Chapter 5: Lady Liberty
Author's note: Thanks for all the beautiful reviews and good wishes. From now on, I'll update every Thursday. Be happy; it's summer in my country!
Jack and Rose spent the next two days with the Cartmells. Cora's mother had travelled to America before her husband and daughter, so she was not with them. Fortunately, Cora didn't seem too traumatized by the sinking, as she had fallen asleep in the boat and had not seen the ship split in two, and her father Bert was infinitely grateful for that. "I have a good story to tell my political family," he said constantly. Still, Jack noticed that his voice, formerly loud and jolly, was very low, timid and small, and sounded as if he was scared of waking someone up. Now Bert rarely smiled; he spent most of the day looking after Cora, gazing around nervously and praying. He thought Jack hadn't noticed, but he knew Bert would stay that way for a long time. So would he.
Before they knew it was Thursday, April 18, and the Carpathia docked in New York.
They arrived quite late at night. A curtain of rain fell from the dark blue sky, hindering the view, but Jack and Rose, standing on the deck with their hands clasped, could see a tall figure drawn out of the fog. As the ship approached, the silhouette became more and more clear. A few minutes later, they were right below it.
"The Statue of Liberty..." Rose murmured. The raindrops were falling down her cheeks like tears.
Lady Liberty, in all her glory, stood proudly on her pedestal. The golden torch lit from the crown of seven points to her bare feet. Her face carved in copper stared to Europe; challenging, bold and beautiful, daring someone to put her power in doubt. It was the symbol of protection for the homeless, the embodiment of light for the oppressed. It was the emblem of a new life.
"'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp" cries she with silent lips "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send this, the homeless, tempesttossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door'" Rose mumbled.
"What's that?" Jack asked.
"'The New Colossus', a sonnet." she said "It's about the statue. One of my favourites."
Jack watched her face carefully, while Rose kept her eyes fixed on the monument. Her ethereally white skin seemed to have its own light, as well as her emerald eyes. She remained solemn, respectful, standing like the statue she was looking at. The raindrops continued sliding down her face. However, it took Jack a few seconds to realize that they were not raindrops.
Rose turned her head to look. Her lips trembled, and tears of joy escaped from her eyes.
"I'm free" she murmured.
Jack banished the tears from her face with his hand.
"We are free" he corrected.
She smiled and laid her head on his shoulder.
They remained embraced for a while, away from the rest of the world, until an officer with an umbrella over his head and a list under his arm approached them.
"Can I take your name, sir?" he asked.
Jack and Rose separated a little. He looked at her face a second and smiled.
"Dawson. Jack and Rose Dawson."
The officer thanked them, noted their names on the list and walked to other passengers.
. . .
"Tomorrow we'll take a train to San Francisco. Lucy's brother lives there, we are going to stay with him and his wife until we can get our own home." Bert Cartmell said, as he went down to the dock with Cora in his arms. "Jack, you have been here before, do you know some affordable hotel?"
"Yeah, some. There is one around Greenwich Village, a few blocks from here."
"Well, we can go there, can't we, Cora?"
"Mhhh... What?" she yawned, half asleep "Yes, Daddy..."
"Better get to Greenwich Village before Morpheus kidnaps her" Rose teased, but she yawned too.
"Who?" Bert asked, confused.
"The Greek god of dreams."
"Oh."
As soon as they set a foot on solid ground, they had to face the multitude. There were relatives of the passengers, reporters, photographers with blinding cameras and even several policemen to contain the crowd. It was as if all Manhattan had gathered there to receive the Carpathia. In passing, several reporters approached and asked questions such as "What happened to you? How'd you survive? Are you a family? ". Rose covered her face with a blanket. The last thing she wanted was Cal seeing her in some newspaper photograph.
In some mysterious way, they managed to make their way, and found that the New York streets were fairly quiet. The rain made the pavement a bit slippery and hampered the sight, but it was not strong enough to discourage them.
A walk of about thirty minutes led them to an area with red brick buildings on both sides of the street. It was more than ten o' clock, and there was no trace of light in almost all of the windows, but the place where they stopped seemed open. Like the others, it was of red brick, with four stories and windows with rounded tops. It looked old, but clean and neat.
