Walking Into the Night

by Olaf Olafsson

  He asked after the children. She smiled.

  “No change since last week.”

  “And Einar?”

  “He’s growing.”

  “Gudrun and I,” he began, then hesitated an instant before carrying on. “Gudrun thinks Einar’s not very happy.”

  “Really? And what does she suggest?”

  “You know we’re all worried about you and the children. You not least, dear.”

  “No one need worry about me, Tomas. I’m fine.”

  “It’s impossible to help people who won’t accept help,” he said. “You should face up to facts.”

  She finally looked up, ceasing her stitching.

  “I’m not worried about anyone except the people who are worried about me,” she said. “This morning I was awakened by a snow bunting.”

  He rose to his feet and looked over her shoulder at the flowers and half-completed tower; there were windows running its length, yellow as if reflecting the sun.

  “You’ve never cared about worldly things,” he said then, “but I can no longer avoid discussing them with you. It may be that Stefan knows something about accounting, but he can’t run a company. Things are going badly. Trade has shifted back to Europe since the war and other people have acquired the agencies. Stefan imported too much at the end of the war without having secured enough buyers for the goods. Both timber and iron. At much too high a price. Now he’s stuck with the inventory. The customers have gone elsewhere. It was Kristjan they wanted to deal with. Not some subordinate who suddenly thinks he’s the boss. I don’t understand . . .”

  He fell silent.

  “What is it you don’t understand, Uncle?”

  “I don’t understand how Kristjan could have thought for a moment that Stefan would be able to manage the company.”

  “He’ll sort it out when he comes back.”

  “Dear,” he said, “it’s been a year. You must face facts.”

  “How time flies,” she said. “And I haven’t offered you anything to eat or drink.”

  “Arrangements will have to be made. You owe money to the bank. You. The company.”

  “From what I remember, Stefan said the company was doing well.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last year.”

  When he didn’t say anything she added: “My attention tends to wander when people start talking about this sort of thing. I’m sure Kristjan left everything in good order.”

  Tomas sat down beside her.

  “I think it’s time I told you a bit more about how he left the business. At first I wasn’t sure Stefan had got it right and it took a while to get to the bottom of things. I didn’t want to discuss it with you as you’ve had enough to contend with. But I can’t avoid it any longer. You need to know the truth, dear. Kristjan took a large sum of money with him.”

  She picked up a ball of wool and twisted it between her hands.

  “There must be some explanation.”

  “Well, I don’t know what it would be, dear. It was a lot of money. He kept it in the safe in his office. Goodness knows why.”

  She turned to him.

  “How bad is it?”

  He seemed unprepared for the question and scratched his cheek before muttering:

  “Well, arrangements will have to be made.”

  “What do you have in mind, Uncle?”

  “The company will have to be sold to someone who can run it.”

  “But when Kristjan comes . . .”

  “You can’t delay any longer. The company’s in both your names. Thank God you have power of attorney.”

  She ran her finger along the embroidery, stopping at a blue well by the church tower. A stitch had come loose in the middle of the well.

  “You’ve stopped saying he might be dead. Is there a reason for that?”

  He hesitated before answering her.

  “Someone thinks he saw him on a street in New York. The purser from the Gullfoss. He came to see me yesterday. He wasn’t sure if he should tell me. He saw a man who wasn’t unlike Kristjan. But the man was on the other side of the street with traffic in between. Then he vanished.”

  “It was kind of you to tell me this, Uncle. Now I can go.”

  “Go where?”

  “There’s not much left,” she said, looking down at her needle-work. “The picture’s almost finished. Yet it’s as if something’s missing,” she added pensively, then came to herself and looked up. “I’m thinking of giving this picture to Gudrun before I leave.”

  He didn’t seem to know what to make of her; he shuffled his feet, then repeated under his breath:

  “Arrangements will have to be made. I can’t see any other way—arrangements will have to be made.”

