The Last Letter Home

by Vilhelm Moberg

  It had hurt Kristina to see the participants get water in their mouth, nose and ears, and see them stumble like dizzy people after the baptism. In her catechism she had learned that it was not the power of the water—water was something external. And the amount of water at a baptism could not have anything to do with the sacrament. She herself had been baptized in a font. Weren’t a few handfuls of water sufficient for the entrance into God’s kingdom? Why did they need a whole river?

  Mrs. Jackson explained that every part of the old body, with real sin and original sin—the whole sin-carcass—must be immersed, washed, in order for it to be a real baptism. The Lutherans only splashed a few drops over the head, just fooling around. The Lutherans called themselves baptized but all their carnal lusts remained with them.

  “Why do they put on white shirts?” wondered Kristina.

  “Before the converts step into the water they dress in the clothes of the new body. The Lutherans wear their same old sin rags throughout life!”

  Ulrika had been saved from Lutheranism’s false teachings. She had never wanted to be a Lutheran in the first place; she had been told that she had fought when baptized as a child, crying so loudly the whole time that not one of the minister’s words was heard, and flailing her arms against the book. Only since she came to America and met Henry had she learned that the Baptists were the true followers of Christ, the only ones who lived like the Saviour himself when he walked on earth. The first Christian congregation was a Baptist congregation.

  “St. John is called John the Baptist in English! He was the first Baptist!”

  “Is that really the truth?” said Kristina.

  “Of course! I didn’t know myself before I learned English that John was the first Baptist. Our religion is named after him. It says in the Bible that John baptized Jesus in the river Jordan!”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “The Saviour was thirty years old. Jesus was a grown man when he let John baptize him.”

  “I guess he never was baptized as a child.”

  “Of course not! God wanted his son to be a Baptist!”

  What Kristina heard was fresh news to her, but she wasn’t quite convinced.

  “But you can read in the Bible that Jesus let himself be baptized when grown. That proves he was a Baptist!” Ulrika decided.

  “You mean that John handled Jesus in the same way as Jackson handled the people today? Did he dip him under the water, big as he was?”

  “Of course he did!”

  “It sounds unreasonable.”

  “Take a peek in Holy Writ! If it isn’t in the Lutheran Bible those devils must have hidden it. The same as they concealed from the Swedes that John was called the Baptist.”

  Ulrika had often explained to Kristina the great difference between Lutherans and Baptists: The Lutherans used their religion for Sundays only, the Baptists used theirs every day of the week. Consequently Ulrika and those of her faith were like the first Christians.

  A silence ensued, then Kristina said: “You mean I’m wrong in my faith?”

  Ulrika patted her feelingly on the arm and spoke like a mother to a dear, lost child: “You’re baptized in the wrong religion, Kristina, but you can’t help it. The Lord will have mercy on you because you’re a good person!”

  Ulrika continued to explain the tenets of the Baptists, especially those concerning immersion. Kristina listened, her thoughts deep within her. She put questions to herself and she received answers.

  What did she know and believe for sure? That she was one life among the others of the Creation, that she belonged to the Creator and was lost without him. Once she had felt as if God didn’t exist, but he had given her proof which would last for the rest of her life. And if she hadn’t had God to trust in since coming to America, her despair would have wrecked her and she couldn’t have survived to this day.

  But did she know anything more for sure? She couldn’t tell which was right: to be baptized as a child or as a grown person; to splash the head or immerse the body; to be baptized in a font or in a river stream.

  River or font? Was she baptized wrongly or rightly? She didn’t know. But she didn’t care, it couldn’t hurt her soul in eternity whichever way.

  Whatever was right, Kristina would remain with her baptism and her God to the end of her days.

  X

  THE ASTRAKHAN APPLE TREE BLOOMS

  —1—

  There were no frosty nights this spring; even, suitable warmth prevailed while the earth was being prepared for seeding, and afterward mild, slow rains fell. All the grasses, herbs, and plants—cultivated and wild—shot up in a few days and grew in such lushness and abundance as the settlers had never before seen. The colder the winter the milder the spring. When they bored the sugar maples the sap flowed more plentifully than ever; the more severe the winter cold the greater the flow of nourishing fluid in the trees. The weather gave promise of blessed crops next fall.

  And the Astrakhan apple tree at the gable blossomed for the fourth time.

  For three consecutive springs the blooms on the tree had frozen. This year they remained their full time, this year the apple tree would bear fruit for the first time.

  A sapling had grown up from seeds that had come from Kristina’s parental home, Duvemåla in Sweden, and now the sapling had grown into a tree. Kristina had worried lest the young roots freeze and die in the cold Minnesota winters. During the cold season the naked, icy branches poked up through the snowdrift against the wall as if reaching for help. But each year anew the large, rough, hairy leaves decked it in green.

  And now Kristina’s tree had reached its fruiting age. Never before had it displayed so many blossoms. The white-pink flowers hung in clusters, and unharmed by frost or wind they lived their lives to fullness. Then the branches shed their flower clusters and the fruiting began. As the mild spring days passed, the limbs became covered with tiny green nuts; by summer the tiny apples crowded each other for space. The swelling of the fruit could be noticed from day to day; within a few summer weeks they would grow into large, juicy apples.

