In the Distance

24.

Nothing left behind in the wilderness could ever be retrieved. Every encounter was final. Nobody came back from beyond the horizon. It was impossible to return to anything or anyone. Whatever was out of sight was forever lost.

The initial disappointment swelled into despair but soon ebbed away, leaving behind a sense of relief. Håkan had never owned anything. Pingo, the only horse that had been rightfully his, had died shortly after being given to him. The tin box with medical instruments, the compass, and the lion coat—those were his sole belongings. What would he have done with the gold? How was gold even used? How much did one give and what could one expect for it? He had handled money only a few times in his life and conducted just a small number of modest commercial transactions ages ago, back when he was on the trail. His heart pounded with anxiety at the mere thought of being involved in the complicated exchanges his plan would have had required. Much better, he thought, to end this journey as it had started—with nothing.

He kept traveling west, toward the sea, across the steppe, into the forest, over the mountains, down the valleys, across fields, avoiding roads, shunning travelers and herdsmen, steering clear of the many towns that had popped up everywhere, trapping when he could, eating what he found, and feeling, for the most part, secure, hunching and shrinking on his big horse.

During the following weeks, a sense of exhaustion overcame him, as if his body were catching up with the old man it had been impersonating. He would nod off on his horse and wake up without knowing how much time had elapsed. On occasion, he would open his eyes to find that he was headed for a barn or a house and had to turn around with a sudden jerk of the reins. More often, the horse would just stop, and it was the stillness that awoke him. Once, he was startled out of his slumber to discover that the horse was standing in front of a pair of lines on wooden blocks, similar to the ones he had seen at the mine. But these bars were made of metal, and they stretched out of sight. He waited for one of those pump wagons to come by. Nothing. Before crossing the lines, Håkan thought the construction looked like a helpless, maimed bridge.

He passed a yellow church, the first he had seen in years. It was run down—maybe even derelict—but it was easy to see from the moldings, carvings, and statues that it had once aspired to grandeur. Not too far from the church, at the foot of a hill, he ran into a strange orchard of sorts. What at first appeared to be little trees turned out to be small but stern-looking bushes whose main branches were contorted into tortured positions around sticks, to which they were tied with strings. In the shade of their own leaves, each one of these stunted bushes bore clusters of a fleshy kind of berry Håkan had never seen before. Hundreds of these shrubs were planted at regular intervals, rather close to one another, in straight lines separated by the exact same distance. There was something punitive and angry about this method. As he rode on, down where the rows of shrubs presumably ended, a large house with turrets took shape. A few smaller buildings surrounded it. It was Håkan’s idea of a castle. Not too far away, he spotted some laborers working on the bushes. He was about to turn away, as he always did at the first sight of people, when he heard a child crying. His first thought, a mere flash, was that it was, in fact, a lion cub wailing. Another kitten, he thought. Immediately, common sense rectified this impression, and he started looking for the child. He found it a few rows down, muddy with dirt and snot, bawling in a somewhat abstracted fashion while staring at the string of its own saliva driveling onto the ground. When the child saw the orange horse and the rider, its crying subsided, yielding to curiosity. Håkan did not know whether it was a boy or a girl.

“Are you lost?”

The child stared up at him, with those hiccups that often follow weeping. Håkan looked around. The workers had not seen him—or had ignored him.

“Do you live in the big house?”

Håkan thought the child nodded. Either way, the castle with its adjacent buildings was the only house around. Perhaps he could leave the girl (without knowing why, he had decided that it was a girl) with one of the workers and be on his way. He dismounted and very gently picked up the child and sat her on the saddle. To keep her distracted, he gave her a stuffed fox paw, which she found endlessly fascinating. Slowly, he walked the horse toward the house. As he got closer, the laborers dropped whatever they were doing and stared at him, the horse, and the child. Håkan, in turn, noticed that they were Indians. They wore only white clothes, which were, in every case, spotless, even if they were all working with shovels, pruning shears, and hoes, and handling those dark berries. He locked eyes with a young woman. He stopped the horse and then nodded toward the child and the house. The woman nodded yes. With a gesture, Håkan conveyed that he was going to pick up the girl and hand her over to the woman. She recoiled and looked down. Håkan turned to the rest of the workers, who also dropped their heads and avoided all contact. The little girl played with her fox paw. He would leave her in some safe spot, close to the house, from which she would surely be seen, and turn around without having to engage with any of its occupants.

