The Law of Dreams (33 page)

“Maguire's,” said the little runner. “Maguire
keeps Germans; they've all got money. It's clean there.”

“Is it far?”

“Not so very. Just up from Princes. Come along.”

They had to run to keep up with Walter, who seemed incapable of any other
pace. Gasping, out of breath in an alley not far from the quays, Fergus and Molly stared
up at the countless windows of Maguire's lodging house. River mist and the scent
of ship tar hung in the air.

“I don't often bring trade here,” Walter said.
“Maguire don't pay commish.”

“Looks fair,” said Molly.

“Fair? Fair it is, I'd say. Best emigrant keep in Liverpool,
I'd say.”

Molly flipped him a coin, and he shook hands with both of them, then
seized the handles of his barrow and trotted away, quickly vanishing into the gloom.

They looked at each other, then back at the building.

“Great block of a monster she is,” Molly said.

“Will they have us?”

“Oh Jesus, yes. We have only to knock the
bloody door. Go on.”

The building's size and hardness were intimidating. He
hesitated.

“It's only money. Go on. They all wants our money,
Fergus.”

Sucking in his breath, he stepped to the door and hammered with his fist
until he heard it unlock. It swung open. An elderly porter scowled.

“We're after lodgings —”

“We can pay,” Molly added.

They were grudgingly admitted. “Stand here.” The porter tugged
on a bell pull then glared at them. The house smelled of tea and washing. A door opened
at the end of the hall and another old man approached, cowhide slippers slurring on the
floor.

“Yes? What do you want?”

“This is a lodging house, ain't it?” said Molly.

“William Maguire, at your service.”

“Lodging we want.”

He studied them. “We're a little dear, I'm
afraid.”

Molly shook the bonnet bunched in her hands and they all heard money
jingle.

“Shilling a night,” said the man. “Porridge for
breakfast.”

“Can you do us any kind of supper?”

He shook his head. “My kitchen help is dossed down. We get an early
start here, feeding Germans.”

“Really, mister, we have come a long way.”

“Where from?”

“We're off the Chester-and-Holyhead.”

“Where in Ireland?”

“All abouts. Derry.”

“I am Fermanagh myself. Well, miss, perhaps we might do you
something cold. Follow me, but quiet.”

They followed him through the house, past people sleeping on upholstered
benches in the hallway and wrapped in blankets on the floor.

“This lot just came in from Hull, and Bremen before that. There is
always a few won't sleep in a crib because of a few bugs. Do you know what a
German is?”

“I don't,” Fergus admitted.

Some of the people had tied themselves to their baggage with rope.

“These are all for New York on
Humphrey
. They ship from Hamburg or Bremen to Hull, then by train to
Liverpool. I have pushed through thousands of Germans for New York and St. Louis. They
use their own German brokers and stay clear of the thieves on the Goree. They use the
Black Ball packets.”

Maguire led them into a large, chill kitchen. When he turned up a lamp,
they saw plates and noggins stacked in enamel cupboards and steel knives arranged on a
rack by a cutting table. A bag of onions dangled from a beam. The kitchen had the smell
of a clean stone. Maguire opened a locker and brought out a dish of cooked onions and a
shoulder of mutton covered with sacking.

“How much these days for a passage on
Humphrey
?”
Molly said, casually.

“Seven or eight pounds. New York packets are expensive this
year,” Maguire reached down two plates from the shelf and brought out a dish of
butter and loaf of bread.

“What about Quebecs?”

Choosing a knife, Maguire stropped it briskly on a steel. “The ships
in the timber trade are starting to cross, hoping the ice will be out when they get
there. They like to fill with emigrants. But Quebec and St. John can be a brutal
crossing, as I hear.”

Whisking off two slices of mutton, he laid one upon each plate and added a
spoonful of cooked onions.

“There it is. Go on, eat.”

The meat was tough to chew but tasted fresh and delicious. Fergus shoveled
the salty, slippery curls of onion onto buttered bread while the landlord stood with his
arms crossed, watching them. “Do you want a mug of beer? It's
fresh.”

