THIRTY-EIGHT

Memory Geography

JULY 1906

Cool sunshine brushed my face as summer winds whistled past our ears on the deck of the Helsingfors taking us to Hanko, Finland. Franklin didn’t tell me until later that our new ship replaced one that had sunk the previous year coming into the gulf.

“They’re building a new lighthouse in Bengtskär,” he told me as we approached the gulf. “It’ll rise up fifty-two meters from a rocky island. We might be able to see it from here.” He pointed into the blue horizon dotted with sea gulls.

My eyes scanned the distance. Lighthouses would always make me think of Manistee, Michigan, perhaps my best memory of that city. I wished I had Olea’s binoculars along. “You know so much about everything here,” I said.

He shrugged. “To know Russia is to know a bit of Finland, and I know a little of Russia.” The sea air felt almost warm the closer we got to our destination, and an English-speaking Finn said the port stayed free of ice in the wintertime, making it a desirable passage for both Finns and Russians. “Wealthy people come here for the climate in the summer. And winter too.”

I pulled my motor coat tight around me. I liked the admiring looks from fellow travelers. A few even asked to see the coat, and I showed the lining and told them how the manufacturer sliced the leather side and then resewed it to make it supple. I’d gained a sense of competence using the terminology of manufacturing these past weeks. After visiting and listening, I could describe the artistry in what I wore and admire the intricacies of the designs, but I was still a novice.

“If the port rarely freezes, they likely don’t need fur coats here,” I told Franklin later.

“Russians always need fur coats,” Franklin told me. “They may not be interested in your Northwest sable, but they’d be aware if someone became commercially successful in farming it.”

“It’s my intent to make them notice then,” I said. First foxes, then mink.

“Oh, they’ll notice you,” he said. “I have no doubt.”

I was accustomed to Franklin’s compliments in the presence of Olea and Louise, but they were different when only my ears heard them. Still, I didn’t want to lose myself in this man; it would be dangerous with no certain outcome.

Everywhere we went, we heard about the Finns’ decision to grant women the vote and to allow women to stand for public office next year.

A Finn traveler winked at me and said, “We’ve sent many a countryman to America through the years, so expect them to push for such rights for women there too.”

Suffrage had been my mother’s cause, not mine.

At the hotel we arranged for a carriage. I commented on how many Russian voices I overheard and that the English used by the serving staff had a Russian accent to it.

“Everyone here is required to know Russian,” he told me. “Finland has an uneasy relationship with the Motherland. Russia worries that the Germans might use Sweden to talk Finland into allowing a staging site for a German attack against Russia one day.”

“Is that likely?”

He shrugged. “The alliances here are uneasy ones. You have to know the histories and family lineages to be sure not to step on someone’s toes. I wouldn’t want to be a diplomat in this part of the world. Distant cousins can be as much trouble as siblings,” Franklin said.

“You are a diplomat of sorts,” I said.

“Trade is different from politics,” he noted. “I’ve kept the same contacts for years now, people Olea and Louise introduced me to, and then those contacts introduced me to others. We make many decisions based on experience over time. I accept the differences of each country’s operations, and they accept my expectations and tell me if they can deliver or not. Saves a lot of time.”

I knew then I’d always need an intermediary for me if I continued in this trade. I could be blunt with people, but I’d never have the knowledge Franklin had. I looked at the profile of his handsome face as he stared out at the sea. I admired him. I liked learning from him and traveling with him. But I realized that was as far as I ever wanted it to go. Olea and Louise could have come along. I’d deprived them of something they would have enjoyed, and I likely would have discovered what I needed to about Franklin and myself anyway. I’d have to write and apologize.

The second day in Hanko, we took a car to the site of the silver fox farms situated well out in the countryside with the timber and crisp air. I wore my coat, though once we got out of the vehicle, I didn’t need it in the balmy breeze. Here my education deepened, and I learned from Kalmar Martensen, our host, that my success would depend on how well I treated my animals. What he told me confirmed that I had the right instincts. Our ranch near Coulee City would be quiet and isolated, no trucks or car noise to stress animals. But I’d have to build covered cages and fence running areas to keep predators out, while also allowing the animals to run freely safe inside, maturing until the fur came into prime. We discussed breeding and birthing needs, space and nutrition. Winter housing requirements. It would be no easy operation.

