Living My Life - Emma Goldman [227]
I looked at my watch. It was 4:20 A.M. on the day of our Lord, December 21, 1919. On the deck above us I could hear the men tramping up and down in the wintry blast. I felt dizzy, visioning a transport of politicals doomed to Siberia, the étape of former Russian days. Russia of the past rose before me and I saw the revolutionary martyrs being driven into exile. But no, it was New York, it was America, the land of liberty! Through the port-hole I could see the great city receding into the distance, its sky-line of buildings traceable by their rearing heads. It was my beloved city, the metropolis of the New World. It was America, indeed, America repeating the terrible scenes of tsarist Russia! I glanced up—the Statue of Liberty!
Dawn was breaking when our barge pulled up alongside of the large ship. We were quickly transferred and assigned to a cabin. It was six o’clock. Exhausted, I crawled into my bunk and immediately fell asleep.
I was awakened by someone pulling at my covers. A white figure stood at my berth, probably the stewardess. Was I ill, she asked, to remain in bed so long. It was already six o’clock in the evening. I had shut out the hideous sights in twelve hours of blessed sleep. Stepping into the corridor, I was startled by someone roughly grabbing me by the shoulder. “Where are you going?” a soldier demanded. “To the toilet, if you must know it. Any objection?” He loosed his hold and followed me; he waited till I emerged again, and accompanied me back to the cabin. My girl companions informed me that guards had been stationed at our door since our arrival, and that they had also been escorted to the place of pressing needs every time they left the cabin.
At noon the next day we were conducted by the sentry to the officers’ dining-room. At a large table sat the captain and his retinue, civilian and military. A separate table was assigned to us.
After lunch I requested to see the Federal official in charge of the deportees. He proved to be F. W. Berkshire, an immigration inspector detailed to manage the Buford expedition. Did we like our cabin and was the food good, he inquired solicitously. We had no complaints to make, I told him, but how about our men comrades? Could we take our meals with them and meet them on deck? “Impossible,” Berkshire said. I then demanded to see Alexander Berkman. Also impossible. Thereupon I informed the inspector that I had no desire to cause trouble, but that I would give him twenty-four hours to change his mind about allowing me to talk to my friend. If my demand should be refused, at the expiration of that time I would go on a hunger-strike.
In the morning Sasha was brought under escort to see me. It seemed weeks since I had beheld his dear face. He told me that the conditions of the men were harrowing. They were cooped up in the hold of the ship, forty-nine in a place barely large enough for half that number. The rest of them were in two other compartments. The bunks, three tiers high, were old and worn out; those in the lower ones bumped their heads against the wire netting of the uppers every time they turned around. The boat, built at the end of the last century, had been used as a transport in the Spanish-American War and later discarded as unsafe. The floor of the steerage was wet all the time, the beds and blankets damp. Only salt water was to be had for washing, and no soap. The food was abominable, especially the bread, half-baked and uneatable. And, worst of all, there were only two toilets for the two hundred and forty-six men. [...]
Sasha advised against pressing our request to eat with the men. It would be better to save what we could from our food for the sick boys who could not stomach the rations given them. Meanwhile he was trying to see what improvements he could secure. He was negotiating with Berkshire a list of demands he had submitted. I was happy to see Sasha full of vital energy again. He had forgotten his own physical troubles the moment he saw