by Peter Watson
The captain turned and gave a technical instruction to one of the sailors. Then he turned back to Nino and Silvio. “If you are going to enjoy the benefits of the dining room, I expect to get some work out of you during the day. You, boy—how old are you?”
Silvio reddened. He hated being called a boy. “Eighteen, sir.”
“You can work the immigrant decks. And you can help the doctor.” He looked at Nino. “Do you have any skills, any training?”
Nino shrugged. “Explosives.”
The captain frowned. “Yes. Stupid of me. I’d heard.” He paused for a moment. “Not much use on board ship. But you look fit and intimidating. You can help patrol the casino. We occasionally have trouble there. Now”—he nodded to the officer who had led them from their cabin—“First Officer Breguzzo will show you where you have to go. One thing: you will be accepted by the crew. New people join the ship for every voyage and many of the lesser hands have unsavory backgrounds themselves. That’s one of the many reasons people go to sea. I would, however, prefer it if you did not discuss your own situation. You are obviously going to have to enter America in … well, in an unorthodox way, and it is better if you keep to yourselves as much as you can. Clear?”
Nino and Silvio both nodded.
“Breguzzo will see that your breakfast and lunch are brought to your quarters. During the day I want you both working at your assigned tasks, from eight until six. That will keep you out of the way. In the evenings you may wear these uniforms and come to dinner in the main saloon—where I can keep an eye on you. Come and see me again the day before we arrive at New Orleans. Now—any questions?”
Nino shook his head. So did Silvio.
“Very well. Mr. Breguzzo, please show them to their workstations.”
5
At first Nino and Silvio retraced their steps down off the bridge, then entered the main deck through a large set of double doors. Silvio was becoming aware that the ship was divided into a number of classes and that the higher the deck the higher the class of passenger—like the suburbs on the hills of Palermo. This part of the top deck, however, appeared to be devoted largely to pleasure. He was astonished to find that they were now on the balcony of a large hall, or saloon, as the captain had called it. The saloon was the height of two decks. Breguzzo led the way down a wide, curved, wooden staircase, with a magnificent ornate brass handrail. The balcony ran all the way around the saloon and on the lower level there was a grand piano, what looked like a small dance floor, and a number of dining tables. Was this where dinner was served? Silvio hoped so. He had never been to a proper restaurant, or to a dance, for that matter.
The saloon was empty, save for a couple of cleaners with mops and buckets. Breguzzo led the way across the dance floor to the far side of the room, where another set of double doors opened onto a corridor leading toward the stern of the ship. Silvio was astounded to see that this corridor was lined with shops—one selling books, another soap, a third selling chocolate. There was an entire room filled with books and a room where men were smoking. There was even a room where people could have their portrait painted. At the end of the corridor they turned left, but not before Silvio had time to glimpse through another set of doors a second restaurant, where people were still finishing their breakfast. He had no idea such luxury existed, still less that it existed on a ship. He wondered if the Via Scina had been like this.
They had arrived at a third set of double doors, smaller than the others but wooden and shiny, with two lamps above them. Silvio sensed that they were about to enter somewhere different.
Breguzzo went first. This was a smaller room than the saloon, with a much lower ceiling, picked out in patterns. At the far end was a bar, already open. There were also two roulette tables, a card table for a game he didn’t recognize, and a fourth table with a dice pit. The casino.
Breguzzo was talking quietly with the barman, occasionally looking at Nino and Silvio. He beckoned them over. Motioning to the barman, he said to Nino, “This is Enrico. The bar is his responsibility. So is the casino. You report to him and do what he says. You keep out of everybody’s way, unless there’s trouble, and then you deal with it as tactfully as you can. Don’t get familiar with the passengers. It’s easier to be firm with them if you don’t. Enrico will tell you who the difficult ones are. I’ll come and see how you are getting on in an hour or two.”
He took Silvio’s arm. “You come with me.”
