Under Ground Page 2

  “Franc was very skinny,” Alenka said, relieved.

  Katka continued, her voice matter-of-fact. “My ma and my ata, they live in heaven and like it more than Christmas. They eat Krofi and custard every day. And they ride horses through purple fields. Does Franc like horses?”

  “Franc loves horses.”

  “Did you know that in heaven there are ten horses for every child? Franc can ride a different one every day.”

  “Oh!” the little girl said. “Franc would like that. But what if the horse is too tall for him to get on? What if the horses in heaven are giant horses?”

  “My ata would help him get on.”

  “Is your ata strong? My ata, he is very strong. He can lift two bales of hay at the same time.”

  “My ata can also lift two bales of hay.”

  “Then he is strong!” The little girl smiled. Then she yawned. “Can I sleep with you?”

  Alenka crawled in before Katka could shoo her away. The little girl did not smell like death. She did not smell like vomit or decay. She smelled like damp earth. Clay. Katka opened her arms, and Alenka nestled next to her. She hummed a lullaby, and soon the child was breathing rhythmically. Katka could have let her go. She could have gently carried Alenka back to her own straw bed, next to her sister. Instead, she pulled her tight. The child shivered from the draftiness of the boat; then slowly, her body temperature rose as it seeped heat from Katka’s chest, and her breath fell into a childlike, raspy rhythm.

  Katka gently stroked the hair of the sleeping child. She remembered sleeping with her own mother. She’d done it well past the age of most little girls. Her mother would sit up in the short bed and talk for hours, her arms flailing to punctuate important points. Katka cherished those nights, even though her mother had been a terrible storyteller, always telling the end before the beginning. The smell of her mother’s skin had been soothing. Lemongrass tea. Soap made of lavender picked from the spring hills. Cabbage. And childhood.

  ***

  Each day, at no set time, Paul Schmidt found Katka Kovich. The day after Alenka’s brother died, Katka was helping distribute soup into the bowls of the emigrants waiting restlessly and hungrily. There was no dining area on this ship for steerage passengers. The immigrants ate, crowded and standing up, on the small deck reserved for the poorest passengers, or they took their bowls back to their quarters. Katka always ate outside. The food was revolting, and sometimes the very smell of it made her gag. But it was worse down below, where there was no sea breeze to dissipate the stench of the overflowing toilets, the unwashed bodies, and the vomit. After all the food was distributed and the people in their many tongues began returning to their quarters, Katka remained on the deck, standing against the railings as the sun slowly descended.

  She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she jumped slightly. “Didn’t mean to give you a start,” Paul said apologetically. “How was your dinner?”

  “Delicious,” Katka said. “The eggs were so fresh today. The sausages, so spicy with just the perfect amount of mustard. And the strudel was sweet, and the custard thick.” She smiled mischievously.

  “Oh, how you torture me with your storytelling!” Paul said. “I would sell my heart for one good sausage. Pluck it right out of my chest. How is Mrs. Zalinsky?”

  “As you would expect. She is a mother who used to have four children. Now she has three,” Katka said.

  “Is she showing signs of sickness? She ought not have brought the sick child on the boat. Not that I blame her, I suppose. How do you leave behind a child? If you see any signs, we will try to move you. Disease spreads quickly on a ship.”

  “I have a strong constitution,” Katka said. “Surprisingly.”

  Paul reached into his coat, grabbed a round object, and presented it to her.

  “An orange? Is it really an orange?” She jumped up and down, like a small child. “How on earth did you get this?” she exclaimed.

  “It wasn’t easy,” he said. “Eat it before some bandit runs up and rips it out of your hand.”

  “They’d have to kill me first,” Katka said. She peeled away the rind and bit greedily into the fruit, allowing the juices to run down her lip.

  “Missed a bit,” Paul said, wiping a smearing of pulp off her chin. He examined her for a moment and laughed. “You do have some child left in you after all.”

  “I am no child. I just love oranges.”