The foxes disappeared in the underbrush and reappeared for feeding, their bushy tails and bright eyes reminding me of dogs. “Many tons of fish we give them,” Kalmar said in quite passable English.

“Fish?”

“We live near the sea, so is easy.”

I looked at Franklin. “I’m thinking chickens. And eggs,” I said.

“Could work,” Kalmar said. We took dinner at noon with Kalmar and his family. The conversation reminded me of the table discussion on the Mica farm, where Olaf and Ole and my mother too spoke of breeding and milking and selling our cows. It was a farmer’s life. Kalmar’s wife said, “Is your coat one of Tsoukas’s designs?”

I couldn’t answer, but Franklin did. “No, it’s a London designer. We haven’t been to Greece yet. We’ll go there after Paris. Miss Doré wants to see all aspects of the business.”

“You hope to farm fox?” his wife asked.

“To begin with. But what I really want is to breed weasels, for ermine. We have some of the finest in Washington State, though short-tailed.”

Kalmar leaned back in his chair. He shook his head. “Can’t be done,” he said. “Need the canine family to breed. It’s why foxes work. Wasted time to try other wild animals. I could sell you breeding stock from here,” he offered. “Don’t let the woman waste her time, Franklin.”

“I don’t control her,” he said. Then, “How much?”

Kalmar shrugged. “For you, one thousand dollars for the pair.”

“A fair price,” Franklin said to my surprise. “Will you consider it?” he asked, turning to me.

I knew that a single silver fox pelt could bring in well over one hundred dollars, more than ten times our little Presbyterian church’s budget for home and foreign missions. But acquiring the pair would be the least of my expense and worries. Getting the animals back to Washington would be costly, with no guarantee of survival. I wanted to raise game from my own land, not import them.

“I want to try it my way first.”

His wife laughed. “You could be Finnish,” she said.

Maybe the name Doré was.

“We’re this close to Norway,” Franklin said. “We could go to Christiania. Oslo. Your relatives came from there, isn’t that right?”

I hadn’t remembered telling him that. Maybe Olea had. “Why would I do that?”

“Because it’s where you began too,” he said. We strolled along the wharf at Hanko. “I think visiting Norway would give you a path on your family search,” Franklin continued.

I stopped and took a step away from him. Water lapped against the dock where we stood. What had I said or done that invited Franklin to speak of my family? It was more intimate than his kiss, which had neither been repeated nor discussed. “Have I said I’m searching for my family?” I asked.

He looked sheepish. “Memories can flow through blood.” He smiled and pulled my hand through his arm and we began walking again.

“My mother left Norway when she was quite young. I can’t imagine what I’d gain by walking where she walked as a child.”

“The land speaks to people, Clara. It does. Who knows what Norway might have to say to you?”

Franklin put his warm hand over mine as we walked, while memory threads to my family drifted around me like a spider web still being woven.

“I suppose in Norway we could locate the fox operation Olea spoke of and take back information for her,” I said.

“We have time. Let’s see if we can find where your mother was born. You have a region?”

“On the Hauge farm,” I said. “Near Kirkenaer, in Central Grue. Her father died when she was young. Barely two. She doesn’t remember him, only her stepfather. How odd,” I said, forgetting that Franklin stood beside me to overhear this thought of family. “My mother was raised by a stepfather too. I wonder when she knew?”

We crossed Sweden by train to Oslo. The silver fox operations weren’t far from there, and we spent the day discovering only small differences between the management of their farm and the Finns’. Again, though, the need for high-protein food and the oils from fish were identified as important for animal health and quality of pelts. Coulee City was far from a fish source, but maybe there were canneries in Spokane. It would be something I’d have to explore if my plan took wings and flew to the other side of the ocean. The word if loomed larger than it had before, as the Norwegian fur ranchers also scoffed at my plans to livetrap and breed weasels.

My mother’s birthplace lay north and we took another train to the city of Kirkenaer, arriving at the administrative town along the Glomma River. We headed east to Grue, past the new church built after the terrible fire that had killed over one hundred people years before. The property wasn’t known as the Hauge farm anymore, but when I asked locally, people knew where I wanted to go. My nearly pure Norwegian told people I had connection to the area, and they assisted us.

