The Emigrants (27 page)

Story of a Man Who Sharpened a Knife

When they had finished their breakfast the following morning the farmer rose slowly from the table and turned to his wife, who was washing the dishes near the fire. He wanted to do some sharpening; she was to go with him and crank the grindstone; no one else was available at that moment; Robert was already in the fields.

Brita-Stafva did not answer. To answer would have been to use unnecessary words between them. After their latest great quarrel, three days of silence had passed. Today was the morning of the fourth day.

The wife dried her hands on her apron and followed her husband outside.

The grindstone stood under the large mountain ash near the barn gable. It was cool there in the shadow of the tree during hot summer days; now—in early spring—the wind howled around the corner of the house. Brita-Stafva wiped a drop from her nose-tip, while she leaned against the grindstone bench, waiting for her husband who had gone to the well.

Jonas Petter returned and poured well water into the grindstone trough. His wife took hold of the crank handle to begin.

But where was the ax? Brita-Stafva looked around; she had thought they were to sharpen an ax. A scythe wasn’t used this time of year, and she knew of nothing else that needed sharpening. She almost asked: Have you forgotten the ax? But she rememberd in time, she must not use unnecessary words. She would show her husband that she could keep silent as long as—nay, longer than—he.

Jonas Petter was not going to sharpen his ax today; he took out a knife.

His wife pulled on the handle, the grindstone turned, and the water in the trough rippled smoothly as water in a gutter. The crutch was dry, ungreased, and squeaked and whined; the peasant splashed a handful of water from the trough in its direction; the crutch, satisfied, was silent.

The wife gazed at the knife in her husband’s hand. It was a sticking knife, used in cattle slaughter. Jonas Petter had had it for years, and many pigs, sheep, and calves had given up their lives to it. It was a good knife; she had borrowed it herself at times when she needed a sharp cutting tool. Jonas Petter used to say that it was sharp-edged as a razor when newly honed.

But no slaughter was impending on the farm. They had no animal to kill. Not before October would they have slaughter again, and this was only March. If one is going to use a sticking knife in October, one doesn’t sharpen it in March. So much was sure and true.

Brita-Stafva was apprehensive; indeed, she had reason to be. And fear crept over her as she recalled the words her husband had repeated last night after telling the story of the Stump of Orranäs. Why was he sharpening this slaughter knife today?

Jonas Petter stood bent over the grindstone, his countenance dark, his lips tightly pressed together. He looked sharply in front of him, eyes focusing stubbornly on the knife edge. He was sharpening his knife and it seemed that nothing in the world existed for him except his current occupation: the sharpening of this knife.

He turned the knife and sharpened the other side of the edge, moving it back and forth across the stone, from handle to point. But his eyes did not leave the edge. His face wore an expression of determination; there was determination in his immobile position, in his bent back, in his tightly closed lips. Every part of him radiated determination. He acted like a man who had made a decision which nothing could persuade him to change in the smallest detail.

And his wife at the grindstone handle asked herself: What was he going to do with the sticking knife?

She turned the crank. The stone was not heavy. It had been large and heavy once, when it came to the farm, but after all the scythes, axes, and knives whose edges had been sharpened against it, it was now no bigger than a Christmas cheese. A child could crank it. And when the wife let out a sigh, this was not because of the heavy stone or the hard work; it was caused by something entirely different: her husband’s preoccupation.

During their marriage she had always been quick to correct him when he made mistakes. If his actions lacked common sense, or were willfully wrong, she used to tell him so; this was a wifely duty. But now he accepted her corrections no longer. She continued to point out to him all his foolish and unreasonable actions, great or small. But no more did he listen to her. He called it criticism and scolding, and he didn’t like being blamed and censured. Yet he persisted in such behavior that she was forced to show him right from wrong. Then he grew angry. At the least word from her he grew angry. She, in her turn, both upset and sad, told him the truth: he was an evil husband who cared not what she thought or felt.