  Paul licked his sticky finger. “Me too,” he said. “How old are you, Miss Katka?”

  “Old enough not to be afraid of mice,” she said.

  Paul laughed. “Vermin disgust me. I admit it. I’d rather face a firing squad. Are there many rats in your bunk? I tell you, I woke up to one this morning. Size of a mountain lion! It was chomping on my hair, Kat, girl. My hair, I say!”

  He called her Kat, like her mother used to do. “I will have seventeen years in the fall,” she said. “And, to tell it true, I’d love to wait another seventeen years before I see another rat.”

  “I am twenty-five,” Paul said. “But I feel much older. I have seen many things in America.” He took off his hat, ran his fingers through his curls. “I like to feel the wind in my hair. It makes me feel invincible. Like nothing could hold me back, see. You should try it. The wind is fierce just now.”

  Katka threw the fragments of orange peel into the wind. Then she untied the dingy twine that held back her matted hair. The wind grabbed hold of her strands and made them dance, like the tails of a kite. She, too, liked the feel of it. She didn’t feel invincible, but she did feel alive. And that was something.

  ***

  Paul liked to talk. Every day he told her something new. If he ran out of tales from his own life, he told her stories from books. He always changed the names of the main characters. One evening he told her about a young man who fell hopelessly in love with a woman he was not supposed to love. She was resistant at first, but eventually she had no choice but to give in to his irresistible charms.

  “What was his name?” Katka asked.

  “Paul Schmidt, I believe. He was so handsome the women swooned.”

  She laughed. “And her name?”

  “I don’t remember. What do you think her name was?”

  Katka, she thought. Her name was Katka, but she did not say it out loud. She willed the words to stay in her heart and not reach her tongue. She looked at his chocolaty eyes, and her stomach began to tingle, as if she had swallowed a firefly. Was this swooning? What a queer word. For a moment, she thought her feet might give out on her and her body would drift upward and float off the ship and into the sky. She reached for the railing.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Of course,” she said, regaining composure. “A little seasick maybe.”

  “Drink this,” Paul said, handing her his canteen. She took a long swig and handed it back to him.

  “You are good at telling stories,” Katka said.

  “What is the name of the girl, Katka? In the story?”

  “It’s not my story.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Are you really who you say you are, Paul Schmidt?”

  He smiled. “Your uncle sent me to find you. I have found you and will do my best to bring you to him. That is not a story.” He leaned over and kissed her right cheek. “You are looking pale again, Kat-girl. Get some rest, and I’ll look for you tomorrow.”

  ***

  The next day Katka stayed in her bunk all day, reading, or pretending to read, one of the books Father Leo had given her. The dizzy feeling abated as soon as she left Paul. She had never been seasick and would never be so, not on a single day of their long journey. A few times she saw men with Paul’s coloring pass by her berth; each time the dizziness came back.

  A few days later, Katka sat cross-legged on the deck, twisting her long strands of hair. A plum fell into her lap, and when she looked up, there was Paul, his eyes vivacious.

  “How in Mary’s name do you keep finding fruit?” she asked
. She had skipped breakfast and lunch that day. The food was getting more and more rancid. She thought she would never be hungry again. But with the plum in her hand, she realized she was starving.

  “Gambling,” Paul said with a shrug. “You know how to play Smear?” Smear, pronounced “shmeer,” was a Slovenian card game. She shook her head. “I will teach you,” Paul said. “Then maybe you can win some fruit for me.”

  As she began to eat the plum, he sat down beside her and asked if she knew any English. “Yes. Father Leo gave me lessons every day in the summers. His mother was English.”

  “Father Leo?”

  “I worked for him at the rectory since I was nine years old. At first I just helped with the cows. Later I helped with the making of the bread, and the last few years Father Leo taught me to type. He was writing a book. In English. He wrote longhand in English, and I typed for him. There are many words I cannot say the right way. But I know what they mean when I read them.”

  “Did he pay you decently?”

