The Fire Blossom

by Lark, Sarah

  “In Bahia, we’ll go to the consulate!” a few men from another community announced.

  They wrote a petition to formally complain about Beit. Lange and Brandmann debated endlessly about whether they could afford to sign it. Even during the daily hour on deck, the men stood together and deliberated.

  Their distraction gave Karl the opportunity to get closer to Ida again. Like all the women, she spent the hour diligently caring for the children’s clothing and their health. It was finally dry for longer periods, and the sailors’ predictions that it would get warm came true. The women dried their families’ clothing and collected rainwater from the lifeboats so they could wash the garments. They undressed the youngest children so they could play naked in the sun, even if the missionaries looked on disapprovingly.

  In the meantime, a baby had been born. The proud mother named her son Peter Paul, after Captain Schacht and his ship. There were tensions stirring on board the ship, but in spite of them, the captain performed three more weddings.

  Karl found Ida on deck as she was spreading out her sister’s dress to dry on one of the lifeboats. It was stained in spite of the washing; the settlers were short on soap. Karl walked over to her inconspicuously, smiled, and spoke long-practiced words of greeting.

  “Good morning, Ida! I am pleased to see you! How are you, and how is your family?”

  Ida looked at him in confusion, and then she smiled too.

  “Karl!” she exclaimed. “What are you saying? Is that English? Where did you learn it?”

  “Yes, Ida,” he continued in English, “I am learning English.” He beamed with joy when she guessed the meaning of his words.

  “‘Yes’ means ja?” she asked excitedly. “And ‘learning’ means lernen? That isn’t very difficult. But why are you saying my name so strangely?” The German ee-da had become the English eye-da.

  In her enthusiasm, Ida had forgotten to avoid being seen talking to Karl, and at a quick sign from him, she followed him behind a raised hatchway. She normally wouldn’t have done such a thing, but what was a little disobedience compared to the possibility of hearing the language of her new home for the first time? The thought of learning English herself quickened her heart.

  “That’s how you say your name in English!” Karl explained enthusiastically. “You pronounce the vowels differently. At the beginning it seems very complicated, but it’s really not that hard. Look . . .”

  Karl squatted down and wrote a few words in the dust that had collected in spite of all the scrubbing. It seemed sandy. They must be getting closer to land.

  Ida read with concentration, but then she jumped in shock as Frau Brandmann called her name.

  “Ida! What are you doing there? With—”

  Karl greeted Ottfried’s mother politely, but she didn’t answer. The frightened expression on Ida’s face made it clear that there would be trouble later.

  “Come, we have to carry up the straw pallets so they’ll finally dry,” Frau Brandmann said sternly.

  “I’d be glad to help,” Karl said, but Ottfried’s mother only gave him a withering glance.

  “Ida!” she said again impatiently.

  Ida only dared to nod at Karl shyly before following her future mother-in-law with her eyes lowered.

  That evening she was the focus of her father’s angry mood. He came in as she was putting Franz to bed and using the undisturbed time with her younger siblings to teach them their first few words of English. Elsbeth repeated the phrases flatly, but Franz was full of enthusiasm.

  “Good morning, Ida! Good afternoon, Elsbeth! Good night, Franz!” he babbled, laughing himself silly over his good-night wishes to himself.

  Jakob Lange listened with his brow creased. “What do you think you’re doing, Ida? Franz?”

  Franz immediately hunched his shoulders protectively.

  “That’s English, Father,” Ida said. “We have to learn it if we want the people in New Zealand to understand us. Karl Jensch taught me—” She hastened to mention Karl herself before her father could accuse her of anything.

  “I already heard that you were talking to the chap!” Lange said sternly. “Even though I forbade you to do so many times, at home. And aside from the fact that he’s an idiot and a ne’er-do-well, it’s not proper for a young lady to speak alone with a man. You are engaged, Ida! Do I have to have you married here on the ship to protect your reputation?”

  Ida reeled in shock, and she didn’t understand why she suddenly shivered at the thought of her pending marriage to Ottfried. She should be happy about it—or at least feel calm and humble. But even her humility had limits. There was no way that she was going to consummate her marriage aboard this ship on a clammy straw pallet in the same quarters with her father or even with Ottfried’s family. The other newlyweds seemed not to mind very much, but Ida couldn’t even imagine the motives that had driven those women and girls to marry so expeditiously.

  She lowered her eyes. “No, Father. Forgive me, I—I didn’t think. The conversation was completely innocent. If such an opportunity arises again, I’ll just ask Ottfried to join me. It would be good for him, too, to learn a few words of English before we arrive—”

  “Nonsense!” Jakob Lange said. “Ottfried will learn when we’re there, if he needs to at all. As it is, we’ll be founding our own village. We’ve all agreed to call it Sankt Pauli Village, because we’ve all become a community here on the ship. And of course when we’re there, we’ll still speak the language of Martin Luther, the language of the Bible.”

  Ida bit her lip. Hadn’t Luther translated the Bible from an entirely different language?

  “But what about the authorities?” she asked. “They speak English in the public offices there. And the merchants? We’ll have to buy things.”

