Northern Lights Trilogy

by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  He knelt before her, crying, his blond curls pressed against her abdomen. Kaatje, still shaking with anger, fought off the urge to place her hand on his head. Soren lapsed into Norwegian as he begged her forgiveness. “Please, Kaatje. Please forgive me. It will be better in America. I promise. Please, please.” His sobs and their native tongue—largely unspoken in their house since they had committed to go to America and had taken up English lessons—tore at her heart in a new way. She had never seen him so completely broken. Everything in her pulled Kaatje toward comforting him. But he was the one who had wronged her! Was this simply a new tactic? Just then, she glimpsed the figure of Laila in the distance as the girl ran over a hill and out of sight. Kaatje pulled at Soren’s hands, wanting only to be away from him.

  But she was too late. His eyes lit up through his tears and he glanced at Kaatje in wonder. She made another half-attempt to wrench free, but her strength seemed to be gone. She had waited so long for the joy of this moment! His large hands wandered over her stomach, searching, clarifying, frantic in their questioning. One more glance into her eyes and all his questions were answered.

  Soren jumped up with a tremendous shout, then reached down to lift her in the air, spinning her around until she felt dizzy. His exuberance melted the edge off her anger. Crazily, a smile edged her lips.

  “Soren, let me down,” she said wearily.

  “Oh, yes, yes,” he said contritely, immediately doing as she bid. “I must be careful with you. With both of you.”

  She glanced away—embarrassed that she was forgiving him yet again—and moved toward the house, but Soren gathered her up into his arms again. Kaatje gave in to the embrace, sorrowfully longing to be reassured, longing for her husband. With her head resting against his chest, the tears flowed while Soren once again promised undying faithfulness.

  “Father, you must let me go,” Tora Anders railed, pacing as her father sat at the breakfast table, serenely drinking his coffee.

  Elsa closed the door of their modest home behind her and remained quiet, listening to her sister and her father rehash an argument that had grown old. It was no use trying to sneak down the hall without disturbing them. From the kitchen, the front entry was visible, and both her father and Tora had glanced over at Elsa.

  “No, Tora. You are sixteen and will do as I bid until you marry and have a good man to look after you. I will not be sending you off alone without proper supervision.”

  “Proper supervision? What is Elsa?” Tora cried, gesturing toward the door and her older sister. “I do not know of anyone more proper than she.” Ah, Elsa thought, hiding a small smile. She has changed tactics. Earlier Tora had tried to get the whole family to go, then to convince their father that she was old enough to handle herself. Now she had given in to the last ploy—that he would entrust her to Elsa’s care, a thought that had previously made her younger sister shudder.

  Quietly, Elsa observed father and daughter. Tora had inherited Papa’s olive skin—and the dark, chestnut hair he once had—as well as large, expressive eyes that often spoke more loudly than words. In her father’s Elsa saw a menacing storm cloud that could always make her turn away. But not Tora.

  “We will not talk of this again, Tora. I have decided.”

  “Decided?” Tora said, her voice high and tight. She stood, placing her hands on her hips. Her skin blanched and her hair, in contrast, seemed to darken to the color of night. She and Elsa shared only one physical characteristic: startlingly blue eyes, inherited from their mother. Now, in anger, they looked like the color of a turbulent sea in winter. “How can you decide? Perhaps I will go anyway, in spite of your decision. What would you think of that?” she challenged, tossing her head.

  Her father stood quickly, bumping his chair over in the process. Even after years of stooping over his drawings, he was a tall man. Yet Tora stood her ground, staring up at him in open defiance. It was at that moment that their mother chose to enter the kitchen and gently edge between the two.

  “Tora, sweetheart,” reasoned Gratia, “I know this is difficult for you. But Elsa is going on to a new life. She must have some time alone with Peder for a bit before she takes on any family responsibility.” Her face took on a merry look. “Besides, she might soon have a baby. She cannot look after you too.”

  “Oh!” Tora said in frustration, her hands balled into white-knuckled fists. “You all treat me as such a child! I will go to America. You will see. One way or the other, I will get there!”

