Wild Wind Westward

by Vanessa Royall

  “Tomorrow we’ll begin planning in earnest,” she whispered, settling down next to him for sleep.

  “No, Joan, I can’t.”

  “Don’t be silly. Oil. You told me yourself. We’ll go out together to Pennsylvania and get rich. You’ve given me the idea of doing big things. No small-time business for me anymore. Or for you either.”

  “Joan, I can’t go.”

  There was a long silence. Then, very calmly, so quietly her words did not distress him nor jolt him from the path toward sleep, Joan said: “You must learn the hard way that I am right about how life is. So, that is your choice.”

  II

  Eric awoke to a pounding on the door of the hotel room. Still half-asleep, he struggled to open his eyes. The light of midmorning slanted in through the windows, formed long golden rectangles on the wine-colored carpet. Where was Joan? Neither in bed with him, nor in the room.

  The pounding on the door, which had ceased momentarily, now began again. “Mr. Gunnarson? Mr. Gunnarson!”

  Eric sat up. He was naked, as he had been upon going to sleep. Where was his robe? He could not see it, nor was it beneath the covers.

  “Come in,” he called.

  The door opened slightly and one of the room clerks peered in. “Mornin’, Mr. Gunnarson. Sorry for the noise, but you was asleep.” He seemed expectant, as if waiting for something.

  “Yes? What is it? What do you want?”

  The clerk looked confused. “Hope there wasn’t no mistake, sir,” he said. “But Miz Gunnarson said you was ready to check out of the hotel.”

  That news brought Eric fully awake. Miz Gunnarson? Joan had claimed to be his wife, here at the hotel? Well, he had to admit, how else could she have gotten them registered? The Madison Hotel was one of the finest in the city, and guarded its reputation assiduously. But why would Joan have left the business of checking out to him? In fact, why had she gone? Where had she gone?

  Eric experienced the sick flicker of premonition. Joan, angry at his refusal to accommodate her venal strategies, had maneuvered him into a situation that could do him little good: with no money to pay the hotel for this long stay, he would be thrown in debtor’s prison for certain!

  “I’ll be ready in a few minutes,” he told the waiting clerk. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Gunnarson. I’ll be expecting you at the front desk then?”

  “Yes.”

  The clerk shut the door, and Eric got out of bed, went to the closet, and reached for one of the fine suits Joan had bought him to pimp with.

  One suit hung in the closet. His old worker’s rags. His new suits, all her gowns, were gone. Now he knew, too, where his dressing gown had gone: She had taken everything. She had taken everything, left him with the bill, and probably jail as well. He had certainly been right about her possession of a vengeful nature.

  There was no hope in going down to the front desk and explaining the situation. Eric might have done such a thing once, a long time ago, in Norway, where the word of a freeholder was his bond, and better than money. He would have done it, too, in his early days in New York, not knowing any better. But he knew better now, or, if not “better,” in the sense of good, then in the sense of wisdom, however coarse. Desperation does not ennoble.

  His old clothes itched when he donned them, and he could not help but recall with regret the soft sleekness of the suits and dressing gown Joan had given, then taken. But to his surprise he found in the pocket of his old jacket the forty-five cents he had had on that March morning he’d met Joan, gone to the docks, tried to save the Negro. All that seemed a world away, now, but yet he was in the same clothes, no further ahead than he had been. Except, he told himself, you have your health back.

  He left the room, walked down the thickly carpeted stairway—Joan had really chosen an expensive hotel—down three flights of wide, carpeted stairs. Descending toward the lobby, he saw a vast marble floor, lights, chandeliers, men and women dressed in stunning clothes. The aroma of good cigars drifted in the air, and the animated chatter of rich, satisfied people tinkled and echoed in the vaulting chamber. And there was Eric, a penniless, ragged workman on some errand among these people. He embarrassed them. They turned away from him, and went on with their conversations, conversations about plays, parties, travel, people they knew.

  The clerks at the front desk, and even the bellboys, turned away from Eric. They, who were not far removed from his own financial plight, nevertheless saw his rags and decided they, too, were a part of the rich world discussed and enjoyed by guests in the hotel lobby.

