Sparrow in the Wind

by S. Rose

  “I heard the police radio—I was standing right there when the call came in.” I choked up again. “Grandpa, what in God’s name happened over there?”

  “We don’t have to talk about it now; suffice it to say that your little Indian friend is okay.” He gave me a sly look. “It’s five in the morning. Why don’t you come on home . . . take one of them hour long baths, if you like,” he said with a hint of a smile. “I’ll drive you back to see your ma later, after you eat and rest a bit. I ’spect things will look a lot better in the light of day.” He held out his hand.

  I rose and took it. “I can’t see how things could look much worse.”

  As we approached Grandpa Reuben’s house I could make out the stark, blackened trees in the gray predawn, standing on a patch of snowless ground, melted by the flames. Most of the wreckage was cleared away, but there were still bits and pieces, the shards of glass a chilling reminder of shattered lives. The winking blinking stupid neon sign was gone forever.

  Before I got out of the car I asked, “Grandpa, did my father really—?”

  “I ain’t saying,” he cut me off with a snap; his eyes seemed fixed on something far beyond the windshield. “It was a long time ago and they can’t prove nothin’. But whatever happened . . . well, it ain’t George’s fault.” He turned his head sharply and looked me in the eye. “It’s the curse of the Schimschacks.” The words shot from his mouth like a spray of bullets. I flinched.

  Grandpa Rueben took a deep breath and closed his eyes a moment. “It’s like this, child,” he said softly. “Some families have all the luck. Their kids come out of the gate with good health and solid character and somethin’ between their ears, too. Those fortunate ones hand down prosperity from generation to generation, the way others pass along weak eyes, or a weakness for drink. I was married twenty-five years to a Schimschack and I know one thing for certain: madness runs through their blood like an underground river. It may hold off a while, but it always comes to the surface in some form or ’nother. And once it boils up, there’s no escaping it. You might as well try to run away from your own skin.”

  As I reflected upon his damning conclusion, life with my father flashed before me in a vivid montage of memories, tumbling over one another at random like so many bingo-game balls in a cage. From the vantage point of a three year old, I looked up at the face of a young George Parsons, standing alongside me as we washed the Woody, its bright aqua paint job shimmering under a Wisconsin summer sky. I held Dad’s arm and pranced alongside him through downtown Duluth, laden with bags from Fancy Nancy’s. Down on one knee, Dad holding Timmy’s hand as he poured forth compassion to mend a broken heart. Kicking the crap out of the old Ford and cussing at me in drunken rage. Championing a gay woman out of loyalty and respect, even at the risk of losing clientele. Insulting Mr. Gunderson and spanking me ’cause I talked back to my mother. Searching for me all night when I got lost in the woods.

  And even though I wasn’t there, I saw him back in Germany, handing a chocolate bar to a starving child who had, by some miracle, survived the holocaust. I saw the anguish in my father’s eyes undiminished by time, when the boy died in agony from the gift meant to save him, his ravaged body unable to produce enough insulin. I expect something broke inside George Parsons that day. His tender heart was pierced by an encounter with so great an evil that the wound never did fully close.

  I couldn’t say for sure what madness was or wasn’t, but I knew one thing for certain: the father who raised me was a singularly decent man, a man who stepped up and took on his sister-in-law’s illegitimate infant even before the grass had grown over his baby son’s grave. He may have been sick and crushed by sorrow, but he learned to love me.

  And no matter what he’d done, I would always love him.

  “I’m not so sure about that, Grandpa. I think Dad started out with nothing more than a sensitive nature. It was the cruelty in the world that drove him crazy.”

  “Humph . . . s’ppose that’s one way of lookin’ at it. But there’s somthin’ else you should know.”

  I braced myself for more.

  “Sparrow’s ma is dead. The sheriff said Mr. Gorski was passed out drunk, so they let him be. After they took Timmy to the hospital and Anna to the morgue, they sent someone to inform her father. It seems the old Polack went ’round the bend. Before anyone could stop him, he stuck both arms into the woodstove and set himself afire. He’s gone, and that shack is burned to the ground.”

