by Ola Larsmo
Both girls froze. All at once everything seemed uncertain and shaky.
“What do you mean, Mother?” Ellen asked.
“I was talking to Elisabet. What did you just say?”
Elisabet peered up at her through the strands of her straight, blond hair hanging in her face. She looked puzzled, as if unaware of the approaching storm.
“I just said what a lot of work there is to do.”
Their mother had now turned away from the stove to face them. Behind her the brisket and potatoes were bubbling in the family’s only copper cook pot.
“No, that’s not what you said. Say it again.”
“I said, ‘Musha, musha,’ what a lot of work there is to do.”
Their mother took two steps forward and gave Elisabet a swift box on the ear. Then she went back to the stove and began stirring the pot as if nothing had happened. Elisabet stood like a statue in the middle of the room with her arms hanging at her sides as she blinked hard to keep from crying.
“That’s not how we talk,” said their mother in a matter-of-fact tone. Elisabet’s voice quavered as she replied, but she was defiant.
“All I said was . . .”
And Ellen thought as she stood there, still holding one of the dull, scratched plates in her hand: don’t make it any worse than it already is.
“All I said was that Father will be home soon.”
“No, you didn’t. You’re not to use words like that.”
“All I said was—”
Speaking in a harsh voice, her face turned away as she stirred the pot, their mother said, “You sound like an Irishman. You sound like a mick. I don’t want to hear that sort of language in this house.”
And Ellen thought, They’re so alike. The same straight hair, although Mother’s is darker; the same thin face that gets even sharper with stubbornness. I’m nothing like them.
From far away she heard their mother go on: “I don’t want you talking like them. I don’t want you talking to them. You’ve been hanging around those ramshackle houses of theirs and those children way down in the Hollow. They need to keep to themselves, and we’ll keep to ourselves up here.”
Ellen wondered whether she ought to say that, on the contrary, it was the Irish children who kept to themselves and who didn’t want to have anything to do with them in school, but she also knew that no matter what she said, she risked getting in hot water. So she didn’t say a word.
Silently Elisabet headed for the door. She could no longer hold back the tears, and her face was red and contorted. She took her shawl from its hook and went out. Ellen took two steps toward the door to call her sister back, but her mother waved her hand abruptly, a gesture that meant Leave her be.
“She’ll go over to Inga’s place,” she said from the stove. “She’ll come back when she gets hungry. You stay here. I want to have a talk with you before your father comes home.”
Ellen stood still, as if frozen midstride, waiting for what would come next. She was still holding the plate in her hand. And the darkness was growing from the corners of the room.
Her mother took the cook pot off the stove and put on the lid. Ellen had been feeling hungry, but the smell of brisket and cabbage now made her stomach churn. All of a sudden she was terribly thirsty and wanted to go over to the bucket of water, but she didn’t dare move. Her mother stood at the stove. Ellen could feel her looking at her, but she didn’t dare look up. Her mother said something. She heard the words as if from far away, but at first they made no sense. “What is he doing here every evening?”
She didn’t know who her mother was talking about. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Finally it seemed more dangerous to remain silent, so she asked, “Who? Who do you mean, Mother?”
She expected to be slapped. But instead her mother said calmly from where she stood at the stove, “You know very well who I mean. That Hammerberg boy. Leonard. He keeps running around the house as if he’s looking for something. Don’t think I haven’t seen him.”
Ellen looked up. “So that’s what you meant,” she said.
Her mother gave her a stern look with her black-pepper eyes.
“It’s not like you think, Mother,” said Ellen after a moment. “I’m not the one he wants to talk to. He talks to Elisabet a lot.”
Now her mother didn’t look mad. Instead she seemed mostly surprised. Then she turned around, picked up the ladle, and took the lid off the pot. From over by the sideboard she said in a husky voice, “What could he want with Elisabet? He’s practically a grown man.”
Ellen mulled over these words in her mind. They felt like shards of pottery with sharp edges, and she had to scrape past them so as not to make matters worse. She had only one chance before the darkness once again closed in around them.
“He walks us home from school,” she said. “When he has time after work, that is. So the Flaherty boys won’t bother us. Those boys who live down by the tunnels.”
“You and Elisabet need to stay away from them,” her mother automatically said as she stood there, holding her hands in front of her.
“They’re scared of Leonard. When he’s with us, they don’t dare do anything. Besides, he thinks it’s fun to talk to Elisabet, because she says such silly things.”
And Ellen pictured the two of them in her mind, the broad-shouldered Leonard wearing his sailcloth jacket and her skinny little sister in a much-washed, checked dress walking five steps ahead of her, on their way through the Drewry Tunnel. Elisabet would say something she couldn’t hear, but it made the boy with the big hands snort with laughter. She pictured the way his face would first light up with surprise that a little girl could say something so funny. Ellen almost never heard what they said to each other, but if she did, she didn’t find it funny. She merely walked along, feeling safe, in their wake. The fact that her mother might be worried about Elisabet had never even occurred to Ellen. She knew that Leonard was unpredictable and that some people were wary of him. But Elisabet was the last person her mother needed to worry about.
