The Song of Sora

“Rose darlin, I have good news!”

Tecla shouted as she came in the door and placed her parcels on the antique entry way table.

Rose came out of the kitchen wiping her hands with a dish towel giving the packages a once over.

“You’re late again; and I hope there’s a fresh cabbage in one of those bags, because I used the last of it for yesterday’s supper,” Rose answered uninterested in her older sister’s news.

Tecla, rolls her eyes, reaches into the bag and hands a very small head of cabbage to her sister.

Rose’s face reeks with disappointment, “Teckie, is that the best they had?”

“Oh, Rose, my sweet little sora, you know all of the shelves are bare and the farms aren’t growing enough food to keep the rabbits alive. If it wasn’t for the man I met today, we’d have to start trapping hedgehog!”

“Another man?” Rose sucked her teeth as she took the cabbage into the small kitchen to rinse it in the sink. What tall tale did this one sell you?

“Sora! Why do you doubt me so?”

“Tecla please speak Italian and say Sorella. If you keep calling me Sora, the neighbors are gonna hear you and gonna label us Gypsies. We don’t need any more trouble. And you, you’re always finding some man who distracts you from your responsibilities!

“Rose, we are gypsies, but we won’t be for long. This man in town offered me a job on a new ship leaving from Britain to New York and then we can live in the New Country. And he’s one of us.

Rose was tearing apart the cabbage in an angrily manner, placing its sparse leaves in a pot, “Not only do you not speak Italian well, but you’re speaking French too? How does you getting a job on a ship equal WE/US living in the new country???

Tecla joins her sister in the kitchen and begins chopping an onion, “because this man coming over tonight for dinner and then he’s taking us to the ship in the morning.”

Rose starts humming “Gipsy Lullaby” as she gathers herbs and spices for the cabbage”

Tecla was becoming angry.

“Oh Sor-Ella, stop! This man he’s bringing some smoked butt with him.”

“A lot of good that’s gonna do if we’re leaving in the morning. It will go to waste. Besides, How are both of us getting on the ship?”

“All you have to do is say you’re sixteen and you can work with me in the kitchen”, Tecla answers matter of fact.

“Great, I’m cooking no matter where I go. I’ll probably be a peasant in the New Country too.”

Rose begins singing to stop herself from crying. It was bad enough her and her sister had to leave home when it was invaded by the Nazi’s now just as she was getting used to their meager existence, they’re leaving again.

But this time it would be permanent. Because every friend or family member who set sail for the New Country never returned home to describe the plentiful bounties of food and the so-called gold paved streets.

Rose’s crooning becomes louder as her and her sister continue cooking and setting the table for dinner. A soft piccolo is heard in the distance eventually accompanying Rose in beautiful harmony.

Until the song abruptly stopped causing Tecla to look up from placing the mix-matched silverware on the table. There in the doorway, smiling widely, was James. This was the man who was escorting the Rossi sisters to the ships in the morning.

“No no no sweet Sora, please don’t stop. You’re voice is beautiful! Your sister never told me you could laud with the angels. You shouldn’t cease until we get to the ships in the morning!”

“Ships?” Rose asked confused, “There’s more than one?”

“Why yes, Tecla and I are boarding the main ship. And you, my little sora, Rose will be on the California following behind us. That ship needs a singer, and you my dear would be perfect.

On the evening on April fourteenth in the year of 1912 with tears streaming down her face, Rose went to the railing of the California singing the Gipsy lullaby as loud as she could while watching California’s sister ship, the Titanic sink deep into the sea with her only living sister and the man who distracted her.