  “YOU’RE HERE! THANK God you’re alright.” I held Sparrow in a tight embrace. She’d been waiting for me, hidden in my room just like last September when she ran away from school. At the time, that seemed like some pretty big trouble.

  “I’m here . . . but I ain’t alright. My ma’s dead. Nothing,”she choked on a sob, “nothing’s ever gonna be alright, not ever again.” She allowed herself a flood of tears.

  I sat her down on my bed and put my arms around her. “Your grandpa knows I’m here,” she managed. “He hid me from the law when they searched the place, looking to take me in. Pa’s been arrested . . . he never meant for Horace to die. Neither of us laid a hand on ’im. It was Timmy who bashed the kid’s head open, but I don’t think he done it on purpose. I don’t think he knew what the hell he was doing. We tried to stop him . . .”

  45

  Six months later . . .

  “OH TANTE, IS it really finished?” I asked excitedly, as she set the photograph box on the coffee table and retrieved her manuscript. It was a lot thicker than the last time I saw it.

  “I thought she had an air of mystery about her when she asked us to gather in the parlor for tea and kringla,” Mom said with a wry smile. My mother had recovered as much as she ever would. The shattered leg healed a bit shorter than the other and she walked with a limp, but she was lucky to walk at all.

  “Ya, I’m ready to read it now . . . if you don’t think our family history will be too boring for Sparrow.”

  “These are the best cookies I’ve ever had,” Sparrow interjected. “And I’d love to hear it, Miss Siggurdson.”

  “Sparrow, you live with us now, and you’re like a sister to Cassandra. I wish you’d call me auntie.”

  “May I have another cookie, Auntie?” she said with a grin.

  “Help yourself, but be careful you don’t get a belly ache.” My aunt took a sip of tea and settled herself back in Morfar’s armchair, then began to read.

  “Old Mrs. Sigurdsson had born up under the loss of her eldest son, but when she lost Gunnlagur so close on the heels, the blow bowed her like a sapling under heavy snow and stripped her spirit bare as the last leaves in a chill autumn wind.

  “Just when things looked about as bad as they could be, a man named Lars Larson came to Hordaland, traveling with his beautiful sixteen-year-old sister, Klara. Both of their parents had passed away, leaving her destitute but for her brother. He had also lost his young wife to the same scourge of influenza that had taken Gunnlagur.

  “The year was 1913. Norway had remained neutral during World War One, but due to the economic instability that followed, it was a tough place to make a living. Lars had lost his job on a fishing boat and was searching the countryside for work, since a surge in emigration had caused a shortage of farm laborers.

  “Lars stopped at the parish house, explained his circumstances, and inquired of the parson as to where he might find some work. Klara stood silently behind him, so meek and forlorn, on the cusp of young womanhood, yet still a motherless child. The parson sent them directly to the Sigurdsson farm; the parson was known to be a very wise man.

  “Like the Sigurdssons and many other folks in those tough times, Lars Larson had suffered one tragic loss after another. Yet, anyone who met him could see that he was truly a happy man, blessed with a joyful heart and the peaceful spirit that comes from a life of giving, from a soul free of guilt. Physically, he was of medium stature with broad shoulders and large hands. The work of fishing had made him very strong; being out on the boat wa
s even more taxing than farming. He had a ruddy complexion, deep for a Norwegian, and a mop of almost black, wavy hair. His sister Klara was as fair as he was dark.

  “When he first turned up at the door with a note of reference from the parson, Lars’ hair made him seem rather foreign to the Sigurdssons, or what was left of them. Oddfrid’s head looked like he wore a sunburnt haystack under his cap and so had his older brothers. But Mrs. Sigurdsson was soon won over by the stranger’s smile, warm as sunshine and freely given. It was a rare attribute, especially in those hard times. In the best of times, Norwegian men tended to be rather sober by nature.

  “The two Larsons moved into the humble farmhouse and in no time at all they were like one family. Lars took over the back room that had belonged to Sjurd and Gunnlagur. Klara shared the bedroom with old Mrs. Sigurdsson, who came back from the brink now that she had a foster-daughter to mother and help with the housework. She was very happy to have another man to cook for.

