The Emigrants (42 page)

The first years I had some pleasure in bed with her. But it became less and less, I couldn’t understand why. I became indifferent and lost my desire for her—I couldn’t help it. Now when it was too late I realized that I had never really liked her and would never do so in the future, either. Nor did she care for me or for what I thought. She was more married to the farm than to me. But as my desire for bed play lessened, then hers increased, and she mocked me and wondered if already I was impotent, young man as I was. Then of course I had to show her. I preferred not to touch her, it became merely a sort of habit; I could take it or leave it, without enjoyment. I never dared tell her this, of course. It was the only thing I couldn’t tell her. I was a coward, I know, but I suppose she guessed my thoughts: I take part in this because I dare not refuse. Yes, I think she knew I had lost my desire for her, so she began to hate me. And she acted in such a way that I began to hate her, too. Perhaps I hated most that which could not be changed: the fact that I was married and tied to her.

It should never be between married couples as it was between us.

Our quarrels came more often and lasted longer. There was no peace in the house. And as the children grew up they took her side. They turned against me, because she spoke to them and said: Such is your father! Such has he always been to me, your mother! And then she told the children all I had said and done when I was angry and upset. At such times a person often does things he later regrets, he should not be condemned for what he does or says in those moments.

She turned my children against me, and I had to quarrel with them also. They lost respect for me, they obeyed their mother and believed her but they never obeyed their father or believed in him.

These last years we were seldom together in bed. Once in a while I pleased her when I realized I couldn’t get out of it. I dared not refuse, I was too cowardly. I have been a coward many times in my life, and I would agree to do it for the sake of peace—when I satisfied her in bed she was milder in her mouth for a few days and it was more bearable at home. Sometimes I thought I would tell her: This is the last time! But I was afraid of her, afraid that she would take revenge in some way if I said no to her. Then she would have plagued me worse. Many times I had to swallow a few drinks before I could make myself go near her. Yes, the brännvin helped many a time, without the brännvin I would not always have been able to. But afterward I felt sick with myself; I felt more wretched than any creature in the whole world, worse than the animals. They don’t drink brännvin in order to be able to—they do it only when they have desire. I lay with the one I hated, the one who hated me. Animals don’t do that.

We were a married couple, joined together in Christian and holy bond—matrimony—wedded together as God has ordained. But it should not be so between married mates, not as it was with us.

One time during a big fight I said I would go and cut my throat. It would take more of a man to do that, she said. She mocked me, she didn’t believe me, but that time I did mean it. I went after the sticking knife, I wanted to kill myself. I stood there and felt the edge of the knife, to see if it was sharp enough. I felt the bite with my thumb. And I set the knife against my throat. But then I couldn’t do more. When I felt the cold edge against my skin, I couldn’t. The knife cooled me so that I felt chilled through my whole body; I had no more strength left in my hands, I couldn’t press, I couldn’t cut. I have stuck and killed many hundreds of animals in my day, I have seen the blood gush from their throats, and I knew where to put the knife to myself, I know where the big blood artery is. But I could not make my hand perform the thrust, I couldn’t force it to cut my own flesh, make my own blood gush.

I had a wish to do it, but my hand did not obey—I was too cowardly.

Then I discovered something—she had lied, because she
did
believe me, she thought I was going to kill myself. I noticed that she hid away cutting tools from me. She was afraid, after all. And for a long time she was quite bearable and kind to me, and we had no quarrels.

I had thus discovered one way to get peace, and I used it a couple of times—I sharpened my knife and let her crank the grindstone.

But it shouldn’t be that way between mates in a union which God has ordained—one shouldn’t need to sharpen knives to get peace.

Perhaps she did see through the knife trick in the end; because when the day came that I told her I intended to emigrate to North America, she didn’t believe me. You are too much of a coward, she said. You are afraid of getting out on the sea. You dare not, you poor coward! You have never dared anything. You dare not sail on the sea!

But that time she was mistaken.

