Chicago and La Porte, 1907
Iwas puzzled by the letter from Bella telling me that Jennie had gone off to school in Los Angeles. What puzzled me more than anything else was that the girl had not written to me herself. Surely she would have been excited—and perhaps a little anxious—to travel so far away from home. It was not like her not to send a few words and ask for some reassurance. Bella was not always the best to give sage advice and calm a worried heart when excitement took hold of her. She only saw the possibilities in her schemes and could sometimes get annoyed if someone dared to question their magnificence, so I was surprised when no letter from Jennie arrived.
I was even more surprised when Nora did not hear from her either, though she anxiously awaited word, even more so than I did.
“Nothing today either,” she would say every night as she helped with the dishes after dinner. “When will she write?”
“It’s probably very exciting for her, coming to a new place with lots of new people. I’m sure she’ll write in time, when she has settled in.” I tried to make my voice sound calm and reasonable, and not reveal the feeling of unease that grew in me too.
“She has to know that I’m waiting,” Nora still fretted. “And it happened so suddenly, too. She never said anything before she left.”
“As Bella explained it, it was an opportunity that came out of nowhere, with this professor passing through.” As I repeated my sister’s words, I could sense the disharmony in them. The unlikeliness of such a thing happening was too great not to notice. “I will write to Jennie at the Norwegian seminary,” I told my daughter. “Surely she will reply.”
Bella had asked me to send all letters to Jennie to her in La Porte, for her to pass along, but I saw no sense in that, and asked her for the address in Los Angeles. It was when this request went unanswered that I started to worry in earnest. I did not name these worries, though; I only felt them there as something sticky and dark clinging to my mind, infusing every thought of the child with heaviness and shadows.
I knew that something was not right.
I asked a neighbor who had a friend with a niece who had gone to the seminary for the address, and after a while, she came across the street and delivered it to my door. I then wrote a letter to Jennie and enclosed a note in the envelope, asking the staff at the seminary to give the letter to Jennie Olson. I did not tell a soul.
Nora, meanwhile, had gone to see Jennie’s sister, Mrs. Oleander, to ask her if she had heard from Jennie since she left. The answer she had gotten was disheartening.
“She only heard from Aunt Bella,” she told me, sitting by the kitchen table, biting her bottom lip raw. “It did not seem to bother her, though. She seemed happy that Jennie could go to school, and praised Aunt Bella’s generosity.”
“And why wouldn’t she?” My voice was still calm, still reasonable. “Not many girls get an opportunity like that.” It was what Bella had said in her letter. “We should all be happy for Jennie.”
“Yes, of course, but—why doesn’t she write?” Nora stretched out her legs. “I sent my letters to Aunt Bella over a month ago!”
“Sometimes the mail is slow,” I told her. “Perhaps she is busy at school—perhaps she had many letters to answer, and yours is next in line, just waiting.”
“No.” Nora sounded sure. “Jennie would have answered mine first.”
When a letter finally did arrive from Los Angeles, I let out a breath of relief—it was short-lived, however, as the contents were not what I had wished for. My own letter to Jennie was in there, still in its envelope, and there was a note too, informing me that Jennie was not a student at that establishment. I immediately sank down on a chair with the letter in my hand, and sat there for a good long while, just staring down at the floor before my feet. I remembered Jennie the last time I had seen her, that night in Bella’s kitchen, the worry and fear in her pretty blue eyes—and then I started to cry.
I went through several possibilities in my mind. I wondered if Bella herself had gotten the name of the school wrong, or if she had been tricked by that professor she said came to see them. Perhaps he was not a professor at all but a man with ill intent. But why would my sister not say so, if she suspected that the girl had been taken by fiends? Surely she would have looked for her then—visited every bordello in Chicago! And even if Jennie was not in Los Angeles but at another school somewhere else, she still would have written, if not to me, then at least to Nora . . .
I could not find a way out of the maze.
I waited for the usual eruption in my chest, the tightness and the rush of blood, the sense of my heart shattering—but this time it did not come. Instead, I was overtaken with a hopeless sort of sadness, a sense that all was lost. When I closed my eyes, it was not Jennie I saw, but Little Brynhild running across the moors, her square little shape coming toward me, wrapped in a woolen shawl, and with her brown hair hidden beneath a headscarf. Her shoulders were hunched against the wind, and her large eyes looked straight at me, reflecting the cold light from the sky, before her lips split in a joyous smile, beautiful and wild.
I remembered what I had promised myself, every night in the loft at St?rsetgjerdet: that I would always protect her, even when God could not.
I knew I might be about to break that that promise.
* * *
—
I enlisted the help of Rudolph, who had every other Tuesday off from work. I told him we were going to La Porte but did not tell him why, only that I had to speak to his aunt. His wife, Maria, was heavily pregnant, so at first he was reluctant to go that far, and asked if I could take Nora instead, but even if that had been possible and she could beg a day off work, I did not want to. I found I wanted to take my son not only for the aid and company but for protection too. This worried me even more than the task itself—though it was bound to be unpleasant.
I knew my family worried about my lack of sleep and my melancholy mood, but we all blamed my bad back for the changes. After Jennie went away, it had become harder to pretend, though, as my tears were never far away and I had problems following a conversation. John often asked, though he had been experiencing some poor health himself, and was often tired and craving rest. He was grateful, I think, when I told him it was nothing, and to take his powder and go to sleep. It suited me fine; I could not share my dark thoughts with anyone. It was as if the words were locked up in a vault deep inside, and speaking them aloud would cause all sorts of bad things to happen. It was my pain and mine alone, until I knew just what to do with it. I scolded myself countless times for silencing Myrtle, for encouraging Jennie—and then I sternly reminded myself that I did not know for sure.