  When he had gone she laid aside her embroidery.

  53

  She had made arrangements.

  Reykjavik faded into the distance as the ship steamed out into the bay: the lake where young people skated in the winter, the milliner next to the cathedral, the two pharmacies, the company she had sold. Barely twenty thousand inhabitants. One missing.

  The people who had tried to dissuade her from leaving were standing on the docks, waving to the ship, at least Gudrun was, but her husband had stuck his hands in his pockets to warm them; there was a nip in the air.

  She had left the twins behind with Katrin. They were lying on the floor playing with toy soldiers when she said goodbye to them. They hardly looked up from their game and asked no questions, though she hugged them for an unusually long time, kneeling beside them on the floor. She had her coat on; one of them laughed and tried to pull off her hat.

  “The poor dears,” said Gudrun.

  She waited until Katrin had left the room.

  “Are you sure you can trust her with the children? You know what she’s like.”

  “And just what is she like, Gudrun?”

  “This trip is madness. I can’t understand how you could think of it.”

  The ship was sailing to Bergen, Norway. There they would wait for two days before heading west, over the Atlantic. She inhaled the sea breeze, watching the houses dwindle and the sky draw near. Maria hummed. Einar was silent.

  “There’s our house,” Maria said suddenly. “Look, Einar, there it is.”

  A white house with a red roof watched them from the hill, the curtains pulled back, eyes on the other side of the windowpanes which reflected the sky. Then it was as if the house were freed from the earth and merged into the veil of cloud above the town, floating up into the air, vanishing.

  The shrill cries of seabirds pursued them. Einar saw the jetty where he was accustomed to sit and gaze out to sea; the shed wall above, in whose shelter one could stand and dream. Then the jetty and the shed were lost in the vastness, while the sea rose and fell, the waves rushing like carefree children up the rocks before plunging back down into the sea.

  “I didn’t mean you should sell everything immediately,” her uncle had said. “Think what you’re doing. There’s no need to rush into anything. It was only yesterday that I mentioned this to you. I wanted to warn you so you’d know where you stand. This sort of thing takes time. You’ll make a worse mess if you charge ahead like this.”

  She wouldn’t be deflected. She was going on a trip. She had checked the sailing times and made arrangements to buy a passage for herself and the two older children. When her uncle tried to talk her out of it, she said she had been in touch with the bank manager and asked him to sell the company.

  “I should never have mentioned what that purser said. He thought he’d caught a glimpse of a man. In the distance. And now you’re planning to sell everything you own and go off after a willo’-the-wisp with the children. You’re not right in the head, dear.”

  She handed him the embroidery.

  “I’ve finally finished this. Please, would you do me a favor and give this little gift to Gudrun?”

  “Elisabet, let me help you. I can’t just stand by and watch you charge off into
the unknown.”

  “The unknown is here. I don’t need to go anywhere to find it. But I know he’s waiting for me. I know he needs me.”

  “I don’t want to say anything to hurt you but in the unlikely event that it was Kristjan in New York, why do you think he hasn’t got in touch?”

  She smiled faintly.

  “I know him. He’s lost his way. I need to help him back.”

  They took rooms at a pensione down by the harbor in Bergen. It was raining and the fjord was hidden by fog. On the second day she was told that the ship which was to have taken them to New York had developed engine trouble. The next crossing would not be for three weeks.

  She cut out pictures from the newspapers of people sitting and walking, of boats afloat on rivers, of palaces, horses and bridges, arranging them on the table in their room and making up stories about the people who lived in the palaces, about the boats which sailed up the rivers in front of the palaces and the man who stood on the bridge and watched the boats. “He’s called Napoleon Bonaparte,” she said. “He’s going to save the world.”

  The sea breeze buffeted the house; they heard the neighing cry of a capercaillie when she opened the window. She kept her money in a bag which she never let out of her sight unless Einar was there to keep an eye on it. When she went for a walk with Maria, he stayed behind in their room. As soon as they came back, he went out.

