September 1921
We departed London for South Africa on September 2, 1921. Each of us carried a knapsack with a change of English clothing, and some of us had a few belongings from home. In my coat pocket was the old photograph of my family.
The first time I saw our ship on the great Southampton dock, I came to a sudden halt. “Move on, you’re blocking the way!” one of the children behind me called irritably. Then, as the others saw the white vision, they, too, froze.
“That’s not what you would call a … boat,” Itzik said slowly, while the other big boys around him whistled appreciatively. I murmured my agreement. The majestic ship rose several levels into the air, dazzlingly high and white, with the British flag right at the top. The deck was lined with blue railings that seemed to extend forever to the left and right of us. Below the deck were lines of funny windows, all perfectly round. There must be levels of rooms all the way down, maybe even some under the water. The ship was bigger than the hotel, bigger than the whole village of Domachevo.
“The Edinburgh Castle!” Mr. Ochberg announced. “She’s the queen ship of the Union-Castle shipping line, children. A bit worn from her service during the war, but a treat for us all.”
At the top of the gangplank, two sailors wearing lightning-white uniforms with sun-gold buttons were as polite to us as if we were adults.
“Welcome aboard,” they said. “We hope you have a pleasant voyage.” I drew myself up to look taller and more dignified, but Nechama was bouncing with excitement next to me. “Faygele said she heard there are two ballrooms and a big pond for swimming!” I looked at her in disbelief. How could a ship have a pond where you could swim? And why would a ship need two rooms for people to play with balls?
Soon I felt too sick to wonder about anything. I discovered that there were indeed several levels under the water, and our cabins were at the lowest level. Down there, the ship creaked loudly and frighteningly. There were no windows and no fresh air, and the smell of oil hung above the tightly wedged lines of bunks. We lay side by side and groaned. Soon the stench of vomit was added to the odor.
“I want to go home. I want to get off,” Faygele moaned. “Stop the ship.”
Each time I tried to get up to help, bile rose to my throat and I fell back onto my bunk. In the bunk above me, Nechama escaped from sickness into a blind sleep. A kind Englishwoman who had volunteered to escort us to South Africa bustled in and out of our cabins, murmuring in her broken Yiddish. Braindel and Rosha, smug in their immunity to seasickness, helped her to bring buckets and wet facecloths and a little dry toast.
After that first long day, my stomach began to settle. I tried standing up, holding my belly with both hands. Nechama slept on. The Englishwoman had promised I’d feel better outdoors, so, clinging to the moist railing, I climbed slowly up the black iron stairs to the open deck. A cool salty breeze filled my lungs as a vast green dreamscape unrolled in front of me, bejeweled with white foam and swirling with ever-shifting designs. I fell instantly in love with the ocean.
After that I didn’t go downstairs except to sleep. Hour after hour, the wind soothed my thoughts as I gazed at the water that seemed a world unto itself. Maybe the ocean is a mirror reflection of heaven, I thought dreamily. Maybe Mama and Papa are floating in a paradise of green and blue swells, weightless, sunlit.
I began saving bits of food from my meals for the seagulls, which soared effortlessly between heaven and ocean. If I held out a bit of bread and kept perfectly still, a white creature of the sky would skim down with strong wings and perch briefly on my wrist with dry, scratchy toes.
One day, I was so absorbed in the gulls that I was caught off guard. Two sailors had been watching me, and before I knew it they had walked right up to me.
“Good morning,” one said in Polish.
I dropped my bread and stared at them. My eyelid twitched. What were these men in uniform going to do to me?
“My name’s Pete. Used to be Piotr when I was a kid in Poland. What’s your name?” he continued with a friendly grin. The other sailor was smiling kindly, too.
“Devorah,” I ventured.
“How do you like the Edinburgh Castle?” Pete asked. His Polish sounded stiff, as if he hadn’t spoken it for a long time, and sometimes he inserted a few English words. It was the Polish of Panya Truda—and of the villagers who burned our shul.
I managed to give a nod, which apparently satisfied him.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Pete agreed before turning to say a few words in English to his companion. “My friend Joe here wants you to try his peppermint toffees, so let’s sit down for a bit and we’ll tell you the story of the Edinburgh Castle.”
Before I had a chance to wonder about danger, I was sucking on a candy that filled my mouth with a delicious icy fire, and Pete was telling me sea tales. It turned out that Joe spoke some German, which is similar to Yiddish, and also that he had a comic talent for acting out the meaning. When he imitated a greedy gull, I startled myself by sending a real laugh out into the wind, my head giddy with sea air and freedom.
Nechama and some playmates found me on the deck and gaped at my new friends.
“Where you sleep, there’s not much fresh air, is there?” Pete said to Nechama and me and the rest of the growing audience. “Yessir, we can see it in your faces!”
