The Emigrants (48 page)

“Is there nothing you wish, Kristina?”

“Ye-es, Karl Oskar—I would like to—I wish—”

She broke off again, and was silent. He never knew what she wished him to do. The fact was, she had suddenly felt dizzy when her swing almost touched the stable roof, and she had wanted to ask Karl Oskar to help her down from the swing.

—2—

The second mate unexpectedly came down to the family compartment in the hold. The bedridden emigrants gazed at him; some were even able to gather enough energy from this visit to emerge from their apathy and ask themselves: What errand could the mate have down here? Something must be out of order.

The mate carried a piece of canvas in his hands. What was the canvas to be used for? The emigrants wondered, yet they were fairly indifferent in their wonder. So much they understood, that something was out of order here in their quarters; but they had not the strength to guess what it might be. Something had happened, however, and they were soon to know. It could not be kept a secret.

The first death had occurred on board the ship.

A corpse was to be shrouded in the canvas. The young girl with the throat abscess had died. All the warm porridge which her parents had boiled and applied had been prepared in vain, all the salves from the medicine chest had been of no avail. The captain had been down to look at the girl’s throat, and he had said the abscess ought to be lanced. But neither he nor anyone else had dared use the knife. In the end the boil broke, and a few minutes later the girl breathed her last.

It was said that the dead girl was seventeen years old, but she was small of growth, hardly bigger than a twelve-year-old. Now it turned out that the mate had brought a piece of canvas far too large; there was enough to wrap it twice around her body before she was carried away through the main hatch.

A dead person had been lying among the living down here. But now she was gone, and everything was in order again in the hold.

That day the northwest storm spent its force and began to die down. The waves sank and the surface of the sea became smoother; toward evening the weather was almost calm. The lull that came after the great upheaval on the little brig at first seemed strange to the passengers.

Karl Oskar had not mentioned the death in the compartment to Kristina; it had passed her by unnoticed. Now he said: “You’ll soon get well when the weather is calm.”

“I wonder.”

But at the same moment she raised her head from the pillow, and her eyes opened wide. She listened. She could hear something going on on deck; the main hatch was open and she could hear singing from above. “Am I delirious, Karl Oskar, or—”

Did she dream or was she awake? Were they no longer on board the ship? Had they landed? Was she in church, or in the churchyard? People were singing! If she still was alive, she could hear them singing a hymn.

“Yes—they are singing a psalm up there.”

Kristina was listening to a funeral hymn. A funeral was taking place on the afterdeck.

Karl Oskar now told her: the girl with the abscess had died this morning. But it was not from seasickness; she had been ill when they sailed from Karlshamn, she had lain abed ever since she came on board.

Kristina lay silent and listened to the hymn from on deck. It could be heard only faintly down here. Presently she said: “I wonder—”

“What?”

“The dead. Are the dead ones sunk into the sea?”

“Yes. They can’t have corpses lying about on the ship.”

“I suppose not.”

“They lower them. They have to.”

“I suppose so. Then the dead sink to the bottom of the sea.”

Kristina was lying and staring at the ship’s timbers above her, but she saw nothing.

“On the bottom of the sea—one can rest in comfort. Don’t you think so, Karl Oskar?”

“Don’t think of that! You must only think about getting well.”

Karl Oskar wet a rag and tried to remove a few spots from the bedcover. Kristina had always been cleanly and particular, and she must be far gone when she didn’t mind her bridal quilt’s being soiled with vomit. But she had hardly been interested in anything these last days.

In the bunks around them lay the sick ones, listening to the singing which came down to them through the open hatch. It seemed clearer now, they could distinguish the words—the hymn went slowly and somberly:

“You wicked world, farewell!

To heaven fares my soul,

To reach her harbor goal. . . .”

There was one word Karl Oskar particularly noticed, and it seemed as if his wife had marked it too. She turned her face toward him. “I must tell you something: I’ll never reach the harbor.”

“Kristina!”

“No, Karl Oskar. I’ll never put foot on American soil.”

“Don’t talk such nonsense! Seasickness is not fatal!”

“I have known it the whole time.”

“Crazy notions!”

“Ever since I stepped on board the ship I’ve felt it: I’ll never get away from here alive.”

“You only imagine it!”

“No. My forebodings never fail.”

“Forget it! Get it out of your mind! Kristina, dear—”

He took hold of her hand and patted it. Her hand lay limp and unresponsive in his.

She must know that the seasick always become depressed and downhearted and afraid they won’t survive; but as soon as they near land they are perfectly well and full of life again.

“Do you remember, Karl Oskar? I was afraid before we—”

Yes, he remembered. He was sorry to say he did remember: she had been afraid and dubious—he had persuaded her to come. He remembered that he was responsible.

No more singing was heard from on deck. The funeral hymn had been sung to its end. The funeral up there was over, the
Charlotta
’s captain had once more fulfilled his duty as clergyman. There was one human body less on board. And from the bushel of earth which the ship brought from her homeland there were now three shovels less.

“Oh, yes, Kristina,” Karl Oskar broke the silence. “We will reach land, you and I—we will reach the harbor in America.”

She did not answer. She lay there as before, and looked upward with still eyes; every fiber of her body was still.

And Karl Oskar thought, perhaps he had been too persuasive; perhaps he shouldn’t have tried so forcibly to convince her—perhaps he had assumed too great a responsibility.

—3—

A few days later, in the morning, the second death occurred in the family compartment: Måns Jakob, the old Öland peasant, was found dead in his bunk-pen.

