The Girl in the Torch (4 page)

S
ARAH FIERCELY KICKED HER
legs to resurface. Another wave and she was smacked back down and dragged under by more violent rushes of water. She paddled and pulled herself back up into the air, gulping in as much oxygen as possible to prepare herself for another fight beneath the waves.

But the water had calmed enough that she could ride atop the waves instead of being pulled below them. As the ship moved farther away, the waves subsided until Sarah was treading water in the normal ebb and flow of the harbor, and she was finally able to unclench her body and catch her breath. She floated on her back and gazed up into a sky filled with bright stars and shadowy clouds passing before the moon.

In the stillness, she finally felt the soreness of her arms and legs, which had been bruised when she hit the water. Patches of skin along her shins and forearms were raised in angry red welts that were painful to the touch. She moved her limbs. Thank goodness nothing had been broken.

Wait! Where's Ivan?

She patted down all her pockets. They were empty.

“Ivan!” she called into the darkness as if he could hear. She scooped handfuls of the dark water around her, her panic rising. She looked around her but could see almost nothing clearly on the rippling surface of the water. She called out to him again.

“Ivan!”

She swam with her hands outstretched, searching the water around her, feeling in and around the waves. But all she touched were a few strands of slimy seaweed. Finally, off in the distance, she saw a glint of silver bobbing in the water. Could it be the paint of his hat? The glint disappeared under a wave, but Sarah dived toward it, moving her hands through the water until finally they touched something. It slipped away under another wave, but then she grabbed into the water and her hand fell around the bear. She held him tightly to her chest.

“Don't swim away like that again.”

Sarah gripped Ivan in her hand and floated on her back to catch her breath. She had only been resting for a minute when an icy chill soaked her skin and sharp gooseflesh sprouted across her body.

She had to keep moving or she'd freeze to death.

She considered taking off her high-laced boots but feared that it would take too long to remove them. Stripping off her coat, she struggled to stay afloat as she tied it tightly around her waist so she could more easily move her arms. Sarah treaded water to
get her bearings and saw New York way off in the distance. It had looked so much closer from the ship. She could never make it that far.

Looking around her, she caught sight of the Lady's glowing torch. The statue's small island was just a few hundred yards away. She fixed her eyes on the torch and started to swim toward it, remembering her father's instruction to kick her legs like a frog and move her arms like she was opening a set of curtains, over and over in a steady rhythm. Up, out, together, glide. Up, out, together, glide.

The movement stirred her blood, fighting off the cold. It was difficult to swim with Ivan clutched in her fist, but she couldn't risk putting him back in her pocket.

Sarah shuddered as something slithered against her leg. A moment later, something else brushed her foot. She paddled and kicked faster, too afraid to slow down and try to swat or kick the creatures away. She tried not to think of what might be swimming with her.

She had to rest every few minutes, only allowing herself to float until she felt the cold creeping across her flesh. She made gradual progress, always keeping the Lady and the torch in her sights.

Her legs and arms felt heavier and heavier, and just keeping herself afloat was sapping all of her strength. She tried to rest by floating on her back, but whenever she did, the cold overtook her and waves lapped on top of her, soaking her face and stinging her eyes.

Sarah was lying on her back when—
thud!
—something hard hit the back of her head.

She gasped in pain.

Spinning around in the water, Sarah discovered a large wooden pallet. It must have floated away from the mainland.

She maneuvered the top of her body onto the pallet like it was a life raft and then used her legs to kick toward the island.

The poem about the Lady ran through her mind, as if its lines were words of encouragement written specifically for her right now. “Give me your tired, your poor, / . . . The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.”

Finally the shadowy outline of the island's rocky shore came into view.
Keep kicking. Just a little more,
she told herself.

When she was a few yards from shore, her knee cracked against the side of a rock. The sting was sharp and she knew the blow had broken skin. She let go of her raft and felt her way toward shore. Her hand touched another rock but slipped off.

Reaching into the dark water, she grabbed onto the rock again and pulled herself to it. She rested, holding it for a moment, before venturing forward to the next. Sarah cautiously floated from rock to rock, feeling around with her hands, until she was able to haul herself up and out of the water and onto something dry.

She crawled a few feet until she felt grass under her sore knees. Her heart pounded and her muscles tingled with exhaustion and relief as she flipped over onto her back and
stared into the sky, her chest heaving, taking in huge mouthfuls of night air.

Sarah rolled over onto her side and then hauled herself up and onto her knees. She had come ashore on the west side of the island, the back of the Lady towering over her. The Lady's massive right foot stuck out of the back of her robe, as if she was striding forward, a small detail Sarah had never known existed.

Taking a deep breath, Sarah stood up. She needed to see the Lady from the front, to come face-to-face with her. So she picked herself up, shoved Ivan into her pocket, and ran to the front of the island, until finally the Lady's magnificent gaze fell upon her.

