(An excerpt from the novel Etched Upon the Land, unpublished. Copyright 2015 by Pam Wilson. All rights reserved.)

Photo:  Dorothea Lange, July 1937, Lot #1676, Works Progress Administration, http://photogrammar.yale.edu/records/index.php?record=fsa2000001454/PP

The Great Flood

Joe Monahan

1937

 

I’m carryin’ a great burden, the heaviest burden my soul has ever been forced to bear. ‘Tis a hard life to go on livin’ without my sweet Bernadine and my two angel daughters. I’ve had many a thought of throwin’ myself into the waters of the Ohio these past months, wantin’ to be with them but knowin’ I cannot. And in the end, now, I’ve come to understand that I must bear my burdens like Job and keep on livin’ as best I can.

I’m a simple man, but one raised to have faith. I learned my catechisms. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” But oh, how hard it is to walk through the darkness of these days, seekin’ understanding and knowin’ that God wants me to persevere. I’m walkin’ by faith, not by sight, through the dark and murky weeks since they’ve been gone, and I often wonder if God has forsaken me altogether. But I know I’m surely not alone. This flood has upturned the lives of hundreds of thousands of folks. I cannot allow myself to succumb to self-pity, even though I’m havin’ trouble seein’ God except “through a glass, darkly,” as it says in First Corinthians.

So now I must keep walkin’. All by myself, for now, until the Lord sees fit to find me some companions. I’m headin’ westward and southward. Leavin’ the places I’ve always known, headin’ into the settin’ sun and away from the damp and the darkness, the smoke and the fires, the ruin and the wreckage. My whole life was washed away down the muddy waters of the Ohio. So I must begin anew. Lonesome but determined.

+++++

My Da crossed the broad waters from Ireland to America as a young man. He worked his way west from Pittsburgh, where he toiled in the mines for a few years, then drifted down the Ohio River to Cincinnati. Danny O’Monahan was a hard-workin’ man who wanted to make a good life for himself. He fell in with other Irishmen who worked on the canals and the railroad and soon married my Mam, who was the younger sister of one of his mates. By that time, he’d changed his name to just Monahan, without the O. His bride’s name was Katie O’Malley, and he said she was the prettiest gal he ever laid eyes upon. They married at Holy Cross Church on Mt. Adams, since her family lived on the East End, but they settled into an apartment on the West End in the bottoms by the river. As the years went on, they had a few young’uns to feed and had saved up a little bit more, so Mam told me they moved up Mill Creek to South Cumminsville, where Mam raised me. Da went off to fight in the Great War and left Mam with four of us at home, but then in 1918 the influenza plague took my baby sister and my brother, next one down from me.

I’ve heard tell that everybody has at least one deciding moment in life when everything changes. I’ve had two, now. The first was in 1918. After the flu took the little ones and Da came home from the war, severe shrapnel wounds in his left arm, life was never the same as before. Mam went to work sewin’ in a dress factory while Da worked in the stockyards until he had too much pain to do the labor. My older sister Doreen married as soon as she was old enough to leave home. I left school and worked in a machine shop to help make ends meet. Da kept up his social activities through the Hibernians and the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, never lettin’ go of his bein’ Irish. When he was feelin’ well enough, he spent most of his evenings in the pubs with his Hibernian brothers, playin’ the numbers and supportin’ the local breweries, while leavin’ Mam at home to listen to the radio shows and do her needlepoint. I sat with her many nights, enjoyin’ our favorite programs on our hometown station WLW that Mr. Crosley started. We had a Crosley radio, too, the Harko. Mam was so proud of that. That was before Crosley bought the Reds, of course. He turned everyone’s eyes towards the Queen City, all right, by buildin’ the most powerful radio station in the world. But I’m talkin’ about long before that, even before the Crash and the hard times it brought everyone.

Anybody who knows Cincinnati knows it’s a constant contest between the Germans and the Irish. Both bein’ Catholics, however, sometimes we all come together. Well, that’s what happened when I fell in love with Bernadine. She was a good little German girl I met in a shop one day, not long after the Crash. I fancied her from the minute I saw her. Sometimes, you just know someone is the one that’s meant for you. I found somethin’ to ask her a question about to strike up a conversation, then I offered to walk her back home since she was alone and the day was gettin’ late. We had such a good talk as we walked that she agreed to meet me that weekend for another visit. She was a smart girl, finished school and wanted to be a teacher, but couldn’t afford college. By then, I was workin’ part-time in a body shop, pretty good at fixin’ cars. ‘Fore we knew it, we decided to get married. Tied the knot at St. Patrick’s Church in Cumminsville on New Year’s Day in 1932. Bernie moved in with me and my Mam and Da at first until we could settle on a place to live, just the two of us. By then, my sister Doreen had moved out west with her husband Sam, who said he had an itchin’ for the wide, open spaces. We kept gettin’ letters from them as they worked their way west until finally they decided to stop movin’ and settle down in Santa Fe.

Baby Ella came along pretty fast, about a year after we got married. Mam’s place was too small for a growin’ family, so we started lookin’ around for a place to live. Bernie told me she had a hankerin’ to move outside the city, but not so far away like my sister. She said she always wanted a little house by the side of the road with a garden and some fruit trees and a green, grassy yard, not a rowhouse in the city surrounded by factories. Well, I had no idea where or how to start lookin’ for someplace like that, since Cincinnati city life was all I ever knew. Then one day, the fellow I worked for mentioned that his wife’s widowed cousin owned a service station down in Kentucky and was lookin’ for a good man to work on cars for her. When I told him I was interested, he said he’d mention me to her, and I suppose he put in a good word, because she asked for me to call her and then she offered me a job based on his recommendation. Her name was Mrs. Bracht, Lucille Bracht.

Yes, ma’am, my Bernie was so pleased and excited about this. Not only did I have a full-time job, but with a German lady, at that! And Miz Bracht said she knew of a little house down the road we could rent. So I used what little money I’d saved to buy an old car we had in the shop, then Bernie and I packed up our things, loaded up the baby, kissed Mam and Da goodbye and drove down the river toward Warsaw, Kentucky.

Oh, my goodness, it was like a dream come true for Bernie. She got that little house fixed up mighty fine for us. She borrowed Miz Bracht’s sewin’ machine and made curtains, re-upholstered old chairs and a sofa somebody sold to us pretty cheap, and really turned that house into a modest homey place for us and little Ella. Miz Bracht turned out to be a fine woman—quite a businesswoman, to be honest—who also ran a little lunchroom adjoining the service station. It was in Sugar Creek, upriver from Warsaw on the main road, so she got a lot of business and kept a regular crowd comin’ back for more. When the lunchroom clientele became more than she alone could handle, she hired Bernadine to help with the cookin’ and servin’. Bernie’d set little Ella up in a high chair with some toys to keep her occupied while her Mam worked, then had a crib to put her down for her nap when it came time for it.

We had a good life there in Sugar Creek, Bernie and me. Bernie got to be expectin’ again about a year later, but the Lord took that one pretty early along. Before a couple years went by, she found out she was expectin’ again, and this time our luck held out and she had little Irene. We were doin’ pretty good during that time, especially compared to lots of other folks who were without work. We made a decent livin’ workin’ for Mrs. Bracht, and we always had enough food to feed our babies. We didn’t ask for much more than that.

Part of my job was keepin’ Miz Bracht’s station supplied with auto parts and other items, so I drove up to Cincy every few weeks to fill her orders and get stocked up for her. While there, I could check on my parents. My Da passed on after we’d been in Sugar Creek about two years, so I tried to make sure Mam was cared for. She was a right plucky lady for her age, that Katie O’Malley Monahan, still workin’ in the dress factory. She moved into a smaller apartment down in Fairmount, closer to her work and for lower rent. She wrote us letters two or three times a week, and on special occasions we arranged to make long distance calls to her. A few times a year, I’d bring her down to spend a week with us and the girls. She loved gettin’ out of the city and spendin’ time with the little ones. She enjoyed visitin’ with Miz Bracht, too, since they were about the same age. Mam got letters from Doreen every few weeks, too—said they were doin’ real good in Santa Fe and wantin’ us to come visit ‘em. We talked about it and decided we’d save up our money so’s maybe we could all take a train out there one day.

