Woodsburner (18 page)

Odd's memories of his uncle Søren have already faded in much the same way; a few specific details remain, and most of these he would gladly forget. Søren Hus made his living by importing cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves and tea and coffee and other profitable things from distant places. It was not a business that required him to have anything to do with the arduous work of
loading, sailing, and unloading ships. As far as Odd could tell, Søren Hus achieved these tasks by shifting long columns of numbers in the thick account books that filled his study. He spent endless hours fretting over the tallies. He traveled often, inspecting newly arrived cargo, appraising the seaworthiness of ships, meeting with merchants in Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Virginia, and sometimes as far away as the Carolinas. The loss of any one ship at sea, his uncle told him, could cost him everything he had earned over the years, including the house at Scollay Square. Odd could not understand why his uncle acted as though something might be done to preclude such inevitable loss. He had seen that all things eventually disappeared, and it surprised him that men struggled tirelessly under the illusion that they could change this basic fact.

Odd cannot recall precisely what he felt for his uncle at the time. He was happy to be taken from the Boston Asylum and Farm School for Indigent Boys, happy that someone had come looking for him. In the house at Scollay Square, no aspect of his care was overlooked, and his uncle even arranged for private tutors to see to his education. But Odd was not convinced that his sudden good fortune was anything more than a temporary accident. He always suspected that he would be abandoned again, and it did not seem at all unlikely that his uncle would one day simply go away. Odd could not understand what he had done to make people leave him, or why it was that he was sure to be left behind when those he cared for were taken, but he knew that if he bothered to care too deeply he would find it that much harder to deal with the loss when it came. Still, he was drawn to Søren Hus, this man whom his father had so reviled, his only blood relation in the New World. At the time, Odd did not fully grasp how his uncle had found him or why he had even bothered. Søren Hus had no wife, no family of his own, and he usually had few words for Odd,
seldom communicated at all aside from patting Odd awkwardly on the head. Sometimes Odd felt that his uncle looked at him as though he were surprised to see him in his home, and it made Odd wonder if the man had simply collected him like one of the knickknacks cluttering his shelves and curio cabinets, another piece of gimcrackery that the man had picked up on his travels to show his guests the richness of his life.

Odd saw more of the housekeeper, Mrs. Galligan, than he did of his uncle, and she daily told him how fortunate he was to be looked after by a flesh-and-blood relation. Mrs. Galligan, a slight woman with sharp features and steel-colored hair, had no living family. She said she had watched them die one by one in the rebellion that ravaged Ireland in 1798. She came to America alone. The blood that flowed through her veins was the last of an unremarkable vintage. She never married, but everyone called her “Mrs. Galligan” out of respect for her age. The day was approaching, she frequently told Odd, when she would depart this earth and there would be no more Galligans of Dun Laoghaire. She seemed more relieved than saddened by this fact, and she did not let an opportunity pass without reminding Odd that no bond was stronger than the bond of family; nowhere would he learn more about who he was and what he was likely to become.

Odd never mentioned the objects that his father had thrown from the deck of the
Sovereign of the Seas
. He never mentioned how his father had consigned to the ocean the small portrait of the man with an inverted
V
for a smile. He never told how his family whispered Uncle Søren's name back in the Old World, how they shook their heads and clicked their tongues after he disappeared. In the house on Court Street, Odd found no evidence of the unspoken transgressions that had so provoked his father. He saw nothing that set Søren Hus apart from the mass of well-intentioned men, nothing that should cause him to scorn the man
who had come looking for him. Still, he would not permit himself to feel anything for his uncle beyond gratitude, so certain was he that a stronger feeling might trick him into believing that he would never find himself alone again.

Uncle Søren brought him gifts from his travels up and down the coast: a shark's tooth bearing a scrimshaw schooner along its length, a wooden box with a hinged lid and a clipper ship carved on its side for Odd to store his collection of stones, a new spyglass to replace the broken one that Odd nevertheless preferred. From an Indiaman loaded with cinnamon, Uncle Søren brought a polished teardrop of amber with an insect inside; he explained how this marvel came to be, but Odd felt sorry for the tiny fly, imprisoned for simply alighting on the wrong tree at the wrong time a thousand years ago. It struck him that no creature walking the earth was safe from the accidents of fate, but this knowledge was not enough to prepare him for what was to come.

