When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt Page B

Irma, I saw you sneak up on deck tonight. What did that cost you?”
    “Nothing,” I stammered. “It cost me nothing.”
    In a whip of time, Teresa stepped between us.
    “Get away!” Simona snapped.
    Across the room the matrons called, “Half rations for everyone if you don’t back off.”
    Pushing Teresa aside, Simona grabbed my arm and pulled me close, her onion breath steaming my face. “I’m not getting half rations for your dirty business, not yours or your Serbian sluts.”
    I pushed her, the only time I ever pushed a woman. Simona fell against the next bunk, scrambled up and launched herself forward, howling. I tripped backward into a bedpost. Simona knocked me to the floor, scraping my face along the post. My cheek must have caught on a nail, tearing flesh. Gabriella shrieked. Touching my cheek, I felt the gash and yanked my hand away, red.
    The matrons rushed over, dragging us apart as hunters do with dogs. “On the beds, all of you!” Men ran from card games, collecting their women, cursing the half rations, but then they saw my face and went silent.
    The ship’s doctor would not come. Teresa washed my cheek with the little fresh water they allowed us, then salt water that stung like fire. An older woman we called Nonna, for she was like everyone’s grandmother, came with herbs, calendula and comfrey. “I could sew it closed,” she said doubtfully, “but my hand shakes. You don’t want my stitches.” She looked at Teresa, who shook her head. “Best we can do is hold it closed until it heals. Could be hours.”
    “I’ll hold it for hours,” said Teresa quietly.
    “Keep the edges right together and dab off the blood.” The old woman patted my shoulder. “It’s a pity, child. You were no beauty before, but now—well, you’ll live. Watch for fever,” she told Teresa. “I have to go. There’s men sick in the next dormitory.” She laughed. “Things turn strange at sea. Women fight and men cry over belly pains.”
    Teresa held my wound closed all night. Milenka and Gordana wiped away blood with scraps of fresh linen that other women laid wordlessly on my bed. No fever came, but when they gave me a broken bit of mirror in the morning, I saw my face pale at the length of the gash.
    “Good, no pus,” Nonna said when she came to inspect the wound. She sat on my bed and rambled on with news from all the decks: trysts at the ball, a theft in second class. “A sailor fell from the rigging last night. The doctor’s still drunk, so I set his leg.”
    “Which sailor?” I whispered.
    She looked at me sharply. “Which one do you know? Says he’s from Genoa. Brave enough. Bit on a wood stake while I set his leg. Never made a sound and thanked me afterwards.” She raised her wide hands. “They said he wasn’t paying attention. The captain said he’ll lash the next man that’s distracted. The sailor’s washing pots in the first-class galley until he’s fit for deck work.”
    Teresa watched me thoughtfully. “Should I find him?” she whispered as Nonna bustled away, but I shook my head. No one would let Teresa in the kitchen and if she did find Gustavo and if we could meet, suppose he turned away from a scar that even moonlight couldn’t hide?
    The matrons reported that the captain was so furious to hear of the fight and what he called “unnatural indecencies” that no one from Dormitory A could go on deck until we reached New York. The next days brewed resentment. At meals, in the washroom and in the milling crowds around the blocked stairwells, no one spoke to Simona, Gordana or Milenka. They turned from my face and were curt with Teresa. Children squabbled in the narrow spaces between berths. Card games turned bitter. Gustavo’s cheese was delicious, sharp and rich, but I had little stomach for eating and lay in bed, covering my scar.
    Teresa made me come to English lessons, at least to leave my bed. A young man on his third voyage to America taught bits of English, but our accents