Page 134 of The Ringmaster’s Daughter

He nodded.

We placed Frieda in the smallest of spaces below deck, next to an older woman and her daughter who was perhaps Frieda’s age. They promised to watch her and immediately wrapped her in a blanket. I left her there with the strangers and made my way back on deck, thankful that she would be taken care of.

Southampton was the port we stopped at, an English port, and I was happy to see dry land once more. Frieda, although still sick, became brighter once she felt land underfoot.

I went to a seaman to find out where the ship to America was leaving from. He pointed to a larger ship further down the dock and we scurried there as the horn sounded.

I gave the man our tickets. ‘Not enough,’ he said. ‘The fares have gone up.’

‘How can that be?’ Frieda asked.

I could see who he was, this man, making a few more coins from the desperate. I wanted to hit him, to shout at him in my exhaustion, but then Frieda grasped his wrist and looked him dead in the eye. There was something in the look she gave him; desperation perhaps – whatever it was, he related to it, and could not deny her.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘That’ll do. It’s enough.’

* * *

Has it been almost one more year? Another year here in New York? The Christmas of 1942 approaching, and me with little to think of once more than Frieda.

As I sit here and watch the flakes of snow fall on another year gone, I can almost convince myself that my former life did not exist – that it was all a dream and I appeared here as if by magic.

A knock at my door moments ago disturbed me. It was my neighbour – the Polish lady. She brought me a pan of cabbage and sauerkraut with sausage. It smells dreadful but, surprisingly, tastes delightful. I am not one to dismiss free food – not with the meagre wages I earn.

I work in a launderette. It is for rich people who have stains on their clothes from the wines I used to drink when I was in France, and the food my mother would cook. Now I make sure I get rid of those stains. My boss is Jewish. His name is Levi. He has a daughter, Miriam – a widow. She has a child and is not much bothered by me, but her father does not wish to leave her the business without a man in charge. I suppose he is looking to me. I am not sure that he should.

I have another chair now; it is green like new leaves on a tree in spring. And I have a rug on my floor which takes some of the stinging coldness away from those bare floorboards. I own books. Many books. Books are so cheap and at times free. It is surprising to me how many times I find an abandoned book on a park bench, in a bin or on the bus. All these books remind me of Bertrand; of his living room and shelves stacked with volumes. I take them as much for me as I do for him – I know he would want me to collect them and hoard them as my treasures. I read into the night, and on my days off, I sit outside and read once more, and this stops the loneliness, the feeling of being somewhere so foreign without a purpose.

Central Park is my favourite spot, especially at this time of year. The frozen ponds become busy with children and partners skating, holding hands, their scarfs trailing behind them, their laughter hanging in the snow-covered branches of the trees that surround them. For three days, I have a break from work. Three days when families eat turkey and sing and play games. Levi invited me to their home but I said no. I now regret it.

I spend Christmas Eve walking the busy streets. My favourite is where the department stores live; all gussied up with lights, decorated trees, and red, green and gold window displays. The sewer grates here smoke and steam in the middle of the streets, and I keep thinking that at any moment they will bust open and something magical will appear.

My English is better now. I practise all the time, and I do not get asked anymore what I just said. Perhaps now I am an American?

It is Christmas Eve. I sit in my armchair. The radiator gurgles and bangs as it heats the apartment. The pipes are old, and do not like how we humans drain them in this weather.

I have no music, so I sing to myself. A tune I sang one evening in France when I was attacked, a song I sang to Frieda as we sailed to New York, and the song that takes me back to her – on those cold waves, in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.

We had been sailing for a few days, our progress hampered by the heavy waves and restless wind, about to see out October and welcome in November.

‘What does the ocean look like?’ Frieda’s voice had been low, crackled with dryness. I gave her some water.

‘It is dark now.’

‘In the day – what does it look like?’

‘It is blue. The deepest of blues, and then white as it is churned up by our wake. Hush now, and drink this.’ I passed her the water.

‘Where are we going?’

‘America.’

‘And Papa will be there, won’t he? Papa and Maman?’

I felt her forehead; it burned under my palm.

‘Hush now.’

‘It is blue… the sea?’ Her eyelids fluttered.