And it was just the two of them alone, staring at each other. Sarah was awed by the Lady's face lit by moonlight, a face that she had only dreamed about, seen in photographs and drawings, or from a distance. Her eyes were calm but strong, her lips perfectly formed, her nose straight and broad, her hair neatly parted in the middle and tucked under her crown. The Lady was so close and so real, Sarah began to laugh with joy at being alone with such a wondrous thing.

As her laughter subsided, she noticed the absolute quiet of the island. The water lapping against the rocky shore was the only sound. She scanned the landscape, struck by how strange it felt to be in such a wide-open space with no other people, particularly after the overcrowding of the ship and Ellis Island. She listened to
the sound of her own breath mingling with the gentle lapping of the waves and the wind.

Suddenly she heard the sharp noise of breaking glass and a deep, hacking cough.

She wasn't alone.

S
ARAH STUFFED
I
VAN INTO
her pocket and scurried across the grass, trying to keep herself as low to the ground as possible. With her head tucked down so that her red hair wouldn't shine in the moonlight and give her away, she crept toward a small clump of trees that stood in a row behind the Lady's enormous base. There was another deep cough, but Sarah was afraid to stop and find exactly where the sound was coming from.

Reaching the trees, she wrapped herself around the nearest trunk and scanned the island, but couldn't see anyone. The tree, a large oak filled with leaves that had already lost their green in the fall chill, had several low-hanging branches. Sarah grabbed for the lowest one and pulled herself up into the leafy cover. She carefully climbed through thick branches until she was about halfway up and could look out onto the clearing. At first, she saw nothing. Then she heard another cough.

Off in the distance, about fifty yards away, Sarah spied a dark lump on the path that led away from the base of the Lady. As the
lump moved and coughed again, she could make out the faint outline of a man on his hands and knees. A small lantern sat beside him, glowing a dull thin yellow line of kerosene flame. The man arched his back and spit a deep lungful of phlegm onto the ground. Then he rose, first with hands on knees, then bent over at the waist, and finally standing at full height. Even next to the enormous statue, he looked like a giant with his meaty hands, arms, and legs. He easily would have been the biggest man in Sarah's village.

He took off his hat and ran his hands through his thick gray hair. His head seemed particularly large and fleshy, too big for the small hat he had just removed.

Suddenly the branch Sarah was standing on cracked and split and her feet slipped out from under her.

“Ahhh,” Sarah gasped, feeling herself falling.

She grabbed onto another branch with both hands and swung in midair for a moment until her feet found a solid branch to rest on.

The watchman quickly turned toward the noise, and she caught a glimpse of an angry red face rimmed by long, bushy gray sideburns and eyebrows. Deep lines creased his forehead, and tiny pink broken blood vessels sprouted on the end of his bulbous nose. But it was his eyes that caught her attention. They were dark and seemed to have a naturally wicked slant. She instinctively shrank back.

Sarah ducked as the watchman hoisted his lantern toward the
noise and squinted into the darkness. He took a step toward the trees, swinging the lantern in front of him, scanning right and left. Sarah held her breath, certain that her red hair would get caught in the lamplight.

Finally, he turned away from her, put the hat back on, and wiped his mouth with the side of his forearm. He checked the time on his pocket watch and then moved off down the path, toward the other side of the island. Lurching right and left, the watchman eventually passed out of sight.

A strong wind blew across the island, making the leaves around Sarah ripple against each other, like a thousand paper fans opening and closing. The wind chilled her and she felt the cold wetness seep into her hair, bones, even the roots of her teeth, making her whole body feel brittle. She had to find a way to get inside and change out of her wet clothes. The only shelter around was the Lady, but she didn't dare venture down yet, not with the gray-haired giant nearby.

And so she waited.

After nearly an hour in the tree, watching and waiting for the giant to return, Sarah climbed down. Her eyes darted back and forth and she kept her body bent low to the ground as she made her way to the path. Her foot kicked against a large shard of broken glass that skidded across the cement with a sharp clang. She stopped in her tracks and listened, afraid that someone would be stirred by the noise. But she heard nothing more.

Sarah looked down at her feet and saw that she had kicked the
top of a green glass bottle, and that the other pieces were scattered nearby, including the bottom half of the bottle, which still held a dram of brown liquid. She picked up a piece of glass with the label half stuck on that read
GOLDEN CLOVER IRISH WHISKEY
and had a picture of a barrel with a clover painted on the side.

Sarah picked up the bottom of the bottle and sniffed the liquid, which was dark, sweet, and medicinal. She began to salivate. It had been hours since her last meal.

Before she could worry about finding food, though, she had to get out of the cold. She set the broken bottle down and hurried toward a door in the Lady's star-shaped base.