They left the casino, went back down the corridor, past the breakfast room, and out onto the deck on the other side of the ship. Breguzzo turned toward the stern of the Syracusa and marched down the deck for some way. They came to a small door with writing on it. Breguzzo turned. “Can you read, boy?”
Silvio shook his head. “I’m not a boy.”
The officer ignored the remark. “It says: ‘The passengers of the first and second class are requested not to throw money and eatables to the steerage passengers, thereby creating disturbance and annoyance.’ The same applies to crew. Clear?”
Silvio nodded again. He could never be a sailor: all these orders.
Breguzzo led the way through the door and down some stairs. With each flight, Silvio’s heart sank. He was going to be cooped up again.
He was wrong, in a way. When they had descended so far down that Silvio felt sure they must be well below the waterline, Breguzzo opened a door—and immediately a flood of noise washed over the two men. But this wasn’t machine noise. Silvio found himself instead in a huge gallery, with wooden bunks down each side and a wide passageway in the middle. The noise was a human one—people speaking, shouting, laughing, singing, crying even.
“Welcome to the immigrant deck,” said Breguzzo. “Three hundred aspiring Americans, and the same number on the deck below.”
“There’s another one like this?”
“Oh yes. Some ships are entirely made up of immigrant decks, but not the Syracusa. You’re lucky. You’ll be able to get away from this at night.”
Silvio looked around him in astonishment. These people—Neopolitans, people from the heel of Italy, Sicilians—must want to go to America very badly, or have been grossly unhappy at home, to expose themselves to such conditions. “Are they ever allowed on deck?” said Silvio as his nostrils began to take in the stench of the gallery.
“No. The ticket they buy is very clear about that. Access to the gallery only. They’re all poor immigrants, don’t forget. They’re not interested in lolling about on deck, and they don’t have any money to gamble. It’s not perfect down here, but you can survive anything for a few days. You should know that.”
Silvio did know that, but he was still shocked by what he saw. There was no mahogany or brass railing here, nothing shiny or plush, no shops or restaurants or dance floors. Simple fruitwood structures, with platforms for bunks at three levels, the lowest about a foot off the deck, the next four feet above that, and the top one the same distance above again. They were little better than boxes, the people packed in like so many oranges.
Every twenty bunks or so there was a little alcove with a table where families took turns eating. The air was clotted by little sulfur fires, which were used to add light whenever the passengers wanted to augment the newfangled electric light, which was very thin. Given that the mattresses were made of straw, anyone could see that the sulfur fires were potentially very dangerous.
Breguzzo strode down the central passageway, sidestepping children, crude toys, the odd bundle of luggage. At the far end of the gallery was a metal staircase with a metal railing, little more than a ladder really, which led them to an office overlooking the gallery. Breguzzo knocked on the door and, barely waiting for a reply, barged in.
Dr. Tolmezzo was a fleshy, bald man who wore steel-rimmed spectacles and a wing collar. He had soft hands with fat fingers stained by nicotine. When Breguzzo and Silvio entered he was just finishing examining a pregnant woman, whom he now ushered swiftly out, leaving her to negotiate the metal steps by herself. Breguzzo mad
e the introductions and left again immediately.
Tolmezzo pointed to a chair and Silvio sat down. “So you are the Quarryman’s nephew, eh?”
Silvio didn’t know what to say. Hadn’t he been told not to talk about it?
“Don’t be coy,” said the doctor. “The whole crew knows. I suppose it’s for the best. They would have caught up with him somehow, sooner or later. It’s easier to get lost in America, and New Orleans is one of the easier places in America to be invisible.” He sat up in his chair. “Now, to work. Can you read or write?”
Silvio shook his head.
“You’ll find both a help in America. Get started as soon as you can. Have you ever seen a baby born?”
Again, Silvio shook his head.
“A cow?”
“Yes.”
“That might come in handy. We often get one or two births on a voyage like this, especially if it gets rough and people are thrown about. Are you the type that faints when you see blood?”
At that, Silvio had to smile. “Of course not.”