Owing to his difficult nature quarrels between them occurred at shorter and shorter intervals, increased in bitterness, and began to last longer. After each quarrel the words between them seemed to dry up entirely; they went about in silence, without a syllable’s crossing their lips for days at a stretch. Even the time of silence was extended, sometimes into weeks.

How she had worried lately over his unreasonable behavior! No one knew what the devil might put into a person’s head and make him do.

It was some time ago—after an intense and long-drawn-out quarrel—that he had said: Rather than let you torture me to death, rather than be nagged to death, I’ll do it myself, I’ll kill myself with a knife!
I would rather cut myself to death!

And what a look he had in his eyes that time, Jonas Petter! Since then she had been in constant anxiety. What mightn’t the devil tempt a weak human being to do? Since then she had hidden away all cutting tools—all but this slaughter knife, which she had not found. But this was not sufficient to reassure her; he might get hold of a thong, or a strap, and go to the nearest tree or beam; he might jump into the well. There was always something handy if you wished to take your own life, always One ready to help you, always and everywhere.

For a while she had tried to keep back words that might irritate him. She would correct him only about small chores and such, not worth mentioning. Nonetheless, he still became upset and angry. What could she do with so difficult a husband?

And what was he planning now, with this knife? He wanted it so sharp, it seemed he would never get it sharp enough! Never before had he needed so fine an edge, not even at cattle slaughter. What was she to think of all this sharpening?

Jonas Petter stretched his back for a moment, took the knife in his left hand and felt the edge with his right thumb, testing the bite. Brita-Stafva stopped cranking and the stone rested.

Still he was not satisfied with the edge on his knife; she must crank some more. Again the stone turned, the water in the trough purled and swirled. And he kept on sharpening the knife, morose, relentless, mute.

Perspiration was breaking out at the back of Brita-Stafva’s neck, drops ran down her spine. It was not caused by the weight of the grindstone, but by the questions she asked herself: A knife could be well sharpened in five minutes; he had kept on for fifteen. What did it mean? It didn’t make sense. He would never be satisfied with the edge—he seemed to want a razor edge today.
Was he sharpening the knife for his own neck? If not, for what?

The peasant kept on sharpening, now and then testing the bite against his thumb, carefully, deliberately, then putting the knife back to the stone.

And the wife cranked on. This was not sane. What was it he had said last night?—A man, too, can sharpen a knife. And the way his eyes had looked of late, showing whites under the pupils; he no longer had the eyes of a sane person. It was plain he contemplated some madness.

She could ask: Why do you sharpen the sticking knife? No slaughter is imminent. But she had hardly spoken to him for three days, wanting to show him that she could hold her tongue. Moreover, she would receive no clear information, perhaps he might say something like: A sharp knife is always needed in a house.

Peace, also, was needed in the house; but that they would never have, except in the dull silences between their squabbles.

Now she had cranked the grindstone almost half an hour. No sane man acted thus, sharpening the same knife hours on end. She couldn’t stand it any longer, her forehead was wet with perspiration, her body limp, her legs shook, unable to hold her up.

And when her husband tried the knife edge against his thumb for the tenth or eleventh time, she burst out: “Won’t you ever get it sharp? Are we to stand here the whole day? Are we to keep on for eternity? Get someone else to crank!”

She let go the handle and went over and collapsed like an old empty sack on a stone near the barn.

Jonas Petter did not look in her direction; it was as if he hadn’t heard her. He felt with his thumb along the edge of the knife, slowly, unhurried. Then he dried the knife against his trouser leg, mumbling to himself: “I believe it’ll do now.”

He picked up the empty water pail in one hand and the newly sharpened knife in the other and went toward the house.

The wife followed his steps with vigilant eyes; when she saw him enter the kitchen she rose to follow. She didn’t run, but she hurried. Did he intend to commit the crime inside the house? Perhaps he had gone up in the attic to be alone. There was no one in the house now, the people were at their work, the boy from Korpamoen with them; she and her husband were alone. And alone she could not get the knife away from him, she did not have sufficient strength. Should she run to a neighbor for help?

