Until We Reach Home

by Lynn Austin

  The smells in the dormitory were even worse at night, when the air turned damp and clammy from too many sweating people. Sofia tossed in her bed, barely able to sleep through the buzz of snoring men and the constant wail of babies. She didn't know what the lumpy burlapcovered mattress was stuffed with, but it smelled like hundreds of poor people had slept on it before she had. Elfin had unpacked their own bedding from the trunk, and at first the thick linen sheets had smelled like sunlight and pine-scented breezes and the soap they'd always used back home. But it hadn't taken long for the smell of home to fade and for the stench of the mattress to work its way up through the bedding to Sofia's nostrils.

  "Why does everyone talk so loudly?" Kirsten complained as they shared their meal the next evening. Elfin always spread a cloth across the top of their trunk and set the food on it as if it were their kitchen table. She made them bow their heads and recite a blessing before they ate-although it was a mystery to Sofia why God would suddenly decide to bless their food after He had denied all of her other requests.

  "Was it just our family that was so soft-spoken or was everyone in Sweden quieter than these people?" Kirsten asked. "I can barely remember."

  "No, you're right," Elfin said, breaking off a chunk of krockebrod. "People back home never talked this loudly." She offered Sofia a piece, but she shook her head. She hadn't had any appetite at all since they'd boarded. "Yes, take it," Elfin insisted. "You have to eat something."

  "You can always tell the Germans-like that family over there," Kirsten continued, nodding in their direction. "They sound angry when they talk, even when they're not. And the Italians talk very rapidly, with everyone speaking at once. They're always gesturing with their hands, like this." She made wild, swooping motions in imitation until Elfin pulled her hands down.

  "Careful, you'll upset our dinner."

  "I miss the deep silence of the woods at home," Kirsten said with a sigh. "It was so quiet sometimes you could hear the snowflakes falling from the tree branches and make that hissing sound when they landed on the ground, remember? I'm so tired of all this noise-people arguing and babies crying and women yelling at their children. I don't remember Mama yelling at us all the time, do you?"

  She had addressed the question to Sofia, but she shrugged and shook her head in reply. Elfin caressed Sofia's face, then lifted her chin, forcing her to look up.

  "Talk to us, Sofia. You barely say a word anymore."

  "I don't feel like it," she murmured. Talking made her cry, and if she started crying again she feared she would never stop. Besides, she had nothing to say except "I want to go home," and Elfin got mad whenever she said it.

  She saw Elfin and Kirsten exchange glances. They finished their evening meal, and after Elfin packed away the leftover food, she stood and reached for Sofia's hand, pulling her to her feet.

  "Come on, let's all go up on deck for a walk." Her offer surprised Sofia. Elfin usually chose to stay below whenever Kirsten and Sofia went outside for air. Kirsten looked surprised, too.

  "You mean it?" she asked.

  "Lead the way, Kirsten." Elfin pushed Sofia forward, out of the crowded steerage hold and up the stairs.

  Once they were outside, Sofia was glad she had come. The deck wasn't overcrowded for once, and millions of stars filled the night sky. The moon was nearly full, and it perched on the horizon like a huge broken dinner plate, casting a ribbon of light across the gently tossing waves. The water looked as though you could walk on it.

  "Look up," Elfin told Sofia. "Those are the same stars and the same moon that shone above our home in Sweden. They're following us to our new home."

  "You know what tonight is?" Kirsten asked. "Walpuro s Eve."

  "You're right," Elin said. "I've nearly lost track of what day it is, but tomorrow is the first of May."

  "Everyone back home is probably gathering around the village bonfire," Kirsten said. She gazed at the horizon as if expecting to see a column of sparks swirling toward heaven in the distance.

  Sofia used to love gathering with her friends and family on Walpuro s Eve to celebrate the return of the sun and warm weather. She loved singing the old familiar songs, saying farewell to winter's long, dark nights. The tears that filled her eyes at this reminder of home made the stars shimmer and whirl like snowflakes.

  "So," Elin said after a long pause, "the past is behind us, just like the long, cold winter. It's time for us to make some new plans. Let's watch for a shooting star and everyone can make a wish. What would you wish for, Sofia?"

