the shadows beneath the Pizzo Camino were more menacing than they had ever been; but she didn’t see them. She wasn’t looking up, and she wasn’t looking back; instead, she kept her eyes focused on the road ahead. She was thinking about America.
Chapter 12
A FOUNTAIN PEN
Una Penna da Scrivere
The SS Rochambeau was twelve hours out of the port of Le Havre when Marco was summoned from steerage to the ship’s hospital on the second tier.
The sleek, elegant ship was French built, with a midnight blue hull, whitewashed decks, and brass bindings. It graced the ocean like fine French couture, but below the waterline, it was no different from the worst Greek and Spanish ships. Bunk beds, three to a cell, were made of thick canvas, reeked of vomit, and were stained with the sickness of prior passengers. The accommodations in steerage were primitive, the maintenance minimal: floors swabbed with ammonia and hot water between crossings, and not much more.
There was one large dining room for third class. The rough-hewn tables and benches were nailed to the floor. It had no windows and was lit by the flames of gaslights that spit coils of black soot into the cavernous space. Meals prepared with beans, potatoes, and corn, stretched with boiled barley and served with black bread, were typical. Once, in the nine-day crossing, they were served beef stew with gristle of meat, family style.
Once a day, the passengers in the belly of the ship were encouraged to go up to the deck for fresh air and sun. Many chose to sleep on the deck through the night, to avoid the overcrowded conditions in the accommodations below. The cold night air and ocean storms, it turned out, could be as perilous to their health as the cramped conditions in the cabins below. Many contracted coughs they could not shake, influenza, and fevers, for which there was nothing but mustard plasters and weak tea.
While on the deck below, the passengers in steerage could hear the tinkling of champagne glasses, the strings of the orchestra, and the sandy shuffle of feet as the first-class passengers danced through the night above them. In the morning, they were awakened by the heady scent of fresh coffee and cinnamon rolls drenched in butter baking in the ovens in the upper-class kitchen. When the steerage passengers went below for their own breakfast, there were vats of scorched black coffee, cups of cold milk, and heels of day-old bread with butter.
The elegance and easy living of first class seemed so close. The passengers imagined what it must be like. The young girls dreamed of dancing in chiffon dresses and eating cake in the ballroom. The boys imagined vendor carts serving caramel peanuts while they played shuffleboard on the polished wood floors in the game room.
As the men below gathered on the deck to smoke, they compared plans and schemes, promising themselves that when they returned to Italy, they would return on this boat, traveling in first class as rich Americans. Their wives would have their hair done, wear peacock plumes, and douse themselves in perfume. They would stay in large suites with soft beds, a butler in attendance to steam their suits, press their shirts, and polish their shoes. French maids would turn down their beds at night.
The women, wives, mothers, and grandmothers saved their dreams for their new lives on the other side of the Atlantic. They imagined wide American streets, lush gardens, sumptuous fabrics, and large rooms in clean houses awaiting their touch. They had received the letters, they had been told the stories, and they believed domestic bliss awaited them.
The trick, it seemed, was to make it across the ocean without incident. It was simple: avoid the crooks and stay healthy. Enza Ravanelli was not so lucky.
The hospital aboard the Rochambeau consisted of three small rooms with bright red crosses painted on the doors. They were outfitted with clean beds on stationary lifts and well attended by a nursing staff. The porthole windows made the accommodations seem lavish compared to the dark cells in steerage.
Dr. Pierre Brissot, a lanky Frenchman with blue eyes and a permanent slope in his posture, ducked his head and left Enza in the room, to meet Marco in the hallway.
“Your daughter is very ill,” Dr. Brissot said in halting Italian.
Marco could hear his heart pound in his chest.
Dr. Brissot continued, “She was brought here from her cell. Was she ill before the ship left Le Havre?”
“No, Signore.”
“Has she been ill on