The Girl in the Torch

by Robert Sharenow

  And it was just the two of them alone, staring at each other. Sarah was awed by the Lady’s face lit by moonlight, a face that she had only dreamed about, seen in photographs and drawings, or from a distance. Her eyes were calm but strong, her lips perfectly formed, her nose straight and broad, her hair neatly parted in the middle and tucked under her crown. The Lady was so close and so real, Sarah began to laugh with joy at being alone with such a wondrous thing.

  As her laughter subsided, she noticed the absolute quiet of the island. The water lapping against the rocky shore was the only sound. She scanned the landscape, struck by how strange it felt to be in such a wide-open space with no other people, particularly after the overcrowding of the ship and Ellis Island. She listened to the sound of her own breath mingling with the gentle lapping of the waves and the wind.

  Suddenly she heard the sharp noise of breaking glass and a deep, hacking cough.

  She wasn’t alone.

  The Watchman

  SARAH STUFFED IVAN INTO her pocket and scurried across the grass, trying to keep herself as low to the ground as possible. With her head tucked down so that her red hair wouldn’t shine in the moonlight and give her away, she crept toward a small clump of trees that stood in a row behind the Lady’s enormous base. There was another deep cough, but Sarah was afraid to stop and find exactly where the sound was coming from.

  Reaching the trees, she wrapped herself around the nearest trunk and scanned the island, but couldn’t see anyone. The tree, a large oak filled with leaves that had already lost their green in the fall chill, had several low-hanging branches. Sarah grabbed for the lowest one and pulled herself up into the leafy cover. She carefully climbed through thick branches until she was about halfway up and could look out onto the clearing. At first, she saw nothing. Then she heard another cough.

  Off in the distance, about fifty yards away, Sarah spied a dark lump on the path that led away from the base of the Lady. As the lump moved and coughed again, she could make out the faint outline of a man on his hands and knees. A small lantern sat beside him, glowing a dull thin yellow line of kerosene flame. The man arched his back and spit a deep lungful of phlegm onto the ground. Then he rose, first with hands on knees, then bent over at the waist, and finally standing at full height. Even next to the enormous statue, he looked like a giant with his meaty hands, arms, and legs. He easily would have been the biggest man in Sarah’s village.

  He took off his hat and ran his hands through his thick gray hair. His head seemed particularly large and fleshy, too big for the small hat he had just removed.

  Suddenly the branch Sarah was standing on cracked and split and her feet slipped out from under her.

  “Ahhh,” Sarah gasped, feeling herself falling.

  She grabbed onto another branch with both hands and swung in midair for a moment until her feet found a solid branch to rest on.

  The watchman quickly turned toward the noise, and she caught a glimpse of an angry red face rimmed by long, bushy gray sideburns and eyebrows. Deep lines creased his forehead, and tiny pink broken blood vessels sprouted on the end of his bulbous nose. But it was his eyes that caught her attention. They were dark and seemed to have a naturally wicked slant. She instinctively shrank back.

  Sarah ducked as the watchman hoisted his lantern toward the noise and squinted into the darkness. He took a step toward the trees, swinging the lantern in front of him, scanning right and left. Sarah held her breath, certain that her red hair would get caught in the lamplight.

  Finally, he turned away from her, put the hat back on, and wiped his mouth with the side of his forearm. He checked the time on his pocket watch and then moved off down the path, toward the other side of the island. Lurching right and left, the watchman eventually passed out of sight.

  A strong wind blew across the island, making the leaves around Sarah ripple against each other, like a thousand paper fans opening and closing. The wind chilled her and she felt the cold wetness seep into her hair, bones, even the roots of her teeth, making her whole body feel brittle. She had to find a way to get inside and change out of her wet clothes. The only shelter around was the Lady, but she didn’t dare venture down yet, not with the gray-haired giant nearby.

  And so she waited.