Brita-Stafva went after her husband into the kitchen. He was not there. He must have gone up into the attic; she thought she heard steps up there. Looking about, she seemed to remember something; she stretched herself on tiptoe and looked on the shelf above the fireplace: there lay the newly sharpened knife, glistening; her husband had put it back in its usual place. She let out a long, long sigh of deep relief.

Grabbing the sticking knife, she hid it under her apron and went out. She walked to the wagon shed and found her way into the darkest corner. There she stuck the sharp knife behind a beam against the roof. She pushed it so far in that no one could even see the handle. A more secret hiding place she could not find on the whole farm, she thought, as she climbed down again.

Meanwhile Jonas Petter had returned from the attic where he had walked about for no particular reason. On entering the kitchen he too went over to the shelf above the fireplace and looked. He nodded in confirmation, and satisfaction radiated from his eyes: exactly as he had hoped. The knife was gone; the threat had worked; he was safe from her now. It had gone so far that he had been forced to sharpen a knife for half an hour in order to get her where he wanted her.

He was pleased now; he knew that he would get the rest and peace he needed in the home during the time that was left—during the three remaining weeks before he was to break free from his wife, before he left her forever. He needed peace and quiet during this time of preparation. To gain this had surely been worth half an hour at the grindstone.

—6—

Robert remained at Hästebäck for three weeks, and no sheriff came to search for him.

One evening Jonas Petter called him aside and said: “We’ll keep company to America, you and I. I sail on the same ship as the others.”

In secrecy, one more America chest was readied in this region—the third.

X

A PEASANT BOWS FOR THE LAST TIME

—1—

This was the dawn of a great era in the lives of the old clothes chests throughout the peasant communities. After centuries of neglect in dark loft corners they were now being scrubbed and polished and prepared for their voyage across the great sea. These chests were to be in the vanguard of history’s greatest migration. To them would be entrusted the emigrants’ most cherished belongings.

What must be brought along, what must be left behind? What was obtainable in the new land, and what was unobtainable? No one could advise, no one had traveled ahead to ascertain. It was not a move where wagon after wagon could be loaded; one small cartload must take care of all. Only the least bulky and most indispensable things were chosen.

In the bottom of the Korpamoen America chest were placed the heaviest items—iron and steel, all the timberman’s and the carpenter’s tools: adz, hatchet, chisel, drawknife, plane, hammer, horseshoer’s tongs, auger, sticking knife, skinning knife, rule and yardstick. Also the hunter’s gear: gun, powder horn, and the skin pouch for small shot. Karl Oskar took apart his muzzle-loader to facilitate its packing. There was said to be as much game in America as there was shortage of guns. A gun was said to cost fifty daler. Robert thought of all the streams and waters abounding in fish, and he packed trolling gear for pike, and hooks, angling twine, wire for fish snares. Nils brought out an old bleeding iron which might be of use to his sons; he advised the emigrants to bleed themselves often; the most reliable cure for all ills was to let one’s blood.

Kristina packed her wool cards, her knitting needles, sheep shears, and her swingle, a betrothal gift from Karl Oskar, who had painted red flowers on it. A great deal she left because it would take up too much ship space, things she knew she would need later. She could not take her loom or her flax brake, her spinning-wheel or her yarn winder, her spooling wheel or her flax comb. She had been accustomed to working with all these implements; they were intimate and familiar to her hands; she knew that she would miss them in the foreign land.

Märta had helped her weave a piece of wadmal from which the village tailor had sewn them fine, warm clothing for the journey. And she packed warm woolen garments for both big and little, underwear and outer wear, working clothes and Sunday best. Woolen garments were scarce in America, she had heard somewhere, as they had not yet had time over there to make as many looms as they needed. She must take along woolen and linen yarns, and needles and thread of all kinds, so that they could patch and mend their clothing and stockings, for it would surely be a long time before they would again have new things on their bodies; the old must last. Between the clothes Kristina placed camphor and lavender to prevent mildew and bad odors; no one knew how long these things must remain in the chest.