  Then Eric was on the street. Free, anyway. He went first to the harbor. The Valkyrie was due any day. He paid ten cents for a loaf of bread and a chunk of Thuringer, drank water from a public fountain, waited, paid a nickel for a bunk in a waterfront hostel. From its window, at twilight, he watched a group of recruits form up and march aboard a ship. Future members of the Union army. They were young and scared and thin and poor. Most of all poor. Their bodies had been bought. He thought of Sam Lapin and his son, who wanted to buy his body. No deal. Kristin would come, and would go with him. They would go west, and find land. In only a day, two days more…

  What would Gustav Rolfson do?

  It did not matter. Nothing mattered but Kristin, and soon she would be here.

  But then Eric remembered Joan’s taunt: What would Kristin see when she left the Valkyrie and came down the gangway, onto American earth?

  “Well, sir,” said Captain Sonntag, wiping his mouth fastidiously, putting down his napkin, and lighting an after-breakfast cheroot, “we’ll reach New York by midafternoon. Pleased about that, eh, Mr. Rolfson? And I know your wife will be. I’ve seen her watching at the rail for days now.”

  Sonntag blew fat donuts of smoke, through which he grinned at the Rolfsons, his premier passengers, who always sat with him at the captain’s table. All Scandinavia knew of the vast capital loan Gustav had gotten from that Englishman, Soames. A great number of Norwegians, led by patriarchal Adolphus, awaited further news of Gustav’s splendid forthcoming triumphs in America. Gustav’s complexion tended to be pale in the morning, setting the scar in stark relief, like a newly gouged canyon on the surface of the moon. Moreover, he had not spent much time on deck during the voyage, and had not the color of sun and wind that most of the passengers had acquired. He had spent the crossing mainly in the stateroom he shared with Kristin. Whatever one might say of Gustav, he could not be accused of failing to apply himself diligently to his mercantile enterprises. If anything, he was too steeped in them, to the exclusion of other enjoyments, save his continued, obsessive enjoyment of Kristin herself.

  “I daresay my wife looks forward to making the acquaintance of the New York couturiers,” Gustav told Captain Sonntag, a remark that, for him, was almost witty.

  Kristin forced a smile. Fashion was the last thing on her mind. Difficulties and decisions faced her, no matter what the new world held in store. Would Eric be there, waiting for her? If he was, how might she meet with him, what would his reaction be? How could she get away from Gustav? These things weighed on her mind. Indeed, could she get away from Gustav at all? She had sent her family a considerable amount of money during her married years, but by no means enough to insure their independence if, back in Sweden, old Adolphus seized their land and livelihood. And then what if Eric were not to be found? What if something had happened to him? It had been so long since she’d written him.

  “Your thoughts this morning seem uncommonly grave for a beautiful woman,” Captain Sonntag oozed.

  “Yes,” agreed Gustav, studying his wife. “Be that as it may, Captain, we must retire now and prepare for the landing.”

  They rose from the captain’s table, Sonntag standing, too, as well as five other guests, three lesser businessmen and the wives of two of them, all of them somewhat in awe of both the captain and of Gustav Rolfson, rising titan of Norwegian capitalism. The wives were frankly envious of Kristin, being them
selves more sturdy than lithe of carriage, but veiled their true sentiments with comments such as: “Isn’t she a darling?” “She might show a bit more affection for her husband, though.” “Yes, but do you think the American women will resent her?” “Oh, my goodness, I hope not.”

  In the stateroom Gustav turned to her. “I must ask a favor of you,” he said, “as a woman and a wife.”

  “Yes, husband.”

  His face colored slightly with residual anger. He had ceased begging her to use his given name, but her refusal to do so continued to rankle. “When I begin to set up appointments with the important American bankers and businessmen, I would like you to keep your days free so that you might accompany me.”

