Last Stories and Other Stories (9780698135482)

by Vollmann, William T.

  The shipping companies’ agents promised easy terms and golden lives to any who would buy their tickets. After all, isn’t gold superior to silver? To be sure, certain crows kept croaking about the Amelia, which departed Porsgrunn Harbor with two hundred and eighty souls, seventy-nine of whom died of sickness. But some of her survivors came out rather well. One family even bought a piano, in a place called Minnesota. Although not all emigrants could expect that, they stood a fine chance of doing worse at home. Even the Rosenkilde family, it was said, was suffering: they now ate red meat but thrice a week.

  2

  Many Stavanger emigrants signed up with Mr. Køhler, his family having dwelled thereabouts since the Late Bronze Age, which rendered him nearly trustworthy and his passengers nothing if not civically patriotic. But not all were satisfied in the end. The ones who got buried at sea declined to complain, but their widowers and orphans wrote home that America had cost them twelve weeks belowdecks in a stinking prison of verminous, vomitous bunks, scuttles locked tight and not even enough water to drink—never mind the thieves in Liverpool and the road agents in New York.

  So when Øistein Pederson and his wife Kristina prepared to make the adventure, they wondered whether Mr. Køhler’s competitors might be any better. Kristina had already been dismissed from the cannery, for slackness, so the foreman said, but to her husband she tearfully swore before God that she had never for a moment slowed down; even between fish-barrels she kept on, cleaning the floor or sharpening the gutting-knives, nor had there been complaints about her. Øistein believed his spouse, who was honest in all things; moreover, the factory immediately took in a horde of hungry young Swedish girls who worked for less. A week later they hired her at Magnussen’s, and it seemed as if they could live as before, weary over their bowls of soup on the narrow wooden table, so early it was still dark, a sheen of her gold hair reflected like aurora borealis on the dark frosted window. Then Magnussen’s closed.

  Øistein was a cooper. For three months they got along on his earnings, but the canneries ordered ever fewer barrels, so he and Kristina began to quarrel. On a certain cold night, Øistein slept badly, awoke in a fever, and because the room was so close and squalid, he fancied himself already dead, trapped in the cold black earth, open-eyed, blind, unable to catch his breath. What could he do but suffer forever? Of course he had simply lost himself beneath the bedclothes. With a gasp he threw them off, disturbing Kristina, and gave thanks when he saw her shape in the pallid nightdress. Although he kept this experience to himself, it changed him. In brief, he conceived a horror of rotting away in Stavanger.

  Come to think of it, horror of constriction might have been his very nature’s foundation-stone. When he was a boy of five or six, his mother, who once saw it, told him how the great stele of Saint Mary’s needle leans ever closer to Haakon’s church; some believe that when they touch, Doomsday will arrive. Of all the children, Øistein was the only one affected by this tale. He could almost imagine himself caught in that inevitable evil hour—pinched, chilled and crushed. Seeing how readily he grew disturbed over nothing, his father realized that the child had too much time on his hands, and set him to the most wearisome tasks of coopering, which he soon mastered, after which nobody could find any fancies of which to disapprove in that quietly straightforward young man. Kristina’s father, and perhaps even Kristina, would have been surprised to know what sort of person had joined their family. Naturally, they themselves might have presented a few astonishments to Øistein, had there ever come time to get to know each other in that way.

  After his nightmare, he asked himself: If the herring never come back, what’s the best we can expect?— The answer untricked his mind.

  To say that Kristina and Øistein loved each other conveys less than I would wish, for doesn’t marriage often commence with some kind of love? After three years their passion had not waned to nothing; but it had lessened, for a fact. On the other hand, they had learned how to be loyal helpmates each to the other. Øistein thought matters through, from his wife’s point of view and his own. If there was no money then there would be more quarrels, in which case the chance of their remaining true friends appeared as unlikely as a happy ending to one of those tales which begin with a pretty girl luring a man into the churchyard. Anyhow, even if the old plenitude returned, why should Kristina spend herself in gutting herring by candlelight? Sometimes when they lay down together he could barely endure the smell.