  “As was only natural, Oddfrid became smitten. The two young people were wed after Lent the following spring, when Oddfrid was twenty and Klara just eighteen. They took up the room at the back of the house, while Lars happily made his bed in the main room by the fire where Oddfrid had slept. Baby Gudrun was born two days before Christmas.

  “What a glorious ten years they all had! War took a merciful respite, and the world buried their dead. The wool was plentiful and fetched a good price. The seasons changed. Sheep were shorn, and Grandmother Sigurdsson knitted many a warm sweater. The child Gudrun grew tall enough to stand over the woodstove, and learned to cook.

  “When the terrible influenza of 1918 swept the globe, it passed by the Sigurdsson farm like the death of the firstborn spared the Jews. It was as if the front door had been painted with the blood of the lamb.

  “There was only one disappointment, small at first, but as the years passed it began to cause a bit of concern: Klara did not conceive again. Naturally, Oddfrid had hoped for a son. He secretly felt that only when he had a son and named him Sjurd would he be fully redeemed. Old Mrs. Sigurdsson, who never complained or even asked anything for herself, quietly expressed a wish to see a grandson before she joined her husband and sons in heaven.

  “Even though life was comparatively good to what it had once been, Oddfrid grew tired of living in a cramped farmhouse, laboring year after year and bringing about hardly any improvement in his circumstances. For some time, ever since his second cousin Tarald had gone to a place called Wisconsin, Oddfrid had seriously considered immigrating to America. He’d been gathering information, talking to other men and mulling it over with only a mention here and there to his wife. As he heard more and more news from his kinsman, Oddfrid grew increasingly envious of the endless opportunities for business and the vast amount of money that could be made by a shrewd man who was willing to work hard.

  “Suddenly at age thirty, Oddfrid felt certain that he too must go to America; it must be then or never.

  “It was quickly settled that Lars Larson would purchase the farm with some money down and the rest paid in installments. Thrown into the bargain as partial payment, Oddfrid would entrust to him the care of his elderly mother, who would live with him in her old home for the rest of her life.”

  “I suppose Oddfrid didn’t consult his mother about that either?” I asked.

  “No, of course not . . . but she didn’t mind. She liked Lars very much.

  “The two men were satisfied with the financial arrangements, but there was still one concern. Lars had never taken another wife; now that his sister was leaving, he couldn’t run a farm and care for an old woman without a wife. But Lars was nearly forty and very much out of practice for courting. He consulted Mrs. Sigurdsson, whom he considered as a second mother. She answered simply, ‘Vilgjerd Maria.’

  “To which Lars responded, ‘How wonderful. Why didn’t I think of that?’

  “Vilgjerd Maria was a thirty-five-year-old spinster, the only daughter of the apothecary, Karluf Johansen. She was born with a harelip, but not, thank God, a cleft pallet. When she popped into the world, the sight of the poor infant wailing with the torn open mouth affected the parents greatly; what was worse, she could not suckle. It would take many days to send for a surgeon—Karluf wasn’t even sure he could pay a surgeon—so the attending midwife gave the baby a few drops of Vodka to put her to sleep and laid her tightly swaddled body in between Karluf’s knees. She placed one of his big hands on either side of the tiny head like a vise and warned, ‘No matter what happens, you must hold the infant fast whilst I scrape away a bit of skin and then stitch her mouth so she can nurse.’

  “Despite the analgesic, the baby whimpered piteously, but Karluf was stoic and the midwife was skilled with the needle—in fact, when a doctor came by a week later to remove the stitches, he remarked that he couldn’t have done better himself.

  “But as they were working on the baby, there was a far more serious problem: Karluf’s wife was hemorrhaging in childbed. Imagine the horror when they brought little Vilgjerd to her mother and found the poor woman in shock, lying in blood-soaked sheets. She died right before their eyes.

  “The midwife later explained that an infant’s suckling was needed to help to expel the afterbirth and staunch the womb; the fact that they could not put the child immediately to the breast was partly to blame.

