Until We Reach Home (9 page)

“Are you scared?” she asked Eric. “I mean, moving so far from home to a land you’ve never seen?”

“
Nej
, I think it’s exciting. The place where we’re going has already been settled by several families from our village back home in Sweden, so it’s not like we’ll be with strangers. We’ll have friends and relatives there. They all say that it’s just like home, only better because we’ll each get our own piece of land—whether we’re the oldest son or not.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Listen, I meant it when I said you should come up to Minnesota with us. Once I finish building my own house, I’ll be looking for a pretty wife like you to marry.”

Kirsten didn’t know what to say. She wished Tor could hear Eric proposing marriage to her. Thinking about Tor, remembering how happy she once had been, made her stomach hurt.

Eric leaned a little closer to her. “I’ll bet you had dozens of suitors knocking on your father’s door back home. He must have been chasing them off with a broom.”

The pain in Kirsten’s stomach burned like hot coals as she shook her head. “
Nej
, I didn’t have any suitors.”

“That’s hard to believe. A pretty girl like you?”

She waved away Eric’s words with a shrug, pretending she didn’t care. Tor had told her over and over how pretty she was as they’d kissed in the woods.

“Tell me everything you know about America,” she said, desperate to change the subject. They talked about America all afternoon—what it would be like, how big the country was, how different it would be from home.

“There are places you can live in America where the weather is always warm,” Eric told her, “and where it never snows, even in January.”

Kirsten couldn’t comprehend it. The more Eric talked about their new home, the more excited she became, catching his dream like a fever, as if his hope for the future was contagious. Kirsten knew she had fled from home unprepared, running away from her old life instead of journeying toward a new one the way Eric and his cousin were doing. If only Tor would stop intruding on her thoughts every few minutes, making her feel as though he had kicked her in the stomach.

Later that afternoon, Hjelmer unpacked his concertina and played folk songs to help pass the time. He was quite an accomplished player, and Kirsten and Eric soon joined in singing. Elin worked on her embroidery, barely glancing up, acting as cold and stiff as an iron post in January. Sofia wallowed in silent misery—which was surprising, since she had been the one who had loved to sing back home.

Kirsten ignored both of them as she stood in the aisle beside Eric, clapping in time to the music. Singing these old, familiar songs helped make the endless train ride go faster. She could almost forget that she wasn’t back home in Sweden with Tor.

“We’ll start crossing the ocean tomorrow,” Eric said when evening fell and Hjelmer finally put away the concertina.

“
Ja
. I’m very excited.”

“Since we will be on the same ship,” he said, lowering his voice, “do you think we could spend some more time together? Maybe we could go exploring—without your sisters?”

“Um . . .” Kirsten hesitated, glancing at Elin.

“I don’t think your sister likes me,” Eric whispered. “You will have to sneak away from her, I think.”

The thought of doing something forbidden appealed to Kirsten. So did the chance to go exploring. Besides, Elin wasn’t her boss. “I’ll do my best to get away,” she told him. “But if the ocean liner is as huge as you say it is and carries so many people, how will we ever find each other again?”

“Don’t worry,” he said with a grin. “I’ll find you.”

They arrived in Liverpool after nightfall. Once again, the steamship company had provided carriages and lodging for the night; the men were assigned to one boardinghouse, the women to another. Kirsten bid good-night to Eric and his cousin and climbed into the carriage with her sisters. It was too dark to see much of Liverpool, but it smelled even worse than the last city had.

“I hope Chicago doesn’t stink like the cities in England do,” Kirsten said as the horses trotted down the narrow street. “And I hope it has lots of trees. I miss the forests and the giant fir trees back home, don’t you?”

Too late, she realized that the mention of home might bring another rush of tears from Sofia. She glanced at her sister and saw that she was staring straight ahead into the darkness. Sofia had barely spoken a word all day. Kirsten nudged her with her elbow.

“Hey. Are you feeling all right? You’re not sick again, are you?” Sofia shook her head in reply.

Their tiny room in the boardinghouse had only one bed. The landlady seemed to be offering them two identical rooms across the hallway from each other, but neither Kirsten nor her sisters wanted to split up and spend the night alone. They decided that all three of them would crowd into one room. Sofia undressed quickly and climbed into bed without saying good-night.

