1896 MINE: Saime’s view of the prairie, 4 characters.
“Akseli.” The sound escaped and became part of the whistling prairie sounds, as Saime stood facing the pathway that swallowed her husband.
Purple hued grasses lay flat in obeisance to the cold driven winds from the north. Saime squinted in response to the icy droplets that pelleted her face. Her rough chapped hand on the door to her “soddie” as she whispered: “Mine.” The cramping abdominal pain woke her early in the morning and slowly became relentless.
“You ok?” Olaf’s lilted voice interrupted her diversion from the increasing discomfort.
“Not really,” as she held her lower abdomen as though to stop the inevitable.
The prairie grass roots held tenaciously onto the soil, through cold bitter winters and drought, through layers of snow and ice, they held onto the earth and never let it go.
The “soddie” became her and Akselis’ home built with the help of neighbors and mud and dirt, and pieces of wood dropped off the year before in the 180 acre space Alexis claimed for them. This humble structure protected from the wind by the berm it shared with its back wall, faced the east. A sunrise that greeted her every morning with a steady breeze and lightness that contrasted her two months trip to her new home.
“We’re ready for you,” Evelyn pleaded.
“But I’m not,” Saime had continuous seething that made no sense to her at all, but Evelyn provoked it somehow, she was sure. She felt the warmth from the house eek out of the door and closed it behind her.
She remembered her ocean voyage, there she faced the West and looked back infrequently, sometimes tearfully to the family she left behind.
Feet planted on the ground, as she looked at the prairie, the wind let up and the grasses waved. Unlike her view of the ocean only a few months ago she did not waiver from her stand.
The ocean water had not been palatable, and there thirst, at the end of the day accompanied headaches and dizziness, some indistinguishable from sun induced or hunger induced headaches. Rolling with the ship over the ocean, her only respite from the nausea was sleep.
Her nausea continued after the ship emptied its human contents onto the east coast of the American shore.
A few months later the water in front of her was fresh, a glacial lake, with water that invited the habitation of the Grebe, a bird new to her, odd appearing because of it’s pointed beak, and entire life spent on the lake. Its legs so far back it fell when fleeing from the coyote that chased it if it ever landed on the prairie grass. The mother Grebe allowed for its three chicks on its back as it swam happily in amongst the bull rushes at the end of the lake.
Would she be able to carry even one child so easily?
In Norway, the ad for the 180 acres first appeared in her hands in the form of a circular that a local Newspaper published, written in Norwegian. The paper crinkled in her hand, and held a place in the chest she brought with her from the motherland. Other memories flooded her as the cramps became more frequent. From her forgotten past they beckoned to her, the spirits came to her in her sleep, more frequently from the time she first saw the invitation and enough understood to know the possibility of recreating a life she once knew as a child: the promise of something all your own.
The first time she saw the paper and its promise to own something, even if you had no money, if you worked hard, if you walked the land and grew trees and built a house. That first time she felt permanence, something taken from her when she was a girl of 9 years. She, who had her history taken from her, felt the need to leave a record for someone else.
At that age she started to write the words “I want” in Norwegian and created a list below it:
my mother and father,
my life back,
my land,
my language,
my own family,
something new.
The list grew as she did over the next few years and a cache of things filled the chest where she stored all of her belongings:
A pencil,
a pen,
ink,
paper tied with a string of wool she carded from the family’s sheep tied around the paper,
a fork,
a bowel,
a cup of made of birchwood she had brought with her from Karelia,
a pair of socks,
a knife,
a spoon made of the reindeer antler,
a needle,
a roll of blue cloth.
The small box fit everything neatly, and she went about her way, learning more writing and reading and learning of the New World promise.
The box rested by her bed in the Soddie that stood strong behind her. The one that Olaf and Evelyn called out from. The one with a bed of thatched wire grasses, that dried and became a spring that lifted her off the cold packed dirt, and created warmth whenever she slept.
Her first Spring on this land and improvements in the form of trees and a house, were in place as a gift from Akseli, even though the real gift she lacked was Akseli himself.
The horizon changed from a dark to a light blue changing the air from its chill to a slight breeze across the grasses.
Saime cringed and grabbed her stomach and a groan escaped. The last painful cramp she felt was only a little before dawn.
As she opened the door, a gush of welcome warmth, of moist steamed air from the boiling water pushed on her face and she said, “soon, I think, at least I know I cannot stand much longer.”
“You’ll be ok,” said Olaf.
“We have helped many,” said Evelyn.
“I know, I,” and then the pain struck.
