The Lighthouse Road(31)
Aside from the people aboard her, Thingvalla also held a cargo of barreled fish: brisling, anchovies, herring, cod. The casks must have leaked because the smell seeped through the interstices of the floor and on warmer days put a stink in the air impossible to ignore. The stench especially disagreed with Thea's bunkmate, who had trouble enough with the heavy seas and yawing vessel. Whole hours passed with a constant moan coming from the woman.
On their third day at sea Thea had had enough, and she ventured to the main deck for fresh air. The deck was slick and crowded and Thea could hardly bring herself to move. She stood on the threshold of the gangway, making a slow inspection of the panorama. Though Thingvalla was only forty nautical miles north of Scotland, there was nothing but the brumous sea and its slowly rising swells to see. Thea was used to long views, but this was otherworldly. In Hammerfest, the tundra was locked and still. Here the sea roiled and splashed and went on forever. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
She spent an hour walking from one vacant spot along the railing to the next, finally able to believe she was gone. In all the time she'd spent wondering what it would be like, she'd never envisioned a world this vast.
She was standing at the prow when she noticed the western horizon. It was approaching with greater haste than the ship's steady ten knots might have warranted. The swells were growing, too, and a stiff breeze came from nowhere and started sheering the tops of the waves. The gulls that had been careening above took a quick and certain refuge in the tangle of lines connecting the masts. A moment later one of the ship's crew told her they were clearing the decks.
By the time she found her cabin the boat was already bucking. The pregnant woman had lit the lamp and the shadows it cast on the wall swayed as if in a breeze. "I've had enough of the dark," the woman said. The words surprised Thea, but she grabbed hold of them.
" There is a storm coming."
"You mean it's not already here?"
"I guess it most likely is. I saw the thunderheads up on deck. I went for the fresh air."
The woman merely nodded. In the lamplight her pallor looked even more pale than normal. " Would you like something to eat?" Thea asked. "Or to drink? I still have a little sheep's milk."
The woman hung her head. Embarrassed but eager.
Thea removed her food basket from beneath her bunk and set it on the floor between them. The ship's motion made each movement difficult, but she managed to get the basket open and remove the milk, which she offered right away to the woman.
She drank with gusto, finishing half the jar before she realized what she was doing. She capped the jar, and handed it back to Thea, who offered the cheese in turn. The woman took only a small bite.
"Please," Thea said. "Help yourself to all you want."
She took another bite.
"What's your name?" Thea asked.
"Ingeborg Svensrud."
"Is it very difficult with the child?" Thea gestured at the woman's belly.
She rested her hand on the unborn babe and took a deep breath. The ship had begun to complain, a sort of whining that accompanied the more violent waves. "This passage would be easier without the pregnancy, but I am blessed. I thank God every minute."
"I pray for you each night."
" Thank you."
" Where are you going?"
"To meet my husband in North Dakota. He left in April. He doesn't know about the child."
"He will be very pleased." The woman smiled. "I hope so," she said.
Two days the storm. The Thingvalla beating against the sea. Steerage passengers had been ordered to stay in their berths, to keep their cabin doors shut and their belongings lashed. The stewards, instead of coming three times daily with their firkins of tepid water, came only once during the forty-hour blow. They ladled water into teapots and bowls and said they'd return when next the seas allowed. The general clamor had given over to a general moan, one heard even through the closed-up cabins.
Ingeborg Svensrud was at once miserable and rejuvenated, first by the storm and then by the food Thea shared with her. They didn't speak much, but whenever Thea removed the basket from under her bunk she offered some to her cabinmate.
In the middle of the second night of the storm, after thirty-six hours of the yawing Thingvalla, Ingeborg fell into a hollering fit. Thea asked Ingeborg what was the matter, but the woman only folded at the waist and let out another shriek. Thea somehow knew instinctively what had taken hold of Ingeborg, and she hurried into her cloak and set out down the gangway in search of the ship's surgeon.