As he reached the front garden, full of vibrant, strange flowers and hedges pruned into straight walls, a lady in a lavender dress came running out of the house, screaming in a language Håkan did not recognize. She rushed toward the girl, picked her up, gently scolded her, wiped her face clean with a handkerchief she produced from her sleeve, and covered her with kisses. Noticing the fox paw, she asked the girl something. She pointed at Håkan.

“Oh dear. Pardon me,” she said with a thick foreign accent. “The excitement. You found her, yes?”

Håkan nodded.

“Thank you, sir. She always does this. You don’t look and poof, she’s gone. All the time. Terrible when the night comes. Ay, ay, ay, ay!” she said, pinching the girl’s cheek and kissing her again.

Håkan looked down and raised his hand to indicate he was leaving.

“No, no, no, no,” she remonstrated. “We must thank you. Please.”

“No, thank you.”

“But you look so tired.”

“No, thank you.”

“Yes, sir. Food and drink.”

Just then, a stately man, impeccably dressed in tails and with a perfectly groomed white beard that looked very much like the surrounding garden, walked out the door, down the steps, and toward them. Håkan found it strange that they were probably the same age. Before he was halfway there, the lady had explained to him, in her language, pointing at the girl, the fields, and Håkan, everything that had happened. The man arrived with an outstretched hand.

“Many thanks, sir, for finding my adventurous daughter and bringing her back to safety.”

He noticed the fox paw, took it from his daughter’s hand, examined it while she whined, and then gave it back to her.

“You made this?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like wine?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, sir, you’re about to find out.”

“Edith, please make sure the gentleman gets a glass of claret,” the man told the lady as he started to turn back to the house.

“Yes, Captain.”

“And some meat,” he added, briskly walking away.

“Thank you. I’m leaving,” said Håkan. “I must go.”

The captain stopped, paused, as if suddenly remembering something, and then turned around.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

Håkan hesitated. Did people know that the Hawk was Swedish? Even if they did, he was unable to lie. He knew nothing about other countries.

“Sweden.”

“Ha!” The captain, excited, tapped himself on the forehead and walked back to Håkan. “Jo men visst! Självklart!” he exclaimed, holding Håkan warmly by the shoulders. “Ert å lät så utomordentligt svenskt, förstår ni: I must gå. Ingen här, i Amerika, kan uttala gå just på det viset. Kapten Altenbaum. En ära.”

“Håkan.” He paused. “Söderström.”

“Får jag visa herr Söderström runt på godset? Och jag skulle bli väldigt glad om jag fick bjuda på ett glas vin.”

Captain Altenbaum was from Finland but, like most wealthy men in that country, had been raised in Swedish. He gave Edith some instructions and told one of the Indians to feed Håkan’s horse. Before it was taken away, Håkan took the bundle with his belongings from the saddle.

“You can leave your things. They’ll be safe.”

Håkan looked down and clutched his rolled-up lion coat that contained his few possessions. The captain nodded and led him toward a building a few hundred paces away from the main house.

The grounds around the castle were like nothing he had ever seen. The triumph of man over nature was complete. Every plant had been forced into some artificial shape; every animal had been domesticated; every body of water had been contained and redirected. And all around, Indians in white made sure that each blade of grass stayed in place. Captain Altenbaum pointed out every detail. He spoke in Swedish and used many words Håkan did not know. Having heard Swedish only in his head since he had lost Linus—being its only speaker and modeling it after his own thoughts—Håkan found it almost impossible to reconcile those words with the captain’s voice and to believe that they could mean anything to anyone other than himself. An additional surprise was that he, Håkan, did not feel more confident or safer speaking in his native tongue. He discovered, now, that his shyness, his vacillation, his preference for silence had nothing to do with language. He was the same in Swedish. This quiet, hesitant being was simply who he was or had become.

As they moved away from the main house, the greenery regained some of its wildness, and the place gradually started looking like an ordinary working farm. Still, there were few animals (probably just enough to support the household), and most activities had to do with the long rows of tormented shrubs.

“My vines,” the captain said, sweeping the fields with his upturned palm. “But more about that later. First you. Tell me, please, Mr. Söderström, what are you doing so far away from home? Gold?”

