The Settlers (63 page)

She must go through it all again, all she had prayed to be relieved of: first the sick and miserable feeling for a few months, then carrying the increased burden of her body, shuffling about on heavy feet, and at last the terrifying labor, her strength spent, and the great weakness and fatigue afterward with her limbs heavy and aching. And just at the time when most was required of her, she would have to get up nights to give the breast to the baby, stay up till all hours when it was sick or fretted, caring constantly for the tender life day and night. All this she must go through again; for the eighth time since her twentieth year it was demanded of her. And this time she met the pregnancy with less strength than at any of the other seven times. Her weariness was great when she went to bed in the evening, it was almost as great when she arose in the morning.

God was omniscient; he knew that her strength was barely sufficient for all her chores, for the care of the children she had already borne. He knew she was worn out, young in years though she still was. He knew she would not be able to stand another birth, another child, and to make sure, she had told him so in her prayer last summer. Yet he was creating a new life in her. Why did he do this to her? Why hadn’t he heard her prayer?

She had waited as long as she could to tell Karl Oskar. She had told herself she might be mistaken. Her period had been late before. No need to hurry with this information—she must be sure. And now she was sure. And this morning before he left for St. Paul she had told him. It was her time again; she must go through it once more.

No one could expect him to be happy over it. When Frank was born he had said, “Now it is about right.” Six had not seemed too much for Karl Oskar, but a seventh would be. And then the seventh was announced. What would he say now when it was more than about right, when moderation was exceeded?

He said just about nothing. He stood silent for a moment at first. If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it. Never had he shown any disappointment at this sort of news. Already? he used to say in the old days, his joy perhaps a little forced. But this time he just said nothing.

“Well, hmm, time again? Well—if we can feed six brats, I guess we can feed seven! As long as you can take it.”

That was all he had said this morning, and it was about what she had expected him to say.

In Korpamoen in Sweden she had been afraid to bear too many children lest she couldn’t feed them. Then she had said to Karl Oskar, “If we could leave each other alone, then we wouldn’t have any more.” Now she felt this had been a childish suggestion; in a true Christian marriage the mates belonged to each other physically also. And this physical need for her husband had grown stronger with the years, that was the strange thing about it. To Karl Oskar it had been a necessity from the very beginning.

“All things are made by God.”

But Kristina couldn’t endure hearing Harald read the piece any more tonight. There was one way to silence the studious youngster.

“Get to bed now! All of you!”

The children were a little surprised at Mother’s sudden and firm command and obeyed hesitantly. She gave each a lump of sugar to urge them on. For little Frank was already in bed and for him Kristina warmed a cup of milk, stirred some honey in it, and fed it to him with a spoon. Yellow mucus still came from his infected throat and this mixture eased the soreness.

Frank was a lively and keen boy. His soft, flaxen hair curled all over his head and his eyes were a clearer blue than those of any of the other children. But he would not remain the little one much longer—only till midsummer next year. By midsummer a new childbed would be awaiting a blessed woman.

—2—

Kristina was unable to finish her prayer that evening.

She began several times: Our Father in heaven, let me this night rest within thy protection! But after a few sentences the words choked in her throat, clung to her tongue. She stopped. She began again, but couldn’t get any further. The prayer remained stillborn in her thoughts, unspoken by her tongue. She lay awake, her eyes wide open against the room’s darkness.

The hours passed, it was close to midnight, and as yet she had not said her evening prayer.

What was the matter with her tonight? She wasn’t worried because Karl Oskar was away and she was alone with the children. Karl Oskar had been away many nights during the last years and she wasn t afraid; the Indians hereabouts were by now so few that no one feared them any longer; besides, they now had neighbors all around them. It was not fear that kept her awake. What was it then? She always said her evening prayer before she went to sleep. Now she couldn’t go to sleep because she had been unable to finish her prayer.

Something lay heavy on her chest, choking her. She began to imagine a pair of forceful, hard hands held her throat in a vise; she sat up and took a deep breath to rid herself of this feeling of imminent choking, then eased, she lay down. After a short respite the sensation returned.

Finally she rose from her bed, put on a skirt and jacket, and stuck her feet into her soft deerskin moccasins. The choking in her throat was still there. She gasped for air like a fish on dry land. What had come over her tonight? She had never had these choking sensations before. The house felt unbearably close. She must go outside so she could breathe fully.

Cautiously, silently, she unlocked the front door and stepped out on the stoop. It was midnight and so dark she seemed to have stuck her head into a big sack. She could not see the sky or the moon or the stars. It was black at her feet, black above her head, and black all around her. Night had lowered its deepest darkness over the earth. It was as dark as it could possibly be on a November night in Minnesota.

It was cold, perhaps near freezing, but the cold felt fresh and dry; the clear night air rinsed her throat and she breathed more easily. Vaguely she discerned the tall sugar maples, stretching above the roof. She stepped down from the stoop and walked along the side of the building, groping about for the house timbers. The wall guided her through the deep darkness. She felt her way, stumbling a few times, but walked on. She turned the corner; now she was at the back of the house. She was wide awake but moved stiffly, as if walking in her sleep. Her hands lost touch with the wall, but she walked on. She felt the soft ground under her slippers; she was walking through her flower bed. She raised her hands in front of her, fumbling, groping, like a blind man.

She walked a little farther, until her foot hit a large tree stump. Here Karl Oskar had felled the big elm that shaded the field and sucked nourishment from it. The huge stump was all that was left of that tree—it seemed to her now a comfortable seat. She sat down, slumped forward, shivering in the cold; she huddled over, bundling inside her jacket.

