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Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three

May 1909

Teresa's anger almost blocked her fears. She leaned against the ship's railing and stared down at her weeping mother, nearly obscured amid the mass of emigrants on the Naples wharf. I'm the one who should be crying, Teresa thought bitterly. The more she struggled for control, the more her anger spread. It included the Mostro, which she viewed as the oldest, dirtiest ship afloat, not that she had ever seen others. In fact, she had never been out of her mountain village of Montaguto. Her anger didn't even stop at the brilliant sunshine. It should be raining! She clenched her fists, completely unaware that she had a stranglehold on the ball of black yarn in her hand.

"Exciting, isn't it?" a young girl standing beside her asked timidly.

"What?" Teresa responded more sharply than she had intended.

The girl recoiled. "Going to America, I mean."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to snap." Teresa judged the girl to be about her own age, seventeen, maybe younger. Although she was Teresa's height, five feet four, taller than most girls, she appeared smaller. Even the wisps of dark, curly hair at her temples seemed to protrude timidly from beneath the gray, woolen shawl protecting her head and shoulders. How can she stand wearing it in this heat?

Teresa wasn't used to such weather. The sirocco winds were rare in Montaguto. Montaguto, nestled in the Apennines thirty-five miles northeast of Naples, boasted balmy summers and mild winters.

Teresa pushed her own curly auburn hair away from her face and readjusted the white straw hat resting upon the loose bun at the back of her head. She had purchased the hat at dockside over the objections of her mother, who had wanted Teresa to wear a shawl like everybody else. "I'm not like everyone else," she had said with a toss of her head. "I'm going to be myself no matter what others think."

"I am Violetta Esposito," the girl whispered in Teresa's ear as if afraid someone would overhear. Her shawl slipped from her head, revealing the braid cascading down the back of her head. She quickly readjusted the shawl.

"I'm Teresa." She almost gave her maiden name, Tozzi, unwilling to call herself Martello. She didn't want to be Teresa Tozzi either.

A sudden breeze took possession of Violetta's gray woolen skirt, exposing her black, high-top buttoned shoes. They looked almost new.

Teresa failed to move her cramped toes in her mother's hand-me-downs.

"Are you traveling alone, too?" Violetta asked.

"Yes."

"Aren't you afraid of arriving in America alone?" She spoke nearly perfect Tuscan.

"Isn't someone meeting you?"

"Yes, my fiancé, Niccolo, and his mother, Giustina, in Nuova Yorka, near Mulberia Streeti." She shifted uneasily, then hopefully, "It sounds pretty, doesn't it? I mean, naming it after a sweet fruit like the mulberry?" Her dark eyes begged for reassurance.

"Yes," Teresa responded halfheartedly, but mentioning mulberries transported her to the solitude of her bedroom. Through the fluttering white muslin curtains, she could see the mulberry and endless varieties of other flowering fruit trees. Pink and white blossoms blanketed the mountainside all the way down to the Cervaro River. She saw herself running to the trees, showered by blossoms, her skirt billowed behind her.

Teresa longed to taste the succulent mulberries. They are so perfect, she thought, forgetting completely the ants they drew and the stains on her clothes. Will I ever see Montaguto, another primavera?

"Primavera."

"What?" Teresa resented returning to reality.

"Primavera, no, Springa, that's what it means. It's where Giustina wrote to meet them...a boarding house." Violetta shifted her gray ball of yarn to one hand. She withdrew a rumpled slip of paper from her white linen blouse and handed the paper to Teresa.

Teresa had difficulty reading it. Signora Delora Felice and Spring Street, New York City, were legible, but not the house number. She shrugged mentally and handed the note back; it had nothing to do with her.

"I can't wait to see it." Violetta blushed and looked down. "That is, if I wasn't so afraid of marriage and..." She blushed, replaced the note in her blouse and pulled out a photograph. "This is my intended. "She handed it to Teresa. She saw Teresa's eyes widen, and smiled. "Handsome, isn't he?"

