In the Garden of Spite

by Camilla Bruce

  I would not spoil my chances, though, would not be foolish like her. Traveling to America had only been the first step; the next one would be to move out from the cramped apartment, leave the restless nights on the bench in the kitchen, the tiresome mending and the heavy wash behind.

  When I had some time to myself, I liked to walk around the city and just look at the people, the shops, and the traffic. I had seen much poverty in my life but never such wealth as I did in Chicago, where gleaming horses pulled shiny carriages with ladies in hats that carried whole forests of feathers and flowers. I saw beautiful houses and gardens bursting with green behind wrought-iron gates, department stores glittering with lights and smelling of rose and magnolia. It was so close and yet so far from the Norwegian neighborhood by Milwaukee Avenue, where the children ran in streets filled with muck and poked at dead animals with sticks.

  I knew where I would rather be.

  I used whatever money I had to myself to buy sweets. I had never seen treats like the ones they had in Chicago: sticks of brown caramel and hard pieces of candy in all sorts of colors. I felt like the woman that I ought to be then, traipsing down the sidewalk, sucking on it. It was as if the sweetness seeped into the rest of my body and made me feel light and happy. Rich even, walking there in my worn headscarf and heavy shawl with the taste of luxury coating my tongue.

  We never had much candy in Selbu.

  I brought home newspapers and read them all through even if I did not know the language. That was the very purpose of it, to force myself to learn. I used an English Bible too, since I knew the meaning of those texts. It did not take me very long; I have always been a quick study. Soon I could speak and read English some, and a new world opened to me then. Why was my sister content to let her husband speak for her? I ignored her when she scoffed at me as I sat there, poring over my Bible. Marriage, I decided, had made her both lazy and slow.

  She did talk a lot, though, in the language she did know. Every day she sat out on the stairs with a basket of mending, chattering with the others, sipping weak coffee and threading needles. How could they say so much about so little? They spoke of their husbands and children, the weather and the costs, and the peculiar German family downstairs. They spoke of who had arrived and who had gone, and giggled about the men at the boardinghouses: young and carefree, easy on the eyes. They spoke of who would marry and who would die—they spoke of a new Norway in America, only better than the land we left behind.

  They were all so foolish.

  9.

  Nellie

  Ithought Bella would help you with the laundry. Where has she gone to this time?” Clara blocked my way on the stairs, coming from the yard with a water bucket of her own. Her green eyes sparkled with resentment.

  I only shrugged, as I had no good answer to give her. Bella had pulled on her blue coat and slipped out the door shortly after breakfast. I was so surprised that I did not even think to ask just where she was going. This had happened several times in the weeks since she arrived, and no matter what I said to make her understand that I needed her at home, it simply did not help.

  “Well, let me carry the water for you, then.” Clara reached for the bucket in my hand. “It will not do to have you running up and down these stairs with that belly.”

  I knew she was right. My dress was straining under the apron and I often lost my breath when working hard. I was happy to feel all the kicks and tumbles within, though; it seemed like a healthy baby. Its antics often kept me awake at night, but I did not care one jot. I would rather have it spinning in my belly than feel it fall silent in there.

  Clara put down her own bucket and started for the yard again. I followed her down the stairs, tugging at my apron as I often did when uncomfortable. “She only wants to see the city,” I said to her back. She was wearing a blue-and-white-striped cotton dress under the stained apron; her dark curls were pinned to her head as usual. “She can read English now—did I tell you?”

  “Yes, yes,” Clara murmured. “I am sure she is bright as a button.”

  “She just doesn’t understand how badly I need her help.”

  “She is a woman past twenty, Nellie, not a girl of ten.”

  “Still, though, she just doesn’t understand—”

  “Is she a little slow?” Clara glanced over her shoulders as she hurried down the steps.

  “No,” I said, suddenly offended. “I just told you she is bright. She reads—”

  “Yes, yes, you said.”

  “She is helping with all the children—Lottie likes her a lot.”

  “My daughter is too young to know any better.” Clara strode across the yard with the empty bucket dancing in her grasp. The set of her shoulders told me she was angry. “All these years saving up for her, and this is what you get? A sullen creature who only eats and sleeps and will not work? I’d say you have gotten yourself a poor bargain, Nellie.”

  Suddenly I felt a little angry too. Who was Clara to have such strong opinions of my sister? Who was she to judge?

  When Clara spun around by the water pump in the corner of the yard, her forehead was creased with lines. “How about her showing you some gratitude? You sacrificed a lot to bring her here, and you are in dire need of help! Your births have never been easy—you ought to take it slow and not run about as you used to . . . With another woman in the house that should have been possible to achieve—but no! She is out taking in the sights! It is not right, Nellie!” The bucket clattered on the flagstones when she dropped it and set to work the heavy lever on the pump. “I know you care for her and that you want to help her, but what if she does not help you in turn? Is it even worth it if she cannot bring up your goddamn water?”

