Turbo Pudding

FernevaleMeet the cast

Meet the people of the Südstern

· The Turbo Pudding team · 4 min read

The third-class stern of the Südstern on a sunny day off Lisbon, with a blue river and green hills covered in small pink, yellow and white houses behind the rail: Mr. Grayle, a tall thin man with a sandy mustache, a straw boater with a dark band and a cream linen suit, stands at the right and holds a yellow pencil out at arm’s length toward Daina, squinting at it as if measuring a tree; Daina, a girl with long dark plaits coiled down her front, a pencil tucked behind her ear, an orange knitted shawl over a long dark dress, stares back at him with her mouth open in surprise; behind them a lifeboat marked SÜDSTERN · HAMBURG hangs on its davits, two brass ventilators rise by the rail, a board marked TELEGRAMS uncalled for hangs on the purser’s deckhouse at the left, and a ladder climbs a white deckhouse at the right

Fernevale follows Daina Ozola, a seventeen-year-old from Riga who draws forests nobody has ever seen. In 1911, her road runs from a sanatorium in Surrey all the way to Brazil, and chapter 7, Crossing the Line, puts her on a steamer called the Südstern. She travels third class, on the stern, among ropes, ventilators, benches and a great many bundles.

This Monday, meet the people she shares that deck with. At the top of this post, the ship lies off Lisbon, “yellow trams climbing hills like goats,” and a stranger in a straw hat is sizing Daina up with a pencil.

Mr. Grayle, who measures everything

Mr. Grayle is a tall, thin man in a linen suit and a boater. He walks along the rail counting his steps, and Daina’s verdict on that walk is pure Daina: “He walks as if the deck owed him yards.”

He doesn’t say hello. He holds a pencil out at arm’s length, shuts one eye and squints at her, the way you’d size up a tree. “Five foot four and a quarter. You’d make a fair sapling.” Only then does he tip his hat and give his name. He’s a surveyor for a company that deals in timber and settlers in the Serra, the mountains of southern Brazil. (Serra is Portuguese for a mountain range.)

Ask him what he surveys, and he says valleys: “Empty ones. Brazil’s full of them.” Ask whether maps ever lie, and you get his whole outlook in three short sentences: “Maps don’t lie, miss. People do. Rivers occasionally.”

He doesn’t stop measuring at supper, either. On December 5, the night of the full moon, he sits at a table on the stern with his plate. A flying fish leaps the rail and lands on it with a slap. Mr. Grayle doesn’t even jump. He measures it: “Nine inches. Volunteer.”

Supper on the third-class stern of the Südstern at dusk under a big pale full moon that lays a path of light on the dark sea: Mr. Grayle, a tall man with a sandy mustache, a straw boater with a dark band and a cream linen suit, sits at the end of a low wooden table and holds a yellow pencil upright beside his plate, where a small blue flying fish lies next to a blue bowl; Daina, with long dark plaits coiled over her shoulder, a pencil tucked behind her ear, a white blouse with a sailor collar, a dark shawl tied at her waist and a long green skirt, stands on the other side of the table smiling with her eyes shut; behind them a lifeboat marked SÜDSTERN · HAMBURG hangs on its davits, a brass ventilator rises by the rail, and a white deckhouse with a ladder, a round porthole and a cabin door numbered II · 14 glows pink in the last light
Searched: “how long is a flying fish.” Ask the man with the pencil.

Pfeil, the purser

A purser keeps a ship’s paperwork, and on the Südstern that’s Pfeil: an older man with white hair, a dark uniform with brass buttons, a peaked cap and pince-nez on a cord. He goes everywhere behind an enormous green ledger, held flat in front of him like a tray. Daina’s take: “He carries it like a pudding.” Look at him again later, and she has found his other habit: “Three buttons, three wrong holes. Every day.”

Off Lisbon, his problem is the mail. “Telegrams, telegrams,” he grumbles. “Lisbon sends paper like a cow sends milk.” Anything nobody collects goes up on a board by his door, under a sign that reads TELEGRAMS uncalled for.

The purser’s deckhouse on the Südstern on a sunny day off Lisbon, with the blue river and a hillside of pink and yellow houses behind the rail: Pfeil, the purser, an older man with white hair, round gold pince-nez and a tall dark peaked cap, in a dark blue uniform coat with brass buttons, has an enormous green ledger tucked under one arm and reaches up with the other hand to pin a paper to a brown board marked TELEGRAMS uncalled for, which already holds three notes; a window with a gold frame and a PURSER sign sit beside him on the white wall; Daina, in a long dark dress with an orange knitted shawl over her shoulders, her dark plaits coiled down her front and a pencil behind her ear, stands at the right by a brass ventilator, watching him with a stern face
Typed: “where do lost telegrams go.” Up on a board, apparently.

Then he reads out a name from his passenger list, and the whole stern looks round for its owner. So does Daina, politely, along with everybody else. “Poor woman. She must be deaf,” she thinks. Then: “Oh.” She came aboard under a borrowed name, and Pfeil has seen it all before: “Nobody answers to their own name on this ship.”

Kuhn, the second mate

Kuhn is the Südstern’s second mate, a bearded officer in a dark coat with brass buttons and a peaked cap. You meet him on December 3, at two in the morning. It’s too hot to sleep below, so Daina comes up on deck, and the southern sky is full of strangers: “Stars I don’t know. Like a book in Portuguese.”

Kuhn is up on the bridge wing, holding a rolled-up star atlas to his eye as if it were a telescope. Daina’s summary: “He reads the sky through a book.” He’s friendly about the late hour. “Can’t sleep, Fräulein?” he asks. Fräulein is German for “miss,” and that’s what he calls her. He knows this sky well and is glad to point things out. What he points at is for you to find in the game.

The Südstern’s stern at two in the morning under a dark blue-green sky full of white stars, with a pale moon low at the left: Kuhn, the second mate, a bearded man in a dark coat and a peaked cap, stands up on the railed bridge wing above a white deckhouse and holds a rolled-up star atlas to his eye like a telescope, aimed out over the sea; a yellow lantern on a pole glows beside him; down on the deck at the foot of the ladder stands Daina, in a white blouse with a sailor collar, a dark shawl at her waist and a long green skirt, her dark plaits coiled over her shoulder and a pencil behind her ear, looking sleepy and unimpressed; a lifeboat marked SÜDSTERN · HAMBURG hangs on its davits at the left over an empty bench, and the cabin door numbered II · 14 is lit warm gold
People also ask: can a book be a telescope? Ask the second mate.

He also has views on noise. Hum Daina’s tune on deck that night, and the answer comes from above: “Hum quieter, Fräulein. The captain sleeps like a mine.”

Forty languages on the stern

The rest of third class sits on its luggage: an old woman in a black kerchief, a man in a cap on a tin trunk, a young mother with a baby in her shawl, a boy on the deck and a big man on a cask. Daina sums them up in one line: “Bundles, babies, forty languages. All going to Brazil.”

Not everyone aboard has a ticket. By day, the ship’s cat peeks over the water cask by the galley. By night, a rat does the same, and Daina approves: “A ship’s rat, checking the galley’s locks. Same job as Pudding.” Pudding is her hedgehog, who rides along in a hatbox. Even the lifeboat gets a review: “Room for forty. Seats for none.”

Chapter 7 and everyone on the Südstern are part of the full game. The prologue and chapters 1–2 of Fernevale are free to play in your browser at fernevale.com. The full game is $9.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Fernevale page.

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