  Lange waved a hand dismissively. “Of course we won’t be able to get around without learning a few words,” he admitted. “But our women won’t have to worry their pretty heads about it. Or was it you who went to the prince of Mecklenburg when there were problems to be solved? Did you buy horses or order roof tiles?” He laughed indulgently.

  Ida rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know if we can just relocate Raben Steinfeld to the other end of the world so easily,” she remarked with unusual courage. “We’re not in Mecklenburg anymore.”

  But Lange shook his head. “Just leave that up to me and your husband. As soon as we have been assigned our land, you and Ottfried can marry. Elsbeth will be thirteen next month, old enough to run the household. And for you it’s time to wed. That will chase all the grandiose ideas out of your head. Learning English! And possibly better than your husband! That’s how far it’s gotten. Now, go to bed and pray for humility!”

  Ida sighed as she lay down on her finally dry but still musty-smelling straw pallet. So that was what this was all about! For the sake of God, she shouldn’t speak the new language better than Ottfried. But she’d always been a much faster learner. All at once she remembered how much fun it had been in school to learn how to read and write, and how good it had felt when the teacher had praised her. Her and Karl.

  During their hour on deck the next day, Jakob Lange and the Brandmanns wouldn’t let Ida out of their sight. But she still found an opportunity to go back to the lifeboat where she’d spread Elsbeth’s dress to dry the day before. She bent down to pick up the garment and cast a furtive glance in Karl’s direction. She was glad to see he was watching her. Ida slipped her book about New Zealand behind the rudder of the boat. Karl would find it. She was sure he was desperate to read it. To her surprise, her fingers brushed another book that was already in the same hiding place. Without thinking, she picked it up and slipped it into the pocket of her skirt. When the settlers were summoned back below deck by the bell, Karl smiled at her as she passed.

  Later, alone in her berth, she took out the book and opened it—and gazed in shock at the sketch of a heavyset, terrifyingly tattooed man. It was a Maori warrior. She had another book about her new home in her hands!
Then a piece of paper fell out of it. From Karl, for Ida was written on it. The first things to learn:

  With a pounding heart, Ida whispered the lines that Karl had written for her, again and again. “My name is Ida. I live in Nelson, New Zealand. Your name is Karl. You live in Nelson, New Zealand. Ida has a brother. His name is Franz. He lives in Nelson, New Zealand. Ida has a sister. Her name is Elsbeth. She lives in Nelson, New Zealand. Karl and Ida and her family live in Nelson, New Zealand.”

  Only when she could recite everything by heart did she wonder about the last sentence. Shouldn’t it have said “Ottfried and Ida”? But that wasn’t the first sentence she wanted to learn in her new language. She decided to make do with what she’d learned the day before: Good night, Karl. That night, she saw him in her dreams.

  Chapter 11

  After several more weeks at sea, the Sankt Pauli arrived on March 3 in Bahia, Brazil. The town where they docked was called Salvador, which meant “the city of the savior,” in honor of Jesus Christ, as the missionaries had told them during Sunday worship service. They also warned the emigrants that Brazil was Papist. Obviously, attending a Catholic service or even entering a church would not be possible.

  Many of the women were upset about this, as there were more requiems to be read for the dead. Shortly before their arrival in Bahia, an illness had broken out that seemed similar to smallpox—the doctor wasn’t certain. The fever it caused had claimed three more children’s lives. Ida thanked heaven that Franz had gotten off lightly. Now she wished nothing more than to have solid ground beneath her feet and to escape the unbearably crowded conditions.

  And truly, the landfall was more than just temporary relief. For Ida, the first glimpse of Salvador de Bahia was a revelation. The place almost perfectly fit her notion of paradise. Fascinated, the young woman stared at the wide, bright beaches bordered by rich green forests and colorful houses in the glistening sunlight and couldn’t believe it was all real. Right on the docks, fresh fruits were being sold that Ida didn’t know the names of, and the sight of them made her mouth water. After months of an unbalanced diet, it would be heavenly to taste sweet fruit flesh again.

  Unfortunately, Beit wouldn’t give the settlers permission to disembark before their accommodations were ready. He told them that Salvador wasn’t safe, that they would surely fall prey to robbers and murderers if they wandered about on their own. Lange, Brandmann, and the others were in an uproar. Of course they understood that the women and children shouldn’t be exposed to such dangers, but surely the men could look around a little!

  Finally, eleven of the younger emigrants, each one a hothead, left the ship without permission and made their way to the German embassy to deliver their petition against Beit. But they didn’t meet with any great success. The embassy staff accepted their petition and promised to forward it to the New Zealand Company, but they couldn’t offer any concrete relief. Nonetheless, an embassy employee accompanied the men back to the ship and asked to speak with Beit and the captain. The result was that Beit, snorting with rage, immediately took revenge as soon as the embassy employee had left. He ordered the eleven rabble-rousers to remain on deck and made them wait for hours in the hot sun until he’d made up his mind about their “sentence,” and then fined them half a crown each for leaving the ship without permission. Afterward, most of the settlers were disheartened. They had all been hoping for the embassy’s intervention. So, they made do with rations of hardtack and salt meat in steerage until they were finally assigned to their promised accommodations on land.