“How can you possibly be tired?” Kirsten asked her. “You slept on the train most of the day.”

“Well, I just am,” she replied.

Kirsten watched her pull the covers over her head and felt a nudge of fear. Their father had slept all the time too, near the end. And he had also stopped talking. “Do you think she’s all right?” she whispered to Elin.

She shrugged. Elin hadn’t said very much all day, either. Her sisters might make Kirsten angry sometimes, but they were the only family she had left in the world and they shouldn’t go to bed angry with one another. That had always been one of Mama’s rules.

“Are you mad at me for talking to Eric and Hjelmer?” Kirsten asked as she pulled off her shoes.

“Of course I’m not mad.”

“If you just took time to talk to Eric, you would see how nice he is.

They’re leaving home, too, just like we are. They could help us.”

Elin was fiddling with the door as they talked, opening it and closing it and jiggling the knob. “What I find odd, Kirsten, is that you trust these strangers, yet you don’t trust me, your own sister, to know what’s best for you. I’m just trying to watch out for you.”

“I know, I know . . .” Elin’s fussing irritated Kirsten. “What are you doing with that doorknob?”

“I can’t figure out how to lock this door. The landlady never gave us a key.”

“Let me see.” Kirsten stepped around the bed to look at it. “I don’t think it has a lock. I’m sure it will be fine, though.”

“But . . . but it’s dangerous to sleep with the door unlocked. Anyone could just walk right in while we’re asleep. How would we ever get help? I don’t even know how to say
help
in English.”

Kirsten stifled a sigh and turned away so Elin wouldn’t see her roll her eyes. “Maybe
help
should be the first English word you learn since it’s so important to you.”

Kirsten finished undressing, folding her clothes neatly and laying them on top of Sofia’s on the room’s only chair. Elin continued to tinker with the door. “Why don’t you just push the bed in front of the door if you’re so worried?” Kirsten finally said.

“That’s a good idea. Will you help me?”

“I was joking, Elin, but if it’ll help you stop fussing and go to sleep, it’ll be worth the effort.” Sofia never stirred as Kirsten and Elin pushed the bed across the floor until it blocked the door. Since it was too heavy for them to lift, the legs scraped loudly on the wooden floor.

“Well, that’s certain to bring the landlady running up the stairs,” Kirsten said with a giggle. “Remember how Uncle Sven used to climb the ladder if we made even the slightest peep?” Elin didn’t smile at the memory. She stared at Kirsten, her eyes wide with fright.

“Do you think this bed will keep someone out?”

“It should—unless they’re thin as a stick. The door opens into the room, not out, and the headboard is blocking it like a gate.”

But even after the door was secure, Elin didn’t climb into bed. She lit a candle and sat on the floor beneath the window to write in her diary.

“Do you mind?” she asked. “Will the candle keep you awake?”

“No, I’m pretty tired,” Kirsten said with a yawn. She climbed into bed beside Sofia, leaving a space near the edge for Elin. But it took Kirsten a long time to fall asleep. She missed Tor. There was nothing in the darkened room to distract her thoughts from him. She could only lie in the lumpy bed and allow her tears to fall, listening to the unfamiliar city noises outside her room and the sound of Elin writing in her diary, her pencil scratching across the page like mice feet.

Chapter Nine

S
OFIA HAD NEVER SEEN
anything as huge as the ocean liner that was docked at the wharf in Liverpool. How could it even float? Her entire village with all of its shops and houses and churches could fit inside that ship. And the people! More people than in all of Sweden, it seemed, were crowding onto the pier with their shabby clothes and tattered bundles and bags, chattering in an excited babble of languages.

The farther Sofia traveled from home, the more impossible it seemed that she could ever go back. They were about to cross an ocean that was so vast it would take two weeks to reach the other side. Her stomach ached at the thought of it. She had never imagined a world as big and as overwhelming as this one—and they weren’t even to America yet. Elin had promised that they would have a home again someday.
Please, Jesus, let it be true.