"Yes," Teresa answered without removing her eyes from the sepia tone. The young man in a perfectly tailored brown suit looked ready for action. His dark eyes fascinated her; maybe it was because everyone complimented her on her own dark, almond- shaped eyes and long lashes. Whatever the reason, his were compelling. His dark, wavy hair, brushed neatly back, seemed to struggle for escape. A widow's peak pointed down his straight nose to his broad smile, revealing a perfect set of white teeth. It took an effort to turn the photograph over and read the inscription: "This is my son, Niccolo Giovane. February 18, 1908, on his twentieth birthday."

"I've never met them. Actually the letter was from Giustina, not Niccolo. They are distant cousins and my only living relatives, apart from Aunt Valentina. When Giustina heard from Aunt Valentina that Mama had died of typhoid, Giustina sent a letter to my aunt arranging the marriage." She flushed again. "I don't know why I'm telling you this...nerves or something." She tugged at her shawl.

Teresa handed the photograph back to her, fighting the temptation to place it in her own white muslin blouse. She fanned herself with the diminutive copy of La Vita Nuova she had been clutching as a talisman.

Violetta returned the photo to her blouse. "I hope Niccolo won't be disappointed in me. I was much younger in the picture I sent and the picture wasn't clear."

"You needn't worry," Teresa lied. "You are very pretty." She didn't lie.

Violetta blushed, "Who are you meeting?"

Teresa tried not to distort her face. "My...husband. I don't have a picture." The only picture she had of him had been their small wedding picture taken at the Montaguto church door. She had ripped the photograph into tiny fragments and flung them into the fireplace. Bitterly, she remembered her mother's words to her when she had forced Teresa to marry Rocco. "It is for your own good. Someone has to take you out of this misery. In the end, you will thank me."

"I won't!" Teresa had fired back. She had to stand her ground despite the pain she had seen in her mother's eyes.

"You need someone strong guiding you." Her mother had wiped the tears from her eyes with her bloodstained white apron. "You are too willful, too independent, too..."

Teresa knew it had been a mistake to have done so, but her temper had seized control. She had stamped her foot and shouted, "You can't make me!"

"Quiet!" Her mother's anger had returned in kind. "You will do as I say!"

"I won't! I hate you!"

"Strega!" Her mother had screamed and pulled Teresa's hair. "God and the Madonna will punish you! Lord knows I have tried my best. Do you think it was easy raising you without your father or his and my family's help? Too late, I see he was right. I should not have allowed the nuns to teach you reading and writing. 'Annunziata,' he said, 'you will make her lazy, too independent and give her unhealthy dreams!'" She had tried pulling Teresa's hair again, but Teresa had run out the door.

Teresa had run along the vine-covered stone wall, past the Blue Madonna shrine and into the orchard, trying to escape her mother's shouts of "Strega!" She had fallen to her knees beneath a mulberry tree and covered her ears.

Her mother called her strega whenever she was angry with her. That had happened more frequently as she had grown up. "Strega," she'd yell when Teresa disobeyed, "Strega," when she ran to the orchard to escape work, or when a boy smiled at her.

"Stop swinging your hips, you male femmina!"

Teresa didn't swing her hips deliberately to encourage the boys. Still, she had to acknowledge, she did spend a great deal of time brushing her auburn hair to bring out its sheen and pinched her cheeks to make them glow. What's wrong with looking good? she often wondered. As for disobeying, didn't her mother disobey her landed parents by marrying a tradesman? For eighteen years, Annunziata remained an outcast to them and the townspeople for having married beneath her class--the town's butcher. They had shunned Teresa's father, too, for daring to reach above his class.

Butcher. Teresa shuddered. Whenever her mother was about to kill an animal, Teresa would grab a book and a slate and run to the orchard. Reading and sketching were on Annunziata's complaint list.

"You lazy girl! I am all alone, and you are no help. All you do is read and draw pictures."

Teresa shouted back once, "One day I'm going to be a great writer or artist or...!"

"You?" Annunziata had laughed.

Teresa had tossed her head, "One day, everybody will know the name of Teresa Tozzi. You will see!"

"No, you will." Annunziata's lips formed a thin line. "Once, I too, was young and foolish, but I learned. I never wanted to butcher animals, but life is not always what you want it to be. I was only fourteen, but you are sixteen, old enough to know better. Stop dreaming!"

