The Last Letter Home Read online

  Charles O. Nelson was usually alone when he visited his wife, and he was alone this time also. He climbed off the wagon outside the cemetery gate; Johan would pick him up after a couple of hours.

  It was a calm day. The sun warmed but did not burn. It was shady and cool under the trees in that place set aside for the dead. A new fence had been put up, good-looking, rails stripped of bark glittered clean and white around the home of the dead.

  Leaning on the stick in his right hand he limped up to the gate, opened it, and walked inside. Above the entrance a white-painted board had been put up, with an inscription in black:

  Blessed are those who here sleep.

  Eternal Peace is Death’s Gift.

  Each time he came to the gate he would stop and read the inscription, as if wishing to assure himself that not a letter had been changed since last time.

  The cemetery sloped toward the shore cliffs and below them the sky-blue lake began. On three sides this little peninsula was washed by the lake water. Stately, lush silver maples shaded this last resting place, a joy to the eye on a summer day like this.

  Charles O. Nelson, leaning on his stick, slowly shuffled his way along the path between the graves. No other visitor was in sight today. He knew this place well, it was a long time since he had buried his wife here, and he recognized everything. The graves lay in straight rows, some with fresh flowers, others neglected, overgrown with weeds; others again had dry, withered flowers in overturned pitchers or ordinary drinking glasses; on some not even weeds grew.

  He had once been among those who selected this place as the burial ground of the Swedish parish. Four of them had gone out a morning in June to choose a plot suitable for the dead. They had come onto this little promontory at the old Indian lake, Ki-Chi-Saga, and had sat down to rest under the silver maples. They did not have to seek any further; their mission was accomplished.

  Three of the four now had their graves in this place, three had been lowered into the ground they themselves had chosen as their last resting place. But the fourth was still alive, walking here between the graves. He moved with great effort, he took one long right step and two short left ones. Surely no one moved more slowly over the earth than the fourth man who today visited here.

  The first years very few graves had been dug. The immigrants were mostly young people, the greater part of their lives before them. Yet, the very first grave had been opened for a young person, Robert Nilsson, aged twenty-two. But the years ran by, time did its work, the parish members grew old and the hour of death caught up with them. By and by the rows of graves grew longer.

  Here lay all those who were older than Karl Oskar at the time of their emigration, and many of his own age group had already moved here. He recognized the mounds. The longest life had been granted to Fina-Kajsa, but she had been old when she arrived in America. Jonas Petter had been almost fifty when they came and had lived to a great age. Only a few years ago had his grave been dug; it was still the last to have been opened for one of his Old Country friends.

  The dead had been laid in their coffins, their faces toward the east, toward the rising sun, for it was in the eastern sky that Christ would come on the day of resurrection. Their faces must be turned toward their Redeemer so their eyes could see him at once.

  Karl Oskar stopped, resting his left leg as he leaned on the stick, blinking in the sun. Kristina’s grave was a few hundred paces from the gate, he would soon be there—about thirty more steps. He could already see the cross he had raised over it. The grave was halfway down the slope under a wide-spreading silver maple.

  At a distance of a few paces he stopped and read the words he had carved in the oak cross:

  HERE RESTS

  KRISTINA JOHANSDOTTER

  Wife of Karl Oskar Nilsson

  Born at Duvemåla, Sweden 1825

  Died in North America 1862

  WE MEET AGAIN

  On the grave he had planted sweet williams, blue doves, and marigolds, some of the flowers Kristina herself had planted at Korpamoen in Sweden. He tried to keep the grave well attended but weeds were sticking up among the flowers and he bent down to pull them.

  The pain cut through his back, and he stiffened at once. He was unable to raise himself. This happened frequently. Slowly, cautiously, he sat down in the grass beside the grave. He must sit a few moments until the pain eased.

  Around him the world was silent. A faint sighing in the maple crown above Kristina’s grave, like calm, quiet breathing. The blades of grass bent gently in the soft wind, rose as gently again. Down on the lake, below the cliffs, a flock of ducklings played swing on the waves; the eternal motion of the water; the waves broke against the cliffs, were diffused, and glided back into the lake, returned again to wash the same stones. They moved as they had done since the beginning of time.

  Not so for a human being; he did not move as easily today as yesterday. To lie in the earth, or crawl over it—which was preferable? When he entered the cemetery gate he had read the words above it, the promise they held out for him, the gift of peace. He wanted so much to believe that this good promise had been fulfilled for all those who were buried here, that it would be fulfilled for him too. This was his wish every day: Afterward no more suffering.

  Karl Oskar sat in the grass at his wife’s grave, listening to the rustling in the silver maples, to the ceaseless purl of the lake surf. Here was a good, peaceful place. Toil and strife were ended for those having their abode here. Nothing more could happen to them.

  Nothing more could happen to Kristina.

  While alive she had felt and understood something he could not feel and understand: She believed fully they would meet after death. She spoke of it many times the last spring she was alive. Then everything would be as before between them. But perhaps she had sensed her time would not be long. One night, after they had enjoyed each other, she had said to him: I don’t want to be alone in eternity. I pray to God we’ll meet afterward. We will meet again. When we can’t die any more.