And then, in December 1936, it started rainin’. And life would never be the same.

+++++

Today, it’s four months later, and I’m walkin’, headed west, hopin’ to find a way to reach Santa Fe by summer. Got nearly nothin’ to call my own. The river took it all. So I’m strugglin’ with my faith and puttin’ my feet to the dirt, hopin’ they will carry me where I need to go.

Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways. So, I’m just walkin’ along the road, not far from Louisville, my worldly possessions on my shoulder, when a car pulls alongside me. A nice, fancy new Buick, though it’s a little bit dusty from the roads. I admire this car. The Roadmaster’s a beaut. The driver rolls down his window. I see a man about my age, looks like a workin’ man in the face but dressed too fine to be a workin’ man, wantin’ to ask me something. I walk over to him and see there’s a lady in the car with him, too.

“Pardon me, sir, but do you know your way around these parts?” the man asks. I look around me.

“Well, sir, I might be able to help you. Depends on how much detail you’ll be needin’,” I say to him. I see that his plates are from Carolina. He’s a traveler. What could a traveler from Carolina be doin’ in this God-forsaken part of Kentucky a few months after the Great Flood almost wiped it off the map? Must be his map is out of date, or he hasn’t been readin’ the newspapers or listenin’ to the radio.

“Can I give you a lift somewhere?” the man asks. “I’m trying to find my way across the river into Indiana, but I don’t know which bridges might be open or which ones are out.”

I do some thinkin’. I’m kinda good at that. Hmm. If he’s headed west, maybe I could hitch a ride for a while. Take a load off these dogs. Joe Monahan is a proud man, not a beggar, so accepting the kindness of strangers is somethin’ to which I still need to get accustomed.

“That’s mighty kind of you. Tell you what. Let me help get you around Louisville and we’ll find out the situation with the bridges,” I reply. “I’m comin’ from upriver and have heard a lot of news about Louisville, but haven’t seen it first-hand yet.”

The driver of the car stops it, gets out and shakes my hand. He seems like an honorable man. We exchange names briefly, then he opens the back door and makes sure the seat is clear for me. He motions for me to get in. I nod to the woman in the front seat, who asks me how I am, and I tell her I’m doin’ fine and that it’s kind of her to ask. I can tell she’s a bit nervous about havin’ a stranger in her car, though her husband is quite confident. They are young, probably twenties like me. I wonder what their story is.

The husband explains that he and his wife are in the first stretch of a drive across the country. They’ve just left their home in North Carolina less than a week ago, and here they are in western Kentucky, aiming to cross the Mississippi or Ohio. Their goal is to reach California by the end of May, over a month away. They’re goin’ to visit family there.

As we get into the outskirts of Louisville, we see a sign for a diner up ahead. “Would you mind if we stop for lunch here?” the husband asks. “We’d be much obliged if you would join us for our meal. We’ve been driving from Berea early this morning and we’re mighty hungry.”

“Bless you, sir,” I say as we enter the restaurant and I sit down in the diner opposite the nicely-dressed traveling couple. In my own road-worn overhauls, I feel a bit shabby. “Ma’am,” I nod to the wife. “I’m mighty grateful to make your acquaintance. Joe Monahan, by the way.” My eyes follow the husband’s hand as the larger man gestures for the waitress.

“Will you have some coffee, Mr. Monahan?” the husband asks in a kindly tone. I’m hesitant to take charity from strangers, but my reading of this couple is that they seem sincere. And Lord knows, I could surely use a good meal, I think to myself.

“Yes. Thank you, sir,” I say.

“Please call me Ike,” the larger man replies. “No need for formalities among us. Isaac Arledge, but my friends call me Ike. And this is my wife Mrs. Arledge.” I examine his hands. He is indeed a workin’ man—or at least he was. Hands don’t lie. They tell a lot about a person. I look up at his wife.

“Nell,” she says, with a soft smile, extending her hand for a loose handshake. When I take her hand, I feel a vibrant current run between us. She feels it too, because she suddenly looks down, averting her eyes from me, and removes her hand quickly.

“Thank you, Ike, and Mrs. Arledge,” I say with a smile. I’m puzzled by that connection with the wife, not sure what that was or meant.

“Well, Mr. Monahan…,” Ike begins, looking at me earnestly.

“Joe, it is,” I say, reciprocating the friendly offer of lack of formality. I’m still wonderin’ how this man has come upon enough money, in these times, to be drivin’ a 1937 Buick Roadmaster and dressin’ in nice clothes. There’s a story to be told here, if I stick around long enough. Clearly, he’s wonderin’ some things about me, too, as he looks me over.

“Thank you, Joe. What’s your story, sir, if I may ask without intruding too much upon your privacy? What’s put you on the road? You seem like a fine fellow to me, not the wandering kind. Where is your home, and where are you headed?” From the warm and earnest look in his eyes, it’s clear that Ike is sincerely interested. His wife, a lovely petite auburn-haired woman with intelligent eyes, listens intently as well. Should I give them the two-cent version or the two-dollar version? I wonder to myself. I haven’t told my story to too many folks yet. It would be a bit difficult to tell. But I’ll try, I think. Never know what might come of it.

“Well, to tell you the honest truth, it’s surely been a hard few months. The Lord’s been testin’ me mightily. I lost everything I had in the Flood in January. Now I’m aimin’ to start afresh. Heading to New Mexico.”

“Have you got people there, Mr. Monahan?” the wife, Nell, asks, her eyes smiling kindly.

“Yes, ma’am, a sister and brother-in-law. I think they’ll take me in until I get back on my feet.”

“Where are you coming from, Joe?” Ike asks. “What brings a man to leave everything behind?”

He’s blunt and direct, I see, but not in a rude way. He seems to sincerely want to know. “I suppose you’ve heard all about the Great Flood up here in the Ohio River Valley this past winter,” I say, watching for the nods that are forthcoming.  “I’ve never seen the wrath of God come with such a fury. It’s a long story. Are you folks sure you want to hear it?” I ask, then watch as they nod, both pairs of eyes intent upon me. “Well, it certainly won’t be easy to tell, but I’ll try.”

The waitress brings our coffee to the table and we give her our order for the lunch plates. As she walks away, Ike says, “We read about the flood in the newspapers and heard reports on the radio. But we’ve not talked first-hand with anyone who survived it. We’d be obliged if you could share your story. Unless it’s just too painful, of course.”

“Yes, sir. I understand. As I said, I’ll try, even though it won’t be easy.” I take a deep breath, then begin. “Well, it’s just mighty hard for me to believe that just three months ago I was livin’ my life, ordinary-like—a happy life with my gal Bernie—Bernadine’s her full Christian name, but I call her Bernie. She’s the prettiest little thing, such a sweet girl and a good wife. And we have our two baby girls, Ella and Irene.” I note Nell’s eyes lighting up in interest. I wonder if she has any little ones yet, I think to myself. I look her over. From her tiny figure, I doubt it, but I might be wrong. My mind goes back to my children.

“Ella’d just turned four. She’s the love of my life, her daddy’s precious little girl. Loves it when I carry her on my shoulders, makes her squeal with glee,” I smile as I remember, tears welling up in my eyes. “She’s a fine little talker, just talked up a storm, a lot like her mama. Bernie’s a real smart woman, wanted to be a teacher if she could’ve gone to college. She’s so good with the girls. Baby Irene wasn’t even walkin’ yet, just startin’ to crawl. She’s still her mama’s girl, still nursin’, didn’t rightly know me much yet.”

I take a deep breath before continuing. Their eyes are still upon me, waiting. They are hardly breathing, either. “We lived right on the Ohio River, on the Kentucky side, just below a big curve in the river called Sugar Creek Bend. Rented a small house on Highway 42 between Sugar Creek and Warsaw, which is a pretty good size little town. Bernie and I’d met in Cincinnati, where we both were reared, but about three years ago I got a job in Sugar Creek with a lady named Miz Bracht, who was lookin’ for an auto mechanic for her service station down here near Warsaw. So we moved down there—that was when Ella was a baby—so I could work in Bracht’s garage and Bernie could help Miz Bracht out in her lunchroom, connected to the service station.”

