Hi, so here is another chapter and I hope you enjoy this one, there will be one more chapter on the ship and then maybe two more to set the stage for World War II and then our main story begins.
Again this one is mostly in Louisa's head but I hope you enjoy it anyway, thank you all so much who have stuck with this story and these relatively short chapters.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just this plot.
Please Read and Review.
And finally on a personal note for me on news that has no doubt been seen all around the world and as a Brit means enough for me to comment on. Queen Elizabeth II who sadly passed away at the time of writing this was perhaps one my idols since before I could understand what the word meant. This chapter and indeed all chapters of my work with this update are written in memory of her and her phenomenal legacy as a Queen, a wife, a mother, a grandmother and a great-grandmother and perhaps most importantly at all, a woman in a man's world who rose to the top was universally respected and never stopped smiling even when I imagine all she wanted to do was cry. As she so wonderfully said, grief is the price we pay for love. And perhaps it is the best price that we can pay for that, the most ultimate gift.
Poetic Justice
Chapter 5-The Angel Maker
The Von Trapp's leave for America and the boat ride is less than smooth. But America is on the horizon and Louisa thinks that has to mean something, right? Part One of a Two Part chapter arc that takes place on the ship.
Getting on the boat was more of a hassle than finding the cabins. Firstly there had been trying to wrangle children into a neat que. It didn't not seem to matter to either one of her younger sisters that misbehaving this time had serious consequences. They were both tired, both excited about what was going to come and both missing Brigitta and Liesl. It was an early start they had and Louisa held her suitcase in her hand with her blonde hair loose over her shoulders. Her mother had tried to get her to tie it back and put her kerchief around her face but she didn't want to. This was the start of something new, something big, something extraordinary. She didn't want to enter it as the little girl she had once been. She wanted to enter it as the woman she was sure she was becoming.
The ticket master eyed them suspiciously but that was not the real problem. Louisa shot him a hard look and he let them pass and they boarded the gangplank. Despite the fact that she told herself she wasn't going to do it she reached out and touched the ship as soon as she could touch it. She had been suspicious about ships from the start. A father in a naval officers position for most of his adult life she had grown up hearing about them but she had always wondered weather or not it was fiction or weather or not it was truth.
God knows with Georg Von Trapp it was hard to tell sometimes.
She had been expecting bumps and bruises along the rivets of the ship but it was smooth and cold to the touch. She took her hand away and stepped on board. She was on a ship now, taking her away from Europe, away from Austria and with any luck away from the war.
But it was also taking her away from her sisters.
It wasn't some first class trip either. It was two cabins close together two interlocked by a door. It was agreed that her mother would go in one with Louisa, Marta and Gretl and her father and Kurt and Friedrich would go in the next one. Louisa took the bunk that was directly under the window and slung her bag on it.
"Do you mind if I get some air?" she asked turning to her mother. "I need to…I need to get some air"
In truth she needed to be anywhere that wasn't in a small cramped room with her mother and her sisters. She was not a woman built for small cramped rooms. She was built for outdoors, fresh air and grass under her feet.
Her mother who had been helping Marta sit on the bed turned. For a second she looked as if she was going to deny Louisa's request and Louisa wondered would she have the strength to deny her. To walk out of this room and towards the open exit before her emotions got the better of her…again…
Instead her mother just looked at her for a long moment.
"Alright then" she said quietly as if she understood how much Louisa needed this private moment.
"But stay up on the top of the deck, don't get lost and come straight back as soon as we clear the harbour. We need to find some time to spend together as a family. Especially with the baby coming. I will need your help. Your father and I depend on Friedrich and you for your help and support quite a bit. We need it now more than ever. Especially your father"
There was a warning in that somewhere down the line, something in it that told Louisa that her coldness to her father was being noticed and that her mother thought that it had to stop. Even when she was a governess her mother had been subtle when it came to outright discipline. Perhaps she had realised early on that they were immune to it. Harsh words, the occasional slap and pinch had been part of the charm of growing up. Only one governess had hit Brigitta once and Liesl had come down on her so fast that the woman was lucky to have made it down the stairs in one piece rather than break every bone in her body from the force of Liesl's look alone.
"Yes mother" she said demurely.
Her mother nodded her head and then Louisa was gone.
It was not hard to find her way to the deck and once she got there she leaned over the rail her arms on the thin metal watching as they cast off. She was not the only one. Many were weeping. She remained dry-eyed but it was not hard to understand why. People were fleeing their home, their country, their sense of self and their identity because they knew that there was something so poisonous, so insidious out there threatening them that it was easier to run.
She thought of Herr Zeller and his smug face and she felt her teeth gnash together. It was easier somewhat to think of Herr Zeller over everything else because unlike her mother and father her feelings were simple rather than a complicated mess. For Herr Zeller there was nothing in her heart but hatred. A deep, uncomplicated, uncompromising hate that was hot and strong. For everyone and anyone else it was complicated and it was ironic Louisa was sure (see Brigitta was not the only one who read a lot of books and expanded her vocabulary) that it was the man who had destroyed her family that she could feel uncomplicated about.
