“Help me, Månsson. We must carry her inside. .”
Karl Oskar loosened the hoe from the dead one’s grip. Anders Månsson bent down and took hold of her legs; his hands shook like those of a very old man. Together they carried her toward the cabin. Fina-Kajsa was not heavy, she was not a burden for one man alone, much less for two, but Karl Oskar felt that the son ought to help carry his mother home.
They placed Fina-Kajsa on her bed, and Karl Oskar pulled a blanket over the corpse.
He saw a whiskey keg beside the son’s bed, a five-gallon one from Fischer’s inn; Anders Månsson fed his drunkenness as long as the whiskey lasted. Karl Oskar would have liked to give the drunkard a good talking to: While drinking in bed he had let his mother work herself to death. But what use would there be in reproach? The dead body on the other bed was reproach enough.
In his soul Anders Månsson was a decent person, and now he had double sorrow: his regret over what he had done to his mother.
The two settlers went outside and sat down on the stoop. Karl Oskar said he would help as much as he could with the funeral. On his way home he would stop by at Jonas Petter’s and tell Swedish Anna to come and wash the body and dress it for the coffin. The Irish carpenter in Taylors Falls was sure to make the coffin.
“Thanks, Nilsson. You’re good to me. .”
Karl Oskar replied that Anders Månsson had helped him greatly that first year they were out here; he was glad if he could help in return. Fina-Kajsa’s son breathed heavily and his voice was hoarse; he coughed hollowly, as if his cough came from a deep hole, an empty space in his chest, a hollow, vaulted cellar.
“I don’t feel well. I’ve spoiled my health here in Minnesota.”
His power of speech was returning. He felt his head; returning also was the hangover.
“Life out here is hard on one’s health; not all can take it. .”
“But you must stop drinking, Månsson! You’ll wreck your life and everything. .”
“You mean I’ve wrecked my mother. .?”
“You’re killing yourself as well! Stop your drinking!”
“Oh. . oh. . oh. . ha. . ha. .”
It rattled down in his throat, it almost sounded like an eerie, echoing laughter. Stupefied, Karl Oskar looked at him.
But Anders Månsson was not laughing. There was some irritation in his throat; he coughed — he emitted a sound that was neither cry nor laugh, only an outcry from a man in hopeless despair:
“Stop drinking! What the hell! That’s easy, ya betcha!”
“What’s the matter? Are you still drunk?”
“You said to stop drinking. . as if it were that easy! Like stopping your job or something. Just quit! It isn’t that easy, Nilsson. You don’t understand my trouble! Not one little part of it!”
“Have you tried to stop?”
“Every second day for ten years!”
“Why can’t you stop?”
“Why!?”
“Yes, tell me. .”
“Why. .? Because. . because I’m afraid. .”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Nilsson, you can’t. .”
He stopped. He seemed to have lost his speech again. He looked through the open door into the cabin. He could see the foot end of the bed, he could see a pair of feet in dirty white, worn-out woolen socks, a pair of old feet which today had tramped the earth for the last time.
He leaned over with both hands to his face. His body began to shake.
“What are you afraid of, Månsson?”
He did not reply, only mumbled again: “Mother!”
Karl Oskar waited. Fina-Kajsa’s son must have time to gather his senses. Unprepared, he had seen his mother lying dead in the field — that was about as much as a man could take, even when he was well.
After a moment Anders Månsson began to talk again. He lowered his voice and looked about as if afraid some outsider were listening:
“I’ll tell you, Nilsson. .”
“What are you afraid of?”
“The madhouse. .”
“The madhouse. .?”
“Yes — do you understand, Nilsson. .?”
“No, Månsson, I don’t understand at all.”
But in the next moment he understood. Fina-Kajsa’s son was talking about the insane asylum.
“That place — you know. Can you understand my trouble now?”
Anders Månsson crouched and looked about as if danger lurked, as if something were round the corner of the house that he didn’t want to see, as if the madhouse were quite close, on his own ground. Yes, wasn’t it back there, beyond the field? He had seen it many times, it came closer each time he looked at it. Next time it might be right here, in his own field, opening its doors for him.
“The madhouse. .”
Right here at his doorstep! Cozy and nice! Come right in, Anders Månsson! The doors are wide open! This is your home! Come in!
Fina-Kajsa’s son saw things that weren’t there, and Karl Oskar had received an answer to his question.
— 4—
Anders Månsson had once confided in Kristina that when he came to the Territory there were hardly any people there except Indians. For months on end he had no living soul to speak to; he could not have felt more alone and lost if he had been the only human being in the world. The loneliness made him long for the homeland. Perhaps he could have gathered together enough money for a return ticket but he felt ashamed to go back as poor and empty-handed as he had been when he left. Everyone would call him a failure. And when he left for America he had been so proud and uppity that he had called Sweden a shit-country, and said that he would rather be eaten by carrion than be buried there. He had emigrated with the thought of never returning, and if he went back he would have to suffer for his pride; he would have to eat every word he had uttered about the old country. He was ashamed to go back. Then he had written his parents a letter of lies: He liked it in America, all went well with him, he had a fine farm. They could come and live with him in their old age — he invited them because he was sure they would never come. But one day his mother had arrived and surprised him, and she had asked, where were his fine mansion and his vast fields he had written about? She would never believe he had lied so cruelly to her. As the years went by she became a little peculiar — at the end she thought her son was hiding his fine farm somewhere deep in the forest. And she kept asking, “Anders, where is your American estate?”
And while longing for Sweden Anders Månsson had begun to drink; he kept thinking about what he had done and worried about it, but once having changed countries he could never change back. Thus he had become the eternal whiskey-thirster.
Today Karl Oskar viewed one countryman’s plight. But he could neither advise nor help.
He said, “Whiskey is a poor comforter, Månsson.”
“Better a false than none. .”
“But afterward you lie sick in your bed. .”
Fina-Kajsa’s son took a firm hold of Karl Oskar’s sleeve, his eyes wild: “Yes, yes! And the worst is to wake up. It feels like my head were boiling in a caldron, a slow boil. . Then I get scared to death! That’s when I see the madhouse! The madhouse! Then there’s only one help. . one help. .”
What did it help to warn or advise here? No outsider could lessen a burden or ache in someone else’s body or soul. Anders Månsson fled from his torture to whiskey; he woke up with the same plague and fled again. He was in a vicious circle, he had walled himself in in a prison and each time he escaped he locked himself in more securely.