  Only Karl Jensch could surreptitiously disembark with the sailors, who had immediately been granted shore leave. Fascinated, he explored the city and observed the people. Most of them were diminutive, brown-skinned, black-haired men and women in brightly colored clothing. They laughed a lot and spoke loudly in a language Karl didn’t understand. But in the harbor area, most people understood a little English. Karl was very proud that his shy question about where to find a bathhouse was answered. However, it turned out to be a questionable establishment to which a few of the phrases the sailors had taught him applied, and the use of the tubs seemed to be connected with encounters and offers that made Karl blush. He had more success finding food. A cookshop accepted one of his carefully saved copper pfennigs and served him a spicy bean stew with meat, accompanied by rice and fresh fruit. He saved the latter and brought it back on board the ship, hiding it for Ida in the lifeboat.

  To eat, he wrote on another piece of paper he’d torn out of his old composition book. He would soon need a new one. Mango, banana, orange. You have to peel them, he added in German. At first, he had just tried to bite into the banana as it was, and the cook had laughed and shown him how to remove the peel. He could have looked up the English word for “peel” in his dictionary, but Ida surely wouldn’t have understood it. Her knowledge of English was growing, at least as far as written words were concerned. Karl left her a note every day with new words and sentences, and Ida wrote back, trying to turn the sentences around into questions or create new ones.

  I am glad arrive in Bahia, she wrote. I see forest and sand. Recently, Karl and Ida had even exchanged short letters in the new language. Beit say we live in house in Bahia. Ida see Karl when live in house.

  When the settlers were finally on land, it would be easier to meet. Karl hoped so, at least, and was happy when the captain told the passengers the day after his unauthorized shore leave that accommodations were being prepared for them a little outside of Salvador.

  With deep breaths of relief, the passengers left steerage and moved into huts on the beach that Brandmann contemptuously called shacks. He complained again immediately when his wife discovered the first cockroaches.

  Ida, on the contrary, was enchanted. Admittedly, the palm-thatched wooden huts were primitive, but the beach they were built on was unimaginably beautiful to her, and the tropical forest that rose up behind it a true wonder. The sun shone reliably from a cloudless sky every day, giving the sand a golden glow and lighting up the seawater in azure blue. The fragrance of exotic flowers was in the air, and in the evening, strains of music floated over from the nearby city. The sounds of drums, flutes, and mandolins were woven together into wild cadences. Ida had never heard such breathtaking melodies before. Her heartbeat sped up to match the rhythm of the music, and she wished that she were allowed to dance to it.

  The people of Bahia turned out to be friendly and open. Curious locals soon appeared in the Germans’ improvised village, including women and girls in brightly colored dresses selling fruit and vegetables. Ida marveled at their pierced ears with gold or colorful hoop earrings and the big multihued necklaces and bracelets that jingled when they talked with their hands. Peddlers offered fruit and fried crab cakes, and the sailors showed the settlers how to catch fish and cook them directly over an open fire on the beach. The fish were delicious, especially when basted in lemon juice—so different from the carp they had fished out of the village pond in Mecklenburg, or the smelt that Anton had once secretly taken from the squire’s lake.

  The other settlers, too, began to supplement the meager rations provided by Beit with fruit and other fresh produce. The women eyed the tropical fruits mistrustfully, and attempted to eat the mangos and bananas with their peels. Ida almost gave herself away, scrambling to pretend that peeling the fruit had only just occurred to her.

  The locals always walked barefoot, and while most of the female settlers were scandalized, Ida was tempted to surreptitiously take off her shoes and stockings and walk over the sand barefoot. The sand was warm under the soles of her feet and tickled between her toes . . . and the feeling of wading in the sea and letting the waves play around her feet was simply indescribable. She had never felt as light or happy before as she did on the beach west of Salvador.

  However, the other settlers didn’t share her sense of ease, clinging to the rules and conventions of Mecklenburg village life as tenaciously as possible. Many of them were fearful. Beit’s warnings ab
out thieves and murderers made them mistrustful of the Brazilians, as well as the strange food. They claimed that the unusual ingredients and preparation methods made them sick to their stomachs. Jakob Lange strictly forbade his children to accept food from the locals. He seemed convinced that the peddlers wanted to poison them. Frau Brandmann chased away the local children who curiously approached. But Ida found the dark-skinned little ones with their curly hair adorable. She was delighted when she saw them playing naked in the waves.

  Frau Brandmann was appalled. “Why doesn’t the filth wash off their skin?”

  The settlers complained about the lack of a suitable church, but the missionaries held mass and prayer groups on the beach. They thanked God for the safe journey so far, and the emigrants sang songs from their homeland together. A few women wept. They seemed to be suffering from homesickness already. They talked to one another for hours about their villages and their families while they sat together the way they had in Mecklenburg and mended the holes in their families’ socks. All of this helped fuse the future community of Sankt Pauli Village even more.