We knocked on the door of the tenant’s house. A small building housed pigs we could hear snorting. I thought of Ida stranded in that hog house on Mica Creek, trying to keep the children safe while Bertha lay dying. Ole had built a better building for his hogs than this one appeared to be. I could be grateful for that.

The young farmer and his wife listened to my story. They showed us the house, then urged us to walk the place. “You can’t discover where you came from until you’ve walked about.” The tenants’ children gathered up eggs, and we heard the clucking of laying hens pecking worms for their young ones. Goat bells tinkled in the distance. As on the Mica Creek farm, the buildings were down in a hollow of sorts, saving open land for crops. Only the denser timber made the land noticeably different. My mother couldn’t have remembered this place; she’d been too young, and yet she’d been the one to pick out the farm in Mica Creek. Maybe saving the farm had been, without her even knowing, about preserving something from her past. I wondered how she fared away from it.

Franklin was right. I enjoyed the landscape more than the old house and its sloped lean-to roof, where washtubs leaned against the clapboard. “It reminds me of our Mica Creek farm,” I said. “But the surrounding timber, the woods, that makes me think of my property along the Spokane River too. That surprises me,” I said.

At the local newspaper office, the editor showed us a copy of the Morgenbladet newspaper reporting my grandfather’s death in July of 1862.

“Would you like to visit your grandfather’s grave site?” Franklin asked.

“There’s no need.”

“We’ve come this far. Don’t you know, Clara, that moments at a grave site can link you to a place, a people, and a past more than almost anything else?” He patted my shoulder and asked the editor for directions to the cemetery.

I’d never had a man anticipate my needs as Franklin did. It was very disconcerting.

I’d found something on this journey that I truly loved. It was not Franklin nor the furrier trade so much as travel and the nurture that walking in new landscapes gave. Franklin was the perfect companion, giving me room to consider whether I wanted this venture in fur ranching or not, pushing me with his questions while expressing confidence in whatever I decided.

Franklin and I had barely spoken of Louise and Olea as the trip had gone on. I’d sent them a postcard from Norway. (I bought extra stamps to save. I liked the colors and variety and thought placing stamps from various countries into books might fill the winter evenings.) I told them we had stopped to see my mother’s home. I even sent a postcard to my mother, writing of Finland’s suffrage vote. I didn’t give a return address. From Paris I sent Olea and Louise an Eiffel Tower photograph, and from Greece I described our walk through the columns of the Parthenon, how the stones chipped at my leather shoes. They were not unlike the stones between the railroad ties that forced my mother to buy me more than a dozen pair on our trip east. I tried to describe the color of the Aegean Sea. The furriers were charming, I told them. I said nothing about Franklin other than to note his skill in getting me from here to there.

How different this trip would have been with them along. I’d have been looking after Louise, probably contending with Olea over travel details, and I know we wouldn’t have taken the time to ride the mules to Delphi. We’d probably have stayed in Norway until winter. No, Franklin was the perfect traveling mate. Curious yet cautious, wise and adventuresome, respectful of the countries we visited, of their citizens and me.

It’s what I complimented Franklin on as we steamed back to New York. We carried with us finished garments that he’d place in the retail stores in New York. He also had orders for Chicago’s outlets and for Stone’s Furs in Detroit. We’d not spoken of the kiss nor had any other intimate conversation, but I knew we needed to.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better companion,” I told him as I toasted him with my glass of white wine, which we’d taken to the ship’s deck following our last dinner. Tomorrow we’d be in New York. A new moon sliced the dark sky, and I could hear the sounds of water shushing up against the ship despite the steam engines pushing us along. The smokestack belched out its inky scent. “You’ve been the perfect gentleman.”

“Not that I think that’s a compliment,” he said.

“Well, it is. A single woman has to be wary,” I told him.

“I don’t doubt that. Especially one as lovely as you are, Clara. And you are. Don’t protest every compliment you receive,” he added as I started to object.

“You took the scare out of traveling for me.”

“I suspect your mother did that, didn’t she?”

“She was daunting,” I said. “She showed me that a woman could be wise enough to raise funds to maintain us as we traveled and have judgment enough to get all the way to New York on foot. But we shouldn’t have had to make that trip. If there had been better decisions made before, and after …”

“People make mistakes,” he said. “It’s not a crime, Clara. Maybe you ought to forgive your parents for that. They were doing the best they could.”

