by Ola Larsmo
In the Hollow a lot of children got sick, but only two died—Carl and the youngest Gavin boy. The two families had never talked to each other about it, since they lived at opposite ends of the valley and their paths almost never crossed. Besides, they had no common language except for one word: death. In Swedish the word was död. From what Anna understood, the Irish word for it was bas. Death seemed to be a short word in all languages.
The first weeks and months after Carl died, the family had visited the Oakland Cemetery as often as they could, bringing flowers from the Hollow to lay next to the simple wooden cross on which a lead plaque with his name had been fastened. That was all. The Gavin boy’s grave looked the same and happened to be quite close, so on one occasion they had run into his parents and mutely greeted each other. Anna noticed how Gustaf and Mr. Gavin silently exchanged looks of bleak despair.
Gradually their visits to the cemetery were less frequent. It was roughly nine miles there and back, and traveling was difficult in the winter. That’s when Anna would wake up and worry that he was cold.
It was the annual community cleaning day. Last year it had been canceled due to the flooding and subsequent epidemic. But the “tradition” was one of Inga’s many bright ideas, and she usually got most of the residents in the upper part of the Hollow to join in. On a Sunday in April they were going to try and clear away the worst of the trash before anything started to rot and the insects swarmed in. The Klar girls had been sent out with a group of younger children to help clear the wooded slope of old newspapers and rags, empty bottles, and rusty growlers. Inga had even persuaded carpenter Nilsson to bring along a few men to try and repair the broken steps leading up to Seventh Street. The older man wasn’t keen on working on the Sabbath, but he did as she asked because, as Inga expressed it, you never knew when somebody might have an accident so it was best to repair the steps. Grudgingly he slouched off, carrying his work tools, with several pieces of board under one arm. Inga supervised the work herself, since her house stood at one of the highest spots on the slope, and from there she could see how the work was progressing and whether anyone was sluffing off. She had brought her rag rugs outside where she could scrub them, and now she and Anna were both knocking the bottoms out of some big crates, which they then placed between the houses on the hill. Gustaf had promised to whitewash the crates, which would be filled with soil and flower seeds. By the time May arrived, they would provide bright spots of color against the background of gray earth.
Most of the houses in the upper part of the Hollow had more space and stood on higher ground, with greater distance to their neighbors than the houses clustered lower down where the ground leveled off and the ravine narrowed. A number of the houses higher up also had small garden plots where people had tried to grow vegetables. But the soil was mostly clay and there were few hours of sunlight in the area, shadowed as it was beneath the hillside leading up to the Hamm mansion. Here and there people had carved little picket fences to put up between the houses. During spring cleaning, they would whitewash the pickets so that for a few days or weeks the fences gleamed white against the unpainted boards of the houses. Then came the first heavy spring rains, and everything returned to the same gray as before. But for a few days anyone looking through the bare branches of the trees on the Hollow’s slopes saw an orderly and whitewashed scene. Then the leaves appeared and hid the view, both up toward the street and down toward the lower section of the Hollow and the railroad tunnels.
From where Inga and Anna now stood, they could see more and more people emerging from the houses, carrying rakes and shovels. The trash the children carried down from the hillside was thrown onto a big pile in the Hollow’s open area where the two footpaths converged. Some of the older ladies, all of them wearing similar kerchiefs and gray dresses, sorted through the rubbish to see if anything could be reused. The children continued to bring more rags, tin cans, and broken bottles. A few growlers were worth cleaning to be sold back to the bars up on Bradley Street, but most of them were completely rusted after spending a winter out in the open. When the women finished their sorting, they dumped whatever was left into Phalen Creek, where the water now flowed brown and wide. But most of the trash ended up swirling around where the creek widened a bit, only to form a kind of rampart and go no farther.
“We can’t let it stay like that,” said Inga, frowning. “Pretty soon the whole creek will be plugged up.”