Her mother straightened up. Ellen couldn’t see her face, but she could hear that her breathing was now calmer. Then she blew her nose on the corner of her apron and said in a perfectly ordinary voice, “It’s best you go and fetch Elisabet and Carl at Inga’s place. We’ll be eating soon.”
That was all she said. In the silence Ellen slowly slipped out the door, closing it behind her. She didn’t stop to put on a coat because she didn’t want to risk upsetting the calm that had now been restored. She stood on the half-finished porch, shivering in the chill of the evening as she looked out over the Hollow. She paused for a moment before setting off up the hill to Inga’s house. The lights in the ravine down below were like tiny autumn leaves on the surface of a deep well. She felt as if she were seeing everything for the first time. In the blue dusk along the creek the windows, set apart, glowed yellow, one after the other. Smoke rose up through the dark behind a wall of shimmering lights. She breathed in through her nostrils, which closed up with a sharp smell of iron. Down where the Irish lived, a dog barked, obstinately and unceasingly.
Then came the whistle from the Duluth train, which always gave two blasts before entering the tunnel and one blast inside to warn everybody who lived next to the track. Soon the train would appear behind a cloud of coal smoke, gliding along the embankment that cut them off from the street above. Ellen suddenly felt so cold that it frightened her, and she ran as fast as she could up the path to Inga’s slanting house, which looked like a silhouette cut out of paper against the last of the daylight above the slope to the west.
Swede Hollow
April 1898
EVERY SUNDAY some of the people who lived in the Hollow went to the Swedish Lutheran Church up on the hill. That was expected of those who were about to marry or if a child had been born, and at least that much was the same as back home. Others went to the First Swedish Baptist Church, which was in the opposite direction, up on Payne Avenue. There had been much discussion about
whether it was obligatory to join the Lutheran church even if a person attended the Baptist church; this was the opinion of many of those who had lived the longest in the Hollow. But those who were part of the Baptist congregation would get quite cross if anyone voiced such an idea. They would usually declare that since they were now in the United States, the pastor had nothing to say about the matter, at least not in the same way as he had back in Sweden. But most people living in the Hollow went to no church at all, except when it became necessary.
Nilsson, the carpenter, and his family were among those who had joined the Baptists. Mr. Nilsson didn’t always attend the services, but every Sunday his wife could be seen, with her two daughters in tow, heading for the Drewry Tunnel and continuing up to Beaumont Street. The girls, who were nearly grown, would walk along holding hands, which presented a comical picture. In general there was something odd about them, though it had nothing to do with the fact that they attended the Baptist church instead of the usual Lutheran church. Nilsson was a taciturn man who could usually find work on some construction project in the area, and no doubt his work situation would improve even more when spring arrived. His wife and daughters were even quieter than he was, if that could be possible. Ellen had heard her mother and Inga talking about them, lowering their voices in such a way that made her automatically prick up her ears. Mrs. Nilsson was not unpleasant, but she seemed bowed beneath some invisible burden. After a while Ellen understood what that burden was, even though the grown-ups avoided discussing the topic. Apparently one of the daughters was not quite right in the head. This wasn’t something you could tell just by looking at her, but she had trouble taking care of herself, and that’s why she often smelled faintly of urine. Since the whole family said so little, no one was fully aware of the situation at first. The Nilssons mostly kept to themselves, living in a small white-painted house that the carpenter had built from scraps of lumber he’d hauled home from one of his construction jobs. Inga thought it must have been because of the daughter that the Nilssons had left Sweden. The work opportunities for the father probably fluctuated in the same way back home, sometimes good and sometimes bad, so she wondered what they had thought would be different in another country. Ellen could have explained, if anyone had asked her. She thought it was the simple fact that nobody knew the family here, so they were allowed to suffer their invisible burden in peace. And they probably wouldn’t leave the Hollow anytime soon.
Inga continued to do various odd jobs for the “ladies,” who wanted her to clean house and help with all sorts of chores. Ellen could understand why they hired her. Inga was always good-natured, and she didn’t get mad if anyone bossed her around. She might not be a particularly fast worker, but everything got done properly. Inga said that it had become popular to hire Swedish servants; they were acquiring a good reputation, especially those who could speak some English. Yet most of Inga’s ladies had actually come from Sweden themselves.
One Sunday Inga came over to the Klar house, as she usually did after work. But this time it was Ellen she wanted to see. She came right to the point and asked Ellen whether she’d be willing to help out with a big cleaning job at the home of Mrs. Gustafson up on Seventh Street. She wanted to do a spring cleaning of her entire apartment. They would have to beat the rugs, change the curtains, and scrub the floors. Ellen would be paid a dollar, as would the Nilsson girl, who would also be helping out. The other Nilsson daughter couldn’t work away from home, so they needed one more person. That’s why Inga wanted to know if Ellen would come. It was only for one day.
“I have to go to school,” she said, but out of the corner of her eye she saw her mother’s back stiffen as she stood at the window.
“Missing one day of school won’t matter,” Anna said. “We need the money.”