  “Two loaves of bread every day. He paid wages whenever he could. And we needed the money. My father’s plot had stopped yielding, and we were in danger of losing the lease. My mother helped him in the fields.”

  “Was the landlord rich?”

  “All landlords are rich. Have you been in America so long that you do not know this?” She raised a mocking eyebrow.

  “Some truths are universal,” Paul said.

  “You mean the streets are not really paved with gold in America?”

  “They are for some. But there is hope for everyone in America. It is a suckling of a country and things will change. You will see.”

  ***

  On the tenth day of the journey, the winds were so loud that the passengers could not hear each other speak, even when shouting. The sky turned an ominous gray, and Katka and Paul watched the storm approach. They saw sheets of rain, like little black exclamation points, darken the gray canvass of sky. Whitecaps tossed the monstrous ship until even those with the strongest constitutions began to churn. Deckhands appeared out of nowhere, ordering everyone back to their berths. Katka and Paul ran toward steerage as soon as they were ordered to do so, but in less than a second, the rains were upon them, and they were both drenched to the spine.

  The captain ordered that the door leading from the upper deck to steerage remain locked until the storms passed. The storm lasted more than a week. The bedpans filled to overflowing. The stench of vomit and feces was suffocating. Those who were not seasick, like Katka, helped take care of the other passengers. She read and reread her books. She sang songs to the Zalinsky children and began teaching them the English she knew.

  She daydreamed. She thought of her parents and the lavender that every spring would sprinkle itself like purple snowflakes across the land they never owned. The purple would stretch up the Julian Alps like a pathway to God. She wondered if there were mountains in Minnesota, America. And goats. She wondered if there would be olives and walnuts. She knew nothing about Minnesota except what Paul had told her. It was extraordinarily cold in the winter, like Siberia. Yet it was hot in the summer. Her uncle and aunt lived there. There were mines where the men worked. She wondered if Paul worked in the mine. When she saw him next, she would ask him. When would she see him again?

  Eleven days later when the storm finally abated and the door was opened, allowing sunshine and fresh air to seep into the cavernous alcove of their temporary homes, the steerage passengers rushed to the light with such speed that a riot ensued, prompting the deck hands to force everyone back into their berths. One of the deck hands shouted orders in English, and then another translated in Slovenian and Croatian, another in Dutch, another in Italian. “Clergymen first!” Katka translated for the Zalinskys, then peered out. She watched as a few religious men walked past her quarters.

  The next call was louder and more chilling. “Dead bodies! Dead bodies only!” The quarters grew quiet. Katka watched with horror as seventeen bodies, eight of them children, were carried solemnly to the staircase and up toward the light. Short funeral rites were given to the dead before committing them to their watery graves. Twenty minutes later, they called for the sick, but no one came forward, fearing quarantine or deportation upon arrival in America. Women and children walked up to the air next, followed by the men.

  Children ran, dodging their parents and playing catch with the newly distributed fruit. The men were unshaven, and the women, many of whom had given their diminished food rations to their children, looked even skinnier than they had before. Jawbones jutted like swords from their wan faces, but most were not unhappy. As they dumped soiled hay into the ocean, they could have cursed God for unleashing this storm upon them, pushing the boat off course, seriously delaying their arrival. But they did not. Instead, most of the emigrants gave thanks in dozens of languages. They interpreted the sunshine on their face as a sign of grace.

  Later in the day, Katka saw Paul gazing across the tranquility of the turquoise sea. He stretched both of his arms high above his head and balanced on his tiptoes, as if trying to elongate his body after a week of being penned up. She wanted to run toward him, but she walked. She had missed him. She had missed the way he smelled of salt and wind. She had missed their conversations. She had missed how her skin sometimes pricked when his arm brushed against hers. “Been on holiday?” She stood right next to him, stood on her own tiptoes, and mimicked his pose.

  He laughed heartily. “You look like a cat waking from a nap,” he said.

  “You look like a bear,” she said, gesturing toward his thick beard. “And an ornery one at that.”