  His father-in-law, that gaunt and bearded believer, had stood against emigration, but on one of those dark mornings he lost his capacity to wake up, so they buried him beside Kristina’s mother and began to consider in earnest. Now was the time. Øistein’s parents were already dead. No children had come yet; they retained a sack of coin from better days; as to their future, the landlord had increased the rent, and next month would bring three more boarders into that tiny house.

  It was Sunday. When they all got home from church, two of the other tenants commenced disagreeing over a pair of boots, while Øistein stood watching raindrops on the window, the harbor trembling, reflections of red, white and yellow edifices barely pinkening or blueing the water. Then he opened his heart to Kristina, who said: I’ll do whatever you think best.

  He loved his wife’s hair. In America, perhaps, she might not be compelled to kerchief her face against the stinging herring-brine. Then he could admire it every day. One could breathe in America, it was said. There was cheap good land, and the taxes were low.

  Bypassing Mr. Køhler’s, they went to Mr. Kielland’s cousin Nils, who ran a clean business, everyone said. His passengers tended to be rich, but Øistein hoped that a berth in steerage might not be too dear. So the Pedersons awaited their turn, gripping the railing-narrow counter while the officials sat far away around their square wooden island of a desk-table, writing in their ledgers, counting money received and placing it in envelopes, never opening their tall black safe before the public. Some of these men Øistein had seen across the nave on Sunday, and some he had never met before; they looked nearly as grand as the Rosenkildes.

  Finally the Pedersons stood before the high clerk, who asked what they wanted. From his tone they could have been unemployable Pietists. Looking him in the eye, Øistein demanded his cheapest price to America.

  America, now, that’s a wide place. Where in America?

  New York.

  We sail only to Québec nowadays.

  Then you could have said so at the beginning, sir.

  Good luck to you. Next!

  How much to Québec?

  For two?

  That’s right.

  The man wrote down a number on a scrap of paper. Øistein led his wife out of that office, passing framed etchings of sailing ships and frowning rich men.

  3

  Fortunately, Kristina’s aunt had been watching out for them. She said that there was nothing as easy to keep an eye on as that raven-suited agent who rushed so busily across the winding walls of white houses. He usually flittered by in mid-morning, when women had given up standing outside the canneries. The next day the Pedersons stood waiting for him, and here he came.

  In his black suit he reminded Øistein of the dark narrow column of a mink standing up, its little hands dangling against its breast. Under his throat he wore a high white collar, whose clasp was a ruby-eyed herring cast out of pure silver.

  He extended his hand, but Øistein stepped back.

  So it’s America you’d go to?

  Frowning, the young man nodded.

  I’ll quote you a fine price!

  What price?

  Whatever others charge, Captain Gull will be less. Just bring a bill for proof.

  Where is he?

  This way.

  That’s not to the harbor! Øistein exclaimed.

  It is, it is! A short passage! laughed the sailing-ship agent.

  Following him up that steep lane
whose twistings were nearly stifled by hordes of square-windowed wooden houses which watched every passerby like standing stones, they unaccountably found themselves back at the docks. Little single-masted vessels scuttled in and out of the Vågen, quick to tie up at their favorite warehouse before someone else could. The agent led them past the line of weary women in the salty stench of the herring wharves, some of whom tried to smile at Kristina, and just past Eystein’s warehouse they arrived at a door in a small warehouse. Naturally they were subjected to no passenger ship office, and certainly not to any clock with Chinese figures on its towering plinth, let alone some white door marked PRIVAT. This went far to explain why it might have been that the instant they saw Captain Gull, they liked him, although, come to think of it, this was unaccountable, for Øistein partook of a distrustful nature. With a name like that,* the fellow should have been a German goldsmith with six pink, roundcheeked children. As it was, he gave off a prosperous enough impression: narrow spectacles, fine white hair with a few strands of red still in it. His breath was scarcely beery at all.

