by Ola Larsmo
For several weeks he was able to find temporary work each day. With the Norwegian’s help, he managed to follow Nielsen around to various hiring spots. If he got there on time, the Dane would choose him almost every morning. He kept away from Mulligan, and sure enough, the man soon stopped showing up at the harbor. No one knew where he’d gone, but many said the Italians had taken him, which meant no trace of the man would ever be seen again. He wasn’t missed.
Gustaf and a hundred other men spent a couple of warm Indian summer days digging up the streets around Grand Central Station. He had to teeter along wooden planks placed above ditches six or seven feet deep, pushing a wheelbarrow filled with stones and sand. No dawdling was permitted. But the weather was good, and the men were given beer to drink. Gustaf had never found work this far north in the city before, and he was worried about how he’d get home. But Nielsen came back with the wagon at the end of each workday. The men were told they were making way for new railway tunnels. Other men who spoke other languages came after them to construct scaffolding in the places where the dirt had been dug out to a depth equivalent to the height of several men below the street. But farther ahead they had hit bedrock. The work stopped as the supervisors calculated what it would cost to use dynamite and whether it would even be feasible to use explosives in the middle of the city. Gustaf had hoped the job would last longer. Yet it made him nervous to be so far from any familiar neighborhoods, so he wasn’t sorry when Nielsen announced one morning that the excavation work had been put on hold indefinitely. Instead they would be going to the west side of the harbor to load rags. From there Gustaf could find his way home even if they were left behind without transport in the evening.
But the work was harder than he’d expected. It involved handling big bales of fabric, with chaff flying through the air in the stifling cargo hold and making it hard to see. After a while it was also hard to breathe, even with a handkerchief tied over his mouth. And the whole time the autumn sun poured through the open cargo hatch, like a solid pillar of light in the midst of the shimmering dust of fibers. He coughed all the way home, and when Anna grew worried, he said that when he had time, he’d cough up an entire new mattress for them. But she didn’t laugh. It had been a long time since he’d been able to make her laugh.
Lieutenant Gustafsson apparently continued to visit, crossing from one rooftop to another. Anna never mentioned her, but the children sometimes asked whether “that lady” would be coming over again. Her visits left clear traces behind: a couple of small, wizened apples, one of which Anna had put aside for Gustaf; another bit of bacon in his supper. One day he found a magazine called The War Cry lying on the kitchen table, although it was in English. Anna didn’t seem to pay it any mind, and the next day it was lying in the exact same spot.
Gustaf mentioned the magazine only in passing, but Anna would get upset every time he joked about the “lady soldier.”
Occasionally, while he was at work, he would imagine the scene as if in a waking dream: how Lieutenant Gustafsson would come to see them, solemnly striding across the gaps between the buildings like Jesus in an illustration from the Bible, dressed in her violet uniform and old-fashioned bonnet. He pictured her as an older woman, but he had no real idea what she looked like since he’d never seen her in person. She probably looked nothing like the Salvation Army soldier named Belle on the theater posters that had been plastered all over town.
One Sunday afternoon Gustaf returned home after a somewhat shorter workday, hired on as a stevedore at the East Harbor. He was astonished to find a strange woman sitting at the kitchen table. She wore the Salvation Army uniform and beribboned hat, so he surmised this must be Lieutenant Gustafsson. But she was younger than both he and Anna were. The children sat on the edge of the bed eating pieces of wheat bread that she must have brought for them. Anna stood in the background with a closed expression, clasping her hands under her apron. He knew this was a clear sign of how nervous she felt. The lieutenant stood up and curtsied when she saw Gustaf come in. He was unprepared for visitors, covered with sweat and dust as he was, and he didn’t know what to do with himself, even though he was standing in his own kitchen. So he merely nodded and drank a ladleful of water from the bucket before sitting down across from the woman.
