by Ola Larsmo
“So, we’re off again,” said Gustaf, having to repeat his words to be heard above the din of the big paddle wheel. As Anna stood there, she felt herself smiling.
They were the second to the last family to come ashore and join the line moving through one of the three doors in the big wooden building. It was still hot and humid, and Carl had a bad cough that she thought had been brought on by the weather. “It’s not good that the boy is coughing,” said Gustaf. “They might think he’s sick, and that could mean trouble for us. Get him to stop coughing.” Brusquely he handed his son over to Anna. She pressed the little boy against her shoulder and patted him hard on the back. His arms hung limply down her back, but he was quiet now. She could feel rather than hear every breath rattling in his airways.
The line was slowly moving forward. “Later,” Gustaf kept telling the girls. “Later we’ll have something to eat.” It became a constant refrain. On the small ferry boat that had brought them from the harbor to this island, they’d been surrounded by people Anna presumed were German and Italian. Now in front of them stood a family that must have come from Italy—a short, wizened woman with a gloomy expression, and a tall, silent man wearing a waistcoat and striped shirt. Anna tried several times to catch the woman’s eye to say hello, but she seemed to look straight through her. Or maybe she was merely looking inward, at some distant landscape, now lost.
Finally they stepped through the doorway into a vast hall. When Anna’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, she noticed, with a pang of despair, that the whole place consisted of people standing in lines that wound their way between wooden posts toward a row of desks at the far end of the hall. A man stood just inside the doorway writing something on a pad of paper. He pointed to the mountain of suitcases and other personal belongings neatly stacked along the wall. Hesitantly they set down what they were carrying. The man, who still hadn’t uttered a word, tore off a receipt, which he handed to Gustaf. Behind him stood another man, this one wearing a white coat and holding a lit cigarette in his hand. His eyes narrowed, his expression seemingly indifferent as he looked at all the new arrivals slowly passing by him.
The stifling air smelled of dust and barnyards and sweat. Entering at a slant as in a biblical painting, light streamed through a row of windows high up near the ceiling. Under the windows hung a row of American flags, motionless. There had to be several hundred people in the hall. Hovering above the crowds was a muted murmur of voices, words spoken in so many different languages that they seemed to dissolve until they lost all meaning.
Outside in the daylight, yet another ferry had arrived with engines thudding and the sound of water falling from the big paddle wheel. Then came the scraping of the gangplanks and more voices. Soon the line was surging behind them.
Anna had lapsed into silence as they waited. Elisabet pressed her face against Anna’s apron. She placed one hand on her daughter’s head. They took only a few steps forward at a time. Now and then Anna would look around for a familiar face from their own group, but she saw no one she recognized. The line wound its way back and forth between the posts. When they got closer to the far end of the hall, she was able to study the row of desks. Men sweating in their shirtsleeves and waistcoats, with uniform caps on their heads, sat behind the desks and accepted the emigrants’ papers. Without looking up, they asked brief questions, speaking curtly with hoarse voices. Carl squirmed in his mother’s arms, but he was no longer coughing.
Anna grew tense as their turn approached. She kept swallowing out of nervousness, and she asked Gustaf so many times whether all their papers were in order that he got annoyed and shut his mouth tight, as if he had no intention of ever saying another word.
A man wearing what looked like a police uniform and helmet ushered the Italian family ahead in line, and Anna saw the woman curtsy, almost ceremonially, before the man seated at the desk. Another policeman appeared at Gustaf’s side and pointed them toward a desk farther down the row. Anna shooed the girls forward as she heard Gustaf say “Sweden” to the policeman, who then waved across the room to another tall man wearing a similar uniform with shiny badges on his chest. The man made his way over to where they were standing. “I speak Swedish,” he said, and Gustaf looked relieved. As they talked to the man at the desk, Anna saw the guard at the next desk pick up a piece of chalk and write a big X on the jackets of two of the Italian children who had been standing ahead of them in line. The children were led away, followed by their mother.
The tall man in uniform stood next to Gustaf as he placed their papers on the desk. Anna saw that his hand was shaking. The man behind the desk looked up only briefly, as if to count how many they were, and then stamped the papers. He handed another packet of papers to Gustaf, who exchanged a few words with the Swedish-speaking policeman, and then turned to his family.
“We have to split up,” he said, handing Anna several cardboard tags on strings. “And we have to wear these.”
She handed Carl to her husband, then squatted down to hang the number tags around the girls’ necks. When she stood up, she cast a glance at the door where they’d entered. The line was just as long as before. Hundreds of faces were looking in her direction.
“Why do we have to split up?” she asked, holding the girls by the hand.
“There are doctors who want to look at us. To see if we’ve brought any diseases. They say it goes fast, but they look at males and females separately.”
The tall man in uniform placed a hand on Gustaf’s back and firmly pushed him and Carl toward one of the doors behind the desk. With his other gloved hand he pointed to another door for Anna and the girls. Behind them a new family had already taken their place in front of the desk.