Jack knocked on the door with his knuckles three times. A stout woman in her sixties, with motherly airs, silver hair and bright worried-looking blue eyes opened.
"God! What are you doing out there in the rain? Come and enter!" she said. "But clean your shoes on the carpet, please" she asked, closing the door behind Bert. Jack wiped the mud off his shoes, while Rose discovered her head.
"Need a couple of rooms for tonight, dears?" the woman asked.
"Yes, ma'am" Jack answered.
"Call me Mrs. Rogers, please. Names?" she asked, putting on some old reading glasses, opening a book and taking a pen.
"Jack and Rose Dawson, and Bert and Cora Cartmell."
"Thank you. You are lucky, tonight we are almost empty. The fee is three dollars, dears."
Rose dug her hand in the pocket of the coat, praying that there was some change, and biting her lip when she saw that there was none. Trying to seem innocent, she put a hundred dollar bill in the woman's outstretched hand.
Mrs. Rogers, who had never in her life seen a hundred dollar bill, or lost her composure, opened her eyes wide and the spectacles fell off her face. Her mouth also hang open.
"Why, I've never…!"
"Please, keep the change." Rose said, her humble tone contrasting the content of the phrase. It was something a millionaire would say to a bellboy in a fancy suite of the Ritz, not to a Lower Manhattan hotel owner. Soon, she felt Mrs. Rogers' eyes appraising her, and for a moment, gazing at her pocket. She must have realized how impolite that was, for she averted her eyes, cleared her throat and stood up with her back as straight as she could.
"Breakfast is served at ten in the morning, lunch at half past one and dinner at six in the evening." She informed them, while guiding them to the stairs and climbing them. "The dining room is next to the lobby and there is a bathroom on each floor, which I hope you will not mind sharing."
Upon reaching the first floor, she removed a key chain from her dress pocket and fit a key into the lock of a couple of rooms.
"Good night. If you have any questions or problems, tell me." she concluded, and disappeared down the stairs. As soon as Mrs. Rogers was away Bert looked at Jack with a mixture of curiosity and amusement on his face.
"Jack and Rose Dawson?" he asked smiling.
"It was her idea" Jack said, pointing to Rose. She opened her mouth in false outrage and put her hands on her hips.
"My idea? It was you who gave our names to the steward!"
"Yes, but you told that girl, Ruth Becker, that I was your husband."
"You didn't say you were not."
Jack shrugged, feigning innocence. Bert laughed, something he seldom did in those days.
"You already talk like a married couple. Remind me of my Lucy and myself. Well, I'll take Cora to sleep. Good night."
"Good night, Bert" Jack said. Rose made a hand salute.
As soon as Bert was out of sight and the door of his room closed, they kissed softly, entered the room and shut the door to the rest of the world.
. . .
Mrs. Rogers did not go to sleep until eleven o' clock, a time when, she had learned over the years, no customers would show up. Nonetheless, the bill she had received that evening would allow her to buy food and other necessities without the help new customers for a week or maybe longer, she thought with a mixture of delight and puzzlement.
Mrs. Dawson did not seem rich; quite on the contrary. Her hair was loose, soaked and limp, and Mrs. Rogers did not want to sound rude, but she smelled as if she hadn't taken a bath in days. Her companions looked the same way. Mr. Dawson and Mr. Cartmell wore working-class garments; Cartmell's daughter was clad in a little nightgown under two sweaters of coarse wool.
"Who on earth goes out on a night like this, wearing their bedclothes and coats?", she wondered while putting on her own nightgown. Her age and experience, tending mostly poor people from the streets, had given her many answers to it.
"Could they be running away? They did look like they dressed hurriedly. Maybe they were kicked out of their previous home like the Appletons, who lodge here since last week." she said to herself. "Anyway, Mary, it's not of your business." she added. "If they are running away, they will depart tomorrow and you'll never see them again."
After praying, she turned off the lamp and tried to sleep, lullabied by the sound of the rain against the window. But the questions didn't leave her.
"Who are they…?"