“You must be wondering what I’m doing here on a Sunday afternoon, Mr. Klar,” she said in Swedish, looking him in the eye. Gustaf stared at her without saying a word. After a moment she looked away but then went on. “Anna and I have been talking during the past few weeks. It’s not easy to come here to a new country and find your way.”
“We’re doing all right,” he said, surprised at how muffled his voice sounded. His nose and throat must still be filled with dust. He looked down at his hands lying on the rough, grained surface of the wooden table.
“Anna has told me how hard you work to make ends meet, Mr. Klar,” said the lieutenant. “But there’s a lot to consider for a family like yours.”
Gustaf felt a rising anger at the impudence of this young woman, who came here to their lodgings and spoke to him as if they were the same age. A fancy uniform could not disguise her youth. At the same time, he sensed Anna’s nervousness growing as his own expression darkened. The situation felt suddenly painfully familiar.
“What is it the lieutenant is thinking of in particular?” he managed to say as he blinked and swallowed hard, trying to suppress his anger as best he could. For Anna’s sake.
The lieutenant continued. “It’s about the weather,” she told him. They’d had a warm autumn this year, but winter was on its way, and they wouldn’t believe how cold it could get here in New York. “It’s worse than back home in Sweden,” she said. “Every morning people are found frozen to death on the streets. You have to keep a fire going around the clock, especially in buildings like this one,” she added, casting a glance at the stove in the corner. “And then there are the summers.”
“We came here in the summer,” Gustaf interjected. “And we’ve managed fine.”
The lieutenant nodded and then lowered her head so the upper part of her face was hidden by the brim of her bonnet. But he could still see her lips moving.
“We had a good summer this year,” she said, “without any bad heat waves. But the summer of ’96 was so hot that the tar melted on the rooftops. Old people and children suffer in that kind of heat. And you have only one window here.”
Even though Gustaf couldn’t see her eyes, he could tell that she was glancing at Carl, who was still sitting quietly on the bed.
Then she raised her head to look him in the eye. Her face was very pale, framed and shadowed as it was by her bonnet, which made her features seem to hover in the dim light.
“You can’t stay here,” she said. “It may be all right at the moment, but winter is coming. And even if you make it through the winter, the summer could be worse. You need to find a different place to live. They’ve already started tearing down buildings in this neighborhood.”
She fell silent, her gaze unwavering.
“I have to work,” was all he said.
“Anna says you don’t know anyone else here in the city,” the lieutenant persisted. “But there’s a Swedish community up in Harlem. And another one in Brooklyn.”
“Those places are too expensive,” he said. “And there’s no work there. Not unless you know someone. Don’t think I haven’t tried.”
Those last words stung on his tongue, and again he felt anger surge inside him. She was here to take them to task, to take him to task, with God on her side. He clasped his hands tightly under the table.
“Is there nowhere else you could go?” she asked. Her brown eyes were fixed on him. The whole situation was becoming unbearable. His family could sense it too. No one said a word or moved a muscle as Gustaf and the lieutenant sat across from each other at the table.
“Not here,” he said finally. “Not here in the city.”
Anna was the one who dispelled the tension in the air by abruptly turning to th
e window and shoving it open with a bang. The smell of coal smoke drifted in on a cool breeze. She stood with her back to the room, and Gustaf realized she wanted to hide her face from him and the children.
The lieutenant also sensed that the moment had passed. Slowly she stood up and then pushed her chair under the table.
“I must be on my way,” she said. “I enjoyed our conversation, Mr. Klar.”
She gave a quick curtsy and then moved past him to the door. Anna turned briefly to give the woman a nod. Then she went over to the cupboard and without a word began taking out the plates for supper.
Gustaf stayed where he was, listening to the lieutenant’s retreating footsteps until they were swallowed up by the building’s noisy stairwell. Then he stood up and went over to the window, mostly to get out of Anna’s way. A few minutes later he caught sight of the lieutenant’s violet cape below. Without pausing to look around, she quickly crossed Mulberry Street and disappeared into the crowds of people around the street stalls on the opposite pavement before she continued down the street.
