Swede Hollow

by Ola Larsmo

  I started going out in the daytime, whenever Mother wasn’t home. Then I’d try to stay away for as long as possible. At first I tried to find a job, and I talked to practically everybody I met. But after a while there was nobody left to ask, and I realized I’d have to leave town. Going to Superior wasn’t far enough away. I thought I’d have to go to St. Paul or Minneapolis. I’d become friends with Clarence, who couldn’t find work either. I’d met him down at the harbor, where I kept running into him day after day. He called himself a stevedore, but he almost never got hired because they thought he was too small, and there was almost no work anyway because it was such a cold winter, with ice covering parts of the lake. He was the one who started talking about going to the Twin Cities. He said there were more jobs to be had, and no one would question who you were. I liked the sound of that last part, but I didn’t have any money. Clarence said he didn’t either, but his uncle worked for the railroad and he might be able to help us.

  On the day we were going to leave, I didn’t say anything to Mother, but Aunt Ellen saw that something was going on, and she stopped me at the door. I told her the truth, that I was sick and tired of having nothing to do, and I needed to find work, and if I got a job I’d be able to help my mother instead of her supporting me. We stood in the doorway and talked for a while, and that felt good, like a conversation between grown-ups, and finally she let me go.

  Clarence’s uncle was big and fat. He chewed tobacco nonstop, and he said almost nothing. We followed him along the tracks at the harbor while he struck the rails with a sledgehammer and listened and spat out streams of tobacco. I thought he’d forgotten that he’d promised to help us, or maybe Clarence had made up the whole story. But Clarence merely grinned and told me to be patient. Then his uncle told us to wait there, and he left. When he came back to get us, we followed him along the tracks until we came to several brown freight cars that smelled of coke. He pointed at one of them and said, “Over there.” Clarence climbed in first and held out his hand to pull me inside. Then his uncle shoved the door closed. At first it was pitch-dark, but then I noticed daylight seeping in through the gaps in the walls, and after a while I could make out Clarence sitting in the corner on a pile of sacks. He said we should hide under the sacks in case the railroad police showed up, but I didn’t want to do that. I felt heavy-headed from the smell inside the boxcar, but it was a drafty space, so once the train got moving I felt all right. After a while it got real cold, and Clarence showed me how to slip my legs into a sack and then pull a couple more sacks over me. That was a good way to sit, and I didn’t feel as cold. It was so noisy that we couldn’t really talk much, but after a couple of hours that I mostly spent dozing, Clarence shouted in my ear that I had to get ready to jump. At first I didn’t know what he meant, but when the train slowed down Clarence told me to help him shove open the door partway. I saw a bunch of low wooden buildings outside, with snow on the roofs. As the train drove over a small bridge, it decreased speed. When we reached the other side, Clarence yelled, “Now!” and then he jumped. I followed. I scraped the palms of my hands on the frozen gravel because I lost my balance, but otherwise it went fine.

  Clarence knew where to go. He said it was just a matter of heading for the smokestack, so that’s what we did. The Washburn Mill stood down by the river in the middle of town. It was more like a castle and three times as big as any factory back in Duluth. We followed the high fence around the whole area until we came to a sentry box next to the gate. Sitting inside was a man with white hair and a white mustache. He saw us coming and put down his newspaper. Clarence explained that we’d come from the north looking for work, and the man was as polite and pleasant as could be. But he shook his head and said if there was one thing that was in short supply, it was jobs. Clarence tried to reason with the guard, but then he just stopped talking and picked up his newspaper again.

  We’d turned around to go when he called us back. I was the one he wanted to talk to, and at first it didn’t occur to me that he was speaking Swedish. When I went back to the sentry box, the guard asked me my name. I said it was Carl and I was from Sweden, or at least my mother was. He asked where she’d come from, and I told him Närke and Örebro, where she was born. He thought about that for a moment and then told me he was from Kumla, which wasn’t that far from Örebro. Then he said he really shouldn’t be saying this, but if we came back in exactly one week, he’d have a talk with some people he knew, though he couldn’t promise anything.