Teresa threw back her shoulders. "Dreaming about love can't be wrong."

Annunziata laughed, "Silly girl! You don't know what love is!"

"You do?" Teresa sneered. She regretted having said it for she had seen her mother recoil in pain.

"All too well. I learned that love has the twin demons, betrayal and pain."

"I hope you never know love. Love can steal your soul."

"But even in the Bible it says that love is beautiful and..."

"Look what love has gotten me." She waved her arms around, taking in the room. "Love is only for the rich. For us there is only survival. Love! Do you think marrying you off for love is easy, even if you are pretty? No man in Montaguto wants you without a dowry. They want a woman strong like a bull, who will work in the fields and bear their children without complaint. You are much too slender, too tall, too educated and put on airs with your Tuscan pronunciation."

Now it was Teresa's turn to recoil. It wasn't that she didn't know the Neopolitan dialect, she preferred the Tuscan that fell from her lips like poetry.

"Don't give me that look. I have heard them talk, even if you haven't. Until now, I have made life too easy for you. I don't have to tell you that other girls younger than you are working from dawn till dusk in the fields and even have families. We poor struggle to exist and we die too soon."

"...soon." Violetta's voice shattered Teresa's thoughts.

"What?"

"We will be sailing soon. See? They removed that thing."

"Gangplank," Teresa responded.

Violetta looked regretfully at the yarn in her hand. "I don't have anyone to throw it to."

"I'm sorry." Teresa didn't know what else to say to comfort her.

Violetta dried her eyes. "I don't mean to cry, but I'm all alone in the world except for Aunt Valentina, and she is too sick to see me off. Everyone says, 'you should be happy, Violetta. You are going to Niccolo Giovane in America who must be a millionaire by now.'" Violetta smiled. Her eyes glowed with excitement. "You know, I feel better talking to you. I can't wait to get there now. It must be better than what we had. We were close to starvation with the crop failures, not that we were farmers. My father was a cabinet maker and my mother a seamstress, but the farmers couldn't pay us anymore. The poor things had to give two-thirds of their harvest to the landlords."

Teresa wished she'd stop talking. She had her own problems.

"I thought it couldn't get worse," Violetta continued, "but when Papa and Mama died we lost everything. I hoped I would die too. It was a sin, like evoking the evil eye, but I couldn't help it. When Giustina's letter came it was resurrection."

Teresa felt ashamed of her selfish thoughts and put her arm around the apprehensive girl. "Things will be better in America, you'll see."

"Yes," she smiled, "who knows what joy awaits us?" Her face brightened. "I know. I'll throw the yarn to the winds and Mama in heaven. Oh, I'm so happy I met you. My luck is changing. First Niccolo, now you."

The Mostro trembled as her screws churned the water of the Tyrrhenian Sea. She blasted her warning and edged away from the dock. Somewhere on steerage deck, a tenor's voice rang out clear, powerful, mournful, Santa Lucia...Lontano,

Voices unquelled by tears joined him,

The ship sails to find a distant shore.

We Neapolitans...circle the world,

Seeking our fortune, but...we yearn for Naples...

The passengers crowded the railings to catch what would be for most the last they would see of their families, friends, the only world they knew. Each held one end of the yarn and threw the ball down to loved ones on the dock, who scrambled to grasp it. As the distance between ship and dock increased, the balls unwound until separation played out the wool. Indifferent winds carried the wool aloft, floating it as if in suspended animation...the last link severed.

Teresa stood motionless at the railing, unmindful of the beautiful crescent-shaped bay between the headlands of Sorrento and Posillipo; unmindful of the glistening, white stucco buildings and fluted terra-cotta roofs silhouetted against the azure sky. All she saw was her mother's face until it disappeared in the distance. Teresa tossed her head back defiantly and threw her ball of wool into the agitated water.