  "She wants to go home," Kirsten said in a whining imitation.

  "Be quiet and let her talk. Go on, Sofia."

  "Let Kirsten go first," she mumbled.

  "Fine," Kirsten sighed. "Let's see ... I want ... I want to marry the most wonderful man in the whole world and be as rich as a queen just to show all those stupid people back in the village that I don't need any of them. I wish they would all be sorry that they didn't think we were good enough to marry their ugly old sons-but by then it will be too late."

  That's it?" Elin asked. "You could have any wish in the world and you'd pick retribution?"

  "Oh, you know what I mean," Kirsten said, waving her hand. "I wish this journey would make everything new for us, and that crossing this ocean would wash everything old away. I want a new home with Uncle Lars and Aunt Hilma, and a new village to live in. And new adventures!"

  "That's better. Now it's your turn, Sofia. Forget about all the things we've had to endure and think ahead. Dream big dreams. What do you wish for in America?"

  "I don't know," she said with a shrug.

  "Come on, Sofia. You must long for something."

  "I want things to be the way they were when Mama and-"

  "No, Sofia. You can't live in the past. Even if we'd stayed in Sweden, we could never have Mama back and things could never be the way they were. Change is part of life, don't you see? Remember how quickly everything changed after Mama died? And then Papa gave up and the farm fell into ruin and everything changed again. Then Uncle Sven came and ... and things were very different. Nothing ever stays the same. Try to remember what you used to dream of before Mama and Papa died."

  Sofia thought hard and realized that she didn't have any dreams. It worried her that she didn't long for adventure like Kirsten or for a new start like Elfin.

  "All I want . . ." she said slowly, gazing up at the stars, "all I want is what I left behind-a cottage on a farm with my own cows and chickens, and a little piece of land with a pasture and trees. I want to plant potatoes and grow flowers and eat dinner with my family around the table every evening. I want to smell soup cooking on the stove and bread baking in the oven and have freshly churned butter to spread on it. . . ." She had to stop as a wave of homesickness choked off her words. Elfin wrapped her arm around Sofia's shoulder.

  "You can have all of that someday, Sofia. You can meet a nice man and get married when you're ready and have a home and a family and cows again. And children. You would like children someday, wouldn't you?"

  Sofia nodded and wiped her tears, remembering how she had cuddled her little cousins back home.

  "What about you, Elfin?" Kirsten asked. "What's your dream for America?"

  "I would like to feel safe." Elin answered so quickly it was as if she had rehearsed it beforehand.

  "To be safe?" Kirsten echoed. "We're safe right now, aren't we? What are you so afraid of?"

  "I'm not afraid. I didn't mean it like that. I wouldn't have come on this journey if I felt afraid, would I? It's just that we need to be cautious traveling all alone. We have to use common sense when it comes to strangers."

  Kirsten turned her head toward Sofia and rolled her eyes.

  They fell silent, gazing up at the twinkling sky. The ocean beneath it seemed vast and dark and endless. The longer Sofia looked, the more she felt like a tiny speck, lost and alone in a fathomless universe. She closed her eyes, wishing she could go back inside.

  "Remember that psalm Mama used t
o read to us?" Kirsten asked. "Something about looking up at the heavens at night and wondering about God and why He made us?"

  "I think so," Elin said. "We should look for it in her Bible sometime."

  Sofia remembered it, too. She longed to find it, but she was afraid to open the Bible again.

  The depthless sky and bottomless ocean made her feel insignificant. They reminded her that God and everyone else had abandoned hereveryone except her sisters. She gripped Elin's hand a little tighter, afraid to imagine what would happen if she abandoned her, too.

  "Say something, Sofia," Elin urged. "Tell us what you're thinking."

  "It's cold out here," she replied. "I want to go back inside."