Håkan shook his head. A long pause. He had never told his story in Swedish.

“I was going to New York. I got on the wrong boat. I lost my brother. Since then.” Håkan finished the sentence by gesturing toward the world around them. “I’ve been. I’ve been.”

During the ensuing silence, as he considered Håkan’s few words and the restrained despair that leaked through the silence between them, the captain’s brow darkened, affected by his visitor’s plight.

“I must leave,” Håkan said at last.

“But you just got here.”

“No. This country. I must go away.”

“Well, Mr. Söderström, I may just be able to help. But not if you refuse my claret again.”

They went into the most unassuming building on the premises. The structure was revealed to be the entrance to a long staircase. With each step down, the temperature and the light decreased. At the end of the stairwell, a corridor led them to a vast, dim cellar—the biggest indoor space Håkan had ever seen. It was full of barrels lying horizontally on wooden cradles in neat rows that faded into the dark. The walls were covered with labeled bottles. They sat at a table in a corner. Captain Altenbaum uncorked one of the barrels and, with an oversized pipette, drew some of the black content, which he poured into two stemmed glasses.

“Your first glass of wine, then.”

Håkan nodded.

“I am honored that it is my wine and that I am the one pouring it for you. I hope you like it.”

They looked into their glasses. The black liquid dawned into light crimson toward the surface. Håkan took a small sip. It made his tongue dry and harsh, like a cat’s. It tasted of unknown fruit, salt, wood, and warmth.

“What do you think?”

Håkan nodded.

“Oh, wonderful. I’m glad.”

The captain swirled the wine into a vortex, stuck his nose into his glass, closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and then took a sip, which he held in his mouth for a while, moving it around like a bite of scalding food, and then swallowed. He opened his eyes, and his face, relaxed with pleasure as he was drinking, wrinkled into a thoughtful expression.

“How long have you been in America?”

“I don’t know.”

From under his brow, Håkan looked at the barrels and then back down. He wanted to look at the ceiling. Instead, his eyes fell on his hands, which appeared to him like articles someone else had placed on the table. He put them on his lap, out of sight. Now that he had tasted the wine, he could smell its sugary presence all over the cellar.

“A long time?” the captain insisted gently.

“Almost all my life. I was a boy when I left.”

“You lost your brother. Do you have any other family here? Friends?”

Håkan shook his head.

“Where in America have you been?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I arrived in San Francisco. I’ve been to Clangston. Twice. Then another city. But that was just for a few days. All these years, I’ve been traveling. The desert, mountains, the plains. I don’t know what those places are called.”

“How did you live? What kind of work have you done here?”

“I’ve been. Traveling east, to find my brother. I couldn’t. Then I stopped.”

The captain repeated the swirling, the sniffing, and the sipping.

“Trouble?”

Håkan nodded.

The captain nodded.

“Well, whatever it was, it must have been a long time ago. We’re both old, after all.”

Both men stared at the table.

“I make this wine now. The best in America,” Captain Altenbaum said, addressing the wine in his glass more than Håkan. “But I used to be a fur trader. That’s how I paid for all of this. Furs.” After a pause, the captain looked up and across the table. “That paw you gave Sarah. Remarkable. I took a quick look, but I noticed that you stretched it open to tan it. Exceptional tanning, by the way. The soft yet lifelike feel. I wonder how you did it. Very rare. Then you stuffed it and stitched it back. With sinew! Visible only to an expert eye. Extraordinary. Extraordinary work.”

Håkan looked down.

“With your talent, I could find you work. Quiet work. You could even live here, if you like. We’d be neighbors of a sort.”

Hoping the captain would be staring into his glass, Håkan looked up, but as he met the fur trader’s kind eyes, he lowered his head.

“May I look at that rolled-up fur you have there?” the captain asked.

Håkan looked at the bundle next to his chair but did not move.

“Please. I noticed how many kinds of skin you’ve used. It seems so unusual. Just to satisfy the curiosity of a fellow trapper. Please.”

Slowly, Håkan got off of his chair, crouched down next to it, undid some leather straps, removed the tin box and the few other things kept inside the bundle, and then, little by little, as he let the coat unfurl, gave up his humped and bowed posture and drew himself up to his full height.

