The Last Letter Home (28 page)

On warm summer evenings he would tend the beds under the window, weed the peas and the beans and water them, and it sometimes happened that he caught himself listening through the open window: Wasn’t that Kristina’s sewing machine in there? No. Now there was no whir from the balance wheel, no noise from the pedals under her feet. And her loom stood silent. She used to sing while weaving, she wanted to muffle the loom’s noise, she said. But he liked the sound of the loom coming from inside the house, and he would stand there and listen for the shuttle.

And so each time Karl Oskar found himself equally disappointed when he compared the past and the present: Kristina’s sewing machine had been put aside in a corner and emitted no sound, and from the loom
her
shuttle would never sing again.

In such moments he spoke aloud to Kristina: If I had followed my common sense you would still be with me! If you hadn’t trusted in God you’d still be alive!

But she had said a few words which he remembered and would keep well during his remaining years. They had once been uttered by her lips, they were heard by his ears, he would keep them well. It was her answer to him: Don’t worry about me, Karl Oskar.
I’m in good keeping.

—3—

It was Whitsuntide Eve and the house was being cleaned for the holiday. Karl Oskar was on his knees on an old sack scrubbing the stoop floor. He dipped the brush into the hot soap lye and scrubbed the planks with all his might, he scratched, he scrubbed, he rubbed. But whatever he did he couldn’t get the floor as clean and white as he knew it should be. The dirt seemed to be glued between the boards; it must be poor soap, he thought. When they first came out here he had made the soap himself, from ashes and pork fat. But Kristina had complained that it didn’t remove the dirt entirely. When she washed linen she refused to use his homemade soap and bought some from Klas Albert.

Well, the stoop floor would have to be good enough the way it was. Many other things had to be good enough nowadays, even if they weren’t as they were before.

“My goodness, Karl Oskar! Are you scrubbing the floor!”

He recognized the voice, it was a woman’s. She stood behind him on the stoop, dressed in an ample coat and wide hat. The scrubbing brush had made such noise he hadn’t heard her coming.

“Ulrika . . . !”

“Good for you! Cleaning your house yourself!”

He moved his hand to his left leg, sore from lying on the boards, and rose slowly with the brush in his hand. The scrub water dripped from his wet knees.

He was a little embarrassed and it annoyed him.

“Now you’re a real American, Karl Oskar!”

“I wanted to help Marta tidy up a little. But I don’t care for housework.”

“I bet you don’t!”

And Mrs. Henry O. Jackson laughed the loud laughter of the Glad One: “You aren’t ashamed of it?”

“Ashamed of woman-work? That’s only in Sweden.”

“You bet! Not Svenske any more!”

Ulrika knew that even while Kristina was alive he had started to help with milking and dishwashing, but so much had remained in him of the Swedish attitude that he had refused to scrub floors. Now she saw that this Swedish defect had left him.

“At last you’re a real American!”

“Shall I bow at the praise . . .”

“The best praise I can give a man!”

“But I’m not good at scrubbing . . .” He pushed the pail aside. “Nothing is in order with us . . . But come in, Ulrika! Long time since you were here.”

“I wanted to see my goddaughter on her birthday. Couldn’t make it, though.”

They went inside and sat down in the big room. Karl Oskar called Marta and told her to prepare something for their guest. But Ulrika explained that she was in a great hurry; she must get home and help Henry prepare for the Baptist love feast which they would celebrate tomorrow with the breaking of bread. She had been to St. Paul, to her eldest daughters wedding. Elin had married none less than the chief of police of St. Paul. Her daughter was now in safe hands, and she hoped she could trust the police in America. Elin had worked in his house as a maid, and then a year ago his wife had died, and less than two months later the widower had proposed to her.

“Your girl has done well,” said Karl Oskar.

Elin had a strong will, explained the mother. From the very first day in America she had shown she wanted to get ahead. Even that winter when they lived with Danjel in his old log cabin, the girl sat up half the nights and learned the American names for knives, forks, plates, spoons, and everything about the house. She wanted to be a maidservant. But when she got her first job with Mr. Hanley in Stillwater she still didn’t know the names of the days. She dressed for church on Friday, and did housecleaning on Sunday, and sent out the wash on the wrong day. The girl had started from the beginning and worked her way up. And since the day before yesterday Elin was Mrs. William A. Aldridge, and she needn’t be ashamed of that name in St. Paul.