It was a silent night, without wind. Above her she could see no heaven, around her no earth. All she was aware of was emptiness and desolate silence. This autumn night was without sound of any kind. No leaves rustled in the trees, not a single crackling noise came from the stripped cornstalks in the field, not one monotonous complaint from the crickets. Even the screech-hoppers’ eternal wailing was silenced. Sitting on the stump, enveloped in night’s black mantle, her eyes could see nothing, her ears hear nothing.

She was inside a black, empty hole. She was abandoned, alone in a desolate world.

She was lightly dressed and she pulled the jacket tighter around her, her limbs trembling: Kristina, what are you doing? Why have you left your warm bed this night to walk out in the dark, to sit on a stump behind the house? You had trouble with your evening prayer, something pressed at your throat and stopped the breath in your windpipe. You could not go on praying to God, who does not listen to you, won’t answer you! Your faith failed you, doubt drove you from your bed into the night.

And out here the same questions assail you:

Why didn’t God listen to you when you prayed to be spared another childbirth? Why didn’t he listen, why didn’t he grant your prayer? If God exists, why doesn’t he hear your prayers, Kristina?

If
God exists . . . ! For the first time in her life Kristina caught herself putting an
if
before God.

What she had done shocked her. The heavenly father—did he not exist? This had never been possible for her to imagine before. It would never have entered her mind. It would have been absurd, something one never even thought of. But suddenly she was sitting here and thinking: Suppose God didn’t exist?

Here was an answer to her questions. It would explain all. It gave her a definite answer. If it were true, she need not wonder and question and worry any more. Then she need not anxiously ask herself why her prayer hadn’t been granted. If God didn’t exist, then he could not hear the prayers she addressed to him. She would have prayed all these years to a heavenly father who wasn’t in heaven.

Tonight a frightening answer confronted her. Every evening she had prayed: Our Father in heaven . . .
But if he weren’t in heaven
. . . ?

If God didn’t exist . . . ? was it reasonable to believe this:
that God didn’t exist?

Darkness engulfed her mercilessly as she sat there on the stump. In this November night, heaven was invisible to her, the earth was invisible. The world around her was completely empty. Silently, without a single sound, the night enveloped the lone settler wife. Even the interminable wailing of the crickets had died down. Perhaps they had grown tired of their persistent complaint when no God heard them. This night was only silence and emptiness and darkness. There was no heaven and no earth—and no God.

Kristina, the mother of six living children, carrying still another life in her womb, sat on a stump outside her home in the middle of the night instead of lying asleep in her bed. She was a blessed woman but she felt tonight as if God did not exist.

—3—

The night air chilled her body; she shivered, her arms and legs trembling. She had come out without a shawl. But she did not go in, she was not aware of the cold. Tonight she was oblivious of her body. She was only aware of her disturbed soul.

What could she do if God didn’t exist? In whom could she trust? Who would help her? Who would protect her against danger? Who would in the future give her strength to take care of her home and her children? Who would help her endure life in this new country, which to her always remained
away
from home, never home? And who would in the end receive her after death?

If God didn’t exist . . . ?

No, she couldn’t become reconciled with that idea. She could not be satisfied with the answer that came to her tonight. All the strength of her soul rose in defiance; the answer was unacceptable. The least a person could ask of God was that he existed. It wasn’t something she wished—she demanded it, she required it more surely than any other being on earth could.

She demanded of God that he exist. The creator must assume the responsibility of looking after his creation, as a father was responsible for the children he begot. Without a father in heaven she could not endure living her life on earth.

Stiffly she folded her hands trembling with cold, she clasped them tightly in prayer. She began in a low voice, haltingly. But after a few words, new life informed her tongue. Her voice grew strong, the words flowed from her mouth clear and sure. Her soul’s need was the power driving her to prayer, and she was able to pray again:

“God, you must be! Listen to me, you must! Haven’t you created me? Then you must not abandon me! Without you I would be a miserable creature—lost and alone in the world.”

Kristina addressed her prayer to the black desolation of the November night, she called into the dark loudly, her prayer became a cry of anguish: “You must exist, God! I cannot fulfill my life’s lot without you!”

But when her voice had died down, silence again took over. Nothing more was heard, not even the faintest echo. No answer came; the night around her remained still. The night had devoured her prayer. It was as though she had hurled it into a black, yawning abyss. Her call to God had been devoured by a bottomless emptiness. The darkness around her kept silent, the desolation did not reply, nothing answered her.

—4—

She did not know how long she had been sitting on the stump behind the house when something startled her. She rose as if suddenly awakened from a deep sleep. Why was she here? She felt stiff and cold through and through. She strained her ears and listened; she could hear something. A sound had reached her ears, a very faint sound, the first sound her ears had caught out here tonight. It did not come from the leaves rustling in the trees, not from the dry cornstalks, not a screech from the crickets—it was the sound of a voice, however faint it seemed. And she felt in her heart someone was calling her.

She held her breath while she listened, her face heavenward.

Didn’t it come from up there? Wasn’t it God replying to her? Didn’t he call her: Kristina! Kristina! I hear you!

But no sound came from above. And it wasn’t her name she heard. Yet—she did hear a voice and she felt that it called her.

Someone near here was replying to her prayer of a moment ago. She heard a creature with voice and tongue. She was not alone in the world.

Just then her ears caught the sound clearly; it came from inside the house, a baby weeping, faintly, pitiably, and only one word was she able to understand:
Mother!
was one single word, and it was uttered faintly, but it was enough for her.

Heaven above her remained silent, deaf and dumb; it was not the father in heaven who called to her, it was her boy who lay sick with his throat infection. He had awakened and he missed his mother and now he called for her.

A wholesome, comforting calm descended on Kristina as she hurried in to her child. Tonight she needed to flee to a living creature who was more helpless than she.

XXXIV

PRAYER GRANTED

—1—