“How far is Warsaw from Cincinnati?” Ike asks.

“About forty or fifty miles south,” I explain. “Longer if you follow the river all the way. And about twice that far to Louisville.” Ike nods knowingly. He and Nell continue to look at me expectantly.

“So, you probably know the story, but the downpour started at Christmastime. We had heavy rains, about seven inches, between Christmas and New Year’s. Then we got a week’s relief, then another week of misery. This time heavy sleet, since it’d gotten colder, which was followed by another week of rain. We just thought the sky would never empty. It was so cold, too! The temperatures stayed just slightly above freezing—miserable cold, the kind of damp cold that gets in your bones and in your lungs and makes you sick and coughing,” Nell nods as I speak, her eyes still upon me, full of concern.

“But still the cold rains kept a comin’. Rivers and tributaries and creeks all backed up. There wasn’t no place for ‘em to empty out, you know? Those big rivers, the Mississippi and then the Ohio, backed up all the way from Arkansas and through Indiana and Kentucky back to Ohio. Cairo to Paducah to Shawneetown to Evansville, Jeffersonville and Louisville to Warsaw to Cincinnati. Even back to Pittsburgh.”

“The fourth wave o’ storms came on inauguration day when FDR was being sworn in again. Weathermen didn’t know. They just kept guessin’. Every day they told us somethin’ different. We knew it was gonna flood, but they couldn’t tell us how high the crests would be, or when, exactly. The weatherman on WLW Radio kept sayin’ the worst was over. It’d rained nearly 14 inches in January.

“So, I was already almost a week overdue to go for a supply run to Cincinnati for Miz Bracht, needin’ supplies for the station and the restaurant. On Saturday the 23^rd, Mr. Devereaux, the metereologist, told us the worst was over, so I decided to drive up to the city to get the supplies and planned to be comin’ home on Monday. I had to check on my mother, too. Miz Bracht assured me she’d take care of Bernie and the girls, for me not to worry. She said they had floods all the time, they’d all go up to higher ground if they needed to. I kissed all my girls goodbye and started up the road toward Cincinnati, got there okay, even got across the bridge from Covington with no problem. That was on Saturday.”

“People in Cincinnati didn’t think it would be too bad. After all, it’s the city of hills, but all the wealthy people live high atop the hills. They really don’t care about what happens in the bottomlands. Folks in Cincinnati are divided by layers. Along the river, real dirt-poor folks live on the waterfront. Next layer up the hill are the Negro folks. Then next up are the Italians and workin’-class Irish and mountain folks from Kentucky and beyond. Further on up the hill you’ll find the Germans, Polish and rich Irish.”

“That was before Black Sunday. January 24, a day I’ll likely never forget all the rest o’ my days here on Earth. New storms came in. Bad storms. River rose to close to 80 feet there in Cincy. I was at my Mam’s, checkin’ on her, and as the waters rose I got her up the hill to higher ground. Red Cross had a shelter up there where they were takin’ people in, and I got her situated. But we had a bird’s eye view of Mill Creek, where I watched the events of that day unfold. When water got into the power plants, it killed electricity. With the temperature droppin’ below freezing, slabs of ice bobbed in the water as Mill Creek backed up and swamped the flood plain. The water was a filthy mix of oil and sewage and dead carcasses. It stunk. We could smell it all the way up the hill, just rushin’ and getting’ higher and higher. Power stations and pumpin’ plants shut down almost all the way, only allowin’ water through the mains for one hour a day, they said. I could see lots o’ people in little boats on the water, too, tryin’ to reach safety. People on their rooftops, climbin’ out the windows of the upstairs, hopin’ to get rescued. I went back down and helped out all the people I could, helped get ‘em to the shelter.

“But the situation on Mill Creek was turnin’ real dangerous. Everybody was scared about fire. Floodwaters smashed debris into oil tanks, gas lines and power lines. All those gasoline storage tanks in Camp Washington got knocked over. One million gallons of gas poured into the Mill Creek. Petroleum tanks were floatin’ downriver, just waitin’ for a chance to explode. Gasoline, kerosene and oil coated the top of the creek, which at this point was at least half a mile wide. We heard there was a leak from Standard Oil refinery. Word went around issuing No Smokin’ orders along the waterfront. But folks couldn’t get cigarettes now if they tried, since all the stores and businesses in town were shut down. The firehouses were buried under the floodwaters, too.”

Ike shakes his head in wonder, while his wife’s face is aghast at the scenes I’m describing. They encourage me to continue.

“Then all holy hell broke loose—please pardon my language, ma’am. Trolley lines were danglin’, live power lines. Didn’t take long ‘fore some of them sparks lit the petroleum on the Mill Creek, down by the Crosley Refrigerator plant and the WLW Radio. We were watchin’ from the hill on the Fairmount side. Gas and oil tanks explodin’ everywhere. Flames built a wall a thousand foot high and burned a path over three miles long. Tire warehouses and God knows what else started burnin’, fillin’ the air with that horrible smell and belchin’ black smoke of burnin’ rubber. The river burned all day and into the night. I never saw anything like the sight of the red flames dancin’ on the black water. They got most of the people evacuated from the neighborhoods in the West End near the fire, but they couldn’t really fight it, just tryin’ to keep people alive as the tops of the houses and buildings stickin’ up above the waterline started burnin’, too.”

“I kept tryin’ to find a telephone to call Bernadine and Miz Bracht to see if they were safe, but all the phone lines were down. I knew Miz Bracht had been livin’ in Sugar Creek for years and had been through some high water, so she’d know what they should do and where to go to reach high ground. I heard the Ohio was thirty foot above flood stage all the way from Cincinnati to Louisville. I didn’t know exactly how high above the river our house was, but bein’ near Sugar Creek tributary meant the creek might flood, too.”

“Took me a couple o’ days to make my way back to where my home had been. Nothin’ was there. Just nothin’. I can’t describe to you how it felt, to see my whole life washed away, not knowin’ what had become of my girls. I started goin’ from camp to camp, shelter to shelter, lookin’ for ‘em. I began to hear the stories. Icy water had flooded way up into the fields. Rescuers had to use pickaxes to chop through the ice to rescue people from their houses. If their houses were still standin’, that is. They told me people close to the river took shelter on higher ground, but a lot o’ towns along the river didn’t have much high ground. People climbed into boxcars of trains, old buildings. They told about bein’ cold, oh, so cold. Livestock drowned or froze. Nobody had nothin’ to eat ‘cept what they carried on ‘em. Some flooders piled possessions on mules or wagons and headed inland and upland, looking for emergency camps or going to their people who lived further from the river.”

“Then the Red Cross started settin’ up camps with tents—tent cities, we started callin’ ‘em—and providin’ shelter and food for people up and down the Valley. Government-issued clothing. Eggs, evaporated milk, canned beef. Prunes and somethin’ called grapefruits, like big round balls with fruit inside. Kinda like an orange, but sour. People’d never seen ‘em, didn’t know how to eat ‘em! They had nurses givin’ typhoid shots, too. I made my way to every shelter and refugee camp up and down the river, from Covington to Louisville, over the next few weeks. Never found Bernadine or the girls. Or Miz Bracht. Nobody had seen ‘em, even the people from Warsaw who knew what they looked like. Along the way, I witnessed the magnitude of people in refugee shelters: Whites, Negroes, Jews, Gentiles, Italians, Irish, Catholics, Protestants and even some Chinese, alike. All livin’ together. Lots of the ones in the shelters’ve been dyin’ of pneumonia, even though they got saved from the water. If the water didn’t get ‘em, the frigid cold got down in their lungs and wouldn’t turn loose.”

“Bless their souls,” Nell says.

“Yes, ma’am, indeed,” I say.

“Surely you found out something about your wife and children?” she asked, hopeful.

