The Last Letter Home (19 page)

On her way home Mrs. Jackson had to make a call in Center City, and Karl Oskar drove her there. They were alone on the wagon.

She said, “I’m glad Kristina is well again.”

“Yes, I am too.”

“You can thank the Lord for that!” Ulrika turned and searched the driver’s face. “But you! You’ve lost weight, Karl Oskar!”

“I lose a little every year. It’s the heat here in Minnesota.”

“You needn’t blame the heat! Not to me! I know what it is! I know what you need!”

He did not reply. He jerked the reins and urged the horses on; damn that Ulrika must know!

“I want to tell you, Karl Oskar; I feel sorry for you!”

“You needn’t!” His reply was short.

“You have to lie in that ox pen! How you must suffer during the nights! You get hotter that way, of course!”

In one way Mrs. Henry O. Jackson was still Ulrika of Västergöhl, thought Karl Oskar. She could spew forth almost anything. At times she still talked like the parish whore, especially when she talked to men. He disliked women who talked that way.

“Poor you! You must go without and suffer! Nothing else left for you, because you care for Kristina!”

“A wife isn’t for bedplay only!”

“But a healthy man needs a woman! It must be hard on you! Don’t pretend to me!”

He had some crushing words on the tip of his tongue but he bit them off. And he decided that he would not reply to her any more.

Ulrika continued to describe the tortures a healthy man must endure when he was denied a woman, but from now on only her voice was heard on the wagon; the driver sat completely silent. Why, she wondered, did he keep so silent?

Yes, Ulrika wondered about Karl Oskar. Old as he was she had been able to embarrass him. He was a father many times over but as shy as an untried youth. Here he sat beside her now, embarrassed and blushing like a little boy who had just messed in his pants and didn’t dare tell anybody. But there was something attractive about strong, rough men who could feel embarrassed as Karl Oskar did. They were like little boys who needed a woman’s hand to help unbutton the fly. And it was such boy-men women liked to help if they had an opportunity. Now she felt sorry for Karl Oskar because he couldn’t find help with some woman.

Karl Oskar reined the horses to a stop in front of Persson’s Store. He was going to make some purchases from Klas Albert, and his woman rider had errands elsewhere. With a sigh of relief he saw Mrs. Henry O. Jackson get off his wagon.

—4—

It was an evening in May; Karl Oskar had gone to bed and said goodnight to his wife. As long as day lighted him he had remained in the field preparing it for the corn. With some satisfaction he stretched his tired limbs in the bed. He was waiting for sleep. Crickets chirruped in the grass and trees outside—those screech-hoppers kept on without end in the spring nights, like an eternally buzzing spinning wheel.

But above this familiar, persistent noise from outside he heard a padding sound here in the room: steps of bare feet across the floor. Quickly he lifted his head from the pillow.

Kristina stood at his bed. White linen against the dark of the room—Kristina stood there in her shift.

He thought she had already gone to sleep.

“You’re up?!”

“Yes.”

“Are you sick, Kristina?”

“No.”

“What is it then? Something wrong?”

“Don’t worry—nothing is wrong with me.”

“But what do you want?”

“I’m coming back to you.”

“What did you say?”

“I want to be your wife again . . .”

In a sudden motion he sat up in his bed: “You want to . . . ? What
are
you saying?!”

“You heard me. I think we should sleep together again. Here I am . . .”

For more than three months they had kept apart. Tonight she had unexpectedly come to his bed, saying: Here I am!

He bent forward, trying to look his wife in the face for an explanation, but it was too dark.

“I’ve come back to you, Karl Oskar. Don’t you want me?”

“Are you walking in your sleep, Kristina?”

“I’m awake!”

“Is your head all right?”

“Don’t worry—I’m all right . . .”

Her voice seemed all right; she spoke slowly, calmly—she was not sick, she wasn’t out of her head, she wasn’t walking in her sleep, she was fully awake. Her mind was all right and she came to him and wanted to be his wife again.

He was stunned; in his confusion he stuttered: “You . . . you, you don’t . . . you don’t know what you’re doing! You forget yourself!”

