第 23 页

'Why wait for America? I intend to have as many on this ship as possible!'

'How will you go about that?' asked Wladek, intent on the acquisition of knowledge without admitting to his own ignorance.

'We have twelve more days in this awful tub, and I am going to have twelve women,' boasted jenzy.

'What can you do with twelve women?' asked Vilade1r.

'Fuck them, what else?'

Wladek looked perplexed.

'Good God,' said Jerzy. 'Don't tell me the man who survived the Germans and escaped from the Russians, killed a man at the age of twelve and narrowly missed having his hand chopped off by a bunch of savage Turks has never had a woman?'

He laughed, and a multilingual chorus from the surrounding bunks told him to 'shut up'.

'Well,' Jerzy continued in a whisper, 'the time has come to broaden your education, because at last I have found something I can teach you.' He peered over the side of his bunk even though he could not see Wladek's face in the dark. 'Zaphia's an understanding girl. I dare say she could be persuaded to expand your education a little. I shall arrange it.'

Wladek didn't reply.

No more was said on the subject, but the next day Zaphia started to pay attention to Wladek. She sat next to him at meals, and they talked for hours of their experiences and hopes. She was an orphan from Poznan, on her way to join her cousins in Chicago. Wladek told Zaphia that he was going to New York and would probably live with Jerzy.

'I hope New York is very near Chicago,' said Zaphia.

'When you can come and see me when I am the mayor,' said Jerzy expansively.

She sniffed disparagingly. 'You're too Polish, Jerzy. You can't even speak nice English like Wladek.'

'I'll learn,' said Jerzy confidently, 'and I'll start by making my name American. From today I shall be George Novak. Then I'll have no trouble at all. Everyone in the United States will think I'm American. What about you, Wladek Koskiewicz? Nothing much you can do with that name, is there?'

Wladek looked at the newly christened George in silent resentment of his own name. Unable to adopt the title to wWch he felt himself the rightful heir, he hated Koskiewicz and the continual reminder of his illegitimacy.

'I'll manage,' he said. 'I'll even help you with your English if you like.'

'And I'll help you find a girl.'

Zaphia giggled. 'You needn't bother, he's found one.'

Jerzy, or George, as he now insisted they should call him, retreated after supper each night into one of the tarpaulincovered lifeboats with a different girl. Wladek longed to know what he did there, even though some of the ladies of George's choice were not merely filthy, as they all were, but would clearly have been unattractive even when scrubbed clean.

One night after supper, when George had disappeared again, Wladek and Zaphia sat out on deck, she put her arms around him and asked him to kiss her. He pressed his mouth stiffly against hers until their teeth touched; he felt horribly unfamiliar with what he was meant to be doing. To his surprise and embarrassment, her tongue parted his lips. After a few moments of apprehension, Wladek found her open mouth intensely exciting and was alarmed to find his penis stiffening. He tried to draw away from her, ashamed, but she did not seem to mind in the least. On the contrary, she began to press her body gently and rhythmically against him and drew his hands down to her buttocks. His swollen penis throbbed against her, giving him almost unbearable pleasure. She disengaged her mouth and whispered in his ear.

'Do you want me to take my clothes off, Wladek?'

He could not bring himself to reply.

She detached herself from him, laughing. 'Well, maybe tomorrow,' she said, getting up from the deck and leaving him.

He stumbled back to his bunk in a daze, determined that the next day he would finish the job Zaphia had started. No sooner had he settled in his berth thinking of how he would go about the task than a large hand grabbed him by the hair and pulled him down from his bunk onto the floor. In an instant his sexual excitement vanished. Two men whom he had never seen before were towering above him. They dragged him to a far comer and threw him up against the wall. A large hand was now clamped firmly on Wladek's mouth while a knife touched his throat.

'Don't breathe,' whispered the man holding the knife, pushing the blade against the skin. 'All we want is the silver band around your wrist.'