  The Swedish tree bore a noble fruit; Kristina’s mouth watered as she thought of the fresh taste only Astrakhan apples offered. In this taste her childhood memories lay embedded: In the mornings when she picked the fallen fruit she would split an apple by squeezing it in her hand; then she would count the seed compartments: each apple had five, always five. The fragrance of the fresh fruit filled her nostrils like morning’s own breath. She would bite into the apple, bite through its transparent skin to which the dew still clung, and moistened her lips.

  Here the Astrakhan apples were said to ripen in August. This autumn Kristina’s own children would for the first time taste the fruit of a noble tree from the country where their mother had grown up. She pointed to the green, unripe fruit; soon they could eat the kind of apples she had eaten at home. How delicious they were! But they must not touch them until the apples were ripe!

  Kristina would be able to show her children how she had transplanted part of her childhood from the Old Country to the New.

  —2—

  From the world outside their home came further evil tidings. The Civil War—predicted to last only a summer—had gone on through the whole winter, and this spring it took on still greater proportions in combat and bitterness. During the first year the North and the South had fought each other to train, as it were, but during the second year the soldiers were experienced and knew how to handle their weapons. Consequently the war grew bloodier.

  The long-awaited successes of the North were not yet apparent, but the adversities were smaller than during the first year. The great trouble was that the Southern generals remained as clever as before while the Northern commanders were as incapable as ever. Karl Oskar had subscribed to the Minnesota Pioneer, printed in St. Paul, and he tried to follow the war in English. His two oldest sons, who read the language well, were very helpful to him. The news was seldom encouraging. But he still trusted fully the cou
ntry’s leader whom he had helped elect: Old Abe would put everything in order! Lincoln would save the Union! Sometimes, however, he wondered if he trusted so much in the President because he wished to rely on his own ability to select the man.

  They had not yet heard anything about the threatened draft. The North still had as many volunteers as they could train and equip. The number of soldiers increased on both sides.

  The Civil War grew by and by to be the greatest war in the world to date.

  The war was remarkable in another way also, if not inexplicable. Peoples who had warred against each other in the Old World fought side by side in the New World. English and Irish, Germans and French, Austrians and Italians all fought in the Northern army for the preservation of the Union. Immigrants from different nations in the Old World went of their own free will to jeopardize their lives for the right to remain one single nation in the New World.

  When Karl Oskar read about this in the Minnesota Pioneer he wondered why these people hadn’t been able to live in peace in their homelands when they could be friends and fight side by side in America.

  But the rumblings of war to the south were now part of their daily life and did not cause much concern among the Minnesota settlers. In New Duvemåla life went on without disturbing events. With the arrival of spring Kristina felt almost as well as before, indeed, she considered herself fully recuperated. With the help of Marta, whose handiness daily increased, Kristina had now resumed her chores. All seemed well in their house.

  During the days the man and wife labored industriously, as they had done during their twenty years of marriage. But during the nights a change had taken place in their lives; during the nights Karl Oskar had no wife and Kristina no husband.

  They enjoyed their rest in the same room, at opposite sides of the room, in different beds. The distance was not great from bed to bed, there were no miles between them, only six or seven easy paces. But there might as well have been a road a thousand miles long: the great ocean they once crossed could not have separated them more completely.

  Six words continued to echo deep in Karl Oskar’s ears: Next childbed will be her death.

  A great denial had been laid upon him. He went without one joy he had shared with his wife during all their years. It was something essential for a healthy man—the way he felt it. A sudden interruption had taken place in a habit of many years. Now when he lay down on his bed in the evening he was assailed by the demands of his unsatisfied body. He felt his sex as a burden, it annoyed and irritated him. It took longer for him to go to sleep, and he slept restlessly and in fits.

  How far away from a man is the woman he must never approach?

  He noticed that his wife also lay awake long after going to bed. He could hear her stir in her bed, move and turn. And he need not guess how she felt.

  Sometimes they would talk for a while from their separate beds across the room before they wished each other goodnight. They spoke of the work they had done today, what they would do tomorrow—about anything except that which filled their thoughts: They were not allowed to sleep together.

  Both missed deeply the bodily contact they had shared for twenty years. After being together and having satisfied their desires, often the moments of their deepest confidences arose when they could say things otherwise suppressed through embarrassment. Then they opened to each other all that otherwise was locked in. They spoke of the life they had shared, in the Old World and in the New, they spoke of death which awaited them sometime, death which would separate them. And they talked of eternity which had no end. Then Kristina would speak of her soul’s conviction: Death would not separate them forever, only for a short time. They would meet again. They would meet in the life that would last—eternity.

  The meeting of their bodies had for them become the moments of intimacy which opened their souls to each other.

  Month after month Karl Oskar endured his denial. But the longer he was denied the more he suffered from his denial. The longer his body was denied what it craved, the more often it craved it. His thoughts were busy with just the things they were not allowed to be busy with. A remembrance of lust and joy in days gone by increased the present lack of it. The good moments he had shared with Kristina excited and stimulated him. In his dreams he was with her again as before—he awakened in terror: What had he done to her . . . ? What had he done?