“Well, well,” said Karl Oskar. “So you’ve been to a wedding. Last time you were in this house . . .”

He stopped short and looked aside.

Ulrika had not been to see them for almost two years; the last time had been at Kristina’s funeral. During his wife’s last illness Mrs. Jackson and her husband had been in Chicago but they had returned in time for the burial. And not until after Kristina’s funeral had Ulrika heard that she had died from a miscarriage.

“Yes, last time I was here there was mourning in this house.”

A silence ensued for a moment. It was difficult for either one of them to continue. Dr. Farnley’s strong admonition had never been referred to between them after Kristina’s death. Ulrika was not one to reproach a wretched man, but sooner or later she aimed to let him know what she thought.

“I feel sorry for you, Karl Oskar. It’s hard to live single.”

“What you must go through, you manage . . .”

“I guess you keep thinking about it?”

“Thinking about what?”

“What you did. Causing it yourself.”

Karl Oskar raised his head with a sudden jerk.

“You didn’t take care of Kristina. You got her with child again. That’s why you’re single and alone!”

His face had turned deep red. He swallowed and swallowed but said nothing.

“You were warned!” she continued. “The doctor’s report was delivered to you: She cannot survive another childbed! But you exposed Kristina to that danger.”

He stared straight at her but let her go on.

“I never blame you for Kristina’s death. I know you couldn’t help it. You couldn’t control yourself any longer, of course. You have a man’s need. You were weak and sinned in weakness. But those sins are the smallest . . .”

“You think . . .” His voice was thick and he swallowed hard. “You think . . . I myself killed Kristina . . .”

“I’m not calling you a wife-killer! You did it out of weakness. Your kind of body isn’t built to stay away from your wife. It’s excusable. I don’t blame you for it!”

“You’re wrong! You’re very wrong!”

“It hurts to talk about it, of course. I shouldn’t have started. You’ve lost your wife and can’t get her back. What’s the use of talking about it. I must hurry!”

She rose to leave.

“Yes, we must talk about it! Sit down, Ulrika! Sit down!”

Suddenly Karl Oskar had become quick in his movements; he pushed the chair toward Mrs. Jackson again.

“You’re wrong, exactly wrong! But I’ll tell you! Just sit down!”

“All right, I will—if you yourself want to talk about it.”

Ulrika sat down again and listened intently for a few minutes while Karl Oskar Nilsson spoke. She learned that she had been wrong. She learned that he had obeyed the doctor for three months, and that he had intended to keep on obeying. But one evening Kristina had come to him and said that she didn’t believe God had burdened them with this. She trusted more in God than in the doctor in Stillwater. That was how it had happened.

“It was Kristina who wanted it!”

“She did? Poor dear child!”

Ulrika was deeply moved by what she had heard, tears quivered in her eyes and her voice vibrated:

“The dear child! She trusted her God! Good, honest Kristina!”

She could not remember when she had last wept. She pulled a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and dried her eyes.

“But I’m not trying to blame it on Kristina—I should have had better sense.”

“No one can hold it against you, of course.”

“I should have known better. It’ll always be on my conscience.”

“You only committed a sin of weakness. The Lord is eager to forgive sins of weakness. God will forgive you, I know it! You can be sure of it, Karl Oskar!”

“God . . . forgive . . . me . . . !”

Karl Oskar Nilsson jumped up so suddenly that his chair turned over and was thrown against the wall. His big nose shot out as if it had been a weapon to use against Ulrika, his eyes glittered and his mouth worked. His last word was a roar, and Ulrika shot up from her chair as fast as he.

“Shall
I
ask God for forgiveness? Because he took Kristina from me?”

“What’s come over you, man?”

She had never seen such an explosion of anger in Karl Oskar. Ulrika had never let men frighten her, but now she was as frightened as a woman of her sort could be.

“Are you going crazy? I don’t recognize you!”