The sudden realisation that his treasure might be stolen from him was almost as horrifying to Wladek as had been the thought of losing his hand. Before he could think of anything to do, one of the men jerked the band off his wrist. He couldn't see their faces in the dark, and he feared he must have lost the band forever, when someone leaped on to the back of the man holding the knife. This action gave Wladek the chance to punch the one who was holding him pinned to the ground. The sleepy immigrants around them began to wake and take an interest in what was happening. The two men escaped as quickly as they could, but not before George had managed to stick the knife in the side of one of the assailants.

'Go to the cholera,' shouted Wladek at his retreating back.

'It looks as if I got here just in time,' said George. 'I don't think they'll be back in a hurry.' He stared down at the silver band, lying in the trampled sawdust on the floor. 'It's magnificent,' he said, almost solemnly. 'There will always be men who want to steal such a prize from you.'

Wladek picked the band up and slipped it back on to his wrist.

'Well, you nearly lost the damn thing for good that time,' said George. 'Lucky for you I was a little late getting back tonight.'

'Why were you a little late getting back?' asked Wladek.

'My reputation,' said George boastfully, 'now goes before me. In fact, I found some other idiot in my lifeboat tonight, already with his pants down. I soon got rid of him, though, when I told him he was with a girl I would have had last week but I couldn't be sure she hadn't got the pox. I've never seen anyone get dressed so quickly.'

'What do you do in the boat?' asked Wladek.

'Fuck them silly, you ass, what do you think?' and with that he rolled over and went to sleep.

Wladek stared at the ceiling and, touching the silver band, thought about what George had said, wondering what it would be like to 'fuck' Zaphia.

The next morning they hit a storm, and all the passengers were confined below decks. The stench, intensified by the ship's steam heating system, seemed to permeate Wladek's very marrow.

'And the worst of it is,' groaned George, 'I won't make a round dozen now.'

When the storm abated, nearly all the passengers escaped to the deck.

Wladek and George fought their way around the crowded gangways, thankful for the fresh air. Many of the girls smiled at George, but it seemed to Wladek that they didn't notice him at all. He would have thought they couldn't miss him in his fifty-ruble coat. A dark-haired girl, her cheeks made pink by the wind, passed George and smiled at him. He turned to Wladek.

'I'll have her tonight.'

Wadek stared at the girl and studied the way she looked at George.

'Tonight,' said George, as she passed within earshot. She pretended not to hear him and walked away, a little too quickly.

'Turn round, Wladek, and see if she is looking back at me!'

Wladek turned around. 'Yes, she is,' he said, surprised.

'She's mine tonight,' said George. 'Have you had Zaphia yet?'

'No,' said Wladek. 'Tonight.'

'About time, isn't it? You'll never see the girl again once we've reached New York.'

Sure enough, George arrived at supper that night with the dark-haired girl. Without a word being said, Wladek and Zaphia left them, arms round each other's waists, and went on to the deck and strolled around the ship several times. Wladek looked sideways at her pretty young profile. It was going to be now or never, he decided. He led her to a shadowy corner and started to kiss her as she had kissed him, open-mouthed. She moved backwards a little until her shoulders were resting against a bulwark, and Wladek moved with her. She drew his hands slowly down to her breasts. He touched them tentatively, surprised by their softness. She undid a couple of buttons on her blouse and slipped his hand inside. The first feel of the naked flesh was delicious.

'Christ, your hand is cold,' Zaphia said.

Wladek crushed himself against her, his mouth dry, his breath heavy. She parted her legs a little and Wladek thrust clumsily against her through several intervening layers of cloth. She moved in sympathy with him for a couple of minutes and then pushed him away.

'Not here on the deck,' she said. 'Let's find a boat!'

The first three they looked into were occupied, but they finally found an empty one and wriggled under the tarpaulin. In the constricted darkness Zaphia made some adjustments to her clothing that Wladek could not figure out, and pulled him gently on top of her. It took her very little time to bring Wladek to his earlier pitch of excitement through the few remaining layers of cloth between them. He thrust his penis into the yielding softness between her legs and was on the point of orgasm when she again drew her mouth away.

'Undo your trousers,' she whispered.