Sofia clutched her satchel with one hand and one of the trunk handles with the other as they waded into the throng and slowly inched their way forward to board. As usual, Kirsten had plowed ahead of them, going her own way.

“Kirsten, come back and wait for us,” Elin called to her. “You’re going to get lost.”

“Stop worrying so much,” she shouted back. “How can I get lost?” She stood on her tiptoes, scanning the faces as if searching for someone.

“I think she’s looking for those boys she met,” Elin said. “She’s determined to make a fool of herself with them.”

“I think she misses Nils and his friend Tor,” Sofia said. “She was always with them, remember?”

“I suppose so,” Elin said with a sigh. “But she also takes pleasure in annoying me. She’s just flirting with them to make me mad.”

“Maybe she’s lonesome.”

“She could talk to us, Sofia. And she could give us a hand with this trunk.”

Everyone inched forward a few more feet. They were almost to the boarding ramp. Sofia hated being jammed together with so many strangers. They bumped into her on all sides, crowding so close that she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t hear anyone speaking Swedish. Her stomach knotted as she reached the end of the pier. They were about to walk up the gangway to board the ocean liner. Sofia set down her end of the trunk.

“What’s wrong?” Elin asked.

“I hope this voyage isn’t as rough as the one on the ferry.”

“It won’t be,” Elin assured her. “Look up at that beautiful sky. See? No storms this time. There’s hardly a cloud.”

Sofia picked up her end again and started up the ramp. She was grateful not to feel the nauseating rocking motion this time as she stepped onto the ship. The mob funneled across a narrow deck, then through a doorway into the ship itself. The crush of passengers became much worse once they crowded inside. At least there had been open sky and fish-scented breezes outdoors, but the narrow, low-ceilinged corridors made Sofia feel claustrophobic as she followed the others through endless passageways, down steep metal stairs, down, down into the bowels of the ship.

“Do you see Kirsten anywhere?” Elin asked.

“She’s up there. I see her red vest.”

“I wish she would wait for us.”

Sofia had lost track of how many stairs she had descended but she knew she must be well below the surface by now. “Are we under the water?” she asked. She hated the idea of the dark, icy sea surrounding her, pressing in on her from all sides.

“I don’t know . . . I don’t think we are,” Elin said.

“You’re lying.”

They walked through still more corridors until Sofia feared they were all lost and would end up in some rat-infested storage hold. She longed to turn around and run back outside into the light and the fresh air, but the passageways were too tightly packed with people. She could barely move, let alone turn around. The other passengers were noisy and dirty, and the smell of body odor and unwashed hair made Sofia want to pinch her nose closed. If Kirsten thought the strangers in the train station were trolls, what must these people be?

Finally, the stream of traffic emptied into a huge open dormitory, filled with hundreds of bunk beds. Sofia wanted to weep when she realized she would have to live in this horrible place for the next two weeks. Porters directed the men to one side, the women and children to the other, but it seemed to Sofia that there were far too many people for the space—at least a thousand in a room meant to hold half as many. She felt like she was suffocating.

“I can’t live here for two weeks,” she told Elin. “There aren’t any windows. . . . I-I can’t breathe!”

“I’m sure we can go up on deck and walk around once we’ve settled in. We won’t have to stay down here all the time.” But even Elin looked shocked by the sight of the enormous room, in spite of her reassurances.

Kirsten had run ahead to lay claim to three beds, tossing her satchel and shawl on an upper and lower bunk, and sitting down on the bottom bunk of a third bed alongside it. A short olive-skinned woman wearing an embroidered headscarf dropped her belongings beside Kirsten. A hive of small children buzzed around the woman, and she frowned unhappily as she yelled a stream of orders at them, orders they largely ignored, behaving as if they didn’t understand her any better than Sofia did. The mother turned to Kirsten, a question in her voice and in her eyes as she gestured and babbled, pointing to the beds. Kirsten could only shake her head in reply, clearly indicating which three beds were hers.

“Come on, hurry up,” Kirsten said, beckoning to Sofia and Elin. “Sit down and claim your beds before someone else does.”

“We could have used your help with this trunk,” Elin said. “Do you want a bottom bunk or the top one?” she asked Sofia.

“The bottom, I guess.”