Even after the shoreline could no longer be seen and tears choked the song in their hearts, the immigrants remained motionless, clinging to the railings as if hoping the ship would turn around. Slowly, they began vanishing into the black of the ship's hold. Only Teresa and Violetta remained at the railing. Violetta faced home. Teresa turned her back to the shore. Then, as if the wind had blown the fire from Teresa, fear replaced anger, loneliness. Then fear closed in upon her, suffocating her. Mama! She spun around and looked toward shore--too late.

Chapter Two

Steerage reeked of engine oil, disinfectants, body odors and urine, magnified by heat and humidity. Beads of perspiration formed on Teresa's forehead. Pounding engines, shrieking babies, and the babble of countless people hammered in her head. She didn't know what was worse, the stench, the heat or the noise. If Violetta had not been following so closely, she would have rushed back on deck.

Violetta, clinging to the back of Teresa's black skirt, spoke into Teresa's ear, "Maybe we'd better hurry and find our beds."

"You call these two levels of wooden shelves beds? There are only two feet between shelves." Teresa edged her way through the maze. "Look. The mattresses are burlap-covered straw! Even the animals at home have it better!" She'd never dreamed steerage would be so appalling. Yet, although she had known her husband for only a couple of days, it didn't surprise her he'd subject her to it, despite his supposed wealth. This stranger who had suddenly appeared from America hadn't fooled her.

"They can't expect us to sleep with men! It's indecent! Only those little boards will keep us from rolling together!"

"Let's not panic, Violetta. There must be some place without men. Yes, look!" Teresa pointed to the stern with her chin, "By that lady."

Suddenly, the ship began pitching and rolling. Teresa grabbed a bunk and closed her eyes, desperately trying to overcome the nausea. Think of something else. She hurried as quickly as she could to the stern, although Violetta's holding onto the collar of her white muslin blouse didn't help. The pounding engines and the stench of oil intensified, the closer she got to the exposed steering mechanism.

"Hello!" Teresa called.

The woman turned around and smiled broadly. Her motherly demeanor embraced Teresa like open arms. Teresa judged the rosy-cheeked woman to be two or three years older than she. Should I speak to her in Neapolitan or Tuscan? She guessed Neapolitan, and raised her voice. "May we share these beds with you?"

"Yes!" she shouted back in Neapolitan, and readjusted her white muslin blouse and black woolen skirt that had twisted around. "I'm Rosa Piacenza. Call me Rosa." Apparently satisfied with her appraisal of them, she leaned in, spacing her words for pauses in the steering. "We have to take turns...sleeping...if we can, with this noise. My husband, Peppi, wrote me to sleep with my clothes on, because...of," she looked at them knowingly, "the men."

"Mama mia!" Violetta shrank back and dropped her bundle.

"Now, now," Rosa's soothing voice was like a caress. "It can't be that bad. Peppi worries too much about me. We've got each other now."

"Yes," Teresa agreed, "stay calm. Just think of the good things waiting for you in America. Think of your handsome, rich fiancé, Niccolo." If he is so rich, why did he have Violetta travel steerage?

Violetta staggered.

"Oh, lie down, angela." Rosa helped Violetta recline on the coarse bedding. "Better?"

Violetta nodded and drew herself into a ball. "Are you traveling alone, too?"

"Yes," Rosa brushed the hair from Violetta's face. "I am going to meet Peppi in some place called Vesta Vergine."

"That's where I'm going!" Teresa couldn't believe the coincidence. "Do you know anything about it?"

"Peppi's last letter to me said that he was going to live in a real house this time. He's been working some terrible places. Once, in a place called Bostone, Mazzacuca, he lived in," her eyes widened, "a wooden box. Can you believe it? All I know is that now he is digging for coal," and she widened her eyes again, "and he sets the explosives." She shrugged, "Who knows? He brags a lot. You know how men are. I'm talking too much. Tell me, why are you going to Vest Vergine?"

"To be with my...husband." Teresa hated saying his name; it was like invoking the devil. When he had been gone for a year, she had hoped that he had forgotten her. However, her curiosity overcame her abhorrence. "Did Peppi ever mention Rocco Martello?"

Rosa pondered for a minute. "No."

The Mostro pitched suddenly. Teresa and Rosa fell against the bunk. They laughed, but Violetta, green-faced, was about to become sick.

