Walking Into the Night (17 page)

54

They sailed up the Hudson at daybreak. Land had been sighted an hour before; all the passengers had come up on deck to watch the dawn float towards them down the river, the buildings rising from the waves and hope coming to them on the hot wind. They were quiet, solemn, whispering if they needed to speak.

Maria tugged at the hem of her mother’s skirt.

“Is Daddy there? Will he be there to meet us?”

The first mate called out the passengers’ names for the last time before they disembarked. He stood by the gangway with the passenger list, calling them one at a time. Elisabet was number 29, Einar 30, Maria 31. They had pinned labels to their coats with their numbers and the name of the ship,
Bergensfjord.
Printed at the top of the label was: “Landing Card.”

A ferry carried them downriver to Ellis Island. The sun was hot on the wooden roof, the windows were locked. There were four ferries ahead of them so they would have to wait until midday. It grew hotter, babies cried, the air was heavy and humid. “Yes, thank you very much,” an old man muttered to himself over and over again, “thank you very much. I’m from Norway. Healthy. Very healthy, sir.”

People wore their Sunday best, some of the women had lace dresses, boys wore sailor suits, men wore shirts buttoned up to the neck. One or two men sported ties; most wore hats or peaked caps. Some of the clothes were threadbare but clean. The women were all wearing hats.

They had no sooner disembarked than they were swallowed up by an imposing, brick building. “Baggage Room,” announced a guard, but she didn’t dare to be parted from the case containing her money and papers, so she continued up the stairs. Maria was tired and whimpered. She pulled her along behind her.

“It’s all right, we’re almost there.”

The child dragged her feet.

“I’m so thirsty.”

A doctor stood at the top of the stairs, watching the passengers as they climbed up.

“Is she ill?” he asked.

“Sorry?” said Elisabet.

“Ill?”

“No.”

She handed him their health certificates. He seemed to take a long time reading them. He looked back at Maria. Finally he stamped the papers and motioned to them to continue.

Next they entered the Registration Room, where another doctor received them. The old man who had been constantly practicing “thank you very much” and “very healthy” while they waited on the ferry was in the line ahead of them. But now it was as if he had lost his tongue; he cleared his throat several times but stopped when the doctor removed his hat and began to examine his scalp. It wasn’t until the doctor wrote “sc” in chalk on his coat collar that the man stammered that he was very healthy. But it made no difference, he had been marked. He was taken out of the line and sent for further examination.

The doctor was quick to examine Elisabet and the children, and so were the next two doctors who succeeded him. They sat down on a bench in the middle of the Registration Room and waited for their numbers to be called. The immigration officials were at the back of the room, dressed in black uniforms and caps. Their desks reminded Elisabet of the counter in her father’s store in Eyrarbakki. She smiled at the thought: it was a good omen.

“Twenty-nine!”

They hurried across the room. Einar held Maria’s hand.

“What’s your name? And the children? What are their names?”

There was an interpreter beside the immigration official; she was relieved because she was unaccustomed to speaking English. Though she managed by herself at first.

“How much money do you have with you?”

She answered.

“Married or single?”

“Married.”

“Purpose of your visit.”

“My husband . . .”

She glanced at the interpreter. The official nodded to indicate that she could speak Danish.

“I’ve come to see my husband.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s here in America.”

“Where in America?”

“Here in New York, I think.”

“You think? You’re not sure? Isn’t he coming to meet you?”

“I’ve come to look for him.”

The official turned to the interpreter. They spoke together in English.

“Do you have anyone else here?” the interpreter asked finally.

“We have relatives in Dakota.”

“Have they come to meet you?”

“No.”

“So you’re traveling alone? With the children. To look for your husband?”

Silence.

The immigration official continued to speak to the interpreter, who listened, nodded, then turned to her.

“You’ll have to stay here. It’s not permitted for a woman with children to enter the country if there’s no one to be responsible for them. You have enough money to pay for board and lodging for a few weeks, but there’s no telling what’ll happen after that. You’ll have to stay here until your husband comes to meet you . . .”

“My husband is lost.”

“I’m sorry? Lost?” he exclaimed but decided not to ask any more.

“If your relatives in Dakota send a telegram and undertake to be responsible for your welfare, you will be allowed to go to them by train from here.”

“Not to New York?”

“Not unless you have someone in New York.”

She had been holding the bag, but now she put it down.

“What’s the matter, Mamma?” asked Einar.