“I’m not forgetting myself. I’ve thought it over, really.”

“But you know as well as I—it mustn’t happen!”

“Karl Oskar—it can’t go on like this any longer between us two. It’s unbearable. You haven’t complained, but I know how you suffer . . .”

She sat down next to him on the bed. He felt her warm breath on his ear; he took her around the waist, his hands trembling.

What was the matter with Kristina? What had come over her? Was she feverish? He stroked her cheek but it felt cool, her forehead, but it wasn’t fever-hot. She was herself in all ways, and her senses and thoughts were clear. Yet she had walked the road between their beds which they were not allowed to walk—she had traversed the distance that had separated them for three months.

“Don’t worry!” Her voice was confident, sure. “I know what I’m doing.”

“But
next time!”
he cried out. “There must not be a next time for you! Don’t you remember what the doctor said!”

“I don’t believe in what the doctor said—he’s not omnipotent.”

“But something was injured and that he must know . . .”

“I am not afraid.”

“But your life—we can’t take a chance . . .”

“The Almighty alone rules over my life.”

“It’s dangerous—how dare you . . .”

“It is simple—I don’t pay any attention to the doctor. I trust in God.”

Her mouth was near his ear; she whispered: He asked how she dare? Must she no longer believe she was under the Almighty’s protection? Must she now doubt God who had seen them unharmed through all the dangers and vicissitudes of their emigration? Must she think that God would not look after her through one more childbed?

And it was not God who had forbidden them to live together. On the contrary, it was his will that married people should have each other. And God must know they loved each other. It was a human order that kept them apart—why must they obey humans? Didn’t they dare trust in the Creator’s wisdom?

Karl Oskar had been told. Now he knew why she had come to him. But he was not at ease, he must think, he must use common sense. It was true that at their emigration he had exposed his wife and children to great dangers to life and limb. But that time, as always, it had been his responsibility. And he had thought it over thoroughly before reaching the final decision.

Kristina trusted God in his heaven more than the doctor in Stillwater. But Karl Oskar trusted more in the doctor than in God.

“You must understand.” His speech was thick, his throat felt too narrow to let air through. “Kristina! I don’t dare!”

“Don’t dare? Why?”

“I must think of you. Even if you don’t . . .”

“I’m not afraid . . .”

“It could be fatal!”

“We’re all well. Thanks to whom? What do you think?”

Who was Kristina’s helper? Where was her confidence? Her strength and security? Who had given her the courage to come to him tonight?

She had no fear, and therefore she was stronger than he. Her courage could not be defeated in a few groping words: It might be fatal! And he had dared assume responsibility before, many times—why didn’t he dare now?

The crickets were still screeching unceasingly outside the window; those invisible critters were noisier than anything else in the spring night. Inside the house all was silent except for a man and a wife who spoke in whispers. Even if someone had stood beside the bed he would not have heard what they said.

His hand stroked her neck. His hands knew her body.

She said: “I trust in the Creator. It is his will if I live, it’s his will if I die . . .”

“But must I let you dare . . . your life . . .”

“Whatever you and I do—he will do with me what he wants.”

In his mind Karl Oskar was still resisting: Use your common sense! But he was dazed by the demanding force in his body—a force that had already surrendered him to his wife in the moment when she stood at his bedside and said: I’m back with you!

She remained with him, and he yielded his body.

XI

KRISTINA IS NOT AFRAID

—1—

Along the shores of Lake Chisago runs a path that has been trod by Indians and deer; here the Indians hunted the deer as the animals sought their way to the lake to drink of its water.

The path goes in sharp twists and bends around fallen tree trunks, leaves the lakeshore at moors and bogs where the ground sinks under foot, penetrates deep brambles and bushes, turns sharply away from holes, steep cliffs, and ravines, disappears in the undergrowth with its thorny, pricking spikes. Winding, wriggling its way, it never leaves the shore; as the wanderer least expects it he is met by the glittering water before him and his path lightens.

