Walking on Water: A Novel (6 page)

At that time most immigrants traveled by steamship, and although the trip would take only ten days, it took Jon more than a year to save up for the journey. He left Denmark through the port of Copenhagen on July 7, 1901. He was nineteen years old, and it was the last time he would ever see his homeland. Two weeks later he landed at Ellis Island. It is unknown whether the spelling change of Kristoffersen to Christoffersen was initiated by my great-grandfather, immigration inspectors, or mistakes in the ship’s manifest, but the immigrant logs show that Jon’s name was recorded as Jon
Ch
ristoffersen.

Jon followed the example of many other immigrating Danes and made his way to the Midwest, where he found work in Minnesota as a farmhand for another Danish immigrant, Poul Johansen, who raised cattle and hogs. Jon earned double the amount he had in Denmark. His plan was to work the ten years necessary to earn the money for his own farm, but his plans changed when he fell in love with Johansen’s daughter, Lena, who was seventeen when Jon began working for her father. Just a year later they
were married. They lived on Johansen’s farm, where Lena gave birth to their first child, Finn, in 1903.

Once again, Jon was swayed by promises of a new and better life farther west. He left farming behind for good when he and Lena decided they would travel nearly one thousand miles west to Butte, Montana, to start a new life. They had heard that several major mines had recently struck gold (true) and that all the miners were getting rich (not so true).

In 1908 Butte was a bustling Western town of more than sixty-five thousand inhabitants, where, as Will Rogers wrote, men “still wore ten-gallon hats and red neckerchiefs.”

While gold was what drew men to the area, copper was what kept them there. Jon got a job at the Anaconda Copper Mine and worked there for the rest of his life.

Shortly after their arrival in Butte, Lena gave birth to two more children, another boy, Lars, who died from fever at the age of three, and a girl, Hanne, who was stillborn. After the loss of two children, Lena was so heavily grieved that some thought her “touched.” The family’s surviving child was sensitive to his mother’s pain, as observed by his father:

Finn is a sensitive and melancholy child. He is much endeared to his mother and seeks to earn her love, which she withholds not out of spite, but because her broken heart has none to give.

—Diary of Jon Christoffersen

Finn was a hardworking and enterprising young man. At the age of twenty-one, he opened his own grocery store, which prospered. That same year he married Genevieve Crimmons, a young woman from a second-generation Butte Irish family. While he was looked down on by Genevieve’s parents, Finn was lauded by his own family for marrying into an established local family. Finn seemed to have
realized the American dream. A year after they married, Genevieve gave birth to their first child, a girl whom they named Paula. Genevieve was a demanding woman and wanted more than her husband could provide. She convinced Finn to abandon the business, although Jon counseled against it. Finn and Genevieve extended the family’s western migration to the larger city of Seattle, Washington, where her aunt and uncle lived. Here, they thought they could have greater income, and they opened a new store.

I found it interesting that I was not the first Christoffersen to go to Seattle looking for greater opportunity.

Less than a year after Finn’s family moved, Jon contracted yellow fever and passed away. He was followed only a week later by his wife, Lena. Finn was unable to return to Butte for his own parents’ funerals, as the store was highly demanding—almost as demanding as his wife. In spite of his best efforts, the store did not do well. In the meantime Genevieve gave birth to two more children, both boys: Peter and Thomas.

In October 1929, just four years after their relocation to Seattle, the Great Depression hit. As was the case with thousands of enterprises, Finn’s store failed. Creditors demanded payment or took back their wares, sometimes both. Genevieve’s complaining became intolerable, and she blamed Finn for their family’s suffering. According to Finn’s journal, he was kicked out of their marital bed. Genevieve was cruel.

Genny was at me again tonight. I long for her affection but am utterly alone in my failure.

—Diary of Finn Christoffersen

Genevieve moved in with her aunt and uncle while Finn, with a thirty-five-dollar loan from Genevieve’s uncle,
returned to Butte to attempt to resurrect his former store. Unfortunately, the Depression had affected Butte even more than Seattle, and rebuilding his store was more difficult than Finn had hoped. He was lonely and wrote Genevieve daily, entreating her to bring the children and come and be with him, but only once did she answer his letters. She wrote,

Do not think to win me back until you are man enough to support your wife and children.

Finn lived in the direst of circumstances, sending what little profit the store generated to Genevieve and the children. In the cold Montana winters he slept on the potatoes to keep them from spoiling. After eight months of loneliness he met a woman, the widow of the town’s constable. She would come to the store daily, sometimes just to talk. Both were hungry for affection. They had an affair, and the woman became pregnant with Finn’s child.

Around that same time Genevieve’s aunt and uncle grew weary of their demanding niece and sent her back to Butte to be with her husband. When Genevieve learned of her husband’s infidelity, she did what she could to punish him. She made him sleep at the store and would not allow him to eat with the family. During this time, Peter, now eight, and Thomas, seven, worked with their father at the store. As much as Finn begged for his wife’s forgiveness, it never came.

I must wonder if I am to ever have Genny’s love again. I have despaired of it. If I were a dog I would receive more affection.

—Diary of Finn Christoffersen

After several difficult years of Genevieve’s cruel treatment, Finn, struggling with guilt, loneliness, and despair
at not being able to adequately provide for his wife and family, decided that they all would be better off with the insurance money from his death. He shot himself in the head. His body was found by his oldest son, Peter.

Because Finn had committed suicide, his body was not allowed to be buried in the cemetery near his parents but was buried by Peter and a neighbor in a nearby wooded area. A wooden cross was constructed, but it has been lost to time and no one today knows for certain where my grandfather’s body lies.