  Two more for America! said the agent.

  Kristina wished to know how long the voyage would last.— Not above three weeks, said Captain Gull.

  Impossible!

  Not at all. Given fine weather it will be even less. You see, I’ve found a short passage.

  Kristina was smiling. Alarmed, her husband took her hand, which even now remained blotched and inflamed from herring-brine.

  Captain Gull was explaining that this shorter route to America had been worked out long ago. It was the way that Leif Eiriksson had revealed to no one, not even the ill-fated Vinland voyagers, who were his own kin; Captain Gull had followed up certain hints in the sagas, and claimed it for himself.— And you must promise to keep my secret, he continued.

  He took them down to see the Hyndla. She was a pretty enough vessel, white, black and green. Øistein tapped his forefinger on the railing. Smiling, the agent said: Sound ship-wood—straight from the Ryfylke forest! And look here; this is interesting.

  Her bowsprit was as impressive as an iron spear—for walrus hunting, chuckled Captain Gull.

  We’ll think on this, said Øistein, to which the agent replied: Don’t think too long, Mr. Pederson. We have only half a dozen berths left.

  In steerage?

  They’re all in steerage.

  What’s the price? And this time I want a figure.

  Smiling, Captain Gull turned away. The agent murmured. It truly was unbelievably good.

  Oho, said the agent. Three more emigrants coming! Excuse me now; perhaps I’ll see you again.

  After a glance at his anxious eager wife, Øistein said: We’ll book our passage now.

  Kristina’s face was as shiny as her best possession, the brass teakettle that her mother had bequeathed to her.

  4

  Buying dried foodstuffs for the voyage at Mr. Kielland’s store, Kristina felt even happier than she had been when Øistein first came courting. She laid in potatoes, flatbread, jugs of soured milk—and salted herring, of course; there was still a supply of it. In America, where food was cheap, she might be spared from eating that fish anymore. She bought plugs of tobacco for her husband, and a few onions against scurvy. Receiving Mr. Kielland’s permission, the apprentice loaded the wagon and took her home with all her groceries.— Write us a letter if you get time, he said. Kristina thanked him, knowing that he would pray for her.

  Her cousin Eyvind reached into his sailmaker’s horn full of needles, and pulled out an awl which could pierce through anything. He gave it to her with a prayer and a kiss on the forehead.

  Meanwhile her husband was packing up his trunk: wool mittens made by his sister, a striped white shirt, a cap, oilskin trousers and jacket, linens, a bit of rope, then all the farm tools the relatives could spare. How long he and Kristina could manage in America without work was as tedious to calculate as the number of green herring to fill a barrel. The uncertainties of the passage disquieted him, but after all, no man can see down deeply into the future. They had made their agreement and must be content. At least the voyage would be brief; moreover, his wife was too strong and good to complain.

  On the last day, standing side by side, the Pedersons overlooked the few sailing-ships in the Vågen; and devouring the chilly breeze, which was purer by far than the air in most port cities, the water streaming blue and grey, they promised to be brave and true to each other. Half a dozen undermanned herring-boats were heading out to sea in hopes that the silver wealth might have come back; they went slowly, slowly sailing, their brass bells faintly ringing.