Reluctantly Anna and her daughters joined the line of women wearing dark dresses who stood in front of them in the smaller room next door. They spoke quietly to one another in what she assumed was Italian. No one paid any attention to her or the girls. A doctor in a white coat and a nurse wearing a blue blouse and starched apron stood at a low table. A basin filled with a pungent, brown liquid was on the table in front of them. They dipped several long, shiny steel pegs in the liquid. She knew what this was; she’d heard others talking about it onboard. Using the steel peg, they would turn the person’s eyelids inside out, looking for parasites. She tried to think about something else and found herself worrying about Carl’s cough, thinking the strong smell might make it start up again. As they moved forward, Elisabet began crying harder and harder the closer they got to the doctor and nurse. She tried to pull free of her mother’s grasp, but Anna held on tight. There was nowhere else to go. The doctor raised the steel peg.
Only after they’d passed inspection did they get anything to eat. In a huge dining hall with long tables they showed their number tags and each received a bowl of vegetable soup and a couple of slices of bread. Then they headed for the table with the same number.
Gustaf was already sitting there, holding Carl on his lap and letting him dip pieces of bread in the soup. Anna wanted to say something about how unpleasant, and difficult, it had been to undress in front of strangers. But now that the girls finally had something to eat, they seemed content, as if they’d forgotten all about how they had struggled and cried.
“How did it go with his cough?” That was the first thing Anna said as she sat down.
“It was fine. But if they’d found anything wrong with us, we might have had to return home, even as soon as today. That’s what a few Norwegians were told. I think they took them to a separate room because I didn’t see them again.”
“Can they really do that?”
Gustaf merely nodded.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“They said we’ll sleep here tonight. There are bunks for everyone, although we’ll have to split up again. It’s getting late, but we’ll see each other in the morning.”
At last Anna saw a familiar face. Inga was sitting alone at a table near the window, calmly eating her soup. “I need to talk to
her,” said Anna, getting up before Gustaf could object.
Inga looked up and smiled. “There you are,” she said. “I hope everything went well.”
Anna nodded and sat down next to her friend.
“Where are the other Swedes?” she asked.
“They’re here somewhere. I was the first one through, and I’ve been here a while. Do you know where you and your family are going to sleep? You’ll get your baggage back when you leave in the morning.”
Inga regaled her with so much information that Anna had a hard time asking the one question that was on her mind. When Inga paused for a moment, she seized her chance.
“Do you know when we’ll be able to continue on?” she asked. “What happens when we’re done here?”
Inga looked at her for a few seconds without answering.
“It says in your papers,” she then replied. “It says where you’re going. Everyone had to say where they’re headed when they talked to the man at the desk.”
Inga looked at Anna’s blank expression and then went on, as if to fill in the silence: “I’m sleeping here tonight with the others in the group. Early in the morning we’re taking a ferry to Hoboken on the other side of the river. From there we’ll catch a train to Minnesota. Here. See this?” she said, placing her papers on the table. She pulled out a piece of brown paper printed with big letters:
SPECIAL EMIGRANT TICKET
Valid for ONE PASSAGE New York—Minneapolis.
(In emigrant cars only)
The names of the cities had been handwritten in ink, in a slanting style, and the rest of the text wasn’t easy to decipher, but Anna understood enough of it.
“So you were given this paper with the other ones?” she asked quietly, looking down at her lap. Inga didn’t reply. No answer was necessary.
“You’ll have to ask your husband,” Inga said at last.
Anna nodded. She was ashamed that she hadn’t understood before now.
“I assume you’ll stay here overnight too,” said Inga. “I think the last ferry of the night has already left.”
“Yes, I suppose we will,” Anna said in a toneless voice. “Maybe I’ll see you again before you leave.”
She got up and returned to her own table without looking back. The children saw her coming and already looked anxious about what she might tell them. From across the room Gustaf had watched her talking to Inga. Now he had his eyes fixed on the table, and he didn’t say a word as she came back. In silence they sat there opposite each other as the room filled with hungry people who were still filled with anticipation.
The dormitory was situated on the far side of the island, the side facing the tall buildings on shore. Again they had to split up, with Gustaf and Carl ending up on the ground floor. Anna and her husband had barely said a word to each other. Even the children were quiet. She felt exhaustion overtake her like a snowfall that gradually grew thicker, making it harder and harder to see anything except what was close at hand.
She wished they’d had access to their baggage and their own blankets and clothes. But they wouldn’t get their belongings back until morning on the ferry that would take them to a place called Battery Park. It left at 8 a.m. That much Gustaf had told her.
In the women’s dormitory she saw mostly dark-clad Italian women sitting on the beds in twos and threes, talking in low voices. One woman wore a light nightgown and had unfastened her hair. Anna wondered what they were talking about so quietly and intimately, until she realized that many of them had their eyes closed. Then it occurred to her that they were saying their bedtime prayers. Some of them held in their hands the same sort of beads that she’d seen Mrs. Gavin hold onboard the Majestic. But she didn’t see any of the Irish women anywhere. She thought she caught a glimpse of Inga and the widow Lundgren in the inner room, but she didn’t feel like talking to anyone else today.
