“Is that what you want? A wholesome life?”
“Isn’t that what everybody wants?”
He lit his cigar with a sputtering match and puffed on the body until the tip smoldered. “I don’t understand you—never did.” His face was obscured by blue smoke.
“Be as that might, the two of us together would never work.” James could always excite me, but he belonged to the shadows in my life, slithered there as a hot, sweet secret, fiery and strong. He was my lover and my friend—not a husband.
“You are not one for sentiments, that’s for sure. At times I have thought you liked me—loved me, even—giving me of your time and your mind. Other times I think you quite despise me.” I could not read his expression just then.
“Can’t I do both?” I was fanning myself with a newspaper, chasing away the heavy cigar smoke that wafted across the table.
“You do know how to please a man. Too bad it’s all lost on your husband.” His eyebrow rose a little.
“Men are easy.” My gaze fell on the window, where a few flies were battling for freedom. “Give them good food and comfort, let them talk about themselves . . . I’m not much to look at, but I know how to flatter.”
“You are quite lovely, I’d say.” James laughed. “Did you ever consider widowhood?” His eyebrows rose teasingly. “It would be easy; you know that.” He always made murder sound as simple as picking ripe fruit from a tree. It was tempting the way he said it, as if we were children about to do mischief.
“Sometimes.” In truth, I thought of it often. Especially when I was lying awake next to my husband, listening to his wheezing snores, imagining what it would be like to have him convulsing on the sheets. I remembered how delicious it was when Anders died, and so longed for that same feeling. I was angry with Mads for not giving me what I needed, for talking to me as he did, for being nothing but a rat, shivering and helpless. For forcing me to live with him, day after day through our marriage bond, and yet—I always thought better of it.
“I need his income. What I get for the children isn’t enough.” My pantry would slowly empty without him; my clothes would fall into rags. I would have to take in filthy lodgers, and maybe even wash and mend. I did not worry about suspicion—husbands die all the time—but I did worry about money. “He is not much of a man, but I need him.”
“I’m sure there are other ways.”
“Of course, but I don’t much care for them.” James meant I should kill my husband and join in his enterprise, but the life of a thug did not compel me—where was the spite in that? I leaned back in the chair and folded my arms over my chest. “I tinker with his coffee sometimes. I add a few drops of the children’s medicine, or a few grains of rat poison if he has been difficult. It serves him well to lie there with stomach pains—it leaves him weak for a time too; it gives me time to think.” Being with James had emboldened me. I did not pick the fruit from the branch, but at least I dared to taste it. I could punish Mads, or silence him for a while, and that, at least, was something.
I wanted my husband gone, but I could not afford it.
James Lee could always distract me. “Come here,” he said when my mind grew bitter, and when I arrived, he pulled me down in his lap. His kisses were hard and tasted of tobacco; his hand in my hair was not kind. “Show me the button,” he whispered, just to have me remove my shirtwaist so he could lay his hands on my breasts through the corset. Soon enough I was on the table with my skirts pushed up around my waist, and he was in me, hard and ready. Just where I wanted him to be.
I never grew tired of James Lee.
* * *
—
All my foster children left in the end. Both Anne and Lizzie went back to their mothers. I told myself I had always known the girls were borrowed, but it did not prevent me from missing their happy chatter and their light steps on my floors. The rooms seemed so very empty without them. James brought me other children, but they never stayed for as long as I liked. Whenever he appeared with a bundle for me to take, I already knew that the child would not stay, and so the bliss of motherhood eluded me.
In dark nights, with my jaw aching, I would cradle my empty belly in my hands and will it to come alive. Just one seed, one blessed stickling, to whisk all my misery away. I often wished I could bring Anders back to life, so I could kill him again for taking it all away from me—but none of my wishing could fill my womb.
The one thing to bring me solace happened in late 1888, when Mads sat me down by the kitchen table, which was not as white as ivory anymore but had taken on a gray, dusty shade.
“Do you recall the girl I told you about? Ole Olson’s daughter?” he asked me.
“Of course!” How could I not? Mads had often spoken of his friend’s wife, who was unlikely to survive after a hard birth. She had lingered for some months, but her prospects were dire. The couple had asked us to take the child should the mother die but the daughter survive. I had thought of the girl every day since, and visited the vacant children’s room where the little beds and the neatly folded clothes lay ready to welcome a new child.
“They want us to come, tonight. The poor woman is not expected to survive much longer.” Mads’s bottom lip quivered. He felt sad for his friend, who was losing a wife.
“How old is the girl now?” I could only think of her.
“Eight months.” Mads’s face was grave before me, respectful of the circumstances, but I could not be more joyous. Eight months was perfect. She would have no memory of her first mother as she grew older, and could easily be weaned of the milk.
“I’ll go change my dress.” I wanted to go at once, and that very same night I met Jennie for the first time. Fair of hair and blue of eyes, always so quiet and gentle.
Her mother was close to death when we arrived, but she found the strength to place the swaddled child in my arms. With her face pale and damp against the pillows, she made me swear to keep her as my own, which I readily did. I even had a smile for my husband that night, for facilitating this happy occasion through his friendship. He might not have given me much of what I wanted, but this he had managed at least.
