The Land of Dreams (Minnesota Trilogy)

by Vidar Sundstøl

  “So how long did you and Dad actually live here?”

  “Oh, not long. Less than a year. From the fall until summer.”

  He turned to face her again. “Shall we?” he said and gallantly gestured toward the car parked on the sidewalk.

  “You’re a nice boy,” said Inga, giving him a smile.

  Lance closed the gate behind them and helped his mother into the car. Then he got in and was just about to turn on the engine when she suddenly said, “We moved because we were expecting a baby.” She looked out the window, at the house where she had once lived. “That was you.”

  “Does that mean that it was here I was . . . conceived?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good Lord.”

  He thought he heard a chuckle, but it was hard to know, since she was turned away from him.

  “It was here that it began.”

  “Did you ever come back here? In later years, I mean?”

  “Early on we drove past occasionally. I remember we talked about how much bigger and nicer our house in Duluth was, and how great it was that we actually owned it. But after that, I’ve never been back.”

  “I think Dad actually brought me here once. Just the two of us. I was probably eight or nine.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. I remember walking past here.”

  “And then he told you that your mother and father had lived in that house long ago?”

  “I don’t know whether he did or not.”

  “I’m sure he did,” she said. “And then he probably ruffled your hair. Do you remember how he used to do that?”

  “Do you miss him?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Was he . . . ” Lance tried to find the right word. “Do you think he was . . . content?” he said. “Did he die a contented man?”

  “Suddenly there are so many things that no longer have any meaning,” said Inga. “Things you may have struggled and wrestled with all your life. In the end he was thinking only about the good things. You and Andy. Chrissy, who wasn’t more than ten back then. She was Oscar’s only granddaughter, you know. And the fact that he and I had stayed together all those years . . . ” Her voice was starting to sound brittle. “Let’s get going,” she said.

  Neither one of them spoke as they drove through the narrow streets of Two Harbors. Then Lance suddenly remembered that his mother was part Indian. That they both were. He’d forgotten about that for a while. Now it came rushing back to him. Does she know? he thought. The possibility opened up a whole new space around her, and around Lance too. Had he grown up with a mother who knew all along that she had Indian roots? If so, wouldn’t she have told her sons about it? Not necessarily. It wasn’t so long ago that such matters were considered shameful, as Lance well knew. Yet he had the feeling he would have sensed something if his mother had known. If not before, then at least after he found out the truth about Nanette. Now he could never again be completely sure about who his mother was. Before, he’d barely given it a thought. Inga was the person he thought he knew best. That was how it had always been. But now he might always have doubts—maybe she had lived among them with a big secret in her heart. And if so, then she was a different person than he’d always thought. Or was she?

  No matter what, it would be unthinkable to ask her. Their brief visit to Willow Street had given him the feeling that she was enveloped in something terribly fragile that might shatter at the slightest prodding. It was something he hadn’t noticed before. Maybe it was just a result of age. Maybe it was because of Oscar’s death.

  They came out onto Highway 61 again and left Two Harbors behind.

  “How’s Chrissy doing?” asked Inga.

  “Pretty good, I guess.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. At least I haven’t heard anything to the contrary,” said Lance. He thought about that black-clad, pale-looking girl in the parking lot of Enger Park.

  “You know she doesn’t come to see me anymore. She’s a young lady now, and I suppose she has other things on her mind,” said his mother.

  “I don’t have a lot of contact with them,” said Lance.

  “You don’t see your brother much?”

  “No. Mostly just when we go deer hunting.”

  “Shouldn’t you get together more often?”

  “I don’t know . . . ”

  “No, never mind. The two of you should do as you like. I’m not going to interfere in your business.”

  “There’s nothing to interfere with.”

  “I suppose not. But he’s your brother, after all.”

  “My brother, yes he is,” he muttered.

  Lance pictured the lost expression on Andy’s face when he visited him in Two Harbors. The same look he’d had during the episode with Clayton Miller. He had seemed as alone as any human being could possibly be. Yet Lance had never asked his brother why he went after Clayton. And now, as he drove north along Lake Superior with his mother, he realized what it was that he feared most. It wasn’t Andy’s loneliness or the incomprehensible violence. Not exactly. What he feared was that the world would turn out to be different than he had always believed. That was what they all feared, he thought. His parents too. That their own little world would dissolve like a soaked piece of paper and reveal something else behind it. That was why no one had ever tried to find out why Andy had beaten up Clayton Miller.

  They soon passed Silver Bay, with its landscape of black taconite mounds and big rust-colored shipping docks. A small group of men was standing outside the hangarlike buildings. They wore yellow hard hats and orange vests.

  “Do you think the taconite will ever run out?” asked Inga.

  “Of course it will.”

  “But in our lifetime, I mean. Or rather, in your lifetime.”

  “Hmm . . . I don’t know,” said Lance.

  “And how will people up here make a living when there’s no more taconite?”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Not many people are dependent on taconite anymore. Besides, tourism is the future around here.”

  “You think so?”

  “You should have seen how many people were over at Gary’s canoe rental shop on Sawbill Lake.”

