Deep River

by Karl Marlantes

  “I’m looking for Aksel Långström,” she said.

  “Next to the water”—on of them pointed—“over there.”

  She continued, leaving the faint red light of the dying fire behind, moving again into darkness, only a sphere of lantern light moving along with her, casting quavering shadows. Up ahead, she saw the faint glow of a cigarette. Her pulse quickened. She moved toward it, hope rising. She saw the outline of a tarp lean-to and the figure of a man leaning back against what looked like an upturned rowboat. The man turned to look at her.

  The lantern lit Aksel’s face so that it seemed to glow in contrast with the dark tarp behind it and the night all around. She stood still, looking at that face, for the first time really seeing it. All these years. All these wasted years. And now, this beautiful strong human face she truly saw for the first time.

  “Aino?” Aksel asked.

  Aino held the lantern to her face. She felt the tears streaming down her cheeks as he rose to his feet. She put the lantern on the ground and ran to him, squeezing him against her, and all she could do was say his name over and over again and, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” kissing that face everywhere until he stopped her by putting his hands on her head and holding her still and kissing her long and slow and so tender.

  17

  Aksel moved back to his room at the poikataloja. That summer was the best summer for years. The northwest wind blew steadily and the sky was clear. There were even a few days when the temperature soared to the mideighties. Lumber prices were also soaring. Matti had his crews on overtime, something new in an industry that used to pay by the day. Aksel and the Bachelor Boys were making money. Matti was making a lot of money. He invested it in the stock market and timber. The sawmills and plywood mills all along the river ran shifts into the night; darkness was no longer even the slightest impediment to production, because of electric lights. The salmon run was strong, although not as strong now as a quarter of a century earlier, but the catch was up because the gill net boats were now powered by internal combustion engines instead of sails. The nets cost less, so they were longer and heavier but could now be handled, along with all the fish in them, by the newly powered boats. The canneries hummed with the sound of conveyor belts and hundreds of women cutting the fish, packing the pieces into cans, and chattering as they worked at the long cutting tables.

  Aksel came home exhausted but content. Every morning he arrived at work and the smell of the forest made the air sweet. The days were filled with problems of rigging and yarding and the contentment of working with a crew that was savvy and strong and could develop wild satires the equal of any comedian’s on the vaudeville circuit.

  And he could come home to Aino. He remembered watching her with longing as she worked in the dining hall of Reder’s Camp. Now, as he watched her working, his only longing was to get her alone, just the two of them. And that longing was fulfilled every night but never by sex. They would talk—sometimes in his room, sometimes in her basement apartment—and occasionally touch or kiss, but that was where it stopped.

  Aino, despite an occasional crack about free love and the idiocy of marriage in earlier days, deep down never really believed what she was saying. Her single indiscretion with Joe Hillström had left her feeling flat and used, not only costing her job but also bringing pain to Jouka and the child she loved. She still thought society was cruel and petty; what she had done wasn’t morally wrong. It was, however, psychologically and emotionally wrong—at least for her.

  Aksel, who in his younger days had been with every whore at the Lucky Logger and prostitutes up and down the coast all the way to Nordland, learned the sweetness of love with Lempi. He wanted that sweetness again with Aino. He wondered when he should ask her to marry him and she wondered when he would ask.

  On Saturday nights, they danced at Suomi Hall. Now dances like the Charleston and the Black Bottom mixed in with the schottisches, hambos, and polkas. Then, one Saturday in September brought a new band from Portland, Big John and the Jazz Syncopators. John was reputed to be one of the hottest jazz trumpeters in the Northwest—and people said he was a Finn, which made him even more intriguing. When the musicians walked out from behind the curtains to take up their positions at the bottom of the stage, Aino gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. Aksel broke into a broad grin. Taking Aino by the hand, he pulled her willing or not—and about that she wasn’t sure—but suddenly here she was, holding Aksel’s left hand while Aksel shook Jouka’s hand with his right.

  She looked into Jouka’s eyes and was flooded with memories of dances at the Knappton net shed. There was no bitterness in his eyes. He seemed genuinely glad to see them both.