They both nodded.

Having money changes everything.

Money, the hard power of the world.

THEY LEFT
their grip in a boxroom crowded with German
leather baggage, crates, sacks, and bundles of tools.

“Germans are good farmers and prosperous men. I have emigrants
through
here — Germans — with machines for making glass
lenses; with violins and brass horns and every kind of musical box; with crate after
crate of books; and one fellow had a machine for pulling teeth from horses.
They're not like the Irish, all sputter and luck, most of it bad.”

Maguire gave them two clean blankets. Molly was leaning heavily on
Fergus's arm as they followed the landlord upstairs. “I'm beat, man,
my soul is dead.”

“We'll find you a bed,” the landlord assured her.
“Only a wee bit farther, miss.”

“My bones are even sore. I can't walk much longer.”

They following him along a corridor, where more Germans roped to their
baggage were sleeping on the floor. A woman nursing a child watched them balefully.
Maguire began opening one door after another, shining his lamp briefly into each
sleeping room before going on to the next. The people asleep in the corridor wore
beautiful cloaks, leather jackets, embroidered aprons and nightcaps, woolen stockings,
woolen mittens. Good boots were scattered everywhere. “This lot are going for
Illinois, they've already purchased their farms.” Maguire opened another
door. “Here we are — top shelf, over there,” he whispered, holding up
the lamp. “Go on, climb aboard.”

Men were snoring. Bodies were stretched out on two of the three sleeping
shelves racked on each wall. The uppermost shelf, on the far wall, was unoccupied.
Maguire shone the lamp to give some light as they crossed the floor, jumbled with
baggage and boots. Molly tripped and nearly fell but Fergus grabbed her arm and steadied
her.

“I'm so tired, man, past the end of the world.”

He helped her step up onto a German trunk from which she could climb into
the sleeping shelf. He climbed up after her.

“Safe ashore? Good night.”

Maguire shut the door softly, and the room went black. Struggling out of
their coats, they knocked their heads on the ceiling and bumped against each other while
struggling to spread a blanket over the straw pallet. She bundled Muldoon's coat
to use for a pillow while Fergus untied his boots and strangers asleep sighed and moaned
in the dense, sweet darkness. He finally got the boots off. Dropping them on the floor,
he stretched out on the straw pallet, spooning alongside her.

“Molly?”

“Sleep, man, sleep.” Her voice was thick.
She was already half asleep.

He felt alert and excited, smelling her skin, feeling her heat.

Longing burns down fear, consumes hesitation, ignores danger. You wish to
lie open as a field.

But people can't be truthful, not all at once.

THE HALL
where they were fed breakfast was noisy with
Germans speaking their storm of a tongue. Girls brought kettles of porridge from the
kitchen and German graybeards at the head of each table served it out while Maguire and
his porter went around the hall pouring tea. Fergus felt his body relaxing in the German
noise. He felt safe in the hubbub. He liked the salt smell of their leather clothes.

When breakfast was over a tobacco pouch went around the table and all the
German men helped themselves, stuffing the carved ivory bowls of their pipes. He was
offered the pouch and filled his clay pipe, then passed the tobacco along to Molly. A
candle came around for a light.

The German smoke was mild and sweet. “Better gear than what you used
to sell, Moll.”

“That old railway shag was nasty goods. How it crackled though. You
could smoke my stuff under water — stop scowling at me, you old hare!” She
stuck her tongue out at a German woman staring at her across the table.

None of the German women were smoking.

Eyes half shut, Molly leaned forward, elbows resting on the table, puffing
contentedly. “You know what I am wishing, Fergus?”

“No.”

“Wishing I had my pack of cards. German farmers, man . . . Pharaoh
could make some money here.”

“Have some tea, miss.” Maguire was standing behind them,
holding a big tin jug.

“Tea, tea!” Molly cried. “Oh mister, you are a very
gift. Tell me, where do we go to buy our Quebecs?”

