Then they left the ship, stepped on the landing bridge and walked along the pier until they arrived in a tall grey stone building which represented the terminal where customs were located. There they ran into Deirdre and Shannon, who had already gone off board sooner and had been waiting for them to say goodbye.
“Well then, Oscar...” Deirdre said with a charming and yet somewhat melancholic voice.
“Well then, Deirdre,” Oscar murmured, “it was an... enormous pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“The pleasure is entirely on my side,” Deirdre breathed.
Oscar took her extended hand and bent to kiss it. He only hesitantly let go of the hand again and was trying hard to keep his composure. Upon looking at Deirdre, Henry noticed that she too was unable to conceal a certain sadness because of seeing Oscar go; as if she was secretly saying with her glances that she would have indeed given Oscar a chance if there had not been somebody else she loved.
“All the very, very best for you, Oscar,” Deirdre said. Then her hand slowly slipped out of his grasp. And before Oscar had a chance to utter something in response, Deirdre had already turned around and walked out of the building. Oscarʼs gaze followed her as she and her sister disappeared amidst the throng of people that was waiting outside.
“Are you alright?” Henry asked Oscar softly.
“I am, Henry, I am. Thank you...” Oscar mumbled.
“Shall we go as well then?”
Oscar forced a smile and nodded.
“Letʼs go.”
Nobody held them up. Being 2nd Class passengers, they were allowed to leave the terminal straight away and go wherever they wanted, whereas the masses of steerage class passengers were still far from starting their lives in the ʻPromised Land.ʼ First of all, they were led over to ferry boats which would bring them to Castle Gardens, a small artificial island off shore where the barge office was located and where all the newly arrived 3rd Class passengers were dealt with. Oscar had explained to Henry that everyone would have to register there and would have to be inspected for any health problems yet again—a procedure which lasted for many hours. If they were lucky, the officials would then decide that they were allowed to enter the country. If they were unlucky, they would be rejected and would have to return to where they had come from. If they were extremely unlucky, they would never even get to the barge office at all as some of the passengers already died in the freezing cold on their way to Castle Garden or during the lengthy wait, before the many ferries got permission to dock. With more than a thousand people and several steamers arriving per day, carrying even more passengers, it generally took ages until the officials had dealt with all of them.
The steerage people that were filling the terminal looked worn out and battered. Henry believed to recognize one or the other person he had seen back in London, queuing with him for a ticket. But now they appeared nothing like on that day when they had still sported a decent and pleasant appearance. Instead they were filthy, exhausted, lean, and many of them obviously sick. Some were weeping with relief about finally having arrived. Some had to be carried out on stretchers because they were dead.
“Oh, my goodness...!” Sarah exclaimed. Henry turned to see what she had become so terrified about: It was because of one of the corpses. The dead body was covered with a sheet, but underneath the sheet a bit of the dead personʼs dress was peering out: It was an old-fashioned, dark green dress with a pattern of yellow flowers on it—unmistakably the garment worn by the old woman Henry and Sarah had seen when they had got on board almost two weeks ago, the woman whom the bully had said of that she wouldnʼt make it anyway.
Sarah let out a whimper and covered her face with her hands. Henry quickly took her by the arm and dragged her away from the scene.
“Come, Sarah,” he said softly, “we need to go.”
There wasnʼt a lot of time for feeling sorrow. As soon as Henry, Oscar and Sarah had left the terminal and stepped outside, they were immediately surrounded by chaos and swallowed up by crowds of jostling people. There were, of course, all the newly-arrived passengers as well as their families and friends who had been waiting to welcome them. But mingling with them were also innumerable street vendors; some of them rather eerie looking fellows who were selling hats, used shoes, and maps, or who were offering all sorts of dubious services.
“You want to change money, Sir?” a particularly obtrusive, unshaven scoundrel with a torn jacket and a strange accent yelled at Henry. “I can give you American Dollars for German Mark!”
“No, thank you. We are not German,” Henry answered quickly.
“What are you?! Russian? Irish? British?!” the toothless man kept shouting. “American Dollars for British Pounds!”
Henry desperately held on to his luggage and tried to get past the man by pushing him with his elbow. He was somewhat afraid that in reality the bargain the scoundrel offered would be ʻfake Dollars in exchange for stolen suitcase full of stuff which I might be able to sell in some run-down side street.ʼ To Henryʼs inner amusement, he noticed that the next victim the unshaven fellow had chosen to chat up was monocle-man, who was just stepping off board.
“What do you want, you pitiful, lice-ridden creature?!” Henry heard monocle-man yell.
“Arthur, please, mind your blood pressure...” monocle-manʼs wife moaned. Then she and her husband disappeared in the crowd.
Henry turned around to check if Sarah was still there and saw that she was struggling to fend off a little boy who had begun to relentlessly pull at the sleeve of her dress, begging for money.
“Henry! Watch out!” he suddenly heard Oscar call over to him. “Pickpockets abound!”