  I wanted to say a dozen things: how she was always neat with her needlework, and how she made Rudolph hot chocolate the night before. I wanted to say how she did not mind lifting the heavy tubs for me or how the sight of her reminded me of home—but I knew it made no difference what I said; Clara was set in her opinion. I could not truly blame her either for looking out for me. I would probably have been angry as well, if I felt that Clara’s kindness was being taken advantage of.

  “I only think that she was badly hurt back home.” I settled for the one thing I thought might calm her down. I felt much like a child, standing before her while my hands twisted at the hem of my apron. My mouth felt very dry.

  “The attack, you mean?” Clara’s eyes were on me as she pushed the lever. That was what I had meant, but I also meant in other ways. Tongues can be powerful daggers if wielded right.

  “She bled from the stomach.” Only saying those words aloud made me feel sick.

  “But you still don’t know what happened?”

  “No, I—”

  “Maybe there are other things you don’t know about.” The bucket by her feet had overflowed, but she did not seem to notice. “You do not truly know how she was in the years since you left.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Clara shrugged and scooped up the bucket with water drizzling off the rim. “Maybe she is lazy—maybe she’s always this way.”

  “Oh, I do not think so.” I just could not see it. “She has been working since she was small.” Yet an old worry stirred inside me, one I knew well from my youth. The fear that someone would notice that my sister was different, and not like other children. I tried to push the feeling aside, but once stirred, it was hard to subdue.

  Clara did not reply to my words but set off across the yard again, aiming for the steps. “Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think,” she muttered, just loud enough for me to hear. The words left me feeling sick.

  We were halfway up the stairs, on the landing where Clara’s own water bucket rested, when Bella suddenly appeared, coming fast down the steps toward us. My whole body sagged with relief from the sight. She seemed to be in a good mood; her cheeks were pink from fresh air and her gaze w
as bright and alert. She had tied on the apron and donned a headscarf, which brought my hopes up further.

  Surely there would be no more exploring today.

  “Good morning to you, Clara,” she said to my red-faced friend. “Shall I take that?” She reached for the bucket, recognizing it as mine. “We better start heating the water right away,” she said to me. “There is much to be done before nightfall, and some of those shirts reek with filth.”

  “Where were you?” Clara asked as she handed her the water. “We thought you had abandoned your poor sister.”

  “Oh, I just went out for some newspapers to read. I am practicing my English,” Bella chirped. Her height made it so that she towered above Clara even on the landing.

  “You should have said so.” Clara stole the words out of my mouth. “She cannot travel the stairs with her load; she is much too fragile for that. Her back—”

  “It’s fine, Clara.” I put a hand on her shoulder; her dress was damp with perspiration. “She came back—I knew she would.” I said it mostly to convince myself. “Thank you so much for your help,” I added. “Bella can take it from here.”

  Bella smirked before turning on her heel and setting off again, up the stairs this time.

  “She is not so bad.” I said it quietly so my sister would not hear me. “She came back.”

  “This time,” Clara muttered, just as quietly. “But what about all the other times when she didn’t.”

  “You should not be so hard on her; just give her some time.”

  “You should not be a fool.” Her green gaze landed on me. “I don’t think that one has a care for anyone other than herself.” She picked up her bucket and stomped up the stairs.

  Her words stayed with me for the rest of the day, even though I tried not to think of them. I told myself that Clara was wrong, but a stubborn sliver of doubt remained.

  John did not have much comfort to offer me either. “She just doesn’t seem to be of much use to you,” he said that same night after I had told him what happened with Clara. His brow was furrowed with annoyance and concern as he sat in our bed, propped up against the pillows, with Rudolph sleeping soundly beside him. He spoke very quietly as the walls were thin, though I was quite certain that Bella was already asleep on the bench in the kitchen.

  “She helps,” I assured him as I crawled across them both to my spot closest to the papered wall. On our single bed stand, the candle flame quivered a little and made the shadows from the clothes hanging from pegs on the wall dance across the naked floor. “It is not easy coming here, you know that. She only needs a little time. I can hardly blame her for wanting to explore a little and get to know the city.” But even as I said it, I knew that I was lying. Not only to John but to myself as well.

  Little Brynhild—Bella—had never been easy.

  “I was hoping,” I started again, more truthful this time, “that time had changed her. That a few years at Rødde had softened her some, but that does not seem to be the case. She still does mostly as she pleases.” If anything, she was worse. Her mood would dip and turn for no reason, and she did not seem to notice when someone did something nice for her. Her anger, like our father’s, had always been like thunder: loud and sudden, blazing with heat, but now it seemed that it never quite dissolved but always moved and shifted under the surface, ready to erupt.

  She was never calm—always restless.

  “How does she get along with the other women, besides Clara?”