He felt an idiot but hurriedly undid them, and thrust again, coming immediately, feeling the sticky wetness running down the inside of her thigh. He lay dazed, amazed by the abruptness of the act, suddenly aware that the wooden notches of the boat were digging uncomfortably into his elbows and knees.

'Was that the first time you've made love to a girl?' asked Zaphia, wishing he would move over.

'No, of course not,' said Wladek.

'Do you love me, Wladek?'

'Yes, I do,' he said, 'and as soon as I've settled in New York, I'll come and find you in Chicago!'

'I'd like that, Wladek,' she said as she buttoned up her dress. 'I love you, too.'

'Did you fuck her?' was George's immediate question on Wladek's return.

'Yes.'

'Was it good?'

'Yes,' said Wladek, uncertainly, and then fell asleep.

In the morning, they were woken by a room full of excited passengers, happy in the knowledge that this was their last day on [)card the Black Arrow.

Some of them had been up on deck before sunrise, hoping to catch the first sign of land. Wladek packed his few belongings in his new suitcase, put on his only suit, and his cap and then joined Zaphia and George on deck. The three of them stared into the mist that hung over the sea, waiting in silence for their first sight of the United States of America.

'There it is,' shouted a passenger on a deck above them, and cheering went up at the sight of the grey strip of Long Island approaching through the spring morning.

Little tugs bustled up to the side of the Black Arrow and guided her between Brooklyn and Staten Island into New York Harbour. The colossal Statue of Liberty regarded them austerely as they gazed in awe at the emerging skyline of Manhattan, great long arms stretching high into the autumn sky.

Finally they moored near the turreted and spired red brick buildings of Ellis Island. The passengers who had private cabins left the ship first.

Wladek hadn't noticed them until that day. They must have been on a separate deck with their own dining hall. Their bags were carried for them by porters, and they were greeted by smiling faces at the quayside. Wladek knew that wasn't going to happen to him.

After the favoured few had disembarked, the captain announced over the loudspeaker to the rest of the passengers that they would not be leaving the ship for several hours. A groan of disappointment went up, and Zaphia sat on the deck and burst into tears. Wladek tried to comfort her. Eventually an official came around with coffee, a second with numbered labels which were hung around their necks. Wladek's was B.127; it reminded him of the last time he was a number. What had he let himself in for? Was America like the Russian camps?

In the middle of the afternoon, having been given no food or further information, they were ferried by slow moving barges from the dockside to Ellis Island. There the men were separated from the women and sent off to different sheds. Wladek kissed Zaphia and wouldn't let her go, which held up the line. A nearby official parted them.

'All right., let's get moving,' he said. 'Keep that up and we'll have you two married in no time.'

Wladek lost sight of Zaphia as he was pushed forwards with George. They spent the night in an old, damp shed, unable to sleep as interpreters moved among the crowded rows of bunks, offering curt, but not unkind, assistance to the bewildered immigrants.

In the morning they were sent for medical examinations. The first hurdle was the hardest: Wladek was told to climb a steep flight of stairs. The blue-uniformed doctor made him do it twice, watching his gait carefully.

Wladek tried very hard to minimise his limp, and finally the doctor was satisfied. Wladek was made to remove his hat and stiff collar so that his face, eyes, hair, hands and neck could be examined carefully. The man directly behind Wladek had a hare lip; the doctor stopped him immediately, put a chalk cross on his shoulder and sent him to the other end of the shed. After the physical was over, Wladek joined up with George again in another long line outside the Public Examination room where each person seemed to be taking about five minutes. Three hours later when George was ushered into the room Wladek began to wonder what they would ask him.

When George came out, he grinned at Wladek and said, 'Easy, you'll walk right through it.' Wladek could feel the palms of his hands sweating as he stepped forward.

He followed the. official into a small, undecorated room. There were two examiners seated and writing furiously on what looked like official papers.

'Do you speak English?' asked the first.

'Yes, sir, I do quite good,' replied Abel, wishing he had spoken more English on the voyage.

'What is vour name?'