“Nothing, dear. We’ll be staying here for a few days.”

“Thirty-eight!” she heard the immigration official call out as they were led away.

55

At night the city lights were visible across the harbor. She lay awake; Maria was asleep in the bunk below her, Einar above. In the bunk at her feet slept a Turkish woman. If she glanced up she looked straight at the shoes of a woman from Hungary. They were worn through.

They slept on canvas stretched over an iron frame; they were allotted two blankets each, one to sleep on, another to cover them. The blankets Maria was given turned out to be infested with lice. Elisabet gave her one of her own. They could sleep on the bare canvas. There were three hundred women and children in the dormitory.

She listened to the city as she lay awake. It was not so much noise as breathing, giving the hint of a rapid heartbeat. She had her bag in her bunk with her; yesterday she dreamed that the Turk was trying to steal it while she slept.

They were allowed out in the open air for two hours a day. She encouraged Einar to take exercise, run about, hop and jump, because he seemed apathetic and showed a tendency to stand aloof, gazing across the harbor. Maria whined; she told her stories to keep her amused. She missed having newspapers from which to cut photos and drawings.

Most people behaved as if they were under surveillance and believed that even their gait and bearing could influence whether they were allowed into the country or not. A respectably dressed couple promenaded sedately around the compound, their arms linked, the husband leading their young son by the hand. Their deportment was not achieved without effort. All at once the boy began to drag his feet. His father’s expression did not alter but his grip tightened on the child’s hand. They carried on walking. The woman held her head high, staring into midair. The boy’s movements became more awkward with every step, but his father looked straight ahead, his knuckles white. When the child managed to stop for a moment, a turd slid out of his trouser leg. His father swooped and snatched it up in a handkerchief, quickly pocketing it.

Elisabet’s eyes met them. They shot her a look that implored her not to tell anyone.

The days passed. At night the electric lights outside were reflected in the dormitory. She was calm because she had made arrangements. A relation of hers, Hans Thorstensen, a pastor and farmer in North Dakota, was on his way by train to the city to meet them. They were first cousins but had never met. Her father’s brother had emigrated to America when he was young and subsequently had four children. Hans was the eldest. He was going to take Einar and Maria home with him while she searched for Kristjan in New York. He had undertaken in writing to be responsible for supporting them, but it was Elisabet who paid for the train tickets. They didn’t mention this arrangement to the immigration office.

Most meals were basic—stewed prunes, porridge—but there was meat stew on Wednesdays, with bread and sometimes bananas. They didn’t go hungry. The dining room sat twelve hundred people. On Sundays there was ice cream for dessert. On Mondays there was corn on the cob. In the evening the children were given warm milk and cookies. At night three hundred dreams roamed in their dormitory.

They had been on Ellis Island for two weeks when Hans Thorstensen came to fetch them. He tried to pass as a local, though in fact he had never been to the big city before. He wore a dark suit and a hat, and in his right hand he carried a leather case with the monogram JTH. It had been his father’s. He reached inside the case for a fountain pen to sign the papers he was handed. He read them first, then put on his glasses and frowned as he removed the top from the pen, nodding to himself as if to show that he agreed to what he was signing and would therefore make no objections. His manner was dignified during this procedure, even commanding, though he knew that in this place he had no choice. Then he hugged his cousin and patted the children on the head. Einar thought he looked like the photograph of his grandfather in the living room at home in Reykjavik.

It’s strange how some people carry an aura of security with them wherever they go; it’s as if it travels a few paces ahead of them and announces their arrival. The children sensed it the moment their cousin approached them across the waiting room. Their hearts lifted. Maria slipped her hand into his.

Before they left the island, Hans changed Elisabet’s Danish kroner into dollars and bought her a ticket for the ferry to the Battery on the southern tip of Manhattan. However, he changed only a fraction of her money, as he knew the rates would be better in the banks in the city. He had reserved a room for her at a cheap but clean guesthouse and written directions for her in a notebook which he put in her hand. Translations of words and phrases, the price of necessities, a description of the big city which he had found at the library in Grand Forks.

The breeze was blowing from the south when she boarded the ferry. In a few minutes the children would take another ferry with their cousin to the railroad station in Jersey City. He was going to take them to a place where the yellow fields rippled like a calm sea at sunset.

They saw the wind stirring her hair, then she vanished as the boat headed for the city.

As his cousin led them up the quay, Einar was ashamed at how easy he had found it to say goodbye to his mother.