  U/__j2Offer Ten

  ELIN DIDN'T THINK the clammy odors in steerage could possibly get any worse-and then they did. The ship ran into a storm and seasick passengers taxed the overworked latrines to their limit. Everyone had to stay below deck or risk getting soaked by rain and sea. Down in steerage, the sickening motion of the rising and falling waves was even more apparent than it had been on the ferry. Elfin hadn't needed a bucket yet, but if she didn't do something to take her mind off her terrible nausea, she would need it soon.

  "I'm going up on deck," Kirsten said on the third day of the storm. She slid down from the top bunk with a thump.

  "Kirsten, wait."

  "Now what?" She swung around at Elin's words, hands on hips, a look of exasperation on her face. She had found her friends Eric and Hjelmer on their second day at sea and was spending too much time with them. Elfin longed to tell her what could happen to girls who were too trusting, but she feared it would lead to awkward questions about her own experiences-questions she didn't want to answer. Instead, she searched for excuses to keep Kirsten away from them.

  "I thought you said you weren't feeling well."

  "I'm not. But Eric says seasickness is worse if you stay below. He worked on a fishing boat one summer and he says it helps to stay out in the open air, where you can keep your eyes on the horizon."

  "But it's raining. You can't go outside in the rain."

  "The deck has an overhang. I'll stay under the roof."

  "What if the waves are rough and you get soaked? How will you ever dry your clothes?"

  "Will you please stop worrying? You're driving me crazy!"

  "I wish you wouldn't go up there-"

  "Well, I wish you would! Why do you want to stay cooped up down here when there are so many interesting things to see on this ship?" When Elin didn't reply, Kirsten said, "You know, we've been so sheltered all of our lives. Our world was our farm and our family. A trip into the village was the most excitement we ever had. But now we're here with all these people on this enormous ship on this vast ocean, and I can't understand why you would want to stay in one place when there is so much to see. What are you so afraid of?"

  "I'm not afraid-"

  "You certainly act like it. And the more afraid you are of everyone and everything, the more fearless I want to be. I don't want to be like you, Elin."

  "Well, you don't have to worry about that. You show no caution at all!"

  Kirsten walked back to where Elin sat on the bed. The smile that usually graced Kirsten's pretty face was replaced with tight-lipped anger. "I don't understand how you could act so brave when we were back home in Sweden, telling us that this was going to be a great adventure and convincing us to sail halfway around the world to start a new life-and then act so wary of everyone we meet."

  "These people are strangers. And those boys you're always hanging around with are bigger and stronger than you are."

  "What difference does that make?"

  "They could take advantage of you."

  Kirsten shook her head in disbelief. "You're crazy!"

  Her words made Elin shudder. What if she was crazy? She had hoped that by leaving home she would find peace and safety and rest, but her fears seemed to multiply with each passing day. Sometimes she worried that she was losing her mind.

  "Why are you so suspicious of everyone?" Kirsten asked. "Who would want to go through life that way?" She turned to leave, but Elfin grabbed her skirts.

  "Wait-take Sofia with you."

  "No," Sofia moaned. "I don't want to get wet."

  "Sofia, please go up with her," Elfin said, lowering her voice. "I'm worried that she's spending so much time alone with those boys. Please? For me?"

  "What if I get sick again?"

  "Why don't you go up and see if Kirsten is right? Maybe you'll feel better in the fresh air."

  "You can come, too, you know," Kirsten told Elfin.

  She shook her head. "Not this time."

  "I don't understand why you stay down here in this awful place all the time. In fact, I don't understand you at all!"

  "Well, I don't understand you, either," Elfin shot back. She sometimes wondered how she and Kirsten could be sisters-born of the same flesh and blood, raised in the same home-and yet be so different. And she didn't understand Sofia, either, moping around like it was the end of the world. Elfin recalled the way Papa had acted toward the end-sleeping a lot, refusing to eat, barely speaking to them-and saw the same behavior in Sofia. She shuddered.

  "Go on, both of you," Elfin said, shooing them away. "Come back and tell me how the weather is."

