Unto a Good Land (20 page)

IX

DANGER SIGNS ARE NOT ALWAYS POSTED

—1—

A bell rang on the upper deck, the steering wheel turned, and the prow of the river steamer headed shoreward. The boat moored to a lonely bank deep in the forest; there were no signs of people or human habitation. The gangplank was thrown out, and two of the crewmen went on shore, carrying an oblong bundle between them. Two other men with shovels followed them. All four disappeared behind the thick wall of trees and bushes which grew to the water’s edge.

After a short while the men returned to the ship. But now they carried nothing except the shovels dangling in their hands. The bell rang again, the gangplank was pulled in, and the steamer backed into the river, resuming its course after this short, unscheduled delay.

These stops at wild and lonely shores took place every day, some days many times. Except for the ringing of the bell, the stops made not a sound, indeed, they happened so quietly and unexpectedly and were of such short duration that at first the passengers hardly noticed them. Otherwise they might have asked why the steamer made shore; no passenger disembarked, they saw no freight unloaded, no firewood or timber was taken aboard. And at the mooring places not the smallest shed could be seen, there were no piles of wood, no stacks of lumber; untouched wilderness was all that could be seen. Why was time wasted for these stops?

Only the most observant travelers had noticed that a bundle was carried ashore, they had seen the men with shovels, and on closer inspection had seen earth clinging to the shovels when the men returned to the boat. And so they had figured out that the men remained ashore long enough to dig a shallow grave.

Soon all had guessed the riddle of the frequent stops in the wilderness, so quickly and silently undertaken. Something—wrapped in a piece of gray cloth—was carried ashore. Some one of the passengers was taken on land, not alive, but dead. A corpse was removed from the boat, a funeral was performed during the brief interval while the steamer was moored to the bank.

Some passenger died every day; and there were days when several died. Soon all on board were aware of this and counted the number of times the bell rang and the men with shovels went ashore.

No one on board had died by act of violence or by accident, no one had starved to death, no one had frozen to death in this summer heat. A disease was killing the passengers, a disease which in a few short days transformed the healthiest person into a corpse. And the sickness which had stolen aboard the river steamer was so greatly feared that it could not be called by its name, it was the
disease,
nothing else. To call it by name would have been to challenge the dreaded scourge, make it appear sooner. People became sick from fear. In terror they watched for the signs: when the bodily juices dried up, when the skin turned blue-red and coarse, when the nose grew sharp, when thirst burned the tongue and the membranes of the throat, when the body could retain nothing, neither fluids nor solid matter, when the limbs felt cold and cramped, when the eyes sank into their sockets, when nasal slime and saliva stopped, when all tears dried up—then it had entered the body! And if the miracle didn’t happen—perspiration breaking out over the whole body within two hours of the seizure—then death had prepared his work well and would finish it within twenty-four hours.

It was a painful sickness. Yet it could be called merciful because it killed within a fairly short time: in a day—perhaps two—it forced the warmth of life from a body, leaving the chill of death in its place. The strongest and healthiest suffered the worst agonies, because the stronger and more capable of resistance life was, the more painful the death struggle.

The murderous disease was the Asiatic epidemic, the cholera.

For the past two years this disease from the East had been sweeping over North America. The Old World had given the New World its most deadly epidemic. It was a gift out of Bengal, from the Holy Ganges, the river of swampy death lands and poisonous waters. The emigrants from Europe had brought this pestilence with them, they carried it with them inland as their journey continued, it was spread from place to place, from boat to boat, from river to river: the pestilence of the East had come to the West.

No one had announced to the passengers that cholera was with them on the steamer: it was not registered in the passenger list, it was not entered on the list of cargo. Inconspicuously, hurriedly, the bodies of the victims were removed. There was need for haste—in this heat.

When the mysterious visits on shore had continued for some days, the name of the horrible disease began to be whispered among the passengers. Then not only the unrelenting pestilence but also the fear of it paralyzed all on board: here, in the midst of them, it had stolen in, invisible, yet it was everywhere; death was close upon them.

