The Emigrants (43 page)

Since their embarkation Karl Oskar had more often mused over the question: Where would they go once they landed in the town of New York? No one in their company had any idea, not one of those from Ljuder Parish. And he must plan for himself and his family, think about it in advance, arrive ahead of the ship, so to speak. Now he heard the Öland farmer talk about his son, who had taken a homestead in a place called Minnesota.

He asked Måns Jakob: “Is there good farming land in that place?”

“First-class, according to my son. The topsoil is much deeper than at home. My boy has taken one hundred acres.”

“Our boy is able, that’s what he is!” said Fina-Kajsa, with a questioning look at Karl Oskar, as much as to say: Would he be able to clear land?

And while the two narrow rills continued their peaceful course down the chin of the old peasant, he went on: His son had written him that there were such extensive, fertile plains that all the farmers in Småland and on Öland could have their own farms there if they wished to emigrate. The ground only needed to be turned. And the place was healthy: in the summers the air was somewhat humid, but at other seasons it was neither too cold nor too warm—about the same as at home. A likable place for simple folk. In other places in America the emigrants died like flies, they couldn’t stand the foul climate—yes, the climate was evil in some places, wrote his son. He himself was a little afraid of this, he was ailing somewhat in his old age, he had a wicked pain in his heart—that was why he used so much snuff; snuff was supposed to comfort his ailment. The heart—inside him—wanted to stop at times, but it always started again as soon as he took a couple of pinches of snuff. It might stop for long times when he had no snuff at hand. This was very inconvenient. Because of his advanced age he had hesitated about the emigration. He had never moved before in all his days, he was born on his farm at home. But his son had paid for his voyage, and he was anxious to see the broad fields his son owned in North America.

Karl Oskar wondered if that place, Minnesota, might not be the right one for his family to settle in. He asked Robert about the type of soil there, but his brother could not find the name in his description book. There was no such state in the Union, of that he was sure, but he thought maybe the great wilderness around the upper end of the river Mississippi was named thus. This was the biggest and most useful river in the whole world. It had more water than any other river. Its shores were fertile and healthy, covered with forests and meadows, abounding in fish and game and Indians and all that people could need for their existence. On the fair shores of the Mississippi it had happened that a settler in five years had earned a bushel of gold.

“I’m not interested in bushels of gold,” said Karl Oskar. “I asked about the soil.”

But the information sounded favorable. And Karl Oskar kept the name, Minnesota, in the back of his mind. It was easier to remember than any other word because the first half was
Minne
itself, memory.

—3—

Kristina was in the galley and had just finished preparing dinner for her family. The women stood in a long row near the door, awaiting their turns to use the stove. As soon as one pot was taken off the fire another was put on. Kristina was looking forward to the day when she could cook and fry over her own fire again, when she could leave a pot standing as long as she pleased. No one could prepare food aright in the rocking cookhouse on the ship, which had to be used by so many. When her peas didn’t get soft fast enough, there was always some woman at her elbow impatiently wondering if she weren’t soon going to remove her kettle. As if she could help it that the old ship’s peas became harder the longer they boiled! And oftentimes the water splashed over and killed the fire. She hadn’t known how well things went for her in those days when she prepared food on a stove where the kettles didn’t dance.

After the meal Kristina picked up her knitting and went on deck, as was her habit in calm weather. Little Harald was asleep in the bunk-pen, and Johan and Lill-Märta were playing up here with other children. Karl Oskar watched to see that they didn’t climb the rail. Lill-Märta had—God be praised—thrown off her cold, and the other two children were hale and hearty.

It was a blessing she had taken along her knitting needles and some balls of woolen yarn—now she had something with which to while away the time on the ship; her hands were not happy when still.

Now, as Kristina sat there knitting, she discovered a small speck on the sock, a grayish yellow something on the white wool. She picked it up between her thumb and forefinger, and placed it in the flat of her hand and looked at it. She sat there and stared at it. She could not be mistaken—the speck moved, the speck moved about in the palm of her hand.

There was no doubt about it: she had in her hand a big, fat, proud, body louse.