Before she could do anything about it, however, young Leonard Hammerberg showed up. He had on a jacket and peaked cap, but his feet were bare and his pants legs were rolled up to the knee. He was carrying a piece of board. Without hesitation, he stepped down into the still icy-cold water. Grimacing slightly, he made his way over to the island of trash and rags, carefully setting down his feet, which must have been practically numb, as he traversed the rocky and slippery creek bed. Using the board, he began shoving the trash forward, bit by bit, until the whole pile was pushed over the edge and disappeared into the next small rapids of foaming brown water, on its way to the Irish territory and out of sight.
The children cheered for Leonard, who stood there in the rushing current. He pulled off his cap and bowed, which nearly made him lose his balance, but he caught himself just in time.
“Let’s hope he doesn’t catch cold and fall ill,” said Inga, always so practical-minded. But Anna thought she also noticed a trace of derision in the younger woman’s voice. She on the other hand felt the usual festering uneasiness when she noticed that among the little group of admirers standing on shore, Elisabet was the one who clapped the longest at Leonard’s antics.
:: :: ::
That same week Gustaf came home later than usual in the evening. At first Anna didn’t give it much thought, but when dark fell and yet another hour passed, she began to worry. She kept going over to the door to peer outside.
Finally she heard him walk up the steps and across the porch floorboards. The door opened and Gustaf stood on the threshold with a brown paper sack under one arm. He looked tired. The anxiety that had started to surge inside her now eased, close to the place in her chest that now languished empty, where nothing moved at all. Gustaf set the package down and asked Anna whether there was anything to eat.
He was still sitting at the table when the girls retreated to their beds, which stood next to each other along one wall. Gustaf had made the beds himself, using wood that was left over from building the porch. He had also begged a few more boards from carpenter Nilsson. Ellen had already grown too big for her bed. Anna could see how she restlessly squirmed to find room for her long legs. She’s probably going to be taller than I am, thought Anna, who had to keep letting out Ellen’s clothing. Lately the girl had stubbornly insisted on doing the sewing herself, though with only modest results, but she was a quick learner. Right now Elisabet was already asleep, breathing quietly, with her hair spread out on the pillow and her face turned to the wall.
Gustaf got up to get the package he’d brought home. Carefully he untied the string and took off the wrapping paper, which he smoothed flat. Then he picked up a folded shawl and came over to his wife and placed the shawl around her shoulders. Anna stroked the cloth, which felt thick and soft under her fingertips. Part of the shawl was draped over her arm, and she saw that it was finely woven with a lovely floral pattern in red and green. And she thought it must look quite beautiful in the daylight.
She looked up at Gustaf. He was standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders, on top of the new shawl. She could feel his hands shaking.
“This is for you,” he said. “You need to stop wearing the black one now. It’s time.”
She looked down at the table, her whole being knotted into a silent but intractable No. The new shawl lay on her arm, drawing her eye as if the cloth had a will of its own. Dozens of tiny little flowers, red and green. They shimmered in the glow from the candle. Gustaf’s hands were still on her shoulders, but he was no longer shaking.
“Thank you,” she said, tryi
ng to keep her voice steady. “Where did you find it?”
Gustaf came around the table and sat down across from her. They were keeping their voices as low as possible. Yet Anna was almost certain that Ellen was listening to them as she lay quietly in bed, not stirring in her sleep as she usually did.
“I had to go up to Seventh Street,” he said, “to the vendors’ stalls up there. It was hard to find something I thought would be suitable because I realized that you wouldn’t want to wear anything fancy. But it’s time. Do you understand?”
The words were somewhere inside her, ready to be spoken. But he’s dead. Everything that had to do with him is over. He’s gone, and we’re here. We are living in the hole that he left behind when he simply disappeared. And farther down were the words that she’d never been able or willing to say even to herself, much less to her husband: It’s our fault. But when she tried to grasp the words, they seemed to slip away. And unconsciously her fingers stroked the thick cloth of the shawl, draped in soft folds around her shoulders and over her arms.
“He’s gone,” Anna said. Her voice was toneless, not agitated. She was merely stating what they were really talking about.