She felt someone come and stand next to her and saw a man of about twenty a cigarette hanging out of his mouth watching the shoreline. She moved a little to let him have some more room and he nodded his head at her in thanks.
"Sad" he said finally. "It's all so fucking sad and pointless"
"Yes" she said before she could stop herself. "Were off to America though don't they call that the Land of Dreams and Opportunity?"
The man snorted. He turned and eyed Louisa appreciatively. "Let me give you some advice love. When you get to immigration you look them dead in the eye. They can smell fear like a shark smells blood in the water. Never let your enemies see fear kid. It's how you'll survive in the big, cold, cruel world."
Louisa nodded. She didn't know him and she knew that once he left she would never see him again. She found she didn't care, what was one more man on this ship to her? Nameless, faceless, forgettable…it was the advice that she listened to. Because she realised with a swooping feeling in her stomach…he was dead right.
"Here" the man said holding out a cigarette, Louisa took it and let him light it. He passed it to her and she took it not really knowing what to do. She had never smoked before, she had never even seen her father do it though she had seen him more than once smelling off the stuff.
"Don't inhale too much" he said with a wink and then he was gone and it was just her and the smoke. She took a drag taking his advice and found that despite all she had been told about smoking she found she actually liked it. It made her feel grown up and she let the wind blow her blonde hair around as she was standing there watching as Europe faded away into nothingness.
Her face was wet and the cigarette was nothing but a stub that she threw overboard by the time Europe had faded into the horizon taking with her a part of herself, but if her mother and father noticed anything when she came back neither one of them noticed it and certainly she didn't draw attention to it.
It was easy to be forgotten in a crowd Louisa thought one night as the ship endlessly plugged away. They were in bed and it was hot within the cabin. Their mother sometimes went to the shared bathroom and Louisa could hear her retching. She was only three months gone her belly gently rounding but she still suffered with the sickness.
It was a hard stretch too because Friedrich had taken up residence there too but he'd had to fight past Marta. Kurt and Gretl were doing alright and to be hones when her brother was on deck and he could feel the warmth of the sun and the sea spray on his face he was alright to, it was just at night when the darkness pressed in on them and the waves rocked them to sleep that he seemed to struggle.
Louisa didn't mind.
She didn't sleep. But she didn't mind.
Instead she stayed awake looking at the ceiling or she turned in her little cabin and looked out the small porthole (as she had been told the ship's window was called) and stared into the blackness that was the sea and the sky all rolled into one.
She didn't dare try and make it outside to the deck at night. If truth be told she was a little scared to go out and see nothing but blackness surrounding her and she knew her mother would never allow her. Louisa was fourteen and though she was a risk taker she was not completely stupid.
The more she thought about it in her little bed the more she felt something in her stomach stirring.
America.
It wasn't the most sought after place in the world for nothing. Louisa knew that. The United States of America was one of those places where people felt safe once they were there. There was a sense that even Hitler wouldn't dare to try and take on the American's and if was that sense of safety that she knew her parents were clinging too. She thought about Liesl and how Liesl would have known that too. Maybe her sisters were already on their way over? Granted they had taken one of the last boats out of Switzerland but surely there must be others somewhere? Liesl she knew had had passports and cash with her and her sister had the brains to make them go a long way. Maybe somewhere in the immigration que the Von Trapp's would be reunited.
She didn't hold out much hope for it. In truth she didn't hold much hope for any of it. The apathy and the depression she felt clung to her like a bad smell and Louisa felt sick with exhaustion. But when she slept she dreamt and when she dreamt she always woke up wanting to cry and she could not cry because once she started she wouldn't stop.
And above all she was afraid of what would happen when her father inevitably asked her what was wrong. She was afraid that she would blurt out what was on the tip of her tongue which was quite easily the one question standing between them.
Did you listen to what I had to say? Did that make you get up off that bed or was it mother and the baby?
One way or another when the question was asked and out there in the open like a grenade with a pin pulled out there was no going back. And the truth when the truth hit would hurt.
And Louisa had, had enough of getting hurt for a lifetime.
But maybe America would be different. Maybe America would be the safe haven for them, where she could ask the question that she wanted to ask and not be afraid of the answer. Maybe in the mad dash to get to safety, to get out of Austria she would find her safety net again. And when she did she would find her confidence again. Her footing.
Maybe then the fear would stop, the panic, the terror. Maybe she would become the Louisa she had always wanted to be before this terrible thing had happened. Maybe she would be able to look at her father and feel confidence again.
What was it that her mother had said she'd sung on the way to their house the first time.
"I have confidence in me" she whispered to herself into the darkness. And while she may be wrong (and she was but that was a story for another time and another place) in that small airless, hot room she turned over and wrapped the thin sheet around herself and thought that while she didn't fully have confidence in herself she did—as the song said—have confidence in confidence alone and that…well…that was all that mattered wasn't it?
And for now that would have to be enough to get her through until she could get to the other side.
It had to be.
(It wasn't)
And there you go, I hope you enjoy this chapter and I will do my best to bring you the next one.
Next Chapter-As the ship docks in America and the Von Trapps finally arrive at their new home Louisa has a terrible revelation about what the loss of Brigitta and more specifically Liesl means for her and her place within the family.