Chapter Fourteen
Pia
The afternoon was spent familiarising themselves with their surroundings and their fellow passengers. It was hard not to feel the excitement in the air. After a surprisingly good and filling lunch, those in steerage were more optimistic about the coming journey. They had all heard horror stories of the North Atlantic crossing from other migrants, but the hardships suffered by those others seemed to be irrelevant to them here on the mighty Titanic.
As Pia stood up on the Poop Deck with Bart, feeling the sun on her face and the wind in her hair, she felt light. They would succeed in their mission. They would save many of the people around her now, and their world would be better for it.
Bart caught her eye as a young family of Swedes passed them by, chattering away, their eyes as big as plates. Pia nodded at the unspoken question and moved in to follow them. Bart did the same.
‘It is big isn’t it?’ Bart said in Swedish to the boy about his own size. He craned his head back to look at the smoke stacks that were billowing grey stream into the blue sky above them.
The lad nodded enthusiastically. ‘My dah says it’s the biggest ship in the world. Big as the tallest building, bigger than the pyramids in Egypt.’
‘Pyramids? What’re they?’ Bart asked. Pia marvelled at his deft approach. She could see exactly what he was doing, giving the boy a position of power because of his knowledge.
It worked. The boy began to chatter on to Bart as if he were an old friend. For a moment, Pia simply watched him work. He had their names and where they were heading before a minute had passed.
‘Your brother?’ asked the mother, eyeing the new member of her brood with amusement.
‘Oh… no, my cousin. I am travelling with my cousins to family in New York,’ she answered in Swedish.
‘We have family there too. It is hard to leave home, though, knowing we will never see Stockholm again.’ The woman sounded wistful, and she stroked the white-gold hair of the little girl clinging to her long skirts. ‘It is hard too, because I do not speak English and Americans are very impatient with foreigners, so I hear.’
‘Yes, they are. I am lucky. I speak English, Finnish and a little German. I have a gift. My only one, unfortunately’
The woman looked at Pia closely. ‘Not your only one. You have a sweetness of nature that is a gift. And you are pretty.’
Pia laughed shyly and looked at the deck under her feet. ‘No, I’m not. I look like a boy. My mother used to say I should have been a boy.’
‘You are no boy. Mothers can be so unthinking sometimes. We say things in passing, never realising our children hear and take them as gospel. Your mother probably thought you were lovely but never thought to say it.’
Pia turned to look at the heavily-lined face of the woman beside her. She was not much more than thirty, but privation and the harsh climate in the north had ravaged her pale skin badly. Her dark blonde hair, a similar shade to her own, was streaked with premature silver.
‘You are very kind and wise. I should introduce myself, as Micky seems to have already done the honours with your children. I am Petra Yohansen. I am from a little village in the north you would never have heard of.’
‘You would be right. I know little about anywhere but Stockholm. My family has lived there for generations. I am Danira Ahlberg and this is my husband, Harald. Harald, this is Petra Yohansen from home. She and her cousins are going to America too. She speaks English. Maybe she can help us learn a little.’
Harald was a tall, straight-backed man with a fierce expression. His sandy blonde hair and beard were in need of a trim and he seemed to carry a chip on his broad shoulders.
‘I will learn English if and when I have to, woman. Don’t trouble me with it now.’ He turned away and walked off to join the other men standing smoking nearby. From their colouring and the conversation, it was clear they were also Swedish.
‘Harald is not happy to be going to America, but he has not been able to find work for some time and so he decided we would go. I have not helped. I am very sad to be leaving home and do not like change. I do not understand the way the world is moving. Sometimes, I just want to hide away in a corner with a blanket over my head and forget everything.’
Danira’s face became a picture of distress, as she realised how much she had shared with her unknown companion.
Pia reached out and took her arm in comfort. ‘We all feel like that at times. I’m sure you will be fine in the new world.’
Tears began to trickle down the older woman’s face and she brushed at them absently. ‘I don’t think so. I have been struggling for a long time. I don’t think I have the energy to go on. If not for my little ones, I would have given up long ago. I am sorry; I should not be troubling you with this, stranger that you are. ‘
‘Take heart Danira, life will get better; I know it.’
When the little girl at her skirts began to cry, obviously picking up her mother’s distress, Pia crouched down and began to talk to her, getting her to watch the smoke streams and the seagulls that were dive-bombing overhead. It felt easier to talk with the child than to her mother, and the tiny tot quickly stopped crying and gave Pia a watery smile.
Bart had led the older children away down the deck and the child, who could be no more than two, looked after them enviously.