  “Hello, Aino,” he said in English. “How are you? How’s Eleanor?”

  “I’m fine.” She squeezed Aksel’s hand. “We’re fine,” she went on in Finnish. “She’s good, too. I see her most weekends. She’s with Ilmari and Alma right now.”

  Jouka nodded with a wistful smile. He turned to Aksel, staying in Finnish. “You fishing yet?”

  Aksel shook his head no. “Not yet. Had the money. Lost it.”

  “How?”

  “Long story. Better told elsewhere.”

  Jouka nodded knowingly.

  “Working for Matti,” Aksel said.

  “How is he?”

  “Same as ever. Logging. Making good money.”

  “Times are good,” Jouka said. He began to touch the valves on the trumpet, impatient to start. It was then Aino noticed that his left hand was crushed and missing three fingers. She gasped.

  Jouka looked at her and then at his arm, which he raised, as if it no longer belonged to him. “Yeah, hurt it on a show down by Roseburg. Stumbled. Reached out to catch myself. Caught a moving cable drum instead. Wrapped the hand right up with the cable.” He laughed—the good sport. She winced inwardly with pain.

  Jouka raised the trumpet in his right hand. “Hey—everything for the best, right? You only need three fingers for this thing.”

  Nobody spoke. “Well, gotta go. We owe the brotherhood four hours.”

  She reached out suddenly and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled, moved by the gesture. She smelled the whiskey on his breath.

  Even though Aksel and Aino were a known couple, men constantly asked Aino for a dance—and, having grown to manhood in a time and place where women were scarce, Aksel didn’t mind. Now that women were no longer scarce—at least in the cities and towns—he danced with other women as well and the women, both married and single, were delighted.

  They talked with Jouka again during the break. At the last dance he called out, “And now, a special request. From me.” He turned to the band, counted a three-four cadence, and played “Lördagsvalsen,” his trumpet sweet and clear, filled with joy, sadness, and nostalgia such as only a superb musician could evoke. For most of the people in the room it was a beautiful old-country waltz played on jazz band instruments. For Jouka, it was a blessing given—and for Aino and Aksel, a blessing received.

  They were mostly quiet walking back to the poikataloja, Aksel holding Aino in close to him, both not wanting to spoil the mood set by Jouka’s blessing. The air was autumn crisp. Stars shone brilliantly, the waning moon having set an hour earlier. The Milky Way looked as though a child had splashed light right across the center of the sky. Aksel looked for Arcturus, feeling that he wanted to share his happiness with his star, but Arcturus had set. He turned to find the Big Dipper, found it just about due north, just above the Washington-side hills, and he quickly traced the pointers to find Polaris. Finding it, he turned his gaze back to the electric streetlights, showing yellow puddles that could never rival the sky.

  They ended up lying together on top of Aino’s bed, both clothed, looking at the ceiling. Aksel smoked while he talked until he stubbed it out on a saucer on the floor beside him. The mood had been set for intimacy and sharing.

  “Do you think Jouka will be OK?” Aino asked.

  “He’s still drinking.”

/>   “I know. Sometimes I feel it’s my fault.”

  “Everyone knows he drank before you met him.”

  “Yes. But … him being … You know, out there on his own.”

  “Don’t torture yourself. We all have regrets.”

  “What are yours?” Aino asked. She turned her head to Aksel just as he turned his head to her. This made them both smile with a quiet joy. “You go first,” Aksel said.

  They started small. She would share one and then he’d share one. She felt aglow with the honesty, the openness. Here was a man with whom she could live her life out. She hesitated when she got to Joe Hillström but plunged in. She turned again to see his reaction. He was looking up at the ceiling.

  “You don’t mind?”

  “It’s no secret, Aino,” he said with a sad smile.

  “I guess not,” she mumbled.

  “It’s OK. Hell, I screwed every whore in the Lucky Logger, more than once. A lot more.”

  “Did you ever cheat on Lempi?”

  “Do you wish I had?”

  “In a way,” she sighed. “Well?”

  “I didn’t.”

