Not the Faintest Trace

by Wendy M Wilson

  Frank hailed the men. “When I was here the other day, one of you said you’d seen a man camping up behind the sawmill. Where’s the man who said that?”

  The three straightened up, stretched, and looked at each other. After a minute one said, not looking at Frank, “Karlsen? Reckon he’s down yonder by the river. Not been here for a bit.”

  “He goes down there sometimes,” added a second man. “Dunno what he does, but he goes there. When the boss isn’t here.”

  Frank thanked them, tied his horse to a tree, and walked in the direction the men had indicated. About two hundred yards further along the river curved in an arc, leaving a pool with a rocky outcrop below a higher spot on the bank. He could see a group of Māori women washing clothes, squatting down in the shallow water, probably the same group he had met with Moana. Taking care not to intrude on their privacy, he stepped cautiously around the curve below the bank. He spotted his prey above him about fifty yards further down.

  Karlsen was crouched on the edge of the rise, looking down towards the women in the river. Frank could see his forearm moving up and down, his face and neck red with the exertion. Karlsen did not appear to hear Frank as he leapt the last few steps up the bank roaring in anger, but grunted in surprise as Frank grabbed the back of his shirt with both hands and pulled him backwards down the bank with one swift tug. Frank’s heart was pounding and his whole body was filled with rage.

  “You scum. You’re an offence to your manhood and your people. What the devil do you think you’re doing.”

  Karlsen was lying on his back, his moleskin pants gaping open at the front. His penis had shrunk back inside his pants and he clutched at the opening, trying to do up the buttons with one hand.

  “What do they care,” he said. “They’re down there in the water paying no attention to anybody. I’m up here, and they don’t know it. I need some fun. It’s not as if I’m touching them.”

  “How do I know that? From your word of honour? These women are going about their daily duties and they don’t deserve to be used for the fantasies of a sick mind.”

  Karlsen smirked at him. “Don’t tell me you don’t think about women. Done more’n that, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve heard about you soldiers, and the way you rape women after the fighting is over. You’re just a bunch of rapists pretending to be the defenders of the British Empire.”

  “You were accused of raping a woman,” said Frank. As soon as he said it he wished he hadn’t but there was no taking it back. A flicker of comprehension showed in Karlsen’s eyes.

  “If you mean that whore from the dance, she wanted it. She came to this country looking for a man, her and her sister. What did she expect? She would meet a gentleman who would come courting her with a bunch of roses?”

  A red haze dropped in front of Frank’s eyes. He leaned down and picked up Karlsen by his shirt, stood him on his feet, drew back his fist and punched him on the nose. Karlsen reeled back but did not fall, blood spurting from his nose. He tottered there looking at Frank for a minute, leaned forward with his hands on his knees to catch his breath, and then righted himself again, sneering. “Skiderik. Du er endes fancy mand. What, do you fuck her yourself? You want to I’ll bet.”

  He took a breath and launched himself at Frank. His flailing fist found its target and connected with Frank’s face below his right eye, a glancing blow that was still capable of leaving a mark. Frank stumbled back as his head whipped sideways, catching himself just before he fell. Panting, he recovered and stared at Karlsen, then threw his arm across his own body and whipped it back towards the face of his foe. The back of his hand caught Karlsen square on his right cheek, leaving a bright red mark.

  Karlsen retreated again, rubbing his face, but did not give up. He stood there swaying, his legs wide apart to help him stay upright.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” he said. “You want to fuck her but she won’t have it. She had a taste of a real man and now nothing else will do for her.”

  He had made himself a perfect target, and that, along with the surging rage, helped Frank with the final blow. He took a step back, and then came forward standing on one leg; with the other, he kicked Gottlieb squarely between the legs, his leather Hessian boot with its pointed toe connecting fully with all that was exposed there by Karlsen’s stance.

  Karlsen stayed upright for a full minute, his face blank, and then crumpled to the ground, moaning in agony and clutching his injured manhood.

  “Ah, min gud!”

  Frank stood there panting. When he had his breath back, he said in a growl he did not recognize as his own voice, “You touch her again you bastard and you die. Understand? And slowly.”

  Karlsen did not answer him. Frank pushed his booted foot against his head and said again, “Understand?”

  Karlsen nodded, his face still contorted with pain, rocking backwards and forward on the ground. As Frank walked away, Karlsen yelled, “I’ll get you, you bastard.”

  “Just try,” answered Frank. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  The men from the road crew were still working where Frank had last seen them.

  “He’ll be a while,” he said curtly to them. “Leave him be.”

  They nodded, not making eye contact. He wondered if they had heard anything of what Karlsen had said. He would not be able to tell Mette what he had done to Karlsen, but he was sure the man would not attack Mette again. Men like him were usually cowards. Mette had seen the last of him.

  14

  Mr. Robinson's Book Shop

  “I received a letter from my sister Agnete, who lives in Woodville,” Pieter told Mette, holding a folded page of paper towards Mette.

  “What does it say?” asked Mette.

  “See for yourself,” said Pieter, avoiding looking at her.

  She wiped her hands on her apron and took the letter.

