Sons of Thunder (6 page)

Dino beamed up at the man.

“This is my brother, Markos.”

Markos hadn’t a clue how to react to this strange Dino. “Markos—this is Dr. Scarpelli.”

“Nice to meet you,” the doctor said, his Greek nearly impeccable.

Markos met the doctor’s hand, aware of his calluses. “Thank you for your help, sir.”

“Where is your grandfather, young lady?” Dr. Scarpelli said.

Sofia’s gaze affixed to the woman, who smiled at her gently. “We’ll be glad to help, if you’ll take us to him.”

“We’re down on D-deck, sir.”

“Well, that’s half his problem,” Mrs. Scarpelli said.

If Markos thought his cabin emitted mildew, the cabins in the deck below smelled of algae, the kind trapped in rocky creases after a storm. He coughed as he passed an open cabin. Six berths—four of them occupied by small children.

“Poles,” Dr. Scarpelli said as he walked by. “All sea-sick.”

Markos pressed a hand to his mouth. In this aft compartment, the
thunder of the waves on the hull reverberated to his bones, and a deep rumble shook his feet.

“The screws. That’s what you feel, boy. There are three of them on the
Minnekahda
.”

“Screws?”

“Propellers,” Dino said, cutting in front of him, edging up to the doctor.

So Dino
had
decided to speak to him.

Gaius Frangos lay under a sheet in his berth; a bed that Markos had determined precariously narrow in his own accommodations seemed to swallow Gaius. The elderly man had sunk into himself, bloody spittle in a bowl on the floor next to him. He seemed asleep but emitted a long moan, a sound that turned Markos’s empty stomach. Mrs. Scarpelli drew out a handkerchief from her tiny purse, put it to her mouth.

The doctor pulled up a chair next to the bed, took the old man’s pulse. “I need my bag, Dino. Run and fetch it?”

Dino nearly shoved Markos aside. Markos watched him go, wordless.

“How long has he been like this?” Dr. Scarpelli asked.

Sofia slid into the compartment. “Since we left Zante. I thought he might be seasick—he was a shoemaker, never a fisherman. He didn’t like the sea.”

How could someone not
like
, not live for, not breathe in, the sea?

“But he never recovered. He hasn’t eaten since we left port in London, and for two days now, he hasn’t taken even a sip of water.”

The doctor laid a hand on Gaius’s forehead. Gaius didn’t even open his eyes. “Sea sickness might be the cause, although…” He pressed his hand on the elderly man’s abdomen. Gaius emitted a slow moan. Again, when the doctor moved his arm.

“Gabriella, please take the girl, and Markos. Tell Dino to leave my bag at the door—”

“What is it?”

Everything inside Markos had clenched at the doctor’s tone.

He turned. “Take the girl to the women’s bathing rooms. Make sure she washes herself well. You should give her something to wear, also.”

“I’m not leaving my grandfather. I’m not—”

The doctor shot Markos a look; the words in it made Markos reach for her. “Come Sofia—”

“No!” She slapped at his hand. “No, I’m not going anywhere.”

Dr. Scarpelli had found his feet. Now he took her by the shoulders, his voice low. “Sofia, if you want to go to America, then you must listen to me. Your grandfather is very sick. He needs to be quarantined so this entire compartment doesn’t get sick. And, if I’m not mistaken, you too have a fever, no?”

She ducked her head. Looked away.

What? Sofia had a fever? Oh, why hadn’t Markos checked on her? He’d let her wounded eyes—the ones that made him remember his sins—silence him. Drive him away.

Never again.

The doctor pitched his voice low. “I am not sure, but I fear that your grandfather may have influenza.”

Sofia went pale, pressed her hand to her mouth, and Markos saw in the gesture his own mother as they stood over the graves of the fallen of Zante in the influenza pandemic that swept their island along with the rest of the world. He’d been five, or maybe six, and could still remember the heat thrashing him in his bed, feel the ocean clawing the fever from his hot body as his mother and Dr. Alexio tried to cool him.

Oh. Sofia’s mother counted among the fallen.

