Swede Hollow

by Ola Larsmo

  It now struck Leonard that a passing observer up on the viaduct would probably not be able to distinguish him from Gustaf as they walked along surrounded by many other men on their way to the rail yards. Two gray jackets, two married men, two pairs of interchangeable hands. And soon he too would be a father.

  These sorts of thoughts preoccupied Leonard on his way to work and sometimes crept into his mind as he walked home, frequently alone and in the middle of the night if he’d been on the late train from the Fargo depot. But when he was out on the line, he never thought about such things. Out there, as one of the few railroad brakemen, he was entirely on his own, enveloped in his personal silence with only the wind in his ears. Out there he seldom thought of anything at all. He stayed as warm as he could, always on the alert and ready for those moments that depended on him using his hands, while he watched the desolate land extend out from the tracks. That was when he felt completely present.

  Sometimes he wondered why the whole world couldn’t be like that. He would prop his boots against the wall planks of the train car, hook his arm around the iron bar at the opening, and lean back into the wind. Out of the corner of his eye he would see the rails rushing past. Then he’d tilt his head back and look straight up into the red-streaked evening sky and the deepening blue-black darkness. If he let go, it would be all over. But that was not how he wanted to die. On the contrary, he wanted things to continue just as they were at that moment, with his eyes filling with tears from the fierce wind and with the sun setting over the gray, petrified sea of the prairie. It was his other life that might suddenly come to an end.

  Leonard awoke because the train had slowed to a standstill. The sun was shining in his eyes, and he’d fallen asleep slumped against the wall of the brakeman’s car. His legs were stiff and cold, but not frozen through. He had on the heavy blue sweater that Elisabet had knitted for him. He rolled out of the car and landed feet first on the embankment, tottering a bit on his numb toes. He leaned against the train and took a long piss. The sun was just rising above the edge of the prairie, big and yellow, and all was quiet. It had to be close to five o’clock. Then he hobbled toward the engine, hoping to find some hot coffee. He’d finished the last dregs from his own bottle long ago, and the sandwiches were all gone.

  The fireman was an Irishman by the name of Mahoney. After exchanging morning greetings, the fireman, without being asked, handed Leonard an enamel mug of hot, bitter coffee. It was no doubt left over from the night before and had now been heated up on the boiler for the third or fourth time. But he drank it without complaint. At regular intervals, little puffs of white steam issued from the engine’s smokestack overhead. When the two men spoke, their words also came out in tiny clouds of condensation in the morning air. Only now did Leonard notice how cold it was.

  He handed back the mug and thanked the man.

  “Why are we stopped here?” he asked. Mahoney nodded toward several freight cars back along the tracks.

  “Riley noticed that somebody had broken into one of the boxcars again. It was supposed to be locked and bolted when we left, but apparently the door slid open in the wind. He’s checking it now. Didn’t want to go back to the depot until he knew what had happened.”

  Leonard shivered as he walked back along the embankment, the taste of burnt coffee still lingering in his mouth. Then he came to the boxcar and looked up to see the legs of Riley and the engine driver through the open doorway. He set his hands on the edge and heaved himself inside.

  The two men were not alone in the dim light. Next to the wall lay the body of a man stretched out full length, but they didn’t seem concerned with the corpse as they stood there talking with their backs turned to it. They nodded good morning to Leonard as he stood up and brushed off his knees.

  The boxcar was filled with chaff because it had been used for transporting grain. Underneath and next to the dead man lay several sacks that he’d evidently used to cover himself in the cold night. The sacks were labeled WASHBURN-CROSBY GOLD MEDAL. Leonard nodded at the body.

  “So who’s that?” he asked, mostly just for something to say.

  Riley spat through the open doorway. He worked for the railroad police, and pinned to the breast pocket of his jacket was a silver badge with the Great Northern emblem. He also carried a revolver on his belt. He would show up at the rail yards whenever the thefts got too numerous, or someone was suspected of sabotage or labor organizers had made another appearance. Lots of men found it amusing to go behind Riley’s back and transact crooked dealings with stolen goods. He was well aware of this. Every time he talked to somebody he seemed to be considering how that person might be trying to dupe him. Leonard didn’t know why Riley was on board the train at all; it certainly wasn’t to deal with some dead tramp.