  “Oh, right. Gary. Are things okay between him and Barb?”

  “Sure. Money is practically growing on the pine trees over there right now.”

  Inga laughed. “He’s always been a go-getter, that boy,” she said. “And then there’s Barb, with those delicious cakes of hers. Do you remember when Jimmy ate all the cakes while the rest of us were watching TV? And how sick he was? Those were Barb’s cakes.”

  “It wasn’t Jimmy who did that. It was Chrissy.”

  “No, that can’t be. Because Dad was there.”

  “That part is right. Oscar was there,” he said.

  Lance thought about the night his father died. Mary was six months pregnant. They were watching TV, and he was holding a plate of food on his lap, which meant that he couldn’t get up to get the phone when it rang. So Mary did it. She got up with her big stomach and went over to the table where the phone was. She picked up the receiver. “Hello?” She listened for a long time. Then she said “okay” and “uh-huh” several times. Listened some more as she nodded. Finally she turned toward Lance, holding the phone in her hand. “It’s Andy,” she said, and he realized what his brother was going to say. He had known that his father was dying, but he was hoping that Oscar would get to see his grandchild before he passed.

  They were now crossing the Manitou River. It was here, at the mouth of the river, that a dead body had been found in 1892. Lance figured he’d never find out for sure whether it was Swamper Caribou’s body.

  He got out a paper bag of Dove chocolates that he’d made a point of buying before he picked up his mother.

  “My dear Lance, you didn’t need to buy me anything,” she said. “It’s just some choco
lates.”

  Inga stuck her gaunt fingers inside the paper bag and took out a chocolate wrapped in thin silver paper.

  “Make sure to read what it says on the inside of the wrapper,” said Lance.

  Both of them carefully took off the foil paper and stuck the little chocolate hearts in their mouths. Inga chewed cautiously. Then she smoothed out the wrapper and squinted her eyes to study the message.

  Finally she laughed.

  “What does it say?” asked Lance.

  “ ‘You’re only young once,’ ” she told him. “And unfortunately, that’s so true. What does yours say?”

  “It says, ‘Live your own dream.’ ”

  He heard his mother say something, but he didn’t know what it was. Those four words on the silver wrapper had struck a deep chord inside him. Because that was how he felt. As if he were living in a dream. From the moment he discovered a naked and blood-covered man sitting on the ground and leaning against Baraga’s Cross, his life had become less and less real. It was seven years since he’d had his last dream. That was when he was standing alone at the deepest spot in Lake Superior. In a shimmering blue landscape. For a long time afterward he’d hoped he would dream about that cold place again. But there were no more dreams. Not a single one for seven years. He thought that over the course of those years, a large number of undreamed dreams must have piled up, and that now they were starting to leak into his waking life. The dream material was seeping out and getting mixed up with tangible reality. That was what this banal message on the chocolate wrapper had made him think about.

  “Are you listening to me at all?” asked Inga, annoyed.

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked you whether you’re living your own dream.”

  “Whether I’m living my . . . That’s just a bunch of nonsense, Mom.”

  “I happen to think it’s a good message.”

  Lance didn’t reply.

  A little later they passed the sign that said “Baraga’s Cross.”

  “Good thing they caught that murderer,” she said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Someone from Grand Portage?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When I heard about it, I thought of Jimmy.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I hope his family doesn’t have any connection with that man.”

  “I don’t think they do.”

  “None of them?”

  “No. Mary had him as a student in school years ago. That’s all. She barely remembers him.”

  “So you and Mary are talking?”

  “We do have a son together. So of course we talk to each other.”

  When they arrived in Tofte, Inga wanted to find a restroom before they drove any farther. Lance drove down to the Bluefin Bay Resort and parked.

  “We can use the bathroom here,” he said. “I could use one myself.”

  He got out of the car and went around to the passenger side to assist his mother. He couldn’t help noticing how little she now weighed.

  “Oh, that feels good,” she said. “I need to stretch my legs a bit.” She gazed out at the bay, where a trim white sailboat was anchored, as usual. “Things are so different these days,” she said. “That’s for sure. When I was young, the old wharf was still out there.” She pointed at the partially collapsed stone pilings sticking out of the water right across from the hotel.

  “Wasn’t it torn down in the early sixties?” said Lance.

  “I don’t know, but it was there when I was young, at least. Very young. I remember it well.”

  “Didn’t you used to come up here before you met Dad too?”

  “That’s right. That was how we met. Your father was from around here, and we had relatives here that we came to visit.”

  “But your grandparents were dead, weren’t they?”

  “Yes, I never met them. They died before I was born. Knut and Nanette. But we visited my older brother who lived here with his family. I remember that Helga Aakre used to sit out there on the old wharf. She was my best friend up here. This must have been near the end of the war, I think. The wharf was no longer in use. And we really weren’t supposed to be out there. The grown-ups said it could be dangerous.”

  “But you didn’t listen to them?”

  “Oh no, we sure didn’t. Not Helga and I. No. But can you imagine what a big deal it must have been when the wharf was first built?” Lance nodded.