Winter arrived suddenly, catching Gustaf completely off guard. One day they could go outdoors without wearing a scarf or cap, walking beneath a pale autumn sun that still gave off a faint warmth when it was at its zenith above the buildings. The next morning an icy wind blew through the long valleys of the streets, whirling chaff and papers into the air. Then came the snow, the flakes as sharp as hail. He’d never seen anything like it. And the month of November had only just started. On his way to the hiring spot at the harbor, Gustaf wrapped his scarf over his nose and mouth, even though that meant the cold seeped under the collar of his jacket because a button had come off. The wind from the river was so fierce that it dredged up dust from the many layers of horseshit that had long ago dried and been trampled on the streets. The dust stung his eyes and clogged his airways. He didn’t glance around, wrapped in his own thoughts as he was, trying to keep warm.
When he arrived at Pike, he found the street corner deserted. He was the only one there, and he felt panic seize hold of him. Something had changed. Everyone else had gone somewhere else, but he had no idea where that might be. And last night the Norwegian had not been sitting on his stool in the alley, though at the time he hadn’t given it much thought.
For a moment Gustaf stood in the shelter of a brick wall, black with soot, not knowing what to do next. No one else showed up. Several men on their way out onto the piers glowered at him, clearly wondering what he was doing there. Then they fixed their eyes on the ground again to avoid getting the full blast of the wind in their faces. Gustaf made up his mind. He counted the coins in his pocket without taking them out and then headed toward town.
If he walked halfway there, he’d be able to afford to take the train most of the way back. On the other hand, it would be good to arrive rested and looking as alert as possible. He walked as fast as he could down to the ferry dock at Castle Garden. There he joined a line of equally silent passengers, all of them shivering in the icy cold as they waited to go onboard the ferry. The wind and sleet whipped at the smoke issuing from the double smokestacks, shredding it to pieces before it managed to rise into the air. But the ferry floated steadily in the choppy water.
Gustaf stayed as long as he could in the smoking lounge on the ferry’s forward deck until the cigar smoke and crowded space began inducing a panic in him that he hadn’t felt since the ocean crossing onboard the Majestic. There was nowhere to sit. He stood closest to the door amid a group of men until he could no longer breathe. Then he slipped outside into the drifting snow on the forward deck. The ferry lurched as it headed into the wind, and one of the horses on the wagon deck whinnied repeatedly, sounding more and more shrill each time the blasts of wind struck the boat.
Gustaf hadn’t seen the city from the water since they’d docked on that first day. When they’d been taken away from the burning wooden castle on Ellis Island, he’d been frantic with worry as he’d stared across the water at the fire. The buildings along the shoreline still looked just as unbelievably tall through the whirling snow, but they now reminded him of an old man’s broken teeth. The windows mutely reflected the dove-gray snowy sky above the river. Then he was forced to close his eyes and turn away, raising one hand to hold on to his cap, as a new gust of wind blew the snow, sharp as salt, against his face.
When the boat docked, he was carried along by the throng of people through the warehouse-sized ferry terminal and beneath the railway station’s high vault, made of cast iron and grimy glass. Finally freed from the crowds, he found himself standing next to a pillar covered with signs and lists of distant destinations, printed in small type. He read through the lists as best he could, then looked around to find someone to ask for help as he turned over like stones in his mouth the few appropriate English words he knew. The names of the towns said very little to him until he finally found the one he was looking for on one of the timetables, as tall as a man, posted on the wall. Newark.
He handed over his little gray third-class ticket at the right gate and then made his way to the platform where a short train was already waiting under a plume of gray smoke. He found a seat next to the window in an overcrowded car. He ended up across from a black-clad woman who seemed to be suffering from chronic hiccups. As regular as clockwork, her body would spasm as she sat in silence, her lips pressed tight and her eyes closed. He turned away to look out the window, feeling dizzy as the train car lurched dangerously. They seemed to be flying through thin air above the rooftops and the bare trees down below, traveling along a slender bridge he could hardly even see except for the track flickering past. His heart pounded under his blue workman’s jacket.