  “Do you want me to read it aloud?”

  He shrugged. “Please yourself. I know what it says.”

  Mette covered her mouth with her hand so that Pieter could not see her smile.

  “I’ll read it aloud,” she said. “Then we can discuss it together as I read. I’m sure she must have something very important to tell you.” She cleared her throat.

  “My Dear Brother,” she began. “I know you cannot…” she stopped and glanced at him.

  “Cannot what?” he asked impatiently, blind to what was coming.

  “I can’t make out what the first part says,” she said. “I’ll jump to the next paragraph.”

  Pieter rolled his eyes. “I thought you could read,” he said. “Go on, tell me what she says.”

  She started again, carefully avoiding the words “you cannot read” and “you will find someone to read this to you.”

  “My dear brother. I hope you are well. I am well and my two little ones are also well – Dotte and little Pieter. Yesterday, my dear husband Mads was in the bush and a tree fell upon his head. He was unable to jump out of the way. The doctor came and told me that Mads was dead, and…”

  “Mads is dead? My sister’s husband is dead?” interrupted Pieter, abandoning all pretense that he had read the letter. He snatched the page from her hands and stared at it, then thrust it back at her. “Please, tell me what it says. I cannot read her writing. She was never good at hand writing, I…”

  Mette saw that tears had formed in his eyes, and she took the letter from him gently. “I’ll read it,” she said. “You’re too upset.”

  Pieter nodded, biting his lip.

  “…that Mads was dead,” she repeated. “And now I must leave my house by the end of the month as it is owned by the logging company. Dearest brother, I need your help.”

  Mette and Pieter stared at each other wordlessly.

  “What can you do?” asked Mette. “How can you help her?”

  Pieter stared at his feet for a minute, then back at Mette, worried.

  “I have some money,” he said. “I could send it to her.”

  “But what will she
do when the money runs out,” asked Mette. “Will you send some more? What about Maren and Hamlet, and the little one coming soon?”

  Pieter clasped his hands together under his chin, fingers locked, as if he was praying, but did not reply.

  “She could come here,” said Mette. “She could stay with you.”

  “How? Where would she sleep? How would we provide enough food for her and her children with the money I make at the sawmill?”

  “She could stay in my room with her children,” Mette said hesitantly. “I’ll move somewhere else. It’s time I did. I’ll find a job and move to wherever that job is. Maybe I could be a housemaid…” How horrible that would be.

  Pieter’s eyes brightened. He reached forward and held her hands tightly.

  “Thank-you Mette, thank-you. I can see this is the only thing we can do. It will be difficult when the baby arrives but we’ll manage. And gradually I will make this house larger for the two families.”

  She was doomed. She would become someone’s maid and lose her freedom. It would be worse than getting married to someone who didn’t love her, or who did not read and talk about what they had read. But she said, “Would you like me to write her a letter telling her about this idea?”

  Pieter started to nod, then stopped. He had a better idea. “You could go to her … take the Royal Mail coach. It goes to Woodville tomorrow…you could stay with her until she’s ready and then bring her back with you when the coach returns. I’d go myself,” he added, looking sad, “if I could leave the sawmill. But I would lose my job and then everything would be lost.”

  Sergeant Frank, thought Mette. I will ride the Royal Mail Coach with Sergeant Frank. “I suppose I could…”

  “I’ll give you some money,” said Pieter, proud of his own generosity. “If Agnete doesn’t have a place, you could stay at a hotel in Woodville and wait for the return coach. Then when you come back with her you can stay in a hotel until you find work. Perhaps you could go to Foxton. I know there’ll be work there. Many families there are looking for servants…or you could work in a shop…sell fish even. I’m sorry your mother didn’t teach you to sew. That would have been excellent work for you. However, if you’re lucky you’ll find a nice man to marry you in Foxton.”

  Mette was ready to leave as the sun rose the next morning. Pieter was to take her into town before he went to the sawmill, and she would wait there until the mail coach was ready to leave – an hour or so. Although she might not have a home to return to she was excited at the thought of the adventure that awaited her through the Manawatu Gorge to Woodville. She’d visited Woodville once before, on the way up from Wellington when they first arrived in New Zealand and she remembered it as a larger town than Palmerston, with a main street with shops and several hotels. A real town, in other words, like Haderslev where she and Maren had grown up.

  She purchased her ticket and left her bag on the verandah of the Royal Hotel. Frank was out the back in the paddock getting the horses ready and did not see her, even though she stood around on the verandah for as long as she could without looking foolish. After thirty minutes of trying not to look foolish she decided to walk around the Square and look at the shops: a butcher, a greengrocer, a saddler, a photography studio, then, much to her surprise and pleasure, a bookshop. Robinson’s Fine Paper, Books, and Tobacco, it said on the sign above the door. She went in, overwhelmed at the sight of so many books in one place. Her hand clutched the purse that Pieter had given her, with the precious coins inside; ten shillings of English money, five Danish Crowns, and some more in tradesmen’s tokens, which she would be able to use at the hotel in Woodville. Never in her life had she held so much money. Unfortunately, she would not be able to use any of it to purchase another book for herself. Pieter would demand an accounting of every penny spent, and with good reason.

