Praise for Haymaker in Heaven
“Unhurried passages delineating the fickle nature of late-nineteenth-century Norwegian courtship or the finer intricacies of saddle fabrication are in abundance, lending a lived-in mien to every divot and pore in the novel’s rolling landscape . . . Haymaker in Heaven is a resplendent, wholehearted affair worth getting swept up in.”—Justin Walls, Center for the Art of Translation blog
“[A] saga of family, devotion to the land, and immigration . . . Hoem’s family history is tethered to the turbulent history of the period as family members deal with the effects of industrialization, populism, and immigration . . . A reminder that the consequences of immigration touch those who stay as well as those who go.”—Kirkus Reviews
"Hoem, drawing from his own family history, masterfully distills the seismic shifts of emigration into the poignant farewells of one family.”—Booklist
“A magnificent piece of writing about the American dream . . . Haymaker in Heaven is an unusually fine-tuned written narrative.”—VD (Norway)
“Haymaker in Heaven is a brilliant depiction of an upheaval that exists to this day. . . . [Its] sober, concrete and sensual style breathes life into the characters and their surroundings.”—Bergens Tidende (Norway)
“An uncommonly beautiful novel . . . So poetic, entertaining and well-written that I enjoyed every page.”—Dagbladet (Norway)
“Magnificent . . . Hoem is a gifted storyteller. The simple, efficient language works whether he is depicting nature, the weather or people encountering love. . . . [Hoem] tells the story with a sweeping pen and in a way that makes us a little cleverer.”—Fædrelandsvennen (Norway)
“[Hoem] displays the unique ability to illustrate the pioneers’ actual living conditions, their will to succeed, their courage—everything that has since become an American creed. He depicts the interplay between the emigrants and the hope that always seems to triumph over despondency with a sensuality that makes it all very real.”—Adresseavisen (Norway)
“Good-natured yet genuinely good . . . What makes this small slice of Norwegian history really interesting reading is the contrast between the lives of the humble characters and the elevated language with which they are described. . . . This is Hoem’s solution to the historical novel’s problem: the language means that you never doubt the point of view.”—Klassekampen (Norway)
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1
The haymaker’s name was Knut Hansen Nesje, but folks just called him Nesje and they called the farm he leased on the hillside above the small town of Molde on the west coast of Norway “the Nesje parcel.” Nesje was my great-grandfather, and during my childhood I heard many stories about him from my grandfather, Edvard Hoem, and my father, Knut.
But, although I know the key dates in his life and have a few documents about how he lived, when I went to write about him, it was not enough. I had to invent him out of air and nothingness, out of the light over Molde and Rekneslia, out of the wind that tousles my hair and the rain that falls over the fields and the people, both in his day and in mine.
On June 17, 1874, he woke up earlier than usual in the house he had built below the horizon. The pocket watch on the chair beside his bed said five o’clock. His heart beat erratically the way it did when he was short on sleep, and he thought, as he usually did when it thumped like that, that our minds bear many a worry that we do not comprehend.
He lay still a while before it dawned on him that today was his birthday and he would be thirty-six. Two years had passed since his wife Guri had died on him. For the first time, he now felt that time was easing his pain and longing.
He swung his feet over the side of the bed, descended the steep attic stairs, and went out behind the house to pass water. The summer morning was waking up with floral scents and the sod steaming. He heard birdsong farther up the hillside, first a song thrush, then a chorus of starlings, chaffinches, and willow warblers.
He went back inside and drank his fill from the dipper that stood in the rainwater bucket, before pulling on a pair of wadmal pants that had once been his Sunday best, a linen shirt, a vest, and a neckerchief. The window was open. A pair of starlings was rearing a brood of chicks in a nest under the eaves. He buttered a heel of bread and drank a mug of milk with it. He did not usually make coffee on weekdays, but if Claus Gørvell’s servant girls should offer him a cup later in the day, he would not turn them down. In his youth he had allowed himself a dram on his birthday, but he had not tasted the stuff since he had been left alone with the boy. A cotter or a tenant farmer has no time for drinking or idleness. Summer days at the Gørvell farm were long and hard, and when the haymaking was finished there, he still had to do his six mandatory days of mowing at Reknes, because Reknes was where he had leased his land from. Apart from the seasonal farm work, Nesje also made tools at the workbench and in the forge, and he took care of those Danish draft horses Claus Gørvell was so fond of. During the haymaking, he always led the line of five scythesmen. He set the pace for their mowing. His work at the Gørvell farm meant that he needed to mow his own parcel of land at night, so during the busy season in the summer that usually meant no more than three or four hours of sleep. In the winter he would work in the woods for Gørvell. He worked for a half dalar a day, or sixty skilling as people called it, which was less than a day’s wages for a day laborer, but Nesje worked at the Gørvell farm year-round. In the spring and fall, he spent every free moment he had clearing, sowing, and harvesting the four acres of land he had leased in Rekneslia. In only ten years he had cleared and ploughed two and a half acres. He had one and a half to go before he was done. He did all the tilling work with a spade and a mattock. Only for the ploughing had he borrowed a horse. By his fortieth birthday, he should have all the land under his control converted to hayfields and cropland. That was his plan, and so far he had stuck to it precisely.