  “In other words you wish me to play the part as I did with Lord Soames, charming bait for your trap. They should be looking at me, while you pick their minds for information and their pockets for—”

  It was more than he could take. She vexed him, as always, and he bore the vexation because, in his own hard way, he was in love with her. But a woman had her place, and decorum must receive its due. So instinctively that Gustav was only slightly more aware of it than Kristin, he brought up his hand powerfully, in a wide hard swinging arc, and slapped her across the face with such force that her head snapped sideways. She spun across the stateroom, and fell upon the bed, too shocked to cry out. Kristin glared at him, her hand on her wounded cheek. Never had she hated him so much! Never had he been this angry.

  “You are my wife,” he told her, gritting his teeth, “and so you shall remain. I asked you, with all courtesy, to aid me in New York. I have neither the time nor patience to put up with any more of your cute or evasive rejoinders. You are going to play your part as a Rolfson, willingly and gracefully, or you are going to learn the hard way that my tolerance wears distinctly thin.”

  “If I no longer please you, husband,” Kristin returned, gauging him, “put me aside. Divorce me.”

  He smiled, a hideous grimace. “That is what you think you would like, is it? Oh, no. Oh, no. Don’t you worry. You will come to love me and the wealth I shall acquire. You will savor it dearly, believe me. You will, and when you do, then I will know your heart is finally mine.”

  Judiciously she held her tongue. Gustav advanced, put his hands on her shoulders, forced her backward upon the great stateroom bed, straddled her, and glared down into her eyes. “And don’t have any romantic dreams about your long-lost mountaineer lover. My friends in the consulate tell me he’s dropped utterly out of sight. He’s probably dead by now.”

  Kristin understood. Eric was, at base, at least partially the cause of Gustav’s anger this morning. She did not believe what he was telling her, of course. Eric would be vibrantly alive, would he not? And prosperous. Prosperous enough for the two of them to go off together. Anyway, what did it matter? Certainly prosperity mattered not at all to her. She had loved him when he had but a stone house and a few stray coins stashed behind a loose chimney brick.

  Now she sensed that Gustav was about to rip off her clothes and take her, to show her again that she belonged to him, that he would do what he wished with her. But she could not bear him inside her, on top of her, just now. Besides which, her protection against pregnancy was not in place. She must never have his child, never ever. His hold over her, already powerful, would be virtually indissoluble with a child involved.

  “Please, husband,” she said imploringly. “I am sorry. Take me now and pleasure me. I need it now to make me feel whole again.”

  Gustav heard that, and grinned meanly. “So,” he said. “At last you beg. Well, get this straight. I shall have you when and where I want, but not now. Your punishment for impertinence to me is that you must suffer your need unfulfilled.”

  He got off her, off the bed, and stood looking down at her. His expression was one of victory, almost as if he had taken her and, finally, worked moans of passion from her throat.

  “Oh, husband, please! Please!”

  But Gustav was adamant, and he refused to yield.

  New York stunned Kristin, first by its size, then by its quality of rough, vibrant, almost savage intensity. Everywhere was movement: on the ships, the docks, up and down the streets. Everywhere was shouting and yelling and apparent chaos. Yet the Valkyrie glided swiftly and smoothly to the pier, and Kristin stood at the railing. The April day was warm with sunlight, clean with wind. New York, the new world, America itself, lay waiting at her feet. Her heart quickened, in wonderment and expectation, as she studied the scene along the harbor, tried to pick out faces of individuals. Eric has been here, she knew. Perhaps he is here even now.

  While Kristin stood on the Valkyrie’s glossy oaken deck, waiting for the gangway to be lowered, Eric raced toward the harbor. Three days had gone by since his ignominious departure from the hotel, and he had turned the three days to good use. Knowing there was no chance of getting a workingman’s job, he had instead decided to use a skill many others did not possess: he’d called on boardinghouses, visited tenements, met incoming ships. “Letters,” he’d cried. “I can write letters in English and Norwegian. Letters to relatives, employers, government officials. Letters. I’ll write letters for you.”

