Devotion by Hannah Kent

Author:Hannah Kent
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2021-10-12T06:56:32+00:00

I blacked out. I disappeared from myself. And when I woke, I was tucked between two barrels of herrings. I could smell spoiled fish and I saw that the barrels had been opened and that the salted herrings within had deteriorated, the flesh coming away from the bones.

Several families were standing in the thick air arguing with each other, hands over their mouths against the stench. The doctor stood between them. I waited by the opened barrels for long enough to understand that some were demanding their rations of herrings, while others were determined to keep them for cooler temperatures. Dr Meissner had allowed another barrel to be opened. The herrings were spoiled, and those who had wanted the herrings earlier were red-faced with anger.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘I want to wake up.’

No one heard me. I recognised Gottfried Fröhlich and stepped closer to him as he reached into the barrel, picked out a fragment of fish and flung it at the feet of a sunken-cheeked man from Tschicherzig.

‘Herr Fröhlich?’

Spittle flecked his chin as he shouted at the doctor. ‘You are a curse upon us!’

‘Herr Fröhlich!’

I reached out and touched him. He was in his shirtsleeves, had rolled them back to his elbows, and I could feel the wiry hair damp upon his forearm. I recoiled, expecting him to turn in disapproval, but Herr Fröhlich continued shouting, and when the doctor reached for his shoulder to calm him, he threw him off and strode to the hatchway.

‘Herr Fröhlich, please. Please listen to me.’

But I was nothing to him and he did not hear me.

I followed him down the hatchway, my eyes adjusting to the ghost-light of steerage. It was more or less as I remembered it, but there was a greater sense of people having made the best of things. Washing was strung up between the beams. Children played on the floor as men stepped over them, carrying water and kindling for the kitchens.

Herr Fröhlich stormed off to his bunk and I stood, unsure of everything, by the foot of the hatch. What had happened? Was I still ill?

Go back to bed, I told myself. Either you are wandering in a fever and hallucinating, or you are in a nightmare, dreaming that you have died. Go back to bed. Go back to Thea. She is unwell and she needs you. You said you would not leave her.

I walked to the bow, reaching out a hand to push the curtain aside. I saw my hand grasp it. I saw my hand move it, but I also saw in the same moment that the cloth did not move.

It is delirium, I told myself.

Salt water filled the back of my throat as I staggered to our berth. I could see Thea’s pale hair spread across the pillow, visible even in the shadows. By the time I reached her, my mouth was filled with the ocean. I pulled myself into the berth and sea water spilled out over the blankets.

I wiped my mouth. I crawled in further, crawled in over her.

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