When at last she realized that I wasn’t the coward she had thought—when she saw my America chest packed on the wagon—then she began to cry. She cried very often from anger, but this time she cried in another way: she almost moaned, slowly and softly, as some animals do when they are in great pain. Perhaps one should feel sorry for her; she is as God created her, she can’t help it. She can’t change herself. Yes, one should feel sorry for her; but I know it has given her pleasure to torture me, and
that
I haven’t as yet forgiven her.

Now I lie here out at sea, and I am free of her. I lie here and muse over what I have missed in life. It is bitter to think of this. There are men who are good to their wives, and wives who are good to their husbands. How would it be to have a wife who was kind and thoughtful and wanted only to do good, who could understand that one can mean well even when one does wrong, a wife who may criticize and scold, yet interprets all for the best—not for the worst, as my wife did? Well, how would it be? I turn here in my misery when I realize what I have missed in this world.

I feel ashamed of myself. But old as I am, there is still something left inside resembling hope, a very small hope. There is something that whispers: Perhaps good luck awaits you somewhere in the world. Perhaps you need not die before you have tasted some of that which you so sorely missed. You have lived like a dog on your farm, a dog without a master, a wretched creature who doesn’t belong to the house—so have you lived, Jonas Petter. You have sneaked about, searching, silent, hungry in your own home. It is true—who can be more hungry than you for that which a woman can give to a man?

Yes, I am ashamed, a little—but mustn’t a wretched human being have at least this left—a little poor and puny hope?

One can seldom sleep well here on the ship; I lie and fret too much. I am on a voyage to another continent. I am going somewhere, I don’t know where, but one thing I do know: I search for peace.

XVI

HAPPENINGS ON BOARD THE SHIP

—1—

The brig
Charlotta
sails through night and day in the mist and drizzle of the April spring.

The sails in her two full-rigged masts hang limp and lifeless—the wind is still light. The ship’s heavy body lies deep in the sea. The sea’s beast of burden, a camel in the water desert, she plows her way slowly through the soft, blue-green billows. The figurehead on her prow—the eagle—incessantly scans the sea with his piercing eyes. At times foam sprays his neck and washes his open mouth; it drips from his beak, ever ready to taste the salt water; it runs from his eyes, ever washed clean by the sea. The neck of the bird rises proudly: the eagle’s eye searches the width of the ocean as though trying to find the path of those who sailed this way before. Here ships have sailed for thousands of years, but on this path wanderers leave no footprints.

The last time the emigrants saw land it was the outermost point of Denmark, appearing at a great distance. But sometimes they saw other ships, larger and smaller than their own; they saw faster sails, and slower ones. Either way, the
Charlotta
soon was alone again on the sea.

For several days the weather had been so cloudy that Captain Lorentz had been unable to take their position by the sun. He measured distances and figured his course by dead reckoning. The speed was slow, the ship moved at a snail’s pace across Kattegat.

The little peasant with the wild brown beard came up to the skipper near the helm and smiled in his quiet way: God was giving them fine, calm weather on their voyage. Lorentz replied that if God wished them well. He ought to give them stronger wind.

If this damned peasant only knew how long he would have to stay on board if this weather lasted the whole crossing! Then he would no doubt throw himself down on his knees and pray for wind.

But these poor farmers had no idea about anything at sea. They acted as if their ears and eyes were full of earth. They had only traveled on manure wagons, never before been carried by the waves. And they had one reason to be satisfied with the calm weather—up to now they had practically escaped seasickness. Nor was there any hurry, apparently, for these earth rats to reach North America. They were only traveling from one piece of land to another, from one field to another. They would reach their destination soon enough, and begin to poke in the turf on the other side.

Day after day, for days on end, the first mate wrote in the
Charlotta
’s log: Wind light southeast. Cloudy. At times rain and fog.