  There had been some customers, and as Eric rushed down to the pier to meet the Valkyrie, his old clothes were cleaned and pressed, patched, too. In one jacket pocket he had fourteen dollars and thirty-five cents, enough for train fare for two out of New York and into the vicinity of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He had never been there, but many had told him that the land was rich in Pennsylvania. In the other pocket of his jacket Eric carried several sheets of rude tablet paper, upon which he had copied—from information garnered at the New York Public Library—what one had to do in order to acquire a homestead. The day was bright; he felt fine, save for a subliminal quaver of nervousness. He could not forget Joan’s words: “Tell me, what will your beloved think when she comes down the gangway and sees you?”

  He passed down along the docks, and saw the Valkyrie shimmering there, riding the blue-green water like a lazy lover on the mount, moving gently up and down as dock workers tied her to the pier. He could imagine the gleam and power of her engines, the gloss of her appointments, the comfort of her staterooms. Kristin had crossed the Atlantic in that—Eric had by now discounted any thought that his darling would not be aboard the vessel—and he himself had come over, laden with coal dust and grime, in the bowels of the Anandale.

  Then he saw her at the railing, Kristin, his own. She was wearing a dress of pale blue, with ruffles of gleaming white at collar and cuffs. The dress showed her figure, and the color enhanced the golden tone of her skin, the glossy darker gold of her hair as it shifted in the easy wind. She was looking down at the docks. Trying to find him? Eric did not know why, just then, but he stepped behind a wharf piling. He felt strange. Then he knew why. He felt ashamed. He cursed himself for it. In the old country, he had, in terms of actual possessions, been poor. But that had never bothered him, because it had not mattered. What had one needed there but land and one’s name? Eric Starbane, what has happened to you? he asked himself. He felt powerless; he felt unmanned; he felt poor.

  And there on the Valkyrie was Kristin, born to be a princess, and finally in her state. How could he presume to take her away from such heights, he who knew so well how cold the world could be?

  At that moment a man came up to Kristin and stood beside her. Casually he put his arm around her waist, and spoke to her. She nodded, but did not look at him. The man wore a coat that, even at this distance, spoke of money. When he lifted his head to look out across New York Eric observed, faintly but readily distinguishable, the diagonal manner in which his features were marred. Rolfson. Then, as casually as he had draped his arm about Kristin’s waist, as possessively as he had let his hand rest upon the swell of her hip, Rolfson now withdrew, and walked away to see about his business.

  Eric’s chest flooded with pain, and his mind fought assaults of uncertainty. He had to believe Kristin wanted
him, and at some deep point in his soul he knew that she did. But he was deeply anguished with the knowledge that Kristin would never suffer want or need or hunger if she remained with Rolfson. All of Eric’s bright hopes fell away from him, dropped down like a glass vase, and shattered on the ground. Except that the pieces flying away were not glass but dream. The fourteen dollars and thirty-five cents laughed in his pocket, mocking him. The homestead information within his other patched pocket, once so bright, seemed now but a shard of disaster, reminder of something valuable, wrecked through stupidity, and discarded.

  “I’ve had a man order us up a carriage, the finest in New York,” Kristin heard Gustav tell her. “I’ve arranged with Sonntag that we should disembark first. The other passengers will be held back for a time. There are newspaper reporters waiting. I shall bestow upon them a few words, and invite them to a reception at our hotel on the morrow. We’ll be staying at a place called the Madison. I am told it is quite excellent, and much frequented by people of good standing.”

  “Yes, husband.”

  It was with relief that Kristin felt his arm leave her waist, and sensed his withdrawal. Then she was free again, alone with her thoughts. Oh, yes, it was passing fair to wear fine clothes and ride great ships. But in the end, what was it? It was nothing. It was nothing because she was not happy, and could never be happy, with Gustav Rolfson. All of it was hollowness and ashes. All she wanted was Eric, and a simple life of work and love, children, happiness, and growing old together. That was all she needed. The greatness, the wealth, and all of the accoutrements of power, seemed to her to be sham and illusion and façade, from the manner in which the commoner Rolfsons sought to portray themselves as princes of a new economic order, to the blatant perversions in the life of much-respected Soames, and even to the pecking order apparent in the line of vehicles on the dock below.