  “Do you know when that was?” asked his mother.

  “In 1903, I think.”

  “Just imagine, finally the steamboat could dock here. What a difference that must have made. The modern world arrived in Tofte. It’s really a monument to the hard work of the first generation,” she said, as if the wharf was still standing, and not just the stone pilings. “A monument to their dreams.”

  “I guess we’d better go inside and find the bathrooms,” said Lance. “By the way, is there anything you’d like to see or do before we continue north?”

  “Yes, there is,” she said.

  THE CEMETERY IN TOFTE was a couple of hundred yards above Zoar Lutheran Church, at the end of a narrow road. It was surrounded by woods and difficult to find for anyone who didn’t know its exact location.

  It was here that the men and women were buried who had left behind everything they knew and headed for a land where dreams could become reality. Deep under the grass lay their crumbling bones.

  On the headstones their names reappeared, like a greeting or a reminder to posterity: Anderson, Carlson, Larson, Bjerkness, Stenroos, Tveekrem, Engelsen, Olson, Tofte, Tveiten, Odden, Mattikainen, Tormondsen.

  In some places a stone said: Born in Norway, or Born in Sweden. There were even a few inscriptions in Norwegian: Hvil i fred.

  On the marker for Andrew and Sonneva Tofte was a little map, made of gold leaf, a simple outline of the land they had left behind. At the bottom left of this map was a star that represented Halsnøy, where both of them were born and raised.

  Buried near a big fir tree, which couldn’t have been more than a small sapling when they died, were Knut and Nanette Olson. They had died in 1925 and 1928, respectively. Approximately eighty years later one of their grandchildren stood at their grave. An old woman with white hair. And at her side stood a middle-aged man who was Knut and Nanette’s great-grandson.

  “This isn’t a very big cemetery,” said Lance, looking around. “Oh, it’s been plenty big so far.”

  “But it’s starting to get crowded.”

  “Yes. I have a plot waiting for me in Duluth.”

  “I know.”

  “Next to Oscar.”

  “Mom . . . could we leave now?”

  Inga looked up at him. “Are we in a hurry?”

  “No, but . . . ”

  His mother began walking slowly toward the center of the cemetery. It took Lance only a couple of strides to catch up with her. Then they walked on, side by side. He saw that she was limping slightly. He hadn’t noticed that before. Maybe she’s already feeling tired, he thought. Had he been too optimistic to suggest driving all the way to Grand Portage and back?

  “Look here,” said Inga, pointing. “This is where Thormod Olson is buried.”

  The grave was marked with a big, almost perfectly round stone. It looked as if it had been brought straight from the shore, washed smooth by the waves over thousands of years. As if Thormod were resting under a small piece of the lake itself.

  Lance squatted down to read the inscription. It said: “Thormod Olson, born in Norway in 1877, died in Grand Marais in 1953.” He thought about what he’d recently discovered about the man who lay buried here. According to Nanette, someone had given him two deep wounds in his arm. He had lain in that little log cabin of theirs, having terrible nightmares. A fifteen-year-old who thrashed about, screaming in his dreams. Screaming in Norwegian in the dark, here on Lake Superior. Feveris
h and in pain. Beneath Lance’s feet lay the moldering remains of the body that had fought for life on that March night in 1892. But Thormod Olson had taken his secret to the grave.

  Lance knew that his mother was behind him, waiting for him to stand up. But he stayed where he was. He stroked the grass with his hand, as if he were tenderly stroking someone’s hair. This was where he would one day be buried. And like Thormod, he would also be taking a secret to the grave. Only this time the victim would not be Swamper Caribou but Lenny Diver. For Lance the two almost seemed to merge into one. He realized that he would never be allowed to forget. This was how his life would be from now on.

  “I remember the funeral,” said Inga. “The pastor talked about how he had almost lost his life when he came here as a young boy.”

  “You were at the funeral?”

  “Oh yes. I stood here with the whole family. In a way, Thormod was our hero.”

  “Do you remember him?”

  “A little. An old man with white hair. Short and stocky. Walked with a cane. So would you like to stop by the cemetery in Lutsen to visit the Hansen graves too?”

  “No, I think this is enough for today,” said Lance.

  They headed toward the center of the cemetery, where they saw more markers with newer dates. Inga stopped at one of them. “Helga Johnson,” Lance read. “Who was that?”

  “Helga Aakre. I told you about her. She got married and spent all her adult life in Minneapolis. I went to visit her there a few times.”

  “You did?” said Lance. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Well, I didn’t go often. But there were a couple of periods when things were difficult and . . . that’s when I went there, to see Helga.”

  Lance wondered when his parents had gone through difficult periods. He couldn’t recall anything special. But he wasn’t sure how much he could rely on his memory. He didn’t even remember his father feeding little birds out of his hand.

  ABOUT HALF AN HOUR LATER Inga Hansen asked her son to stop the car. “I need to stretch my legs again,” she told him.

  Lance pulled into a rest area with a view of Lake Superior. He went around to help his mother out of the car.