Her “soddie” supported with only enough axe honed wood planks to hold the dirt and grasses which mudded up from weather changes created a brick like surface, filled with people to help once Akseli, her husband, left.
Inside Olaf busied himself with boiling water and fresh towels. Saime’s sister Evelyn also in waiting, midwife to many and glad to be in time for her sister.
By the time the baby to be named Viola emerged, a flow of relief spread over her and she slept with the newborn in her arms until the next day. The soddie accommodated everyone all night long. She had prepared food a few days before and in a way that opened the door for the community to literally step up to the plate. Akseli did follow her to the prairie, as he promised, once they were separated somehow on the railroad and he found his way to her. She took that as a promise that he would be there in the future.
That morning he walked away, “need to attend to some business.”
Birth surprised both mother and daughter, not the birth itself, because there was an inevitability in its outcome, but by family who showed up to help and Akseli gone.
----
Saime remembered crying for the first time when she reached Norway, her faithful companion, Vaina, at her side. Vaina found a hidden passage through Karelia, then north over Finland, Sweden and finally to what would become her home in Norway. The language was pretty to listen to but nothing at all like the sounds she grew up with.
Sounds of dancing, of gentle laughter, of the kitchen and the warmth that surrounded her until that late warm fall day. Her mother pushed her into a cupboard when she heard the knocking at the door and she stayed hidden able to see the horror through the slats of the door that protected her from violence but not from the sprays of blood that flew in to splatter her clothes and face. The sweet sickening smell with the screams and then the silence, the night fell and surrounded her with a cold she had not felt before. She continued the wait and when the moon lit the sky, she saw a chance to leave as one of the shadows, and she left and hid in the woods and started to run, until she fell, covered herself with leaves and went to sleep. When she woke she saw the shadows of men in tents and tables and writing on paper. She continued to watch until one of the men looked her way and approached. He lifted the leaves off of her and shouted in a language she had never heard before, picked her up and ran back to the tents. The other men threw up their hands and had a look in their eyes, she had seen before, the same look her parents had the day they told her to hide in the cupboard, the day they were slaughtered in front of her.
The man that held her wrapped her in a blanket and brought some warm liquid in a cup and gently poured it into her mouth and she felt her mouth open as it slipped in drop by drop, letting it slowly soak into her until she felt a need for the liquid itself. Soon small bites of food followed, and she remained quiet. The same quiet her parents told her would save her life, do not say anything no matter what you see, they had said, and so she continued in that same quiet way. By the end of the day, she felt strong enough to leave and ran into the woods again, she knew what would happen next and did not want to watch a repeat of that slaughter.
----
EVELYN
Evelyn stood in waiting as she had so many times before, this time was different.
Saime was going through that birthing, her adopted sister, the one she never wanted and could’ve done without, the one that changed her whole of life as she new it in Norway, the one who made it impossible for the too large family to continue in poverty on the family farm.
“You’re going to be fine, we’re here for you.”
Saime groaned and through the groan came out, “you’ve always hated me.”
Evelyn had seen it so many times, the unsaid and unspoken came out in the birthing process.
“It’s ok, you see, this baby will be born no matter what thoughts or words come out of your mouth.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Saime.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me before, it’s very natural to say these things.”
Olaf chimed in, “we all have thoughts all the time, only a few are spoken, unfortunately during birth, we have no choice but to say them all, you are not alone.”
Saime groaned again.
“Soon,” said Evelyn, as she felt cramping also, as though she were giving birth.
“You?” said Olaf with his broad lip out in a smile and his large weepy eyes moistening.
“No, no, no, I am just feeling it, like her, you know how it is.”
Olaf shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, I have seen it many times.” He continued putting wood sticks into the stove that ate them up slowly. The round chimney jutted up at an angle so it could be secured easily on the slanted roof. They blocked it with stones chinked into each other to absorb the heat and protect the walls of the soddie from drying out too much and catching fire.
The white enameled stove, had it’s own place at the end of the soddie, the farthest away from the door to allow for the heat to be maintained in the small structure. The dirt floor absorbed some of the heat from the room but not enough to prevent the chillbains that plagued anyone in the prairie that didn’t have mukluks to insulate against the unrelenting cold of the winter.
“The window,” Evelyn said.
One rectangular square cut out of the wall, allowed for some ventilation and sealed tight in the winter kept the warmth inside. Olaf pried the bottom edge of the top hinged vent open and placed a small rock at the edge so it would not close.
“Now, keep breathing and rest,” Evelyn’s mother taught her all of this from the time she first met Saime.
----
Evelyn waited.
“Why does she have to stay here?”
“She is your new sister.”