Teresa reached for an empty bucket tucked beneath the bunk.

"All right, piccola." Rosa removed the shawl from Violetta's shoulders. She turned and saw a steward entering their aisle. "Young man, bring me some fresh water."

The steward returned with a rusty bucket of brackish water.

Reluctantly, Rosa dipped her handkerchief into the water and placed the handkerchief upon Violetta's forehead. "Better?"

Violetta nodded weakly.

"Soon you will be safe in America and everything will be wonderful."

"I'd feel better if I knew what kind of man I will be marrying."

Rosa pushed Violetta's damp hair back from her forehead. "Who knows whom we marry? Marriage is a mystery that unwinds like a ball of yarn after the wedding ceremony. Everything looks tidy, but if you are not careful it can become a tangled mess." Rosa shrugged. "Still, I could have it worse. At least Peppi doesn't beat me."

Violetta raised her head and looked around to see if anyone were listening. "Can you tell me what happens...that is...between a man and a woman when they get married? No one will tell me."

Rosa chuckled and reddened. "Only your husband can answer that."

"Everybody says that." Violetta, disappointed, turned her head toward the bulkhead.

Teresa would have liked to ask the same question, for although she had been married for nearly a year, she'd never had relations with Rocco. All she knew was what her mother had said, "You must obey your husband in all things, unless it is against God or the Virgin Mary. Remember, if you want children, you must put up with certain things." What she meant by that Teresa couldn't guess. "Tell me, Rosa," Teresa ventured, "Was your wedding night pleasant?"

"Oh, yes. Wasn't yours?"

"No." The very thought of it sent her heart pounding in rhythm with the Mostro's engines. In spite of her mother's repeated cautions, "Never tell anyone your secrets or problems because they only want to laugh at your expense," she found herself saying to this stranger. "Rocco got drunk and beat me." She bit her tongue and blushed with embarrassed annoyance.

"You poor thing." Rosa shook her head sympathetically.

Teresa shook her head, too, but in an attempt to dislodge her thoughts. Despite her effort, her mind returned to her wedding night.

She was standing at the foot of her bed, shaking with fear, unconsciously pulling at the pink ribbons on her white muslin nightgown. Teresa could hear Rocco's heavy footsteps pounding outside her door. The door burst open then slammed back against the freshly whitewashed wall. His powerfully built body, silhouetted against the light at his back, seemed larger than it was. He swayed. Drunk.

Too frightened to tremble, she remained petrified.

Rocco kicked the door shut, lunged at her and almost fell forward.

Teresa regained her senses and ran to the tight space between the corner of the room and the cupboard. She clung to the cavity as if hoping a door would miraculously appear behind her, allowing for her escape.

"Get over here!" He slurred his words between clenched teeth. Yellowish-brown tobacco spittle marked the corners of his mouth. "Damn it! Get the hell on the bed!"

She tried to move, but her legs refused to respond.

"I'm not telling you again!" His heavy hand grabbed at her nightgown. He staggered and fell, tearing her nightgown away from her body. "God damn it!" Rocco got up. Rage contorted his craggy face into a purple mass. The foul smell of wine mingling with tobacco on his breath nauseated her. She wanted to run, but fear immobilized her.

"I'll show you whose boss!" Rocco swung wildly. Teresa turned just in time. He hit the cupboard door. A circular spider-web crack marked the spot on the highly polished surface. His anger surged. "Goddamn you!" He swung again. This time the punch struck her breast. She screamed in agony and collapsed on the floor. Rocco bent over her, fire in his eyes. He raised his hand again, but reeled and passed out at her feet.

How much time passed, she didn't know. It seemed forever as she crouched on the floor, paralyzed with fear. She clutched her torn gown to her throbbing breast as if the gown would protect and soothe her.

A soft tapping at the door barely echoed in the room.

She didn't answer.

The door opened. Annunziata peeked in and saw Teresa sitting in the corner with Rocco at her feet. Without a word, she examined the bed sheets and then the floor. She eyed Teresa suspiciously. "No blood?"

