us all pray that God will help us see the light and lead us down the right path. Even if it is a long one.”

  Farther away than America, Ida thought.

  The next day she did something that even she herself didn’t understand. Ida took one of the brochures and slipped it under the door of Karl Jensch’s hut. Of course she was very careful not to be seen, especially by Karl himself. She didn’t want him to think she was making fun of him—after all, he’d never be able to pay the three hundred pounds. But he should know about it . . . He should just know where Ida was going.

  Chapter 6

  The conversation with Ida had troubled Karl. Even if she didn’t reveal any of her secrets to him, even if she didn’t admit to herself that she had feelings and dreams, she was basically just as discontented with her fate as Karl was. She longed for more than housework and motherhood in the middle of nowhere, and she would have much rather stayed in school than taken her mother’s place. Ida was obedient, but she didn’t truly want to marry a man her father had chosen for her. Of course, her future wouldn’t have looked very different even if Jakob Lange had allowed her to continue school. The squire’s daughters had both attended the lyceum, but in the end, they had gotten married too.

  Karl didn’t know what he wished for Ida. She was probably right to practice humility. And he should probably start doing so himself, instead of always getting angry and complaining. Otherwise, God might start thinking about putting him in his place.

  Karl tried to pray but found no comfort, so he wrapped himself in his thin blanket and tried to sleep in the badly heated hut. The next morning, the path to Widow Kruse’s house would be waiting for him again. Hopefully she’d at least pay him when he finished.

  The widow didn’t pay him, but she gave Karl something better than a pfennig: she brought him a tankard of warm beer while he worked, and when he was done, she gave him a loaf of bread and the end of a sausage. Together with some soup from the night before, he would have a princely midday meal. Unfortunately, he didn’t find any more work for the rest of the day. When it was this cold, the farmers and cottagers were huddled up in their houses. They did only the most basic of chores, which they could manage with the help of their families.

  Karl opened the door of his hut and looked down in amazement at the printed brochure on the ground. “The New Zealand Company.” Karl read the bold headline at the top and was instantly entranced. He forgot about the bread and sausage, and quickly read the rest of the brochure. And then, while he was eating, he read it a second and a third time. What Ida had told him was true! Land was available near a town called Nelson on the South Island of New Zealand, and now they were looking for settlers. The name John Nicholas Beit was here in black and white in front of him now, too, along with an address in Hamburg.

  After reading the brochure for the fourth time, a plan started to form in his mind, and he was shocked by his own cleverness. Humility . . . If he wanted to realize his plan, if he tried, it would prove that he had anything but humility. And it would cost him his hard-earned pfennigs. If he didn’t find a job in the next few days, he would go hungry. But then he thought again of Ida’s sad eyes. If it were possible, he wouldn’t leave her all alone.

  Karl didn’t need to search long before he found his old composition book hidden in the farthest corner of his clothing chest. The pencil was still there, too, carefully sharpened, along with the book about Captain Cook, which he must have read a hundred times. He placed it next to the composition book on the table. Perhaps it would bring him luck.

  Karl wet the tip of his pencil. He hadn’t written a single word in almost five years. But the words “very good,” written in Master Brakel’s clear handwriting, gave him courage. He had been able to do it once, and surely one couldn’t forget how it was done!

  In the last light of the dim, snowy afternoon, Karl Jensch wrote the first letter of his life.

  A few days later, the letter lay on the desk of John Nicholas Beit, who wasn’t in the office. His daughter Jane was wearily opening his correspondence. It was a task he preferred to leave to her, while he himself was traveling to prepare for the transport of the German settlers to Nelson. The departure was looming, and Jane’s mood was getting worse by the day. However, this morning it had reached rock bottom. When she had tried on her gown for the family ball to take place that evening, the material stretched too tightly over her bust and hips—even though the dress had just been fitted two weeks earlier. Jane had feigned annoyance and accused the seamstress of measuring incorrectly. But of course, she saw in her mother’s and sisters’ eyes that they didn’t believe a word of it. It couldn’t be denied. Jane was on the way to becoming a stately woman like her mother, as the seamstress had so delicately put it. Her sisters didn’t mince words, and called her a fat cow. But Jane just couldn’t control herself. When she was moody or bored, she got hungry. And because she was almost always in a bad mood since her father had decided to emigrate, she had recently become the best customer of Hamburg’s confectioners.