  “Who knows?” said Riley. “Just another dead guy. The second this week. But this one’s a little older.”

  Leonard cast a glance at the man lying on the sacks and then stepped closer. He was very thin, dressed in a nondescript, worn black suit with holes at the shoulders and knees. He lay on his back with his eyes closed, his hands clasped on his chest, as if he’d readied himself for his own burial. His face was dirty, and his gray hair was matted. But he looked calm as he lay there.

  Leonard went back to join Riley and the engine driver. They were cutting a piece off a twist of tobacco and didn’t seem in a hurry.

  “What did he die from?” asked Leonard. Riley looked as if it was beneath his dignity to answer so many questions, especially at this hour of the morning, but finally he said, “There are some empty bottles rolling around over there. My guess is he drank himself to death. Maybe on purpose, for all I know. That must be why he looks so content.”

  “We need to get moving,” said the engine driver, spitting into the morning. But he gave no sign of going anywhere.

  Leonard went back over to the corpse. Something gray was sticking up between the fingers of his clasped hands. It looked like a scrap of paper from a notebook. Rigor mortis had set in, but Leonard managed to wriggle out the paper without touching the dead man’s skin. It turned out to be a grubby, printed membership card with a name written in faded ink:

  Card of membership American Railway Union: GUST. JOHANSON, employed as R.R. brakeman

  Leonard took the scrap of paper over to the light and handed it to Riley, who gave it only a cursory glance, though he did raise one eyebrow.

  “So somebody must have let him onboard back in St. Paul,” he said. “Those old membership cards went out of use after the Pullman strike, and no doubt he hasn’t been able to find work ever since. You’re probably too young to remember all that. But a number of men still travel free, and wherever they like, by showing their old union cards. Provided they can find some workmate we haven’t managed to get rid of, that is.”

  He dropped the card through the open doorway where it fell onto the embankment.

  “Shall we get going now?” asked the engine driver. Riley nodded.

  “Give me a hand,” he said as he took a pair of leather gloves out of his pocket. The engine driver and Riley picked up the corpse under the armpits, leaving the feet to Leonard. The body was rigid but strangely lightweight; it was like lifting a bunch of boards. They moved over to the open doorway and heaved the dead man as far as they could. The body struck the gravel on the embankment and then rolled down the slope until it disappeared in the thicket where the prairie grass started.

  “It’s easier this way,” said Riley. “No fuss or ruckus, and the wild animals will take care of the rest.” Then he turned to the engine driver. “Now we can go.”

  The two older men headed for the locomotive. Leonard turned to go back to his car at the end of the train, but then he stopped and backed up a few steps. He bent down and picked up the card from the gravel. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed the soles of the dead man’s shoes sticking out of the bushes. He stuck the card in his pocket. Two quick blasts of the engine whistle signaled that he needed to hurry or he too
might be left here in the middle of nowhere.

  The news reached him as soon as he climbed off the train at the switchyard. One of the stokers who also lived in the Hollow came over to Leonard and said in a solemn voice, “I hear the baby arrived.” At first he didn’t understand; then it sank in. He suddenly felt his weight double as he stood there with his sailcloth sack flung over his shoulder.

  “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” he said at last. The stoker shook his head.

  “Jonathan Lundgren was here, looking for you. I’m supposed to tell you to hurry home. That’s all I know.”

  But the baby is already born, thought Leonard. Why all the hurry? He began climbing over the rail yard’s extensive tangle of tracks as he headed for Viaduct Street.

  Leonard noticed that he had slowed his pace as he walked home. It was a mild spring evening, and he wanted to savor the moment before everything took shape and became forever set in stone. The sound of his dawdling footsteps echoed off the walls of the railroad tunnel. He passed the Irish shanties, hearing in the distance the muted cries of children and then the dogs began barking, as they always did whenever anyone went past. These were sounds he otherwise hardly noticed.