The captain stood up, leaving his fingertips on the table, as if that slight contact with a familiar object could keep him anchored to reality, while he stared ahead, gaping in disbelief. His eyes trembled as they traveled over the coat and then up to Håkan’s face.

They stood there, in silence.

Captain Altenbaum finally sat down and filled his glass. Håkan’s had remained untouched since his first sip.

“I can see how much you learned through the years. You’ve become a master. And all those animals. From everywhere. Of every kind. Even reptiles.” A brief silence. “And that lion.”

What Håkan saw in the captain’s eyes as he uttered those last words made him roll up the coat and glance toward the staircase.

“Please sit down. Please.”

Hesitating, Håkan sat down on the edge of the chair. He was about to shrivel back into his decrepit pose but stopped himself.

“Are those your instruments?”

Håkan nodded.

“May I?”

Håkan slid the box across the table, and the captain, gently, with the utmost respect, opened it and looked in without touching anything.

“Incredible.” He paused, passed the box back, and drank—this time, without ceremony. He sighed and seemed to be absorbed by a stain on the table that he was scratching off with his fingernail. “I have a child,” he said at last. His voice was serious but very calm—even sweet.

Håkan got up.

“Wait. Please. Whatever happened to you.” The captain failed to find the right words. “Whatever you’ve done, I can tell that your life has been hard enough already. I’ve heard all the stories, but I don’t know what the truth is. You may have been a bad man once. I don’t know. But what I see now is a tired old man who has been traveling without rest and needs to end his journey in peace.”

Håkan could not look at him.

“Like I said,” the captain resumed in a more composed tone. “I used to be a fur trader. My shipping company now has a vast fleet. Have you heard of Alaska?”

Håkan did not respond.

“It’s a new territory. Not new to me—that’s where I made my fortune. But it’s a new territory for the Union. You would like it there. Nobody around. Good trapping. It can look like Sweden. I can get you there safely.”

Later, in the main house, the captain showed Håkan Alaska on a globe. He pointed out the different stations and outposts his company had along the coast and discussed the virtues of each one of them.

“I have fur trading posts here.” The captain showed him three or four patches of coast. “Some salteries and canneries here and here. Small mines here. And we get ice from here and here. Whichever spot you choose, you can be sure that you will be left alone. And that game will be abundant.”

Then, in passing, the captain pointed out how close Alaska was to Russia, how the two lands were separated by a narrow strait, and traced a line with his finger across that immense country that went straight to Finland and then Sweden.

“Just the place for you,” Captain Altenbaum said, bringing his finger back to Alaska.

Håkan, who had never seen a globe before, walked around it, trying to track his long journey and seeing how all those lands came together in a circle.

A bleak glow was washing away the stars. The black sky and the white expanse hesitated for a moment before merging into one boundless gray space. Now and again, the groan of the icebound hull, the snap of slack canvas, or the crack of a fracturing floe revealed the scale of the silence.

They had kept the fire going through most of the night but had run out of fuel some time ago. Even so, none of those who were still gathered around the dimming embers had moved. The fringes of their circle were littered with oily tins, food scraps, burned tobacco, and empty bottles. Nobody looked up, except for the boy, whose eyes were fixed on Håkan’s face.

Throughout the long night that was now coming to an end, Håkan had spoken in his soft, vacillating voice. No one had interrupted him; no one had asked questions. He had often made long pauses. Sometimes he had seemed to nod off. During these prolonged silences, the men would exchange confused looks, wondering if the story had concluded. A few prospectors and sailors even got up and left. But no matter how absent Håkan was during these pauses—however long they were—after opening his eyes and stroking his beard, he always continued, in his hesitant way but as if he had never stopped, with his narrative. This time, however, after telling how he had traveled to San Francisco with Captain Altenbaum’s help and then boarded the Impeccable, one of the many ships in his fleet, Håkan stood up. His listeners pretended to arrange their coats and their few belongings scattered around them. The boy kept staring at him.

There was activity below and on deck. Someone shouted brief orders across the ship; a few seamen rushed by with poles, sledgehammers, pickaxes, hooks, and coils of rope. When it became clear that they were getting ready to climb off the schooner, several passengers and the rest of the crew clustered on the starboard rail to watch.