He filled their noggins with tea. “Go down the Goree piazza, where
they used to buy and sell the blacks. All the brokers selling Quebecs hang loaves of
bread outside, meaning the vessels they sell follow British
navigation laws, which isn't much — a pound of food per day per passenger,
ship's biscuit or Indian meal with bugs. The fast packets and the Yankees, of
course, feed much better. Try Crawford's on the Goree. They will not cheat you any
worse than the others.”

PASSAGE BROKER SHOPS FLANKED
the Goree, with their
loaves of bread dangling from poles. Long queues of emigrants extended from each shop
and snaked around the piazza. They asked for Crawford's, and joined a queue of
ragged, wet emigrants who looked straight off the docks and the Irish steamers.

The boy standing directly in front of them said he was going for
Cattarackwee, in Upper Canada, where his brother owned a farm.

“Has he any cattle?” Molly asked.

“Cattle I cannot say, but he owns one hundred sixty acres, some in
wheat, some barley, some in timber. He is feeding pigs and selling off his timber and a
kind of honey they draw from trees.”

“How will you reach there?”

“Steamer, three or four days up the river from Quebec.”

“Three or four days!”

The boy nodded. “They've so much land in America they
don't know what to do with it, they give it away. It's not like Ireland at
all.”

“I want a piece!” Molly gave an excited little skip.

“Ah yes, well,” the boy said somberly. “Myself as well.
Hungry for land. What I wouldn't do. My brother will be surprised to see me,
I'll tell you.”

“I have heard they die of the snow at Quebec,” said an old
brown-faced woman.

“Don't tell me so, mother.” Molly
laughed. “I've heard enough bitter news. Don't wish me no more
cold!”

“Wish it or not, what's coming will come.”

It was midday before they got inside Crawford's shop. The walls were
slathered with shipping bills. Three clerks at wickets were selling passages.

After waiting in line another quarter of an hour they finally stood before
one of the clerks.

“We want a passage for Quebec or St. John.” Molly held the
money, rolled up and knotted in a handkerchief.

“I've got
Laramie
sailing for Quebec
tomorrow.”

“How much?”

“Steerage?”

“What is that?”

“You aren't requiring cabin passage, I suppose?” the
clerk sneered.

Neither of them could grasp what he meant. “Listen, man,”
Molly said nervously, “we want tickets for Quebec —”

“Steerage fare, three pounds a head.”

“How many days across?”

“Long as it takes. Come along, Mary, let's see your money
now.”

Molly untied the handkerchief and spilled out the coins. The clerk counted
them briskly then swept them into a drawer and pushed two slips of blue paper across,
their tickets. “See the surgeon outside, have them stamped. Next!”

Going back out, they joined another queue, standing behind the old woman.
It was cold and windy on the open square.

The surgeon was a plump young man wearing horse boots with mahogany
leather tops, lolling in an armchair dragged out from one of the broker shops. Stepping
forward one by one, emigrants showed him their tickets and opened their mouths. The
surgeon glanced at each one, asked a question or two, and nodded to pass them.

His clerk, sitting at a portable table, stamped their tickets.

“Thinks he won't let fever aboard,” the old woman
grumbled. “Only he's not looking very hard is he?”

“What if he won't stamp me, Fergus?” Molly looked
worried.

“You're not ill. Don't worry. He's turning no one
away.”

“He trusts himself to see the humors, but he
can't,” the old woman said. “Fine fellows like him never
can.”

“What if he won't?”

“But there's nothing wrong with you.”

“You'd leave me here, you'd go without me.”

“I would not.” He was shocked.

“I'll die in bloody Liverpool.”

“No, Molly, you'll pass fine. Everyone is.”

The surgeon had one leg hooked over the arm of his chair. He kept wetting
a handkerchief from a flask and dabbing at his upper lip.

“How delicate he is! Frightened of smells!” the old woman
said. “How can he know fever or sickness without catching the scent?”

“I reckon he only gets paid for them he passes — do you think
that's so, Fergus?”

“Yes.” He had never seen her so jittery.

“In Derry if they thought you had fever, they would leave you under
the hedge.”