“I don’t want another sister, there isn’t enough space.”
“She needs a home.”
“Tell her to go back to Karelia.”
Evelyn stomped back into the house.
“EVIE, pack up we’re going out!”
The box contained towels and a knife, a basin for the hot water. A small tie for the umbilical cord.
“I don’t want to.”
“This is what we do, you’re coming.”
She carried the box across the snow covered field in the high country of Norway, a Brekke, they called it. No one visited the high ground.
She pushed the box into the back of the carriage and pulled herself up, waited for her mother, and began the several hour trip to the neighbor’s house.
She trained to become a midwife with her mother.
“Why doesn’t Saime have to do this?”
“Why doesn’t Saime have a different name?”
“How come she has to stay here.”
“She should go back home.”
“Olaf is coming with us, he is going to help today.”
“Olaf Jorgensen?”
“Yesss,” the word was stretched out, like that whenever her Mother wanted her to do something and had figured out a way to get her involved.
“Let me double check to make sure we have everything.”
“Of course, and you know that Olaf will learn to help also.”
Over the next few years, they continued with the same ritual. They brought towels and heated water over wood stoves. Evelyn took over the role as midwife, as her Mother watched over. Olaf showed up to help out however he could.
------
Evelyn shook to the sound of Saime’s groans. Then turned towards Olaf, who waited patiently as he always did, longingly at his true love Evelyn, the one he followed from Norway. The one he knew he was meant for, the one that could help me through anything.
OLAF
Just as he had so many times in Norway, he waited for Evelyn’s directions.
“Oh, the strength of that woman.” Even with the normal jealousies of a sibling that interrupted her family life.
When he first met her, he knew she was the one who he should follow for the rest of his life. He had a way with the gentleness of life, and many of the men in town ostracized him, left him alone because he would not participate in the typical male rituals of drinking and fighting, the things he was taught to do from an early age.
So, he followed Evelyn, who followed Saime, who met Akseli on the way, who promised them the 180 acres and more if they would only take over the land. Akseli was a business man, “a Finn who made fortunes out of rocks”, they said. He had dealings with money and shops and wanted more than the prairie. His promise of coming to America to help till the land was what made Saime notice him in the first place.
Once Akseli got Saime to the property, he realized how desolate the land was and couldn’t imagine himself there. Then, when she became pregnant, he added up the numbers and secretly wondered if the child was his anyway. He wanted to be back on the East Coast.
Olaf said, “is there another woman, the way you are acting, she needs you now more than ever.”
Akseli turned away, “this is not your business, you talk too much for a Norwegian.”
Olaf pleaded, “I know you are Finnish, Saime needs someone from her home country now.” He yelled this to his back as Akseli walked away in the morning dawn.
By the evening, Olaf wrapped little Viola in the warm towels he had prepared for her and placed the wrapped bundle close to Saime’s chest and smiled. Evelyn saw the smile and Olaf said. “I hope we are next soon.”
Evelyn shrugged her shoulders and Olaf saw the shoulders and arms and strength of this woman, the one he loved.
“I know we can do this.”
1946
“Saime’s here!”
Through the wavy screen of the door, a figure of dust stirred as Saime approached, not the dust that kicked up when Viola’s daughter, Violette, played “kick the rock” but a different kind, it waved itself up from the earth, so that Grandma’s shoes were only separate from the earth when they lifted for another step. Summer’s heat blurred the edges of the stooped figure, barely distinguished in its faded blue dress from the sky itself.
This was different than any other day of an endless summer, one where she was dropped in the middle of a dust bowl.
Violette couldn’t get out fast enough, to see for herself, she pushed the door open and burst out onto the porch.
Mr. Olaf with his cane and Saime with her cane, what a sight. They walked so slowly.
---
Saime looked up to see the frail young thing push the door open and burst out on the porch. She felt joy, a smile and laughter enter her being as she stopped.
“So..much…energy.” With one arm still balancing on the cane she held the other open. “You young people, I love being around it all.”
Tears rolled down her face as she remembered.
“Violette, did they teach you how to hold a pencil.”
“Millie says I do, the Bovey Times puts my writin’ in the paper.”
“You can read can you?”
“Some.”
“I have something for you.” Out of her pocket, a rectangular notebook appeared. The number 1896 written on it. “Your mother didn’t want it, called it a pack of lies. But this is her story, it is your story, you should know this.”
Violette took the book and slipped it under her shirt and in the waistband of her shorts.
“Okay.”