  With that, she edged past her sister and slammed the door behind her.

  Elsa’s mother sighed as her father sat down heavily. “She’s a wonder, that one,” Gratia said, as if commenting on the impish tactics of elves instead of their daughter.

  “Perhaps I should allow her to go and sleep easier at night.” Amund glowered. “Is it my judgment that I should raise three daughters?” he asked, gesticulating toward the ceiling.

  His wife ignored him. “Come,” she said to both him and Elsa, “We must go if we are to make it to church on time. Now where is Carina?”

  “May I drive, Father?” Peder Ramstad asked, gently touching Leif Ramstad’s shoulder.

  Leif turned to regard his son, studying him eye to eye, and then nodded once. He immediately climbed into the elaborate surrey’s second long seat, ducking to avoid the fringed roof, joining his wife, Helga, and their daughter, Burgitte. All were impeccably dressed, as suited a wealthy family in Bergen on a Sunday morning. Peder’s older brother, Garth, heir to the Ramstad shipping fortune, took the front seat beside Peder. “Your last day at home, eh, little brother?” He clapped him on the back as Peder shook the reins, sending the matched span of geldings into a quick trot toward church.

  Behind them was the large family home that bordered the shipyard and faced the North Sea. Peder glanced back at the house, which had been built in the Italianate style after his father had returned from an inspirational trip to Europe. Peder had to laugh when he considered that at home he longed for the sea, and while crossing the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, or elsewhere, his thoughts often pulled him home. At sea, he could mentally trace the low roof and overhanging eaves with decorative brackets, the entrance tower, the round-headed windows with hood moldings, the arcaded porch, and his bedroom on the second floor.

  It was from that bedroom, as a young lad, that he had watched ship after great ship, built and launched from Ramstad Yard, and longed to go on each one. Over the past decade, he had done just that. Now, at twenty-four, he had accomplished his second goal at an uncommonly young age: captaining his own ship. And he had done so by stubbornly refusing a position on any Ramstad ship; never did he want anyone to attribute his success to anything other than hard work and well-deserved rewards. The Herald, a bark-rigged clipper, sat proudly at Bergen’s docks, awaiting those immigrants who would accompany them in two days’ time to America. But the most important passenger would be his wife.

  He smiled as the sweet, warm coastline air filled his nostrils and the surrey glided over the macadam road toward town. She had never left his thoughts, it seemed. Like his childhood home, he was irresistibly drawn to Elsa Anders. In all his years away from Bergen, she had filled his nights with elaborate, fanciful dreams. At sea, facing the doldrums, Peder had filled his days with decisive plans for the future. On the still waters, safely past the Roaring Forties, Peder would stare out to sea and imagine his beloved as a mermaid, her corn-silk hair floating in exotic waves about her sculpted face, her blue eyes matching the water around her, beckoning him to join her. Long ago he had decided he would return to Bergen and claim Elsa as his own. But not until he reached a position of influence. Not until he was captain and could build her a decent home. How he had prayed that her heart would not, in the meantime, favor another!

  Peder had returned as often as he could, signing on for ships with routes that ported at Bergen. And each time he had found Elsa more beautiful, inside and out, than he had remembered her. He had last left her a year prior, p
romising to return for her as captain of his own ship. Others had laughed, but not his beloved Elsa. She had nodded once and said, “I will see you then, my future husband.” The secret had remained theirs until a fortnight past. Then, all of Bergen learned that the captain had returned for his bride.

  Leif’s gruff voice shook Peder from his daydreaming. “You should not be going again, son. You have had your journeys and adventure. Garth could use your experience at sea to our advantage at Ramstad Yard. Together, as brothers, you could build our company to new heights.”

  Peder glanced at Garth, who met his look. He spoke to his father over his shoulder as he drove. “Garth knows quite enough about running the family business. And as much as I want to run a yard of my own, I believe I must be in America. Father, you should see it—”

  “Pshaw,” his father exclaimed. “What could America have on our Bergen? Here, we have a port over four hundred years old. There, the entire country is barely a hundred. Who can find confidence in a government so young?”

