“I’m Marie-Rose and she’s Marie-Louise,” the plump girl said, smiling. “Though everyone calls us Rose and Lou. When I am a mother, I will insist my own daughters are called by their full names. My eldest shall be Marie-Leonarde-Madeleine and my second shall be—”
“Shut up, Rose,” another girl snapped. “Those Normans don’t care what you’re going to call your pock-nosed children.”
The ceiling was so low the one called Lou did not have to stand to hit it with her fist. “If you speak to any of us like that again, God da—”
“Blasphemy, Louise,” said a cool voice on the other side of them.
“May the Devil take you too, Apolline,” Lou said fiercely, then just as quickly: “What are you eating?”
“A prune,” came the reply.
Lou turned towards the voice, her manners instantly gentle. “Can I have one?”
“No.”
Lou roared and lunged across the small space between the bunks, trying to grab the fruit. As they fought, Rose slipped into the sisters’ wooden box and made herself comfortable.
“Everyone from the Salpêtrière has known each other a very long time,” she said, as if that explained the brawl happening above their heads.
“Whatisthat place?” Marthe asked, settling next to the Parisian.
“Have you not heard of it? It’s a place in Paris for poor women and orphans. You’ll meet everyone soon enough, no doubt. Apolline is the oldest, she’stwenty-six, so she thinks she’s quite a bit cleverer than the rest of us, though she is not.” Rose raised her voice so that the older girl could hear the insult.
“And you are the most ill-bred girls I have ever known,” Apolline chided. Her voice was drowned out by a chorus of groans.
“She’s a bucket of sour milk,” Rose whispered. She continued to list the ages and temperaments of all the girls sitting nearby. Marthe noticed Élisabeth frothing her cake of soap again and gave her a kick. Whatever would the Parisians think of her muttering and twisting?
“Is she well?” Rose glanced at Élisabeth with a doubtful expression on her face. Marthe noticed that the Parisian’s clothes were tired, even the ribbons lacing her bodice drooped. She shifted to block the girl’s view of Élisabeth.
“She’ll be fine once we set sail.”
“I’m nervous too,” Rose admitted. “I’ve prayed so much these last few weeks my knees are near covered in scabs.” Marthe glanced at Élisabeth. In the last month her sister had done more praying than any nun in Christendom. It hadn’t helped. “You should not think of the journey,” Rose continued, leaning over Marthe to speak directly to Élisabeth. “Think of the reward that awaits us.”
“Reward?” Marthe asked. Élisabeth had not mentioned a reward. Her sister had been too distracted to say much other than that they were headed to the most holy place on earth: Ville-Marie, named for Our Lady, a missionary village on an island called Montréal. Marthe had had to bite her tongue to stop blurting out that surelyJerusalemwas holier than this outpost on the other side of the world, but she did not want to admit that she wasn’t certain that Jerusalem was a place that could be found on a map, rather than something that existed only in the pages of the Bible, like camels and palm leaves.
“The choice of husbands we shall have,” Rose said, as if it were obvious. “That alone will make the journey worthwhile.”
Marthe was startled to see another girl fly into the bunk and perch on its edge.
“Will we really choose for ourselves?” she asked.
“Of course,” said Lou, sliding down from the upper bunk to join them. “We’re orphans. Who else would choose for us?”
“I was talking to one of the sailors before we boarded.” Rose lowered hervoice. “He said that in Ville-Marie the men outnumber the women ten to one. I expect we’ll have our pick of the best of them.”
“When did you slink off and have words with a sailor?” a girl on the opposite bunk said slyly. When Rose ignored her, she climbed down from her perch and crouched nearby. “How will we choose, exactly? Did the sailor say?”
Sour-milk Apolline cleared her throat. “The ship’s crew is misinformed. My understanding is that the ratio is not quite as favourable as ten to one—”
“I’m going to line them up, shortest to tallest, and walk up and down the row, squeezing their flesh to see if it’s firm,” Lou cut in.
“Like choosing a basket of plums at market?” A girl Marthe’s age with a snub nose and an overgenerous serving of freckles slipped into the space between the bunks, the better to be able to hear them. Marthe marvelled at how many of them there were. More girls her age than in all of Saint-Philbert, sitting right here, next to her. She shifted so that she was in the centre of the circle.
“No. Not like plums. Like cheese,” Rose said.
“How is cheese any different from a plum?” someone asked.
“There are only a few types of plums, but so,somany cheeses.”