“That’s something. It’s important being a ship’s doctor. Under American law, the captain of a ship like this one is fined ten dollars for every person we put ashore who is dead. That’s a lot of money, so the captain takes a particular interest in what we do. Now, the drill. It can be a tricky business. A lot of the time nothing happens at all, except for giving people a little camphor, or bismuth, for seasickness. Then, all of a sudden, trouble erupts—and you’ve got no backup. You have to diagnose, sedate, and operate all by yourself, usually with the captain standing over you while you do it.”
He took off his spectacles and began to polish them with a silk handkerchief. “Can you count?”
“Yes. And I can tell the time.”
“Hmm. I might teach you how to take a pulse. Now, I start at eight in the morning, seeing first-class patients. Around nine-thirty I see second-class passengers. At eleven o’clock I come down here. There are six hundred steerage passengers, so I may be attending to twenty or thirty patients a day. I remain here until lunchtime. After lunch I am in my office, which is in first class, writing up my notes. People know I am there and can send one of the crew for me if they need to.
“Before lunch, I shall want you with me at all times, to run errands, hold a baby perhaps, while I treat the mother, or to hold down a big man who’s having a tooth out. After lunch, I want you in here, alone. I want to avoid this pit as much as I can, and you can come and fetch me if anyone needs me. You’ll probably be fascinated by the mornings and bored in the afternoons. Not bad, considering the reason you’re here in the first place. If anyone asks who you are, say you are the assistant medical officer. That should shut them up. I’ll occasionally talk medical jargon at you, to impress on people that you have more training than you do. Just nod and smile and agree with me. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me ‘sir.’ Assistant medical officers do not call medical officers ‘sir.’ Call me Aldo, or call me ‘doctor.’ Any questions?”
Silvio shook his head.
“Right. Now, sit over there and pretend to read one of these medical journals. We’ll have more patients presently, I’m sure.”
And so, for the rest of the morning, Silvio played doctor. He held bottles of iodine as Tolmezzo stitched the forehead of a young child who had fallen and cracked her skull. He was shown the yellow flag that the doctor had to give the captain to fly should cholera break out on board. He helped mix plaster of paris so Tolmezzo could set a leg that had been broken when its owner, an elderly woman, had fallen off her bunk. By noon he was hungry.
Just after one, Tolmezzo stood up. “Well, I’m off to eat. I want you back here at two sharp. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, Yes, doctor.”
Tolmezzo made for the door. Then he had second thoughts, slumped back down in his chair again, and began rummaging in the drawers of his desk. “Hold on,” he said. Speaking to himself, he muttered, “It’s got to be here somewhere … ah, yes.” He pulled an object out of a drawer and handed it to Silvio. “Stick that in your top pocket. It will make you look like a doctor.”
It was a pair of dental pliers.
When Silvio returned to his cabin he found that an orange and a plate of cold pasta had been left on his bed. There was no sign of Nino. He wolfed down the pasta and peeled the orange. It was red, and bled on his uniform. He had intended to spend most of his free hour on deck, enjoying the fresh air. Then he remembered the captain’s warning to stay out of sight. Reluctantly he decided he would just lie on his bed. It was an opportunity to think about Annunziata. There hadn’t been much chance in the previous days.
The ring Annunziata had given him had entirely wiped out any doubts he’d had since the change in her behavior. With the ring she was saying she loved him. More. In effect, she was proposing to him, giving herself to him, telling him she would keep herself for him until he was able to send for her. He suddenly realized that perhaps she had thought more about their separation than he had. It would also explain Zata’s behavior—she had kept her distance merely to convince the others that it was all over between them.
Silvio took out the ring, which he had hidden in one of the pockets of his officer’s tunic, and kissed it. He daren’t let Nino see it, but he would keep it with him at all times. Annunziata made him forget his parents. She made him more like the man Nino had told him to become: soft on the outside, hard on the inside. Silvio knew that he and Nino wouldn’t always be together in America. After a few months he would start out for himself. He would leave New Orleans, which meant nothing to him, and try another American city—New York perhaps, or San Francisco. Then, when he had settled, he would send for Annunziata.