—2—

Karl Oskar remembered the sign he had seen on the steam wagon, which their guide had translated for him, that sign which cautioned about places to be avoided, places where one must be careful: DANGER! WATCH YOUR STEP! He kept his eyes open wherever he went, he was always on the lookout for these English words of warning. But this sign was not posted in all dangerous places in America: he had not seen it on their boat. The passengers had boarded the steamer in confidence, unaware that it was tainted.

At home they had heard of the cholera as a scourge. But the pestilence had little power in Sweden, where the climate was cold. In the heat of this country, Karl Oskar realized that the pestilence might flourish and spread; the very air seemed to burn, it was the worst heat he had experienced since landing in America. He did not know how to combat it. Against cold weather he knew what to do; when the cold grew intense, one could put on heavy clothing. In hot weather one must remove one’s clothes, and here he went about as much undressed as he could without feeling ashamed. But it did not help. Even stark naked he would have suffered; it wouldn’t have helped to remove his skin!

Against cold one could light fires, one could crawl all the way into the fireplace, if necessary. But where could one flee to get away from the heat? There was no place to crawl into, nowhere to hide from it.

And in this melting heat the steamer fare seemed foul and dangerous. Sometimes the food smelled bad: the nose performed its duty and warned the mouth to refuse it. No fresh food would keep; the blowflies buzzed everywhere and laid their eggs, which hatched almost immediately. Worms crawled in newly slaughtered meat, and soon no one dared touch even the fat pork, swimming in its thick grease, and until now eaten greedily by all.

The cholera must be something living, something that entered one’s body through food or drink, some little worm or creeping thing. It might be a tiny creature floating about in the drinking water, perhaps a worm so small that the eye couldn’t see it. The cholera might hide in every bite they swallowed, in every drop of water they drank. The murderous pestilence might lurk in their eating vessels or drinking mugs—how could they avoid it when they couldn’t even see it? Never before had Karl Oskar felt death so close upon him; it was here everywhere, yet invisible to all.

Not all passengers ate the steamer fare; those who had money bought their own food. Karl Oskar noticed the travelers on the upper deck: each time the steamer stopped at an inhabited place, the first-class passengers went on shore and bought fresh food; they returned with heavy loads of bread, butter, milk, eggs, pancakes; even hens and chickens, which their Negro cooks prepared for them. The passengers up there could eat special, healthy food. And Karl Oskar recalled he had not yet seen a corpse carried ashore from the upper deck. But in steerage, a room for the sick has been prepared with beds all over the floor.

One day when the steamer sought shore three times to accomplish its hurried errand, Karl Oskar said to Kristina: “Those who leave the food alone keep healthy. From now on, we starve.”

Kristina agreed, and they let the meals go by; they could starve many days without endangering life. Their appetites had greatly diminished due to the heat, and in a few days they would leave the contaminated steamer. But thirst plagued them sorely, and they had to use the drinking water on the ship. They mixed some vinegar into it; vinegar killed all poisons in water, according to Berta, the Idemo woman who had healing knowledge.

But the best remedy against cholera was said to be a handful of coarse salt, taken a few times daily and washed down with brännvin. Karl Oskar had brought along some wormwood-seed brännvin, which had so far kept his body in good order. Now it was all gone. Fortunately, they had some camphor-brännvin left, and they drank this; Kristina gave the children spoonfuls of “The Prince’s Drops” and “The Four Kinds of Drops.” Fresh milk was also said to be good against the pestilence, but there was no milk on the boat, neither fresh nor sour. “All gone,” they were told, and Robert explained that this meant the milk had been drunk to the last drop.