She had to share a bunk with the girls. Unlike the Italian women, they had no nightgowns to wear, so she told her daughters to take off all but their shifts and get under the covers. There was no sheet, but the gray blankets seemed clean enough. The girls were happy to have the top bunk. They sat side by side, whispering to each other. That was the last thing Anna heard before falling into a dark, heavy slumber that was indistinguishable from sorrow.
She was aware of voices and footsteps on the stairs even before she was fully awake. Someone grabbed her by the shoulder and began shaking her as a calm but insistent voice spoke in her ear, telling her she had to Get up, get up.
Anna opened her eyes and saw a strange light that made her think it must be dawn. But something was wrong. The person tugging at her shift was none other than Inga, fully dressed and with her eyes oddly glittering.
“Listen carefully, Anna,” she said, still speaking quietly. “Tell the girls to put on all their clothes because we have to get out of here. I think there’s a fire. Don’t frighten them, but you have to hurry.”
Her friend’s forced calm had an instant effect on Anna. She got out of bed, still half-asleep, and reached up to shake the girls awake as they slept with their arms around each other on the horsehair mattress. “Come along, girls,” she said. “Get dressed now, or we’ll miss the boat. You don’t need to tie your shoelaces.” Anna wasn’t sure why she said that, except she wanted them to hurry.
Inga was already standing by the door when they heard men’s voices downstairs shouting in English. Mrs. Lundgren appeared, followed close behind by Mrs. Nilsson and her teenage daughters. Unlike Inga, they all looked terrified, yet they hadn’t lost their composure. Anna realized that Inga was the person they had turned to with their fear, putting all their trust in her. The flickering yellow light on the wall grew brighter, and she couldn’t think why she’d thought it was the sun. Now she also smelled smoke.
“Everybody needs to stay calm,” said Inga, keeping her voice level, “or things will turn out badly. If you have all your belongings, then let’s go. It’s this way.”
She kept up a steady stream of words, as if it were pitch dark and she wanted them to follow the sound of her voice. But the light from outside kept getting brighter, and the bunk beds cast sharp shadows across the dormitory floor. They heard men shouting and the echo of hurried footsteps, as from a great distance, even though they had to be very close. They also heard boat engines and big paddle wheels approaching across the water.
The Italian women were all on their feet, having quickly gathered up their possessions. The nightgown-clad woman that Anna had seen praying was now fully dressed. The woman exchanged a quick glance with Inga, who nodded. Without saying anything more, the whole group headed for the stairwell.
When they came out to the gravel-covered yard, the smoke and the hot wind from the fire struck them with sudden force. The other end of the island was in flames. The huge hall where they had entered and received their papers was ablaze, with flames shooting out from what was left of the roof beams. Anna drew her daughters close so that they were practically one body as they quickly made their way through the smoky haze toward the dock. They passed policemen, their uniforms unbuttoned, who were urging everyone to keep moving toward the gangplank of the paddle wheeler. Anna looked around, searching through the smoke for Gustaf and Carl. With panic in her eyes, she turned to Inga but didn’t manage to say a word before her friend, still displaying great composure, said, “They’re probably already onboard. The men’s dormitory was on the ground floor, so they got out first.” Then Inga urged Anna up the gangplank and onto the boat. The engine was running, and the deck shuddered with the force of the idling engine.
Everyone seemed to lose their self-possession as soon as they came onboard. Growing more and more agitated, people began shouting at each other as they were jostled this way and that by the crowds that continued to push their way up the gangplank. Anna yelled for Carl and Gustaf, but her words were drowned out in the chorus of other voices yelling frantically for missing family members, names and words that meant nothing to her. The big paddle wheeler slo
wly began to move, and the roar of the engine grew so loud that Anna could no longer hear her own voice. Yet she kept on shouting. Inga stood next to her, motionless, her eyes fixed on the island and the glow from the fire playing over her round face. Anna turned to see what she was looking at and saw men struggling with fire pumps on the dock. A dog raced along the shoreline to the place where the dock turned and then ran just as fast in the opposite direction, as if in a fever.
Then a warning shout came from the island as one of the towers on the building suddenly collapsed in a shower of sparks that flew out across the water. The men swiftly scattered, long shadows stretching out behind them. Inga leaned closer to Anna and yelled over the engine noise, “It looks like everyone escaped.”
The boat slowly turned in the water, and the island slipped out of sight. The Statue of Liberty came into view, one side illuminated by the flickering firelight, with dark shadows in all the folds of the copper cloak. Then the ferry set course for the opposite shore and the white and yellow lights that looked like a string of pearls. Anna realized she needed to sit down. She felt faint with worry, and her legs were about to give out. But there was no room to sit or even kneel on the planks of the deck, so she stayed on her feet with her arms around the girls. They didn’t say a word as they stared at the burning island. For a moment, in between two heartbeats, she wondered distractedly what had become of the dog.
They went ashore half an hour later, arriving at a dock some distance away from the one where they’d spent the morning. Here too there was a great commotion. Several wagons with fire pumps stood lined up along the edge while curious onlookers thronged outside the partially open wrought iron gates that were being guarded by policemen.