I felt triumphant when I left that bedside, as if I finally had received some justice—payment for all I had suffered. It was nothing more than what I deserved.
Jennie was mine ever since.
18.
Chicago, 1893
The World’s Columbian Exposition overtook Chicago with a glorious madness. Out of the swamp rose a city of gleaming white, with all the wonders of the world inside, from the thousands of singers in the Choral Hall to the hundreds of roses in the Horticultural Building. You could see a map of pickles, a bridge of sugar, a chocolate Columbus, and a castle of soap. There was even a Viking ship, rowed all the way from Norway.
Had Jennie been a little older, I might have seen more of it, but she was at five a delicate child whose feet easily tired, and so we mostly stayed away. I did not feel bereft, however; my days with Jennie brought me more joy than any of the magnificence to be seen. Finally, I had a child without a living mother, and though she did have a father, I never truly feared that he would come and take her away—fathers so rarely miss their children.
All through the world fair year, the Norwegians gathered in a beer garden on the Midway. The latter was not a part of the fair but had become one nevertheless, with sword dancers, snake charmers, and beautiful girls on display. I had been there before with Mads, but he did not care much for excessive drinking, and the cigar smoke made his eyes water. He had wanted me to settle for a cup of hot cocoa. I insisted on gin.
This night I was alone with no surly husband in tow, and I meant to make the most of it. I had hired a girl to mind my darling Jennie, who would be sleeping soundly in her bed by now, her fair head resting on lace-edged pillows. Surely she would not mind my absence for one night. My friends from church were not there, of course, but I reacquainted myself with some o
f Nellie’s friends from Milwaukee Avenue. They were still a rowdy lot, still eager to drink and dance. We sat at long tables in a pavilion lit by electric lightbulbs. A dusky woman dressed in red played the violin; colorful pennants hung from the ceiling. We lifted our glasses to king and country and to our Viking ancestors. It was pleasant to hear my mother tongue all around me, the singsong tunes of the dialects.
“Did you see the Javanese orchestra yet?” Nellie’s old neighbor, Clara, asked. She had a beer in her hand and her eyes were glassy with drink. She had not quite taken to me back when I lived with John and Nellie—none of my sister’s friends had, truth be told—but the brew seemed to have made her forget that we were never the best of friends.
“No.” I shook my head. “Not yet. Do you come here often?”
“As often as I can. I won’t miss a moment of the fair if I can help it.” She threw back her head and laughed, showing off gums with a few teeth missing. I ran my tongue over the sharp edge of my own broken tooth.
“Mads thinks it too expensive to go.” I could not help but roll my eyes.
“That’s why he isn’t here, then?” She looked around as if he would suddenly appear in the crowd.
“He is working, poor soul, but he doesn’t begrudge me a night of fun.” I forced myself not to smile from the lie.
“Sounds like a kind man.” Beer sloshed from her glass and ran down her fingers. “My husband wouldn’t be so kind if I went here without him.”
“He probably likes to have fun, then, your husband.” I looked down the length of the table, at all the laughing, red-faced Norwegians. “There are so many visitors from outside the city. I guess they all want to see the fair.”
“Some came up from Minnesota yesterday and my cousin came from Indiana last week. Who would want to miss out on it?”
“Have Nellie and John been down tonight?”
Clara shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen them. I suppose Nellie is ill again. You know how it is with her back.”
“Our mother was the same,” I told her. “It’s the child carrying that does it, I think.”
Clara shrugged. “Such a shame, but it’s what we do best, isn’t it? Carrying that lot.”
“Yes, I have a daughter of my own now, too.” I did not bother to mention that she was not truly mine. I instantly regretted it, though. The Norwegian community was small and Clara might know Ole Olson, and even if she did not, my sister could have told her the truth.
Clara’s gaze flickered a little—she was obviously well informed. “It’s nice, though, isn’t it, to have children?” Was that pity I heard in her voice?
“Nothing like it.” I held my ground, though anger and anguish were instantly there, filling my mouth with the taste of bile. I was about to say more but was interrupted by a man’s voice bellowing to be heard above the crowd:
“Hide the scissors, Bloody Bella is back!”
I turned my head in surprise and saw Arnold, one of the old gang from Milwaukee Avenue. He smelled as if this was his third day straight spending all his earnings at the beer garden. He came slumping down beside me on the bench, his red-brown beard streaked with filth. “What happened to that poor husband of yours? Did he get too close?”
“What do you mean by that?” I downed my beer and wished for another.
“Pay him no mind,” said Clara.
“Maybe he got a little close so you stabbed him like the other one.” The man laughed aloud, happy with his own poor jab.
“The ‘other one’ turned out all right.” Clara’s voice was calm. “His wound healed just fine. It’s nothing more to talk about.”
“Well, he died, didn’t he?” Arnold blew cigar smoke in my face.
“Not by her hand,” said Clara, and I felt the weight of the pewter button under my shirtwaist. Its pressure on my skin, like a kiss.