Henry whirled around and looked right into the face of yet another little boy who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and who was just trying to secretly snatch his suitcase away from him. Henry didnʼt hesitate and gave the boy a hearty clip round the ear, then he turned to Sarah again, took her by the hand and pulled her away before more people could pester them or threaten to come between them.
He almost lost his temper when another nasty looking fellow asked him if he needed a train ticket to Boston.
“No! Get lost!” Henry barked rudely and pushed him aside.
“Henry, look…” Sarah suddenly said, incredulously staring at something in the distance.
Henry looked in the direction that her finger pointed to and suddenly spotted the beaming face of someone excitedly waving over to them.
“That is Paul! My brother!” Henry exclaimed and beamed.
For a moment, Henry almost completely forgot about Sarah and Oscar and his suitcase, and began to run towards his brother who was equally rushing over to him, pushing everyone and everything aside that blocked his way.
Finally they fell into each otherʼs arms.
“Paul!” Henry called out.
“Henry!” Paul called out. “You finally made it!”
Henry gave his brother a teasing nudge, then they hesitantly let go of each other.
“Damn, you look incredibly smart,” Paul remarked as he was eyeing Henry up and down. “But what happened to your arm?”
“Thatʼs a long story. I will tell you later about it.” Henry sighed, but soon broke out into merry laughter again. “God, you havenʼt changed a bit, Paul.”
And it was true. Henry found that Paul looked exactly the same as on that nice sunny springtime day when he had so spontaneously packed his bag, had said goodbye to his family and friends, and had hired for a position as a potato peeler on board of the next steamer heading for the land of the free.
Henry had missed him terribly back then. Despite their numerous rows, during which Henry once had almost bitten off Paulʼs ear, his brother had always been his closest confidant and his best friend; good old Paul with the tweed cap, his pet ferret Dinky, and a fag between the lips. The presence of the ferret had regularly driven their father quite mad in the past because of Dinkyʼs pungent smell. But Paul had done everything in his power to not ob
ey his father, who had not only wanted to get rid of the pet ferret but had also wanted him to go after some decent work and keep him from dreaming of far-off lands.
But in vain. Paul had not succumbed to neither his fatherʼs nor anybody elseʼs wishes. He had never wanted to listen to anyone and had only followed his own heartʼs desires—something which Henry had always admired about him and in which he had tried to emulate his brother. Henry guessed that his own eagerness to become a teacher and step out of working class had really been fueled by the fact that Paul had gone on the warpath to fulfill his own dreams; for example, the one of going to America.
“Come on, Henry, letʼs go. There is a coach waiting for us,” Paul said merrily and already wanted to drag Henry along with him, but the latter held him back.
“Paul, there is something I need to tell you…” Henry said hesitantly. “I am actually not alone.”
When he had sent Paul the telegram, announcing his arrival, he had not yet known that Sarah would really come with him; let alone Oscar. Before he could utter any additional words of explanation, Sarah and Oscar had stepped behind him and shyly looked at Paul.
“Paul, this is my very best friend Dr. Scott,” Henry explained, pointing at Oscar. Then he turned to Sarah and proudly placed his hand on her shoulder. “And this is Sarah.”
When Paul saw Sarah, he blushed a little and mumbled a shy, “My pleasure, Miss Sarah.”
“We wonʼt be a burden to you, Paul,” Henry hastened to say. “We will just come and say hello to your family, maybe deposit our suitcases for a day and then immediately go in search of a place for us to stay.”
Paul frowned and looked at Henry in confusion.
“Donʼt be foolish, Henry, of course you will stay. I might not have expected the whole lot of you, but I always say ʻthe more the merrier.ʼ Let us go home first and then weʼll think about a place for all of you to stay. No one will have to sleep rough. Let us go now. I am sure Yasmina will already be waiting. She has been talking about you all week and is terribly excited to meet you.”
Henry really hoped that Paulʼs wife wouldnʼt be all too shocked by the fact there were far more people turning up than she had originally expected. After all they were all strangers to her; even Henry was a stranger, whom she only knew from Paulʼs tales and whom she had never seen in the flesh. Still, he was glad that there was a temporary place waiting for him so that he wouldnʼt have to wander through the streets not knowing where to go.
They took their luggage and followed Henryʼs brother over to a coach which was parked at the other end of the pier. Paul opened the door and let Sarah and Oscar climb inside, then he helped Henry and the coachman stow the luggage on top of the coach roof.
“Henry, tell me, is that her?” Paul whispered excitedly when they were out of the otherʼs earshot. “I mean, that girl of this madhouse mansion you told me about in one of your letters?”
Henry responded to his brotherʼs question with a roguish grin.
“But didnʼt you say that you had not got anywhere with her?” Paul kept on asking.
