Dear Anna,
I miss everyone and everything about Germany already. I don’t know how Uli and Uma managed to convince me to come, and to be happy about it.
After we rode in your wagon to the ship, we were ushered to the bottom of the ship, where the conditions were inhumane: the smells of so many bodies all close together, the damp air being almost palpable as we settled down in our bunks. Uli settled down in the bunk under me, but Uma slept in another bed. The man who slept beneath Uma’s bed coughed loudly and talked more loudly, always demanding attention. At the time, I prayed Uma wouldn’t get sick.
The first two nights, I couldn’t sleep because of all the sounds coming from the deck: tambourines, loud music pulsing through the ship, rocking it back and forth as I tossed and turned in my bed, laughing, screaming, talking loudly in different languages, the click of women’s heels on the dance floor, the loud thump of jumping and dancing. I prayed for it to stop.
My prayers were answered the next night. There was a storm, bigger than anything I’ve ever seen in Germany. The boat tossed and turned, rocking violently back and forth, crew members screaming instructions. The steerage was chaotic. Women crying, clutching their children, squealing babies, screaming children, people throwing up, the sickening smell of the half-digested dinner flooding the room.
The man above Uma’s bed died of his sickness, the awful stench of his body adding to the general nausea. Uma was sick, too, her loud cough barely audible over the screams of the people.
The next morning, everything was still. Nobody talked. Not even Uma. She died in the night, far away from us. I hate the man whose sickness killed her. I hate America. It’s not the land of opportunities; it’s the land of sorrows. Uli is still determined to go and it’s too late to turn back now.
By the seventh day, everyone had forgotten about the storm except me. Uma’s cold, dead eyes were eternally burned into my eyes. Every time I closed them, I could see her pale, lifeless skin and feel her cold hands.
At the beginning of the eighth day, I saw the lady in the harbor, holding her torch, burning my dreams and past. We had arrived at the land of sorrows.
Love,
Gretchen