“He wasn’t good enough for you, was he?” The man was still laughing at my expense. I wanted to smash my glass in his face and see the shards slide in through his skin. I wanted to have him broken at my feet. I wished I were a man like James, who would not think twice of waiting for him in an alley with his blade sharp and ready. Perhaps if he was drunk enough—or someone had slipped something into his glass—maybe I could best him then.
Maybe I could crush him.
Clara smacked Arnold’s head across the table. “Of course he wasn’t good enough! He was a brute! You all are!”
“Well, what do you call her then, bloody scissors and all—?”
“A woman putting a fool in his place—and you should mind your place too, before she teaches you otherwise.”
“Oh, I would not dare touch Bloody Bella.” He looked at me. “Maybe you’d snip my balls off with those scissors.” Yes, I thought, maybe I would.
A kind look then from a stranger next to Clara, who had heard the whole exchange. He gave me a smile and lifted his glass. It calmed me, that smile, made me see reason.
“What balls?” I asked Arnold, and Clara laughed.
“I have them right here, would you like to see?” His speech was slurred as he moved his hands toward his crotch.
“That is enough of that.” The stranger rose from the bench. He was taller than any other man at the table, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped. “I think you have outstayed your welcome. Maybe it’s time to go take a piss?”
“I’ll piss in my own sweet time,” Arnold answered, but the fire was all gone by then.
The stranger shrugged and sat back down. “Let the woman enjoy her glass in peace; she seems like no scissors-wielding fiend to me. If she did happen to stab a man, he probably deserved it.”
“He did! He did!” Clara shrieked beside him.
My tormentor muttered to himself. His gaze was unfocused as he stared into his beer, and a moment later, he lumbered off.
“Thank you.” I nodded to my savior.
“Don’t mention it.” He reached out his hand. “Peter Gunness.”
“Bella Sorensen.” I shook it. He was a handsome man, Peter Gunness, with blond hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were very blue. “You don’t live in Chicago, do you?”
“No.” He gave me a smile. Not a wicked one like James’s, but a nice and wholesome smile. “I came down from Minneapolis to see the fair. I have some work in the area.”
“Everyone suddenly does, it seems.”
He smiled. “You have a lovely city here. Maybe I’ll come for good someday.” His gaze lingered on mine just a little too long.
“That depends on the eyes who see, I think.” I gave him just a hint of a smile. I found I would not mind if he moved to Chicago.
“Is that an empty glass, Mrs. Sorensen? Do you want me to fill that up for you?” His eyebrow rose and his smile still lingered. He blew a little stray hair from his nose.
“If you like.” Who was I to say no to a free glass? Served by a handsome man, no less.
He still smiled when he rose from the bench. I watched him as he moved into the crowd, towering so tall above everyone else.
“He is a butcher.” Clara followed my gaze.
“Is that so?” I was intrigued.
“I believe his sausage is very good. Recently married, though. A shame.”
“How would you know about his sausage?”
She laughed. “Oh, no one really knows. He is picky, it seems, when it comes to customers.”
“Can never be too careful these days.”
“I wouldn’t mind standing in line for that one, though.” She glanced in the direction he had gone.
I shrugged. “He is a married man and we are married women.” But my heart raced a little in my chest, as if I were a hound who had just caught the scent of a fox.
“I heard his wife is sickly—could just be a rumor; no one knows for sure.”
“He seems a kind man.” I wetted my lip
s with the tip of my tongue.
Clara smiled sweetly and looked away when Peter Gunness came back. He handed me the glass and sat down next to me where the drunkard used to be, straddling the bench as if it were a horse.
“Well then, Mrs. Sorensen, I think it’s time you tell me all about yourself—and especially about those scissors,” he said.
“Of course.” I laughed, making merry of it all. It had been such a long time since that night, after all. The air was warm, the beer was strong, and the man was utterly charming.
When I closed my eyes, I thought I could smell a faint scent of blood coming off him.
19.
Nellie
Iam telling you, Nellie, your sister could not take her eyes off him!” Clara sat by the table in my new kitchen and regaled me with tales of the Midway and the fair. I had not gone as my back had been hopeless and made me walk with a limp—much like Olina back at Størsetgjerdet. “Oh, you should have been there to see it,” Clara lamented. “It was quite the spectacle. She did not make much of a secret of her feelings.”
“Not so much feelings, I think,” I said, and made another stitch in the shirt in my lap. I had to give up the washing, but I still took in some mending. “She doesn’t know him at all, so it was maybe not the heart that spoke.” I added a wry smile, and rejoiced when I heard Clara’s laughter in reply. I still knew how to deliver a salty line.
“Ah, but these things happen.” Clara drank coffee from a barely chipped cup. “After a few years of marriage one starts to yearn for something more exciting. I was just surprised because she was so religious before. She was always at church, do you remember?”
“Oh, I do.” I did not hold back but rolled my eyes. This was Clara, after all, and I knew she would not judge me. “She is a little less concerned with it now; she teaches Sunday school but isn’t otherwise involved. As long as she did not go with him, I cannot see what harm it does if she became a little weak in the knees.” In my mind, an image of that love bite I had seen flashed before me. It was years ago, though, and had nothing to do with this Peter.
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