I sighed, deeply. “No, ma’am. Unfortunately not. Come to find out 31 houses and buildings between Sugar Creek and Warsaw got swallowed by the Ohio River. Washed clean off their foundations and swept away. They say over half a million are homeless in the Ohio River Valley so far. Not sure how many dead or missin’—up close to a thousand, some say. About a dozen others from that stretch where we lived are missin’, too. Nobody saw or heard from them. They, like my sweet Bernadine and her baby girls, just disappeared into the river, best we can figure. I had another man, who was searchin’ for his own kinfolk, ask at all the shelters on the Indiana side, but no word about them there, either. For a long time, I held out hope that somebody had picked up my family downstream, but then when I heard about the terrible conditions down past Louisville, in Evanston and Shawneetown and Cairo, I began to lose faith and hope.”

“That’s perfectly understandable, Mr. Monahan,” says Nell softly, wiping her tears with Ike’s handkerchief that he had discreetly passed to her a few moments earlier. “Oh, my goodness. God bless you and the memory of your precious family. That’s the saddest and most tragic story I’ve ever heard. You are such a brave man to endure such grievous loss.”

“I beg you not to think of me as brave, ma’am. It was my wife who had the courage to face the ragin’ flood. I did nothin’ to exhibit my bravery. In fact, I’m ashamed to admit to you I was not there to protect my family as I should’ve been.” I hang my head and close my eyes.

“Oh, but surely you cannot blame yourself for their loss, Mr. Monahan!” Nell insists with great compassion.

“There’s nothing to say at a time like this that can be of comfort to you, I know,” Ike says, clearly choked up, “but please know that no one could possibly hold you responsible. It was an act of God.” We remain quiet for a moment, then he continues. “So, Joe, where will you go? What, in heaven’s name, does a man do after a tragedy like this? Brother, you are courageous just to be carrying on,” Ike adds.

I take a deep breath. I find myself exhausted from telling my story, yet it is strangely soothing, too, to share my burden with these kind folks. “I went back to Cincinnati to share the sad news with my mother and my wife’s family. The priest performed a private service in memory of Bernie and the little girls. Of course, they all wanted me to stay there and begin again, perhaps getting’ hired on by the CCC to help rebuild the city. Yet deep in my heart, after much prayer, I came to understand that I have too many memories there. I need to start fresh. So I sent a post to my sister to let her know I’d be on my way to New Mexico, not waitin’ for a response. I sold my car, my only remaining asset, to pay for expenses along the way.”

“How will you get there, Mr. Monahan? What is your plan?” Nell asks me.

“I don’t rightly know, ma’am,” I respond honestly. “I’m a strong man, so I plan to walk westward until I find a better way. If need be, I’ll stop and find work along the way to earn my keep, then continue as I’m able. I imagine I will not be the only wanderer. Once I get further west, I understand, the roads are filled with migrants from the dust bowl.”

“That’s likely true, Mr. Monahan. Joe,” says Ike. “I admire your resolve.” He glances at his wife and they make extended eye contact, as if they are talking without words. She nods, and he turns back to me. “We may not be going the same route you need to go, but we’d like to invite you to ride along with us for as far as you need. We can look at the map and determine the best place for our paths to diverge. Would you honor us with your company for a few days, Mr. Monahan?”

I look at each of them. Their eyes meet mine with sincerity. I can certainly start out with them and see how we all get along. “Well, sir, I’m humbled by your offer. I certainly don’t want to intrude upon your privacy. Let’s try it for a day and then we can decide the best course from there. If you can get me across into Indiana, that would be of great help to me.”

“Louisville will be a shock to both of you, I imagine,” I continue. “After Black Sunday, the Ohio River at Louisville swelled to ten times her normal width, over eight miles wide, and 90% of the city’s homes were flooded up to 30 foot deep. Two thirds of the city population was left without homes. The city of New Albany, Indiana, across the river, was entirely under water. People were bein’ sheltered on any high ground possible, includin’ the airline hangars at Bowman Field. You’ll be passin’ through a disaster zone the likes of which, hopefully, you will never see again.”

Ike reaches across and shakes my hand firmly. “You’re a fine man, Joe Monahan. It’s an honor to us to get the opportunity to know you. Now, if you’ll let me treat you to this lunch, we shall see about getting through the remnants of Louisville and finding our way across the river into Indiana.”

 

Photo:  Dorothea Lange, July 1937, Lot #1676, Works Progress Administration, http://photogrammar.yale.edu/records/index.php?record=fsa2000001454/PP

 

 

“The Great Flood” Copyright 2015 by Pam Wilson. All rights reserved.

(An excerpt from the novel Keeping, unpublished. Copyright 2015 by Pam Wilson. All rights reserved.)

Where Do Their Souls Dwell

March 2010

 

Meg walks from her hotel to the station to meet Gunnar’s train. The Waverley train station is on the other side of the Castle Rock and across and beneath the Mound; the train lines separate the old medieval city from the Neoclassical and Georgian “New Town” with its well-laid-out streets and architecture.

She looks on the board to see at which track the train from London will be arriving, then glances at her watch. Twenty-five minutes. She buys herself a cup of tea, adds sugar and cream, and slowly sips this comfort beverage as she waits for time to pass. She is nervous. This meeting has the potential to go so many ways. I’m hoping for the best, she tells herself. It feels so strange. Here I am, on the other side of the world, twenty-five years later. I’m a link to her life. He is my link to her life. Somehow, I hope, he will be able to provide the answers. And somehow, I think he hopes I’ll be able to help him, too. We’ve been spilling our souls to each other in our letters. Will it be as easy face-to-face?

As the time approaches, Meg moseys toward the track, figuring out which side of the platform will be the arrival side where the passengers will dismount. She walks down the steps from the large hall of the station to the real workings of the place, where the world-changing iron machinery operates. There’s a magic to train stations, and she senses it here. Suddenly, she feels the vibration beneath her feet as the train from London approaches the station and rolls in beside her. There are so many cars. Where will he be? She wonders as her eyes scan up and down, waiting for the doors to open.

Simultaneously, all of the doors open and passengers begin pouring out. Some carry briefcases, while others have larger suitcases. Her eyes scan back and forth until she spots a slightly built older man, hair grayish and tousled, face chiseled, stepping onto the platform. He carries a small, worn brown leather valise. She has the advantage of watching him for a few minutes before he spots her, so her mind races with memories of that face, though it was so much younger then. He’s more age-worn, wispier, more bent, as if he might blow away in a strong gust. When his eyes catch hers, she smiles and nods in acknowledgement. Soon, he reaches the staircase where she stands.

“Well, hello, Dr. Meg Chandler,” he says in a voice still surprisingly deep given the lightness of his physical being, a smile creeping onto his visage. “It’s very nice to see you,” he says as he extends his right hand to Meg in a handshake. She returns the gesture, smiles at him, and asks, “How was your trip?”

“From London? It was fine. Four or five hours on a train is an ideal length for a trip. Long enough to read a good chunk of a book. And the scenery wasn’t bad to look at, either.” Changing the subject, he says, “Should we head upstairs?”

“Sure,” she agrees. “Do you have all your luggage?”

“Oh, this bag is the only thing I brought, just for a night,” he responds, gesturing to the well-used leather case. “I left the rest in London. And how has your visit here in Scotland been thus far?”

She laughs. “Oh my goodness, it’s been full of adventure. But good, on the whole! I’ll tell you about it over lunch,” she promises. “Where would you like to go?”

“It’s been years since I’ve been to Edinburgh,” Gunnar says. “I remember a few places, but it’s hard to know if they’re still around. Let’s walk over into New Town since that’s closest right now. I recall a nice Victorian pub you might like, not far from here, just off Prince Street.”

They walk a few blocks. Gunnar pauses and looks around, trying to remember exactly where to turn. Finally, they turn a corner, and he shouts, “Aha! The Café Royal!” He turns to Meg and confides, “This will be a lovely place for lunch and a bit of Scotch.”

