The Emigrants (51 page)

Lill-Märta was satisfied at times, and kept silent, but never Johan: “Shall we always live on the ship, Mother?”

“No, not after we get there.”

“Shall we never live in a house any more?”

“We shall live in a house in America.”

“Is it true, Mother?”

“It is true.”

“I want to live in a house soon.”

“So you shall, if you keep quiet.”

“In a house like the one we slept in at home?”

“In such a one.”

“Where is that house, Mother?”

“We shall see, when we arrive.”

“Is it sure we are to live there?”

“It is sure. Father will build one. Now, keep quiet, boy, otherwise you’ll always have to stay on this ship.”

At times Kristina thought that maybe it wasn’t right to silence the children with promises. What did she know about their new home in North America? Exactly as much as the children! What she knew for sure was that they owned not the smallest patch of ground over there, had not the smallest corner of their own, not the poorest earth hut they could call home. Not the most humble shed awaited them, not the most wretched shelter could they move into. When Karl Oskar and she had set up housekeeping last time they had been able to begin in a well-established home where furniture and household gear awaited them. The second time they were to set up housekeeping they must do so in a foreign country, and they must begin from the very ground, with nothing. She dared not think of the settling that awaited them: they had not a single nail for their walls, not a board for flooring, not a shingle for their roof. When they landed in North America, nothing would be ready for them—no table set, no bed made. They had no bench to sit on, nothing on which to rest their heads. This was the only thing she knew. And as she understood it, they were to travel far away into the wilderness to seek their new home. There, she assumed, they must sit on one stone in the woods and eat from another (if they had any food), and they must sleep on a bolster of moss with spruce bows for a covering.

She did not wish to speak with Karl Oskar about this their second setting up of housekeeping; he would only be annoyed by it. He had promised her nothing. What could he promise? But she could think herself, she could imagine how it would be.

They were to begin from the very beginning—as people at home had begun thousands of years ago; they must live with the earth the way the very first tiller and his wife had done.

—2—

There had been nineteen children on board the brig
Charlotta
when she left Karlshamn. But two small canvas bundles had been lowered into the ocean from her deck: one one-year-old boy had died with the whooping cough, one five-year-old girl in ship’s fever. The seventeen children surviving now were considered in good health.

Danjel’s and Inga-Lena’s last-born, little Eva, had been so ill that everyone thought she was going to die. But God let the parents keep their child, she had now gained strength and was completely well. Danjel thought a miracle had taken place, as their daughter had been suffering a much more severe illness than the two who had died.

But the girl was hardly well before the mother sickened. When the seasickness had left Inga-Lena she was often seized by a great dizziness and headache. While she was cooking or attending to heavy chores she would have spells of fainting; then she must go and lie down for a time. Early in the voyage she had suffered from hard bowels—now things had changed and she must run to the roundhouse on the fore-deck at all hours of the day and night. This went on week after week, and no one could have loose bowels such a long time without becoming exceedingly weak and worn out. Now there was blood in her stool, too, and this worried her a great deal.

Inga-Lena did not like to complain, but now she confided in Kristina: maybe she wasn’t quite well. She had prayed God particularly for help against the bloody stool, which frightened her, but she had as yet received no answer to her prayers. Perhaps she had caught the ship-sickness, or what did Kristina think?

During the whole voyage Kristina had felt sorry for her Uncle Danjel’s wife: Inga-Lena never gave herself any rest, but always waited on her husband and children, seeing to it that they had their food regularly and that their clothes were in order. Always she busied herself with something. Inga-Lena was like a ship at sail on the sea, she was in motion every moment. This must not go on, she had become gaunt, worn to the bone. Sometimes she could scarcely walk, she staggered as if every step were her last.

Kristina said that she should go to bed; Danjel must take over her chores.

Inga-Lena looked confounded. “Danjel mustn’t know! He mustn’t know that I am ailing.”

“Why not?”

“He has enough troubles of his own, poor man!”

“But he is well.”

