by Howe, A. E.
Josephine had never been to New York and was as gobsmacked by the size as Grace was. Luckily, at the last minute Josephine had relented and allowed Mr. Robertson to contact a friend of his in the city who met them and took them to their hotel. From there they would take a cab to the terminal where they would board the Majestic.
While Josephine spent time with Robertson’s friend, Parker Reed, and his family, Grace walked around the hotel and talked with any black people she could find. One of the cooks invited Grace to a club in Harlem, but she was too timid to accept. At church, she’d heard wild stories about the evil men who lurked around jazz clubs. The smoking bellboys told her that “There ain’t no Prohibition in no club in Harlem.” That confirmed her decision to stay away because Grace’s Aunt May had told her a hundred times that liquor and bastard babies went together like molasses and biscuits.
Meanwhile, Parker and his wife were able to talk Josephine into entering a speakeasy. She couldn’t believe the scene that unfolded before her eyes. The noise, smoke, music, smells and clothes alone would have overwhelmed her, but when added to the looks and winks from the men and the language these people were using in public, Josephine found herself both fascinated and repulsed. She took a look at her hosts and wondered if Mr. Robertson had any idea where his friends were taking her.
After two days in the city, both women were looking forward to a week on the ship to recover. The hustle and bustle of the dock and the first sight of the Majestic tied to her moorings just added to the sense that they were out of their depth. The ship towered above them as they tried to push their way through the people and cargo lining the dock.
As they settled in on the ship, Josephine felt a little disappointment at the fact that Grace couldn’t go everywhere with her. For Josephine, Grace’s race was less important than the fact that she was a familiar face in a sea of strangers. But at least Grace was allowed to stay in a room off of her first-class cabin. The ship was designed with the wealthy traveler in mind, and it was expected that the well-off would travel with their own domestic help.
“I don’t mind, Miss Josephine. I’m fine takin’ my meals in here. After that city, I’m glad for a little peace and quiet. I’ve got my Bible, and I promised Aunt May I’d read it every day,” Grace said, lying only a little.
For Grace, the restrictions on her movements were a bit harder to take here because she didn’t know all of the rules and kept being reminded that she was considered a lesser person. Of course, she’d also seen some folks who were whiter than white being shooed away from the first-class areas. There were lines drawn for race and lines drawn between the rich and poor. At least she was traveling with a rich person.
Poor black people just have no chance in this world, she thought. A stab of fear and sadness pierced her heart as she remembered her brother, who was now jobless with two children and a wife to support. She’d told them they could move into her house while she was gone. Grace had a small attic room in the Nicolson house that she used when she needed to work long hours. She’d stayed there most of the time during the last three months of Mr. Nicolson’s illness so that she could help nurse him. I could ask Miss Josephine if I can stay there while Ronnie gets back up on his feet, Grace thought as she opened the Bible to her favorite Psalm.
After her first day onboard, Josephine made friends with several of the other passengers and even spent time talking with several of the ship’s officers. There was a pall over the crew, who knew the Majestic’s days were numbered. The economic times had hit the transatlantic trade hard. The White Star Line and the Cunard Line would soon be forced to merge and it would only be a matter of time until the Majestic was taken out of service.
After a calm and uneventful voyage, they arrived on time in Cherbourg, France. Standing on the pier with her luggage and looking out at a strange city, Josephine could hear dozens of people speaking different languages. And I’ve only finished the second leg of my journey, she thought. The number of miles that still lay in front of her were almost overwhelming. What was I thinking? she wondered.
She looked over at Grace, whose face reflected everything that Josephine was feeling. Having dragged her along on this quixotic adventure, I can’t let her know how terrified I am, Josephine told herself.
“We need to get a cab to our hotel,” Josephine said, just as a young man with a ridiculous mustache stepped up and introduced himself. At least she assumed he was introducing himself. The man was spewing forth a novel’s worth of French in a matter of seconds. He pointed back toward a taxi cab that had a few more dents in it than seemed reasonable.
“Hotel du Mont,” Josephine said several times. The man finally realized they didn’t speak French and nodded, smiling. He picked up two of their trunks with an almost herculean strength and hustled them to his cab. Grace picked up the two remaining bags while Josephine walked with her Pullman case. The man came trotting back and took the two bags from a surprised Grace, winking at her as he did so.
“Well, I never!” Grace said, trying to sound scandalized, but looking like a child who’d just been given an ice cream cone.
At the hotel, Josephine managed to communicate with the concierge, who agreed to purchase the train tickets they needed for the next part of the journey. While Josephine was discussing their plans with the concierge, Grace stood waiting by their luggage. The manager of the hotel appeared at her side and asked in passable English if she needed help. At first, Grace thought that he wanted her to move to a more inconspicuous location. She was used to white people not wanting black folk cluttering up their establishments. But something about the way he asked was odd. She took a chance and looked up at him to see him looking back, attentive and interested.
“Has Madam registered? Do you need the bellman?”
“No, sir. I’m waitin’ on Miss Josephine. She’s made all the arrangements,” Grace told him, not knowing what to do with her eyes.