  “Governments come and go, as we have seen here,” Peder said. “But I tell you, I love the democratic constitution of the United States, and I would die to keep her free.” He swallowed hard. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “I want something of my own, Father. I always have. First it was captaining my own ship. Now I will build another Ramstad Yard. In America. I will make you proud, Father, as Garth will continue to make you proud here.”

  Garth clapped Peder on the shoulder with an understanding smile. “I envy you, little brother. Such freedom.”

  Leif groaned from the backseat. “You young men don’t know what you have. When Amund and Gustav and I were at sea, we had to entertain thoughts of how to begin our own yard when we had nothing. You, at least, come from a position of power and money. It is an edge that I envy. Not the freedom.”

  “Yet you are an old man who has had his share of freedom,” piped up Peder’s mother, Helga. She was a strong, stalwart woman who had had much to do with the success of Ramstad Yard. She leaned forward between her boys, a hand on each. “He talks like a big man, but once he had dreams that were as frivolous as a child’s.”

  Leif let out a sound of muted outrage as the rest of the family laughed. At heart, the big man with the tough exterior was as soft as a loving old hen.

  “At least you men have the choice of whether or not to go,” Burgitte joined in. “I think it is most unfair that I must wait for a man to take me away.”

  “Knowing you, Burgitte,” Peder said, smiling, “you will find just the right man to take you exactly where you want to go.”

  “Yes,” Garth said, turning around. “You, baby sister, are as weak and mindless as our dear mother.”

  Returning his smile, Burgitte batted away his hand, which threatened her with a pinch. “So I know my own mind. Is that a sin?”

  “Oh no,” Peder said, catching sight of his bride-to-be in the church courtyard. “On the contrary. It is an attribute.”

  Karl Martensen took the bentwood butter box from his father’s hands and spread the white, creamy mixture over his mother’s fresh-baked rolls. Sonje Martensen finished placing food on the table and passed wise eyes over her son.

  “What is bothering you, child?”

  “Mother, I am not a child. I am a man of twenty-four.”

  His mother continued to study him, and he looked away, knowing that she was memorizing his features as if she would never see him again. All three of the Martensens had ash blond hair and large bones, but it was his father, Gustav, that Karl most resembled. Karl glanced at his father, who was leaning over his plate, silently shoving food into his mouth. It was as if he was looking into the mirror and could see his own reflection thirty years hence. Hopefully his hair would not recede as his father’s had. Gustav’s nose drooped a bit at the end, and his cheeks sagged as if weighted. In contrast, Karl’s mother, who sported her own lines of aging, had pink, rounded cheeks and gentle smile lines at her eyes and mouth. Karl glanced from one to the other. He hoped he would inherit his mother’s lines more than his father’s. I must smile more, he silently reproved himself.

  As if signing on for the effort, he smiled purposefully and said, “Will you always think of me as a boy?”

  “Yes, my son,” Sonje said, leaning over to hold his arm softly. “You age, but so do I. So I will always feel old and you will always feel young.” Her look sobered. “So tell me what is bothering you.”

  A quick image of Elsa Anders burst through his mind. She had stood on the hill of the peninsula as Peder and he had brought the Herald to port. Even at a distance, Karl had recognized her proud stature and golden flying hair, a dark blue cape at her shoulders to guard against the early summer’s evening breeze off the water. Away, he willed the image. Away. Instead he focused on today. “It is … it’s just that …” he cast about for the right words and then urged confidence into his tone. “You see, I have become a Christian.”

  Gustav Martensen looked up at his son for the first time and quit chewing. He dropped his knife noisily on his plate as if in disgust. “No son of mine will be a lousy, two-faced, hypocritical Christian.”

  Karl lifted his chin and did not blink. He stared back at his father, refusing to look away as Gustav had routinely made him do as a child. “I am sorry, Father. I’m afraid I’m a grown man and can do what I wish. And I am sorry the Christian faith fills you with such memories of anger. It is not all about that. It is not all about grandfather and the way he was. You should know that from knowing your Christian friends like Amund and Leif.”