I set the book down, both disturbed and fascinated by what I had read. Like my great-grandfather, I had gone to Seattle to seek my fortune. And, when things turned, I had also considered taking my life. I now better understood my father’s interest in discerning and recording this history. It was a way to understand himself. In a way, I had walked thousands of miles for the same reason.

I looked over at the clock. It was late, and it had already been a long day. I turned off the light, then lay back in my bed, my thoughts drifting from the past to the present and the future. I thought about Nicole asking about Falene. Then I thought about Falene and wondered what she’d been doing since she’d left me in St. Louis. Most of all, I wondered what McKale would think of it all and, if she were here, what she’d tell me to do. But that was nonsense. If she were here to tell me what to do, there would be no question of what to do.

“Why did you leave me, Mickey?” I said to the darkness. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

The first thing my father said to me the next morning was, “I had a dream last night.”

I sat down in the chair next to his bed, expecting him to tell me about it, but he didn’t. I had brought with me my father’s chess set, a heavy walnut inlaid board with carved wooden chessmen with felted bottoms.

“You brought my set,” he said.

“The other one was too flimsy.”

“Are you saying that’s why you lost?”

“No, I take credit for that,” I said. “Are you going to tell me about your dream?”

“It was about your mother,” he said. “And McKale.”

This piqued my interest even more. “Tell me about it.”

“We were in this garden. It was big. Miles and miles of the most beautiful flowers and plants. It reminded me of the arboretum, but with more flowers. Thousands of them.”

“Where McKale and I were married,” I said.

“Right,” he said. “It rained.”

“It typhooned,” I said.

He nodded. “We got wet. Anyway, in my dream, the girls were in this garden sitting on the bank of a brook. As I walked up to them they both looked up at me.” My father paused, and his voice took on a faraway tone. “She
was so beautiful. They both were. It was as if light was coming from their skin.” He looked into my eyes. “It seemed so real.”

“Did they say anything?”

“Your mother asked why I was there. She said I wasn’t expected yet. Then—” He stopped abruptly.

“Then what?”

“Nothing,” he said. “It was just a dream.”

I looked at him curiously, wondering what he was holding back.

“Get out the chessboard,” he said. “Time to take you to the woodshed.”

“Really, you’re trash-talking?”

I set up the chessboard on his table and pushed it toward him.

“You go first,” he said.

“You’re a gentleman,” I said. I moved a pawn.

“You always move the same piece,” he said.

“It works for me.”

“What do you mean by
works
? You always lose.”

“
Always
is a bit strong.”

“When was the last time you won?”

“Never.”

“Exactly.”

“You should let me win sometime,” I said.

“Then it wouldn’t be winning.”

After a few moves I said, “There were more offerings on the porch last night. They were from Pam and Margie.”

He just nodded.

“Margie’s gift was in the bushes. I think Pam threw it there.”

“Pam’s a determined woman,” my father said. “She calls too frequently.”

“How many women do you have chasing you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll bring their gifts tomorrow if you want. I’m sure there will be more by then.”

“More baked goods?”

“Probably.”

“You can have them.”

“You liked the muffins,” I said, looking at the empty basket.

“The nurses ate them,” he said. “Have you heard from Nicole?”

“Not this morning. We had dinner last night.”

He moved his knight. “Is she coming by today?”

“I think so. That’s why she’s here.”

“She’s a good girl.”

“That’s what you said yesterday.”

“Probably still true.” My father suddenly went quiet as he studied the board. We played for nearly five minutes without talking. Then he asked, “What’s going to happen with her?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and her.”

“I don’t know. She asked me about Falene last night.”

He looked up at me with concern. “What did she say?”

“She asked if I had found her. I told her I had, but I hadn’t talked to her yet.”

He went back to the board, taking my queen with his knight. “You need to be more careful,” he said.

“Are you still talking about the game?”

“Yes. If you want advice about women, you could do better than me.”

“So the dream you had. Did it make you wonder?”

“About what?”

“If some part of it was real.”

I expected my father to dismiss the idea, but he didn’t. “I think there might be more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in my philosophy.”

“You’re softening about religion?”

“Religion? No. But God, that’s a different matter. Never confuse the clock with the time.”

“But you’ve changed your mind about God?”

“Maybe getting closer to the finish line does that to a man.”

“What’s with all the references to the end of life?” I said. “You’re still young.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s the heart attack talking.” He took another one of my pieces. “The other day I had this thought. If you look around, there’s an order to things. The way the planets revolve around the sun is remarkably similar to the way electrons revolve around a nucleus. If science proves anything, it’s that nothing comes from nothing. Something caused those things to act. It’s not too hard to believe in the creator of that order. If you want to call that God, then maybe I do believe in God.”

“What about an afterlife?”

“What about it?”

“Do you believe in one?”

“What you’re really asking is, is there such a thing as a soul?” He looked over his move for a moment, then said, “It’s hard to believe that there’s nothing more to us than electrical impulses.”

“Where do our souls go after death?”

Still looking at the board, he said, “Toledo.”

I laughed. “Toledo?”

“Why not? It’s as likely a destination as any.”

We played a bit more in silence. As usual, I found myself in trouble.

“You’re too impatient,” he said. “You shouldn’t move until you know it’s right.”

“Obviously I thought it was right.”

“It wasn’t,” he said.

“I can see that now.” I looked over the board. “I think I’m dead.”

“You are.”

“Speaking of dead, I read in your family history last night.”

“That’s an interesting segue. How far did you get?”

“I got to where your grandfather committed suicide.”

He frowned. “Dead is right. It was tragic. Such unnecessary pain.”

“Were you close to your grandmother?”

“No; I met her only once. At my mother’s funeral. She was very old. I think she was just too mean to die. Or maybe it was her curse to see all her children die before her.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“I told her that I was Peter’s son. I thought it was pathetic that I had to tell my grandmother who I was. I still do.”