56

The Waldorf-Astoria.

She knew he used to stay here. She could sense that he had been there as soon as she walked into the lobby and looked down the long, blue carpet which flowed along the wide hall like a river. The marble walls gave off a chill; it was hot outside and she stopped to get her breath, wiping pearls of sweat from her brow. She looked down: he had walked here, perhaps she was treading in his footsteps.

The man in reception didn’t understand at first when she said his name, then finally realized that the name obscured by her pronunciation was familiar to him. He asked her to wait, went out through a door behind, then returned with his superior, a man of around forty, she guessed, short with a mustache and wet-combed hair.

“Assistant Manager” was printed on the card he handed her.

She repeated the name. “Kristjan Benediktsson. Is he staying here?”

The man smiled. He explained that Mr. Benediktsson had stayed here more than once, to their great pleasure, the last time for six weeks.

“But that was almost a year ago, madam, and we haven’t heard from him since. Exactly ten months. Strange,” he added, “because he forgot to settle his bill with us before he left.”

She showed him a photo of Kristjan to be sure that they were talking about the same man.

He nodded.

“Six weeks is a long time at this hotel,” he said. “It was most unlike Mr. Benediktsson to forget to settle up. We’re worried about him. So we made inquiries at most of the other hotels in the city. Without success,” he added after a moment’s silence. “Unfortunately.”

She thanked him for his help.

“Are you related?” he asked then.

She put the picture back in her bag.

“This is a beautiful hotel,” she said and took her leave.

The church bell tolled twelve, her mind echoing the lazy strokes. To the south a skyscraper split the blue haze in two. People moved slowly, looking for shelter in the shade, wilting on benches under the trees. The odd person whistled a tune under his breath, with long pauses between the notes. Elisabet walked from one hotel to the next, along Fifth Avenue and down the side streets until she reached Central Park with its brilliantly colored flower beds. She made no progress.

After a week she finally swallowed her pride and went to see the Icelandic commercial attaché, Jon Sivertsen. It was one thing to ask unknown foreigners about her husband’s whereabouts, another to ask a countryman. But she was desperate. It was hot. And the walls of the buildings were closing in on her.

He received her kindly. He simply nodded when she said: “My husband is lost.” There was an Icelandic painting above the sofa where he sat. Horses in a snowstorm. He spoke quietly.

He said her husband had never had much to do with his countrymen in New York. He was unusual in this respect, because Icelanders generally stuck together. No doubt Kristjan had made friends in the city. He was, of course, popular wherever he went.

“That’s not to say we didn’t get on. Quite the contrary. He sometimes invited me to lunch and never let me pay. However hard I tried. A generous man, your husband, everyone knows that. But he goes his own way and doesn’t need us.”

He grew uncomfortable when she asked whether he thought Kristjan’s agent could help her. She had a piece of paper with his name on it. “Andrew B. Jones,” it said. She had rung his office but was told that he was away on business. Jon Sivertsen knew the name, nodded, fiddled with the ashtray on the table in front of him, moving it an inch away, then pulling it back towards him.

“It’s a while since they stopped doing business together,” he said eventually. “I don’t know what happened, but business is business, you know.” He smiled. “All sorts of things can happen in that game, as you can imagine. And on top of that, there’s far less going on here for us since the war ended. I expect your husband has turned his attention back to Europe.”

Horses in a snowstorm. The snow had drifted over their hoof-prints but in the distance the faint shapes of mountains could be seen looming over them. The wind seemed to be picking up.

She stood and thanked him.

“I’m sorry not to have been able to help you,” he said.

She smiled. “It was nice to see the horses,” she said. “And the mountains, too.”

He was confused for a moment, then realized she had been looking at the picture behind him.

As they walked to the door he vacillated, wondering whether he should mention the rumors. He took the door handle and stood still while he pondered, not opening the door until he had concluded that it would be doing her no favors. He himself had never seen Kristjan with the woman and for all he knew it might have been a brief fling. Two men said they had seen Kristjan with a woman at a nightclub, but from their description it was unclear whether it had been the same woman both times. And one of them had always been unreliable.

He opened the door. She left. He realized he felt almost like a servant in her presence. And still she couldn’t have been more unassuming.

“If there is anything I can do . . .”

She stood still on the sidewalk outside. The avenue vanished into the haze, shimmering in the heat. She looked to the right, then the left.

Remained where she stood.