Unto a Good Land (48 page)

After a few hours’ walk the flour weighed two hundred pounds—had they given him four bushels instead of two? And he had yet a long way to go—his burden would grow heavier still.

The cloak of darkness spread quickly among the trees, it soon grew so dense that he could not see the marks of his steps from the morning. The snow shone white; otherwise everything in the forest was black, dark as the inside of a barrel with the lid on. No longer did Karl Oskar waste his time in looking for his earlier tracks; he followed his nose, he tried to walk northward; to the north lay the lake, and at the lake lay his home.

But he hadn’t yet come to the brook with the tree trunk over it, and this began to worry him; he had crossed the brook quite a stretch after leaving the lake shore. What had happened to the brook? It was frozen over so he couldn’t hear it.

Now he walked more slowly, plodding along among the trees. In the dark he could not see the low-hanging branches which hindered his path, snatching at the flour sack on his back like so many evil arms. He held on to his burden with stiff, mittened fingers; time and again he tore his face on twigs and thorns, he could not see in front of him. There would be a moon later, the stars already shone brightly, twinkling through the tall treetops. But nothing lighted his way except the snow, and the snow no longer showed him the way by his morning footprints—not even with the stars out.

The wanderer struggled through the dark with the flour on his bent back. But he did not reach a lake, he did not find a brook, and the forest grew thicker around him. He had not brought his watch—he never brought it along on walks in the forest for fear he might lose it—and he did not know how much time he had spent on the homeward trek. But many hours must have elapsed since he had left the logging road; if he had followed the right path he ought to have reached Lake Ki-Chi-Saga long ago.

At each step he hoped to see the forest come to an end, he hoped to see a white field—the snow-covered lake surface. As soon as this happened he would only have to follow a shore line until he reached a newly built log cabin where his wife and children were waiting for him. But instead he seemed to go deeper and deeper into the forest.

He repeated to himself, over and over: If I walk straight ahead, I must come to the lake. I’m walking straight forward, I’m on the right road! But the hours went by and the thick forest around him testified to his mistake.

At last the stiff fingers inside the mittens lost their hold: Karl Oskar let his sack drop onto the snow and sat down on it. The truth had now been forced upon him: he was wandering aimlessly, he did not know in what direction home was—he was lost.

—3—

He rested a while, sitting on his sack, his legs trembling with fatigue and cold. He was worn out from the many hours’ struggle with the flour: he had weakened sooner than he had expected because his stomach was empty. Hunger smarted his stomach, in his limbs and back was an ache of fatigue, but most terrible was the pain of cold after he had sat a while. The cold embraced his body from head to heel, crept like icy snakes up his legs, penetrated his groin, dug into chest and throat, pinched his ears, nose, and cheeks. But he remained sitting, letting it overtake him; he was forced to rest.

He had told Kristina he would return well before bedtime. She would be sure to sit up and wait for him, darning stockings or patching clothes. She was waiting, not only for him but also for the flour—she would surely wish to set the dough this very evening, so she could bake tomorrow.

And here he sat on their flour and didn’t know in which direction he should carry it.

He had wandered about in a black forest like a child playing blind-man’s buff. Perhaps he had strayed too much to the left, or to the right; when he thought he had been walking northward, he might have walked southward; hoping to get nearer to his home, he had perhaps gone farther and farther away from it.

There was only one thing to do: He must walk on! He couldn’t camp in the forest, the cold was too intense. He couldn’t make a fire, he had brought no matches. If he lay down to sleep it would surely be his eternal sleep.

Walk on! He must warm himself by moving. Sitting on the sack, his whole body shivered and shook with cold. He rose, stamped his feet, rubbed his nose, ears, and cheeks; he was not going to endure the cold that came with immobility any longer—he must move on.

Karl Oskar resumed his walk at random; he must walk in some direction, and one way was as good as another. Damned bad luck! If only he had been able to reach the lake before dark. He had walked as fast as he could, but that damned sack—it had sagged and delayed him. But now what was he doing? Cursing the sack with their bread flour—the bread that was missing from their table, the bread that would satisfy the hunger of their children! He must be out of his mind, he must be crazy from fatigue and hunger.