The discovery was made by his wife, who would not believe that he was dead. When she awakened in the morning she shook her husband by the shoulder, as she always used to do. She shook him harder when he didn’t respond—the old one wouldn’t open his eyes. Finally Fina-Kajsa called Danjel Andreasson, who came to her help. He said that her husband was lying there dead, but Fina-Kajsa refused to believe it. She said he had lain like that many times before in the mornings, and she had had to shake him thoroughly before he awakened; it was caused by his heart, which stopped at times and didn’t start as quickly as it ought. Moreover, Måns Jakob had during his whole life been a heavy sleeper—she knew, she had been married to him for more than forty years. Now she was convinced he would awaken if, together, they shook him sufficiently.

But all who looked at Måns Jakob agreed with Danjel: no one could shake life into that body again. Måns Jakob was not to be awakened until Doomsday.

No one could tell what had caused his death, but his fellow passengers guessed it must have been his heart which had missed some of its regular beats and stopped so long that it couldn’t get started again. Karl Oskar thought he might have choked to death from his vomit; he had been found lying on his stomach with his face downward, and in this position it must have been difficult for him to get rid of his slime. Perhaps he hadn’t got the attention he needed during the night, even though his wife was lying close to him. No one had heard him call for help, but a dying man might be too weak.

The second mate came down again. When the Finn appeared in the hold at unexpected times they now knew his errand. Something was wrong again. The piece of canvas he brought now was not too large; this time it must cover the body of a grown man.

The mate began to remove the dead man from his bunk, but Måns Jakob’s wife attempted to stop him: “Wait a little! My man might still awaken!”

The Finn lifted the eyelids of Måns Jakob, and looked carefully into his eyes. “Your man is as dead as he can be. I know what dead people look like.”

“Wait a little, be kind! Only an hour.”

“You want him to lie here till he begins to stink?”

“Only a little while!”

But he did not heed the entreating old woman; he pulled the corpse from the bunk. Then she let out loud cries, at the same time grabbing hold of one leg of her dead husband, trying to keep the body by her in the bunk. Only after much trouble could the mate break her hold.

Danjel and Inga-Lena attended to Måns Jakob’s widow while Karl Oskar helped the Finn with the corpse. After death the old peasant seemed even more black and dirty than he had been in life. The snuff runnels over his cheeks and chin seemed wider than ever. This was not attractive on a living person—it was still more disgusting on a dead one. Karl Oskar felt they should wash the corpse’s face before placing the body in the canvas.

“He’ll get clean in the sea,” said the Finn.

“But that won’t be till after the funeral,” said Karl Oskar.

He had heard from old people that one ought not to read the funeral service over an unwashed corpse. And Danjel was talking about people’s responsibilities when they awoke on the Day of Resurrection; he agreed with Karl Oskar: as Christians, they owed the dead one this last service. His dirty old body had, after all, been the shell for a human soul, created by God. So, as there were no women to give them a hand, the two men helped each other, soaking old scrub rags in sea water, with which they washed the face of Måns Jakob. It was not a thorough cleaning, but at least they were able to remove the black streaks from the face before the corpse was enclosed in its shroud.

Then the mate laid a weight in the canvas, as was his custom. Karl Oskar thought they should have used Måns Jakob’s grindstone, which was in the storeroom. This fine grindstone, which he had talked about constantly, which he was so much worried about, which he must get to America—what would happen to it now? Who in America would take care of this grindstone without an owner? Perhaps Måns Jakob would have liked to have the stone with him at the bottom of the sea; there he need not worry over its fate, there it could lie at his side, in safekeeping until the Day of Doom.

The new death in the hold caused some changes in the accommodations for a few passengers. Fina-Kajsa, who one morning had awakened as a widow, must now move to the other side of the sailcloth hanging, among the unmarried women. Two married men, Karl Oskar and another farmer, who until now had slept with the unmarried men, were allowed to move in with their families and occupy the bunk vacated by the old peasant couple.

From the bushel of earth from Sweden three shovelfuls were taken again. And the deathbed of one became the sleeping place of another. Karl Oskar slept from now on in the bunk vacated by Måns Jakob, who himself rested on the bottom of the sea, his face washed, cleaner than he had been in many a day. And the young farmer remembered what he had heard the very first day on board the brig
Charlotta:
“There’s more room in the hold the farther out we get.”

XIX

AT HOME AND AWAY

—1—

“. . . To the storm he said: Be calm!

To the billow: Lay thee down!

And the billow down she lay

And the roaring storm he died away.

The sun so glorious and dear

Looks down upon the water clear.

Our sails we hoist!

Our Lord we praise,

He heard our prayers’ qualm!”

(Morning hymn sung on the brig
Charlotta
’s deck, chosen

by homeowner Danjel Andreasson from Ljuder Parish,

and sung when the great storm had abated.)

The weather improved, the air was warmer. They had clear days when the sun remained long on deck. And for several days the brig
Charlotta
of Karlshamn enjoyed an even stern wind which gave her good speed.

When the sea had come to rest the disquiet and upheaval in the passengers’ intestines disappeared. When the weather grew calm, calmness also entered into the people. The seasick ones improved little by little; one after another, they returned to the deck. And in the galley, which had been practically deserted during the storm, the women thronged again with their cooking utensils, and the smell of boiling peas and rancid pork again spread over the deck and was diffused by the wind over the sea.

The course of the emigrant vessel was now southwest: the
Charlotta
was sailing into the English Channel.

The land people somewhat wonderingly beheld this water, which was not as they had thought it would be. The English Channel—a channel to them was a broad ditch, dug in order to drain low-lying ground—bogs and swamps. They had hoped they were to sail through a narrow trough; they had harbored a wish to sail a small water, where they had solid ground near on both sides, so they would feel safer than on the open sea. And now they discovered that the English Channel was no ditch. Its water was not moss-brown, its waves came and went as they did on the sea. They discovered that this channel was also a sea.