Sofia put out her hand, as if to push away the doctor’s words. “No—no. he’s just seasick. All he needs is medicine—just something to make him better. He doesn’t have—”

“I’ll kindly ask you to keep your voice down, Miss. We don’t need—”

“You need to make him better! He can’t—”

Markos reached out for her. He didn’t flinch when she jerked away from him, nor when she slapped his hand as he pulled her from the compartment. “No, Markos! Make him make grandfather well!”

He pulled her against himself. “Shh.”

She slammed her fist into his chest.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Dino appeared, running down the hallway, the doctor’s bag thumping against his leg. Markos didn’t ask how he knew where the doctor berthed.

He stopped at the sight of Sofia in Markos’s arms.

Dropped the bag.

“Let me go!” Sofia leaned back, slapped Markos across the face.

“No, Sofia.” He caught her hand before she could hit him again, this time drawing her hands together, pressing his forehead to hers. “I’m never letting you go.”

“I have nothing to bury him in.” Sofia’s whitened hands gripped the rail, as if for balance. The wind took her hair, whipped it into her mouth. She shook, although when Markos had tried to touch her, she edged away. Not that he blamed her for her disgust. Not when he’d stood
guard outside the women’s bath in case her shouts alerted concerned passengers. Not when he’d agreed with the doctor to bar her from her grandfather’s deathbed.

The waves today pitched the ship. Even the pellet gray sky conspired with eternity to press despair into the hour. After five days, the old man had slipped into the hands of heaven sometime before the night lifted.

Sofia sounded strangely calm. “We don’t even have a priest. The captain says I have to bury him at sea, so the infection doesn’t spread.” She wove her hands together, as if in prayer. Had it only been three weeks ago that he’d seen these same hands kneading Theo’s wedding bread?

“He can have my blanket.”

Sofia frowned at him.

“For his…burial. The blanket.”

She shook her head. “You need your blanket.”

“I don’t. We will be in harbor in a few days. And then I will go to my family in Chicago. I have no need for it.” He longed to clear her hair from the way it netted her face.

She stared at him, her jaw tightening, her breaths long, deep. Finally, “Thank you, Markos.”

Turning away, she tugged her sweater against herself, walked to a deck chair, and sat at the edge.

In the stern, Dino had joined a troupe of men playing bull-board. The last four days had seen a transformation in his demeanor—at least when with Dr. Scarpelli. He trailed after Dr. and Mrs. Scarpelli as though they might be royalty. Indeed, they possessed some sort of imperial powers, because they had arranged for Gaius to be moved from his squalid berth to one on the B deck, in the middle of the ship where the churning of the waves couldn’t increase his pain. Dr. Scarpelli had barely left the man’s side, wearing a handkerchief over his face as he mopped Gaius’s brow
and attempted, in vain, to ladle beef-broth down the old man’s parched throat.

Dino stationed himself in the hallway outside the room, attuned to the doctor’s every movement. Occasionally, he let himself be led away by Mrs. Scarpelli, who read to him in English—Markos had caught them twice on the promenade deck, the way she turned out the syllables sharp in his memory.

Sofia tucked her hands inside her sweater. Markos noted how the sleeves frayed, the wool balled and dangling on the edges. “He’s not really my grandfather, you know.”

The sun had begun to fade from her face; they were all losing Zante faster than he would have imagined. Her blue eyes darkened. “He took me in after the influenza took Mama. I can’t remember my father—he went to war long before my memory. Grandfather said I reminded him of his own daughter.”

She was so beautiful it made Markos ache. How he longed to put his arms around her.

“I never wanted to leave Zante, but I couldn’t abandon Grandfather. He so wanted to see his family again before…” She closed her eyes. Drew in a breath. Covered her face with her arms.

Oh, Sofia.

“I’m cursed, Markos. I am…cursed. Everyone I love…leaves me. Dies.”

Never.

“I am poison.”

He flinched, even more from her tone than from her words.

“You are not poison, Sofia Frangos!” he said, surprised at his anger. But she’d gotten up, walked away from him, and when he followed, she slammed herself into her room.

He sat outside her door and tried not to weep.