“I’ll tell you anyway what’s written, you got to hear it said too. Every time I tell the story my family gets a chance to live again. So I have to tell the story. I love you and loved your Mom and your Auntie, but they don’t understand, to them it is the past, the reason I came here, they don’t like the pain. But it isn’t pain, it is honoring the memory of our ancestors. If we honor them we honor ourselves, what is in ourselves that is from them. We live our lives in honor and humility, we take nothing for granted. The hateful past should not be buried, it should be a place of learning, of compassion, of understanding.”
“Set down here Grandma, I’ll listen.”
“You know Olaf?”
“Mr. Olaf down the street?”
“He was there when your Mother was born, he knows some.”
Violette and Saime sat in the porch chairs made of honed cedar from fencing scraps. Uncle Roy had gotten really good at sanding, and there wasn’t a sliver present. They leaned back and Saime went into a trance while Violette drifted in and out of sleep.
---
The curtains unfurled in the kitchen as the wind pushed gently through the smells of the afternoon. In the pantry I retrieved the salt and pepper for the evening meal. Mother and Father turned to each other, embraced in a slow waltz around the small area, stopped to stir the soup, to add some herbs to taste the slow cooked meal. It was one of many days that return to me in bits and pieces. It all started the day you were born.
The day your mother was born. Spring and Violets and dark earth with the promise of a future. When I pushed you out, I felt the past, in a way that had been too dangerous until that moment. Or so it seemed.
The loud noise when the gunshots fired startled Saime. It wasn’t what she expected, it was a noise she had never heard before, she put her hands over ears and pressed tightly, to keep the sound out, to erase it all, if she pressed hard enough perhaps she would find out that she was still asleep and would wake up from her nightmare, the one unfolding in front of her at this very minute. The room became lighter and lighter and when she opened her eyes it was to a quiet that should not be permitted into her life.
The birds didn’t sing, the wind didn’t blow, the leaves didn’t rustle, it was only the sound of ringing that blurred out everything around her.
Shadows crossed the kitchen over the two forever sleeping people, her parents. She crawled out from the cupboard over to the two people on the floor, and touched them. All day she waited for a sound of laughter and a dance or two but that day changed her life forever.
Tears blinded her, ringing deafened her and fear pushed her to run faster than she ever had before, and so she did, through the woods, across the dead leaves, jumping and sometimes tripping over felled branches, and sometimes tripping as the vines caught her when her fear was at its worst and she was unable to look where she was running. The trees, light by the moon light outlined shadows similar to the shadows that entered her house only that day and she crouched behind a large tree and pushed leaves and branches together and hid under the pile of branches and leaves she gathered. The cushion underneath was deep enough to give her some warmth and the branches above her caught the moisture from the dew so she stayed dry over night. She woke to a whimpering sound next to her, two golden eyes peered in on her and she tensed with fear. The wolf did not bear its teeth but looked right at her.
Her parents had stories about the wolves, how they ran in packs, and were very territorial especially when it came to their family. This one seemed different, alone, had two different colored eyes and smaller than most with a flatter nose.
Saime moved one arm and the wolf wagged its tail, and nuzzled closed to Saima and laid next to her. She felt the warmth of the wolve’s body next to her and sighed. Slowly she peeled off the leaves and branches around her and looked out.
The sun trickled through the branches, beams of light, heated the leaves, and a small breeze lifted them up, some fell, and she heard them land on the floor of the wooded area. She sat up and the wolf nuzzled into lap and under her hand as she brushed his coat gently. When she stood the leaves dropped to her side in a pile and the wolf rolled around in them back down and feet up, a submissive posture.
A loud “crack” interrupted the slow morning and both Saime and the wolf stopped their playful wakening. The wolf’s hackles stood up and she bared her teeth and looked in the direction of the sound and stood close to Saime.
“What should we do next, little one?” Saime implored.
The wolf looked up at her and slowly stepped on the fallen leaves. To Saime’s surprise she didn’t hear the steps and wondered if her hearing was still lost from the shot that changed her life only one day before. Yet, she heard the wind, and the birds and the sounds of her own steps that seemed to be as loud as the shot gun sound itself.
She stopped and looked at the wolf, who carefully nestled his feet in between the leaves as he moved forward. She looked at her own steps and tried to place her feet between the leaves as she moved forward. IT was quieter, but wondered if it was quiet enough. She stepped even more slowly and soon was able to tell if she neared a branch or was going to make a sound with every step and continued on behind the wolf. As the sun slowly warmed the woods the breeze and rustling of the leaves became louder and her every step didn’t echo through the woods.
The sun continued to burn its way through the woods as she walked more confidently behind the wolf. She almost tripped over the wolf as she got lost in the sounds of a safe day. She tried to step around her and the wolf stopped her again. The wolf walked away and she tried to follow but the wolf turned around and stopped her again.
