A Feather on the Water(2)
Newhaven, England: Two Days Later
Kitty heard the sea in her sleep. The distant smack of waves against a wooden pier. The sound triggered a dream about her old school in Austria. She was in the yard, jumping a rope that slapped the ground as she chanted a rhyme. “Schifflein, Schifflein, fahr nach Holland. Die Wellen schlugen hoch, hoch . . .” Little boat, little boat, go to Holland. The waves beat high, high . . .
After she opened her eyes, it took a few befuddled moments to work out where she was. The train compartment was in semidarkness, the curtain shifting in the draft from an open window. Why had they stopped? Moving slowly so as not to disturb the slumbering body beside her, she lifted a corner of the moth-eaten fabric and peered through the dusty glass.
The sky was tinged pink with the coming sunrise. She could see the corner of a building up ahead, and the first four letters of a sign: “NEWH.” They must be almost there, then: waiting for some signal to allow the train to enter the station. To her right were metal railings, through which she caught the glimmer of water. Craning her neck, she saw that they were at the mouth of a river, where it met the open sea. The swell, ruffled by the breeze, turned the surface into a silver shoal of ripples. The masts of fishing boats swayed back and forth.
She spotted the hull of a big ship heading slowly into port. Was that her ship? Even from a distance it looked old, battered. But everything that had come through the war looked that way: buildings, bridges, vehicles. People, too. She glanced at the man slumped in the seat opposite. His thinning hair was gray above a face that looked anxious, even in sleep. He’d wished her good evening in an accent that marked him as foreign, as hers had once done. She wondered if, like her, he’d come to England to escape the war. And what he’d be returning to.
Looking back at the view through the window, she watched the climbing sun streak the water with gold. She thought how different the sea looked from the image she’d carried inside her head for so long: a memory of gunmetal waves whipped up by an icy December wind; gulls screaming; children crying; the stink of rotting fish as she’d marched up the gangway, clutching her little suitcase.
She’d been too young then to know the name of the water she was crossing. At twelve years old, all she knew was that the boat was taking her to England. The safe place. You’ll like it there. Her father’s voice echoed down the years. He’d taught her one phrase in English, which she’d repeated over and over as the boat lurched through those angry waves: “I’m hungry—please, may I have some bread?”
Closing her eyes, she tried to remember the faces of her parents. There had been no photograph wrapped in the clothes inside her suitcase, because they’d tried so hard, when they waved goodbye, to pretend that everything was normal. Just a little while, and we’ll all be together again. Why was it that she could recall her mother’s voice—those parting words, whispered in German—but couldn’t remember the color of her eyes?
The train jolted back to life, bringing murmurs and movement from the other passengers in Kitty’s compartment. As it drew nearer to the station, she caught sight of a man holding a cardboard sign with the letters “UNRRA” scrawled across it. She felt her mouth go dry. It was real. She really was going. Those untidy black letters spelled escape from this country that had both saved her and held her captive. Before the sun went down this evening, she would be in France. And after that, she’d be on her way to Germany.
As she reached up to the luggage rack to retrieve her bag, she remembered the words Fred had hissed in the darkness of the theater on her last night in Manchester. He hadn’t wanted her to go. In a clumsy sort of way, he’d asked her to marry him. And when she’d said that she couldn’t think of settling down until she’d found out about her parents, he’d gone quiet. Then, as the lights went down and the show was about to start, he’d said: “Why can’t you just face it? You’re an orphan, Kitty.”
Orphan. Somehow, the word sounded even lonelier in English than in German. He hadn’t meant to be cruel—she was certain of that. He was only saying what any logical, right-thinking person would conclude after reading the harrowing newspaper reports and scanning the lists posted by the Red Cross. Millions had died. How could her parents have been spared? And if, by some miracle, they were alive, why had there been no letter from them in five years?
The queasiness in Martha’s stomach hadn’t subsided since takeoff. The journey had been every bit as arduous as she had feared—two long flights punctuated by a stopover at Nova Scotia to refuel. The military airplane was so noisy that conversation of any kind during the flight had been impossible. There were five men and one other woman in the UNRRA group, but apart from perfunctory introductions as they’d been about to board, she hadn’t had the chance to find out anything about them. The men looked to be late forties or older—past the age limit to have been drafted. The woman was closer to Martha’s age. She hadn’t smiled when they’d been introduced. And she hadn’t looked pleased to be seated next to Martha on the flight. She’d been asleep throughout the second leg of the journey.
Martha peered out at the lightening sky. They were flying above a fluffy blanket of clouds. After a few minutes, holes appeared. It was just possible to see that they were no longer flying over the ocean. She wasn’t sure if the land she could see was England.