Swede Hollow

by Ola Larsmo

  That was one of the things he couldn’t bear to think about too much, or it would reopen the same sort of hole inside him that he sensed inside Jonathan. Behind Elisabet’s Carl was his own son Carl, an increasingly hazy and yet still moving shadow. Both had disappeared into a darkness, and it did no good to look at that for long. There were no words for such things. He had no words.

  Now it was specific dates that Jonathan Lundgren was rambling on about. Eighteen hundred ninety-four was long before Gustaf and Anna had even thought about going to the United States. A year so far back in time that it was impossible to imagine, even though Lundgren had already been here in Minnesota. But it was worse trying to make peace with 1922. That was when he and Lundgren were still working out on the line, doing repairs and maintenance, sometimes together with one of the Gavin “boys,” whom they’d begun to understand better, even though the Irishman’s English was still difficult to figure out. Gustaf remembered everything, but as if through a fog. It was right at the time when they’d heard that Elisabet’s Carl had died in a refrigerator boxcar that might have actually passed where they were working, though they couldn’t have known or done anything about it. Gustaf and Anna had hardly seen anything of the boy after he turned three. That was when Elisabet had made the crazy decision to move to Duluth. Suddenly Carl was dead, and they tried to scrape together the money for train tickets to Duluth. Gustaf could have undoubtedly traveled in the fireman’s cabin, but in order for Anna to overcome her reluctance to leave the Hollow for a few days, they’d been forced to travel in an ordinary third-class compartment. Finally Anna had gone behind his back and borrowed the money from Ellen, which he hadn’t liked. Afterward he’d paid back every penny.

  As for the funeral up there in the north, Gustaf remembered that it was cold but with less snow than at home, although everything had been heavily coated with frost—the ground and trees, the lampposts and roadways. At night a thick, new layer of freezing fog had drifted in from Lake Superior. The shape of the harbor’s aerial lift bridge resembled a frozen cloud statue. When they tossed earth onto the coffin, the hard clumps pounded on the wood like a minor avalanche. Elisabet silently fell to her knees on the frozen grass, and they practically had to carry her away from there, but she was no longer crying. Maybe she was already pregnant with her daughter at the time. There were moments during those days when she was ripped apart by grief and sorrow, and then she would suddenly recover and appear calm and withdrawn, as if she’d found something completely different to think about. That was when Gustaf had occasionally feared for her sanity, but afterward he thought he understood. The Finnish man—Matthew? Matt?—was already there in the background, though he said little and was never introduced as her fiancé.

  Personally, Gustaf could never connect the dead boy they’d left behind with the blond three-year-old he remembered, in certain ways a bit like his own Carl, and yet so different.

  That whole spring of 1922 seemed unreal to him. He noticed the agitated atmosphere around him when he was on the job, but he was wrapped up in his own thoughts, as was so often the case. At issue were the working conditions of the mechanics and repair shop workers, the men who labored inside the long, high-ceilinged train repair shops. He didn’t really know any of them and only went inside to pick up tools. In the late spring the linemen held a meeting outdoors, out of sight of the supervisors and foremen. Everyone agreed that the latest wage cut for shop workers was so unreasonable, as they said, that soon it would spill over onto workers further down in the system, the way it always did. They solemnly and unanimously promised each other not to take on any work that would break the strike called by the repair shop workers, when and if that occurred. But nobody thought they would have to walk off the job themselves; they assumed they could continue working outside the repair shops as usual. And that’s what happened when the shop workers went on strike in July. Word was relayed to the various work crews not to take over any of the positions that were left vacant within the repair shops. But, as Jonathan Lundgren said, that would have been difficult anyway because all the men who walked off the job had taken their tools home with them, so there wasn’t so much as a screwdriver left in the whole place.