  Next childbed . . . Six words hummed in his ears as a warning bell, a threatening reminder to be on guard night and day.

  —3—

  During the Whitsuntide holidays Ulrika came for a visit and could both see and hear that Kristina had regained her health. She could see new clothes the settler wife had sewn for the children on her new sewing machine; a carpet loom was put up and the carpets were expected to be ready for Midsummer. And Kristina showed her the tree at the east gable wall: The Swedish tree would bear apples for the first time this summer! She could see the apples grow in size from day to day! And she promised Ulrika a bushelful next fall.

  It was Ulrika who had carried the doctor’s order to Karl Oskar concerning his wife, and that was three months ago. They had not seen her since. Now Ulrika’s eyes seemed to say that she felt sorry for him, and this made him feel uncomfortable.

  Ulrika knew. She had shared in something that ought to have stayed between him and Kristina. She was sharing the secrets of a married couple, and this was wrong. No third person should have knowledge of this. The Baptist minister’s wife was Kristina’s good friend, but he himself had not entirely accepted her. He supposed this had to do with his knowledge of her Swedish activities as parish whore which he couldn’t forget. He didn’t fully trust Ulrika of Västergöhl, formerly known as the Glad One. She was a talkative woman, she did not willingly keep quiet. If it had been up to him she would not have been in on the secret.

  On her way home Mrs. Jackson had to make a call in Center City, and Karl Oskar drove her there. They were alone on the wagon.

  She said, “I’m glad Kristina is well again.”

  “Yes, I am too.”

  “You can thank the Lord for that!” Ulrika turned and searched the driver’s face. “But you! You’ve lost weight, Karl Oskar!”

  “I lose a little every year. It’s the heat here in Minnesota.”

  “You needn’t blame the heat! Not to me! I know what it is! I know what you need!”

  He did not reply. He jerked the reins and urged the horses on; damn that Ulrika must know!

  “I want to tell you, Karl Oskar; I feel sorry for you!”

  “You needn’t!” His reply was short.

  “You have to lie in that ox pen! How you must suffer during the nights! You get hotter that way, of course!”

  In one way Mrs. Henry O. Jackson was still Ulrika of Västergöhl, thought Karl Oskar. She could spew forth almost anything. At times she still talked like the parish whore, especially when she talked to men. He disliked women who talked that way.

  “Poor you! You must go without and suffer! Nothing else left for you, because you care for Kristina!”

  “A wife isn’t for bedplay only!”

  “But a healthy man needs a woman! It must be hard on you! Don’t pretend to me!”

  He had some crushing words on the tip of his tongue but he bit them off. And he decided that he would not reply to her any more.

  Ulrika continued to describe the tortures a healthy man must endure when he was denied a woman, but from now on only her voice was heard on the wagon; the driver sat completely silent. Why, she wondered, did he keep so silent?

  Yes, Ulrika wondered about Karl Oskar. Old as he was she had been able to embarrass him. He was a father many times over but as shy as an untried youth. Here he sat beside her now, embarrassed and blushing like a little boy who had just messed in his pants and didn’t dare tell anybody. But there was something attractive about strong, rough men who could feel embarrassed as Karl Oskar did. They were like little boys who needed a woman’s hand to help unbutton the fly. And it was such boy-
men women liked to help if they had an opportunity. Now she felt sorry for Karl Oskar because he couldn’t find help with some woman.

  Karl Oskar reined the horses to a stop in front of Persson’s Store. He was going to make some purchases from Klas Albert, and his woman rider had errands elsewhere. With a sigh of relief he saw Mrs. Henry O. Jackson get off his wagon.

  —4—

  It was an evening in May; Karl Oskar had gone to bed and said goodnight to his wife. As long as day lighted him he had remained in the field preparing it for the corn. With some satisfaction he stretched his tired limbs in the bed. He was waiting for sleep. Crickets chirruped in the grass and trees outside—those screech-hoppers kept on without end in the spring nights, like an eternally buzzing spinning wheel.

  But above this familiar, persistent noise from outside he heard a padding sound here in the room: steps of bare feet across the floor. Quickly he lifted his head from the pillow.

  Kristina stood at his bed. White linen against the dark of the room—Kristina stood there in her shift.

  He thought she had already gone to sleep.

  “You’re up?!”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sick, Kristina?”

  “No.”

  “What is it then? Something wrong?”

  “Don’t worry—nothing is wrong with me.”

  “But what do you want?”

  “I’m coming back to you.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I want to be your wife again . . .”

  In a sudden motion he sat up in his bed: “You want to . . . ? What are you saying?!”

  “You heard me. I think we should sleep together again. Here I am . . .”

  For more than three months they had kept apart. Tonight she had unexpectedly come to his bed, saying: Here I am!

  He bent forward, trying to look his wife in the face for an explanation, but it was too dark.

  “I’ve come back to you, Karl Oskar. Don’t you want me?”

  “Are you walking in your sleep, Kristina?”

  “I’m awake!”