  Leonard slowly plodded up the hill, passing his own small house, which stood in darkness. He didn’t give it even a glance. Then he saw the Klars’ home farther up, and he stopped to lean his back against the big elm tree at the foot of the slope leading to the Hamm mansion. It was very late, and all around him the Hollow was quiet. But in the house up the hill, a faint light could be seen in the window. He didn’t know how long he stood like that, staring upward with his sack on the ground at his feet. He was waiting for some sound or movement, but there was only silence.

  Far away he heard an entirely different and familiar sound: the short whistle blasts from the last train of the night to Duluth as it approached. Two quick blasts before the tunnels and the Connemara Patch; two more would come as the engine passed and made its way up the incline. Then Leonard began walking toward the embankment, taking the path to the Drewry Tunnel, past rows of darkened hovels. When he heard the next whistle blasts, he started to run.

  He climbed up the embankment just as the headlight of the locomotive appeared through the branches farther down in the Hollow and lit up the brick walls of the Hamm Brewery. He stood a few feet from the track when the engine rushed past, wrapping him in smoke. He waited for the passenger cars to go by, watching the illuminated windows pass high overhead. Then came the three covered boxcars that were always last. He left his sack where it lay and trotted alongside the train until out of the corner of his eye he saw the ladder on the side of the last freight car. He stuck out his hand and grabbed hold as he pushed off with his feet against the gravel of the embankment and jumped, wrapping his other hand around a ladder rung. Then he pulled himself up and began climbing.

  He reached the roof of the boxcar the same moment the locomotive entered the curve beyond the Hamm Brewery. He crouched down for the tunnel under Minnehaha Street and held his breath, enveloped in coal smoke. When the train passed Phalen Boulevard and began accelerating along the straightaway, he was able to stand up again. He looked back at the city lights behind him and then turned around to face forward. He stood there on the boxcar roof, his legs apart, as he stretched out his arms and closed his eyes, sailing blindly into the nighttime darkness, with the wind blowing against him and threading like a chilly mask across his face.

  III

  Minnesota State Reformatory for Men, St. Cloud / Duluth, Minnesota

  1920–22

  MY NAME WAS CARL JOHAN ALFRED HAMMERBERG. It was late in the afternoon when Carlson came to get me. He was the youngest of the guards, and sometimes it was easy to start talking to him as if he was a friend. He didn’t really mind as long as no one else was listening. This time he was alone, but I was too tired to chat.

  “Varshey wants to see you,” was all he said. I was sitting on the bunk, having just returned from the workshop. My hands were covered with glue, and I had on the rough jacket that was stained all down the front. My eyes were stinging from sawdust.

  “He doesn’t have all day,” said Carlson.

  I was so beat that I found it hard to get up from the bottom bunk where I was sitting, but I did as I was told and followed him out to the corridor. It was summer and a little muggy, so the window facing the exercise yard stood open slightly. From the workshop down below came the sound of hammering on wood. I paused to look through the bars at the yellow evening sun while Carlson rattled his bunch of keys and opened all the locks on the steel door. In a moment he was ready.

  “Don’t just stand there daydreaming, Hammerberg,” he said. Then I had to wait again while he relocked the door behind us.

  Even though it was summer, a cold wind was blowing as we crossed the exercise yard. It was almost always like that. Pitkey, in the workshop, said it had something to do with the tower and the high walls catching the gusts in a certain way. The flag, which hadn’t yet been lowered, snapped in the wind. We walked over to the main building. I hadn’t been inside there since I was admitted to the prison, and I had to wait while Carlson unlocked the door with his big bunch of keys. Then we went in.