  That was the answer she wanted to hear but didn’t want to hear. Her guilt was hers alone.

  “What was it about him?” Aksel asked. “There were rumors of you two at the Nordland free-speech fight as well.”

  She had to gather her thoughts.

  “He was just like Voitto: clever, committed to the cause, alive.” She gave a short chortle. “Good-looking.”

  “That was a hard time. Back in the old country.”

  “It was.”

  “You were in Voitto’s cell with my brother, Gunnar.”

  “I was.”

  “Did he die in the raid?” Aksel asked.

  “Gunnar?”

  “Voitto. I know Gunnar’s story.” He swallowed a little nervously. “I know it very well.”

  Now the silence was a waiting silence, a pregnant silence.

  “I think I killed Voitto,” Aino said in a whisper.

  Aksel squeezed her hand, brought it up to his mouth and kissed it, then put it back and looked her in the eyes. “How? How could you have done that?”

  “I was arrested right after the raid.”

  “I know. Matti told me.”

  “Did he tell you they tortured me?”

  “It was only implied.”

  She felt herself starting to tremble. She couldn’t stop it. She felt his grip firm on her hand. The tears were building, like a thousand logs against a splash dam about to be exploded with dynamite.

  She told him every detail.

  Aksel crushed her in his arms, as if protecting her. The sobbing was beyond her control. “I told them the name of the man hiding Voitto. They found him. Oh, God, Aksel. What they must’ve done to him.” He was smothering her face with kisses, wiping her tears gently, and then kissing her again.

  The sobbing stopped. She felt him roll off her and lie back beside her again. They were quiet for a long time.

  Then he said very softly. “I killed my brother, Gunnar.”

  Now she felt him heave slightly. Then she felt a dark premonition, something lurking in the shadows of her intuition, and she didn’t want it to come to light

  “I couldn’t stand the thought that Finnish people, our own aunt, could be killed,” Aksel said. “I found the dynamite. I … I was fourteen. I hit him with a rock. I tied him up and tried to send a note to the Finnish workers.” He looked at her in anguish. “Oh, Aino. I’m so sorry. I had no idea what would happen. To my brother. To you.”

  She gasped as her dark premonition came to light. She moved away from him. He looked at her, his eyes imploring her for something—some forgiveness, some understanding.

  The anger came like the rapids of her name. It caught her like a small twig and she went whirling down the rocks into a chasm. She had loved Aksel. Right up until this moment when he revealed he was the one man she swore she could never forgive.

  He stood. “Aino, I’m so sorry.”

  She was shaking her head, murmuring, “No” over and over.

  “Aino—”

  “Go away. I, I’ve wanted to kill you for twenty years. I wanted to torture you the way they tortured me. I wanted you to feel all the pain of hell. And now … It’s you!” She started for the door and then realized she was in her own room. “I’ve got to think. You’ve got to go. Just go.” She grabbed his coat and hat and stuffed them against his chest. “Get out.” She felt hysteria rising. She fought it, choking off the rising scream. “Get out before I go crazy.”

  She saw Aksel start to say something but stop. She opened the door and then stood next to it with her face to the wall. She heard him walking toward her. “Go,” she whispered through clenched teeth, her forehead on the wall, tears streaming down her face. She felt his hand on her shoulder and then he was gone.

  18

  Aksel tried several times to talk with Aino. She had politely but firmly said she needed space to think.

  Throughout the summer he’d seen ads in the Oregonian for carpenters unafraid of heights. Seattle City Light was building a dam. It was going to be the highest dam in the world. He gave Matti several weeks’ notice, said a formal goodbye to him and Kyllikki at Sunday dinner, and on Friday, October 22, 1926, after his last day of work, Aksel boarded the train for Portland. There, he took the Union Pacific to Seattle and then north to Mount Vernon, Washington. He caught the Seattle City Light bus that worked its way on gravel roads up the Skagit River to Diablo Canyon, deep in the Cascade mountains.