Ellen was about to say something about Elisabet, who shouldn’t be walking alone, yet she knew that for the time being her mother had accepted the fact that Leonard would make sure Elisabet got home from school safely. So she didn’t say anything, although she could already feel how a hole was growing inside her where that school day should have been. Somebody was always missing from the classroom because they were needed to help out with some job or other, and she could picture how Miss Swanson’s face, already strained, would seem to tighten from the inside when Ellen’s absence was noted during the morning roll call. She imagined the scene on Thursday when her name was called and no one answered. Miss Swanson would press her thin, bloodless lips together even harder but refrain from saying a word about the matter.
“It’s only for one day,” said Ellen’s mother without looking at her. She nodded and lowered her eyes, feeling Inga’s warmth from the other side of the table radiating through the room and making the situation a little easier to bear. Inga would be there too, after all, and not just that Lisbet Nilsson, with whom Ellen had hardly spoken.
It was still dark when Inga came to get her. Before dawn, a cold fog hovered over the creek down in the Hollow, but most people were already awake. For the past half-hour the lights had been on in almost all the loft windows farther down the slope, and many of the men were already on their way to work. Ellen wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and followed Inga down the slushy and slippery path to carpenter Nilsson’s house. Inga didn’t say a word as she led the way while chewing on something. She too was only half-awake. As they got closer to the house, Ellen saw Lisbet waiting on the front steps, standing quite still with her arms hanging at her sides. She must be freezing, thought Ellen. Then all three of them walked down through the Hollow, following the beaten path made by the men who had passed that way a half-hour earlier. In the semi-darkness, the stairs looked steeper and higher than in daylight, and Ellen was reminded how only a week ago she’d gathered her courage and asked Leonard if he knew who had built the stairs and how long they’d been there. He’d merely laughed soundlessly, the way he always did, and then said, “It was Ola Värmlänning who built them a long time ago.” That was what most people said, and it meant that he didn’t really know. He said no more about the topic. Ellen didn’t think the stairs looked like the work of one man, but she didn’t ask any more questions. Right now she followed Lisbet Nilsson up the icy steps, holding tight to the railing, which she noticed got more and more wobbly on each day that passed.
Up on Seventh Street the world began. On the other side she caught a glimpse of the river with barges towing lumber and an old paddle wheeler off in the distance, fighting its way against the current. From far away came sounds from the engine sheds. And she could see the steam mills beneath their hovering plumes of smoke. Inga began walking into the wind, which always seemed to be blowing at the top of the stairs. She and Lisbet followed, heading toward town.
Ellen had never been this far from home since they’d arrived here, and Seventh Street was longer than she’d previously imagined. She’d pictured Mrs. Gustafson living right across from the stairs, or at least nearby. But Inga kept going, leaning into the wind, which swept along the wide street. It felt as if they’d been walking for an eternity under the swaying telephone wires. The buildings on either side of the street began to change, getting bigger the closer they came to the city; soon the buildings were three or four stories high and made of stone. Lisbet Nilsson didn’t say a word as she walked along, swinging her arms. Ellen thought maybe that’s how a person would get if she had a sister like Lisbet had; if there was no one to talk to, she might simply stop talking and keep to herself.
Mrs. Gustafson lived on the third floor in a block of buildings with various businesses on the ground floor. Next door was a shop with big glass windows and a gilded sign with the words EKHOLM FURS. Across the street a red-and-white barber pole slowly spun in the wind. There was hardly anyone around, and none of the businesses were open yet.
“This is it,” said Inga, holding open the door to the stairwell. In the dim light inside Ellen could make out a steep staircase. For a moment she thought she was back in New York, and her stomach lurched. But the
smell here was completely different, mostly wood fires and dust and a whiff of coffee from somewhere.
Mrs. Gustafson seemed to have been waiting for them just inside the big double doors of her apartment. She was in her sixties, a short woman wearing a dark dress with ruffles at the neck, and at first she seemed taller than she was. Her gray hair was pinned up and gathered under a net. She didn’t say “Good morning” but merely turned to Inga, whom she’d known for a long time, and said, “The cleaning things are in the kitchen cupboard.” She didn’t even glance at the young girls standing in the hall, their cheeks still flushed from the wind outside. Inga simply nodded and led the way to the kitchen.
The apartment consisted of three rooms and a kitchen, and there was running water from a tap above the sink. In the dining room an electric lamp hung from a chain in the ceiling, but it was turned off. The kitchen had a wooden floor, but the floors in the other rooms were covered with linoleum in dull colors.
“Linoleum is good,” Inga whispered to them as she issued instructions. “It’s easier to scrub clean than an ordinary wood floor, and you don’t need to use as much water.”
Inga had said this would be a spring cleaning, and that’s exactly what it was. They began by wetting the adhesive tape around the windows. “Start at the top and work downward,” Inga said. The whole time Mrs. Gustafson remained somewhere in the apartment. She didn’t say anything, so it was possible to imagine that she’d gone out without telling them. But then her shadow would sweep past the open double doors. She was like a dark and vigilant bird who would suddenly glide in front of the light, casting her shadow over their work.