“My parents couldn’t keep their commitments,” I said. “And they turned down an honorable way out.”

I wished again my mother could have written of the trek. Maybe she’d have discovered insights about herself, the commitments she made and kept.

Franklin spoke.

“What?” I asked.

“I said it’s not only your beauty that attracts, but the mystery and seriousness with which you approach life.”

“Mysterious? I’m just … shy,” I said. “I lack your wit and ease with people.”

“What you lack is confidence, though I don’t know why. You’re very competent, Clara.”

“Only because you and Olea and Louise have sponsored me. I have yet to do things truly on my own.”

He turned his back to the railing, leaned against his elbows, still holding his glass by the stem. “We could continue to travel together in the future.”

“I hope for that,” I said. “I may well take Kalmar up on his offer one day, and I’d want you to be my escort while bringing the foxes back.”

“That’s not what I mean, Clara. You know that.” I did. “I want us to pursue … what we’ve found here.” He pulled a box from his pocket. “It comes with no obligations, but it reminded me of you.”

I opened it. “You said I could set the pace,” I told him. I held the box in my hand, the diamond ring sparkling in the deck’s lights.

“True, but that doesn’t keep me from expressing gratitude to you,” he said.

“Franklin, I couldn’t. It’s much—”

“It’s not an engagement ring, though I’d be pleased if it were. It’s. to commemorate a wonderful journey because you rarely do nice things for yourself.”

It fit. I knew it would. I leaned over to kiss him, to see if my heart could open to what I knew he longed for—for me to feel for him what a woman in love should feel, more than the infatuation of Forest. I wanted what he felt to be a bridge to something more between us. His mustache tickled my lips, his breath was sweet, his mouth gentle. Sadly, there were no sparks, no thumping heart this time, as there had been that first night when he’d walked me to the door. Was I prepared to be a spinster all my life because I expected fireworks and frolic? Maybe true love didn’t demand one abandon all else for it.

“I like you, Franklin. We’re … Well, we’re like kin. We share a name,” I said. I started to remove the ring.

“Keep it, please,” he said. “It’s a gift to a friend and fine traveling companion.” I nodded. It was lovely. “I’d like more. This trip has shown me that. We could be a successful team.”

“We are a successful team,” I teased.

He said nothing. He was honest with me, and I needed to reciprocate, but the discussion made me want to chew my nails. “Perhaps I haven’t been fair to you, accepting your gift, your time. I surely haven’t paid you commensurate with all you’ve done. The side trip to Norway—”

“Was a highlight for me, to see you pick up stardust that links your family constellation.” He brushed at my cheek. “I want to make you want to explore our universe.”

“It’s been the most comforting time. I love to hear you think out loud. I enjoy your banter with other guests. I admire your … felicity with words and languages and the people. I love all of that about you.”

“But you don’t love me.”

“Love. Such a multilayered word with rich color, density, coverage.”

“Like a good pelt,” he said.

I nodded. “Could we see where this journey takes us?”

He smiled, but sadness crinkled at his eyes. “ ‘The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.’ Rabindranath Tagore. An Indian poet,” he explained.

“I guess I’m wandering through those outer worlds right now, knocking at every alien door.”

“What I know is that if one isn’t purposeful about affairs of the heart, they may never flower,” he said.

Experience entered into this conversation, but I didn’t want to know how he might have loved before and lost.

“Consider it, Clara,” he continued. “You’ll never find anyone who will love you more than I do.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving in his slender neck. “Promise me you’ll consider it. You could stay in Coulee City. You could continue life as you have it, but one day, we’d plan to be together, live and travel together.”

“Right now, I want to achieve financial security—or lose it—on my own.”

He sighed, turned back toward the sea. “I hadn’t thought about love as caught up in some financial endeavor, a sort of currency.”

“You invest. You risk. You can’t be certain of the outcome.”

“Or you double your money,” he said. He smiled then. “There is no real security in this world, Clara, save God and love.”

“Love is fickle and God distant from me,” I told him. “I’ll put my trust in the stability of funds. That’s what will open those doors to the innermost shrine.”

I truly thought it would.