Next childbed. . Six words hummed in his ears as a warning bell, a threatening reminder to be on guard night and day.
— 3—
During the Whitsuntide holidays Ulrika came for a visit and could both see and hear that Kristina had regained her health. She could see new clothes the settler wife had sewn for the children on her new sewing machine; a carpet loom was put up and the carpets were expected to be ready for Midsummer. And Kristina showed her the tree at the east gable walclass="underline" The Swedish tree would bear apples for the first time this summer! She could see the apples grow in size from day to day! And she promised Ulrika a bushelful next fall.
It was Ulrika who had carried the doctor’s order to Karl Oskar concerning his wife, and that was three months ago. They had not seen her since. Now Ulrika’s eyes seemed to say that she felt sorry for him, and this made him feel uncomfortable.
Ulrika knew. She had shared in something that ought to have stayed between him and Kristina. She was sharing the secrets of a married couple, and this was wrong. No third person should have knowledge of this. The Baptist minister’s wife was Kristina’s good friend, but he himself had not entirely accepted her. He supposed this had to do with his knowledge of her Swedish activities as parish whore which he couldn’t forget. He didn’t fully trust Ulrika of Västergöhl, formerly known as the Glad One. She was a talkative woman, she did not willingly keep quiet. If it had been up to him she would not have been in on the secret.
On her way home Mrs. Jackson had to make a call in Center City, and Karl Oskar drove her there. They were alone on the wagon.
She said, “I’m glad Kristina is well again.”
“Yes, I am too.”
“You can thank the Lord for that!” Ulrika turned and searched the driver’s face. “But you! You’ve lost weight, Karl Oskar!”
“I lose a little every year. It’s the heat here in Minnesota.”
“You needn’t blame the heat! Not to me! I know what it is! I know what you need!”
He did not reply. He jerked the reins and urged the horses on; damn that Ulrika must know!
“I want to tell you, Karl Oskar; I feel sorry for you!”
“You needn’t!” His reply was short.
“You have to lie in that ox pen! How you must suffer during the nights! You get hotter that way, of course!”
In one way Mrs. Henry O. Jackson was still Ulrika of Västergöhl, thought Karl Oskar. She could spew forth almost anything. At times she still talked like the parish whore, especially when she talked to men. He disliked women who talked that way.
“Poor you! You must go without and suffer! Nothing else left for you, because you care for Kristina!”
“A wife isn’t for bedplay only!”
“But a healthy man needs a woman! It must be hard on you! Don’t pretend to me!”
He had some crushing words on the tip of his tongue but he bit them off. And he decided that he would not reply to her any more.
Ulrika continued to describe the tortures a healthy man must endure when he was denied a woman, but from now on only her voice was heard on the wagon; the driver sat completely silent. Why, she wondered, did he keep so silent?
Yes, Ulrika wondered about Karl Oskar. Old as he was she had been able to embarrass him. He was a father many times over but as shy as an untried youth. Here he sat beside her now, embarrassed and blushing like a little boy who had just messed in his pants and didn’t dare tell anybody. But there was something attractive about strong, rough men who could feel embarrassed as Karl Oskar did. They were like little boys who needed a woman’s hand to help unbutton the fly. And it was such boy-men women liked to help if they had an opportunity. Now she felt sorry for Karl Oskar because he couldn’t find help with some woman.
Karl Oskar reined the horses to a stop in front of Persson’s Store. He was going to make some purchases from Klas Albert, and his woman rider had errands elsewhere. With a sigh of relief he saw Mrs. Henry O. Jackson get off his wagon.
— 4—
It was an evening in May; Karl Oskar had gone to bed and said goodnight to his wife. As long as day lighted him he had remained in the field preparing it for the corn. With some satisfaction he stretched his tired limbs in the bed. He was waiting for sleep. Crickets chirruped in the grass and trees outside — those screech-hoppers kept on without end in the spring nights, like an eternally buzzing spinning wheel.
But above this familiar, persistent noise from outside he heard a padding sound here in the room: steps of bare feet across the floor. Quickly he lifted his head from the pillow.
Kristina stood at his bed. White linen against the dark of the room — Kristina stood there in her shift.
He thought she had already gone to sleep.
“You’re up?!”
“Yes.”
“Are you sick, Kristina?”
“No.”
“What is it then? Something wrong?”
“Don’t worry — nothing is wrong with me.”
“But what do you want?”
“I’m coming back to you.”
“What did you say?”
“I want to be your wife again. .”
In a sudden motion he sat up in his bed: “You want to. .? What are you saying?!”
“You heard me. I think we should sleep together again. Here I am. .”
For more than three months they had kept apart. Tonight she had unexpectedly come to his bed, saying: Here I am!
He bent forward, trying to look his wife in the face for an explanation, but it was too dark.
“I’ve come back to you, Karl Oskar. Don’t you want me?”
“Are you walking in your sleep, Kristina?”
“I’m awake!”
“Is your head all right?”
“Don’t worry — I’m all right. .”
Her voice seemed all right; she spoke slowly, calmly — she was not sick, she wasn’t out of her head, she wasn’t walking in her sleep, she was fully awake. Her mind was all right and she came to him and wanted to be his wife again.
He was stunned; in his confusion he stuttered: “You. . you, you don’t. . you don’t know what you’re doing! You forget yourself!”
“I’m not forgetting myself. I’ve thought it over, really.”
“But you know as well as I — it mustn’t happen!”
“Karl Oskar — it can’t go on like this any longer between us two. It’s unbearable. You haven’t complained, but I know how you suffer. .”
She sat down next to him on the bed. He felt her warm breath on his ear; he took her around the waist, his hands trembling.
What was the matter with Kristina? What had come over her? Was she feverish? He stroked her cheek but it felt cool, her forehead, but it wasn’t fever-hot. She was herself in all ways, and her senses and thoughts were clear. Yet she had walked the road between their beds which they were not allowed to walk — she had traversed the distance that had separated them for three months.
“Don’t worry!” Her voice was confident, sure. “I know what I’m doing.”
“But next time!” he cried out. “There must not be a next time for you! Don’t you remember what the doctor said!”
“I don’t believe in what the doctor said — he’s not omnipotent.”
“But something was injured and that he must know. .”
“I am not afraid.”
“But your life — we can’t take a chance. .”