Upon entering, Meg feels as if she’s stepped into a century-old painting. Warm, reddish-brown carved wood paneling surrounds them. The ceilings are patterned into large, geometrically intricate designs outlined with wood trim and featuring a number of colors. One wall is lined with stained glass images of sporting gentlemen, while another features ceramic tiles made into paintings. Chandeliers hang down from the high and ornate ceilings, while sconces from the walls light up the place but dimly. Gilded pedestal columns run across the center of room, surrounded by a dark wood island bar unlike anything Meg has ever seen. Colorful bottles of every type of known liquor line the shelves in the center of the bar. A white crown molding lines the tops of the wallpapered walls, its carved design highlighted with gilding. They seat themselves in a large booth under the arches of the windows facing the street, surrounded by warm colors of wood, golds and burgundies. The place exudes a very welcoming aura. Luscious smells emanate from the kitchen as well.

“Will this do, d’ya think?” Gunnar asks with a sly smile.

Meg’s mouth is still agape as she assays the surroundings. “This is fabulous,” she gasps. “I may stay here until it’s time to catch my plane in a few days.”

He chuckles. “Yes, I’ve had some good memories here. What can I buy you to drink?”

“I’m not too much of a drinker,” she says. “That is to say, I don’t know much about liquors, especially those here in Europe. I mostly drink wine, when I drink.”

“Well, dear Meg, we must train you to drink Scotch whiskey, since you’re in Edinburgh. Let me choose one for us. And we can order some pub food for lunch, too. I know just what you’ll like,” he says with confidence. Gunnar motions the waiter, who comes over to the table, and in that manner of older men who are accustomed to ordering for women, he orders Meg both a drink and food. This feels so odd to her, to have someone deciding on her behalf.

“Please bring us a bottle of Auchentoshen Three-Wood,” he says. “And then, let’s see: a Grilled Salmon Salad Niçoise, a Beef Pie, and some Wild Mushroom Risotto. And extra plates, so we can sample them all. Also, please, a bottle of water, no gas.” The waiter makes note of the choices, tells him it’s a fine selection, nods to Meg, and walks away. Gunnar turns and looks at her in a sustained way for the first time as they face each other across the booth.

“Ah, now that the ordering’s done, we can get to know each other. So, the first order of business is: how are you, Meg?” He reaches across the table and covers her hand with his. “I can’t tell you how marvelous it is to be able to meet you and spend time with you in person like this.” He squeezes her hand, then withdraws, still making strong eye contact.

Meg looks at his face closely, tracing the lines and grooves of age with her eyes. He has character; that cannot be denied. “It’s good to meet you, Gunnar. Again, I guess, though I don’t feel that I ever really met you properly back then,” she says, smiling through the awkwardness. “I’ve enjoyed our email correspondence.”

“As have I, my dear,” he nods. “As have I. You are quite an exceptional woman. There are not many women who can hold their own with me, but you’ve proven that you can do so, at least in writing.” He chuckles. “We’ll see how it goes in person!”

Meg is not too sure what he means by this. In some ways, it feels like a challenge, though also a testament to his own belief in his personal, and male, superiority. She is feeling cautious. “Well, I doubt I can hold my own with the Scotch, that’s for sure,” she says with a slight grin. Just at that moment, the waiter arrives with the bottle of Scotch Gunnar ordered.

“Here you are, sir. ‘Tis an incredibly smooth triple-distilled single malt, aged in three different barrels. It tastes a tad like a nutty apple pie with ginger and a whiff of chocolate. An excellent choice. Will the lady have a glass?” Meg nods.

“Thank you,” Gunnar says, then pours a glass for Meg and one for himself. “Now, I need to teach you how to drink Scotch,” he remarks. “You drink it differently than wine. When you drink wine, you bring air into your mouth to mix with the wine. However, with Scotch, you try to keep the air out—take a sip, hold it in your mouth and maybe swish it around for a few seconds before swallowing. It’s also okay to add a bit of water to it.”

She tries it. The flavor is intense, burning her mouth. Yet the aftertaste is not unpleasant. She tries another sip, leaving this in her mouth longer before swallowing. Not too bad. She likes the sugary apple flavor.

“So, back to you, Meg. Tell me about your life.”

She takes one more swallow and can already feel the alcohol working. Not wanting to spend forever talking about herself, she tries to summarize fairly quickly: where she teaches, what she teaches, the kind of small private college environment in which she is immersed (which is quite different from the large and prominent universities where he has taught). She tells him about raising her son after her divorce, about being involved in a new relationship.

“It’s good you didn’t marry again right away,” he says. “That’s an error I’ve made more than once.” He grimaces, then grins. “Take some time to be alone. How much grief I would have saved myself if I’d heeded that advice so many years ago!”

“Though you’ve been married to some very smart women, from what I can tell,” Meg comments in appreciation, remembering the ones she met and the stories she’s heard. She asks him about his most recent wife and stepchildren, and he fills her in on his retirement years living in Paris again now, late in life, after spending time there as a young man.

“Paris is probably my favorite city in the world,” Gunnar notes as he pours himself another glass of Scotch. “Perhaps it’s because I fell in love with it when I was a very young man. I do think there’s something about those places and people you ‘meet’ when you are at a point in your early life when you’re the most impressionable. They leave an imprint upon you, and even though you may find so many wonderful places, and love or befriend so many other people along the way, nothing quite matches that magic you felt the first time someone or someplace really made you feel alive. Alive! And that’s what Paris did for me. Living there with Olja and little Derek and Kata was the most dreamlike part of my life, looking back. I’m trying to recapture that now, I suppose. And though it’s wonderful now, it will never be the same as it was back then.”

“Hmmm. I imagine you’re right.” Meg thinks for a moment about her time in Texas, as a young woman, and its magic in her life. “Gunnar, I wanted to ask a little more about you and Olja,” she begins after taking another sip from my glass of Scotch. “Where you had grown up, your family background, and so on. Was she also an academic? Oh, I also noticed in an online bio that you were born in India—how did that come about? Where was your family from? Sorry, too many questions!” she apologizes with a laugh.

“Ah, yes. No problem! My life’s been a bit complex! My parents were Lutheran missionaries. In 1912, just after they got married in Blair, Nebraska, where my father attended a Danish Lutheran college, they embarked upon a three-month journey to finally end up in a tiny missionary community in German East Africa,” he says.

“Really? That’s fascinating!” Meg remarks.

“They were both Danes. I was actually a Danish citizen until 18. They were there in Africa four years while my father waited for a posting to India. In 1916, it came through. My oldest two brothers were born in Africa, the rest of us in India. They had a total of eight kids. Many years went by, and my father’s affiliation changed to that of an American Lutheran church. In the mid-1930s, the American Church posted my father to Japan, where we stayed until 1941, when relations between Japan and the U.S. were worsening and all U.S. nationals in Japan were advised to leave,” he explains.

Meg nods, transfixed by his story. She urges him to continue.

“We moved to Hood River, Oregon, where my dad wanted to work with the Japanese immigrants there since he had learned to speak the language well. Then boom! came Pearl Harbor, after which we witnessed the incarceration and forced removal of the entire Japanese community there. It was heartbreaking. My dad went to help teach at the Army Japanese Language School at the University of Michigan, so we spent most of the war in Ann Arbor. All four of my older brothers were in the service during the war: two in Europe, two in the Pacific. We moved back to Oregon in 1945, halfway through my junior year in high school. I graduated from high school in Hood River then took off for college back in Michigan.”

Gunnar is on a roll, telling his story. However, just at that point, the waiter brings their food. They decide to share it all, so they serve themselves from each of the three dishes. On first taste, everything is delicious. He’s ordered a nice balance of flavors and textures, I’ll give him credit for that, Meg admits. Once they indulge in their initial feeding frenzy, Gunnar continues.

“So, I met Olja in college, second year I think. She was from steelworking people in the Homestead neighborhood of Pittsburgh. A brilliant girl, she obtained a nationally competitive scholarship in biology. Her father, though well-educated as a pharmacist, was a scary and violent man, a schizophrenic who had been in and out of mental hospitals. Her mother did a bad job of protecting her two daughters from their father’s emotional tempests. Her father made Olja into a substitute for the son he never had, pushing her to be a scientist while at the same time letting her know no woman could ever do that!”