‘Would you like to go with the others?’ she asked, watching the huge blue eyes following her siblings. Even so, the girl was afraid to leave her mother in this strange place, and so she clung to what she knew.
‘May I take her to see what the older ones are doing? We won’t go off the deck,’ Pia promised the mother, who had become lost in her grief.
Distracted, Danira nodded, and after offering the small girl her hand, Pia led her off in the direction Bart had gone. She felt happy with the child’s trusting, little hand in her own. It felt right. All the while, she talked with the girl, who was named Tiggy, and laughed with her until it felt like they had been friends forever.
A bit like how it had felt with Marco earlier in the day. She pushed the thought away. Marco, of the beautiful smile, was gone from her life now, just as quickly as he had come. It was no good mooning over someone like him.
But her heart ached when she thought of his fate. He seemed so full of life, so ready for the new world to come. What a pity he wasn’t ten or fifteen years younger. They would have taken him to their world, a place that would have filled him with wonder more exciting than the Wild West could ever be.
She looked around for Bart and the children and saw Cara talking to another group of fair-haired people sitting on the benches.
Then she saw Jane, drawing hopscotch squares on the deck with a piece of chalk, a circle of children around her. How like Jane to have so quickly attracted attention. She noticed it was not just the children who were looking at Jane. Many of the men were eyeing her appreciatively, especially when she laughed.
Casting around for the last woman in their group, she found Eilish sitting on a bench with a little boy about the same age as Tiggy on her lap. She was talking with great animation to the mother who had a slightly older child on her own lap. Another child, a boy about five, was clinging to Eilish’s skirts and looking up at her as if she were a wonder.
She found Bart and the other four Ahlberg children playing with another group near the stern of the ship. They were squabbling happily over something, and Bart was laying down the law. He had already established his position, and the children deferred to him.
Pia wandered over with Tiggy and sat down on the edge of the group. They seemed to be playing a game that involved jumping over legs laid flat on the deck. She couldn’t understand the rules, but the children did, and when the one who was doing the stepping put his foot wrong, they all jeered and he had to sit down and be replaced by another.
Thumb in mouth, Tiggy watched the game with rapt attention. Pia could see this was unsuitable for a child her age to play. In fact, a four-year-old was having trou
ble because his legs were too short to provide proper hurdles. However, Tiggy didn’t seem to want to join in; she was happy just to stand on the side and watch.
Every so often, one of Tiggy’s siblings would smile over at her and wave and she would wave back. Content to mind the children as they played happily, Pia let her thoughts turn to the memorised list of children they were Targeting. The Ahlberg family were part of that list, as was the other group of children playing with the Ahlbergs. Six-year Anna Paulinus, her legs laid out in a line with her brother’s, had introduced herself when she noticed Pia there. They were from Finland, she told Pia across the head of her brother.
Pia knew that these three children of the Paulinus family were on their list too, but a fourth child, a babe, was not. Records had him found dead in his mother’s arms after the Titanic sunk. They, therefore, had no alternative but to leave mother and child to their fate.
Looking around she noticed Jac talking to a young couple near the railing. They were dark haired and fair skinned, so she wasn’t sure of their nationality. And from the distance, she couldn’t hear what language they were speaking. The woman was obviously pregnant and her young husband seemed lovingly attentive, his face alive with excitement. Could they be possible Targets? The woman was a definite possibility and if her mate were suitable, he would be Targeted too. They were not about to split up loving couples unless absolutely necessary.
That thought turned her mind back to the Ahlbergs. Although Danira seemed a wise and loving mother, her self-proclaimed fear of change did not bode well for a new life. If Pia read the signs correctly, she would not be considered a suitable candidate for the Gaian Confederacy. Nor would her husband be considered acceptable with his blatant unwillingness to consider learning English when he was moving to an English-speaking country. That was a fair indication that the man would not have the kind of mindset necessary to adjust to life in New Atlantis.
But how did you take children from their parents? It was cruel and arrogant of them to try. Yet it was not her decision. She had agreed to take part in this mission, knowing what they would be forced to do. Now that she had met some of the parents, she couldn’t turn around and fight against their government’s decisions.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a busy blur. She lost count of the children she met and talked to. At one point, she even joined the hopscotch game Jane had started. It was fun to play again like a child after hundreds of years as an adult.
When the gong called them down to F Deck for their tea, Pia tagged along with the Ahlbergs. The dining room was mid-ship and accessible only from Scotland Road on E Deck. So they had to go down the stairs from Well Deck to E, along the eight-foot-wide main artery, and then down more stairs to mid-ship F Deck.
