When I Was a Child: An Autobiographical Novel

Chapter XVI

Returning from the factory one day, Valter stopped at the post office to pick up the week’s mail.There was an America-letter addressed to him personally. This was unusual, for his sister and brothers always addressed their letters to his mother. Not that it mattered much who the addressee was, as he read the letters to his mother anyway. But he was surprised to recognize Anton’s handwriting on a letter to himself. Dear Brother, I hope these lines reach you in good health. Sad things have happened to your brother Gunnar, he was buried two weeks ago, I was at the funeral, he lived near us . . . As Valter read the letter, his head began to swim; the whole post office seemed upside down. He began at the beginning again: Gunnar was dead. He tried the middle of the letter, he looked at the last lines: Gunnar was dead.He had been killed in the railroad yard in Duluth by accident; while switching cars he had been crushed between two buffers. Anton had been the only one of the family to attend the funeral; the others lived long distances from Duluth.  chapter xvi =' 16chap16_Layout 1 11/22/2013 12:33 Page 233  When I Was a Child The mail from America was slow now during the war—Gunnar had been in his grave for almost four months. This was December, and on August , in the evening, two buffers in the Duluth railroad yard had crushed his chest. Valter remembered the th of August: it had been a Saturday, he had been out dancing with Karin. He pushed the letter into his hip pocket and remained standing in the post office. Gunnar was dead. You see, Valter, we over here think it best not to say anything to Mother about Gunnar. None of us here will ever write her about it. I have kept all the papers and taken care of all things in connection with his death, as they do in this country. You must promise not to tell Mother, Valter . . . Gunnar was dead but he must not disturb Mother with this knowledge. I still live in Minnesota, but intend to move to California. I guess many things have changed in the old country, I aim to come home for a visit some summer. Don’t tell Mother . . . He had been out dancing that evening, been out for amusement, while some workingman had picked up Gunnar’s body and put it on a stretcher, his brother with the crushed chest, crushed by the car buffers. Many thousands of workers had fallen in the war that day. But none of them had been his brother. There was a difference when it concerned one’s brother.And Gunnar had been the only brother he had been close to. They had stood outside on the station platform, 16chap16_Layout 1 11/22/2013 12:33 Page 234 c ha p t e r xv i  he still knew the very spot; Gunnar had stood there, decked with flowers. They had shaken hands, he had said that he would return as he had promised, they would see each other again—good-by, then! Good-by, Gunnar! Then the locomotive had spouted steam, and the departing whistle had blown.Then nothing more, not a single word, between two brothers in the only life that existed. Gunnar is dead, yes, Valter . . . And there was no meaning to anything. On that day, when Gunnar had left, Valter had escorted him to his grave. Mother had gone only a part of the way, but he had followed his brother all the way to the station platform.And Gunnar’s chest had been decked with flowers, and Gunnar had traveled directly to Duluth, Minnesota, to get his chest crushed in, to get buried in a Duluth cemetery. There hung in the station waiting-room a poster, it had hung there for years: “Opportunity for Youth! Join the Army!” He had asked Anton for a ticket for Gunnar to save him from militarism. To be on the safe side, Gunnar had gone to America; he had escaped the Army. There was no meaning to anything. Not yet twenty. Not half as old as Father when he died. He had emigrated to earn money so that he could return and buy back their home. But he had traveled to Duluth, only...