  When we left, Clarence looked a little suspicious and asked me several times whether the man really said that, and I told him he did. Then he said we should try and find the freight yard and the Duluth train. It took us several hours to get there, and I was freezing the whole time. We stopped at places along the way, at shops and a smithy, to ask for work. But nobody really had time to talk to us. It was dark by the time we reached the freight yard, and we had to climb over a fence to get to the tracks. I was tired and hungry, but we hadn’t brought along anything to eat, so the only thing to do was try and think about something else. I followed Clarence as he walked among the freight cars, and we kept to the far side of them so no one would see us. He read the chalk marks on the doors and shook his head. I’d almost given up when he said, “This one is going in the right direction.” It was a big green car with sturdy walls and a sign that said GREAT NORTHERN, with icicles painted underneath. The doors were locked and bolted, but Clarence found a ladder on one side, and he quickly climbed up onto the roof. He wasn’t as tired as I was. Then he told me to come up. The roof was made of metal and seemed to give a little as I crawled over it. There was a hatch in the middle, and it was slightly ajar. When both of us grabbed hold and swung it open, warm air gusted up from inside. It was dark and smelled sort of musty down there.

  “It’s a refrigerator car,” said Clarence. “That’s good, because they don’t open these cars very often.”

  I was a little scared of going inside, but it seemed to be warm enough, even though it was a refrigerator car. Clarence ran his hand over the roof cornice and then swung himself down so he was hanging by his hands from the edge while he tried to find a foothold. Then he let go and jumped. I heard a thud when he landed and then he yelled from below, “Hurry up before somebody sees you.” I tried to do the same thing he’d done, and it wasn’t that hard. It was darker inside this boxcar. The only light came from the grill of a coal stove attached to the wall. I didn’t understand how this could be a refrigerator car, so I asked Clarence to explain, because he seemed to know about such things. He said that sometimes he’d get hired at the harbor to fill up the tank on the roof with ice from the lake, but this one seemed to be empty at the moment. In fact, it was possible the crates were filled with something that shouldn’t be kept cold, and that’s why it was warm inside, which was lucky for us. I thought maybe there might be something to eat in the packing cases, but he said we shouldn’t open anything, because that was stealing, and it would mean a jail sentence instead of just a reprimand, and this time around it probably wouldn’t be St. Cloud. “You’ll just have to hold out a little longer,” said Clarence, looking up at the hatch. “How can we get that thing closed?” I wondered whether that was a good idea, because it was open when we arrived, but Clarence said that if anyone saw it open, they might get suspicious. We shoved one of the crates to the middle of the floor and then I stood on top of it and Clarence climbed onto my shoulders and was able to pull the hatch shut. Then it was almost pitch-dark, with only a slight glow from the stove.

  We sat down in a corner and kept quiet because now we could hear people outside. Someone came over and tried the door to make sure it was properly locked. Then they left. It was nice and warm, and I started to get sleepy, and I must have dozed off for a while. I woke up when the car began moving. Gradually the steady rhythm made me drowsy and I dozed off again.

  When I finally woke up, it was completely dark. The fire in the stove had gone out, and I had an awful headache. My mouth was dry, and I c
ould hardly move. I couldn’t see anything, but I felt Clarence lying across me, and he wasn’t moving at all.

  The freight car was thundering along at high speed, and I tried to shout, but no sound came out. Or maybe I just couldn’t hear myself. I couldn’t breathe, and the darkness was getting blacker, and I didn’t really know where I was.

  My name was Carl Johan Alfred Hammerberg.

  I had nothing to do with hanging the first boy.

  I didn’t hold the rope, and I didn’t do anything else to help.

  I don’t remember who I saw there. A man wearing a sailor’s uniform was there, but I don’t know who he was. He was holding the second colored man by the shoulders and laughing.

  Then they brought the third one and they hanged him too. I took no part in any of that.

  I never held the rope. I never met my father.