The dining saloon was split in two by a bulkhead. On the aft side, the single men took their meals, and on the forward side, the women and families ate. Pia noticed how restless Harald was sitting with his family. It was clear he would prefer to have been sitting with the other single men.
Pia helped the younger children make sandwiches of their cold meat and pickles that were set out at the end of the tables. Then, she took a moment to study the day’s menu as she nibbled at her own thick sandwich. They could also have tapioca for pudding, she noticed. And later, for supper at eight o’clock, there was something called a cabin biscuit with gruel and cheese. Her only experience with gruel was from Oliver Twist where he asked for more. It was a form of porridge, she thought. Why would they be having porridge for supper?
It was unlikely that she would be finding out this evening, as she was sure she would not want any more food tonight. However, the children might, as they were always ‘bottomless pits.’
That term reminded her once again of Marco. He had been so funny when he tried to use the colloquialism. She could imagine him eating everything left over in the restaurant tonight. The food up there would be a lot different to what they were eating down here, but she didn’t expect it would taste all that much better. For her, the fresh bread with butter and the cold beef left over from dinner she expected was tasty enough. Although it did feel strange eating real meat. Back home, no one ate meat anymore, but the vegetarian alternatives didn’t taste all that different to what she ate now.
By the time she had her coffee and tapioca pudding, she was comfortably full and so were the children. The younger ones were becoming grumpy with tiredness and mothers around the room were folding little bodies against their breasts and crooning to them softly.
She looked across at Eilish, who was sitting beside the woman she had been with on the deck. She held a sleeping child in her arms while the mother fed another toddler his pudding. She seemed to be a relaxed and happy part of that group.
Once dinner was over, Pia walked back to the Ahlberg cabin on F Deck to help Danira put the younger children to bed. It was just after seven o'clock and she knew that they were arriving in Cherbourg soon to pick up more passengers and mail.
After she had sung Tiggy to sleep, she left Danira with four-year-old Harald and five-year-old Sigrid and went back to her own cabin. From the sounds coming from the ship itself, she could tell they were now lowering gangways and fresh cargo was being stowed. The engines were silent, and the steady vibration she had become accustomed to throughout the afternoon was missing.
She lay down on her bunk and closed her eyes, thinking only to rest them for a while. Much later, the light went on and the others came quietly into the cabin. Pia shifted restlessly on her bunk, but did not wake. And it was not until early morning that she again woke up.
It was dark inside the cabin but her internal clock told her it was nearly dawn. She climbed to her feet, distressed to realise that she had fallen asleep fully clothed, for she was sure she must now look crumpled and bedraggled. She grabbed her fresh underwear, brush, soap and towel and made her way down to the one bath set aside for the ladies of third class. No one was around except for a few stewards preparing for the day, so it felt quite luxurious to have the bath to herself for a half an hour.
By the time she was dressed and tidy, she was ready for the new day. After dropping off her things in her room, she went up on deck. The sky was lightening, but the sun was not yet up. She stood above the propellers staring out to the east, her hair blowing gently in the breeze. The air was fresh, but not as cold as she expected, and the smell of the sea reminded her of home, both the home she vaguely remembered as a child in Norway and New Atlantis more recently. She realised with a start why New Atlantis had felt like home when she first arrived there even though she had been living inland for nearly 200 years. Once the sea was in your veins it never left, no matter how long you were away from it.
Breathing it in, she smiled as the sun began to slip slowly up over the watery horizon, golden and bright.
‘It is beautiful, sí?’
Startled by the male voice with its noticeable Italian accent, Pia jerked back away from the sound.
‘Sorry, sorry, Petra I did not mean to frighten you.’ It was Marco, and he looked tired but peaceful as he stood at the railing next to her.
‘How was your first day?’ she asked, turning back to the rising sun.
‘Very busy, which is good. We make good money. But I did not sleep well in my bunk last night. Too many snoring men around me.’
She smiled at the image and found herself looking back at him. He was smiling that beautiful smile at her. ‘I fell asleep in my clothes at the same time as the children went to bed. I did not even hear the others come in.’
He ran his eyes over her body and she felt her heart give a little pleasurable skitter. ‘You do not seem too worse for wear. Not too creased. Do I have that word right… creased?’
‘Yes, creased or crinkled. I am glad. I did my best to brush out the worst of my night after my bath. But I was not sure it would pass muster.’
‘Pass muster? What is that?’ he asked, leaning his elbows on the railing next to her and turning his head so he could look at her m
ore closely.
‘Inspection. Pass inspection, like in the army. It is just a saying.’