  She watched them go, weaving between the bunks as they made their way to the stairwell. The enormous room seemed quieter than usual today with so many passengers ill. Elfin had worried that the large, rambunctious family in the bunks beside her would be uncontrollable for the entire trip, but those children had all fallen ill, too. The oldest boy had been unwell since the day they'd left Liverpool, when the weather had still been sunny and the sailing smooth. But even before the ship had run into the storm, three more of his siblings had become sick, one after the other, with coughs and fevers. Now the remaining two lay sick and feverish.

  For days, as Elin had watched the woman take care of them, she'd hoped that the children had nothing worse than croup or the measles, which Elin and her sisters had already had. She wished she knew how to break through the barrier of language and help the struggling mother, but most days Elin had been too preoccupied with her own sisters to be of any help to the woman.

  Elfin sighed and pulled out her diary. Writing in her journal transported her to a place where she could ignore her fears and the sickening motion of the tossing sea. When her mother was alive, she had known exactly where to look in her little Bible to find all the right answers, all the right words to calm Elin's fears. But Mama was gone, her Bible useless. Elin's shame had sealed it shut more tightly than the cover's brass clasp. She had learned to set down her fears in her diary instead. She opened to a new page and began to write:

  We are steaming into the Atlantic Ocean, far from land, our ship a tiny speck of wood and steel on a vast, featureless sea. I've never lived in a place without trees before, and I hate it. This is an alien, barren place without birds or animals-only endless gray water. Everything familiar has been stripped away, and when I go up on deck I feel as though I have died and am no longer on earth. I may have left hell behind, but I can't help wondering what lies ahead-and if I will be punished for my sins.

  Kirsten begs me to come up and explore the ship with her, but I give her excuses. The truth is, I can't face the vast expanse of water. It stretches endlessly in every direction and I know that it is so deep I could sink down below the surface for an hour or more without ever reaching the bottom. Fear engulfs me whenever I go up on deck, and so I stay down here in order to keep my fear at bay. It is my means of survival, not a way to ignore my sisters.

  Kirsten has found her friend Eric, and I know she is spending time with him whenever she's not down here. My fear for her is enormous, but my fear of the endless ocean is greater. I can't face the ocean. Besides, there are so many people crowded onto the deck along with Kirsten and the boys that she can scarcely move. I hope she will be all right.

  During the day it is very noisy he
re in steerage, and the unending drumbeat of the engines pulses through me. At night I can hear the ship's hull groaning like an old man who is dying in his sleep. Sometimes I wake up with nightmares, and as I lie in the darkness I have the sensation that the ship is sinking to the ocean floor and I'm going to die in a cold, watery grave.

  Everything about this journey seems like a picture of my life. I'm no longer standing on solid ground but have been cast adrift on changing, unstable water. When Mama and Papa were alive, it seemed like barely a day went by that the sun didn't shine and the heavens weren't blue. But the storms began to rage as we lowered Mama into her grave, and my life has been wind-tossed ever since.

  Some of the sickness I feel is from the motion of the ship. But most of it is from the gnawing fear that I've made a terrible mistake. Maybe I'm like the foolish girl who ran away from a snake and encountered a bear. What if our lives become worse in America, not better? I believed that things would get better when Uncle Sven moved in with us, and look what happened. Maybe I should have found a different way to save all of us.

  But no matter what, I can't let Kirsten and Sofia know how afraid I am of what lies ahead in America, afraid of what Uncle Lars will be like, afraid of what our new life will be like. I have to push aside my fear and stay strong for their sakes. I have to ...

  Elfin paused when she heard someone crying. She looked around and saw the olive-skinned woman in the bunk next to hers holding her youngest child, rocking him back and forth, weeping. The child lay limp and lifeless in her arms.

  Was he dead? Horror shuddered through Elfin.

  She laid down her diary and moved to sit beside the woman. The boy's eyes fluttered open as the mattress shifted beneath her weight, then he closed them again. Elfin felt a rush of relief. She brushed the baby's dark hair from his brow and felt the heat of his fever.

  "I wish I knew what to say to you ... how to help you," she murmured to his mother. "May I see ... ?" She carefully lifted the baby's shirt to reveal a faint rose-colored rash on his chest. Elfin had helped Aunt Karin nurse her three children through the measles, but this rash didn't resemble the measles.