  “A kindly woman from the village took the baby home and wet-nursed her. She raised her with her own children so that Karluf could work, but he came to visit every Sunday. He took his daughter home again when she was five.

  “Vilgjerd Maria grew up to be a quiet, pious girl, and her father loved her in spite of her deformity—even though through her birth he had lost his wife. For the most part, people were kind, but as she grew up no young men courted her nor did she expect them to. In her teenaged years, some thoughtless boys were heard to tease one another, saying things like, ‘You’d better pick out a girl soon, or you might get stuck marrying Vilgjerd Maria!’”

  “That’s mean,” Sparrow interjected.

  “It was mean, you betcha.

  “And then there were the oldwives; they warned the young married women not to look directly into the face of Vilgjerd Maria, in the event they might be in an early stage of pregnancy . . .”

  “Why would they say a thing like that?” I wanted to know.

  “They believed it could cause a harelip or some other deformity in their unborn babies. Most reasonable people thought it was nonsense and scoffed at the old crones . . .”

  “Why did they scoff at the money?”

  “Not krone, crones. It’s a . . . a not very nice word to call a silly, gossipy old lady.

  “Lars Larson went to town and stopped at the apothecary to purchase a bottle of aspirin. Vilgjerd Maria waited on him. Although Lars had encountered her from time to time over the years, he had never looked closely at her face, lest she think he was staring. He was very considerate of her feelings and didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. This time he looked her in the eye as he thanked her politely. He noticed what clear blue eyes she had and how silky and beautiful was her golden hair. Lars was busy admiring her eyes and hair and reached awkwardly for the little packet of aspirin without looking at what he was doing. He accidently clasped the hand of Vilgjerd Maria, parcel and all. A warm smile spread across his face, then Lars excused himself with a gentle laugh: Oops . . . I can’t very well take you home along with the aspirin.’ He caught the sparkle in her eyes, like starlight on the ocean. Modestly, she looked down at her hand; beneath his calloused fingers it felt soft as eiderdown. Then and there, Lars Larson made the third great decision of his life. The first was to marry his young wife, God bless her soul; the second was to take up with the Sigurdssons. He determined to marry Vilgjerd Maria.

  “Later that very same afternoon, Lars approached Mr. Johansen to ask if he might request his daughter’s hand in marriage, explaining honestly his situation and what he had to offer. Karluf was getting on in years, and even though
he had set money aside for her living, he often worried about poor Vilgjerd Maria spending her life alone. As he looked into Lars Larson’s open face and heard his sad tale of losing his young wife years ago, he felt as if he were a kinsman already.

  “A brief courtship was followed by a quiet wedding at the church where Lars had first stopped, over ten years earlier. The old parson, who had also married Klara and Oddfrid, performed the ceremony. After he gave his daughter away, Mr. Johansen sat by Mrs. Sigurdsson in the front pew and looked on in wonder, for he’d never expected to see the day. When the happy couple was pronounced man and wife, the father of the bride burst into tears of joy. It was only the second time he had wept in his manhood—the first was when Vilgjerd’s mother died. Mrs. Sigurdsson slipped him her handkerchief and silently squeezed his left hand.

  “The new couple treated one another with the greatest tenderness, cherishing the marriage even more because each had been alone for so long. And it turned out that Lars’ good nature and willingness to take a bride that others had passed by was rewarded tenfold. He already knew that Vilgjerd Maria was exceptionally kind and sweet tempered; but in the sanctuary of their marital bedroom, he discovered that his wife possessed an unimaginable beauty, concealed these many long years beneath her modest attire. Her surprisingly full-bodied, milk-white breasts were still as firm as any young maiden’s; he could encircle her long slender waist with his hands.

  “One morning in the full light of day, Lars took his wife in his arms, gently lifted her chin with his finger and tenderly kissed her mouth. He looked into her eyes and said softly, ‘I hope you don’t mind my saying it darling, but I’m glad . . . I thank God for His wisdom in making you thusly, and for saving you all these years, just for me.’

  “After they’d been married for only one month, Vilgjerd Maria was expecting. The couple was so delighted by the surprise that they were giddy with happiness, and went about giggling like teenagers . . .”