  Jane didn’t want to go to New Zealand. She hated New Zealand! And it had nothing to do with the landscape or even the weather. The winter in Hamburg was almost as depressing as the prospect of the voyage to Nelson. In New Zealand the air was clearer, and at least on the coast there were hardly ever long periods of rain or snow. Even in winter the sun broke through every now and then, and right now, it was summer there anyway. And it was a beautiful country. Anyone who liked open and wild land, endless grassy fields, and wooded hills just waiting for someone to build a log cabin on them and plant crops would be happy there. Jane thought of all the enthusiastic readers of the illustrated brochures about the adventures of courageous pioneers in the American prairies. Many Hamburg society girls were positively rhapsodizing about the possibility of a life in the wilderness.

  It wasn’t that way for Jane. On the contrary, she greatly enjoyed the comforts of the Hamburg townhouse Mr. De Chapeaurouge had rented for her father and his family. The running water—a network of pipes brought water directly from the Elbe River into the house—the modern oil lamps, the efficient heating of the tile stoves and fireplaces . . . No, Jane had no interest in agriculture and animal husbandry. She was a clever girl, and her teachers had been thrilled by her talent. Above all she enjoyed mathematics, and she would have liked to be a bookkeeper for a large commercial establishment. She had discovered this preference by chance. Sarah Beit had hired Mr. De Chapeaurouge’s bookkeeper as a private tutor for her daughter, saying she wanted the girl to learn to keep a household ledger properly. But after just one lesson, Jane had understood everything perfectly and wanted more. The obliging young man had willingly introduced her to the complicated subject of mercantile bookkeeping. That wasn’t considered improper for girls. There were many merchants’ wives who kept books for their husbands, and Jane Beit would be happy to do the same. In fact, she would have liked to simply marry a Hamburg merchant before her parents and siblings left for New Zealand. Mr. De Chapeaurouge had even offered to speak to a few of the merchant families for her fa
ther, having seen how capable Jane was.

  But Beit had declined. Ostensibly, he found Jane too young to marry, but that was nonsense. Jane was almost twenty, and it was high time! The true reason was that she was indispensable in his office. She kicked herself for having taken on all the organizational work necessary for the emigration of the people from Mecklenburg. But Jane was bored in the company of her sisters and her friends, and she found no pleasure in the activities that girls of her social standing usually enjoyed. She didn’t care about clothes, and she didn’t like dancing. Excursions in rainy Hamburg didn’t attract her in the least, and she thought riding was an atrocity.

  She much preferred handling correspondence, arranging lodging in Hamburg for the settlers before the ship was ready for boarding, and managing the travel documents. Of course she also checked incoming payments, sent exhortations in cases of uncertainty, and coordinated with Mr. De Chapeaurouge to charter an appropriate ship. Jane had even designed the prospectus while her father was off doing what he did best: talking and bargaining, making contacts, and giving speeches to recruit settlers. It was no wonder he didn’t want to give up that freedom—or pay someone to do the things his daughter excelled at.

  Jane sighed and reached absently for a praline as she opened another letter. She told herself she should be enjoying the office work as long as it lasted. Jane had no illusions about what awaited her in New Zealand. From the moment that the Sankt Pauli left the harbor, Beit would no longer need his daughter’s skills. There would be nothing for her to do on board the ship, and the land grants in Nelson would be taken care of by employees of the New Zealand Company or the governor. Jane would be stuck in the company of her sisters until her father found a husband for her. If possible, one who wasn’t obsessed with the idea of building a log cabin.

  However, the letter unexpectedly captured her attention. It was fashioned from a carefully folded page of a school composition book, upon which someone had written the address of Beit’s office in almost childish script. The seal was unrecognizable, but as Jane began to read, it became clear to her that the sender had left the delivery up to some squire or other. Probably for a princely sum, in relation to his circumstances.