Henry & Sarah

by Kadrak, Suzanne

  Still, there were Indians who werenʼt hostile and who even felt sympathy for him, but they could hardly save him from all the other dangers that he saw himself confronted with, dangers that didnʼt have anything to do with his background. They couldnʼt save him from robbers and vagabonds who wanted the little money he got and who tried to secretly slit his throat at night when he slept in filthy corners on the ground next to corpses of people who had died because of starvation or diseases. One day he became the victim of a knife attack, but he was lucky: The assassin missed his target because Jeremy woke up in time and was able to fend him off. And so the incident only resulted in a huge scar on his left cheek.

  But the fear he had gone through that night was nothing compared to the hunger he permanently suffered. One day he was clubbed by some farmers who had caught him in the act of stealing corncobs from their fields. During that incident his leg got severely damaged with the result that it went stiff. The fact that he was now limping slowed down his return to Europe. But somehow, he could even understand them. He was poor, but so were they. Their small parcel of land was all they owned, and then he came along and tried to snatch away their provisions. It was not fair. But then again nothing seemed to be fair in life.

  Being a deserter, Jeremy knew that he would be prosecuted if he ever set foot on English ground again. And so, he went to Italy instead. He reached it in March after a long journey by train, by boat, by oxcart and on foot. It had taken him weeks, but he got there eventually.

  And although he liked it to live in the small town of San Gimignano where the sun never ceased to shine, where the wine was delicious and plentiful, and where poppies covered the fields like a vast purple carpet, he wasnʼt so sure anymore if the fact that he was alive could be considered as luck.

  It wasnʼt because of the scar in his face, or because of the stiff leg. No, it wasnʼt that. It rather were the memories of all the people he had seen in India, the poor and the ill, the wounded and the dead. When he thought about the poor and the ill, he wondered how God could do this to them. And when he thought about the wounded and the dead, he wondered how the soldiers could do this to them. And then he felt regret because he too had been a soldier. Instead of adding to the poor peopleʼs misery he could have tried to help. Maybe that would have been Godʼs answer to the prayers of all the unfortunate. He could have been their blessing. But instead, he had been their curse.

  Yes, it was that which was keeping him awake at night. And when he finally fell asleep, the guilt was still ever so present in his dreams. It made him restless. It made him want to leave San Gimignano and search for another place to stay, as if a change of scenery could make the pain go away.

  He couldnʼt claim that he had not known what he was getting himself into back then when he had approached Damian and had asked him so determinedly if he could join his regiment, back then when he had been so desperate to do something useful, something for the Empire, something which he could reflect upon with pride in the years to come. Something that would prove that his father had in fact been wrong in claiming that he was not made for anything better than carrying other peopleʼs dirt around, and that he was a useless bastard who would never make it anywhere.

  Yes, he had to admit that he had somehow guessed what it would be like in India. Still, the reality had surprised and shocked him, and he had realized that he didnʼt like war, the fighting and the killing, at all.

  But the insight had come too late. Now, he couldnʼt make up for what he had done. He couldnʼt go back to India and tell everyone whom he had harmed that he was sorry.

  Maybe I should have died, just like Damian. I havenʼt deserved anything else...

  His new and only friend, the Italian Paolo Petrocelli, the son of the local wine grower and a very merry and lively young man, told him that instead of wallowing in self-pity he should rather write letters to all the people that he wanted to apologize to. But Jeremy only laughed bitterly and explained that he didnʼt have their addresses and that some of them didnʼt even have an address or werenʼt even alive anymore. Paolo said that it didnʼt matter and that these letters were not intended to be sent off. They were supposed to cleanse the soul from guilt simply by being written. He said that Jeremy should bury them at the foot of one of the olive trees in the churchyard, and that by doing so he would send them to God. God was great and God would forgive him. If only he was able to forgive himself.

  That was what Paolo said.

  And then Jeremy wrote letters. Many of them. Not only letters to people in India whose identity he didnʼt know. No, he also wrote a few letters to people whom he believed to have hurt during his life in England, before he had gone to India. He wasnʼt sure if that idea with the tree would work out and if there really was a God merciful enough to take all the blame from him. Still, he went to that olive tree one late afternoon, dug a little hole in the ground and put all the letters inside, one after the other.

  Until he held the very last one in his hands.

  He stared at the envelope. It was addressed to Sarah and Henry.

  He remembered how one evening he and a very drunken Damian had been sitting at a campfire close to some small Indian town, whose name he had forgotten. Back then Damian had told him all about the fight in Kensington Road and how Henry Abbott so impudently had snatched Sarah away from him, and that her Uncle Oscar, whom he had called a devious bastard, had even helped them to escape. Everybody knew that they had gone to America. It had not taken Damian long to find out. The coach driver who had brought them to the pier recalled having seen them going on board of a ship heading for the land of the free.

