Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [31]
EIGHT
The Lombardia left the Bay of Naples on the twenty-eighth of December with Giovanna and 1,301 other passengers in steerage. They would arrive in New York to a new world and a new year. But such lofty thoughts did not occupy the minds of Giovanna and her fellow passengers; instead, they concentrated on enduring the smell of vomit, urine, and excrement that hung in the stifling air and on the deafening sounds of babies’ cries and the ship’s boiler. If for even a moment the immigrants were able to block out the assault on their senses, they were left only with relentless boredom.
It was day three of the fourteen-day voyage. Giovanna thought that time had taken on the character of a long labor where every minute lasted an hour and was filled with anticipation. Conversation, the most common way to pass time, was not possible for Giovanna. Nunzio’s death had her by the throat. She would listen to people talking and even tried to join in a few times, but her vocal cords still could not vibrate. No one questioned her silence. There was so much more to worry about.
On the bunk beneath Giovanna was a young woman with her two-year-old daughter. Giovanna had been assigned the bottom bunk but had given it to the woman for fear that in one of the ship’s many keels, the child would fall to the floor. The top bunk was considered preferable anyway. You were less likely to be splashed by vomit. Nearly everyone was horribly seasick; the winter seas knocked the boat around like a toy. Giovanna’s life on the water had given her an iron stomach, much to the benefit of the woman beneath her and to those on either side. The peasants from the sea towns fared better on the ship than those from the mountains, many of whom had never even seen a twig float. When the ship rocked suddenly to the extreme, steerage echoed with the terrified screams and prayers of immigrants who were certain their real destination was the bottom of the ocean.
Occasionally, the passengers would brave the icy wind aboveboard to get air. A section of the lower deck that caught the soot from the ship’s smokestacks was reserved for steerage. There, crammed on the deck, the immigrants would suck in the fresh, salty air, ignoring the crew, who were using the same deck to slaughter livestock and wash chamber pots.
A small portion of the upper deck jutted out over the lower deck, and from here the first- and second-class passengers would gaze down on the immigrants. Sometimes, a well-dressed man or woman would throw bread or an orange, trying to get it into the hands of one of the waiting children. One day, Giovanna watched boys on the deck above shouting to children below who gathered in hopes of catching food. The first-class boys let something drop, and there was a scramble. When the child who retrieved the prize uncupped his hand revealing an apple core, the immigrant children angrily cursed, “Sporcaccioni!” throwing the offensive trash overboard. The boys above, getting the reaction they wanted, doubled over in laughter and ran.
Below in steerage, families were put in separate cubicles that resembled sties. Among the Italians, there were few families; it was difficult enough to scrape together the money for one fare, never mind for the whole brood. A blanket hung on a rope separated the men and the women, although it did not hang in the middle of the hold, for there were far more men than women. Among the women, there were two groups—those traveling alone with children, presumably to join their husbands already working in l’America, and young women whose faces bore all the promise and fear of their arranged marriages. As far as Giovanna could tell, she was the only woman traveling alone who was not in her teens or with children.
A number of the women were pregnant, but it took an experienced eye to tell because their stomachs were hidden under layers of clothing. Giovanna prayed that no one went into labor. She was surviving by going through the motions of life; delivering a child would confront her with the pain and beauty of living