While her eyes followed the little animal that moved so valiantly across her hand her anger rose within her. Lice! Big, fat, body lice! And now she recalled that she had felt a peculiar itch the last few days.

With the thumb of her other hand she quickly killed the creeping creature. Then she rushed down into the hold, to her bunk, where she stripped to the skin.

All her garments were filled with lice. They were in her vest and in her petticoat, she discovered them in every seam and hiding place of her woolen clothing—the living, gray-yellow little specks were crawling all over the warm, soft, woolly cloth. And the pleats and creases were filled with nits. In the armholes of her vest there were veritable nests of them. And as she stood there naked she could see in the poor light that her body was covered with small red spots—her shoulders, stomach, and chest were dotted with louse-bites. She had felt some pricking and itching, but in the dim light when she dressed and undressed mornings and evenings she had not seen the disgusting marks.

Kristina sank down on her mattress and broke out crying.

Karl Oskar wondered why his wife had left the deck so suddenly. He went after her and found her lying there naked. Was she sick?

She turned away her face and sobbed: “I’m full of lice! Body lice! Oh, Lord my God in heaven!”

He stood there, awkwardly, and stared at her.

“Don’t look at me! It’s horrible!” She pulled the bedcover over her. “Such a disgrace!”

“But, Kristina dear, we have never had vermin.”

“No—I’ve always kept us clean. The children and all of us—you know that. And then I come here—to sea, to get filled with lice!”

“But, dear sweet, don’t cry!”

He had not seen her cry since the night before they left their home, she had been in good and even temper until now.

She cried out between her sobs: she had never in her life had a louse on her body. Once only, when very little and going to school, she had picked up a head louse from one of the children, but her mother had immediately cleaned her with a fine-tooth comb. And her own children had always been kept clean, she had taken pride in it—even though head lice in children weren’t actually considered vermin.

“It’s an eternal disgrace!”

In her parents’ home it had been instilled in her that it was disgraceful for people to have vermin. Only bad people—tramps and whores—bred vermin on their bodies. Vermin on the body were the outward sign of a person’s soul and disposition: lice made their nests on lazy, indolent, and dishonest people. Vermin did not feel at home with industrious, honest, decent people, and the absence of them was their mark of honor. Kristina felt dishonored and debased.

Karl Oskar tried to comfort her: she mustn’t take it so hard, she herself had not bred lice on her body, she had received them from somebody on board. The vermin were not her disgrace, they were the disgrace of some fellow passenger. There must be someone here in the family compartment who had brought the lice along with him. And the unpleasant creatures spawned and multiplied very fast. A night-old louse was already a grandmother.

Karl Oskar looked at the bed-pen next to them, where the old couple from Öland slept, Måns Jakob and Fina-Kajsa—perhaps Kristina’s next neighbors were the guilty ones. He had definitely heard that the people on Öland had more lice than those living on the mainland.

As he was about to confide his suspicions to Kristina, Inga-Lena and Ulrika of Västergöhl came down from the galley with their noon meal in their baskets and crocks. Inga-Lena noticed that Kristina had bloodshot eyes, and she approached helpfully to ask how things were.

But Kristina’s eyes fell on Ulrika: there—on the other side of the hanging, at the foot of her own bunk—there that woman and her daughter had their sleeping place. It was not a foot’s distance between Ulrika’s mattress and her own, and the opening between the hanging and the wall was an inch wide—that was the easiest way for the vermin to get through, there they could march through unhindered and carry each other on their backs.

Without hesitation, Kristina shouted to Ulrika: “It’s you! No one but you, you old whore! You have infested us all with lice!”

“Kristina!” Karl Oskar cried out in warning. But it was too late.

His young wife went on: “It’s you, you slut! You always had your louse-nest in Västergöhl. All men running after you spread your vermin over the parish. Now you have infested the ship with lice! And you are on your way to infest all of America, too.”

Kristina’s eyes were flaming. But the accusation she threw at Ulrika was only part of what she felt. She had long endured biting words from that woman, now she shook with suppressed hatred—the decent woman’s hatred for the harlot.