Together they would live a normal life.
Together they would be happy.
“Are you the new doctor?”
Silvio shifted in his seat. This was the exchange he had been dreading for the past forty-five minutes, ever since he had come back from lunch. Two people had already been in with minor ailments, and had been easily fobbed off until the following day’s surgery.
This time the door to the office was opened by a young man, no more than a boy really, like Silvio. Pale skin, large brown eyes, straight hair, black as the marble in Bivona church. A cheap shirt and trousers. A peasant.
“Er.… no. I’m the assistant medical officer.”
“You’ll do. You’ve got to come. My brother’s had a fit.”
“What? Come where?”
“The next gallery down.”
“You go back to your brother. I’ll get the doctor.” He stood up.
“No!” the other youth cried. Silvio was startled. “I went to the top deck first. He wasn’t there. Come on! Please!”
Silvio didn’t move. He probably knew less about medicine than anyone on the ship. What if he went with this youth and his brother died? Silvio might be blamed. Then everyone would know he wasn’t an assistant medical officer at all.
“Please!” The youth was clearly frightened.
Silvio had seen fits, of course. Who hadn’t? At Bivio Indisi dogs had fits and there were two people, one a child, the other a young woman, who had them fairly frequently—they were both the children of parents who were too closely related, or so it was said. Normally they were held down on their sides, and someone gripped their tongue so they couldn’t swallow it and choke, until they came round. Usually that didn’t take very long. Surely these people knew that much at least?
“Please!”
There was no way out. This youth wasn’t going to leave the office without him. Silvio buttoned his jacket and opened the door. He would just have to play along.
The youth scampered down the stairs, doubled back on himself, then descended another identical flight of steep metal steps that Silvio hadn’t noticed before. Sure enough, this led to a replica gallery below. Halfway along the passage a crowd was gathered by one of the alcoves. Sulfur fires had been li
t to augment the electric light and there was a sharp, acrid smell. It was very warm. The youth led the way and the crowd parted to let him and Silvio through. In the alcove, on the floor, was a man of about twenty-five, stocky with curly brown hair. He was lying on his back with his eyes closed and his mouth open. His tongue was visible.
The youth told Silvio, “He hasn’t moved since he passed out half an hour ago.”
Silvio knelt by the man. What on earth was he going to do? He was watched, and now surrounded, by perhaps fifteen people.
“Is he still breathing?” the youth asked quietly.
Silvio lowered his head and placed his ear near to the man’s mouth.
Suddenly the figure came to life. An arm was wrapped around Silvio, and a second arm pulled his shoulder to the deck. At the same time the man with the curly hair threw a leg over Silvio’s torso, then sat astride him. The whole business had been a charade and a trap. In no time at all Silvio was flat on his back with the ex-epileptic sitting on top of him, grinning and whooping, riding him like a mule. The youth, too, was grinning. He had been a very successful lure. Why?
Silvio tried to struggle, but it was pointless. He might unseat the man sitting on his chest, but there were a dozen more in the crowd. He lay still, to preserve his strength. He would find out what was going to happen soon enough.
The man astride him snatched Silvio’s white officer’s cap from his head and put it on his own. Then he doffed it, saying at the same time: “Onofri Orestano, at your service. The name will be familiar, I hope.”
It was. The Orestanos were the family who had tried to move in on the Priola organization. They were the people whose warehouse Nino had blown up all those years ago. When two of the Orestanos had been killed. Silvio lay very still now.
“You’ve disappointed us, Sylvano. My brother thought up this little game. But I said you’d see through it—you’d want to fetch Tolmezzo, and when Massimo said he’d already been to find the doctor, you wouldn’t have believed him. Passengers from the immigrant decks aren’t allowed on the upper deck—didn’t they teach you that at medical school?” He shrieked with laughter.