"No." Teresa examined her breast for blood. "No blood." Her voice, barely audible, boomed in her head.

"What happened?"

"He hit me."

"I don't mean that. Why is there no blood on the sheet?" Annunziata's voice was low, but the words flogged like a whip. "You were not a virgin, so he hit you!"

"No, I swear! He...hit me for no reason. Look." Teresa gestured toward the cupboard door.

"Mama mia!" Annunziata crossed herself and wrung her hands. "What will everyone think? Gesu, help me." As if the answer came from above, she ran to the kitchen while Teresa, in a stupor, remained on the floor with Rocco's head only inches away. In moments, Annunziata re-entered the room with a bucket of pigs' blood she had saved for blood sausage and smeared the sheet with the blood. She lifted the sheet and examined it. Satisfied, she hung it outside the window for everyone to see.

"You're bleeding."

Rosa's words brought Teresa back to the present. "What?"

"There's blood on your lip."

Until then, Teresa hadn't been aware she had been biting her lip.

Chapter Three

A crush of people filled almost every inch of steerage deck. Children darted about. Howling, red-faced babies squirmed in their mothers' arms. Husbands and wives huddled together clutching their meager possessions as if fearing their hold on reality.

Teresa, having left Violetta in Rosa's care below, breathed the ocean air in deeply, trying without success to rid her nasal passages of the steerage stench. Black smoke from the smokestack swooped down upon them, sending the immigrants into coughing fits. Blessedly, the wind changed direction and carried the smoke to the leeward side. Teresa took her handkerchief from inside the sleeve of her blouse and wiped the tears from her eyes. Again breathing the refreshing ocean air, she wondered what she should do to occupy herself. Keep a journal? No, her thoughts raced too quickly. Instead, she looked at the upper deck.

Separated from the immigrants, a different class of women caught her attention. Beautifully dressed, they either strolled with colorful parasols or sat on deck chairs beneath protective, flapping awnings. No scorching sun or irritating cinders there. Then she became aware that these well-tailored, well-mannered people were observing the immigrants as if the immigrants were there for their amusement.

A beautiful young woman in a crisp white dress with navy blue piping around a large collar stared directly at her. Teresa felt strange, dirty somehow. It was a new experience for her. An almost obscure, carefully woven rip in her own black woolen skirt seemed too large to endure. Teresa ran her hand over it as if trying to renew the cloth. She threw her head and shoulders back and headed for the ship's bowels. One day, I'm going to wear the best clothes, and have the best. No one and nothing will stop me!

* * *

Topside, wave after wave driven by a nor'easter smashed against the Mostro. The boiling ocean heaved and sank. A huge curling black wave with clawing fingers of white spume washed over the deck. Howling winds tore at the awning on the upper deck. It fluttered helplessly, bounced on steerage deck, and sailed overboard.

For nearly a week the storm trapped everyone in steerage. Vomit, human waste and rotting food scraps added to the disinfectant and engine oil stench. The immigrants, having never been to sea, believed the next pitch would send them to the bottom.

Teresa, as frightened as the rest, lay in her bunk and recited the Act of Contrition. "O, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee and..." Another wave almost hurled her into the aisle. Why did I worry about Rocco? I'm never getting to America! Please forgive me, Mama, for the pain I caused you. Another wave. She held on. Dear Lord, make the ocean calm. As if in response, the Mostro stopped its heaving. However, another torment followed. With each blast of the bellowing foghorn, the Mostro shuddered.

Cautiously, Teresa raised herself on her elbow and turned to Rosa. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, and you?" came her hushed response.

"I don't think I can stand another day's confinement. This was only supposed to take fourteen days. It's been fifteen. What on earth, do you suppose, is keeping us?"

"I wish I knew."

"How is Violetta?"

Rosa shook her head, "The poverella is so sick. It's not seasickness. With all those bowel movements, she can't last much longer."

"I'm telling that steward just what I think of this stinking ship!"

"No, Teresa," Rosa pleaded, "it will only make trouble for us."

Then the thought occurred to Teresa that perhaps they had stopped because they had arrived in America.

The hatch swung open. A blinding light streamed through as if it were a beam of light from God. Everyone fell silent and looked up.