Ulrika winced and narrowed her eyes till they seemed like small, white, gleaming slits. Those who knew her would have understood: she would not be easy to deal with now.

But she did not answer Kristina directly, she turned first to Karl Oskar: “So that’s it—your wife brought along her lice from her home? I guess they didn’t want to part from so fine a woman!”

“Be quiet now, Ulrika!” he said harshly.

“You would do better to admonish your wife!” And Ulrika’s eyes narrowed still further, and her mouth twisted in a grimace as was its habit when it spat fury.

“She must take back her accusation! This moment! I’ll go up and get Danjel!”

She ran up on deck.

“Now you have started something,” said Karl Oskar with concern.

Kristina had stopped crying. A sudden fearlessness came over her, as if she had made a decision. “I called her whore and slut. Those are her right names. I take back nothing!”

“But here we must let bygones be bygones. We must be friends as long as we share our journey to America.”

“I have not asked to be in the company of that woman!”

Ulrika returned with Danjel Andreasson at her side.

“Now we will hold our reckoning, Kristina of Korpamoen!”

And as she went on her voice rose to a shout: “Kristina accuses me of having infested the ship with lice! She accuses me of having vermin! She has derided Christ’s body and His pure, innocent lamb!”

Most of the passengers were on deck, but those in their bunks came near to listen to the commotion. Karl Oskar looked at Danjel, appealing for his intercession.

“Let there be peace among you, women!” said Danjel beseechingly.

“She accuses me when she herself is full of lice!” cried Ulrika. “I want her to ask my pardon on her bare knees!”

“Bend my knees to you?” exclaimed Kristina in uttermost contempt.

“You must ask Christ’s body for forgiveness!”

“I would rather kneel to the devil himself!”

“Do you hear, Danjel? She blasphemes!”

“Be calm, dear sweet ones! Keep quiet, both of you,” entreated Danjel persuasively. “We all wander together on the same road and the Holy Writ says: ‘Quarrel not on the road.’ “

The peasant from Kärragärde looked on the two enraged women with compassion, his eyes wandered from his sister’s daughter to his sister in Christ, and his eyes were even more entreating than his words.

“She must take it back!” shouted Ulrika furiously.

And she turned to Danjel and went on. She, Ulrika, was innocent. As sure as the Lord lived on high, she had never seen a louse on her body since she could remember. In the old days while she still lived in her old, sinful body, she might at times have found something crawling that had lost its way in her underwear, for lice did feel at home in woolen underwear. But since she had been reborn through her faith in Christ she had been clean and free of lice. And he, Danjel, must know this better than anyone else, he must know that no vermin would cling to Christ’s body. He must know that neither Christ nor any of His disciples had lice while they walked here on earth—possibly with the exception of Judas, the betrayer, she could not answer for him, he was no doubt a vermin-infested shit-heel. But lice could live and thrive only on an old, sinful, rotten body—not on God’s pure, innocent lamb.

And Ulrika began to unbutton her blouse. “I shall strip to the skin! No one will find a single louse on
me
!”

“Have you no decency?” Kristina’s face flushed red. “You disgrace all womanhood!”

“You have accused me! Anyone who wants to can look for himself!”

Her bare, full breasts were uncovered as she unbuttoned her bodice. Karl Oskar turned away, a little irritated that the sight of the white breasts somewhat disturbed him.

Ulrika would have undressed and bared her whole body if Danjel had not taken her by the arm and dissuaded her. He now spoke to her about a Christian’s true behavior in the presence of worldly people. He warned her of the dangerous temptation of vanity which might entice her to show her body, a wonder of God’s handiwork, which she must not use for the purpose of arousing sinful desires in menfolk.

“But I must clear myself!” insisted Ulrika. “Inga-Lena must examine my clothes—she must be an unbiased witness for me. Come and look, Inga-Lena!”

Ulrika and Inga-Lena withdrew behind the hanging to the unmarried women’s compartment. In there, on the other side of the sailcloth, Ulrika completed her undressing.

After a short moment the two women returned. In Ulrika’s gleaming face one could immediately read the result of the inspection.