“Father is buying flour—Mother will bake bread!”

Put the sack under a tree and walk unhindered? But it would not be easier to find his way without his burden. And he might never again find his flour. Better carry it as far as he was able. . . . But his back felt broken, and his legs wobbled. He had carried it for many hours, an eternal road. He staggered; again and again the burden on his back sagged down, down to his thighs, to his legs, again and again his hold on the sack loosened, his fingers straightened out; his back wanted to throw off the burden, his fingers wanted to let it go.

Karl Oskar no longer walked; he reeled, tottering among the tree trunks. But he dared not sit down to rest in this cold; he dared not remain still because of the frost—yet he could not walk because of exhaustion. Which must he do—sit down, or go on? One he dared not, the other he was barely able to do.

He struggled along at random, stumbling, fumbling, stooping with his burden. He bumped against the trees, he could not see where he was going. He found no landmarks, no lake, no brook; perhaps he had crossed the brook without knowing it? A few times the forest opened up and he walked across a glade—then he was instantly in deep forest again.

Suddenly he hit his head against something hard. He lost hold of the sack and tumbled backward.

Very slowly he struggled to his feet in the snow; above him he vaguely saw an animal, a head appeared a few yards away. A bear, a wolf, or could it be a lynx? The beast was snapping at him with enormous jaws, below fiery red eyes. It was quite close—Karl Oskar crouched backward and pulled out his knife.

He crept a few more steps backward; the beast did not come after him, it did not move. He could discern the upright ears, the sharp nose, the neck—it must be a wolf—the eyes glittered in the dark. He expected a leap, he crouched and held his breath. But the wolf too remained immobile.

He yelled, hoping to frighten the beast: “Go to hell, you devil!”

But the beast did not make the slightest move, it seemed petrified in one position, its ears upright, its eyes peering. And a suspicion rose within Karl Oskar; he approached the animal cautiously. Now he was close enough to touch it—and it wasn’t furry or soft, it was cold and hard: it was a wolf image on a pole.

His body sagged after the tension: an Indian pole, an image with glittering eyes and toothy jaws; it could startle anyone in the dark. Or—was he so far gone from struggling that he could be frightened by wooden poles?

His head ached; he felt a bump on his forehead from the encounter with the post; blood was oozing from his face and hands, torn by branches and thorns. He took off his mittens and licked the blood from his fingers; it felt warm in his mouth. He needed something warm this bitterly cold night.

With great effort he managed to get the sack onto his back again and continued his walk, lurching, stumbling. It had lightened a little in the forest, more stars had come out. High above the snowy forest and the lost settler with his burden glittered a magnificent, starry heaven. The firmament this night seemed like a dark canopy of soft felt spread by God above the frozen earth, and sprinkled with silvery sparks.

The wanderer below walked with bent head, stooped under his sack; he did not look up toward the heavenly lights. He carried the heavy fruit of the earth on his back. His steps were stumbling and tottering, he did not know where they would lead him. Home—in which direction lay the house where wife and children waited for him? Was he carrying their bread home—or away from home?

Suddenly he came upon large boot prints in the snow. They were his own! He felt his heart beat in his throat: then he had walked here in the early morning. He inspected the tracks more closely—and discovered they were quite fresh. He had been here only a short while ago. . . .

He was walking in a circle, in his own tracks. He wasn’t carrying the bread away from his family, neither was he carrying it home.

But he must keep going, no matter where, to escape freezing. He staggered on. His foot caught in something—a root, a windfall, a stump—and he fell again, forward this time, with the hundred-pound sack on top of him. He lay heavily in the snow, sunk down, slumped, like a bundle of rags. After a few minutes he tried to remove the sack. Slowly, with endless effort, he managed to roll it off his back. In a sweet sensation of deliverance he stretched out full length in the snow, with the flour sack for a pillow.

—4—

The fruit of the earth is good and sustaining, the fruit of the earth is indispensable, but heavy to carry on one’s back.