W
RAPPING HER HAND AROUND
the cold, smooth surface of the brass doorknob, Sarah was certain it would be locked. She jerked her hand back in surprise as the knob yielded in her grasp and the door opened onto a long, dark hallway. Sarah poked her head in and then carefully stepped inside, gasping as the door swung shut.

She fought to regain her breath and adjust to the deep quiet and near-total darkness inside. Sarah blinked her eyes several times, trying to get the space to come into focus, but there was no light to be found. She considered going back outside but couldn't face the idea of returning to the icy chill of the harbor winds. So she felt her way along the hall until she came to the base of a staircase. She started to climb, some inner drive propelling her forward despite her fear.

She came to another hallway and then a door, which opened out onto the star-shaped plaza that formed the roof of the statue's base. Relief swept over her to be back in the moonlight, to be able
to see the world around her. She looked up and was again awed by her proximity to the Lady, who drew her ever closer. She needed to be inside the Lady's body, to climb in and around the crown and then up into the torch.

So Sarah forged ahead to the next door at the bottom of the pedestal. She entered the pedestal and again climbed through the darkness until she came out another door, which led directly into the statue itself.

Sarah took another fortifying breath and entered the statue. Once inside, she paused again. The interior space was dark, but not as dark as the base had been. Tiny sprays of moonlight peeked in through small crevices in the statue's shell. Sarah could just make out another long set of winding stairs. Strange, high-pitched whistles of wind blew in and around the interior of the statue above her.

Sarah grabbed the metal railing and started to climb again. After a few dozen steps, she began to sweat despite the cold, and the backs of her legs and ankles started to ache. The stairway wound in tight circles higher and higher. She could tell by the echo that she was inside the skeleton of the statue itself. She imagined the part of the body she might be traveling through, the legs draped in long robes, the waist, the torso, the arm holding the tablet.

Sarah paused to take a breath, her legs and lungs unaccustomed to so much exertion. The tallest building in her village was only two stories high. She flexed her sore legs and kept climbing
until she came to a platform in the stairwell. A ladder led off in one direction while the stairs continued up in the other. She took the set of stairs, which narrowed even more. A dim light glowed just ahead.

Finally she came to the top and pulled herself into the observation room inside the crown. The room held a small platform and a set of pyramid-shaped steps that led up to the little windows that formed part of the top of the crown. Sarah climbed the stairs, moved to one of the windows, and peered out. She was winded from the climb, but the view took even more of her breath away. Removing Ivan from her pocket, Sarah placed him up on a window ledge. As Sarah showed Ivan the view, she wished more than anything that her parents could see it too.

She remembered how furious her mother had been when her father came home with the toy. They never had money to spare on anything. As Sarah played with Ivan on her mat, her parents had quietly argued.

“You think we can eat that bear if times get lean?” her mother asked.

“Just look at her!” Sarah's father said, nodding to his daughter. “It was a small price to pay for a little joy.”

Her mother watched Sarah playing for a moment, making Ivan jump and roll across her blanket.

“I married a fool,” she said. “But a very good-hearted fool.”

Now Sarah marveled at the vast amount of land and sea stretched out before her, but also at how small everything looked,
like a toy diorama. She could see a bridge connecting the east side of Manhattan with the opposite shore.

She danced Ivan along the ledge of the window, making him tumble and roll as her father used to do to amuse her.

A draft shot through the body of the Lady, chilling Sarah's sweat- and sea-soaked body. She needed to dry herself. So she stood back from the window and started to remove her wet clothes, her boots, coat, stockings, skirt, sweater, and blouse, until she was wearing only her underclothes. She hesitated for a moment, embarrassed to be undressed despite the fact that she was alone. Then she slowly removed her undershirt and underwear until she was completely naked. She wrung out her wet clothes, creating little round puddles on the floor, and draped each article of clothing along the railing of the staircase.

Sarah stood, letting the moonlight bathe her bare skin. Hard goose bumps sprouted across her entire body. Her leg muscles ached from the swim and the climb. She ran her hands over her torso, taking inventory of each muscle, each patch of skin, to confirm that she was still whole, that she was still herself. She paced around the small room, and got used to her own nakedness.

As her hand grazed one of the scrapes on her arm, she felt a horrible pang of loss as she realized her mother would no longer be there to tend her wounds. Yet she also felt glad to be alive.

I am here,
she thought.
I'm alive.

Then all at once exhaustion hit her. She grabbed Ivan off the ledge, laid her coat across a patch of the cold floor just below the windows, and allowed herself to lie down. She exhaled and stared up through the windows in the crown at the clouds drifting across the moon. She listened to the wind blow through the Lady, like the statue itself was breathing.

The noises acted like a lullaby, numbing her mind and making her eyelids heavy. Sarah felt her own breathing slow and relax. Her eyes closed and she fell asleep, naked atop her wet coat.