  5

  And so the emigrants ascended the gangway, Øistein and Kristina and all the other young women with their white collars buttoned up to the throat, stern old men, wide-eyed children, all the families leaving behind their white-painted wooden houses, disconsolate fishermen altered into hopeful farmers, butterwives who’d sold their fat sweet cows for next to nothing (the buyers being apprised of their circumstances), beneficiaries of the short passage on the pretty ship Hyndla, bound for Québec, the leavetakers’ view of them interrupted by many tall cables. Among them stood Kristina’s Aunt Liv in her lace shawl and collar, sternly seeing them off, and at the last sadly bending her head like a good cow before the axe. Øistein hastened into steerage to guard their place and possessions. The smell was nauseating, but he could certainly get used to it. Glancing around him, he found that he knew no one except for Reverend Johansen, who had intended to leave last spring but stayed to care for his mother in her final illness. Well, there were so many families in the narrow white houses of Stavanger! And from the sound of their speech, some people must be from Hjelmeland or Suldal. The reverend and Øistein nodded to one another. Kristina would be pleased. When she came down, her husband pushed his way back onto the foredeck, ostensibly to wave farewell to Aunt Liv and Cousin Eyvind. He looked down and saw a fish skeleton hanging complete just beneath the surface of the oily harbor. Swans, gulls and pigeons bickered on the pier, the coy sun gilding the cobblestones for an instant. The young man now gazed across the water and up the street, into the house where he and Kristina had lived. Øistein had always been remarkable for his eyesight, and so he made no mistake when he perceived how upstairs the windows parted, and in the widening column of darkness between the pairs of triple panes, a pallid face, never before seen, gaped its mouth at him. But two other men jostled him, and he swung round, ready to defend himself if need be; the men apologized, and they all agreed that three weeks belowdecks would be superior to attic-dwelling forever in Stavanger. Cousin Eyvind waved his hat at Øistein and went away. Aunt Liv sought to make herself conspicuous for that instant, but the crowd half crushed her. She too used to stand in the sheds with her hands buried in the silver hoard of herring. And before anyone expected it, the Hyndla was underway, the glamor of separation now gracing those tiny, narrow white houses which shone so softly through the beech trees.

  6

  At first the instants of their voyage were distinct, like mackerel-bubbles in dark seaweed at dawn. Kristina told herself that she must never forget this creamy dawn sea so black and orange around those low Norwegian islands which resembled translucent flints knapped and polished down by giants. Øistein held her hand. Once they reached America, they might not find such leisure again, at least not until they were old. The water seemed viscous, and the red sun-shield shone over the islands. All day they sped toward the short passage, which Captain Gull had explained was a trifle narrow in spots, this being the reason he had not replaced the Hyndla with a larger ship (doubtless, thought Øistein, the true reason must be that Captain Gull lacked the means—and thank goodness for that, since otherwise he would have increased the fare, perhaps even up to Nils Kielland’s price). It was peculiar, to be sure, the way they kept on following the coast northward, when America lay to the west; but no doubt the master knew what he was about. There came another dawn t
o the black sea, the ship foaming through ribbons of green-chambered white lace on either side; and still the ship lay never so far off the coast as to be out of soundings. By now several children had vomited, making the stench of dirty feet and fish-oil even less pleasant, but Kristina reminded herself that she was not some rich girl who can afford to get queasy in her stomach from a surfeit of butter. And wasn’t this preferable to the stink of the herring-barrels? She went among those young mothers who wore lovely lace at their throats—attic-sharers, no doubt, from those square-windowed wooden little houses—and tried to be helpful; sometime she might need the same. Then she attempted sitting on the edge of her bunk, but the ceiling was too low. Pulling out her trunk, which had formed a very close acquaintance with three others beneath the bed, she seated herself on it and began to knit a pair of socks for her husband, who had gone above in hopes of establishing a business association with some other men. Presently she grew melancholy, because somebody was flatulent and the ship tilted nauseously on the rushing grey ocean, with hasty low sunlight glancing unpleasantly into the scuttles, and something unknown to her whistling and piping outside. Kristina was a landswoman; she had never been on a ship before. An icy feeling established itself behind her breastbone, or maybe higher up than that—almost up to her collarbone, in fact, but there and only there, like burning cold metal inside her; she felt that she could not get warm; well, no, it wasn’t just there anymore; her wrists were freezing where they emerged from the sleeves; her toes were numb. Just as she had begun to wish they had never set out for America, a shaft of sunlight turned the royal grey water into blue, revealing many forested islets, cormorants and seals. So the weather came and went, in conjunction with her moods, and they approached the short passage, after which every passenger would be compelled to resume the weariness of getting a living.