  My heart sank in my chest, just from thinking of Laura’s raised eyebrows behind Bella’s back, and the latter’s silent smile, as if she had no use for any of them. “Well enough,” I said, though I could tell that my friends were not impressed with the new addition to our household, not even those who knew little about how things had unfolded since she arrived. It had always been hard to express just why it was that people did not take to Little Brynhild. Was it because of the way she never looked another in the eye, because she sometimes said things that made her seem mean, or because she never seemed to share in other people’s joy? Did people even notice those things or was it just me, looking at her with love, wishing so desperately for her to find her place?

  Perhaps they did notice without even knowing, the knowledge like a silent whisper in their minds. She could be as sweet as sugar when she wanted to, which she rarely did. It was as if she did not see or understand how a little effort could help her reach through to other people.

  It was as if she did not care.

  “I just want her to be happy,” I said. “It’s all I ever wanted.”

  “I know.” He turned his head to place a kiss on my cheekbone. “I am sure she will be in time. I had been hoping she would take on some of your load, though. Help with the washing, at least.”

  “Oh, she does, and she has a way with Rudolph. It is just hard to rely on her help, as I never know when she will be here or not.” Even as I said it, I felt guilty. The desire to protect her had always been strong—and over here, she had no one else to defend her. If I did not stand up for her, she would be all alone.

  “It seems to me that you spend just as much time worrying about her now as before she arrived,” John said. “I had been hoping we could put that worry to rest now.”

  “Well, I no longer worry that someone will attack her,” I said, and adjusted my head on the pillow. “I know that she is safe, and that’s something.”

  “But do you get more rest now that she is with us?” He patted the swell of my belly through the blanket.

  “Oh, I—” It seemed foolish now, how I had been thinking that my sister would be the answer to my plight. How I had imagined that she would care for me through the pregnancy, and thus increase my odds. I carried almost as much water as before, while she was out walking the streets, sucking on caramels. The bitterness swelled in me for a moment before I gently pushed it away.

  It would serve no purpose.

  10.

  Bella

  Every Saturday there were gatherings at the tenements with strong drink and fiddle players. Nellie was eager for me to go. “That’s how you’ll meet a nice husband. Dance a little, Bella, dance and drink and show yourself off!”

  I did not mind the drinking so much, but I certainly was no dancer. I had never felt graceful spinning in someone’s arms, only awkward and dizzy, longing for it to end. I did go, though, because Nellie insisted. And I did want to meet a man and move out from the bench in Nellie’s kitchen, where the scent of cabbage and grease clung to everything, and the neighbors downstairs kept me up at night, yelling to each other in German. I just did not want to meet those men.

  They were poor Norwegians like me, with no real prospects. Some of them came from the Norwegian countryside but many from the crowded cities too. They were workingmen with strong arms and very little wit. Some were hard drinkers, some quarrelsome and angry. They came to Chicago looking for work and settled in the boardinghouses, waiting for luck and a wife. The other unwed women thought them wonderful, spun in their arms like there was no tomorrow. They would be happy enough to marry of one of them and settle in some small apartment like Nellie’s.

  Not I.

  I only had to look to Nellie to see how well that went, and no matter how handsome those young men were. If I really was to prosper, I could not give in.

  I had, after all, nearly married a farmer’s son back home, and was determined not to do any worse in America.

  There was one man, though, a blond carpenter from Bergen. Three Saturday nights in a row, he plied me with drinks and wanted to hold my hand under the table. It was my own fault. I had grown tired of being considered strange; I figured it did me no service if I was to find a suitable husband, so I had taken it upon myself to learn how to flatter: be sweet, kind, and amiable. I watched the other young women at the gatherings and women out on the streets as well. Saw how they moved their lips and widened their e
yes, how they gently touched and pretended to be coy. I had tried some of these tricks on Edvard, the carpenter, and to my utter surprise, it had worked. Before I knew it, I was tangled with him somehow, was expected to accept the drinks he poured me and hold his hand.

  When he wanted to walk me home, I always said no.

  Then one Saturday, the gathering was in Nellie’s backyard. Both she and John were there. She was spinning on the ground with her big belly, between rows of makeshift benches where her neighbors sat with their bottles, singing and cheering the dancers on. It was a dark night, but they had brought out lanterns, and the gentle lights obscured the squalor we all lived in, the dreary backyard and the outhouse—but they could not mask the stench.

  Edvard too was there, of course, handsome, drunk, and impatient. When I went to use the outhouse, he followed me into the dark. He caught hold of my shoulder and spun me around to plant a kiss on my mouth. I gently pushed him away, told him to go back, and said I would be there shortly. I knew it would not do to make a fuss. I had handled drunk men before and did not think more of it.

  When I came back, he had fallen asleep on a bench, a board on top of two barrels, and I let out a breath of relief. I was tired of it all, the noise and the people, and so I went upstairs to Nellie’s apartment to undress and make up my bed. The party was loud, even when I was inside, and I wondered how the children slept through it all.

  Just when I had slipped under the woolen covers, the door to the apartment opened. At first I thought it was John; the only light in the kitchen came from the coals in the stove and the night around me was dark, but then I realized it could not be. The figure in the door, swaying on his feet, was far too tall for that.