  Gustav stood, trembling with anger. He shook his finger at his son. “You will not disrespect your elders in my home!”

  “I mean no disrespect,” Karl said, wiping his mouth with the rough, cloth napkin and methodically laying it beside his plate. “Thank you for breakfast, Mother. Would you care to join me for church? We’re late, but we can still make it.”

  He glanced at her, but she was seemingly struck mute. He softened his gaze and his tone. “I am sorry, Mother, I should have told you days ago. But it never seemed right. Today is Sunday. The Lord’s day. I should worship.”

  His father glared at him as if he wanted to spit in his face. His features contorted as he struggled to find the right words. “I always lamented having but one son. Now I know why. I risked not having any when my boy defied me.” With that, he walked out, slamming the cottage door behind him.

  Karl closed his eyes. Father, let me understand and love him anyway, he prayed. Reach out to him. Pull at his heart, as you did mine.

  When he opened his eyes again, he met his mother’s soft gaze.

  “I was a Christian once,” she began.

  Elsa watched out of the corner of her eye as the Ramstads arrived in their fancy surrey, noting the luxurious morocco leather and rich satin. Peder’s father, Leif, after years of struggling financially, was given to frequent splurges in style, witnessed by their home and carriage. In comparison, the Anders family had always lived frugally, stepping up to a nicer home as the girls got older, but never living outside of their means. Not that they had the means of the Ramstads—Elsa’s father had always been a partner at Ramstad Yard, but owned no more than 10 percent. What would it be like, as Peder’s wife, to be a part of the Ramstads’ fortune?

  She fingered her long hair nervously, which she had done up on top but left flowing free in back. Seeing Peder, Elsa felt her heart catch and a small shiver run down her back. Tomorrow that handsome, grinning man would be her husband!

  Kaatje Janssen walked up beside her and gave Elsa’s hand a squeeze. Elsa glanced down at her friend and then back to Peder. “Oh, Kaatje, how could I be so blessed?”

  “He is a wonderful man. I am so happy for you, my friend.”

  Something in Kaatje’s voice caught Elsa’s attention. What was it? Sorrow? No, Kaatje wore a small smile, as if she harbored a secret. “What is it, Kaatje?”

  “I have news,” she said, breaking out into a full-fledged grin. “I am exp
ecting.”

  Elsa squealed and pulled her much smaller friend into an embrace. “That is wonderful news! A new life for a new country! Oh, Kaatje, can life get much better? Where is that husband of yours? I must congratulate him!” She glanced around and found Soren, talking animatedly with her sister Tora. Her eyes narrowed, and she glanced guiltily toward Kaatje.

  Kaatje sighed as her smile faded. “There is one other hope I have for America,” she said so softly that Elsa had to bend forward to hear. “It is that my husband will cease to have eyes for anyone but his wife.”

  Elsa felt her intense sorrow and agonized for her. She took Kaatje’s hand. “Perhaps this child is just what he needs. Being a father will make a man out of your husband,” she said. “And maybe a better husband out of the man.”

  Their conversation was cut short by Peder and Garth’s arrival. “There is my sister-in-law to be!” boomed Garth. He nodded to Kaatje in friendly greeting and then took Elsa’s hand in both of his, cocking an eyebrow at his younger brother. “I never thought you would marry first. Nor find favor with a woman I always had an eye on.”

  Elsa felt the slow burn of a flush climb her neck. “Oh, Garth, stop it. You know you never gave me the time of day. You have always thought Carina was the sun and the moon.”

  Garth let her hand go as he searched the churchyard for her older sister. “I do care for her,” he said. “She is simple. Uncomplicated.” He found Carina and his eyes softened.

  Would Carina ever see him? Elsa wondered. Her older sister was always hard to pin down on any subject, let alone love. Perhaps she would grow old as a spinster, living with their parents until they passed on.

  “I believe it is the sense of peace I get around her,” Garth added. “I can see coming home to her at the end of a busy day at the yard and finding a sense of … stillness.”