  “I was going for Tolstoy.”

  “You like the Russians?” she asked. “After all they did to our people?”

  “Think what the Russians did to their own people.” He offered her his arm, and she took it. They strolled around the deck.

  “I try not to.”

  “Did they teach you anything about Lenin in school?”

  “Father Leo taught me about Lenin.”

  Paul looked at her with surprise and intrigue. “Father Leo again,” he said. “And what did Father Leo think of Lenin?”

  “Father Leo thought the workers should find a way to improve their lot by more peaceful means.”

  “Sometimes a revolution is the only way.”

  “You sound like a pamphlet,” she said.

  “How romantic. I was trying to sound like a poet.”

  “Did you hear that our arrival will be delayed?”

  “I did, Kat-girl. Looks like we’re stuck with each other for a while. You’d better start telling me some stories.” She told him every story she could think of.

  ***

  After five weeks at sea, someone spotted a seagull. It was a Slovenian woman who could be trusted. It was a Jewish rabbi. It was a German child. The passengers—dirty, sick, and frightened—filled their hungry hearts with hope. Steerage passengers who hadn’t spoken for days began to sing. Children stayed on the observation deck long after darkness fell, hoping to be the first to glimpse the new world or, at the very least, another bird.

  Katka and Paul looked for birds too. They were doing exactly that, on a dark cloudy day, when a man with a camera approached them.

  “Care for a photo of you and your wife, sir?” the man asked Paul in English.

  “No,” Paul said quickly. “We are not interested in photos.”

  “Why not?” Katka said. “I am interested in photos.”

  Paul looked at Katka with her hair hanging free and her face bronzed. He looked nervous. Then he looked back at the photographer. “If you take our photo, do you promise to give me the negative too?”

  “What do you have? For currency?”

  “Krona.”

  “For one American dollar I will give you the photo and the negative.”

  One dollar? That was an outrageous amount of money. But Paul nodded, and the man beckoned for them to follow him. Up on the deck, he led them to his brother, who
had set up a tripod. The photographer told Katka and Paul to stand close together with their backs against the horizon.

  “We want our photographs separate,” Paul said. “We are not married.”

  “Of course you are married, sir,” the photographer said. “For two American dollars I can give you a certificate that proves it. You know she will pass through more quickly with a photo of her husband.” He gave Paul a knowing look.

  “Even if she has a letter guaranteeing lodging and employment?”

  “With a relative?”

  “Her uncle.”

  “That will probably do. But can you be sure?”

  They stood together. Close, but not touching. “Stay still,” the photographer said. He adjusted his lens. “A storm is coming.”

  “Another one?” Katka asked.

  “Not a big one. One day, two at most. But you will be my last customers today. Stay still.”

  Paul’s elbow tapped Katka’s forearm. A shiver went through her body. Thunder crackled in the distance. The photographer clicked his camera just as a jagged flash of light illuminated the sky behind them.

  “That won’t do,” the photographer said. “Lightning in the background. Stay still now, and I will try another.” When he finished taking the second photo of the two together, Paul asked him to take a still of each of them alone.

  Three days later, Paul showed Katka the photo of herself. Katka looked stern and expressionless. Her hair, however, was blowing wildly in the wind. “Thank you for purchasing it, Paul. I love photographs. You do not?”

  “It was risky. For reasons I can’t explain. But you were right to insist. Photographs are important, Kat. One day, when you are an old woman, you will tell your children that when you were a girl, you boarded a ship with a stranger and sailed off to a foreign land. You will tell them what you saw on this trip. You will tell them about the rats that crawled in your berth. About the sickness on the boat, the dead bodies thrown overboard. The shoddy marriages conducted. The revolting food. And maybe they will believe you and maybe they won’t. But you will have a photo. A photo of you, a beautiful poem of a woman, with the blush of youth still fresh on your body, standing at the ship deck, your hair blowing tempestuously about your face, a storm at your back.”