  Willard, Minneapolis / Duluth

  November 1922

  ELLEN HAD JUST ARRIVED BACK HOME to Sol and the children, hung up her clothes in the wardrobe, and was starting to plan a simple dinner when the telephone rang. Minna, their maid, picked up the telephone out in the hall, and Ellen could hear at once from the girl’s tone of voice that something was wrong—wrong in a way that made her grab hold of the kitchen table as she sat there with her grocery list only half-finished.

  Minna silently appeared in the doorway. When Sol was present they always spoke English. Sometimes if they were alone in the house, Minna might let slip a word in Swedish. Ellen always made it clear that this was not entirely acceptable by hesitating before she answered or by saying a few phrases in English. But Ellen realized that the girl didn’t yet have a full grasp of the new language, and she wanted to offer whatever help she could. So she’d make do with a brief remark, and then she too would switch to Swedish.

  Now Minna was standing there, saying in pure Västgötska Swedish, “That was a call from your sister in Duluth, Mrs. Shelby. Or rather from the neighbor lady, because your sister couldn’t come to the telephone. Something terrible has happened. You should probably call her back, Mrs. Shelby.”

  The girl’s voice quavered. Ellen looked up and noticed distractedly that Minna’s eyes were red-rimmed. It felt as if the floor wouldn’t bear her weight as she slowly, with one hand touching the wallpaper, groped her way to the new telephone, the latest Bell model, which hung on the wall.

  Then Ellen was back in Duluth, the city of coal smoke and icy winds, only a few days after she’d returned to the Twin Cities. It felt as if she hadn’t even left. During the whole train ride north, the same thoughts kept running through her mind: But I just talked to him last week, right before I went back home. I talked to him. He was there. He stood in the doorway and smiled. Then he left. She pictured him like that, over and over again, the way he’d smiled and turned around and left. And the way the doorway where he’d just stood was then empty.

  The Duluth depot was in the center of town. It was late by the time Ellen got off the train, and naturally she looked around for a cab. But the street outside the station’s dark brick façade was deserted. She decided it didn’t matter because she couldn’t very well take a cab to her sister’s lowly rented rooms on Fifty-first Street, far to the south. In her mind’s eye she saw how people would stare as she paid the fare and then went into the small courtyard where all the buildings were made of unpainted, silvery-gray wood, and how the Finnish families would turn away after saying a few words in a language she didn’t understand. Hunching forward into the wind and carrying her small suitcase, Ellen plodded up the hill to First Street, where she knew she would find a streetcar stop.

  No one seemed to be around when she arrived. All the windows were dark, but the front door to the stairwell stood open. She went into the hall, automatically breathing through her mouth. Then she cautiously knocked on Elisabet’s door.

  It took a moment before someone opened. It wasn’t Elisabet but instead the tall, Finnish man that Elisabet always referred to as Matt. He recognized her at once and stepped out into the hallway, quietly closing the door behind him. There they stood in the dim light without saying a word. As Matt looked at Ellen, she noticed he smelled faintly of newly sawn wood. She wondered briefly whether he was a carpenter, and it occurred to her that they’d never discussed what sort of work he did. She was under the impression that he didn’t speak either Swedish or English very well.

  “She is sleeping,” he said now in English. “She has not slept since it happened. We will let her sleep.”

  “I’m here to help out,” said Ellen without looking him in the eye as they stood there in the cramped space of the hall. He was much taller than she was. “I want to help with anything that needs to be done.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Matt. “Go in if you like. But let her sleep.”

  He put on his cap and headed for the front door of the building. He turned around before stepping outside.

  “Tomorrow,” he repeated. “Have to work now. Let her sleep.”

  He gave Ellen a nod and left. She pushed open the door as quietly as she could. The curtains were drawn and the room was dark, but she knew instinctively where every piece of furniture stood. She went over to the kitchen table, set her suitcase on the floor, and cautiously pulled out one of the unpainted chairs. Then she sat down and closed her eyes. She pictured Carl again, smiling that crooked smile of his, as if he were thanking her for allowing him to go. Then he was gone.