‘Ah, yes, the English and their sayings. Or is it a Swedish saying?’
She shook her head and laughed lightly. ‘No, English. I did not expect to see you again. I thought you were not allowed to mix with us.’
He turned around and leaned his back on the railing, elbows bent, head back, looking up at the pale sky where stars still twinkled. ‘I did not expect to see you again either, but I am glad I did. We are allowed to spend our off-time in the general areas for third class, but we will be put in irons if we go into a passenger’s cabin.’
‘Not really?’ She turned fully to face him, concerned by such a severe punishment.
He laughed, his white teeth bright in the morning light. She loved the sound of his laugh, so deep and yet so light. ‘I am joking. No irons, just the loss of our jobs and pay, which in some ways is worse than irons. So, I do not expect to see anyone breaking that rule.’
‘Well, I suppose they cannot stop you mingling if you are allowed up here with us. What did you have for dinner last night?’
He looked a bit surprised by her change of topic but he answered her readily enough. ‘A bowl of soup, left over pommes dauphinoise, that is potatoes in a cheese sauce, half a duck, a few truffles and a crème brûlée. What did you have?’
‘A meat and pickle sandwich and tapioca pudding.’
‘Hmm, I think I would have preferred yours.’
‘Me, too, although I like crème brûlée.’
He looked startled again. ‘You have had such a dessert in Sweden?’
Pia realised her mistake instantly, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of a reply, so she just shrugged and changed the subject. ‘French food is everywhere, I suppose. Do you cook?’
‘No, no. I have tried, but I tend to be too impatient and end up with half cooked food or burnt offerings. I stick to serving patrons. I am good at that side of it. What do you do for work?’
‘I… look after children,’ she said, keeping as close to the truth as possible. ‘I am a nurse too.’
‘A nurse? A medical nurse?’ His eyes lit up.
‘Yes, for many years, and then I decided to work with children.’
‘Many years? You cannot have worked for many years; you are little more than a child yourself.’
Again, Pia realised her mistake. She was not suited to this work. It was easier Retrieving children where there was less contact with adults and fewer mistakes she could make.
‘I… I am older than I look. What about you? Have you always been a waiter?’
He let her change the subject, although there was a curious light in his eyes. ‘I fell into restaurant work when I left home at fourteen. It is easy to get work in that field wherever I go.’
‘Ah, yes, the rolling stone that is now rolling to the Wild West.’
He laughed a little at himself and shrugged. ‘Yes. I might become a cowboy and rustle cattle.’
‘You are going to steal cattle?’ She gasped, drawing back.
‘Steal? No. Gather them together and move them along.’
‘Muster. You are going to muster cattle.’
‘I thought that was an inspection by the army.’
‘It is. It is another meaning for the word. A muster is a gathering, whether of men or animals. In the army it is when men are gathered that the inspection takes place.’
‘English is one of the hardest languages to learn I have found. There is no pattern to it.’
She smiled and nodded.
At that moment, a young man came up onto the Poop Deck and made his way over to them speaking rapid Italian to Marco.
‘Ah, Paulo,’ Marco replied in English so that Pia could understand. ‘I could not sleep, so I decided to start my day up here in lovely company. Petra, may I introduce you to my assistant, Paulo. Paulo, this is Petra from Sweden who is going to join family in New York.’
The boy, not more than sixteen or seventeen, smiled and bowed to her. Her heart lurched sadly, as she thought of this youth dying in a few days too. He was young enough to Target, surely.
‘How old are you, Paulo?’ she asked, suddenly determined to try to rescue him.
‘I just turn seventeen.’ Paulo struggled with English.
‘So young to be travelling across the world alone,’ she said.
Paulo shrugged eloquently and then turned to go. ‘We are wanted in kitchen soon, Marco. Do not be long.’
‘Okay Papa, I will be along,’ Marco said, shooing the boy away. Then he turned back to Pia. ‘He is my assistant but he is already giving the orders. But he is a good garzone.’
‘He seems nice. I… I had better go in. I have enjoyed seeing you again. Do not eat too much.’
As she strode back along the deck to the ladder, she could feel Marco’s eyes on her. It felt exciting and a little forbidden to attract the attention of someone like Marco. But then, Marco would probably flirt with anything in a skirt. He had that easy way about him and women would fall at his feet. He probably didn’t see her as any more than a possible conquest, her obvious innocence a challenge.
No, it did her no good to let her feelings grow toward the young Italian. He was not for her. No one was for her. And in a few days he would be dead. Her chest hurt at the thought.