The Emigrants (38 page)

The children had no place down here to play and entertain themselves, and they hung on their mother. Johan kept pulling at her skirts.

“I want to go out, Mother!”

“We cannot go out here, little one.”

“But I want to go out and go home.”

“We are on the sea now.”

“I don’t want to be on the sea. I’ll go home. I want milk and cookies.”

“But we cannot get off. I’ve told you.”

“Mother—I don’t like it here!”

“Keep quiet now! Be a good boy!”

Thank God, she had some sugar. She opened the knapsack at the foot of the bunk, found her bag of sugar, and gave the boy a lump. He kept quiet awhile—this was her only way to silence him. Lill-Märta ought to have had a piece, too, but she slept in her fever. Kristina felt the child’s forehead tenderly; she was still burning hot.

Karl Oskar came down from deck with a jar of water in his hand. Now they had obtained their weekly rations, but had not received potatoes; he missed potatoes, he was used to potatoes every day. Instead he had been given sour cabbage—but this he liked. Kristina thought that perhaps potatoes wouldn’t keep on the ship, they would sprout and spoil, though she was not sure if this was the reason for their absence. Karl Oskar said they would eat just so many more when they planted their own in the rich soil of North America.

Soon it was their turn to use the ship’s galley. But Karl Oskar said there was little room up there—it was as crowded in the galley as it was in church pews on a Christmas morning; the women stood and sat on top of each other. This did not cheer Kristina: was she now to elbow her way among strange women while she prepared their food, also?

Each time Karl Oskar came down from the fresh sea air on deck he would grin and sniff the air in the hold. “One needs a nose clip down here! The air stinks!”

Kristina had almost collapsed the first time she came into the hold. All evil smells that used to make her sick streamed toward her: rancid pork, old herring brine, dirty socks, sweaty feet, dried vomiting. In one corner she had espied some wooden buckets, and she could guess their use. She had felt as if she had been pushed into the bottom of a smelly old herring barrel. She had felt nausea, had wanted to turn and run up on deck—had wanted to get off the ship at once.

Little by little she was accustoming herself to the evil odors. But she still went about taking short breaths, trying not to inhale the bad air.

Karl Oskar explained that the bad air was caused by poor ventilation. The people took the air from each other’s mouths down here. But as long as calm weather lasted they might go on deck and breathe fresh air during the daytime.

He was dissatisfied with their ship; he felt he had been cheated in his contract for the passage. And yesterday—when he had been denied sleeping place with his wife, and been put with unmarried men—he had spoken plainly to the mate: he did not ask to sleep like a king on silken sheets under eiderdown in a gold-plated chamber; but neither had he imagined they were to live crowded and jammed together like wretched sheep in a pen. At least twenty people too many had been packed in down here. The shipowner had only been interested in getting their money. Each grown person paid one hundred and fifty riksdaler for his passage—forty-three and a half dollars, he was told it was, in currency of the new country they were bound for. Yet they had to lie here and suffer in a dark unhealthy hole so the owner might grow fat on their money. That was what Karl Oskar had said to the mate, and the most outspoken among the emigrants had agreed with him. The mate had threatened to call the captain, Kristina had become frightened and prayed him to keep quiet—but Karl Oskar was like that; he could not keep his mouth shut when he felt an injustice.

Moreover, they had had to lie and wait in Karlshamn a whole week, and their quarters in the harbor town had cost many daler which he had had to pay unnecessarily; they should have been notified in advance about the exact date of the ship’s sailing.

One of the seamen, who looked decent and wasn’t quite so haughty, had admitted that the ship was overloaded with people. But he had added that it usually thinned out in the hold as they got out to sea.

If that hint was meant as a comfort, then it was indeed a cruel comfort; as a joke, Karl Oskar liked it even less.

This much he knew by now: that their life on board ship would be neither comfortable nor healthy.