  It was like entering the hull of an unfinished ship. That’s what I thought the first time too. There were stairs and banisters like gunwales, but everything seemed to be turned inside out. And high overhead, the big glass ceiling was so dirty it gave the impression that the sky was always cloudy. Now it caught the evening light, creating a strange, unreal glow inside the vast hall. Murmuring voices came from every direction, though I couldn’t see anyone except the guards on each level. We went up the big staircase and entered a green-painted corridor. “Wait here,” said Carlson. He knocked on the big oak door and a voice called, “Come in.” He stuck his head in the doorway and muttered a few words before coming back to me. Then he practically shoved me inside the office.

  Prison Superintendent Varshey was sitting behind his big, dark desk. I hadn’t seen him since I arrived, and he looked smaller than I remembered. But his voice was just as sharp. “Sit down, Hammerberg,” he said. Carlson took up position next to the door.

  I sat down on the very edge of the chair. I was trying to seem alert, though I was careful not to look him in the eye. I didn’t want him to think I was disrespectful, like last time. So I sat there as he dealt with the papers on his desk. The dried glue was tugging at the skin on the backs of my hands, but I didn’t dare scratch. I was worried that sawdust would fall out of my hair onto the rug. I sat as still as I could.

  “So, Hammerberg. You’ve been here at St. Cloud for almost two years now. Am I right?” he said. I peered up at him from under the lock of hair falling over my forehead. He was looking right at me, with his hands clasped on his desk. I assumed I needed to reply, even though he knew the answer, of course.

  “Yes, sir, Superintendent,” I said.

  He looked down at the papers in front of him.

  “You’ve never given us any trouble, Hammerberg,” he said then, looking up. “That’s what it says here. You’re a bit slow, but you do what you’re told. No incidents.”

  I considered saying, “No, sir,” but I thought he might think I was contradicting him, so I simply nodded.

  He sat there in silence, as if waiting for something, but then he said, “That’s good, Hammerberg. Is there anything you’d like to say for yourself, Hammerberg?”

  I thought I needed to come up with something, so I said, “I think it’s better in the workshop than at the quarry. I’ve had a job in a workshop before.”

  He didn’t seem to be listening but went on, “And you’ve turned eighteen now. Right, Hammerberg?”

  I thought it probably said as much on the papers, so I merely replied, “Yes, sir.”

  For a moment he didn’t speak. He was holding a slip of paper that was smaller than the others.

  “We’ve received a letter,” he said finally. “It has something to do with you,
Hammerberg, although my Swedish isn’t that good. So I was thinking you could tell us what it says.”

  He held out the paper to me. I had to stand up to take it, and Carlson took a step closer from the doorway, as if to show he was paying attention. I didn’t think it was necessary. Then I recognized the handwriting on the paper. It was my mother’s big, printed script.

  I read the note a couple of times. I noticed I was blinking my eyes.

  “Well, Hammerberg,” said Varshey. “What does it say?”

  When I didn’t reply at once, he said in an unexpectedly kind tone of voice, “Take your time.”

  It took me a few moments before I could read the note aloud in English:

  Dulut, 24 June 1922

  Esteemed Mr Vashy,

  Excuse me for this request. Please send home my son Charl Hammerberg. I can take care of him. I can get him a job.

  Sincerly

  Mrs Betsy Hammerberg

  I thought it was too bad my mother hadn’t spelled the superintendent’s name correctly, because that much he could see for himself even if he couldn’t read the rest of the words. I handed the letter back to him. He hadn’t told me to sit down again, so I didn’t.

  “And as I understand it, Betsy is your mother,” Varshey said as he absent-mindedly folded up the piece of paper and placed it with the other papers on his desk. He took off his glasses and squinted at me for a moment. “So tell me this,” he went on. “Is Mrs. Hammerberg a widow?”

  I didn’t know what to tell him, so I just said, “I don’t know.”

  I could hear how stupid that sounded, so I added, “I’ve never met my father.”

  After that neither of us spoke for a while.

  Mother almost never wrote anything. She would quickly jot down her name in the ledger lying on the counter at Spencer’s grocery store, leaning close to the page. When she did that, she always looked older than she was. Actually, she wasn’t very old at all. Lots of people were surprised that I had such a young mother.