Free When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt Page B

man. “If your father dies in steerage, they’d bury him at sea for fish to feed on. Get work in America and send him a first-class ticket. Doctors don’t test the gentlefolk.”
    “He’ll die before then,” the woman sobbed.
    So I would have to work hard to buy Zia a first-class ticket. What would Father Anselmo say of a land where only the young and healthy are welcome? As we culled lame sheep, perhaps America culled weaklings to make their country strong.
    Gabriella tugged at our sleeves. “Let’s go or we’ll lose our place.” Trunks and large packs were taken, receipts issued and anxious passengers assured they would see their goods in America. Sailors and clerks barked orders in many languages, one laid over the other as travelers shouted, “What? What did you say? Where do we go?” In the end we only followed the waving hands and whistles. The Servia loomed over us with a steep plank up to the deck. I prayed. Teresa’s lips moved as well and she crossed herself for we would not touch land until America.
    And then suddenly I was on the Servia , a rocking mountain of metal and wood. Masts rose between smokestacks wide as our church. Coiled rope, winches, pipes and levers filled the deck. How could this monster float? And how could it fit us all? Those from the lodging house packed the deck and yet passengers on shore stood three and four abreast, mounded with bundles like donkeys.
    “Steerage below,” a sailor shouted.
    “Look there,” Gabriella cried, pointing to a line of rowboats hung along the ship.
    A bald sailor polishing brass called out, “If any of you children give us trouble, we set you loose in there.”
    “Bastardo !” Teresa shouted, clapping her hands over Gabriella’s ears.
    “Shut up, Sal,” barked a younger man with a rusty beard. “Those are life boats, signora. But the child needn’t worry, my Servia’ s a good solid ship. She’ll take you safe to America.” Gabriella clung to Teresa, shivering. My knees buckled and I grabbed a brass railing. Would we die on those tiny boats, bobbing in the ocean?
    Whistles flew down from rigging where sailors hung like jeering bats: “Look at them, fresh off the field. Already scared and we’re still at port!”
    “Down below, go on,” snapped a steward. Through cracks in the crowd I glimpsed a black hole to steerage, the ship’s deep belly. A hot line of sweat rolled between my breasts. No letters home had spoken of the crossing. Not one word of that hole, storms at sea or heckling sailors.
    “Go on, move,” a sailor prodded. In the steep, narrow stairway, bodies pressed against my chest. Oil lamps swinging in dusty gloom showed flashes of a milling crowd, each traveler humped with bags. Standing on boxes or perched on pipes, stewards barked orders dividing us in groups: single men, families and single women. I squeezed through a narrow passage and down a second stairway as steep as a ladder.
    Like sheep herded too closely in summer heat, many balked or turned against the flow. Single women who had been swept into a crowd of men fought their way back through grasping hands. A lost child was passed overhead to a woman shrieking, “Over here! Nicoló, Nicoló, come back!” In the rising heat and airless space we grew slick with sweat under layers of clothing. An old woman swayed and crumbled. I reached out, but a surge from behind bore her away. I must have briefly fainted too, for suddenly I stood in rustling grass with blue sky arched overhead and a tumbling stream. Teresa shook me.
    “Dormitory A to the left,” a matron shouted. Gabriella tugged me into a steamy hall of stacked berths, the spaces between them clogged with bags and travelers. Teresa must have tipped the matron, for we had places together. The berths were in pairs, bolted on the long edge and butting another pair at the head. Gabriella would sleep between us, Teresa explained, so she wouldn’t fall out at night. Above us was another set of four berths, reached