His remark left a slightly nasty taste in Henryʼs mouth. It reminded him of that terrible night on Sarahʼs birthday, of that long unpleasant time that had followed, and of all those days that he had spent drunk and in gloom. Ultimately, it reminded him of the fight he had had with Damian, and he definitely didnʼt want to think about that, as he had successfully managed to drown the memory out during the twelve days on sea which lay behind him. Damian simply didnʼt fit into Henryʼs new life which was so obviously about to begin. In fact, Damian seemed to belong to another world that had ceased to exist.
“Well, I managed to conquer her at last,” Henry answered. “But I had to get rid of her nasty husband first.”
Paulʼs eyes grew huge with shock.
“That almost sounds as if you killed him?!”
“No, we only had a major fight. That was when I got my ribcage injured.” Henry pointed his finger to the bandage on his arm.
Paul stared at Henry incredulously.
“I honestly would have never thought that you would be capable of something like that; I mean, fighting a duel with someone...”
“Trust me, I never would have thought I would be capable of something like that either.”
Paul shook his head in disbelief.
“Well, Iʼd say that calls for another nickname. Weepy definitely doesnʼt apply to you anymore... What about ʻB.B.ʼ?”
“B.B.?” Henry asked, casting Paul a suspicious glance. “Are you playing one of your nasty teasing games again?”
“Well, for a start B.B. stands for ʻBonebreaker,ʼ” Paul replied merrily. “And at the same time it means ʻBest Brotherʼ—best brother in the world...”
For a little while the two men just looked at each other, a slightly sentimental expression on their faces.
“I am so glad that I am here, Paul,” Henry said softly.
“So am I,” Paul answered and smiled. “Come now. Iʼll bring you home.”
And with these words he grabbed his brother by the arm and shoved him into the coach where the others were already waiting for them. Then the coach slowly began to move, fighting its way through the jostling and excited crowd.
Chapter 18 – Home
The streets in the area around the harbor were lined by run-down brickstone tenement blocks, whose aspect Henry reminded of old shacks rather than houses. Numerous clothes lines had been stretched from one building to the other, laden with bedsheets and underpants to dry.
It was obvious that the people who lived here were poor. They wore frayed and mended clothes, and their faces were marked by the hardship that their new lives forced upon them day by day. Some of them looked rough and scary as they were loitering in dark backyards and side alleys which had strange names like ʻBlind Manʼs Streetʼ or ʻRagman Alley.ʼ Dirty little children were staring curiously at the coach as it was driving by. Later Paul would tell Henry that many of these children were orphans who did child labor during the day and slept rough at night, trying to survive all on their own.
“Thatʼs where we lived originally, Yasmina and I,” Paul remarked. “Thanks God, these days are over…”
Remembering Paulʼs early letters, Henry believed to recall that his brother had painted a rather rosy picture in his efforts to describe his new life. Paul had not concealed the fact that he lived in a simple place, lacking any imaginable comfort, but he had not told Henry that he lived in one of the poorest and neglected districts of the city where Henry would not have dared to venture outside at night. But then again Paul had never really demanded high standards and was able to be happy with the basics.
After having passed an industrial site where the air was filled with puffs of black smoke from the many furnaces, they entered a more noble part of the city as they were continuing their way along the rivershore. This area offered magnificent views onto the East River where numerous steam-driven ferries, vessels and barges were busy transporting passengers or goods to the ports of far off lands, or simply to another part of town.
The streets were overcrowded with horse-drawn carriages, and the facades of the houses were plastered with commercial signs and equipped with colorful awnings, underneath which the vendors displayed their groceries. Henry noticed that the buildings were much taller than back in England, most of them counting about four stories or more. Still, they were not as tall as the bridge which suddenly came in sight and which Henry remembered having seen when the Princess of the Seas had sailed into the harbor. Only when they were standing right in front of it, he realized how massive and intimidating the construction really was.
“I hope you are not afraid of heights,” Paul remarked. “But I am afraid, in order to get to the place where I live, we must cross the river.”
Paul fumbled in his trouser pockets in search of some money. A man appeared next to the coach and accepted the penny for the toll that Paul handed him. Then the man gave the coach driver a sign to go on.
“And it is really safe?” Henry asked uncertainly.
“I suppose so, yes,” Paul answered. “In the beginning people were quite scared. But at some stage, a circus let a herd of twenty-one elephants walk over it in order to demonstrate how safe it was. I think this ultimately eradicated everybodyʼs doubts although there were some occasional incidents of mass hysteria in the past.”
When they entered the bridge, the sun finally rose into the sky like a halo, bathing everything and everyone with its golden light; the houses, the ships on the river, and the bridgeʼs arched portals.
Next to the coach on one of the other lanes, Henry could see people on horseback and farmers who were transporting cages with live chicken and geese in it. But there was also an elevated promenade where elegant ladies were taking a morning stroll, watching the beautiful sunrise. Underneath them the ferries and vessels were crossing the river, and the sunlight sparkled like little diamonds on the waterʼs surface.
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