  A strange quiet settled in. The engine drivers, who were not part of the strike, backed the train cars in need of service into the big rail yard, which was soon so crowded that it was practically impassable. Gustaf had never seen so many cars in one place. In the Twin Cities there were maybe seven or eight thousand strikers who gathered for a meeting downtown. The streets were again blocked with crowds of men wearing work clothes, evidently on their way to workplaces where the gates were now closed. The strike spread from coast to coast and lasted a long time during that remarkably dry, hot summer when everything continued on as usual, though with fewer trains on the line and consequently fewer accidents. As the men went about their daily tasks, it was eerily calm.

  This time the strike was not broken but instead faded slowly away. More and more of the repair shop workers simply found other jobs. There was work to be had up north in the mining district or across the border in Winnipeg. Both the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific were viewed as fully justified in hiring new men to fill the jobs left open. In September, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ban on demonstrations and picket lines, and soon after that the strike was over.

  Rumors began circulating about a secret list of troublemakers and socialists, and eventually there were few workers left in the shops of the Great Northern. Word was that there were no jobs, or not enough jobs to rehire those who came back after the strike. Yet trains were still parked because they hadn’t been serviced on schedule, and there were no new engines ready to put into use. And more and more men headed north.

  It was in late October that Foreman Lawson sought out Gustaf. He put his arm around him in a friendly manner and said, “It seems to me that you’ve been working out in the cold for too many years, Klar. Maybe we should try and find you a job inside the shop now that we’re in need of more men. Let me talk to the supervisor.”

  Gustaf thanked him, and they shook hands on it. By the following week he was already starting his new job indoors. And right after that a job came open for Jonathan Lundgren as well.

  Now Jonathan wanted to drag all of that up again with his talk of 1922. It was as if he felt a need to harp on something that was bothering his conscience.

  “It wasn’t handled fairly,” he said, but Gustaf defended himself. They hadn’t taken those jobs away from anyone else. Nobody had stepped in to fill the positions left vacant while the strike was going on, but by October the strike was over. Men had left the railroad behind and found work elsewhere, so there was a need for more workers.

  Lundgren didn’t react to his objections as they kept walking. Not until Gustaf brought up his one remaining argument: “This is the only kind of work I can do, now that I can’t make shoes anymore.” Then his friend grunted, nodded, and for the moment at least he let the subject drop.

  Spring was on its way into summer. Gustaf walked along with a trace of fatigue and listlessness in his blood, which always seemed to happen around this time. But so far it hadn’t let go of him, even though the end of May was fast approaching. He had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, in spite of the fact that it was light outside, he could smell coffee brewing on the stove, and there was fresh cornbread. Previously, he’d always boasted of being an early riser, but this spring the weariness and torpor refused to leave his body.

  On this morning Jonathan was waiting for him on the hill, even though he was a few minutes late. They set off immediately at their usual pace, but then Gustaf noticed he was out of breath, so he suggested to Jonathan that today they should take the route through the railroad tunnels instead of climbing the stairs. Jonathan nodded, and they turned off to take the little footbridge over Phalen Creek. The creek already stank, and they breathed through their mouths as they walked across the planks.

  Jonathan didn’t start in on his u
sual topics of conversation until they’d passed the Irish sector and had gone through the tunnels. Then he said, in a lower voice and sounding more serious than normal, “There’s a meeting tonight, and it’s important. We should stay after work for a while. I’ve talked to Inga, so at least she knows I might be late.”

  Gustaf felt an instant aversion rise up all the way from his feet. Yet another meeting, yet another plan about how to prepare again for a threatened “adjustment” to their wages. He merely nodded.