  He walked the same way every day, along the shore and up a hill where an old mill was beginning to break free from the wintry ice. The redpoll had arrived and the dunlin, too; he recognized them at once and cheered up when he spotted them. It was like meeting old friends.

  The hillside was wet and black with the thaw; his shoes squished as he walked toward the mill. Beyond was the sea. Boats casting their anchors. The way to his father lay over the waves.

  The days passed slowly. The delay was making a hole in their funds; she hadn’t envisaged having to pay their keep for three weeks in Bergen. Einar knew this and tried to hold back at mealtimes. She noticed and bought more than he could eat. It kept on raining. The mill was silent, streams trickled down the hillside with a quiet purling.

  The way out lay like a path through the waves of the fjord. He had seen it. The wake of a dream. When he woke up one morning, the ship had docked.

  54

  They sailed up the Hudson at daybreak. Land had been sighted an hour before; all the passengers had come up on deck to watch the dawn float towards them down the river, the buildings rising from the waves and hope coming to them on the hot wind. They were quiet, solemn, whispering if they needed to speak.

  Maria tugged at the hem of her mother’s skirt.

  “Is Daddy there? Will he be there to meet us?”

  The first mate called out the passengers’ names for the last time before they disembarked. He stood by the gangway with the passenger list, calling them one at a time. Elisabet was number 29, Einar 30, Maria 31. They had pinned labels to their coats with their numbers and the name of the ship, Bergensfjord. Printed at the top of the label was: “Landing Card.”

  A ferry carried them downriver to Ellis Island. The sun was hot on the wooden roof, the windows were locked. There were four ferries ahead of them so they would have to wait until midday. It grew hotter, babies cried, the air was heavy and humid. “Yes, thank you very much,” an old man muttered to himself over and over again, “thank you very much. I’m from Norway. Healthy. Very healthy, sir.”

  People wore their Sunday best, some of the women had lace dresses, boys wore sailor suits, men wore shirts buttoned up to the neck. One or two men sported ties; most wore hats or peaked caps. Some of the clothes were threadbare but clean. The women were all wearing hats.

  They had no sooner disembarked than they were swallowed up by an imposing, brick building. “Baggage Room,” announced a guard, but she didn’t dare to be parted from the case containing her money and papers, so she continued up the stairs. Maria was tired and whimpered. She pulled her along behind her.

  “It’s all right, we’re almost there.”

  The child dragged her feet.

  “I’m so thirsty.”

  A doctor stood at the top of the stairs, watching the passengers as they climbed up.

  “Is she ill?” he asked.

  “Sorry?” said Elisabet.

  “Ill?”

  “No.”

  She handed him their health certificates. He seemed to take a long time reading them. He looked back at Maria. Finally he stamped the papers and motioned to them to continue.

  Next they entered the Registration Room, where another doctor received them. The old man who had been constantly practicing “thank you very much” and “very healthy” while they waited on the ferry was in the line ahead of them. But now it was as if he had lost his tongue; he cleared his throat several times but stopped when the doctor removed his hat and began to examine his scalp. It wasn’t until the doctor wrote “sc” in chalk on his coat collar that the man stammered that he was very healthy. But it made no difference, he had been marked. He was taken out of the line and sent for further examination.

  The doctor was quick to examine Elisabet and the children, and so were the next two doctors who succeeded him. They sat down on a bench in the middle of the Registration Room and waited for their numbers to be called. The immigration officials were at the back of the room, dressed in black uniforms and caps. Their desks reminded Elisabet of the counter in her father’s store in Eyrarbakki. She smiled at the thought: it was a good omen.

  “Twenty-nine!”

  They hurried across the room. Einar held Maria’s hand.

  “What’s your name? And the children? What are their names?”

  There was an interpreter beside the immigration official; she was relieved because she was unaccustomed to speaking English. Though she managed by herself at first.

