Anna didn’t know how long she slept. The cabin grew dark, and then light, and then dark again. Every once in a while, she would open her eyes to find Baba standing over her, clucking and cooing and trying to force a few spoonfuls of hot soup down her throat. She turned her face away. Once, she awoke to find a doctor sitting next to her on the cot. At least, she thought he was a doctor. He had a stethoscope in his hand, which he pressed to her chest. There was a fuzzy image of Papa standing behind him. Papa’s face was creased with worry lines.
Don’t look so scared, Papa, she longed to say. But no words came out of her. She simply closed her eyes and drifted away again.
Another time, she awoke moaning. She had seen the soldier again, the one from the train. Had he followed them on to the boat? He was shouting in German, ordering her to get up and follow him. His arm with the swastika armband was still held high in the salute to Hitler. “No,” she shouted. “No, I won’t go. I have to stay here. Please don’t make me go.”
“Shhh, my darling.” It was her father’s voice, soothing her back to reality. “You’re here with me and with Baba,” he crooned. “Everything is okay. Just sleep, sleep.”
She wanted to tell her father that the soldier was chasing her, but each time she tried to speak, he hushed her, and again she drifted away.
Then she dreamed she was in the audience of a great concert hall, listening to a group of musicians onstage. At first, the song they were playing was beautiful. But slowly, the musicians began to turn into barnyard animals and the sounds that filled the concert hall were the sounds of geese and ducks and cows. A man who looked like Mr. Huberman was standing on the stage shouting, “None of you are good enough to get into my orchestra!” Make the horrible sounds stop, her mind screamed. She pressed her hands to her ears, turned to the wall, and felt herself sleep once more.
Still another time, she dreamed about Mama, and a time when she’d taken Anna to see a puppet show at the Krakow Park. Anna was only five years old and she had become frightened at the sight of one of the puppets, which was dressed to look like a witch. It chased two smaller puppet children with a broom held high over its head. Anna had whimpered and clung to her mother, who calmed her and whispered in her ear. “Don’t be frightened, Annichka. I’m here to protect you.” Was that really the voice of her mother that she now heard in her dreams? Or was it still Papa stroking her forehead and telling her that she would be fine?
Finally, Anna woke to a bright beam of sunlight, filled with bits of dust particles, shining across her cot. It poured in from a porthole on one side of the small cabin. She hadn’t even noticed the opening when they had arrived. How many days ago was that? She had no idea. But her mind felt fresh and clear. And when she pressed her hands to her face, her cheeks were cool.
“Well, hello!”
Anna rolled over to see Papa sitting in a small chair on the other side of the cabin. “It looks like you’re back.” He was smiling, a grin so big that it made Anna smile as well.
“How long have I been here?” she asked.
“Nearly four days!”
What! Had she really been sleeping for that long? The journey was practically half over, and she hadn’t even stepped foot outside the cabin!
“You’ve been quite sick, Annichka,” Papa continued, noting the look of surprise on Anna’s face. “Thank goodness there was a doctor on board. He gave you medicine that finally brought down the fever.”
Yes, she remembered the doctor. But everything else was a blur.
“Where’s Baba?”
At that, Papa smiled again. “Baba has not left your side, except to go and get food for you. That’s where she is now. Every day, she’s brought soup and toast here to the cabin, hoping you’d eat something. You’ve only had a couple of bites since we boarded. She will be thrilled to see you are finally awake.”
As if on cue, the door to the cabin opened and Baba walked through. Her face exploded in a smile that seemed to stretch beyond her ears. “Annichka, I’ve brought you food.”
Anna smiled again and struggled to sit up. She was weak after four days of being in bed. But she was also famished and the smell of the soup that Baba set in front of her was heavenly.
“Not quite like my cabbage soup from home.” Baba sniffed. “But it will be fine and it will make you strong.”
Anna tasted the hot liquid. Delicious! Baba urged her on, practically taking the spoon out of her hand and trying to feed her. It was all Anna could do to convince her grandmother to let her eat on her own. Finally, Baba went to sit on a chair at the foot of Anna’s cot. But her eyes never left her granddaughter. Anna tried to finish the soup; she wanted to get it all in, if only to please Baba. But after several mouthfuls, she pushed the bowl away. She needed to get up, wanted to go out on the deck and see where they were and where they were going. She felt as if this voyage had slipped away from her in the last few days and she wanted to hang on to the last part of the journey. When she stood up, her legs felt wobbly beneath her and it took a moment before the room stopped spinning.
“Shall I come with you?” Papa asked after she had finished dressing. He stood close to her, brows still knitted together, as if he couldn’t quite trust that she was fully recovered.
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine, Papa. Besides, I can’t go very far.”
He seemed to accept that, but insisted that she put on a jacket. “It will protect you from the cool sea air,” he said. Before going out the door, Anna checked herself in the mirror and pulled her long, unruly hair into two pigtails, which she quickly braided. Her face still looked pale, and she pinched her cheeks between her fingers to try to bring some color into them. Then she put on a jacket, waved good-bye to her father and grandmother, made her way to the deck, and walked over to the railing to watch the sea pass by.
Anna inhaled deeply as she looked out at the endless expanse of water. It smelled salty and a little fishy. But after four days of having been cooped up inside, she didn’t care. She filled her lungs with the smell. A gust of wind brushed over her face, lifting strands of dark hair off her forehead. She wrapped her jacket tighter around her body and closed her eyes, feeling herself regain her footing as the ship bobbed gently underneath her.
The ship was called the Fuga. Anna had laughed when her father first told her the name. It was a funny-sounding word. “In Italian, it means escape,” Papa said.
Now she whispered the word over and over in her mouth. Fuga. Fuga. It had become such a lovely word for a lovely ship.
Just then, she heard someone shouting and opened her eyes. A man standing close to her had lost his hat. The wind had picked it up and tossed it high into the sky. Anna watched as it sailed out across the sea and then landed on a wave. It bobbed there for a few seconds before it disappeared into the dark waters. The man was shouting as if he wanted it to fly back to him. But it was too late.
She closed her eyes again and took another breath, trying to block out the sounds of other passengers walking by and gulls squawking on the wind. Suddenly, someone touched her arm and she whirled around.
“I was hoping I’d see you here.”