  WE MEET AGAIN

  With his own hand he had carved those words in the oak cross. He had put them there because he knew Kristina wanted it. After all, they were her own words. She had said them to him, he had inscribed them as he remembered them. It was Kristina herself who had written over her grave the words of meeting.

  She had been so afraid they wouldn’t meet afterward that she had been concerned about his eternal salvation.

  But how was it after death? What had God prepared? What was His plan for the human beings he had created? No one could answer that question for sure, no one could know for sure about any life except this one. Karl Oskar understood neither the eternal bliss of heaven nor the eternal suffering of hell. His understanding was not sufficient.

  But it was good to sit here and read those three words on the cross, Kristina’s own words. Then he could also hear them from her mouth. Those, or others with the same meaning. She was not in doubt, or hesitant, when she said: We meet again. She was sure, she was convinced they would meet in a life that had no ending.

  Perhaps. Perhaps there was a life afterward where they could be together. Another kind of life, not comprehensible to human understanding; perhaps one must die in order to understand it. He did not know. But neither could he deny it; if he denied it he would also have to be sure.

  When we can’t die any more. To Kristina eternity was only permanent rest. And she had been so tired the last years of her life; nothing had helped her against that.

  Kristina had surrendered herself to God and humbly resigned herself to her fate. But that he had never been able to do, nor would he ever. And it didn’t matter. God treated him anyway as he saw fit—and what could he do about it? The Almighty had bent his back, made his body stoop to the earth, filled him with pains and aches, made a lame wretch of him. But why should he resign himself to this and say it suited him? No, he would always make one more try. A human being was indeed helpless, but he need not resign himself to this, he must always tr
y to live as if he could be of some help to himself.

  There had been times when he had been close to giving up. That morning on the Charlotta, when Kristina . . . But after that they had lived many years together. And during that time a devoted woman with a good heart had shared his days of toil and his nights of rest, all the joys of youth and health. A better lot a couple could not be granted perhaps. Why must he ask for more? Why wasn’t he satisfied and resigned to the fact that the joys of life were over and would never return? So terribly difficult was it to reconcile oneself to the fact that life was over.

  Where did it now belong, his old, worn-out, useless body? It would arrive at this place, that much was certain. Beside his wife’s grave he had reserved enough space for his own resting place; here he would be buried. He was sitting on his own grave. His body would rot and disintegrate beside Kristina’s, in the same earth where she had turned to dust. At least this much was sure: Here they would both meet. That much he knew: The wide silver maple would shade them both. And then nothing more could happen to him either.

  Down at the lake the surf played against the cliffs, sank down, and returned. It had done so as long as this water had existed, and would do so as long as it would exist. And this motion without ending was to him like generations growing up and dying. What was the purpose of this repetition—to come and go, to live and die? Why must this happen? Of what use was it?

  Like the fading smoke of a dying fire, so seemed to him his days gone by, the good as well as the bad. His body had stiffened in old age’s cold, was withering like the leaves in autumn. Perhaps at last the leaf resigned itself to falling. But it bothered him that he must leave this life without knowing its purpose. In that way it was a disappointment to die.

  Karl Oskar sat beside his wife’s grave for a couple of hours. When at last he rose to return home it seemed to him the cross on the grave had started to lean a little. He looked closer; indeed, it was leaning. It was almost twenty-five years since he had put it up, and in that time the ground might change and sink a little. No post in the earth would remain exactly in the same position for that length of time.

  He took hold of the cross with both hands. It wasn’t leaning much, only a few inches, but it looked bad on a grave. After he had straightened it he took a few steps back and looked. As far as his eyes could see, the cross stood straight now. Next time he came to the cemetery he would bring a spade and put some support against it.

  A last searching look over the grave, then he turned and walked up the path. He took one long step with his healthy leg and two short with the other; he limped back the same way he had come.

  The fourth and last of the men who had selected this place returned to live the life still remaining to him.

  Charles O. Nelson, the old farmer in the old house, was in his bed while the slow drip of the seconds and the minutes filled his roomy bowl of pain, his long hour of ache. It was persistent today, the auger. He turned a little, tried another position, first on the right side, then on the left; he lay with his legs pulled up, with his legs stretched out. It was the same however he turned and tried, today it made no difference.

  Through his window he looked at the big field of wheat in shocks; beyond, toward the forest, they had planted corn which stood tall and straight. The crops he saw from his window would make many loaves of bread, would feed many hungry people. Those crops would not have grown there if he hadn’t lived. Crops would continue to grow out of the earth after he had been buried in it. It was his hands that had changed this piece of ground, and as he thought of all the crops that would be harvested after he was gone, he was well pleased.

  But there was little honor in breaking land and tilling fields. Honor was reserved for those who wielded the sword, the gun, or the cannon—not for a man using ax and plow, the implements of peaceful labor. Felling trees and turning turf was for simple folk, but a dirty occupation for lords and masters.

