“No. And I hold nothing against him.”
“Against him? Do you mean that he too — the pastor. .?”
“Yes, he led a wretched life; sinful like mine.”
“That I wouldn’t have thought,” said Kristina, greatly surprised.
“I told you once, ‘Henry is nothing but a great sinner forgiven by God. We’re alike, he and I!’ Don’t you remember that?”
Kristina remembered. But she had understood this to mean that Pastor Jackson had been born in sin, like all people.
“Oh no! In his old body he lived in deep sin! One was no better than the other, Henry and I!” Ulrika held her cup firmly and looked steadily at Kristina. “Henry used to steal. The same as I whored. Those two actions even up.”
Kristina opened her mouth quickly. She closed it again without speaking.
Ulrika continued: “Henry was in prison in England. For stealing.”
He had had the same unhappy childhood in England as she had had in Sweden. She had lost her parents when four, he when three years of age. She was sold at auction to the lowest bidder, to be brought up, Henry had been put in a foundling home. Her foster father had raped her and taught her whoring, in the orphanage Henry had learned to steal. He stole food to satisfy his hunger. At the age of fourteen he had escaped from the home and continued to steal his food until he was caught and put in prison for three years. When he was released he had signed up on a ship to America. In New York he had lived among thieves and whores until he met a Baptist minister who converted him. He was baptized and given help to study for the ministry. For fifteen years now he had been a pastor.
Kristina listened, confused and embarrassed, and at first without taking much store in what she heard. But Ulrika couldn’t have made up all these tales.
“Henry is an old thief — I’m an old whore. We’re two of a kind and very happy together!”
Kristina thought Ulrika would feel hurt if she now tried to excuse her and her husband: “All that is now passed, all of it,” she stammered.
“Yes, Henry and I have been immersed and live now in new bodies. We’re forgiven by God. We’re reborn. Our hearts are cleansed.”
“I’ll never forget your husband’s kindness when we landed here. I couldn’t believe he was a churchman. He was so kind and helpful.”
Pastor Jackson of Stillwater was as different from the church officials at home as his rough-timbered church across the yard was different from Ljuder’s stone church.
“Henry has suffered,” said Ulrika. “People who have suffered are kind to other people.”
Jackson was a nobler and stronger Christian than she, and she wanted to make that clear. He was a help to her when the temptation of her old body came upon her. She couldn’t pretend to be better than she was. The old serpent tempted her; at times she could feel him tickle her weak flesh.
When she married Jackson, no man had been in bed with her for four long years. It was not easy for her to hold herself until after the wedding; she almost crept near Henry before that time. But she wanted so to wait until after the ceremony, to show him that she had conquered her old sinful flesh. And he had not tempted her — he was not that kind of raw and selfish man. And in this way he had helped her endure and preserve her new body innocent until the bridal ceremony was over.
When at last the time had come to pull on the bridal shift she had felt like a virgin. She couldn’t quite explain it, but she almost felt like a girl going to woman for the first time when at last they got down to business. And in her new body, rebaptized and all, she really was a virgin, untouched by men. She was still in her best years, and it had felt so wonderful to be able to use her body for the purpose for which it had been created, now that God had joined them together.
Henry himself had had hardly any experience at all when they married. He had slept a few times with ordinary waterfront whores in New York but that had been fifteen years ago. So she had had to instruct him and guide him. He had really had so little experience that he could be called a beginner at bed play.
“Jackson pushed in too fast in the beginning, that was the trouble. .”
Before Kristina had time even to suspect what Mrs. Jackson was describing, with this last sentence, Ulrika had jumped up; she had just dunked a second butter cake in her coffee and had barely swallowed a bite of it when she suddenly groaned loudly and rushed to the kitchen, her hands on her stomach.
What was the matter with Ulrika? But before Kristina could ask, her friend had returned to the living room. She dried her mouth with the back of her hand, jolly and happy as ever:
“Excuse me for running out!”
“Did you get something in your windpipe?”
“No, it was only my ‘priest.’ He’s on his way now.”
Kristina looked out through the window but could see no one outside. “Is Mr. Jackson coming?” she asked.
“No, not Henry. I meant the priest I’m going to bring into the world. I went out to reek a little.”
“Reek a little?”
Ulrika sat down again at the coffee table: “I’m in the family way, you see.”
Ulrika used the English words and it was a few moments before Kristina understood. Ulrika went on to explain. She had decided long ago that her first son should be a minister, the same as his father. With a son in the pulpit she would be redeemed in the eyes of Dean Brusander at home, he who had excluded her from his congregation.
“I haven’t had my regulars for two months and I puke like a she-cat. I’m pregnant.”
In Sweden when a woman was pregnant she was said to be on the thick, and it sounded as if she were afflicted with a shameful disease, said Ulrika. That was why she used the English words for her condition, it sounded fine and elegant in some way. Furthermore, this was the first time she was married to the father of a child of hers, and it seemed strange to her, but not unpleasant.
“I wish you all luck!” said Kristina. “I’ll carry your first-born to baptism as you carried my last-born.”
“I’m sorry, but he won’t be baptized until he is grown. We intend to immerse our brats in our own religion.”
That was true, the Baptists did not christen their babies. Kristina was apt to overlook the fact that Ulrika had embraced a new religion.
“You’re tardy with your pregnancy,” said Kristina. “You’ve been married two years now.”
“Yes, it’s taken so long I was getting worried. I myself have borne four brats in my life but I was beginning to wonder if Henry was useless. Having born the others outside wedlock, I’m anxious to have a few real ones too.”
Kristina sighed; the childbed Ulrika impatiently looked forward to she herself feared. Each month she trembled lest her period stop. And her apprehension had increased since Dan stopped suckling; she thought she had noticed that suckling was an obstacle.
Ulrika added that she had already bespoken a midwife, a Norwegian woman, Miss Skalrud, who had been maid of honor at her wedding. Miss Skalrud usually helped the women of their congregation at childbirth, and she had promised to help the little one through the portal into this world.
Toward evening Pastor Jackson returned from his journey to Franconia. He carried his bag with books and pamphlets and also a parcel which turned out to contain five pounds of wheat flour and three pounds of fresh butter, his wages for the sermon. In the doorway, he took his wife in his arms and patted her devotedly on the cheek with his big, hairy hand.
“Ollrika, my dear, forgive me! I’m late. My dearest Ollrika — and we have a dear guest. .!”
The pastor welcomed his wife’s good friend warmly. With blessing-like gestures he took Kristina’s hands and smiled at her, the same good, kind smile she remembered.