  During that talk at the campfire, Jeremy had believed that he and Damian were some kind of allies; after all, Jeremy found that Henry Abbott had snatched Sarah, Jeremyʼs secret love, away from him, too. Back then he would not have felt the desire to write a letter to either Sarah or Henry. But back then he had not known Damian very well. Not as well as he had known him on the day he had died.

  Maybe, if I had not intervened and given them away on that night of the birthday, Abbott would have managed to convince Sarah to come with him after all. Then she would have been spared that marriage with Damian.

  Jeremy found that instead of being jealous, he should have kept quiet about her secret encounter with Henry Abbott in the stable, should have let her go and wish her the best. But all he had done was proving that he really was the fool that his father had always seen in him.

  Still holding the letter in his hands, Jeremy broke down at the foot of the olive tree and began to cry as the realization hit him how ridiculously pathetic and miserable his life was and that whatever he did was bound to go wrong.

  “Ché ti succede, Jeremy? What is wrong with you?” Paolo, who just came strolling up the hill, asked him.

  “I am really only worth carrying the crap...” Jeremy wailed.

  “Caro amico,” Paolo said softly, comradely squeezing Jeremyʼs shoulder, “non piangere, donʼt cry. I am going to America. You want to come with me?”

  Jeremy slowly raised his head and stared at Paolo in shock.

  “Why... why are you leaving?!” he asked, terrified at the thought of seeing his only friend go.

  Paolo spread his arms as if to embrace the skies and said, “Because we only have this life. Il mondo es il nostro!”

  “You are crazy...” Jeremy mumbled.

  “Yes! Maybe I am!” Paolo laughed.

  And then Jeremy saw Paolo excitedly running down the slope to his fatherʼs house.

  Jeremy was thinking hard.

  He didnʼt want to be alone anymore. He didnʼt want his only friend to leave him behind.

  He quickly wiped away his tears and jumped to his feet.

  “Paolo!” he called. “Wait for me! I am coming with you!”

  Then he ran after Paolo, in his hands the letter to Sarah and Henry—the only letter where there was still a chance that he would find out where the people that the letter was destined for lived.

 
; * * *

  They worked hard to pay for the passage. Together with ten other men Jeremy and Paolo were shoveling tons and tons of coal into the huge furnaces which created the steam to make the ship move. But Jeremy didnʼt complain. He was glad that the shipʼs crew had not rejected him because of his disability. Apart from that, he found that the strain helped him atone for his sins. He suffered with every single heavy shovel of coal he delivered into the flames, as if he was in purgatory, staring right into the mouth of hell. But he was grateful that at least it didnʼt smell for urine.

  After twelve days locked up at the bottom of the ship and traveling on an extremely rough sea, Jeremy was allowed to see the sun again. Upon his arrival in April, he was so dirty that he was sure he would never ever be able to get rid of the layer of coal dust covering his skin and sticking to his clothes.

  He and Paolo found a place to stay in one of the tenements at the docks and got work in a nearby steel rolling mill where they spent the best part of the day shoveling coal into furnaces—just as back on the ship. But ultimately it was all the same to Jeremy. He was in America. And that gave him a good feeling. There were new opportunities; and he had seen a couple of nice women too. Maybe God really granted him another chance.

  One Saturday evening he, Paolo, and some new immigrant friends, Heinz und Klaus from Germany, were strolling through the nightly streets. Curious as they were, they ventured into an area where the wealthy people spent their fortune and where the nobility went to wine and dine in exquisite surroundings. Here the fastidious city dwellers also had the possibility to be intellectually entertained.

  Although they couldnʼt afford anything the district had to offer, Jeremy and his friends were highly enjoying themselves and didnʼt care that everyone looked down at them because—judging by their clothes and demeanor—it was more than obvious that they were poor and didnʼt belong.

  After a little while, Jeremyʼs glance suddenly fell on an announcement which was attached to the wall of a house.

  Make sure you do not miss:

  Sodom and Gomorrah

  A contemporary play performed by Paul Abbott

  On Saturday, April 10th at 8 pm

  in the Abbey Theater

  Jeremy couldnʼt tear his gaze away from the notice.

  Paul Abbott. Can he possibly be related to Henry Abbott? he pondered. How many people called Abbott are there in New York?

  “Ché succede, Jeremy?” Paolo asked and interrupted Jeremyʼs train of thoughts.

  “Nothing... itʼs nothing...” Jeremy mumbled absent-mindedly. Then, after another moment of contemplation, he said, “Look, why donʼt you go ahead? I will meet you later.”

  Then he turned and walked away, leaving his friends behind in confusion.

  It was a quarter to ten when he finally found the Abbey Theater. He assumed that the play would be over soon and decided to wait. He wanted to know who Paul Abbott was.

  From the inside of the theater he could hear thundering applause and people cheering enthusiastically.