  She stood in the bookstore and touched the books carefully — beautiful books with leather bindings and gold-edged pages. She ran her hand along the spines in wonder. So many books! She was afraid to pull one from the shelf, in case the owner of the store expected her to buy it. However, one lone book sat on a table, a piece of paper marking a spot in the middle as if someone had been reading it. She picked it up. It was a volume of poetry by a man named Robert Browning, unknown to her. Opening it, she read a verse:

  I smile o’er the wrinkled blue­

  Lo! the sea is fair,

  Smooth as the flow of a maiden’s hair;

  And the welkin’s light shines through

  Into mid-sea caverns of beryl hue,

  And the little waves laugh and the mermaids sing,

  And the sea is a beautiful, sinuous thing!

  So beautiful! It made her think of her and Maren’s sea voyage from Copenhagen to Wellington, although they had not seen any mermaids. Did they exist, she wondered, or had Hans Christian Anderson simply made them up? She hadn’t seen much of the sea on their way to New Zealand. They were confined to the hold of the ship with all the other Danes emigrating to New Zealand in a fetid crush of bodies that made it hard to breathe. Maren and Pieter tried to spend time up on the foredeck, their only chance to be alone together for a few minutes, but Mette never went there. Everyone agreed that the foredeck was a place for young couples to spend a few minutes of privacy.

  Many people had died on the voyage, including several young children, some barely born. Typhus had swept through their ranks and it had been very unpleasant. But still, the idea of travelling across the sea swept her away, especially as even now she herself was going somewhere. Woodville by mail coach was not as exciting the mid-sea caverns of beryl hue, but it was an adventure all the same.

  “May I assist you, madam?” said a voice behind her.

  Mette closed the book and placed it gently on the table, and then turned to look at the speaker. An elderly man with round eyeglasses and a shock of bright white hair was looking at her questioningly.

  “I, I’m sorry,” said Mette. “I was looking at the books. I have no money, and I can’t buy one. But the poetry in this book is very fine. And I am especially fond of Mr. Charles Dickens.”

  He smiled.

  “As indeed one should be,” he said. “And what have you read by Mr. Dickens?”

  “Only one book, but I’ve read it twice, almost. A Tale of Two Cities. It’s a most wonderful book.”

  “One of my favourites,” he said, smiling. “You enjoy reading, I take it?”

  “I love to read, but I don’t have much opportunity, especially in English.”

  He reached towards the shelf of Dickens’ books and pulled one out. It was smaller than the others and not nearly so fine looking, with a green cloth cover with the name in gold lettering but no gold on the edges of the pages. She took it hesitatingly, opened it and started to read, then looked up at him in wonder.

  “A Christmas Carol,” she said. “I would like so much to read it.”

  “Then please do,” he said. “Please take it.”

  “But I have no money, even for such a book that is less fine than the others, and smaller as well.”

  “I would not ask a penny from you,” he said. “There are so few people who love to read in a town like this, and books deserve to be read. That one does not look as fine as the others because it’s a Colonial Edition.”

  “What’s a Colonial Edition?” asked Mette, interested.

  “Publishers print special editions to be sold only in the Colonies, especially Australia, New Zealand and India. Sometimes they’re even printed before the first edition in Britain. The New Zealand people, for the most part, are great readers, especially those who have come from Home and don’t expect to return.”

  Mette did not like to ask him what he meant by Home. Did not everyone in New Zealand come from a home somewhere? This man sounded as if he was referring to England. She said, “These books — the colonial editions — are less expensive than the ones with the lovely gold edges?”

  “Much less expensive,” he said, smiling again.
/>   “In that case I’ll take it,” said Mette. “But when I finish reading it I’ll bring it back.”

  She held the book tightly and explored the shop further. Against one wall was a stand of paper. Beside it stood a glass case filled with pens. They didn’t look like the pens Mette had grown up using, and she looked enquiringly at Mr. Robinson, who was watching her with an amused expression on his face.

  “Those are fountain pens,” he said. “I expect you’ve used a dip pen—a pen that you dip into an inkwell before you write. Would you like to see one of these?”

  “I would like that very much.”

  He unlocked the case and took out a pen, handing it to Mette. She rolled it over in her hand and asked, “Where does the ink come from?”

  He opened a bottle of ink, the kind she knew well, plunged the pen into it, and slowly pulled a small lever on the side. When he finished, he wiped the pen on a handkerchief, took a piece of paper from the shelf, and slowly wrote his name.

  “Now you try.”

  Mette put down her book and took the pen. She wrote her name slowly and carefully. He handed her a piece of blotting paper and she pressed it against the words so they wouldn’t smudge.

  “That is a wonderful pen,” she said. “No need to keep stopping and dipping the nib in the ink. I could write so much faster if I had one of these.”

  “Now that I cannot give you,” he said, his smile fading slightly.

  “Oh no,” she said, shocked. “Of course, I didn’t expect you to. But I’m making recipes from the things I find in the bush, and would like to write them down.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. “Are you staying in town? I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”