“You said God will forgive me! It’s he who ought to ask my forgiveness! For he tricked Kristina!”

“God tricked . . . ? You
are
crazy, man!”

“Kristina lost her life because she trusted in God. He tricked her!”

“You blaspheme, poor man! You curse the High One!”

“She died and left me alone! God is to blame!”

“Have you lost your mind, Karl Oskar?”

“No—now I’ve got it back again. But I had lost it that time. And now I only listen to my own common sense . . .”

“You talk as if you were out of your mind.”

“No! I'll never forgive God for cheating Kristina! Never, as long as I live!”

“But when you die—do you mean to die and not be reconciled to your God?”

He stood with his back to her and did not reply; he had turned toward the wall.

Ulrika had heard him blaspheme and she was frightened. How could a wretched, helpless human being get the notion to turn against the Almighty? Either she had never known who Karl Oskar was or he had changed after losing his wife.

“God will find you too, Nilsson! God will bend you!”

He had suddenly become so alien to her that she used his surname.

He still kept his silence, with his back to her, staring before him as if he had suddenly discovered something remarkable on the bare wall. Ulrika felt perplexed; what had happened to Kristina’s widower? Perhaps he mourned her so inconsolably that she must overlook his behavior. He was a bereft man, a suffering man. Above all, she must console him. It was comforting he needed.

Mrs. Jackson laid her hand on his shoulder, her voice sweet and pleading: “God has taken Kristina home to him. She is in heaven now, as you surely know . . .”

“She didn’t want to die . . .” he stuttered forth. “She wanted to stay with me and the children.”

“It must be a comfort to you that she’s in eternal bliss.”

“But she wanted to be here with us—she said so many times: I don’t want to die yet!”

When Karl Oskar didn’t show any joy because Kristina was happy in her eternal home in heaven, Ulrika no longer knew what comfort to offer him.

But she went on: He was the most ungrateful person she had ever known. How much didn’t he have to thank God for? All had gone well for him—he was well-to-do and needn’t worry about earthly things. Kristina had borne him many children, all well shaped and healthy. Many parents were given blind, deformed, or feeble-minded offspring. He himself was still in good health and had his strength. The Lord had until now helped him through all life’s vicissitudes. How many times might he not have perished? Indeed, God had held his protecting hand over him! Instead of blaspheming the Almighty he ought to thank and praise him! He ought to go down on his knees, as he had just done while scrubbing the stoop, and thank God in humble submission!

She talked, but no one listened to her. Karl Oskar didn’t hear her. He only stared at the wall. What in the world did he see there? Nothing but the paper—old pink roses, faded, spotted. He stared at the empty wall. He stared as if he saw a vision, as if his ears were plugged up; he stared at nothing.

How could one talk sense to a person who acted like that? Staring at a wall he had seen every day for many years! There was nothing to be done with Karl Oskar; she could do nothing but feel sorry for him. He did not move, he did not hear—it seemed he would remain in that position and stare at the old, spotted, faded wallpaper forever. Yet, perhaps he saw something in the emptiness.

Ulrika silently opened the door and walked out onto the stoop and away.

In this house she left behind today a man who did not wish to submit—a man who hated his God.

XIX

THE LETTER TO SWEDEN

New Duvemåla Settlement at Center City Post

Offis, April 23, 1865.

Dear Sister Lydia Karlsson,

May all be well with you is my daily Wish.

You write at long Intervals but you shall not think I have forgotten my only Sister. I have been sitting a few Evenings now and writing a letter to You.

First I want to tell you that the War is over and the Enemy beaten. The hard-necked Rebels are giving up everywhere. On the Battle Fields all is Stillness and Silence, all soldiers are going back to their homes. 100,000 Dollars has been promised to the one who can catch President Jefferson of the South. Much destruction has taken place but the Union between the States is safe for time to come.

Great Joy was spread here because of all the good News but like turning a Hand it became Sorrow instead. Our greatly beloved President Abraham Lincoln fell from a murderer’s Bullet the 14 April. It happened in the evening when he had gone to view a Theatre in Washington, the message flew like a bolt of lightning over the whole land by the Telegraph. That moment I shall never forget.