  After nearly an hour in the tree, watching and waiting for the giant to return, Sarah climbed down. Her eyes darted back and forth and she kept her body bent low to the ground as she made her way to the path. Her foot kicked against a large shard of broken glass that skidded across the cement with a sharp clang. She stopped in her tracks and listened, afraid that someone would be stirred by the noise. But she heard nothing more.

  Sarah looked down at her feet and saw that she had kicked the top of a green glass bottle, and that the other pieces were scattered nearby, including the bottom half of the bottle, which still held a dram of brown liquid. She picked up a piece of glass with the label half stuck on that read GOLDEN CLOVER IRISH WHISKEY and had a picture of a barrel with a clover painted on the side.

  Sarah picked up the bottom of the bottle and sniffed the liquid, which was dark, sweet, and medicinal. She began to salivate. It had been hours since her last meal.

  Before she could worry about finding food, though, she had to get out of the cold. She set the broken bottle down and hurried toward a door in the Lady’s star-shaped base.

  The Crown Room

  WRAPPING HER HAND AROUND the cold, smooth surface of the brass doorknob, Sarah was certain it would be locked. She jerked her hand back in surprise as the knob yielded in her grasp and the door opened onto a long, dark hallway. Sarah poked her head in and then carefully stepped inside, gasping as the door swung shut.

  She fought to regain her breath and adjust to the deep quiet and near-total darkness inside. Sarah blinked her eyes several times, trying to get the space to come into focus, but there was no light to be found. She considered going back outside but couldn’t face the idea of returning to the icy chill of the harbor winds. So she felt her way along the hall until she came to the base of a staircase. She started to climb, some inner drive propelling her forward despite her fear.

  She came to another hallway and then a door, which opened out onto the star-shaped plaza that formed the roof of the statue’s base. Relief swept over her to be back in the moonlight, to be able to see the world around her. She looked up and was again awed by her proximity to the Lady, who drew her ever closer. She needed to be inside the Lady’s body, to climb in and around the crown and then up into the torch.

  So Sarah forged ahead to the next door at the bottom of the pedestal. She entered the pedestal and again climbed through the darkness until she came out another door, which led directly into the statue itself.

  Sarah took another fortifying breath and entered the statue. Once inside, she paused again. The interior space was dark, but not as dark as the base had been. Tiny sprays of moonlight peeked in through small crevices in the statue’s shell. Sarah could just make out another long set of winding stairs. Strange, high-pitched whistles of wind blew in and around the interior of the statue above her.

  Sarah grabbed the metal railing and started to climb again. After a few dozen steps, she began to sweat despite the cold, and the backs of her legs and ankles started to ache. The stairway wound in tight circles higher and higher. She could tell by the echo that she was inside the skeleton of the statue itself. She imagined the part of the body she might be traveling through, the legs draped in long robes, the waist, the torso, the arm holding the tablet.

  Sarah paused to take a breath, her legs and lungs unaccustomed to so much exertion. The tallest building in her village was only two stories high. She flexed her sore legs and kept climbing until she came to a platform in the stairwell. A ladder led off in one direction while the stairs continued up in the other. She took the set of stairs, which narrowed even more. A dim light glowed just ahead.

  Finally she came to the top and pulled herself into the observation room inside the crown. The room held a
small platform and a set of pyramid-shaped steps that led up to the little windows that formed part of the top of the crown. Sarah climbed the stairs, moved to one of the windows, and peered out. She was winded from the climb, but the view took even more of her breath away. Removing Ivan from her pocket, Sarah placed him up on a window ledge. As Sarah showed Ivan the view, she wished more than anything that her parents could see it too.

  She remembered how furious her mother had been when her father came home with the toy. They never had money to spare on anything. As Sarah played with Ivan on her mat, her parents had quietly argued.

  “You think we can eat that bear if times get lean?” her mother asked.

  “Just look at her!” Sarah’s father said, nodding to his daughter. “It was a small price to pay for a little joy.”

  Her mother watched Sarah playing for a moment, making Ivan jump and roll across her blanket.