In the summer of Odd's sixteenth year, Søren Hus was hung from his neck in the courtyard of the Leverett Street Jail for offenses that everyone knew he had not committed, and Odd became the last Hus in America.

A week before Uncle Søren met his grim end, Odd lay hidden in the tall, fecund-smelling weeds near the head of the Charles River with Sarah Middlebrooke, a skinny girl who sold flowers in Scollay Square, and they each tested the boundaries of recently discovered wants. He had not found the skinny girl particularly attractive or interesting, aside from the curiosity of her hopelessly crooked teeth, but she had paid him attention, and that seemed enough. Hidden among the overgrown grasses and top-heavy cattails, Odd kissed her uncertainly. His first kiss was a distant imitation of the kisses he had seen his father grant his mother, chaste gifts of affection, a grudging acknowledgment of presence. Odd heard the weeds whispering disapproval as they bent and swayed,
rubbing against each other under the pressure of the breeze. He touched Sarah's shoulder, her elbow, her hair, uncoordinated explorations, as if he were trying to convince himself that she was there, that the clumsy, prodding hand was his. Her touch was more practiced. He sensed that she had been to the weeds before, and it made him embarrassed for his inexperience. Her hand seemed certain of its path. Starting at his face, her fingertips glided over his cheek, across his shallow Adam's apple, down his shirtfront, and then, without the slightest hesitation, into the front of his trousers.

Sarah leaned into him, whispering something into the back of his neck while her fingers worked against a rough seam. Odd felt himself rise to her touch; he clutched at the tangled roots on either side, anchoring himself, declaring this spot the center of his world. But in the next moment he was overwhelmed with disappointment as he felt himself dissolve and drift away. Though the skinny girl was on top of him, she was so light, so insubstantial, that it seemed she might be carried away by the breeze rustling through the tall weeds, leaving him alone with his discovery. As if the girl were in no way connected to the slender fingers urgently working in his trousers, Odd felt himself float right through her, rising on an expanding cloud of heat, and then a roaring wave of pleasure swept him from this cloud and he plummeted into a cold, wet blackness. When he opened his eyes, he found the skinny girl crying and clawing at his hand where it clutched her thin arm. At the moment of his crisis, he had desperately reached out for something to keep himself from floating away, and he had caught her arm in his fist with such force that her pale skin was already showing a ring of bruises like a blue bracelet.

Panicked, Odd ran from the crying girl, promising himself that he would never again return to the weeds. When he arrived at the house on Court Street, he found Mrs. Galligan sitting on
the front steps, and he was confused at first to see that she, too, was in tears. For a moment he thought that she had discovered where he had been, but then he saw that the front door hung crookedly on its hinges, the lock shattered. Through the gaping doorway, he could see that the inside of the house was in shambles. Odd knew right away that he had somehow caused this disorder, that the punishment for his indiscretion with Sarah Middlebrooke had lighted upon his uncles house. He told himself how it must have happened: the skinny girl had arrived home before him, had shown her father and her brothers the bruises, and they had come for him. Odd hung his head in shame as he approached, and he was about to confess his guilt when Mrs. Galligan placed her hand on his shoulder and held him at arm's length.

“You must go at once,” she said. “It cannot be true, but you must go at once.”

Odd thought she was telling him to flee. “Where will I go?”

“To Leverett Street. To your uncle.” Her tears, he understood then, had nothing at all to do with what had happened in the weeds. “They have taken your uncle Søren to the jail.”