Gustaf nodded without looking at her; he didn’t dare. But then he spoke. “We’re here now,” he said. “This is where we’re supposed to be. I didn’t think like that about New York. Nothing has turned out the way we thought it would, but this is where we are now. He’s gone, but we’re here. And that’s how it will be. And I will continue to live this life that I have. There’s nothing else to be done.”
Then he fell silent after forcing himself to say what he’d intended. Anna realized that he’d lingered on the way home in order to ponder what he would say. It was unlikely that anyone else would have been able to make sense of his seemingly disconnected statements, but she understood. So many times he had asked her to forgive his temperament and that one occasion when he had lost his head and sent them in a long arc that had forced them to leave Sweden. She also knew that Gustaf had been turning the same thoughts over and over in his mind every single day during the past year: If only I hadn’t. Then maybe he’d be alive today. She had never said a word about that, because anything she said would have torn an even bigger hole in their lives. She looked at him now. His face was more lined because of all the work he did outdoors on the railroad, and there were streaks of gray in his mustache. He met her eye, and she saw the dark foreboding in his gaze as he tried to decipher what she might be thinking. There was nothing more to add. And so he waited.
Then she said, “Thank you. I hope it wasn’t too expensive.”
“I’ve been putting a little money aside,” he said. “Just a few coins now and then.” He sighed with relief but kept his eyes fixed on her as he sat there, with his hands clasped on the table, as if in prayer.
She rubbed a fold of the shawl between her thumb and index finger. The flowers seems to dance across the lovely black cloth, which was so finely woven that in the faint candlelight the flowers seemed to be strewn over the dark, calm surface of water. But they did not sink.
“I think it will look even more beautiful in the daylight,” she said. “Tomorrow I think I’ll go over to show it to Inga.”
“Well, I thought it was beautiful too,” Gustaf said with a sigh. “It’ll be nice to see you wearing it tomorrow.”
As he watched, Anna turned to take the black, Irish shawl from where she’d draped it over the back of her chair. She folded it carefully. Then she stood up and went over to their biggest suitcase, which now served as the storage chest for their best clothes. She could feel her husband’s eyes on her back as she leaned down, placed the shawl inside the suitcase, and firmly closed the lid. Then she wrapped the new shawl tighter around her shoulders, allowing him to see her wearing it as he’d imagined.
“Thank you,” she said again. He raised one hand to rub his face. He could breathe again.
“It’s late,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” she said. “And tomorrow’s another day.”
She leaned over his shoulder to blow out the candle. In the dark she felt a breath of warmth from him as he sat at the table. Slowly he stood up, placed his arm around her shoulders, and drew her close. All was quiet. For a long moment they stood there in the dark, as one body, without speaking.
St. Paul Daily Globe
A CITY’S SAD CHARGE
The Poor, Who Are Always Looking for Needed Relief—
Swede Hollow and the People Who Dwell Within It—
SIGHTS AND SCENES AS OBSERVED AMONG THE LOWLY OF LIFE.
The inhabitants of Swede Hollow are too often (as might be expected) of the lowest order of mental and moral intelligence. One room, or at most two, serves as both bedroom and kitchen, to say nothing of a drawing room, library and the accessories of the bath. There are on an average about five individuals to a family. But in many cases as many as fifteen men, women and children sleep, eat and live in a single room in this quarter. The moral result is obvious at a glance, while for sanitary reasons the effect on the general health is manifest.
A stroll about the quarter shows an enormous amount of hidden and concentrated vice. The faces of the children are here and there indelibly tainted with the surface manifestations of leprosy, which but too clearly evidences the indiscriminately guilty loves of their progenitors. The boys and girls of a more mature age lean idly against the fence and occasionally shake off the all-prevailing lethargy long enough to make a fruitless endeavor to hit a stray chicken or goose with a rock. A round hundred of nondescript cur dogs complete the scene of poverty and desolation, and conclusively prove that Swede Hollow is by no means a desirable place in which to live.