  When she opened her eyes again, it was still dark, and all she heard was her sister’s steady, tranquil breathing from the bedroom alcove.

  Elisabet was surprisingly calm when she awoke. But it was not the right sort of calm. She wouldn’t look directly at Ellen, nor did she greet her. At first she didn’t seem to realize that her sister had been away for several days and had now returned. Elisabet didn’t seem to be fully present. That lasted until Ellen heated up some water and poured it into a basin so Elisabet could wash herself. When she went to get the green soap from the sink, she heard behind her back a low scream issue from Elisabet’s throat. When she went over to her sister, she found her standing there, wearing only her shift, and crying as she bent her face over the steaming water. At first it was ordinary crying, but then she started sobbing loudly until the sound coming from her mouth was more like the howl of a wounded animal. Ellen quickly reminded herself that the neighbors knew what had happened. She noticed fleetingly that Elisabet seemed to have gotten quite plump around the middle. Then she stepped forward and put her arms around her sister’s waist, intending to make her stand up. But Elisabet refused to budge. She held on tight to the countertop as she kept on sobbing with her mouth open and her face turned away. Ellen leaned forward and laid her cheek on Elisabet’s back, hearing how horror and shock strained at her sister’s lungs and airways. They stood there like that, leaning on each other, for a long time, until Elisabet’s sobs became a soundless shuddering that went on and on. Ellen didn’t let go until she grew calm.

  Early in the morning Mrs. Janson came over. She was a short, thin woman in her forties who was prematurely gray and wore clothes the same color as her hair. She seemed almost to fade into the unpainted, weather-beaten wood of the walls behind her. She spoke Swedish with a heavy Finnish accent.

  “We received a message,” she said now to Ellen. “It is from your mother. She wants you to call a telephone number in St. Paul. They are waiting for you to call back.”

  She had jotted down the number on a little piece of cardboard, but Ellen already knew it by heart.

  She followed Mrs. Janson into their small kitchen, which didn’t seem to have been aired out since the summer. There she saw the telephone on the wall, shiny and black like a big, fat insect. She was reluctant to touch the receiver, but she didn’t want to wipe if off while Mrs. Janson was watching. So she picked it up and quickly asked for the number to Larson’s grocery store.

  Anna instantly came on the line. They didn’t waste words. Her mother spoke quickly and a little out of breath, the way people soun
d if they’re not used to talking on the telephone, and especially if it’s long distance.

  “We can’t come,” Anna said. “The tickets. We can’t afford them. Not the whole way there.”

  “I’ll wire you money,” said Ellen. “Do you hear me, Mother? I’ll send the money. Go to the railway depot and talk to them at the ticket booth. Do you hear me? I’ll wire the money.”

  “Your father,” said the insect-like voice on the other end. “Your father will be mad.”

  For a moment neither spoke, and Ellen heard only the wind tugging at the telephone wires through the miles and miles of forest.

  “You have to come,” she said then, keeping her voice matter-of-fact but implacable. It was the same voice she used with Sol whenever he was unreasonable. “You have to think of Elisabet, Mother. Let Father be mad. He’ll calm down on the train trip north.”

  Again silence.

  “We’ll pay you back,” said Anna from a great distance. Ellen pictured her standing in the grocery store with her back to the row of big glass jars filled with candy. That was actually the only thing she remembered about Larson’s store: the way the jars gleamed from up on the shelf, beyond the reach of a child’s hands. It occurred to her only now that during the entire telephone conversation, her mother had been crying steadily.

  “I’ll tell Elisabet that you’ll be here tonight,” she said calmly. “On the nine o’clock train. Say hello to Father for me.”

  Then she tried to put the receiver back on its hook, but she was shaking so hard she almost dropped it. The whole time she could feel Mrs. Janson staring at her back. She paused for a moment before turning around. In a firm voice she asked whether there was anywhere for Elisabet’s parents to stay the night.