“No-o.” Inga-Lena lowered her voice: “He has sufferings of his own. He must make peace with God.”

“Oh. But he could be useful all the same,” said Kristina. “He doesn’t need to pray every minute.”

“He won’t suffer worldly things. And now he must make all right for himself with the Lord.”

And Inga-Lena spoke almost in a whisper: Kristina must not repeat it to anyone, but her husband had confessed to her that he had committed a great sin, the greatest one of all: he had fallen into the temptation of spiritual vanity by thinking himself free of sin, that he had once and for all been forgiven by Christ, that he could sin no more because he believed in the Saviour. He had held himself righteous, and felt above the law. But then one day God had undressed him, unto his naked soul, and shown him what it looked like; he had been dragged down in seasickness among sinners and the unredeemed. Since then he was much changed.

Danjel had said that he had received a severe box on the ear from the Lord because of his vanity and self-righteousness; now he walked about dazed from that box. He had reproached others because they were doubters; now he asked forgiveness from all of them. He had asked Inga-Lena’s forgiveness although he had done nothing but good to her.

Her dear husband had previously held himself better than other sinners, now he considered himself lower. He had told Inga-Lena that there was only one righteous person on the whole ship, and that was Ulrika of Västergöhl. She had gone free of the vermin, and she had escaped seasickness. She was chosen. A hundred times was she guilty of whoredom—yet she was chosen by the Lord.

And for the sake of this one righteous person, for Ulrika’s sake, said Danjel, the Lord had buoyed up their ship in the horrible tempest and saved them all from drowning; all of them had the Glad One to thank for their lives.

“That’s a lie!” exclaimed Kristina excitedly. “I’ll never believe it! That woman isn’t a bit holier than the rest of us!”

“Don’t repeat what I have said,” begged Inga-Lena. “Say nothing to Danjel. And don’t tell him I’m ailing. Please, promise me!”

Kristina found she must give this promise. But how much she would have liked to tell the truth to her uncle. Don’t you realize your wife is killing herself here at sea? God can never have meant her to give up her health in order for you to escape worldly cares. Doesn’t God, on the contrary, require a wedded husband to be kind to his wife, and assist her when she is sick? And if you have your senses and your eyesight, you must understand that your wife is very ill!

But the strange thing was that she would have been unable to speak reproachfully to her Uncle Danjel. In the presence of this man with the kind eyes one could not use hard words. There was something in his look that calmed one’s mind and created reverence. When he bent his knees and prayed, an illumination came over his face—even if he kneeled in vomit on the floor. He sometimes acted foolish, but all hesitated to make fun of him. Kristina could not understand why it was so difficult to reproach him. Perhaps he
was
nearer to God than other mortals—perhaps it was this she was aware of.

The fact remained, however, that his wife was killing herself, without his noticing it. Inga-Lena was like a domesticated animal that follows its master. According to the catechism a wife must be subject to her husband—but did God mean that she was
absolutely obliged and forced to follow him
when he dragged her out to sea?

Kristina was not sure of this.

—3—

Karl Oskar remained sound and healthy in his body, while at sea, but the prolonged stay in their narrow quarters was depressing to his mind. When he began life anew on another continent he would need an undaunted spirit, and now he was not as he used to be on land. He went about worrying over the future, and this he had never done before. Then, there was a certain something lacking physically: not once during their whole voyage had he been able to satisfy himself with his wife. This was due to bad luck. While Kristina still was well, he had had to sleep with the unmarried men; and when later he had moved to the other side of the sailcloth, she had been ill. As she still remained weak, he could not ask for her.

Ever since his marriage, his satisfaction with his wife had been a habit with him. When he could no longer follow this habit a restlessness and irritation crept into his body, his temper became uneven and his sleep was not restful. There was something missing, and his thoughts were drawn to it—to that missing something. When he could satisfy himself with Kristina he seldom thought of other women—they did not concern him. Now, during his continence, they aroused him so often that he felt annoyed and ashamed. But why must he feel ashamed over this? It was only as it should be: he missed what he couldn’t get. It was only natural that a healthy man should enjoy a woman; the situation here on the ship was unnatural.