Many of the children are continually upon the streets of the city, and absorb vice and iniquity with each succeeding day. A large proportion of them are not sent to school, and their parents are too ignorant or too criminal to pay proper attention to their welfare. Instead they are, boys and girls alike, sent upon the streets to earn a living by their wits, at selling papers, picking rags, peddling, or even thieving when chance presents itself. Fortunately there are no saloons in the immediate vicinity of the Hollow, but it is but a short distance to either Seventh or Third Street, and many is the laborer who brings home but a muttered curse and an unsteady step on Saturday night as a means of subsistence for the ensuing week.
ON CERTAIN SPRINGTIME EVENINGS, lights up on the hill at the Hamm mansion glittered between the branches of the leafy trees. They were signals from another world, mere glimpses that vanished at once. Occasionally, when the wind blew from up on Dayton’s Bluff, strains of music would reach the houses nearest to the foot of the steep slope.
The children knew they were not allowed up there. But on weekend evenings like that, they would often make their way up the hill, sneaking among the trees, moving slowly, arriving a little closer each time they paused. At last they would reach the fence that separated that other world from their own.
The fence wasn’t especially high, but it was topped with sharp, barbed spikes. It was said that a boy named Johan was once speared through when he illegally tried to climb over the fence. And Mr. Hamm had left his body to hang there for a day or two, as a warning to others. Nobody knew what the boy’s last name was, or in which house he had lived, because his parents were supposedly so grief-stricken by his death that they left the Hollow and moved far, far away.
The first time Ellen heard this story, she thought it was both horrid and exciting, providing a dramatic backdrop to those evenings when they would sneak around outside to observe one of the Hamms’ lavish dinner parties. The story was a reminder of the seriousness of the situation. Some of the older boys claimed they could point out the exact fence spike in question—though each time it seemed to be a different one. But all the children agreed that it was in the back corner, farthest away from the dog kennel. If the boys tried to tell the story to any of the younger children, Ellen would angrily tell them to shush. In her mind all dead boys looked
like Carl, and she didn’t want to think about that.
It was a Saturday evening, and dusk had long since fallen over the Hollow. Up on Dayton’s Bluff, daylight still lingered between the trees like an afterthought. The children were standing among the last trees in front of the fence, staring at the house. Ellen and Elisabet were joined by Leonard, who was actually too old to spend time with such young children, but occasionally he would accompany Elisabet. The group also included the brothers Erland and Jakob Lindgren who lived at the bottom of the Hollow, near the Irish sector. Their mother was dead, so they lived with their maternal grandmother who was one of the oldest women in the whole ravine. The younger boy, Jakob, was special because he had no nose. He had only a small bump in the middle of his face with tiny nostrils that were constantly rimmed with snot that he would wipe off with a flick of his wrist. The boy was also blind in one eye, but his mind was as quick as anyone’s. Everybody said he was like that because his mother had come down with the pox before she gave birth to Jakob, possibly infected by the man who was his father, though nobody knew where he was. But that was never mentioned whenever Erland was around, because he would instantly cause a ruckus. Leonard was among those who always did his best to see to it that Jakob was left in peace. This evening the group also had an Irish boy in tow, a ten-year-old named Fergus who often came along. He never spoke, so they let him be.
The Hamm mansion was three stories high with a peculiar looking tower. There was another story circulating about how brewer Hamm’s sister lived up there and wasn’t quite right in the head. In fact, there was no entrance to the tower from inside the house, so her meals were delivered through a hatch in the wall. But that story had lost credibility after Hamm installed electricity and the lamp in the ceiling was turned on and off several times each evening, making it possible to see various people inside.
Tonight most of the mansion’s windows were dark, but lights burned in the big crystal chandelier in the large hall on the ground floor. Through the tall windows facing the garden, the children caught glimpses of festively clad people seated around a table. When someone opened a window to air out the room, the sound of a violin floated out into the springtime night, along with voices talking and laughing; apparently people chattered even when the music was playing.