The Emigrants (50 page)

The far-traveled gentleman crossed his legs, pulled out his pipe and filled it; then he looked to the prow, toward the west, as if he wanted to recall his memories of America from that direction, and began.

The second year he spent in America he had taken a position on a ship which sailed the great Mississippi River with a cargo of whores. This river was as broad as all of Sweden, and the whore ship followed the shores; he had charge of the cargo—the women on board. There were more than a hundred of them, and a great sense of method and orderliness was required of the supervisor. Night and day he walked the ship with two loaded pistols in his belt. It was his duty to prevent and shorten all fights on board—between the women themselves as well as between the women and their men customers. If he was unable to stop the participants in any other way he was to shoot them in the legs. He began at the ankles, and if this didn’t help he continued higher and higher. But the women he was not allowed to shoot higher than a little below the groin: their calling must not be impaired. The men he could shoot all the way up to the head to subdue them. It was a very responsible position he had held on that river vessel.

The ship sailed from town to town, and they remained a few days in each place while the men came on board and business was conducted. These were the most peaceful days, for the women were not belligerent when they plied their trade.

His work was well paid; his salary included food, clothes, and two women a day—if he wished to use them. Some of the girls were young and beautiful, but others had been at their trade so long that he lost all interest in women when he looked at them. And he never felt really at home in this job on the whore ship on the Mississippi. For if you have to supervise and keep order among one hundred whores, you have little time for rest and serious thinking. There was commotion and noise all through the days and nights. At that time he hadn’t enjoyed good health, either, because of a most annoying diarrhea from the hot climate. And he was a serious-minded person, who had need of rest and time to gather his thoughts. The only rest he had the whole week was on Sunday mornings between ten and twelve, when the ship’s minister held services and preached to the employees; so as not to disturb their devotion, no one was allowed to fire a pistol then except in extreme necessity.

Otherwise he had had to use his guns almost constantly. He could do nothing else when the whores bit, scratched, and kicked. They were even inclined to attack him—the job had some undesirable points.

When they had sailed up and down the river a few times he decided to leave his post and go ashore. The captain had given him a fine letter of recommendation—he had this in his sea chest still, if it hadn’t been lost during his long voyages over the world. The captain had written of him that he was reliable, and had a sense of order, and a good hand with the whores both during their working hours and in between. He did, indeed, have the best kind of recommendation if he wished to continue in that line of work. But in the long run such occupation would never satisfy a person of his caliber.

The story came to an end. The younger men among those who sat on deck around the American ogled each other. They had not been near a woman since leaving home. In the close quarters in the hold even the married men could hardly get their satisfaction. They might play with their wives, some nights, so quietly that no one heard them. But all those without wives, without anyone to crawl near to, they must pine and suffer. And this description of a whole ship filled with willing women, always ready, tickled the young men’s fancy and stimulated secret desires.

Several other men passengers now joined the crowd around the American; a ring of listeners formed, and all sat there, around the man in the checked coat, in inspired silence. The silence could only be interpreted as a wish that the storyteller continue. He looked questioningly at his listeners, as if wishing to know what they thought of his experiences in America. Then he continued.

The Americans had many almost unbelievable institutions. In the United States there were luxurious places where women could seek pleasure with men. There was such a one in the great city of Chicago—a male whorehouse where men attended to women, where the whoring was practiced upside-down, so to speak. It was the same business as on the Mississippi ship—only just the opposite.

One spring in the month of April he and a friend had arrived in Chicago in search of work. In a saloon they had met the manager of this male whorehouse, who was out looking for men. And as both the American and his friend were hard up, they had, after thinking it over, accepted positions; the pay was high, and—of course—they were a little curious about their duties: they had never before heard of a place where one was paid for that which one usually did because one felt like it. They had worked as lumberjacks the whole winter and they needed some change. In the logging cabins they had lived for many months among men only, and some of their fellow workers had completely lost their minds because they were denied women—for this could, in the end, affect the brain; when the seed never is sown it forces its way to the head, where it may cause ugly growths on the skull; a doctor has to open these growths to save a man from insanity. So they were willing to take on any women who came along, after this winter.

Disappointingly enough, they never knew what kind of women they had to take care of, for all who came to this male whorehouse wore masks over their faces. It was mostly women with strong desires, unable to find men in the customary way. There came fine, prominent wives whose wedded husbands were on long journeys and who might not have had any amusement in bed for years; others might have some defect which made them unattractive to men and left them without a chance. But most of them were women who had been widowed while their youthful blood still was warm; they had accustomed themselves so strongly to men that they couldn’t get along singly. In this house men were always ready for them, and what the women sought there they always obtained; no one could gainsay this.

In the beginning it had felt strange to lie with masked women. It seemed always to be the same woman, it felt like being married and sticking to one’s wife. Of course, there was a great deal of difference in other parts of the body, but he had soon forgotten that. He hadn’t looked at the differences; there had been other things to do. At first it had been like a fresh clover field, but this did not last long. Soon it was only a chore which he was employed to perform; soon he didn’t care how the women were shaped. At times it happened that a bold woman showed her face, but only a good-looking one would do that. Perhaps they had thought that a beautiful face would make it easier for him, help him in his work, as it were. And this line of reasoning was correct, he thought.

This much he understood, after taking care of a few hundred women: not all of them were beautiful princesses. But he couldn’t choose, all must be attended to equally well. The whorehouse manager had issued strong rules about that, and no one was allowed to dodge. Some never got satisfied; they were angry and complained afterwards that they hadn’t received their money’s worth, not by a long shot. Well, fretful and troublesome women did exist in this world; one couldn’t satisfy all.