Joe performed a little pantomime of the children rolling from side to side and then being sick into the ocean. Bubbly laughter opened my chest.
“Now come along with us, don’t be shy,” Pete continued. “We’re going to show you the posh quarters for the toffs up above.”
We followed Pete and Joe on the tour. It soon became clear that “posh” meant fancy and “toffs” meant wealthy people. After a quiet conversation with a sympathetic steward, Pete and Joe allowed us to peek into a spacious suite with real beds and a separate sitting area, oil paintings and gold light sconces on the walls, and immense bowls of flowers everywhere. We gasped in admiration.
“That’s a stateroom,” Pete explained proudly. “The King’s first cousin once slept in that very bed.”
“We sang for the King,” piped up Nechama. “The Queen smiled at me.”
It was the sailors’ turn to be impressed. “Blimey,” Joe said. “I’m honored to meet such famous singers.” He swept a grand curtsy to the ground.
I laughed along with the rest. There was no need to mention how disappointed I’d been in the King and Queen. “Blimey.” That sounded like a useful word to remember.
Many of the other third-class passengers were also friendly and spent hours teaching us songs and drawing funny pictures for us on scraps of paper. I tried drawing, too, and one of them admired my sketch of our village. “You have artistic talent,” he said, in front of everyone.
The unexpected compliment made me bold enough to ask him and his Yiddish-speaking friends, “Did you know anyone from a village called Domachevo?” But most of the refugees wanted to talk about the future rather than the past.
One day, I noticed a group of smartly dressed men and women peering down at us from the deck for first-class passengers.
“I wish they’d stop staring,” I whispered to Nechama, squirming uncomfortably.
“I don’t mind. Some ladies in beautiful dresses came down and gave us sweets and little cakes this morning.”
“Weren’t you shy?” I asked.
“No, because the cakes had thick pink icing on them,” replied Nechama.
I opened my mouth to remonstrate. How was I supposed to keep Nechama safe if she went around talking to strangers? Then I remembered my own quick friendship with the kind sailors, and I shut my mouth again.
Seventeen days after we left London, I was awakened by loud noises and shouted commands. I trembled. I was suddenly back with Nechama and Aunt Friedka as a neighbor shouted warnings of a pogrom.
But Nechama squealed happily in the bunk above me. “Pete was right. He said we’d reach Africa today.” She pulled on a skirt and shirt and was gone.
“Wait, Nechama. Put on something warm,” I ordered. Then I gave up, scrambling into my clothes and carrying Nechama’s coat under my arm as I chased my sister up the flights of stairs to the main deck.
It was still early in the morning; the sun had not yet risen. But below the skies, in the distance, was land. A surprisingly large, mistily purple, mountainous land. South Africa. We could see South Africa.
“Look at the mountain that’s completely flat at the top,” Pete called out to us as he hurried past. “That one’s called Table Mountain.”
A pure white tablecloth of clouds hung down over the edges of the mountain. It reminded me of something. “The table’s ready for Shabbes dinner,” I whispered to myself. But Nechama overheard and turned to smile at me. We were remembering the same Shabbes table. My eyes blurred with tears.
By the time I could see clearly again, the ship had drawn closer to the great land mass, which glimmered with thousands of lights. The white sparkles were woven into diamond necklaces swinging from the breasts of the mountains down to the dark sea.
I gasped. “It looks like fairyland in my English books.”
The sun came up slowly. All of us were on deck now, chattering and pointing. We could just make out small moving shapes on the dock.
“Those are people!” Nechama exclaimed. “Look at all the people waiting to meet us.”
“There must be hundreds,” I said.
“Thousands,” Laya said with awe.
“Yes, the whole town’s turned out to see what monkeys Daddy Ochberg has brought them!” Little Faygele giggled.
We laughed excitedly.
“They must really want us,” Nechama said to me, and we squeezed hands.
The crowd on the wharf became clearer. There were adults and children, swaying together from side to side. And gradually the sound of singing crept over the water and reached our ship.
A thrill rippled through me. “Nechama,” I said, “Papa taught us that song, remember?”
Nechama leaned over to listen and a faint recognition lit her eyes. “I think I remember. Sing it for us. What does it mean?” she asked.
I started to sing softly. In an instant, the children around me had picked up the words, or at least had remembered the beautiful melody, and we swayed arm in arm as we sang again and again:
Shevet achim gam yachad.
How good and how pleasant it is
When families dwell together in unity.”
The group on the dock could hear us singing, too, and their own singing became louder. Back and forth the words traveled. Voices rose and linked across the water in the dawn’s light, a ribbon of sound threading us closer and closer, singing of safety and reunion.