The Knife, the Spade, and the Bottle

The Knife, the Spade, and the Bottle1

It was her favorite occupation on a Sunday afternoon–caring for the small cemetery near her home. She could pull most weeds by hand, but she brought a knife nicked beyond kitchen use to cut out tree shoots. A neighbor had told her that the Webster County supervisors would pay for her work, but she felt too old to be bothered with government and wages and wanted only to enjoy a day that had always seemed an hour too long.2

This October Sunday she emptied the southwest corner of underbrush and towed the branches to an open area where she could burn them. Tall grasses grew nearby. Bronze and gold, some were six feet tall. The most yellow, she thought, was prairie cord grass. Her grandfather had told her that his father had mowed it to feed cows, but it had twisted and writhed until it escaped whole from the back of his wagon.3

She drank water from an orange juice bottle she carried with the knife and a hand spade in a canvas bag. Although her back was still strong (unlike her husband's had been; he had jumped from a tractor cab too many times), it had begun to ache, and she looked for a place to rest. The tall grasses grew in clumps. She lay down on a bed of last summer's growth, dried by Iowa sun and winds, and she listened to the rustle of the grasses and the rustle of the corn tight against the cemetery fence.4

A kiss. It had long been only a memory. Soft lips and the brush of whiskers and the smell of another's skin mixed with that of tobacco. She opened her eyes, too happy to be afraid.5

"I'm sorry." He stood. She sat up. He stepped back, falling over nothing. She smiled.6

He struggled for words then got to his feet and brushed off the back of his trousers. He held out his hand, "I'm–" but as he stepped toward her, he tripped again, this time on a gopher hole.7

She laughed, and a meadowlark answered. He was on his knees. Relieved, he held out both hands in supplication and then reached for hers. She took his hands, warm and calloused, and they helped each other to their feet.8

He was only a little taller than she. His hair was red and tousled, and he had the beginnings of a beard. His voice was like that of the Norwegian who visited her farm last summer and claimed to be her cousin. And his smile made her think of his kiss.9

This is one hell of a dream, she thought.10

"I'm Severin," he said. "I work for Anders Hermanson."11

She frowned. "I know a Robert Hermanson," she said. He shook his head.12

His clothes looked old-fashioned–and she was used to old-fashioned, men wearing polyester cowboy shirts from the seventies with mother-of-pearl snaps. To her, though, his clothes looked like those of the Amish who lived near Hazelton.13

"He farms."14

"You're a farmer?" Her heart fell. Oblivious, he talked of the size of the farm he would buy some day and the buildings he would put up and more buildings he would put up and livestock he would buy and–and she remembered breaking ice in cattle troughs at five in the morning and exceeding lines of credit and rubbing grease along with the grout from the washroom sink.15

He stopped talking. The sunlight seemed to intensify and he to fade. "Who are you?" he asked.16

But she walked away from him. As she bent the big bluestem out of her path, she saw that the grass was green and the skin of her hand was clear with no scars or calluses. Looking up, she found herself on a slight summit.17

Robert Thomason's corn and soybeans were gone. Instead, lit from within by a secret sun was more grass and a slough that mirrored the clouds. Blue heron dove for fish. Canada geese, pelicans, and waterfowl she could not name swam through lush reeds and cat 'o nine tails. 18

"Where are you from?" he asked, following her. 19

"Down the road." She gestured at the gravel road behind her.20

He laughed. Loud. Like a gun's report. A thousand wings and the sky was gone. Bird after fat bird eclipsed the sun. She yelped and jumped back. He caught her. "I guess in Syvdsbotn we would not have called that a road," he said in her ear. 21

Turning in his arms, she saw a trace of a deer's trail. The sky cleared, and she looked into his eyes, a few inches from hers. This was familiar–his arms, his body.22

"You are a witch, escaped from the mountains, who works magic with a knife, a spade, and a bottle," he said, still smiling. Surprised, she found she had been clutching the canvas bag all the while. Then she tilted her head back to his lips, the sun blinding her. Enough talk.23

The sun was in her eyes when the noise of a road grater woke her. She lay still, trying to will herself back to sleep and into the dream that had not seemed like a dream. It was more real, more intensely colored than any dream she’d had before. But the ground was cold and her back still ached, so she walked home. That evening, eating dinner in front of the television, thoughts of Severin were inexplicably mixed with memories of her husband, Otto. Drinking black coffee while they listened to the morning news on the radio, lying on a blanket in the back yard and watching meteor showers, competing over who could undress for bed fastest but laughing so much they could hardly move.24

She was drawn back to the cemetery that evening. She knew that the dream was more than just a dream. She also knew that Severin was not real. Was he a ghost? Halfway there, she returned home for the bag holding the knife, spade, and bottle–perhaps they did work magic. At the cemetery, she stepped softly, straining to hear his voice. She looked for a tombstone with his name. There were two, but one was in the southwest corner. Severin Hemmestvedt was born in 1839 and died in 1910.25

At the Webster County courthouse she looked through land records but found that those preceding 1914 for her township had been destroyed in a fire. At her Lutheran church, she found what she had already known–Severin's dates of birth and death. At the Fort Dodge public library she could find nothing of Severin in the early histories of the area. Still, the accounts fascinated her because they described the world he lived in. The number of such books was substantial, and she returned to the library every two weeks for another armful.26