  The old man looked out on the farm he had wrested from the wilderness: He had not been able to accomplish fully what he had set out to do. The big main house, the crown of his work, he had not been able to build. He had used some of the lumber for a coffin, and after that he couldn’t build anything more. The boys had put up the house instead. His workday had been cut short, he had been carried home by his sons on a litter of oak branches, and they had finished the work. There must be others besides him who had been forced to stop too early.

  At the gable near his window grew an apple tree, an Astrakhan tree, which blossomed every spring and bore fruit every fall. It was an old tree now but still youthfully green, a pride to the old house with its laden boughs and abundance of fruit. Now at the end of summer the fruit was ripe; the ground under the tree was covered with big, yellow-white apples, their skin transparently clear.

  Fallen Astrakhan apples didn’t keep long, he must hurry and gather them. Tomorrow morning he would find a basket and pick them. It was quite remarkable all the fruit that came from that tree, year after year, and now it must be quite old. It was a tree that had grown from a seed from Sweden which blossomed and bore fruit at the Nelson Settlement.

  Sweden, the old homeland—well. Perhaps he should have taken one of the new steamers and gone over to see it once more while he still was able to move about. Now it was too late. There was nothing to do about that. Old Charles O. Nelson had to be satisfied with his map of Ljuder.

  Here he found all the roads he once had walked. Here ran the county road from Åkerby to the neighboring village of Algutsboda. That road he had walked many times that spring and summer when he had courted Kristina Johansdotter in Duvemåla.

  It was a good distance from Korpamoen to Duvemåla, a whole Swedish mile, almost six of the American miles. But he had walked with light steps and never thought of the distance. One spring and summer he had walked that road twice a week: Saturday evening to Duvemåla, Sunday morning back to Korpamoen. His fingers followed the red line across the map. He would never lose his way on that road; he knew it better than any road he had ever walked. There was Sjubonale—the Seven-Farmers village—with an old-fashioned gate made of birch wattles. When he had passed that gate he was almost there, the next farm was Duvemåla. He did not go all the way to the house, he must not be seen by anyone on the farm. He must wait under the huge mountain ash if he should be first. But he knew in advance he never had to wait: In the lingering twilight he could see her light-blue shawl at the garden gate from a long distance.

  The old people hadn’t gone to bed yet, it was too early to go with her to her room. They walked down the meadow, through a birch grove; at this time of day they never met anyone here. They walked with their arms around each other but they did not say much. What she wanted to know he had already said many times, and what he wanted to know she had said as often. Yet it happened that they repeated it, not to help each other remember, but only because they wanted to hear it again.

  Tonight it was light in the Duvemåla meadows; they could see the lilies of the valley under the birches, where the birds still chirped—they were always noisiest right after sunset in May. They walked all the way to the edge of the bog, and then they walked back to the house and now it was silent. They stole in through the kitchen without a sound, she leading him by the hand to her room, now and then stopping to put her fingers on her lips and whispering: Quiet!

  Then he lay down on the bed beside her, both with their clothes on: they were engaged and one could sleep with one’s fiancée on “promise and honor.” But their hands caressed and petted, a girl’s fingers stroked the youths neck, the youth found the girl’s braids. Sometimes they trembled as they caressed and their breathing became faster.

  They kissed until they were tired and out of breath. But they knew how far their caresses could go, and no further. They must not get closer before the wedding night. She was a virgin and would remain so until they were married. His honor demanded that he leave her intact, and hers that she be left so.

  Both had just entered their youth. He
would be of age this year, she was eighteen. They wouldn’t lose anything by waiting. Everything awaits those who are in the beginning of their youth.

  But their caresses were insufficient for their growing desire. Each night they were together in her room they felt less satisfied with it, and at last their caresses grew painful to their aroused bodies. But as they waited expectation also grew, and it was delicious thus slowly to prepare for what would happen later, all that which they had denied themselves.

  Her breath flowed hot as it entered his ear and her lips whispered: I wish something . . . That it soon were . . . And that was just what he wished. That it soon were. He replied when his mouth was on hers, she with the heat from hers.

  When daylight began to break he remembered the long way home and rose to leave. Then Kristina stretched out her arms toward him: Stay a little longer! Don’t go! Just a few minutes more!

  He did as she asked him. He returned to her arms, he stayed.

  He would stay only a short moment, but it became a long moment. It was daylight outside the window, the sun was up, and he remained. But at last he must go. Nor did she wish him to be there when her parents got up.

  But they would not part yet, she would walk a bit of the road with him. Sjubonale gate was their parting spot, farther he could not coax her. Their farewell took time, it was prolonged even though the sun was high in the heavens and people were coming out to attend to their cattle and do the morning chores. Leaning against the gatepost they would kiss and kiss until their breath gave out. It was so when lovers parted.

  But at last he was alone again, on the six-mile road home. He hadn’t slept a wink, he had been lying awake in a girl’s room, in his hands he still retained the warmth of her skin, in his mouth he still had the fragrance of her breath. The clear morning air he inhaled was cool with dew and fresh birch leaves. He did not feel tired; after his walk he could have gone right to his work. He worked six days, and in the evening of the sixth he went to see the girl in the blue shawl who waited for him at her parents’ gate. So it was week after week; what had happened this night would happen again and again.