Nor did Karl Oskar have enough to do at sea. He had time to brood and to wonder. He went about and thought of that which he must be without. The times he and his wife had enjoyed themselves together came back easily to his mind, and this tortured him. It didn’t happen to him by intention, he tried to shake off such thoughts; he had other things to think about, now, in the midst of the greatest move in his life. But there he went again, thinking of their bed-pleasure, and again he felt ashamed: what was the matter with him? He should be able to get along without it for a while. This must be something that happened often to many men. Why was it so painful to him? Was his lust stronger than other men’s? Here he fought it now, it was his own particular ship-sickness. And he knew for sure—in the long run, he could not survive without a woman.

One night Karl Oskar dreamed that he went in to the unmarried women—to Ulrika of Västergöhl, and used her.

He awakened and felt ashamed of his dream; his thoughts had carried him as far as to the Glad One, the infamous whore, where more than a hundred men had been before! He had been asleep during the act, of course, but it still surprised and shocked him. Though a deed in his sleep, it was nevertheless a shameful one.

He wondered if, while awake, he ever would go in to Ulrika. If he must deny himself and go without long enough, perhaps he might. He wasn’t quite sure. He
had
looked at her sometimes, and felt that something about her tempted him. Her body was unusually well preserved, and men were often aroused in her presence. But enough sense surely must remain in his head to keep him away from such a woman. And he began to agree with Kristina: as soon as they landed in America they must separate themselves from the Glad One. Kristina could never make friends with the old whore. If they remained in her company, sooner or later some misfortune was likely to happen.

There was no way of telling how soon he and his wife could live together again as a healthy, happy couple. Kristina complained of new ailments: her limbs and joints ached, she had pains in the small of her back. It was very strange that she, still so young, had joint- and limb-ache, like an old woman. At times she was seized by chills, she said they felt like ice-cold runnels of water over her whole body. This ailment could not be caused by the sea, because she had it both in stormy weather and when it was perfectly calm. She always felt cold—even when she sat on deck in the sun, chills would overtake her. She felt as if all the blood within her had cooled off and could warm her no more. And then there was the pressure in her chest, which interfered with her breathing, and the weakness and fatigue that never left her.

In all her life Kristina had never been sick in bed, except in childbed; but now she was sick.

Her illness was accompanied by “the great laziness,” as the old people called it—one of the worst of vices. She did not wish to move, she did not wish to use her arms or legs, to walk or to stand; she didn’t want to perform her duties and chores. It was a great effort for her to prepare a meal, it was an effort to undress herself and her children, every morning she had to force herself to arise and wash and dress. More and more of the chores she left for Karl Oskar. She began to feel wretched and useless on this voyage. So lazy she had never been before, so little she had never done in a day. It must be the sea that sucked strength from body and mind of land people.

Kristina had emptied two bottles of medicine which her husband had obtained for her from the captain’s medicine chest. But she only felt weaker afterward.

“You bring a wretched wife with you to America, Karl Oskar,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll only be a burden to you.”

“You’ll get well as soon as you are on land,” he assured her. “It’s just the rotten ship’s fare you can’t stand.”

They received only old salted foods, tainted by the smells of kegs and wooden boxes, tasting of sour barrel bottoms and ancient tubs. They never obtained a drop of milk, never a fresh slice of bread, never a taste of newly churned butter, never a bite of unsalted meat; only food which had been stored away for a long time. Never were they able even to boil a pot of potatoes—potatoes, which more than any other food kept the body in order and gave it its daily and necessary opening. No, Karl Oskar wouldn’t be surprised if every person on the ship were to get sick in the end from the fare they received. He, too, felt somewhat loose and limp in his limbs. And nearly everyone he spoke to complained of the same ailment as Kristina, only she was a little worse than the others. But none seemed to improve, they wouldn’t until they landed and lived and ate as folk ought to live and eat. Life at sea was destructive and unsound for a human being; this, indeed, he had learned.