This path is without beginning or end, for it runs around the whole Indian lake Ki-Chi-Saga with its hundreds of inlets and bays and points and promontories, islands, and islets. Of old it was tramped only by the deer and the hunter people’s light feet, shod in the skin of the deer. Now the redskins are seldom seen on the road they themselves trampled out through the wilderness. It is used by another people, who have come from far away, of another hue: The whites now wear away the bared roots with their heavy footgear, wooden shoes, iron-shod boots, crunching, crushing heels. These people also break their own roads through the forest, straight roads, cutting through the grave mounds of the Indians. These people are in a hurry and cannot waste their time on the meandering Indian paths.

On an evening in June, one of the immigrant women walks on this path. It is near sunset yet she walks slowly. Her steps are short, perhaps tired. She doesn’t tramp heavily on the Indian path and she is in no hurry.

Kristina is out in the forest, looking for a cow, Jenny, named after a Swedish singer with this name who has recently been to America, and about whom
Hemlandet
has had much to report. Jenny did not come home with the other cows this evening; she is ready to calve almost any day now, and that is why Kristina was concerned when she was missing this evening. Once before Jenny has had her calf out in the woods; Johan and Harald had found her then, far out in a bog, and had managed to get the cow home with the calf uninjured. Perhaps Jenny was repeating her forest calving. Or had she been caught between some boulders, unable to free herself? All this wilderness is full of crevices and holes where grazing cattle might easily break their legs.

Kristina stops now and then, calls the name of the lost cow, calls until she is hoarse, but the only replies are her own calls, echoing back from the tree trunks. The cows know their milkmaid’s voice and will answer with a soft lowing when she calls them. She stops short on the path, listens intently, but no sound from Jenny reaches her ears.

It is already growing dark among the trees. Should she turn back without having fulfilled her errand? No, she must look a little bit farther. She is not afraid of losing her way after dark, for she knows the lake path well—she has only to follow it back the same way she came.

In a clearing where grow tall, lush raspberry bushes she stops to eat of the berries. The wild raspberries are already ripe, although it is only June. She crouches near one bush and enjoys the sweet fruit. She loves to go out in the woods in summertime to pick all the wild, edible berries that grow here. To her it is a means of liberation and of being alone, a welcome change in the monotony of daily chores. And in fall she likes to pick cranberries that abound on the tussocks in low-lying places. But no lingonberries grow here, as in Sweden; instead of lingonberries she preserves the somewhat sourer cranberries; in fact, they do have a taste of sweetness if picked after the frost has set in.

Darkness falls, yet she is not aware of it. Kristina will never cease to be surprised at the urgency of the twilight in America; it rushes by. Tonight it seems to last only five short minutes.

In her childhood in Sweden she had been afraid of the dark. This feeling had remained with her through youth, and she had been terribly afraid of the dark during the first years after their arrival here. Then a change had taken place; the fear of the dark left her. She does not know when this happened. It was only thus: One evening she noticed her fear was gone. From then on it made no difference to her if it was day or night. It might be daylight, or dark, in the place she happened to be, but which ever it was—she was not afraid. However great the difference between day and night she did not feel it. And now it is this way: Be she outside or in a house, it doesn’t matter. She walks as calmly through a dark night as through the bright morning, because she feels herself within the same safe protection, the same secure home, in the dark of night as in the light of day. She knows nothing evil can happen to her. She cannot understand how darkness and night could have frightened her so before. On the contrary, it now seems to her she is best protected when veiled in darkness. It envelops her, hides her, follows her to guard her welfare, just as it must comfort the many of God’s creatures that hide in brambles and bushes from enemies and pursuers.

But she can no longer search for her cow Jenny; it is too late now. She must return home. First thing in the morning they will send the boys out to look for the animal; Johan and Harald enjoy hikes in the forest, they have just begun to hunt, they know the places where a cow might hide. Or perhaps Karl Oskar had better go with them, in case the cow is caught somewhere.

Kristina turns homeward on the path. But the fatigue after her day’s many chores falls upon her like a burden, and she sits down to rest on an upthrust root. Weakness still comes over her at times, and against this neither rest nor peace helps. And her thoughts have dwelled upon this: Is there any permanent cure against fatigue other than death?