Almost tiptoeing, as if somehow that would make them lighter, five men made their way on the ice with their gear. The snow soaked up every sound. They seemed to be trudging through a dream. Some fifty yards out, the frozen surface cracked under one of the sailors, and he vanished in a turmoil of black and white water. The screams attracted more spectators to the railings. The sailor’s unconscious body was hooked out of the hole and hoisted on board with a rope.

Moments later, a bell rang. Flanked by his officers, Captain Whistler stood by the foremast, holding a speaking trumpet. This device amplified his voice but also his irresolution. He announced that the ice was breaking up and that they might be able to resume their course soon. They could speed up their release by blowing up the thickest section, a hundred yards or so away from the bow of the ship. He called for volunteers. The captain looked at the sky and fidgeted with his watch during the ensuing stillness. Håkan broke away from the rest of the men and took a few steps forward, in the direction of the foremast. The boy joined him. So did the officers and, lastly, the captain himself.

It took them most of the day to prepare for their short expedition. After the earlier incident, Captain Whistler took every precaution. He equipped the company with life preservers, planks, and cables so they could set up small stations at regular intervals, and he rigged a pulley system on the deck to drag all the men out at once, should the ice completely collapse. One of the aft rowboats was lowered halfway.

In the afternoon, the small party walked out to set the charges. The men were roped to one another for the march—and all of them were tied to the pulley on the ship. Håkan led the way. From afar, they looked like a group of children on a walk with their father.

Soon, they were at work with their tools. Everyone deferred to Håkan when it came to dealing with the ice—where it was safe to stand, where the explosives would be more effective, how to plan their return. They drilled holes for the charges, and one of the officers readied the fuse. The detonation was a mere cough in the void. The ice, however, cracked in every direction around each blast, and the men had to make their way back to the ship jumping from floe to floe.

Once aboard, Whistler proclaimed, with an unusually steady voice, that the expedition had been a success. He could not make any promises, but they might be able to push through the loose sheets of ice and be on their way as soon as the wind picked up.

There was a festive mood on the Impeccable. As they went through their equipment, which they expected to be using soon, the prospectors shared their plans and hopes with one another. On the bridge, the captain and his men laughed over steaming mugs. For the first time, the man from the San Francisco Cooling Company condescended to mingle with trappers and ordinary seamen. As the day drew to an end, right before the early sunset, the sky cleared up.

For most of the afternoon, the boy, enjoying the new status he had acquired after volunteering for the blasting team, was carried away by the cheery atmosphere and his shipmates’ tales of imminent wealth and fame. When he suddenly remembered Håkan, he could not find him. He thought that he might be taking an ice bath and spent a good while scanning the new breaks and holes in the ice in front of the ship. In the end, the boy found him in a nook below deck, squatting over his few effects. Like everyone else, he seemed to be getting ready to land. He got up when he noticed he was being watched.

“Can I come with you?” the boy asked. “When we anchor in Alaska, can I come with you?”

“I am not going to Alaska,” Håkan said, as he brushed by the boy and got out on deck.

The sun was low and red. Unlike the previous evening, land and sky were now split by the horizon. The men had started drinking. They were playing dice within a circle they had formed, crouching down around some chips and coins. Expectant silences were followed by loud cheers. Standing outside the ring, the officers looked on, smiling.

Håkan walked toward the quarterdeck, away from the gamblers. The boy caught up with him. They were alone in that part of the ship. Håkan felt the boy’s presence behind him, paused, glanced over his shoulder, and then kept walking sternward, all the way to the last port-side cleat. Once he got there, he threw his bundle overboard.

“Wait,” the boy cried. “Where are you going?”

“West,” said Håkan.

The boy looked confused.

“What west?”

“Now, I may be able to walk over the sea. Otherwise, next winter. Then, a straight line west. To Sweden.”

Perplexed, the boy turned to the solitary expanse. He seemed disoriented by the horizontal vastness—indefinite and bare, like another sky under the sky. When he looked back, Håkan was already straddling the ice-lacquered railing. The boy approached him, wanting to say something. Without pausing or looking back, Håkan started his descent.

A moment later, the boy, leaning over the deck, saw the colossal man pick up his bundle and stare at the icy extension ahead. Spindrift smudged the horizon. Although the wind had not reached him yet, Håkan fitted the lion hood over his head. The sky purpled behind plumes of snow blown up from the ground. He looked at his feet, then up again, and set off into the whiteness, toward the sinking sun.

THE END