  “I married a fool,” she said. “But a very good-hearted fool.”

  Now Sarah marveled at the vast amount of land and sea stretched out before her, but also at how small everything looked, like a toy diorama. She could see a bridge connecting the east side of Manhattan with the opposite shore.

  She danced Ivan along the ledge of the window, making him tumble and roll as her father used to do to amuse her.

  A draft shot through the body of the Lady, chilling Sarah’s sweat- and sea-soaked body. She needed to dry herself. So she stood back from the window and started to remove her wet clothes, her boots, coat, stockings, skirt, sweater, and blouse, until she was wearing only her underclothes. She hesitated for a moment, embarrassed to be undressed despite the fact that she was alone. Then she slowly removed her undershirt and underwear until she was completely naked. She wrung out her wet clothes, creating little round puddles on the floor, and draped each article of clothing along the railing of the staircase.

  Sarah stood, letting the moonlight bathe her bare skin. Hard goose bumps sprouted across her entire body. Her leg muscles ached from the swim and the climb. She ran her hands over her torso, taking inventory of each muscle, each patch of skin, to confirm that she was still whole, that she was still herself. She paced around the small room, and got used to her own nakedness.

  As her hand grazed one of the scrapes on her arm, she felt a horrible pang of loss as she realized her mother would no longer be there to tend her wounds. Yet she also felt glad to be alive.

  I am here, she thought. I’m alive.

  Then all at once exhaustion hit her. She grabbed Ivan off the ledge, laid her coat across a patch of the cold floor just below the windows, and allowed herself to lie down. She exhaled and stared up through the windows in the crown at the clouds drifting across the moon. She listened to the wind blow through the Lady, like the statue itself was breathing.

  The noises acted like a lullaby, numbing her mind and making her eyelids heavy. Sarah felt her own breathing slow and relax. Her eyes closed and she fell asleep, naked atop her wet coat.

  American Morning

  “I’M GONNA BEAT YOU!”

  “No, you won’t!”

  Sarah stirred awake at the echo of voices drifting up from somewhere below and then distant footsteps pounding up a staircase.

  “I’m almost there!”

  Her eyes shot open, and at first she didn’t realize where she was, a strangely shaped gray room with a pyramid staircase and a cold metal floor. A glint of light came through one of the windows at the top of the crown. Suddenly everything came back to her.

  She sprang to her feet, her naked body stiff and cold. The joints in her legs, neck, and shoulders cracked as she moved. The voices and footsteps drew nearer.

  Sarah grabbed her clothes from the railing. They were still slightly damp and stiff from the night chill, but she pulled them on anyway, racing to cover herself.

  The voices came closer.

  She struggled to get into her underclothes, skirt, stockings, and blouse. She was just pulling on her sweater as the first tourists came to the foot of the stairs that led to the crown room. A pair of twin boys raced up the final steps. They both had blond hair and wore matching blue coats and knickers.

  “I won!” the first boy declared.

  But his face fell as he saw the girl awkwardly holding her coat and boots.

  “Aw, someone’s already up here.”

  The other twin joined his brother in the observation room.

  “How’d you beat us?” he asked. “We were gonna be the first.”

  Sarah just stared at them, afraid to say anything.

  “Maybe she got up here so fast ’cause she took off her shoes,” the first twin said.

  “Who cares? Look!”

  The boys climbed the stairs to the windows and peered out at the view. Sarah quickly pulled on her boots without bothering to lace them, shoved Ivan into her pocket, and hurried for the stairs. As she made her way past dozens of tourists, she kept her head bent low, eyes locked on the steps below her.

  Back on the top of the base, she was surrounded by large groups of people waiting in line to enter the statue and milling around staring up at the Lady. She continued down the stairs inside the base until she reached ground level, where hundreds of tourists walked around the island. A ferryboat was moored at the landing dock in the distance, unloading still more passengers.

  Her body tensed as she passed directly beside a man wearing an official uniform and hat like the night watchman.