—2—

In the daytime the emigrants were on deck. It was bitter cold and they wore all their garments—coats, shawls, blankets, sheepskins. It was more comfortable on deck for those who stood the sea poorly and were afraid of nights in the hold. Here there was fresh air—in the hold the air was fetid. In their bunks at night seasickness stole over them, as though the illness kept itself hidden somewhere down there and crawled out at night. Then it might happen that there were too few wooden buckets, or that someone couldn’t find a bucket in time in the darkness; lights were not allowed after ten in the evening. Then, when daylight began to creep in, it revealed the long night’s happenings.

The emigrants began their day with a cleaning of their quarters. Men carried water in big buckets, and women scrubbed and scoured and washed and hung wet clothing to dry on deck. This chore must be completed before the thirsty were allowed to drink, before the dirty could wash themselves. Now they understood why the day’s portion of drinking water was withheld until they had cleaned up after the night.

There were complaints among the passengers that half a gallon of sweet water a day per person was too little. This half gallon must last for preparation of food, for drinking water, for washing themselves and their babies. And they were accustomed to draw water from full wells. The second mate tried to explain to them that this amount had been decided, once and for all, that the ship’s total supply of fresh water did not allow greater rations: they were on a long voyage, it might take three months if they were unlucky with weather. There might even come a day when they would have to manage with less. They must learn now to save the drops.

The women tried washing their woolen things in sea water, but the soap gave no suds. One morning a heavy rain fell. Then the seamen stretched a sail on deck to gather rain water. The sailors washed themselves and their clothes in this, and the passengers stood by looking on, some following their example. Danjel Andreasson said that the Lord had remembered them with good washing water from His heaven.

The emigrants talked among themselves about sending someone to the captain to ask for more water. But who? No one volunteered. There was respect for the captain among them. Whenever it was mentioned that someone should go to him, invariably the reply was: The captain is asleep now, or, The captain is taking his siesta, he cannot be disturbed. It seemed as if the commander of the ship slept in his cabin the clock around. Yet they all knew he took his siesta only in the afternoons.

As early as on the first day, Karl Oskar had told the second mate the truth about the crowded situation on the ship, and since that time he had been considered a particularly fearless person by his fellow passengers. Several of them now urged him to see the captain about the water. But Karl Oskar flatly refused; he was not going to be used as a shield for others.

Neither Karl Oskar nor Kristina made friends easily. Of all the people in their quarters they were most friendly with Måns Jakob and Fina-Kajsa, the old peasant couple from Öland. Those two were kind and helpful people. Only, thought Kristina, they seemed somewhat dirty—perhaps because she herself was trying so hard to keep clean. She had never seen Måns Jakob wash himself, he always had some water left from his half gallon, and she asked to use this. Yet she thought that more than anyone else, he needed it. His clothes and everything around him he dirtied with snuff spittle and dribble which ran in two horrible rills from the sides of his mouth. And Fina-Kajsa had black cakes of dirt in her ears, and the furrows on her neck were like black ribbons. She must be afraid of losing them, as she didn’t wash them away! Måns Jakob and his wife each carried more Swedish dirt to America than any other passengers on the
Charlotta.

Soiled and worn, too, were all the things they carried in their homemade knapsack, made from old, gray sailcloth, fastened at both ends to pieces of one-inch boards. Narrow wooden laths kept the end-pieces apart. The Småland farmers sewed their knapsacks; the Öland farmers apparently hammered theirs together. But all were on the same long journey and in time would become equally experienced travelers.

Måns Jakob kept worrying about the grindstone he was bringing to his son. He was afraid that it might be damaged in the hold, that it might be broken on this long voyage. And how was he to transport it to his son when they landed? Perhaps it might cost too much money in freight to send it on in America. The grindstone weighed heavy on the old Öland peasant as he lay in his bunk and suffered from the sea. He didn’t seem to care so much whether or not he himself arrived in America, if only the grindstone reached its destination whole and sound. The grindstones over there were expensive and poor; his son had written he was unable to sharpen his axes well enough on the American stones.