Until We Reach Home Read online

  "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 Elfin.

  She shrugged. Elfin 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 Hj elmer?" 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."

  Elfin 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 Elfin 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. Elfin 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, Elfin, but if it'll help you stop fussing and go to sleep, it'll be worth the effort." Sofia never stirred as Kirsten and Elfin 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.

  ~2Offer )ne

  SOFIA 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. Elfin 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," Elfin 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," Elfin 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 h
ated 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."

  "Good, I wanted the top," Kirsten said. She scrambled up as if climbing a tree, while Sofia and Elin sat down on the two lower beds, gripping their satchels.

  Children swarmed all over the cramped space, bouncing on the bunks to test the mattresses, pushing and teasing each other. Sofia tried to count how many of them belonged to the woman in the scarf-at least five or six-but it was like trying to count minnows in a stream. One of the smallest boys fell down as he tried to climb onto a bed with his brothers, landing on the floor with a thud. Sofia reached instinctively to soothe him, but the woman quickly snatched him up.

  Another one of the children, a little girl about four years old, started to climb onto Sofia's bed, but she shooed her away. "No, go away. This is my bed. Go find your own."

  The girl flopped around on Sofia's mattress for a few more seconds, then jumped onto another bed. All of the children except the oldest boy were making a game of tumbling across the beds, ignoring their mother. The boy, who Sofia guessed to be around eight years old, had a nagging cough and appeared unwell. Instead of jumping around with the other children, he lay down on the bottom bunk beside Elin's bed and draped his scrawny arm over his face to shield his eyes. Sofia instinctively covered her nose and mouth, wondering how she could possibly avoid catching whatever disease he had in such cramped living conditions.

  "This is a terrible place," Sofia said. "These people are so dirty! Don't they ever bathe?"

  "They can't help it that they're poor," Elin said. "That's why they're going to America-for a better life."

  "Well, we aren't rich, either, but at least we use soap."

  Kirsten leaned down from her bunk above Sofia's. "They wouldn't be so poor if they didn't have so many children. Look at them all. They're like a litter of piglets."

  "Be nice, Kirsten," Elin said, frowning.

  "Why? They can't understand a word I say."

  The odors seemed to grow in strength as more and more passengers streamed into the room, milling around, heaving their bundles onto the beds. "This place smells worse than our barn!" Sofia said. She stood, fighting the urge to run outside.

  "No, don't get off the bed yet," Elin said, waving her down. "Someone will steal it if you do."

  Sofia sat down again, holding a corner of her shawl over her nose and mouth to block out the smell. Passengers continued to pour into the room, glancing all around as they searched for empty beds.

  "There's no privacy at all," Elin said. "How will we ever sleep?"

  "Never mind privacy; it's too noisy to sleep," Kirsten said.

  "I can't breathe," Sofia said, her eyes filling with tears. "I want to get out of here! Please, let's go home."

  Elfin reached over from her bed and patted Sofia's knee. "Why don't you do something to take your mind off the smell. What about your embroidery?"

  Sofia shook her head. Her hands were shaking too hard to manage a needle and thread. She considered reading from Mama's Bible, which she still carried in her bag, but the last time she had opened it and had read about a shipwreck it made her feel worse, not better. She knew there was also a story in the Bible about a man who was swallowed by a giant fish. No, she wouldn't try reading from it again. She listened to the children's voices and to their mother's constant yelling and wondered what language they were speaking.

  Gradually, the flow of passengers slowed to a trickle, then halted. The porters helped several families shuffle around so they had beds close to one another until at last, everyone seemed to have found a bed and claimed their territory. Sofia wanted to stand up again but the deep ache in her stomach made her too sick to move.

  The ship's engines made a deep, rumbling sound and she was aware of a steady tremor beneath her feet. She wondered how long it would take to get used to the incessant throbbing and if it would grow worse once the ship actually got underway. Elfin had taken out her needlework, but Sofia's thoughts were too distracted to concentrate. She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.

  Please, Jesus, please .. .

  She couldn't finish. She had no idea what to pray for. If only she would wake up and discover that this had all been a very bad dream.

  Finally, the whistle blew.

  "We're going to set sail," Kirsten said, sliding down from the top bunk. "Come on, let's go up on deck and watch."

  "Why?" Elin asked. "It's not our homeland we're leaving. There's no one to wave good-bye to us, and besides, we can't leave our trunk."

  Kirsten stomped her foot. "Don't tell me you're going to make us stay down here for the next two weeks guarding our stupid trunk. I'll go insane!"

  "You and Sofia can go up if you want to. I'll stay here."

  As much as Sofia longed for fresh air and open space, she was afraid to move from the bed. "H-how will we find our way back? We'll get lost!"

  Kirsten tugged on her hand. "Oh, come on. How hard can it be? We'll just keep climbing stairs until we reach the end of them, then turn around and go back the same way we came. This dormitory is so noisy, I'm sure we'll hear the racket a mile away."

  Sofia let Kirsten lead her up through the maze of passageways until she was certain they would never find their way out again. But at last she felt cool, salty air blowing down the stairwell and saw blue sky and sunlight ahead. Passengers crowded the deck, especially along the rail, but at least Sofia could breathe fresh air and see billowing white clouds above her.

  When she and Kirsten finally pushed their way forward and found a spot near the rail, Sofia made the mistake of looking down at the water. They were so high up that the water seemed miles below them. She felt as though she were falling. She gripped the rail and closed her eyes as a wave of vertigo rocke
d through her. When she opened them again, she decided to stare straight ahead at the horizon instead of down at the sea. The breeze felt wonderful against her face, the sun warm overhead. She watched the coastline slowly shrink into the distance as the expanse of water between her ship and the port of Liverpool grew wider and wider.

  "Isn't this great?" Kirsten asked.

  Sofia couldn't speak past the lump in her throat.

  "Say something, Sofia."

  "I-I miss our home. I miss walking down to the barn in the morning to milk the cows and then drinking the milk while it's still warm. I miss going to the chicken coop for eggs and eating them for breakfast, and eating the fish Nils used to catch for dinner. I miss going to church on Sunday and ... and praying by Mama's grave ..."

  "I know, I know. But isn't this also fun, in a way? Sailing across the ocean and exploring new places? Everything was always the same back home. Every day the same."

  "That's why I liked it."

  "I give up," Kirsten said with a sigh. "Be miserable for the rest of your life, if you want to. I don't care. I didn't want to leave ... um... my friends, either-but here we are and I'm going to make the best of it."

  Sofia tried to make the best of it for the next couple of days, but no matter where she went there were always hordes of foul-smelling people reeking of perspiration packed tightly beside her like herring in a barrel. In good weather, everyone crowded up on deck and the men smoked pungent cigarettes, making it impossible to breathe the clean ocean air. Sofia had taken the aroma of sweet, fresh air for granted all her life, but now she hungered for just a tiny whiff of hay or pine trees or even the barnyard.

  Down below in steerage, the smell of garlic and other foreign spices was so strong that Sofia had little appetite for the food they'd brought from home. The ship's water tasted like a rusty tin can, and she had to force herself to drink it. The latrines had stayed fresh for barely a day before they had begun to smell, too, forcing her to wash as quickly as possible every morning and evening. The foul, humid air down in steerage made her scalp feel itchy.