  Were they looking for her?

  Sarah held her breath. But as he walked past, he didn’t seem to notice her at all.

  She scanned the island and saw several men in similar uniforms standing at the guard station near the dock and helping tourists with questions and directions. More and more people walked by, none of them taking any notice of a girl all by herself.

  No one knows I jumped off the ship, so no one will be looking for me.

  Knowing this, Sarah was able to relax a bit and spent the morning walking around the island, trying to blend in with the crowds. Around noon, she followed a young couple. The woman carried a baby wrapped in a pink blanket. The baby’s toy rattle fell out of her hand and Sarah instinctively bent to pick it up. The young mother turned to Sarah.

  “A sheynem dank,” the woman said, thanking her in Yiddish.

  Sarah froze, so shocked to hear her native language, she didn’t know what to do. Worried about drawing attention to herself in any way, she responded in English, “You’re welcome.”

  She handed the woman the toy and the couple moved on.

  Sarah watched them from a distance as they settled on a bench and unpacked a small picnic for themselves. Sarah longed to be with her own mother and father and felt a jolt of envy toward the baby girl. Sarah thought about approaching the family, telling them everything that had happened to her and begging them to help. They seemed so familiar and friendly. She inched closer. But then the mother looked up at her with a curious expression, as if ready to defend her child from anyone coming too close, so Sarah stepped back.

  As Sarah walked away, she saw the father cut slices of apple and hand them to the infant. Sarah’s mouth filled with saliva at the sight of the food. The father finished slicing and tossed the core into a nearby garbage bin.

  Sarah’s eyes locked on the bin. She wanted to lunge after the core, but knew she would have to wait until no one was watching. The family ate the apple and then some cheese and crusty bread. The baby girl dropped piles of crumbs as she chomped on an unwieldy corner of the loaf. Sarah was so hungry that even the crumbs looked delicious. Finally, the parents deposited the remnants of their snack in the trash.

  As soon as they were a good distance away, Sarah walked toward the trash can, already imagining the taste of the food in her mouth. Just as she was about to reach out her hand, she heard a voice from behind.

  “’Scuse me, missy.”

  An old, brown-skinned man with a round, bald head stood right beside her wearing blue coveralls and pushing a large metal trash can
on wheels. The girl joined the flow of people as if she belonged to another family. Her stomach clenched with hunger as she glanced over her shoulder and saw the old man grabbing the garbage bin and emptying it into the can.

  She searched the island and found two more trash bins near the door to the entrance of the pedestal, and she nonchalantly positioned herself near one of them to wait for another deposit. Sure enough, a few minutes later a man walked up eating something from a bag, then crumpled it up and threw it away. Sarah wasn’t sure what it was, but she knew it was food and hoped that there was some left.

  She quickly plunged her hand into the trash can and snatched the bag out, trying to look as if it had been hers all along. Inside she discovered a small pile of white puffs with a warm, savory smell. The outside of the bag was printed in red, white, and blue letters that said “popcorn.” She tentatively popped one of the puffs into her mouth and she was surprised how quickly it dissolved on her tongue. She took another handful and the salty treasure made her mouth come alive. As soon as the bag was empty, she craved more.

  She spent the morning milling around the trash barrels and managed to scrounge up two half-eaten hot dogs, a piece of a roll with butter, and one bruised banana. She was shocked at how much food was thrown out. In her village, nothing ever went to waste and the idea of throwing away anything even remotely edible was unheard of. Even spoiled food was saved for the goats and other livestock.

  Sarah spent the day roaming the island, blending in with the crowds that came and went. As the day progressed, she scavenged more popcorn, a chicken leg, and another half-eaten roll, which she tucked away inside the pocket of her skirt.

  Eventually, the crowd thinned and the sun began to set. Sarah became more anxious as there were fewer and fewer people to help camouflage her. One of the men in uniform walked around the island ringing a large brass bell, calling out, “Last boat! All aboard!”