Gustaf got out at what he hoped was the right station. It had stopped snowing. The Norwegian had given him the address long ago, jotted down on a scrap of paper he’d put in his wallet and then almost forgotten. 29 Magazine Street. He hunched forward, seeing no one else around as he walked along the muddy edge of the street, as yet unpaved. The wind was still blowing, but the needlelike snowflakes had diminished, evident now only in sudden gusts when the wind turned across the river and came back from a different direction.
On one side of the street stood a row of wooden buildings. On the other was a low series of brick structures, looking like one long connected building. Some had windows, some did not. He couldn’t see any street numbers, and there was no one around to ask. The wind blew through the telephone wires above his head, issuing a monotonous whining sound.
A tall man, a Negro, came out of the opening in a board fence, which was more than five feet high. He too hunched his shoulders against the wind. Gustaf hurried forward, holding in his hand the scribbled note that read Mueller and Sons Boot Company, 29 Magazine Street, Newark.
The man looked up in surprise when Gustaf stammered his question, and at first he seemed uncomprehending. Gustaf repeated the question as best he could, feeling as if his words were disappearing into the wind. The man had already put up his hands, an apologetic smile on his face, when Gustaf held out the note. The man scanned the words and then nodded. He rubbed his chin and then pointed farther along the brick building. Then the man shut the gate in the fence and took off before Gustaf had time to thank him.
He had expected to see more people around, yet the area did not have the air of an entirely abandoned site. He thought he could sense through the brick walls the presence of people diligently working.
Above a gate to a large inner courtyard hung a sign that looked brand new, with words printed in bright colors: MÜLLER & SONS BOOTS & FINE LEATHER. He was just about to step beneath the vault, which offered shelter from the wind, when a door opened in a small shed that was probably meant to be a sentry’s box. A large man with a dark, full beard and wearing spectacles looked Gustaf up and down without uttering a word.
Gustaf went over and removed his cap, even though the wind was still cold and managed to say “How do you do?” in a voice a bit too loud.
The man nodded curtly but d
idn’t budge from the doorway. Inside the courtyard behind him a gentle yellow glow issued from the windows. Someone had turned on the electric lights. Gustaf saw men wearing shirts and waistcoats seated in rows at cutting tables, all of them focused on whatever it was their hands were working with. He felt his eyes drawn in that direction, toward the warm light and the bowed heads of the workers.
The guard with the full beard said something, and Gustaf leaned forward to catch the words, but he didn’t understand. The man repeated what he’d said. Now Gustaf realized he was not speaking English. He shook his head, smiled, and said “Swede” as he pointed at himself.
The guard stared but didn’t speak, so Gustaf tried to explain what he wanted. “I do work. Like this. In Sweden.” He waved his hands in the air, mimicking how he would hold on to a piece of tanned leather with one hand while cutting it with the other.
The man again said a few words Gustaf didn’t understand. He stood still, his arms hanging at his sides, waiting for more. The guard then repeated what he’d said, this time in equally broken English: “Here all speak German.” Then he went inside, shutting the door behind him.
For a moment Gustaf stood still, staring at the illuminated window on the other side of the vaulted courtyard. He watched the rhythmic movements of the men as they, one by one, leaned forward to pull cord through the cut leather. It looked as if they were trying to mimic one another’s gestures in some sort of slow-moving dance. From their posture and the bend of their shoulders he could tell what part of the job they were doing. They worked quickly and without casting a single glance out the window. Silence had settled around Gustaf, not a sound except for the blowing of the wind through the tangle of telephone wires high overhead. His feet were freezing. Then he began walking back the same way he’d come.
He had just enough money for the train and the ferry ride back. The wind had died down. It was late, so there were no wagons on deck, and he could sit inside the smoking lounge without feeling suffocated. Half the benches were empty, and he saw mostly elderly men reading their newspapers or dozing.