“Very good, Madam. Just let us know if we can be of service.”
Grace almost fell over. Never in her thirty-eight years had a white person offered to be of service to her. After he left, Grace remembered her daddy and her uncles talking about being in France during the Great War. They would shake their heads and ask each other why they’d ever come home. That would lead them to talking about what they called the “parlayvu” girls. That’s when her mother and aunts would give them dirty looks and tell them that, if they were going to act that way, then they may as well have stayed in France. Now Grace was seeing what they had seen, and it was as if she’d been locked in a windowless room all of her life and someone suddenly opened the door to a world of light and color.
Josephine and Grace spent only one night in Cherbourg before boarding the train for Paris and beyond. The route would take them through Germany and Austria to a small town in Romania called Curtea de Arges. Before they left the hotel, Josephine made arrangements for their two large trunks to be stored in Cherbourg until their return.
As the train rocked through the French countryside, Josephine continued to work her way through her grandfather’s journal. She’d reached the halfway point and was coming across another word. Monstru.
What kind of monster? Josephine wondered. The tight handwriting was difficult to decipher, increasingly blotted with ink spots and more crossed-out words as she went along. She could almost feel the fear that her grandfather must have been experiencing as the village’s dead piled up.
Focused on the journal, Josephine was startled when she heard Grace gasp loudly. Looking up, she saw Grace staring out of the window. Following her gaze, Josephine saw the scars left by the Great War that had ended a mere fifteen years before, leaving thirty-eight million dead and wounded. The land was still deeply disfigured by the brutal war. They passed miles and miles of artillery craters and abandoned trenches that were still too dangerous to be reworked into farmland. Every few miles, they saw burial grounds filled with row upon row of knee-high white crosses.
“How much farther we got
to go?” Grace asked as they passed signs counting down the miles to Deutschland.
“We still have to travel through Germany and Austria. A day, maybe. Depending on how often the train stops and if we’re delayed.” They’d been lucky so far, with good weather and not too many other travelers.
“They don’t look like they’re much better off than we are,” Grace observed as she looked out at the French farmers and villagers. The country was still reeling from economic depression after a war that had left too many men and women broken in body and spirit.
As the train screeched to a halt at the German border, Josephine looked out at the customs station. The black, white and red striped flag of the German Weimar Republic still flew over the border office, and Hindenburg, now elderly and doddering, was still president. But all the talk was about the chancellor appointed by Hindenburg earlier that year. It was clear Adolf Hitler was taking control of the country. As they traveled through Germany, there was no doubt that the country looked more prosperous and optimistic than France.
“That is one ugly flag,” Grace said as they passed a house flying the banner of the National Socialist Party—a black swastika in a white circle on a red field. Josephine felt a cold chill go over her. The flag conjured up something dark and ominous. It was odd, since before this she’d always associated the swastika with the Boy Scouts and their meetings at the local school. But seeing it now seemed like a throwback to a darker age.
The differences between France and Germany had been stark, but when they came to Austria, the only things that made it clear they were leaving one country and entering another were the signs and the customs agents.
Austria was breathtakingly beautiful. The white-capped hills were a brilliant green against the deep blue of the spring sky. Neither woman could take their eyes off of the flickering landscape as it passed the train’s windows.
“I never seen anything this beautiful,” Grace exclaimed. For a moment, in the excitement of the journey and the shared wonders they were seeing, Grace let her guard down and felt as if she were talking to a friend.
“Me neither. The mountains make me feel very small,” Josephine said, looking out at the towering landscape.
Eventually, Josephine went back to the journal. She wanted to make her way through the entire book before they had to travel by bus or hired car.
In the story unfolding in the diary, her grandfather had contacted someone called a vanator, a hunter, to save the village. He described the arrival of the hunter as a big event. But a page later her grandfather noted that what the hunter wanted was too much. Too much what? Josephine wondered. Also, her grandfather mentioned his brothers. Brothers? Josephine could not remember her father ever mentioning that he had any uncles.
The words in the diary become even more dense and hard to read. A hunt. Brothers. The hunter. Mort. Mort. Mort. Mort. Four times dead. Soon she reached the part where her grandfather left Romania for America. Here she saw the word for revenge. “Someday revenge.”
Josephine closed the journal. Many of the words and much of the meaning were lost in her inability to speak Romanian, but she understood that her grandfather had worked with the hunter and his brothers to fight something he had considered to be a great evil. Eventually only he had survived, along with their nemesis.
Josephine knew that it must have been a massive wound to his pride to have to flee an enemy that had killed his brothers. She now understood that her grandfather had wanted his ashes returned as a final act of defiance in the face of the monstru. She felt vindicated in her decision to impulsively pack up and embark on this trip. The gesture needed to be made and, if she’d hesitated, the weight of everyday problems would have overshadowed the need to fulfill this obligation to a man whose decisions had made her life possible.
Rain began to fall as they crossed the border into Romania. Josephine tried not to take it as an omen. The train rattled through small towns and villages. The scenes passing by the windows couldn’t have looked much different a hundred years earlier.