There were already sick fellow passengers. In one family compartment, on the other side, lay a young girl who had been ailing when she embarked. She had fallen ill with a throat abscess while they were staying in Karlshamn. Her parents boiled porridge in the galley and tied this as a warm compress around her infected throat. But it had been of no help as yet. The girl lay there breathing heavily, with an unpleasant rattle. Karl Oskar had suggested to the father that the abscess in the throat be opened. He himself had once in his youth had such trouble in his throat, and porridge compresses had been useless—only the knife had helped.

The enclosure next to Kristina was occupied by an old peasant couple from Öland. The husband’s name was Måns Jakob, and the wife was called Fina-Kajsa. They had told Karl Oskar that they were emigrating to their son, who had been living in North America for many years. Karl Oskar had noticed the old Öland peasant when they embarked: he had brought a huge grindstone with him, and the mate had objected, wondering if it were necessary to drag that thing with him. Couldn’t they just as well heave it overboard? He would no doubt get along without the grindstone in America. But Måns Jakob thought a great deal of his stone: he would take it with him on the ship, or demand the return of his money. He was so insistent that the mate finally gave in; and the grindstone was now in the hold. Måns Jakob had heard from his son that good grindstones were expensive in America. They were cheap on Öland, and he wished to bring this one as a present to his boy.

Karl Oskar recalled that he had practically given away a new, even grindstone at his auction, because he had considered it too cumbersome for the voyage. Perhaps it would be difficult to find an equally good stone—he would surely need one to sharpen the scythes that were to cut the fat, rich, tall grasses in America; a sharp scythe did half the haymaker’s work.

There were also other implements they should have taken along.

“Did you see, there are those who drag along spinning and spooling wheels and such?”

“Yes,” admitted Kristina. “I regret leaving my spinning wheel.”

Seeing what others had taken with them, she regretted having left behind so many necessary household articles.

But they must reconcile themselves to the thought of what they should have taken and what they would miss in America. Kristina was much more upset by the fact that they must travel in the company of one person who ought
not
to have been taken along.

She pointed to the canvas bulkhead at the foot of her bunk: in there slept one who ought not to have been in their company on this voyage.

She whispered: “She sleeps right there—the whore!”

That disgusting woman was as close to her as that; Ulrika of Västergöhl had her bunk right next to Kristina’s—only a thin piece of sailcloth separated the beds. Kristina could hear every move of the Glad One, every word she uttered—and those were words she would rather close her ears to.

Kristina pointed, and Karl Oskar looked. There was a small hole in the hanging, through which he caught a glimpse of Ulrika of Västergöhl; she was busy undressing, and he noticed something white: her bare, full breasts. He turned quickly away, embarrassed and a little irritated, and he became even more irritated as he saw Kristina’s vexed look: did she think he was in the habit of staring at undressed women? She herself had pointed out Ulrika’s place. But Ulrika ought to hang a cover over that hole before undressing. Still, among all these people on the crowded ship one must apparently grow accustomed to incidents never before experienced.

“Why do they call her the Glad One?” asked Kristina.

“I suppose because she is never sad.”

“If ever a woman needed to be sad, she is the one. She should weep tears of blood, that woman.”

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” said Karl Oskar.

“Attention! Certainly not! I have other things to do.”

Kristina wondered if he could find her a bucket of water. She must wash their dirty clothes. She intended to keep herself and her children as clean as if they were on land, both underclothes and outer garments.

But Karl Oskar thought they could not obtain more water today—not before tomorrow morning, after the hold was cleaned.

“Too bad you can’t ask the mate for an extra portion; he is angry at you.”

Karl Oskar did not answer. He was a little hesitant and lost here on the ship. He always knew what to do when on land, and if he needed anything usually managed to get it. But here at sea he didn’t know where to obtain anything, he was not allowed to go where he wanted, he could not do as he wished. And if he complained, he was threatened and talked down to by the ship’s command. He felt that these seafaring people looked down on peasants as some order of lower beings. They treated them almost like cattle. Here he went about like an animal tethered to its stake; he could go as far as the chain permitted him, around and around, but not an inch farther. It was the sea that tied him. The sea outside the ship’s rail closed him in. The sea was not for anyone who wanted space in which to move freely.