  Aksel reached the sprawling camp of workmen at the base of Diablo Canyon in the evening darkness. The huge project, already in its ninth year, had started with boring a tunnel through the basalt roots of the North Cascades. Then, slowly and steadily, form by form, scaffold by scaffold, concrete pour by concrete pour, the Diablo Canyon Dam rose ever higher toward its planned 389 feet. Seattle City Light planned on having it provide enough power to light the bulk of the rapidly growing city by the early 1930s. For now, power at the construction site came from a small temporary dam on Newhalem Creek, several miles downstream. It lit the mess halls, the workshops, and the work site. The rest of the camp was lit more softly by low-watt electric lightbulbs, the occasional old kerosene lantern, and new Coleman gas lanterns.

  Aksel looked north and skyward. He could see the Little Dipper above the dam and just the tip of Boötes rising above the ridge to the east that hid Arcturus. The partially completed dam from this angle just blocked Polaris. He looked up at the east ridge again, reassured knowing that Arcturus would be in the sky within a couple of hours. Some things were still right in heaven. He’d heard that the dam was built upstream from the major salmon spawning sites. If it wasn’t, no salmon would make it past this point. At least it would never happen on the Columbia, he thought. No one could dam a river that big.

  Aksel didn’t show up for the Christmas holidays and then Aino refused to go to the New Year’s dance to welcome in 1927. Kyllikki could stand it no longer. On January 3, the first day the children were back in school, she knocked on Aino’s door as she let herself in.

  Aino emerged from her bedroom, disheveled, a book in her hand. That wasn’t a good sign; she’d normally be up and working by this time.

  Kyllikki waited. “Are you out of coffee?”

  Aino shook her head. “Sorry. Not thinking clearly.”

  Kyllikki rustled up some biscuitti while Aino brewed coffee. Then, the preliminaries out of the way, Kyllikki plunged in.

  “Why did Aksel leave?”

  “We had a fight.”

  “You kicked him out, didn’t you? Why, for God’s sake?”

  Kyllikki watched Aino’s face cloud with grief. She decided to ease up.

  “Has he written?”

  Aino opened the drawer of the bureau and picked up a stack of letters and postcards.

  “Do you answer them?”

  She shook her head.

  “What is wrong w
ith you?”

  Aino couldn’t look her in the face. She got up, agitated, walked to the door, then walked back and sat down.

  Kyllikki asked her again, gently. “Aino, what’s wrong?”

  Aino slowly shook her head back and forth. Her eyes were tearing. “I can’t tell you,” she whispered.

  Kyllikki reached across the table and gently touched Aino’s hand. “Hey. It’s me, Kyllikki. There’s nothing I won’t understand.”

  Aino started with Voitto. As she slowly told the story of her involvement with Voitto’s organization, the man from Helsinki taking control, the raid, and Aksel’s part in its betrayal, Kyllikki found herself holding Aino’s hands in hers, giving her all she had in her heart. Then, Aino began to talk about the torture. Kyllikki wanted to let go of her hands and cover her own ears, but she did not. She held Aino’s hands firm and opened her heart. Aino was sobbing openly now—for a quarter of a century she had been holding in the horror only to find that the man she loved was the man she’d hated all that time. The sobbing grew to uncontrollable bawling with Kyllikki holding Aino’s body close to her own, letting her shake but never letting her go.

  When the storm finally passed, Kyllikki looked into Aino’s eyes. “You’ve lived with this alone for a long time. I don’t know how you bore it.” Then she said, “Aksel’s lived with it alone just as long.”

  There was a soft grunt of understanding.

  “Maybe if you two could share the burden …” She left that dangling in the air. When there was no response, she turned Aino’s face to her and said, “Forgive him. You were both children. Maybe if you forgave him, you could both find peace.” Aino remained with her head on the kitchen table, listening but not responding—not wanting to respond. Kyllikki knew how hard it was to forgive. “You need to go up to the Skagit and tell him.”

  “No,” Aino mumbled into her arms. “I can’t.”

  Kyllikki gently moved so she could lift Aino’s face from the table. Holding her beneath the chin, forcing Aino to look at her, she gently said, “You’ve always been a strong woman, Aino. But now, it’s time to be a woman of strength.”