“I hope we got a dry bed to sleep in,” Grace said. “Don’t look like they got any hotels in this country.” The rain had dampened both their moods.
At two o’clock in the afternoon, the train’s brakes screamed as they slid into the depot in Curtea de Arges. The town was on flat ground alongside the River Arges. Josephine, Grace and their luggage were put down on the station platform while new passengers boarded the train for Budapest. After a few attempts, Josephine found a man who spoke passable English.
“We need to go into the mountains,” she explained.
“Yes, yes. Carriage. I have a cousin; he will take you.” The man smiled and nodded.
“A bus? Maybe a car?”
“No, no, too wet. Much rain this season. Only horses can make it up the road into the mountains.” He smiled. “Where are you going?”
“A small village north of Capatineni. The village is called Satul de Dealuri Verzi. Near a place called Cetatea Blasko.”
“My cousin he will take you to Capataneni, but no farther.” The man was frowning now.
“But we need to go to Satul de Dealuri Verzi.”
“We find my cousin. He’ll be in the stable. Come, come.”
He picked up one of their bags and yelled to a young man loitering by the station door. Words passed between them. The only word Josephine recognized was leu, the Romanian dollar. The younger man came over grudgingly and lifted the other two bags.
The streets were cobblestone and covered in mud and manure. As they followed the men, Grace and Josephine had to hang onto each other to keep from slipping and falling. The livery stable rang with the clanging of the blacksmith fitting shoes to a black-and-white draft horse.
They were left on the sidewalk outside the livery as the man they’d come with went inside, shouting for his cousin. A few minutes later, a large man with rough hands that looked more like bear paws came out and looked at the women and their luggage. He twirled his mustache with more dexterity than Josephine would have thought possible with his sausage fingers.
The man and his cousin went into negotiations that involved much fast talking followed by moments of contemplation… followed by more fast talking.
Finally the man who had brought them said, “My cousin has to wait for his horses to be shod. But he’ll take you there. Leaving first light.” He quoted a price that seemed high to Josephine. She thought about the pros and cons of haggling, but decided she was really in no position to do so.
“Is there a hotel near here?”
“A fine establishment. My uncle will treat you very well. My aunt, an excellent cook.”
The man beamed. He spoke Romanian to his cousin, whose face also burst into a smile as he started to nod his head up and down. Josephine realized she was having to put herself and Grace into the hands of men who could be crooks, or worse. But what choice did she have?
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” she muttered to herself. “Take us to your uncle’s hotel.”
Surprisingly, the inn was comfortable. Small and cozy, it had a tavern on the ground floor. They had to walk through the tables and past the bar to get to the stairs that led up to their bedroom.
Josephine and Grace, without conferring, had come to the same conclusion. They wanted one room. Josephine’s mind went back to her years as a schoolgirl when she’d gone on a binge of gothic romances. The heroine’s dangerous adventure always started at a strange inn on the way to a dark and brooding manor house. But the laughter, enthusiastic conversation and shouting from the tavern helped to put her at ease. The people here seemed to be genuinely happy. There didn’t seem to be any dark and ominous secret hanging over these folk.
The bed was a huge four-poster with a feather mattress and an extravagant number of quilts. The explanation for the amount of covers became apparent as the sun went down and the temperature with it. No one offered to light the round, ornate stove in the corner.
“If there’s some wood, I’d get
that thing goin’,” Grace said, staring at the cold stove.
“Never mind. We’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”
Josephine had been able to communicate a little with the innkeeper, and he’d assured her he would see that she was awakened with breakfast at first light. He had also promised that his son would be there to take their luggage over to the livery.
The dinner that night was very good—hearty helpings of beef stew and spicy biscuits. Josephine hoped their journey would continue to be blessed with good fortune. More than ever, she knew she was taking a huge risk. Her home and friends were far away. She and Grace were truly strangers in a strange land.
Josephine was comforted by the prayers Grace said as she kneeled down by the bed. When Grace got up, she looked uncertain. Josephine had already gotten into bed and burrowed down under the quilts.
“Are you sure it’s okay? I could sleep on that old thing,” Grace said, pointing to a large ornate bench. “A couple of blankets and a pillow, I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t be silly. We’re going to need each other to keep from freezing to death.”
Grace clambered into the bed and settled herself under the blankets. Josephine blew out the candle and the women listened to the jolly sounds rising up from below. Both managed a few hours of sleep before there was a polite knocking on the door.
Within an hour, they were walking to the livery behind a young man who somehow managed to carry all of their luggage. In front of the livery was an old-fashioned mail carriage with a four-horse team of draft horses. The rig looked suitable for the roughest terrain, making Josephine relax a bit.
There were several other people standing around the carriage, including a short man wearing a khaki military uniform. He had enough gold metal on his shoulder straps for Josephine to feel safe in assuming that he was an officer.
As they drew close, the man turned and shouted something to the innkeeper’s son carrying their luggage. As the boy hustled over to the carriage, the man greeted Josephine.