The sea had calmed, nearly to the doldrums, as it swallowed Gaius Frangos to the depths. A Catholic priest said the appropriate prayers, although Markos couldn’t understand a word. Afterward, Markos stood vigil beside Sofia as she stared at the foam churned up in the wake.

He slipped his hand into hers. “We’ll go back to Zante someday, Sofia. I promise.”

“It’s such a wretched trail the ship leaves. Why do the porpoises love it?”

The sun rimmed the horizon, red gold, the waters turning to amber.
Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.
His father’s voice thrummed inside. “All I wanted to be was a fisherman.”

She sighed. “You would have been a great fisherman.”

He sensed more than heard Dr. Scarpelli edge up next to him. “Markos, I’d like to speak to you.”

If wine could take on melody, it might sound like the music spilling from the saloon into the crisp air. Lamps pressed through portholes, dots on the inky water. A few passengers, wrapped in their long coats and wool hats, lingered on the promenade deck.

Markos turned to the doctor. Next to him, Sofia didn’t move.

For the first time since Markos had met him, Dr. Scarpelli seemed… unsettled. He cleared his throat, took a breath, and peered past him into the night.

“It hasn’t escaped us the precarious position Gaius’s passing has left you.”

Precarious—
“I’m not sure I understand you.”

“I know that you were under his charge.”

“I wasn’t—”

Dr. Scarpelli held up his hand. “I am not assuming, of course,
Markos, that you needed any assistance from Gaius. In fact, I rather suspect he, and his…family, may have been under your care.” His eyes flickered to Sofia, then back.

Markos didn’t move.

“However, with the elderly man gone, I am wondering at your intentions once we reach America.”

Markos opened his mouth, closed it. Swallowed.

Next to him, Sofia had raised her head.

He hadn’t…yes, he had
intentions
. But—

“Don’t misunderstand me. I am sure that you are capable of taking care of yourself. You seem an industrious boy. I’ve seen you watch your brother, and am not ignorant of the way you care for Miss Sofia here. But America is not a place to begin a life unprepared. A boy needs time to find his footing. To grow up.”

He was grown up. Had grown up the night he watched his brother murdered.

The night he’d taken a life.

He’d grown up every single day he’d watched his homeland fade from his skin.

However… “I’m not sure I understand.”

“I’ll speak plainly.” Dr. Scarpelli took off his gloves, wound them into his hands. “A few years ago we had a son. Jovanni.”

He took a breath. “Unfortunately, his constitution wasn’t healthy and he passed, far too early.”

“I’m sorry—”

“There is nothing harder than losing a child.” As he said it, his hands closed on the rail. “There is a place inside my wife that refuses to heal.” He sighed. “I fear it may never heal. Unless…” He looked at Markos. “She is very fond of your little brother.”

Inside Markos, a trickle of heat stirred.

“And he is fond of her, I believe.”

Sofia slipped her hand onto Markos’s forearm.

“I have a proposition—”

“No.” Markos said it fast, the word cutting into the night. “No—”

“Hear me out.”

Markos tightened his jaw, his chest webbed.

“We won’t adopt him, of course. But we can provide for him. Give him an education. He already loves to read—you’ve seen it. And—”

“No.”

“You can come and visit anytime you’d like—we’ll even send you money to travel. Chicago. That isn’t so far from Minneapolis. I have a job at a hospital there—”

“No.”

“And see, we’ll even take Sofia if she’d like to go.” He looked at Sofia. “Would you like that, Sofia? You can learn English, and perhaps become a—”

“No!”
Markos roared. He grabbed Sofia’s hand, probably crushed it, but the burning had turned to a full-out boil, and he couldn’t breathe. No. No— “I—” He thumped his chest hard and it seemed to dislodge his words. “I can take care of them. And I will. We are a family, and we won’t be separated. Never!”

He yanked Sofia away from the rail, away from the trail of her grandfather’s body. ‘‘Markos—”

Tears scorched his eyes, and he stifled a curse, whisking them away before Sofia could see them. He pushed open the door to the saloon deck, pulled her down the hallway.