Chapter 16

Beneath the sweater that she had brought, Brigitta was still cold. Even in the middle of the summer, she had brought that heavy knitted pullover, and this morning, she was quite glad she had. On the top deck of the ocean liner, the air was cold enough and the wind from the movement of the ship across the water through the still air whipped over her face, chilling her nose in particular. But it was cool enough just on the ocean without even considering the the wind.

She glanced down at the water and out over to her right, where the waves were a dull grayish blue this morning. All those years ago, had it been this way? Brigitta shook her head, reaching up to curl her hand in a fistful of her hair. Surely it had been. Here at the ship's stern, the water beneath her was white, churning up from the ship's propeller, and behind the ship, the water was choppy for several meters, a white line that lessened until at last it vanished into the chilled blue ocean again.

Twisting her fingers out of her hair, Brigitta thrust both of her hands into her pockets; most days she was out of their cabins, and her skin was beginning to show the wear of the cold and wind, cracking in the troughs between her fingers. A sudden spray of sunshine gleamed on the water, and Brigitta squinted, pulling a hand out of her pocket again to cover her eyes. Beside her feet, something fell. Glancing to it, she crouched down quickly and snatched it up: her letter from Uncle Max.

It wasn't so much that she could not bear to leave it in the cabin—every word echoed in her mind if she did not force herself to think on something else—but she could not allow someone else to see it. They needed to hear this from her, not from some letter that was written by a dead man. That man might have been Max, a friend and a man so close to their family that they had named him an uncle, but it was still only the writings of a man who could no longer speak his own words.

The letter was still tucked in the envelope, and she turned it in her hand, looking to the name that was scribbled across it. Her name. That was what this was, something written for her alone, but had Uncle Max intended that? No doubt he had meant that to be for her own judgment. It nearly made her angry, that he had left such a choice to her! Though she was nineteen, how could he think that she knew what to consider in such a choice?

Wrapping her hands around the railing, Brigitta just rested her chin on her knuckles. The page was curled around the rail as well, the familiar folds under her fingers. Perhaps she should have put it away, but she could not, and just wanted to hold it, to feel it. Touching that paper, it seemed she could still hold onto them. How foolish was that, she wondered, but Brigitta wasn't troubled by the silliness. It was not as if there was another person who might know just how silly she was.

She was so tired, just tired of Austria, of this crossing, of the memories. But they would never go away, would they? Closing her eyes, she dropped her head, sliding her forehead down against her hands. The ship dropped a bit suddenly, and in her sweater pocket, her journal slapped against her leg. She had not found the words to put to the page in that book yet, no matter how many times she had tried. Each time she brought out her pen and opened the book to a black page, her words fled, and a dozen images her mind had concocted appeared before her eyes.

Brigitta shivered, and she pushed her hand into her pocket, her fingers touching the spine. Her other hand was just as cold, and she pulled her fingers away from the rail—

Max's letter held its shape around the rail for a moment, and she reached out for it, but the wind caught one of the edges, lifting it away in a quick gust. Brigitta thrust her hand out toward it, but the paper was already dancing away in the air, just a speck on the horizon. No, she thought, lowering her hand in the crisp air. No. Pulling her second hand back, she pushed it into her other pocket, blinking quickly.

It had only been a letter, but how could she have lost it like that? Stupidity, that was all, and she bit her tongue to keep silent words that her mother would have paled to hear. But those words should not have just scandalized her mother, but herself as well. Yet that foolishness, holding it like that...Those scribbled words had seemed like her last way to cling to the happier memories of a different time. Bringing both of her hands out, she held them up in front of her face, just blowing a quick breath of hot air on her fingers that felt nearly frozen in the snapping wind.

After a moment, she pushed them back into her pockets, hitting her journal again, and a pen that she had forgotten. Like the journal, it had been a gift from her parents, a congratulations of sorts for her acceptance to college. She had hardly written in it, though, thoughts of it pushed aside by everything that had happened. No, she had not even used it at all. She had thanked them wholeheartedly, but pushed it aside.

Drawing out the slim volume, a heavy black cover that bound creamy, unlined paper, Brigitta just looked at it for a moment. She traced a finger along the edges, only wanting to feel it. Switching it to her left hand, she fished out the pen as well. Could she ever forget? No, she decided. There was no way back, no way to lose the memories that were seared in her mind. Opening the book, the cover cracked against the unblemished pages, and she shook her head, tossing aside the long strands of hair that cut across her vision. She had no way back, but perhaps she had a way to push through the pain. After all, she had endured pain before. What she had done once, surely she could do again.

It was not the same, but the way that she had endured that pain had some lessons for this moment. Uncapping the pen, Brigitta pressed the point to the white sheet. She had not even written a date in this volume, and so in her careful script, she traced the date: 29 July, 1946.

A beginning. She wasn't certain what it was a beginning of, but it could be no worse than what she meant to leave behind.