“What a mess—the combination of mental disorders and personality issues seems very intense,” Meg notes. “Did her parents die before she did? Didn’t you tell me that Olja’s sister had also committed suicide?” He nods.

“Gosh,” she says. “You know, Gunnar, I don’t know much about psychology, but one marriage counselor I saw had an interesting approach to his therapy. He was interested in our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents—at some point, I think I said, ‘You know, I really don’t think that my great-great-grandfather, who I never knew, has had much impact on this marriage.’” Gunnar and Meg both laugh.

“Well, I imagine he may have, indirectly,” Gunnar says. “They say even traumas can be inherited and passed down through generations.”

“Yes? That’s intriguing,” she says, thoughtfully. “Like genetic memory? Hmm,” she thinks for a moment, then continues. “But I did find it interesting to think about how the cultures that meet in each marriage, and the new cultures that are created within each family—not only ethnic cultures, but also the dominant personality types and what becomes normative behavior, expectations, pressures, tensions, etc.—do indeed have an influence on us in so many ways. At the very least, they provide us with our earliest models of the way we might see the world, the lenses through which everything later is perceived: the way life should be structured and the way people are expected to act, the dreams we are expected to have, the ways that we reward or punish ourselves for our perceived accomplishments or failures.”

“You’re a perceptive woman, Meg. I appreciate the way you apply your anthropological understandings to these personal issues. Good meld of theory and practice! Go on,” he urges.

“Well, this is all so interesting to me,” she admits. “I’m fascinated by your account of growing up in a missionary family, the youngest child of much older parents, with many layers of cultural transplantation. Danish-Americans in Africa and India—and Japan in the years leading up to WWII. Wow. How had they ended up in Nebraska—were they both born in Denmark, or were they children of immigrants?”

“They were Danish,” he says, as he takes advantage of his break from talking to eat some salmon salad and beef pie.

“I’m also touched by what a position of irony your family must have been in, living in Oregon during the war, with such affinity for the Japanese but seeing those all around you vilified and rounded up as potential enemies of the state.” Gunnar, chewing on his food, nods in agreement as Meg says this.

“My mother’s father was a Danish merchant from Aarhus who had received ‘a calling’ and, in midlife, moved his family from Denmark to the U.S. to study to be a minister at a tiny Danish Lutheran college in Nebraska. He ended up as a fellow student with my dad. His oldest daughter, my mother, was a few years younger than my dad, and my parents met and fell in love and married. My grandparents eventually returned to Aarhus, where my grandfather got a church assignment. I remember visiting these grandparents in Denmark when I was a child in the 1930s. We went from Japan to Denmark via the trans-Siberian railroad and spent the summer there.”

Meg looks at him, wide-eyed. “The trans-Siberian railroad! Oh wow, that’s something I wish I could do. I’ve always been fascinated by those long train journeys, like the Orient Express.”

“I remember it very well. I’d never seen anything like the vastness of the Russian steppes. I remember crossing Lake Baikal on a ferry, to link the two ends of the train line since it did not cross the lake. The landscapes were broad and sweeping. Sometimes monotonous to a young boy like me, but we brought plenty of books and drawing materials so I could sketch some of the scenes. We had our own little cabin for our family, but I liked to leave our cabin and walk up and down the length of the train through the various cars. Ours was pretty posh, but some of the cars were filled with masses of working-class Russians just traveling from one town or region to the next. I would meet Russian children and play with them. Even though we didn’t speak the same language, it was easy to communicate as children, and the concept of play seems universal. We would chase each other up and back through the train cars until an adult would grab us by the scruff of our collars and make us settle down. Sometimes, a family would share its food with me, with a babushka pulling out containers of pickles and beets and herring and black bread. To this day, the smells of some foods immediately transport me back to those days spent traveling across Russia.” He empties his glass of Scotch and fills another.

“Those are amazing childhood memories to have,” Meg says, just imagining what that trip must have been like. She shakes her head in wonder. “Your younger years were absolutely distinctive, and such an exposure to the world in all of its richness! You’ve experienced places and times in history that most of us can only imagine through reading books or watching movies. That period between the two World Wars always fascinates me, because so much change was happening in the world so quickly. Here in America, of course, we hear mostly about the Great Depression years and their hardships, but you experienced those decades very differently in India and Japan. And Russia and Denmark.”

“Yes, I suppose I have had a most unusual upbringing. Those experiences contributed greatly to who I became, and who I am. And I’m sure they influenced my children, indirectly, as well. That concept from your marriage counselor is quite apt,” Gunnar notes, finishing off the risotto. Meg is full as well. She’s still sipping on her Scotch, slowly, while she notes that Gunnar is midway through his fourth glass. The bottle of Auchentoshen is close to empty. This man can drink, she thinks to herself.

Meg reflects more about the concept of familial memory and how it shapes us. “I know my own family had an intensity and a drive that’s evident in both of my sisters and me. Although we’re different in personalities and styles, we all internalized the aspirations of both our mother and our father, as they synergized into something that’s distinct from each of them but that we all share among the three of us. My father’s hard-driving analytical mind and critical approach to life married to my mother’s compassionate humanitarianism and quest for social justice—those are the tensions that’ve shaped me as well as my sisters.”

“What do your sisters do?” Gunnar asks. “And where do you fit in the birth order?”

“I’m the oldest. Melanie is a medical researcher, while Beth is a clinical psychologist. We’re all Dr. Chandlers, which made our father proud, since he always pushed us academically. A family of overachievers!” she laughs. “So this is all helping me to see what cultures and personalities shaped Kata, too. Of course, there are always those questions as to how much is cultural and how much biological….” Her voice trails off. “I’ve always tended to lean to the cultural side, although once I had a child of my own, I began to see that he was born with a certain disposition that I couldn’t change no matter how hard I tried—not a clean slate or a lump of clay waiting to be molded!”

“You’re absolutely right, in that regard,” Gunnar nods. “Absolutely.”

“And so, as parents, there are all those things you need to do to make sure they are exposed to what you think are all the ‘right’ things. But in the end, I think it’s like the Kahlil Gibran poem: ‘Your children are not your children; they are the sons and the daughter of life’s longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you, and though they are with you, they belong not to you.’”

“Ah, yes. I’ve always been fond of that one, myself,” Gunnar nods. He’s beginning to look sleepy.

“Do you know the Sweet Honey in the Rock musical version of that poem? Their a cappella song?” Meg asks.

“Yes, oh yes. I do remember it now. Powerful harmony!”

“Yeah. I sang that song a lot during my pregnancy, just to remind myself that the little being budding inside me would have a life and soul of his very own,” she remembers aloud.

“Ah, children,” Gunnar muses. “You know, it’s interesting. I realized some time ago that I’ve had exactly the same number of kids as my dad did—eight—if I’m allowed to count step-children.” He pauses here, remembering. “Yes, our children are parts of our heart, and when their paths run contrary to what we want or expect for them, our hearts can crack and split like the nucleus of an atom, causing nuclear reactions in our souls,” he says, looking solemnly into his nearly drained glass of Scotch.

“Well, Meg, our need to talk about Kata is imminent,” he continues. She nods. “But I think I’d like for us to take a walk first. Shall we?”

He rises, puts on his coat and scarf and walks away to find the waiter to settle the check. Meg stands and bundles up for the blustery March day, her mind full of Gunnar’s stories. However, he’s right. We still have much talking left to do.

They begin walking, noting that the cold wind has picked up in the last couple of hours. Soon, they come to The Royal Circus, a large circular green park diagonally crossed by Circus Place. There they see signs for a photographic exhibit of Scottish photojournalists at the nearby Edinburgh Photographic Society’s Photographic Exhibition Centre.

“You’re a photographer, aren’t you?” he asks her. “Would you like to see this?”

“Yes, of sorts!” Meg laughs, “and yes, that sounds like a good plan.”