But soon he and his friend had had enough of their job in the male whorehouse; they tired of it, both of them. They were fed rich and sustaining food in the place, they ate eggs and juicy lamb chops and fat ham and soup at every meal—this was only what the body required in such a job. But even sustaining food was not sufficient in the long run; they grew wan and lost weight and fell off. After a few months their faces were unrecognizable when they looked at themselves in the mirror. Their strength waned; the weakness first attacked their knees, which felt like straws—their legs bent under them when they tried to walk. They were wasting away completely. Their fellow workers who had been longer in the house than they were bare skeletons. They hobbled about the rooms, their bones rattling. No man could remain in the place over three months. Those who stayed longer had never recovered, they had lost their strength of youth for all time, they were ruined for life.

But he and his friend had quit in time—after six weeks’ employment they had returned to the forest. In the last analysis he liked it better among the men in the logging cabin than among the women in the house of luxury. But there was a certain satisfaction in this work among the women: he had done good deeds, he had sacrificed himself in an unselfish way. However, neither he nor his friend had been willing to waste their health and strength utterly, not even for a good cause, a sacrifice on the altar of charity, as it were.

For a man has responsibilities toward himself too, concluded Fredrik.

Complete silence ensued in the gathering of menfolk after he had finished his story. The circle of listeners sat and gazed at him. Not one among them could find fitting words to utter, after the story of the male whorehouse in Chicago.

Suddenly a young man let out a roar of laughter. The others looked at him. The laugher stopped short, reddening from embarrassment. The American, too, looked at him with disapproval, with deep scorn, as much as to say: Have you no manners? The man who had laughed met this look of the American, and said not a word, but it could be seen that he felt deeply ashamed. And the teller of the tale wanted him to feel ashamed.

Fredrik rose quickly, nodded, and strutted away.

—2—

That same day Robert discovered the secret about the American. He happened to mention him to the sailmaker. The old man said that Fredrik Mattsson and he had been born in the same parish—Asarum—in Blekinge. He had known Fredrik since the time he lay in his swaddling clothes. The man had always been a rascal and liar and a ravenous preyer on women. He had managed badly for himself at home: at one and the same time three women were pregnant by him, he owed money to God and everybody, and he had a beating coming from more than one. That was why he was sneaking away to America on the
Charlotta.
But he had never been at sea before he set foot on this ship; he had been a seaman on land only. He had never been to America, he had not even been outside his home parish, Asarum, until now.

Soon Robert discovered that he was practically the last one on board to find out the truth about Fredrik Mattsson: the passengers had called him the American just because he had never been to America.

For a few days Robert felt disappointed in his friend with the loud-checked coat, who had not wished to divulge his secrets about the United States of America. From now on he could not believe what Fredrik told him; one must admit that he did not stick to the truth.

But Robert knew this about himself, also: when he wanted to relate something he had read or experienced, truth alone did not always suffice. He might come to a place in the story, unable to go further, and then he must invent something to be able to continue. Later on he might return to the truth again. And the strange thing with a lie was that it was always there, inside one’s head, ready to be used when need be. It was easy and convenient to mix in a lie. Then, afterwards, when he had finished his tale, truth and lie were so intermixed that it was impossible to differentiate—all was truth.

Perhaps this was the case with the American when he described all the various positions he had held in America. That he had never been to that country mattered little, after all. He believed he had been there, and therefore, in reality, he did not lie.

If God had meant people to use truth only, He need not have allowed untruth in the world. Perhaps He had created the lie because He knew people couldn’t get along without it.

XXI

IT WAS CALLED SHIP-SICKNESS

—1—

As the weeks went by most of the emigrants accustomed themselves to the rolling of the ship.

Kristina recuperated from her seasickness; she was up and about and able to eat almost regularly. But she did not feel as well as she used to on land. A certain weakness remained in her limbs, and a weight, as it were, pressed down her whole body—she moved about sluggishly and unwillingly. Something pressed on her chest too, so that her breath became short. Other passengers—men and women—complained about the same feeling; perhaps it was some ailment caused by their long stay on board.

Kristina had also started worrying about her children: they grew pale and their eyes looked yellow. They were no longer lively in their play, and they had lost their appetites; they refused to eat the ship’s fare because it was too salty—they complained and wanted fresh milk. And Kristina, too, missed more than anything the sweet milk they used to drink every day. But she understood—they could not bring milch cows with them on the sea. If only she had had a quart a day for her children! They had not tasted one drop of milk for a whole month. The sugar pouch was long ago emptied, her cakes were gone, the honey was eaten, the dried pieces of apple finished. When the children fell and hurt themselves and came to her, crying, or when they wanted to “step off” the ship, then it had been a blessing to have a lump of sugar or a cookie to comfort them with. Now she had nothing to give them when they came and begged.

The weaning of Harald had taken care of itself because her milk dried up after a short time at sea. She had hoped it would remain in her breasts, as she had no other milk for the child. He was otherwise fine for his sixteen months; he had entirely quit creeping about, and had begun to walk upright between the bunks in their crowded quarters. But a ship rolling on the waves, seldom still, was hardly a place for a child to learn to walk. Little Harald had to sit down on his rump many more times than had his brother and sisters at home on the firm floor of their house.

Johan and Lill-Märta were still babbling about “stepping off” the ship and going home. They had not forgotten what they used to eat and drink on land—they wanted to go back and eat cakes and drink milk.

Kristina promised them sweet milk and wheat cookies, as much as they could manage, as soon as they arrived in America. But she soon regretted this promise; now she was beset constantly by the children: When would they arrive in America? Tonight? Or tomorrow morning? They would arrive soon. How far away was soon? It wasn’t far, if they were good and kept quiet, said the mother. If they kept quiet the whole day and didn’t say one word, would they then reach America by tomorrow?