Jonas Petter borrowed Karl Oskar’s bleeding iron and let his blood several times. He said he must get rid of his bad blood to be on the safe side. He also used the iron on Fina-Kajsa, who had long been asking for it. She, being the oldest in their group, was more afraid of the sickness than any of the others, and having lately been near death from another illness, she thought it would be unfair were she again to be laid down on a deathbed. She also tied one of her woolen hose around her throat and after this she felt comparatively safe. Arvid ate conscientiously from his box of
Painkiller,
and he shared the pills with Robert until not a single one was left. Ulrika of Västergöhl prepared plasters of mustard, which she placed across her stomach and Elin’s; these plasters would draw the pestilence poison from the entrails where its home was.

The only one of their group who used no remedy against the cholera was Danjel Andreasson; he did not fear the pestilence. He refused to believe that the epidemic was contagious. Who had contaminated the first person to die of cholera? Could anyone tell him? To Danjel, no contagion existed; the cholera was sent directly to each one by the Lord God. God was now visiting His people, already He had decided which ones among the passengers were to die. How could anyone believe this decision might be changed? Danjel saw his fellow immigrants, each one using his medicines and plasters, and he asked: Why not leave the healing to their Creator? Were they so weak in their faith as to doubt God’s omnipotence? And he asked his relatives Kristina and Karl Oskar: Did they actually believe they could escape if God had chosen one or both of them to die? Did they think they could hide from the face of the Almighty?

Kristina answered: Man should not sit with crossed arms and shovel everything onto the Lord. She believed God might be more inclined to look after her if she tried to help herself a little.

Danjel was more sad than ever when he learned that Ulrika, his obedient disciple, tried to protect herself against the pestilence with a mustard plaster. He reproached her for this and said she committed the heavy sin of doubt when she relied more on a plaster made by herself than on her God. Did she think, while preparing this plaster with her own sinful hands, that she could do more than the Almighty? She provoked the Lord with the mustard plaster on her stomach, and he entreated her earnestly to remove it.

After Inga-Lena’s death, Danjel had admitted to Ulrika that he himself had been mistaken in his belief that one reborn was rid of sin forever: no human being on earth could be free from sin as long as he remained in a mortal body; neither he, Danjel, nor anyone else. All were wretched sinners, burdened by fallen man’s body as long as they lived. There was no hope except through God’s grace and mercy.

When Ulrika heard this, she was deeply upset and perplexed; how could Danjel fail her thus? Weren’t all her sins washed away, once and for all? Did Jesus no longer live in her body? She had believed what Danjel had told her, and now he retracted what he had said. But she didn’t want her sin-body back, under no conditions did she wish her old corpse back. Nor had she sinned with any man since coming into Danjel’s house and eating his bread. She had been cleansed—why then did not Jesus wish to remain in her? Ulrika felt cheated and insulted: she had confidently relied on Danjel’s word, and she demanded that he, as the Lord’s prophet, stand by his word. She had long obeyed him and been subordinate to him in all things, but now doubt stole over her: Was Danjel too weak a man to be the Lord’s messenger? Yet he looked so much like a prophet, with his long, wild-grown beard.

Now Danjel tried to frighten her with God’s wrath because of the mustard plaster she had prepared. She felt irresolute, wondering what to do. But she was not convinced within herself that she had angered God because of such a little thing. She left the mustard plaster in its place.

—3—

Every unfortunate victim chosen by the cholera sickened so suddenly that one moment he stood erect and strong, and the next, he almost fell to the floor. In the sickbed he immediately grew so weak that he was unable to lift his head, he shook in convulsions and moaned pitifully; some screamed in agony before they sank into the merciful depths of unconsciousness. After this the shrouding cloth was soon brought forth.

On the
Charlotta,
Kristina had not been conscious when anyone died; at the time of the deaths around her she herself had been desperately ill. But now she remembered the night on the ship when she nearly bled to death: a few times she had heard a woman’s weak voice: “The poor little ones! I don’t want to die!” It had been a low, moaning cry, and she had wondered whence it came. She had learned afterward that Inga-Lena had died that same night; it was Inga-Lena who had cried.