The exhibit is not large, but the images of Scotland and its people are magnificent, providing each of them with fresh views of the broad scope of life in this ancient land. They admire the photographs of rugged landscapes and share stories about what parts of Scotland each has visited. Meg recounts some of her tales about her very recent adventures with Melanie in the Highlands. She is also particularly enticed by the street photography, giving her glimpses into the everyday life of Scottish cities. Meg especially enjoys street portraits, so this collection does not disappoint as she encounters numerous images from across many decades picturing various persons in their local environments. Sharing this with Gunnar and seeing which images touch him the most, and which he reacts to the strongest, becomes a bonding experience.

The odd couple, the septagenarian man and the woman twenty-five years his junior, leave the museum and decide to walk across and up the Mound toward the Old Town. No serious talk as they walk, just comments about their surroundings. Gunnar notes that he needs to find a room for the night, so they decide to stop back at Meg’s hotel to see if it has any openings. They walk to the Castle terrace, pausing to admire the view across the city, then descend the hill to the Grassmarket. Arriving in the hotel lobby, he checks in and leaves Meg in the lobby as he deposits his valise in his room. Upon his return, he asks the concierge about the best pub close by and is directed across the Grassmarket to the White Hart Inn.

“It’s the oldest pub in the city!” the concierge exclaims in a thick Scottish brogue. “Even Bobby Burns drank there!” Gunnar tips her for her help, then the two walk across the square to the old Inn. The door boasts an ornately carved green frame, the pediment for which encloses a carved and painted image of a white stag. The building bears a sign saying it was established in 1516.

They enter into a dark room that feels old, indeed. The whitewashed ceilings have exposed dark wood beams every few feet, upon which dozens of pewter beer steins hang. The bar furnishings themselves, as well as the walls, are a very old wood stained deep brown, while the bar itself is crafted of a slab of lighter-stained wood. The bar stools and seats in the booths are covered in coffee-colored leather. Gunnar and Meg find a booth and sit cozily, sheltered by the high walls.

“I suppose it’s now time for you to be introduced to Scotch ale,” he says, ordering two bottles of Innis and Gunn. “This is called ‘wee heavy’ around here,” he laughs. “It’s stronger than Scottish ales. This particular brand is aged in rum casks, so it has a spicy edge to it.”

Meg finds the “wee heavy” good though a wee bit strong for her taste. She’s beginning to see that Gunnar’s life revolves around drinking. He’s held his own so far, however. They toast each other.

“Sláinte mhaith!” Gunnar says and helps Meg learn to pronounce it correctly. “To your health!”

“Sláinte mhaith!” She tries to say in return, butchering the Scots Gaelic. He laughs.

“Close enough for government work,” he says with a wink, then his facial expression becomes more serious. “So, we began to talk about parents and children at lunch. I’d like to share some more with you about my experiences of losing Kata. I’ve been thinking a lot about what to say to you, these last weeks, as I’ve anticipated our meeting here.”

“I know it’s probably hard to talk about,” Meg acknowledges. “Reviving my own memories of that period has felt both emotionally troubling, on the one hand, but somehow cleansing and healing, on the other.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Gunnar says, downing his first bottle of wee heavy and catching the waiter’s eye to indicate his need for another. “Please don’t apologize at all. It’s actually been so gratifying that you found me and that we’ve been corresponding. And now, getting to meet like this? It’s wonderful, actually.”

He begins to fumble in his pockets, as if searching for a lost item. “Hold on, I have something here somewhere,” he says apologetically. Finally, having found it, he keeps it clasped in his hand and looks at the woman across the table, realizing that had his daughter lived, she would be the same age. “I’d like to give you something, Meg. This was Kata’s, and I’d like for you to have it.” He opens his hand. In his palm is a lovely and unusual pendant: a deep yellowish-brown stone in a teardrop shape, wrapped in a warm gold frame with a gold swirl almost like a Celtic knot over the lower part of the teardrop. Meg takes it and handles it gingerly. As she looks at it more closely, she realizes it’s not a stone at all.

“Amber?” she asks.

“Yes, cognac amber from Denmark,” Gunnar says. “It’s a necklace I brought back to Kata from a trip to Denmark when she was about twelve. She wore it every day for years, it seems. It was her favorite. Then, after her mother died, I rarely saw her wear it. I found it at my house decades ago, and I’ve kept it on my dresser to remind me of her. But it would mean so much to me for you to have it.”

“Gunnar, that’s so thoughtful of you. But…,” she pauses. “I really feel this is precious to you. You need to keep it,” Meg protests.

“No, I’ve put a lot of thought into it. I even took it to a jeweler in Paris and had it cleaned up for you. Please accept it—and wear it. From me to Kata to me and now to you. It will keep her memory alive.”

Meg turns the piece of gold and amber over in her hands, then closes her hand over it and squeezes it as if to absorb its spirit. “I’m touched, Gunnar. I really don’t know what to say. Thank you.” Meg strokes the amber then puts the necklace around her neck. It feels good. Gunnar smiles at her.

“Meg, I’ve needed to talk about Kata for a long time now, and I’ve had no one who was able to—and willing to—remember her with me. This is a very healing process. I’m almost 80, you know. I need to resolve all of this grief and guilt I’ve carried around with me so many years, or at least as much as I can.”

“Grief, I can understand. Why guilt?” Meg asks, observing his face closely.

“Oh, you know,” he begins, looking toward the window and away from eye contact for a moment. “Survivor’s guilt, I guess. The guilt of a parent who feels, somewhere deep in his heart, that he should or could have done things differently. It’s the damned, cursed little voice that keeps taunting, ‘What if you had done this otherwise? Or that?’ Even after twenty-five years, I still lie in bed some nights, besieged by my own demons, wishing I could only know what choices I might have made that would have kept her from taking her own life.”

Meg nods. “That must be an agonizing feeling.”

He reaches across and takes her hand in his. “My dear Meg, I hope you will never have to suffer through the pain of losing a child. Children are meant to live beyond us, to move this world forward past us. As you quoted Gibran earlier, they are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. But they are also our own sons and daughters, our own flesh and blood and hearts and guts. We infuse them with all of our hope, give them the best of ourselves—well, hopefully, and there’s where the guilt and doubt and fucking sorrow come down and wash over those of us who lose them.” Gunnar begins sobbing, pulls his hands back to reach into a pocket and pull out a handkerchief—a cloth handkerchief, which he uses to dab at his eyes as they rim with tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Gunnar, there’s no need to apologize. Keep telling me about you and Kata,” Meg urges.

“Ah, she was so beautiful, and she had such a gentle and amazing soul,” he says softly. “She was so precious to me. And she broke so easily, too easily. I couldn’t protect her from all the bad things in the world,” he sniffs. “She was such a sensitive and insecure young girl or woman as an adolescent, so unsure of her place in the world, so uncertain about whether she was loved or would be loved. I loved her, God damn it!” he shouts explosively, banging on the ancient wood table, as heads turn around the bar, then turn away again seeing that it is only a display of emotions. I suppose bars get their share of emotional outbursts unleashed by spirits, Meg thinks.

“I loved her, but I don’t think I let her know it well enough,” he admits sadly. “When I left her mother—to save my own sanity, damn it, because it was so fucking hard living with a schizophrenic wife!—I didn’t know how to extricate Kata and Derek from the mess of their mother’s life, too. They loved her, they were enmeshed with her, and she held them tightly to her and threatened me if I should I try to take her children away. I mean, Meg, oh Meg,” he clutches my arm, “how could I take a woman’s own children away from her?”

Meg shakes her head, sadly, not knowing what to say.

“How could I keep them safe and protected and feeling loved, with me, while also distancing myself from the damnable hell of a marriage I found myself in?” He pauses to take a breath and finish off his second bottle of wee heavy. The bartender quickly sends a third to the table. “So, at some level, I escaped and left them behind. And that act in itself has haunted me my entire life. I saved myself but, in honoring their relationship to their mother, I sacrificed my children. Oh, Kata,” he wails as he lays his head down on his hands, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Meg reaches across and tentatively puts her hand on his shoulder, hoping that some human touch might comfort him. She mentally sends him energies for strength and understanding, having no idea how to comfort him. He sobs for a few minutes then lifts his head to continue, still in consternation.