One day, the director of the library, who had noticed her interest in local history, asked her to speak on the subject to the fourth graders at St. Mary's School (he had had an affair with the teacher, which had ended the week before, and his wife suggested he cancel the speaking engagement). She was apprehensive but loved the children's fluorescent clothes and the intensity of their interest, although she was glad when the sad-looking instructor resumed charge. 27

Releasing the storehouse of information she had acquired was a surprisingly pleasant experience. Twice, she approached the library director to discuss a history text, but he guiltily escaped to his office. So she joined the county historical society. Like most rural organizations, it needed active members. She was soon secretary and then president, and without realizing it, she became a part of the web of the community again.28

Still, she continued to visit the cemetery. And once, after winter passed, on a warm spring day, she lay on Severin's grave and fell sleep. She slept far into the night and woke to a fire of stars and a full moon and a shadow that moved beneath a small spruce tree.29

"Severin?"30

But the deer bounded over the fence and across the pale rows of young corn.31

Her visits ended when her painful back led to a doctor visit, and she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The cancer was advanced and not treatable and rapidly progressed until she was placed in Trinity Hospital, where she could receive the morphine that would make the last of her life bearable.32

Her roommate was Mrs. Knutson, a woman of inestimable years who responded to her attempts at conversation with "you’re kidding"; it was, in fact, all Mrs. Knutson could say. But the farmwife did not care; the morphine disoriented her. She kept losing her robe over the bed's side rails, and the employees tired of recovering it. "Silly girl," Gerald, a nurse, called her. She preferred "you’re kidding." 33

One afternoon the robe was kicked far to the head of the bed.34

"Silly girl," Gerald said. "Your robe is under the bed."35

The dismay that washed through made her unable to reply. Mrs. Knutson did for her: "You’re kidding." 36

Reaching for the robe, the nurse found it was wrapped around a worn canvas bag. "There’s something under your bed."37

"You’re kidding."38

Gerald looked inside the bag, paused, frowning, then said "I'll put this with the rest of your things" and moved past the cupboard holding her clothes, toward the door.39

She slid out of the bed, dislodging the IV needle in her arm, rocking the stand as she reached across the nurse for the bag. It ripped and the knife clattered to the floor. Gerald clutched the torn bag to his chest with one hand and tried to usher her back to bed with the other.40

She picked up the knife. "Gerald, give me that."41

It was quiet. Mrs. Knutson was biting her lower lip, her eyes wide. The noise of the IV stand banging against the nightstand brought a nurse to the doorway and then another. Gerald laid the bag on the floor. The orange juice bottle rolled out. It had no lid, and the label was worn away. On the white linoleum it did not look like a talisman.42

Seeing one employee half-smile at another, she looked from the bottle to the knife gripped in her right hand, the knife she was holding only because it had fallen to the floor. She handed it to Gerald and let the attendants guide her back to the bed. She did not ask them what they did with the bag and its contents. She tried not to think about her trips to the cemetery, the cars she had met. What had her neighbors thought about her frequent trips to the cemetery? Had Kay Larson seen her lying on Severin’s grave? She tried not to think about Severin and the dream she’d had a year ago. She was only thankful that the dosage of her pain medicine was increased. The morphine did not entirely quell the pain of the cancer, of her organs ceasing to function and poisoning her body, but at least it chased away the uneasiness that had taken over when Gerald announced more than once that she could mow the hospital lawn next time she wanted to work in a garden.43

Time blurred. Doctors swam in and out of her consciousness. Whether it was day or night became irrelevant. Events only became coherent when a nurse forgot to bring more medication. This happened late one night when she was wakened by the pain in her side. Her roommate was asleep. She pressed the button that alerted the main desk. But instead of a nurse, a light appeared at the side of her bed. It was a man. 44

"Severin?"45

"Yes," he said.46

She knew she was hallucinating, but she tried to touch him anyway. The more she reached out, the farther away he became. "The knife, the spade, and the bottle are gone,” she reminded herself, closing her eyes. 47

“They’re gone,” he agreed.48

“Along with my sanity,” she murmured. She drifted back into the morphine. 49

“Silly girl.” She grimaced in reflex, but then he said with tender amusement, “My sweet girl.”50

Opening her eyes, she tried to focus on him, "Otto?"51

"Yes," he said, smiling.52

As she watched him, the glow within him grew, kindling a like glow in her, a warmth that spread from her heart, through her arteries, her veins, releasing the pain that had imprisoned her.53

"No, it's you," she said.54

The suns within them brightened and expanded the room, the walls and ceiling becoming elastic, stretching until they became transparent. 55

She was letting go, her joy too large to contain. But one doubt made her hesitate, made the light flicker. She looked at the IV that kept her tethered to the bed, and she tried not to cry as she put her fear into words, her biggest fear out of all the ones that had plagued her as she lay here. Her voice broke as she whispered–“You won't leave me again?"56

"I never did."57

And over his shoulder she saw a blue heron winging across bluer sky.58