He was disappointed mostly for Kristina’s sake that their ship was so crowded and their quarters so dark and moist and unhealthy. It was he who had persuaded her to emigrate, he was responsible for their being here. And from her countenance he knew what she thought—he had avoided looking her directly in the face since they came on board, but he knew what her expression was. Still, she was not one to complain and blame him, even when she had cause; that was one reason he had wanted her as his wife.

He would try to cheer and comfort her: “We have fine weather at sea! We can be happy for that!”

He had hardly finished speaking when the ship lurched heavily, the result of tacking. The movement came so unexpectedly that Kristina lost her footing and fell on her side, luckily on the made-up bunk.

“Our ship is leaping ahead!”

Karl Oskar gave Kristina a broad smile. “You should feel at home here at sea—you have always liked swinging!”

The ship had lurched and knocked over Kristina from Korpamoen. She did not smile. The young wife looked about her in the dark, dusty, smelly hold of the
Charlotta,
overfilled with people: these were to be their quarters during the long voyage to North America; here she was to live for weeks, maybe months, with her children. Here they must eat and drink and sleep, here they must live and breathe and be awake. Here they must remain in their bed-stall, like imprisoned animals in a byre during the long, dark winter.

And as she looked at her home at sea, the thought returned to her—a thought she had had the first moment she had put foot in the hold: I will never get away from here alive. This looks exactly like a grave.

XV

A CARGO OF DREAMS

Sometimes during the nights the emigrants lay awake and turned in their bunks, listening to each other’s movements and to all the sounds of the ship.

Karl Oskar:

We are on the voyage and very little is actually the way I had thought it would be. But whether it goes well or ill, I’ll never regret my step. The stupidest thing a man can do is regret something that’s already done, something that cannot be changed. Perhaps I have brought unhappiness upon us—we may have to suffer a great deal; and all is on my shoulders. I insisted on the emigration—if it turns out badly, I can blame only myself.

If only we can get across this ocean, and land with our health.

Everything I own is in this venture. With bad luck all can be lost. At home they ridiculed me. They thought I had a crazy notion. This irritates me, but I won’t let it get under my skin. Why should other people necessarily like what I do? Only cowardly dogs hang about lapping up praise, waiting to have their backs scratched. I’ll have to scratch my own back. And I’ll never return with my wife and children to become a burden to my parish—whether our venture turns out happily or not. That pleasure I won’t give anyone. No; however it goes, no one at home shall suffer because of us. There are many back there who wish me bad luck, so I must watch my step. The home folk are envious and begrudge each other success, wish hardship on each other; they would be pleased if things went wrong for me.

I don’t think things will begin easily for us in America. It’s hard to start anew. But my health is good, and if it stays with me I can work enough to feed us. Hardship is not going to bend me; with adversity I shall work even harder, from pure anger. I’ll work, all right, as soon as I have my land. And no one is going to cheat me—I won’t put trust in the first soft-spoken stranger I meet.

As I lie here with my money belt around my waist I like to touch it now and then. It gives me a sense of security to touch it when I want to. It holds all I have left of worldly possessions, changed into silver coin. It’s all we have to lay our new foundation; I carry that belt night and day—no one can steal it without first killing me. Of course, all the folk here in the hold are simple farmers, and perhaps as honest and decent as I; but I never did trust strangers. I suppose the other farmers are also lying here with their money belts around their bellies. But who can know for sure that there isn’t a thief on board? He wouldn’t go around saying: I’m the one who steals! And in the jostle down here we are so close to each other we can look under each other’s shirts. The way we lie packed together one couldn’t hide even a needle from the other fellow.

I have never relied on any person, except myself—and on her, of course. God be praised I have such a fine woman, industrious, thrifty, and careful of our young ones. A farmer with a wasteful, lazy, slovenly wife never can get ahead. And she came along with me, she did as I wished. But I’m afraid she will regret it, although she will say nothing. Perhaps she would rather see the whole thing undone; at times I think so. If she should begin to look back, and wish to return, what might I do then?