“So you want me to wait here.”
The wolf wagged its tail. She sat down on a pile of warmer leaves and leaned back in the open sun from a meadow in front of her. Once she stopped she heard sounds of talking and froze. Who were these people, where did those sounds come from. The last time she heard a foreign sound her parents ended out dead. Her hands over her face she quietly sobbed her self to sleep in the warm day. She didn’t care to go on at this point. She could never go ack.
Hunger pangs reminded her of the family dinners. The table filled from one end to the other, her aunt and uncles dressed in the wool and felt garbs so colorfully trimmed with red and black embroidery.
Their hats stood tall on their heads with strings of reindeer fur as ties around their neck. The mukluks all designed with embroidery and leather ties that kept them warm wall winter. As they sat around the table, white shirts open as they shared the stews and root vegetables that were staple amongst those of their village. Communal dinners were common amongst all of them as they shared in their wealth with all the members of the village. Near the end of the dinner, one of the elders stood and announced: “I have a song to sing.”
Respectful silence ensued as the elder chanted and sang the song of the community.
“Once the reindeer roamed the land
Gave us all we needed
Antler became our spoon
The fur became our coat
The hair became the lining for our boots
They kept us dry
Their meat gave us the stew we eat today
Together as we honor the great gift
Our family has shared.
The gift of life
From the reindeer.”
“Yes, yes, it is true.”
“We must be careful though, the herds are small. “
“What about the people from the East.”
“The Russians?”
“They are our friends, we all live in Karelia in peace.”
“Some would say they hate us, because of our tribal nature.”
“Don’t let the children hear you.”
“Especially, Saime, she remembers everything.”
“But that is a good thing, isn’t it.”
“We can’t have too much nostalgia for our life.”
“Things are changing and we have to change with them.”
“But should we give up our traditions in the process.”
“There is more to lose if you hold onto what you have.”
Saime listened and remembered it all.
“Shhh,” said her mother, as she gently lifted her from the carpeted floor, and sang the song of the ancients in her ear.
A lullaby she hummed to her every night before bed. The story of the ancients singing across the old sea, bringing in the walruses and seals and ocean animals to protect the land from outsiders. The story began with a hum, that was an echo across the land, a calling for the sea animals to unite with the humans on the land, to become part of the woodlands and the cloved reindeer who transported the people from town to town.
When the reindeer die, we will make a utensil for eating for each of the children. They will be your hands and feet and connect you with all the creatures of the world.
Look up to the sky and see the stars, each one is a memory of the ancients, shining down to us as they guide us on our way. Remember them well, because they brought you here to this place in time. They stay with you all your life and will answer any question you have about the past the present and the future.
When you need to travel, look up to the sky, they will always be there for you. And my sweet one, your totem is the wolf, he will guide you and protect you.
The hum of her mother’s voice continued through the night with every breath she took. The morning were filled with wonder and sun light and the warmth of the kitchen and smiling and laughing food generously given out to all of the family and anyone who came by.
“We are all one family,” her mother said.
“True,” said her father, as he embraced her mother once again and they danced the dance of a couple, the one of the legend.
After the song ended, the birth of a new person began, and the song brought forth the mermaid waiting in the ocean for the one she belonged to on the land. Her short stay there was enough to hold the family together, intertwined in a love and romance that created the rest of the world. It was the story of Karelia, of the Same of the land who many understood as the origin of the universe. They wanted no more than that to embrace the world with the abundance of life itself. And so the legend, the song and the universe began.
Saime dreamt it and lived it until the dreaming and the living were no different from each other.
----
The wolf circled around again this time bringing her a package of food, a sandwich, and some fruit. He dropped it at her feet, while she lay in hiding amongst the leaves and the branches. She lifted it up and noticed it was intact, and then tore off a piece to share with the wolf, and bit into the fruit.
It was the sweetness of an apple, that sweetly dripped along her fingers and face. The wolf leaned up and licked her face, and she hesitated not to accept that caress. This was the story her mom had told her about, a totem, one who cared for her in times of stress, one she cared for equally.
This was the story she must keep alive, one she must share sometime, and would.
She continued on her journey, stuffing leaves into her shoes and leather from her dress to hold the shoe pieces together. She continue on for days, and the numbers of days blurred as she walked forward across the unending land. Then one day she woke to the snowflakes falling on her face and melting. The wolf woke beside her and shook them off, and picked up her pace to make her move more quickly. She followed her, even though she heard more of the noises of people around her.