  Must be quite an icon, that fellow... he thought, observing a group of young and excited-looking ladies who had begun to gather at the entrance door. The women were growing in number with every minute that passed.

  At a quarter past ten, the doors opened and a young man stepped out of the building, wearing a topper, a tuxedo and a black cloak. He was immediately received by the waiting ladies with applause and bunches of flowers.

  Jeremy was stunned. That man with the cloak and the topper wasnʼt Henry Abbott, but the resemblance was so enormous that Jeremy was certain that the two men had to be connected to each other. He gathered that Paul Abbott was Henryʼs brother as a similarity like this simply could not be put down to a mere coincidence.

  Paul Abbott tried his best to please every lady with a charming smile, a kiss on the hand or a quick exchange of words, but after a little while the actor excused himself with a bow and quickly slipped into a coach which was waiting for him at the side of the road.

  Jeremy reacted quickly. He darted across the road, and before the coach could start to move he had secretly jumped up on its rear and had grabbed the rails at either side of it. Nobody noticed. Then the coach headed off into the night.

  After a ride of about half an hour, crossing Brooklyn Bridge on the way where gusty winds had blown right into Jeremyʼs face, the coach stopped in front of a three-storey building, whose top floor was still brightly lit. Jeremy quickly hopped off the coach and hid in the dark corner of a neighboring house, watching Paul Abbott get out and pay the driver.

  Jeremy wondered what to do, if he should walk over to him and ask him if he knew Henry and Sarah. But then he realized that this wasnʼt necessary. Looking up to the third floor he could see two women peer out of the window.

  One of the women was unmistakably Sarah.

  Jeremy held his breath at the sight of her beauty. Her long brown hair was cascading over her shoulders, and her lips formed the sweetest smile. He noticed how his heart began to beat faster in his chest, and without really wanting it he saw himself overcome by a bout of jealousy. Still, he was seriously relieved to see that Sarah looked happy; although he was sure that the sole reason for her happiness was the presence of Henry Abbott. In that moment, the latter appeared next to her, planted a kiss on her cheek and then drew the curtains so that Jeremy was unable to see them anymore; just as if Henry had somehow sensed that they were being watched.

  Momentarily, Jeremy felt inclined to ring the bell, but then courage failed him. Originally, he had only wanted to give Sarah and Henry a letter; the letter which he had carried with him all the way from Italy and which looked rather dirty and creased by now because it had considerably suffered during the journey.

  But being so unexpectedly presented with the unique chance to actually speak to Henry and Sarah in person, he suddenly didnʼt feel ready to do so. He decided to go back to the tenements and to come back the next day. He guessed that by then he would know if he should talk to them or if he should just push the letter under their door.

  * * *

  11th April 1887

  On Sunday morning Henry was sitting at the dinner table, reading the real estate advertisements in the newspaper. On the sofa, Bubbe was busy knitting the approximately eleventh pair of socks for Yasminaʼs and Sarahʼs baby that were due any day from now. Yasmina was lying next to her, resting her legs which were swollen and hurt a lot now that she was approaching the final days of her pregnancy.

  The living room was filled with the merry laughter of Renana and five of her friends from the neighborhood. Recently, it had become a habit that the children of families, who were living nearby, came to watch Sarah as she was sewing clothes for dolls. The latter had only begun as a past time occupation for Sarah but had quickly turned into something she was able to make a little money with. When Yasmina had taught Sarah how to use the sewing machine, Sarah had quickly started to make progress. She had sewn little garments for the children and when Renana had once complained that her doll was wearing the same clothes all the time, Sarah eventually came up with the idea to help her. Without further ado she had gone to a shop, bought the necessary materials and had begun to create pattern charts; all by herself.

  Little Renana had jumped with joy when, only a couple of days later, Sarah had presented to her the first new dress for the doll, quickly followed by another one. And Renana, proud as she had been, had shown the doll to everyone she knew. Soon it had caught the attention of all children in the vicinity, with the result that they all had begun to invade the little flat of the Levyʼs, insisting on Sarah making dolls dressed for them as well.

  By having detected that lucrative gap in the market, Sarah had considerably contributed to the flourishing of the Levyʼs tailor business, and had immediately been appointed by Yasmina to official CDDM — ʼChiefDolls Dress Manufacturer.ʼ In fact, Sarah proved to be a never-ending source of brilliant ideas and turned out to be highly gifted when it came to needlework. As she had always
been good at drawing, it helped her to create her own design patterns,

  With amazement Henry witnessed the changes that Sarah had undergone. Within only a few weeks she had transformed from an insecure, angry girl to a very confident and charming young businesswoman.

  He almost burst with pride.

  “What about this one?” he asked as he was now reading through the adverts of the property section. “Two story house, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, and storage room. Quiet area on the outskirts with back garden. One hundred and twenty Dollars rent per month.”