Odd found his way to the Leverett Street Jail just as Mrs. Galligan had instructed. At first, he was not as alarmed as he thought he might be to see his uncle imprisoned. The communal cell looked palatial compared with the dark cabin Odd's family had been forced to share with two other families during the crossing. Odd remembered how his mother had shared all of their sugary potato
lefse
with the other children that first night, though he had hoped there would be enough to last all the way to America. There was no food in his uncle's cell, but there was a square window near the ceiling and piles of clean straw and no dead flies floating in the water bucket. Odd saw that a number of other men occupied the cell, and they appeared to be keeping their distance
from his uncle, squatting on the straw and leaning into the corners. Odd tried not to look at them. Søren Hus retained an air of offended elegance—as if he had been slapped for brash words at a dance and needed only to return home to sleep off his rejection. His vest and coat were torn but still buttoned, his cravat still tight at his throat. A purple bruise spread beneath his right eye, and flecks of dried blood sat at the corners of his mouth. Odd thought he smelled cloves and cinnamon.

Søren Hus tried to tell him what had happened. Odd watched his uncle's tongue flicker through the jagged gap where teeth had been broken. The story spilled out in jumbled fragments; it involved a young lady, he said, a very young lady. Odd was struck by the look of shock in his uncle's eyes, as if he had abruptly been awakened from a terrible dream to find it real. The details made no sense at first. The story had to be repeated, enlarged. The girl, his uncle explained, a child really, had resisted his advances and in the ensuing scuffle he had used more force than he intended. He had, in fact, very nearly killed her, but the child escaped his grasp and spoke of what had happened. She might not have been believed, but there was a witness, and within days other witnesses came forth. He had been seen with other girls. He had been seen in the company of young boys as well, ruffians and guttersnipes, unfortunate boys without families. The women of the Boston Female Asylum said he had pretended to be the uncle of one of their destitute girls before they sent him away, and he confessed to Odd that he had visited the Boston Asylum and Farm School on Thompson's Island more than once. Søren Hus seemed relieved to have been found out. He said that he would willingly have confessed, but before he could be properly arrested angry men marched on Scollay Square and dragged him to the jail. He denied nothing. He made no excuses to Odd. His only explanation for his deeds was that he could not do otherwise.

Odd listened, silent, bewildered. Nothing in his uncle's demeanor—his quiet speech, gentle manners, fine clothes—had ever suggested that the man might be capable of what he described. Odd thought of the portrait sailing from his father's hand, and he loathed himself for not trusting his father's judgment. Then he thought of Sarah Middlebrooke. He thought of the urges that had rushed through him, and he wondered if he himself had narrowly avoided a similar end. What violent acts might he have committed if Sarah had not been so willing from the start? At that moment, a strange sensation rose from the pit of his stomach; it was not hatred or disgust for his uncle but, rather, abhorrence for the blood in his own veins, the blood he and his uncle shared. Odd felt as though he had been plunged into a murky pool; his vision blurred and he felt that he could not breathe. And then something his uncle had said, a small detail, bobbed to the surface. Odd formed the question slowly, already saddened by the answer that he knew would come.

“When you came to the island, it was not to find me?”

His uncle shook his head slowly.

“You wanted a different boy,” Odd said.
“Sturen gutt, dårlig gutt—
any boy.”

“I did not even know you had come to America,” his uncle said. “It was an accident, my finding you there. Chance. Fortune.”

Odd puckered his lips and sucked at his dead tooth. He realized, then, that since his arrival in the New World he had always been alone.

“Oddmund,” his uncle muttered through swollen lips, shaking his head ruefully, “you were to be my atonement.”

Odd closed his eyes and tried to pretend that none of this was happening. He wished he could lay claim to his life as a thing untouched by others, a solitary, singular fullness that he might cleave to himself and carry off into the wilderness.

“I see you are disgusted with me,” his uncle said. Odd wanted to protest, but he could not explain what it was that had taken the place of disgust.

“It is easy to condemn my weakness,” his uncle said, lisping through his broken teeth. “But one day you will understand.”

Odd wanted to ask his uncle a hundred things. He wanted to know how he might avoid a similar end. He wanted to beg him for guidance. Most of all, Odd wanted to be reassured that whatever willful perversions had seized his uncle would not, one day, enthrall him as well. Odd thought of Sarah lying on top of him in the weeds, and he began to fear for her safety. He thought of the cravings that she drew out of him, and he knew he must never see her again. Sarah had not resisted, but there had been nothing to resist. He had been too nervous to do anything. He had only to let it happen. But what if he had wanted more? What if she had denied him? What would he have done?