How comfortable to lie on it, instead. Better to lie upon flour than kill oneself by carrying it . . . when one doesn’t know where to carry it. And it has grown overpoweringly heavy, five hundred pounds. There is lead in the sack, five hundred pounds of lead—too much for one’s back—better lie here and rest on the sack . . . better than to carry it . . . when one doesn’t even know the way home. . . .

The cold is dangerous and evil, the cold has sharp teeth, digging like wolf’s fangs into flesh and bone, the cold has tongs that pinch and tear and pierce. The skin burns like fire. But it is good to rest . . . better to be cold a little than struggle with the burden. . . . Don’t be afraid of a little cold! Nothing is worse than to be afraid, Father used to say. Nothing is dangerous to him who is fearless. No, he isn’t afraid. A settler needs courage, good health, good mind. . . . Father didn’t say that—he has learned that himself—he has learned it now. . . .

Father has grown a great deal since he last saw him—that time on the stoop, with Mother. He is six feet tall, entirely straight; the way he stands here, he isn’t a cripple any longer, he must have thrown away his crutches—no, he still has one crutch, but he doesn’t lean on it, he shakes it at his oldest son: “. . . and you take your children with you! You not only take your children, you take my grandchildren, and my grandchildren’s children! You drag the whole family out of the country! You are as stubborn as your nose is long, it will lead you to destruction!”

The sack—that damned flour sack! Here . . . here it is, under . . . how soft it is. Rye flour is the best pillow. With a whole sack of rye flour . . . sustain life until spring . . . not die this winter. Where is the loaf? Why isn’t it on the table?

“Mother! Bake some bread!”

Now Father is speaking sternly, shaking his crutch: What kind of fool are you, Karl Oskar? Why do you wander about here in the forest with such a sack of flour on your back? You have a team of oxen in Korpamoen, why don’t you drive to the mill, like other farmers? Sit up and ride, the way sensible people do, rest on your flour sack the whole way. Wouldn’t that be better than carrying flour miles through the forest? No one can call you a wise farmer, Karl Oskar! Here you struggle like a wretched crofter! You have no sense about providing food for your family. A hell of a fool is what you are! Never satisfied at home, hmm—you must emigrate. . . . People should see you now, lying in a snowdrift! What would they say? No—don’t show yourself to anyone, Karl Oskar. Crawl into the snow, hide yourself in the drift! Hide well. Let no one in the whole parish see you. . . .

“Be careful of your nose in this cold,” Kristina says. She is concerned, she is a good wife. She is thinking of his nose because Jonas Petter’s became frostbitten. But she means: Be careful of your life! Watch out against freezing to death. Don’t stop too long. Don’t lie down in the snow, whatever you do—don’t lie down in the snow! I’m going to bake, this evening, as soon as you get home. I need the flour. . . .

“You’ve come at last!” she says. “Then I’ll set the dough, knead it tonight. We’ll heat the oven tomorrow morning, rake out the coals, put in the bread; you made a good oven for me, even though it doesn’t give quite enough top-heat. . . . A hundred pounds, two bushels, three bushels? It’ll last till spring. But the sack! Where is the sack? Did you forget the sack? You come home without flour?”

“The sack lies back there in the woods, but I know where I hid it—I buried it in the snow. How could I do anything so silly? I must go back at once and find it.”

“Go at once and get the sack. Hurry, Karl Oskar! Hurry before it’s too late!”

“It’s already too late for you,” says Father, and now he leans on both of his crutches; now he is a helpless cripple again, a wizened, dried-up old man. And he complains: “It’s too late, Karl Oskar. You won’t have time, you won’t find the sack, you’ve lost it! How could you forget the sack in the snow, far out in the woods? Don’t you know your children are in it? Don’t you know they are all bundled up in there? How could you take your children to North America and carry them in a sack on your back? You must have known that such a burden would be too heavy. You must have realized you could never get home. That long road. . . . I told you you couldn’t manage. And then you dropped them in the snow. Now it’s too late to find them. They must be frozen to death, starved to death by now. . . . Didn’t I tell you things would go ill with you in North America? But you wouldn’t listen to my warning, you wouldn’t listen to your parents. You were always stubborn and headstrong.”