A sailor yelled down, "You can come up now!"

The immigrants became almost boisterous in their excitement.

"America?" someone called up.

"No!" the sailor yelled down. "A few more days yet."

Teresa's heart sank, not for herself, for she was in no rush to get into Rocco's clutches, but for Violetta. Her irritation grew. I'm finding someone to help Violetta! Trying to control her temper, Teresa made her way up on deck. A thick fog had enveloped the Mostro, preventing even a glimpse of the sea. Still, she was relieved to breathe fresh air. She tried to stop some sailors, but no one paid her any attention. At last she found a sailor who was willing to listen.

"If I were you," he advised, "I'd keep quiet about it. If she is that sick, they'll throw her overboard. They can't take chances with having an epidemic on board."

Teresa crossed herself as he walked away from her. Thwarted, she resigned herself to merely buying rice for Violetta.

A man with an accordion began playing a spirited tarantella. As if by magic, a clearing formed where Teresa thought it impossible. She started for the hold, but someone grabbed her by the arm and spun her around.

"Dance with me, bella," a steward said. It was more a command than a request.

Although she knew she shouldn't, she couldn't resist the temptation. She danced as she had never danced before, unmindful of Sister Margherita's words that rang in her head, "Dancing is sinful. It will lead to bad things."

* * *

"She's dead!" Rosa crossed herself as she looked down at Violetta's limp body.

Teresa placed her hands over her face, trying to block the horror of it. "It can't be. She's too young. Why did she have to die, Rosa? She was looking forward to a new life in America, a life free from want, free from worry, free from pain. Tell me, why Violetta and not I, who hate going to Rocco?"

"Teresa! For shame!" Rosa crossed herself. "How can you question the will of God?" She crossed herself again.

"Mama! Wake up!" A child's voice rang out.

"E' morta, little one." A woman examining his mother shook her head in pity.

"God save us!" a cry went up. "La pesta."

A steward appeared from nowhere. He stood beside Teresa and nervously poked at Violetta's body with a stick. Finding no sign of life, he shrugged his shoulders. "She's dead, all right! Ricardo!" he yelled to another steward, "We've got another one! Get a stretcher." He reached for a rope hanging from a nail on a post and tossed it to Rosa. "Wrap the body in the blanket. Tie it good!"

Teresa watched the steward disappear among the throng and said bitterly, "Just a minute ago, 'it' was 'she,' and 'the body' was 'Violetta.' You would think that she never existed."

* * *

The Mostro's foghorn's constant vibrating wails broke the immigrants' palpable silence. Standing at the railing between the two lifeless bodies, Teresa felt that the only living thing in and on the ocean was the Mostro itself.

She focused her attention on the red, white and green Italian flags covering the two stretchers perched on the railings. Sailors in white stood on either side of the stretchers, while the Captain read the Scripture of the Dead from a well-worn Bible. The orphaned boy clung to a woman who held him tenderly and stroked his hair.

Standing beside Teresa, Rosa silently wept and said her rosary. Although Rosa had seen much death in her life, letting go of Violetta was difficult for her. Why this was eluded her, but the pain was real enough.

Teresa twisted her ring around her finger and tried to come to grips with her thoughts. For the first time in her life, she couldn't pray or cry. It surprised her. All her life her emotions had been close to the surface. Now she felt empty, as if her soul hovered over Violetta. It suddenly struck her that she was thinking of herself instead of Violetta. Shame swept through her. Only a few days ago you were unaware of how little time you had. How much time has any of us? How much time do you have, Teresa Martello?

The Captain turned to Teresa. "Name?"

"Teresa Martello."

"Teresa Martello, I commend your body to the deep." Violetta's body slid silently from beneath the flag and plunged into the ocean, barely making a ripple in the still water.

Rosa, astonished, turned to Teresa.

It came as much of a surprise to Teresa as it did to Rosa. The name had escaped her lips without thinking. Had she decided, or had the decision been made for her? She didn't know, but it felt right, as if her soul had returned to her. Unobserved, she slipped the ring off her finger and tucked it into her bag.

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