  At first Gustaf had planned to stay after work too, if for no other reason than his loyalty to Jonathan. But after lunch they had to dismantle the outer casing of the steam boiler on one of the older locomotives that was now used only within the rail yard itself. There was nothing unusual about the task. They fastened chains around the loosened metal and pulled, first with four men lifting, and then the chain was rolled onto a reel, which one person could handle on his own. Gustaf was part of the crew, helping with the lifting maneuver until they’d raised the big metal piece up in the air and all the chains were where they were supposed to be. Then Gustaf let go and took a step back, listening to the steady, almost pleasant clatter as the chains were wound up. But something was still moving inside him. When he closed his eyes, things started spinning and he couldn’t tell which way was up or down. And the big wheel inside him was turning; he could do nothing to stop it. He leaned his back against the wall and waited for the dizzy feeling to subside. It didn’t.

  One of the other men in the crew, a short Italian by the name of Davini, turned to Gustaf and shouted something over the noise. He couldn’t make out what the man said, but he thought it might be, “Are you all right?” He nodded and turned away as nausea suddenly seized hold of him. He needed fresh air or he might throw up.

  But he didn’t feel any better outdoors. He looked up at the sky and then decided to go home. He had to leave. He went back inside to get his jacket and put it on. His pulse was pounding in his temples, and he felt a headache coming on. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jonathan Lundgren walking toward him through the machine shop, and he was just about to say to him, “I don’t feel like talking about your damn meeting right now,” but he merely held up his hand with his fingers splayed, in a gesture halfway between “Stop” and a goodbye wave. Lundgren paused and looked at him in surprise. Then Gustaf backed out the half-open door.

  He had taken this same route both morning and evening for more than twenty-five years, but today it seemed to him hopelessly long. Finally he reached the railroad tunnels, which even in the afternoon light seemed to wind their way into their own darkness. This was where he’d fought one night with O’Tierney, now long dead, back when he was still young.

  At the spot where the slope headed up past the Italians’ shanties, right next to the house where Horrible Hans and Agnes Karin once lived, Gustaf paused to catch his breath. He didn’t know how he was going to make it all the way up. Then he leaned toward one of the elms and held on to the tree with both hands. Nausea overtook him, and he threw up on the trunk, first yellow and then white vomit. He didn’t care whether anyone saw him; maybe they would think he was drunk. Then he stood still, sweating. After a while the shivering diminished and he thought he felt better. He tried to picture how the lack of balance inside him was actually what would drive him up the hill. Then he let go of the tree and walked home.

  Anna looked up with alarm when her husband came in. She was folding sheets and putting them away in the linen cabinet that Gustaf had built the previous summer. He stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame, and said simply, “I got so tired. I’m not feeling well.” She took him by the arm and drew him inside, where she sat him down on a chair at the kitchen table. Then she helped him undress, found him a clean nightshirt, and tucked him into bed. The sheets were clean, and the pillowcase smelled of starch. He wasn’t feeling so bad anymore, but he dozed off.

  When he woke up, it was evening. Anna was sitting on a chair next to the bed, and she’d lit a candle on the table.

  “Jonathan was here, asking how you were,” she said. “I told him you were sleeping.”

  Gustaf nodded as he lay there in bed. She asked whether he was hungry, and he said no. Then neither of them spoke for a while. It was nice just lying there without having to think of anything in particular. He stuck one arm out from under the blanket and took his wife’s hand. It was dry and cool, but after a while he felt her skin warm up. He was scared, but he didn’t want to frighten her. Yet she knew that something serious was about to happen to them.

  He dozed off again, and when he awoke it was pitch-dark outside. Anna was still sitting there, holding his hand in both of hers, when there was a light knock on the door. She didn’t get up but simply said quietly, “Come in.” Jonathan stuck his head in and took off his cap.

  “Inga says if you’re not better by tomorrow, she’ll call the doctor for you. She also says,” he added with some embarrassment, “that you can’t say no.” Then he nodded and pulled the door closed after him.

  “The doctor,” said Gustaf, trying to laugh. He was sweating and the nausea had returned. Anna noticed and asked if he wanted something to drink. He said no, although the thought passed through his head that he wouldn’t mind a dram, though he’d hardly touched strong liquor since they’d arrived in this new country of theirs.