  “How much money do you have with you?”

  She answered.

  “Married or single?”

  “Married.”

  “Purpose of your visit.”

  “My husband . . .”

  She glanced at the interpreter. The official nodded to indicate that she could speak Danish.

  “I’ve come to see my husband.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s here in America.”

  “Where in America?”

  “Here in New York, I think.”

  “You think? You’re not sure? Isn’t he coming to meet you?”

  “I’ve come to look for him.”

  The official turned to the interpreter. They spoke together in English.

  “Do you have anyone else here?” the interpreter asked finally.

  “We have relatives in Dakota.”

  “Have they come to meet you?”

  “No.”

  “So you’re traveling alone? With the children. To look for your husband?”

  Silence.

  The immigration official continued to speak to the interpreter, who listened, nodded, then turned to her.

  “You’ll have to stay here. It’s not permitted for a woman with children to enter the country if there’s no one to be responsible for them. You have enough money to pay for board and lodging for a few weeks, but there’s no telling what’ll happen after that. You’ll have to stay here until your husband comes to meet you . . .”

  “My husband is lost.”

  “I’m sorry? Lost?” he exclaimed but decided not to ask any more.

  “If your relatives in Dakota send a telegram and undertake to be responsible for your welfare, you will be allowed to go to them by train from here.”

  “Not to New York?”

  “Not unless you have someone in New York.”

  She had been holding the bag, but now she put it down.

  “What’s the matter, Mamma?” asked Einar.

  “Nothing, dear. We’ll be staying here for a few days.”

  “Thirty-eight!” she heard the immigration official call out as they were
led away.

  55

  At night the city lights were visible across the harbor. She lay awake; Maria was asleep in the bunk below her, Einar above. In the bunk at her feet slept a Turkish woman. If she glanced up she looked straight at the shoes of a woman from Hungary. They were worn through.

  They slept on canvas stretched over an iron frame; they were allotted two blankets each, one to sleep on, another to cover them. The blankets Maria was given turned out to be infested with lice. Elisabet gave her one of her own. They could sleep on the bare canvas. There were three hundred women and children in the dormitory.

  She listened to the city as she lay awake. It was not so much noise as breathing, giving the hint of a rapid heartbeat. She had her bag in her bunk with her; yesterday she dreamed that the Turk was trying to steal it while she slept.

  They were allowed out in the open air for two hours a day. She encouraged Einar to take exercise, run about, hop and jump, because he seemed apathetic and showed a tendency to stand aloof, gazing across the harbor. Maria whined; she told her stories to keep her amused. She missed having newspapers from which to cut photos and drawings.

  Most people behaved as if they were under surveillance and believed that even their gait and bearing could influence whether they were allowed into the country or not. A respectably dressed couple promenaded sedately around the compound, their arms linked, the husband leading their young son by the hand. Their deportment was not achieved without effort. All at once the boy began to drag his feet. His father’s expression did not alter but his grip tightened on the child’s hand. They carried on walking. The woman held her head high, staring into midair. The boy’s movements became more awkward with every step, but his father looked straight ahead, his knuckles white. When the child managed to stop for a moment, a turd slid out of his trouser leg. His father swooped and snatched it up in a handkerchief, quickly pocketing it.

  Elisabet’s eyes met them. They shot her a look that implored her not to tell anyone.

  The days passed. At night the electric lights outside were reflected in the dormitory. She was calm because she had made arrangements. A relation of hers, Hans Thorstensen, a pastor and farmer in North Dakota, was on his way by train to the city to meet them. They were first cousins but had never met. Her father’s brother had emigrated to America when he was young and subsequently had four children. Hans was the eldest. He was going to take Einar and Maria home with him while she searched for Kristjan in New York. He had undertaken in writing to be responsible for supporting them, but it was Elisabet who paid for the train tickets. They didn’t mention this arrangement to the immigration office.