“I really didn’t know that she would kill herself. I just really didn’t know,” he says, to himself more than anyone, and Meg is no longer sure if he’s referring to Olja or Kata—or both his wife and his daughter.

“Why don’t we walk some more while we still have the light outside?” she suggests, thinking that exercise might help dissipate some of this liquor in his blood. Gunnar slowly composes himself, gathers his coat, and they rise. Meg walks to the bar to settle the tab, then the two step out into the crisp late afternoon in the Grassmarket. They walk past the hotel and up Grassmarket to where Cowgatehead and Candlemaker Row branch off. They turn right onto the smaller street. To their right, they follow a long stone wall where an open archway beckons to them, with steps leading into Grayfriars Kirkyard and Cemetery. Walking silently through the centuries-old churchyard, each is enwrapped in private memories. Wordlessly, they return to the street. They do not talk much as they walk, each just sensing the presence of the other. Soon, the modern architecture of the National Museum of Scotland looms on their left. Gunnar catches Meg’s eye, motions to the door and enters it, with Meg following.  As they stroll through the Scottish History and Archaeology galleries of the Museum not unlike a father and daughter, the two professors, conjoined by their shared ghost, absorb the history and the stories told by the items or artifacts in the exhibit. They are in a mutually introverted mode at the moment, a quiet and sacred togetherness.

After leaving the Museum and continuing up the road, Gunnar and Meg decide to step in to Doctor’s Pub on Forrest Street at Teviot for dinner. It’s another one of those grand old pubs with dark wood and rough hardwood floors, positioned with the doorway at an angle across a street corner. However, this pub is full of medical memorabilia, situated in the University area of the city a few blocks south of the Grassmarket, not far from the ancient medical school. Drinks are ordered: more Scotch for Gunnar, red wine for Meg, as well as Sausage and Mash and a Ploughman’s Tart to eat.

Gunnar looks at her sadly and begins, “Meg, I want to tell you about my last visit with Kata, in Austin. You see, Kata and I got into fights a lot. Usually, over the years, we would have those blowout arguments, a father-daughter power struggle, slinging words back and forth at each other, but end up feeling pretty close afterwards. Did you and your father ever have arguments like that?”

“Oh yes,” she replies, thinking about some of them. “Daddy and I have had many battles of wills, seemingly a contest of who was the most stubborn and strong-willed. Neither of us liked to give in.”

“Ah, I see. Good, that you understand. Actually, Kata and I had a little bit of a fight like that last time I saw her. About two or three weeks before she died, so it would have been sometime in October of that year. This was when she was in Shoal Creek Psychiatric Hospital there in Austin, and we had some of those fights again. I was harsh but honest with her. But it was different this time, because she was in the hospital.”

“That was when she had tried to kill herself and failed to go through with it, then committed herself?” Meg asks. Gunnar nods.

“She was in the hospital and complained to me that she was bored—she just wanted to get out. I lectured at her, ‘Kata, you ought to get out of here, if you feel like it, and get back to work. Stop mulling and feeling sorry for yourself over that fellow. There will always be other men to love. Losing love is not worth killing yourself over, damn it, if that’s what this is all about. Stop feeling sorry for yourself! Get back to opening yourself up to people. Why don’t you try staying here nights for a while and going back to work during the daytime?’ I just kept seeing her mother in her, seeing her reacting to things as her mother had, and I just wanted to shake some sense into her and get her to see the logic of the situation. I was so panicked and frustrated. Here she was, avoiding facing the reality of life by trying to kill herself.  Just as her mother had. At least, that was my perspective. And it terrified me. But it also made me angry, I guess.”

Meg nods, trying to imagine what it would have been like to be a parent in Gunnar’s situation. This is new for her, since she has always identified with Kata’s perspective, in the past.

“And so the last night I was there, I took her out of the hospital for the day, and we went out to some place that had Italian food. We kinda joked and laughed at each other a little bit. We had this routine we used to do when she was younger. Every time she’d start to say, ‘Oh, Dad, I’m so ashamed. Oh, I’ve failed,’  I’d say, ‘Oh, poor little Kata.’ In a mocking tone. I’d remember how my mother used to scoff at me when I was feeling sorry for myself, ‘Poor little Gunnar, why don’t you go out into the garden and eat worms?’ Then we’d both laugh.”

Meg watches and listens. Gunnar is someplace else in his mind. Far away and long ago.

“After we were done eating, she said she wanted to go back to her house that she’d just moved into—where you lived—and pick up some music, because she’d been playing guitar and singing for other people in the hospital. That seemed like a good and healthy thing for her to do—you know, when you’re feeling bad but you try to do a little bit of something for other people. But she didn’t have any of her songbooks there at the hospital. She just had her guitar, so we were going to stop by the house. I said, ‘We’ve still got time to do that—to go back to the house so I can meet your new housemates.’”

“But then she changed her mind,” Gunnar continues. “She said, ‘Oh, Dad, I think I just want to go for a walk instead.’ So I said okay, and I asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ Kata said, ‘I guess I want to go to campus to check my mail,’ so we walked over to the university, and she opened her box and took out some mail, looked at it, threw most of it away, and we walked back to the car.”

“And I said, ‘Kata, we’ve still got time to go to the house, if you want. I’d really like to meet your friends, your housemates.’ I knew how hard it was, how hard it would be for her to walk into that house and face all of you after what she’d done. She said, ‘Let’s just drive around a little while.’ So we got in the car and drove around a little while in downtown Austin, but after about two blocks, Kata said, ‘Oh, Dad, I’ve changed my mind. Let’s do go to the house.’ So we went to the house.”

“Really?” Meg says to Gunnar, shaking her head in wonder. “I had no idea you’d done that. And I wasn’t there. I must’ve been working late that day and missed you. No one ever told me.”

“Yes, we went to the house, where you lived, and I met your other housemates who were there. We sat and talked to them a while. And then I took Kata back to the hospital,” he says, remembering.

“And the next morning, I had the chance to take her out again. The doctor thought this would be therapeutic, and it did seem to be good for her. We drove around all over Austin. We drove up by Mount Bonnell, where we sat on the wall and looked out over the river, the lake. We just looked at the hills and the lake, and we talked. She was really thinking a lot about her mother. She wanted me to remember her mother with her. We talked and talked about her mother. We just talked about a lot of things, kinda like you and I have been talking today. We looked out over those wild hills around Austin—you know, from Mount Bonnell you can see so far, see the whole chain of lakes there—Town Lake, Lake Austin, Lake Travis, I forget, almost all the way up to Burnet. And all the hills, the magnificent hills. And so Kata and I looked out over all that and talked for hours. It was a special day. I felt so close to her. She felt so alive, so dear and precious, so open to me about her feelings and fears.”

He coughs, pausing for a moment afterward. “Then I took her back to the hospital and said goodbye to her. And I got on my plane and rode my plane back to Connecticut, not knowing it was the last time I would ever see her alive.” At this, Gunnar clenches his lips as if to try to hinder the emotions erupting from his heart.

This time, Meg reaches over and squeezes Gunnar’s hands as she watches the tears stream down his face. He takes out his handkerchief, by this time already soaked, and tries to stem the flow, but the tears keep flowing.  Meg’s memories flash back a quarter century, to the image of the body hanging outside the back door of the house they shared together, of the blur of panic, chaos and heartbreak that ensued. For all these years, I’ve needed to understand what makes a 28-year-old woman decide to die. And mostly, I’ve needed to understand the meaning of her life to my own. She seemed so much like me, yet her pain was so different. Could she have imagined that at the end of his life, her father and her final best friend would travel across the world, still searching for answers?

Meg’s tears begin as well, in sympathy and co-remembrance. The two of them sit there, in Doctor’s Pub surrounded by archaic medical instruments mounted on the walls and in display cases, weeping together for Kata.

 

 

 

 

All rights reserved. Copyright Pam Wilson @2015.