  “Inga’s right,” said Anna. “Tomorrow we’ll call a doctor for you.”

  “Inga is always right,” he said a bit spitefully. “But it costs money.”

  “Ellen can pay for it,” said Anna. “I’m sure she will if we ask her. I’ll call her tomorrow.”

  At first he wanted to refuse. Then he thought about how they’d met Ellen and her son and daughter in Elliot Park the last time they’d seen her. It was always like that. They’d meet in a park somewhere, never at her home or here in the Hollow. Solomon hadn’t been with them. The children had politely greeted their grandparents in English and then run off to the swing sets. The grown-ups sat in the sun for a while, talking about nothing. Then they’d gone their separate ways. That was back in early autumn. Since then they’d had only a Christmas card from her, which they’d picked up at Larson’s grocery.

  Now Gustaf thought, I’d like to see them again, and if she pays for the doctor, maybe she’ll come over. Then he realized he’d said this aloud.

  “I’m sure she will,” said Anna. “Would you like to rest for a while now?”

  “But what about you?” he said. “Aren’t you tired? Shouldn’t you go to bed?”

  “I’ll sit here for the time being,” she said. “And watch over you while you sleep.”

  Then she stroked his forehead and hair again and again, much the same way someone might pet a cat. It felt lovely, and he fell asleep.

  When he awoke, he again felt like vomiting, so he sat up and pushed aside the blanket. He was soaked with sweat. The gray light of dawn was coming through the window. Something was already dripping down his chin, and he tried to wipe it away with his hand. In the faint glow from the candle, which was close to burning out, he saw that his hand was black with blood. Trembling, he stood up, covering his mouth with his hand. Anna had fallen asleep in her chair, but now she sat up with a jolt and said, “What is it?”

  “I need to go out,” he told her. His voice gurgled so it was hard to make out his words. “Otherwise I’ll bleed all over everything.”

  “Lie down,” she said, putting her hands on his shoulders. His whole body was now shaking with cold, and he had no strength to resist. She gently pushed him back down onto the bed.

  Then he looked up at her in a panic, unable to utter a word. Something burst inside him, and a river of blood poured down his chin and over the sheet and blanket. She held both of his hands in a tight grip, watching every movement as his head tilted back; she leaned over him and looked into his eyes. He looked back at her and then he was gone.

  She sat beside him for a while, holding his hand and crying quietly. Then she abruptly stopped, loosened
his still warm fingers, and clasped his hands on his chest. She looked around for something to tie around his jaw. She set a new candle next to him and lit it. Then she stood there for a moment, looking down at the bed, which he’d built shortly after they moved into the house. He did not look peaceful. There were sharp lines around his mouth, and his lips were drawn back, as if he were about to say something. But his eyes were closed, and he looked like he was sleeping. She rattled off the Lord’s Prayer a few times. Then she went outside to the porch. That was also something he had built. In a minute she would walk up to Inga and Jonathan’s house and wake them, and they would realize at once what had happened. She stood still and looked out across the Hollow and thought, Let them sleep a little longer. There’s nothing they can do.

  All was quiet in the Hollow. It looked the way it would if all the people had left. She searched her memory, thinking the trees seemed taller and more numerous than when they first arrived. But it had been winter back then, with snow, and the tree branches were bare, allowing them to see all the way down to the railroad tunnel. In an hour the day would awake and everything would be the same as always. The sun wasn’t yet visible through the trees up on Dayton’s Bluff, but somewhere below, down among the bushes around Phalen Creek, a thrush was singing, faint and muted in the foliage.

  It’s just me now, she realized, and the thought settled inside her as if, in spite of everything, she’d been prepared for this. For a short time yet, it’s just me. And, oddly enough, she found that she wasn’t scared. Soon she’d go back inside to him and make sure he was laid out properly. She would wipe away the blood and change the bedclothes, and for the last time they would be alone together.