***
2
Before Nesje left the house, he yelled up to the attic to wake his fourteen-year-old son, Hans, who was working as the errand boy at the Gørvell family’s mercantile this summer. Nesje received no response. He grabbed his ax and pounded on a rafter with the poll of the ax until the boy came stumbling down the stairs.
“Stop, I’m awake!” mumbled Hans. He ladled water into a small basin and headed out the door to wash the sleep out of his eyes. Then he came back in and started putting on his clothes, which were sitting on a chair. Then it hit him.
“Happy birthday, Pa.”
“Thank you.”
Nesje looked at his son. He was tall. He had really shot up nicely the last couple years. He had curls in his hair that he tried to flatten down every morning with water. He had a gentle face, almost delicate, and he tended his hands and fingernails well, like so many other members of the Nesje family. Hans would be confirmed next spring. Some said children are only ours on loan, but Nesje hoped the boy would settle nearby when he grew up. After all, it was just the two of them. Although who can know what the future will bring? So many people were setting out across the Atlantic to America these days, without any regard to their parents, who were left behind in misery and destitution.
Nesje’s voice caught a little as he reminded the boy to be on his best behavior, as he had every day thus far. The boy eyed him and in a placating voice replied, “I will be, Pa.”
Nesje picked up his whetstone from the table and a whittling knife in a sheath, which he secured to his belt. Then he walked down the big stone steps and paused for a moment in front of the house. The mountains on the far side of the Molde Fjord were an incomparable sight on this misty morning. The view of the mountain range had been an important factor in his decision to settle so high on the hillside. Some of the mountains across the fjord were down near the water, others were farther inland, but they were all spectacular from here, like one contiguous chain of mountaintops with more than seventy peaks. There was still snow on most of them. The surface of the fjord was smooth and still. In the mornings the islands and islets out there looked like they were floating on the water.
Nesje jogged down the hillsides and did not stop until he reached the top of the hill at Rekneshaugen. He paused there for a bit, giving some thought to his age. I’m an adult now, he thought, but not yet old. He looked out over the landscape. He lived here, and here was where he would continue to live. He was a thin man with a full beard and hair that curled when he worked up a sweat. He always wore a hat when he worked in the field, so his face would not become too sunburned, but his forearms and hands were dark brown. There was nothing a laborer could do about that.
Below him lay the little town of Molde, which had grown up on the land belonging to the Reknes estate and, just across the Molde River from that, Moldegaard Manor. A row of houses lined both sides of the old carriage road between Reknes Hospital and Moldegaard, and each year new buildings were added.
Nesje walked down the path to the right of the large garden called Humlehaven, the “hops garden.” It was all fields around here with no buildings, an area on the outskirts of Molde, technically still a part of Bolsøy, the neighboring municipality. The hillside was fenced in to keep grazing animals out, and several hundred plant species had been planted and now in early summer they were in peak bloom. The garden was called Humlehaven because Judge Advocate Koren, who at one time had owned the large Reknes estate, had raised hops there for brewing beer. Humlehaven belonged to the Dahl family now, and the skippers of Nicolay Dahl’s ships, who sailed many oceans, had been instructed to bring home seeds, rootstock, and cuttings from all the exotic flowers, shrubs, and trees they could find, so they could be tried to see if they would grow well in Molde. With all its floral splendor, Humlehaven was a wonder to behold at the 62nd parallel north. The Dahl family’s gazebo with its arches and columns stood atop the hill. The steep slope below the gazebo was covered in exotic flowers. Rose bushes, clematis, and honeysuckle flourished along the fence, and throughout the entire garden the wind rustled the crowns of larch trees and stone pines.
Nesje inhaled the floral scents as he walked by. The course of life is like the cycle of the seasons, he thought.
He came down onto the lane, which was lined with ash trees that Claus Gørvell had planted a couple of years earlier after the birch trees, which had grown there since the time of Judge Advocate Koren, had been chopped down. The ash trees were not yet taller than a man, but even so, people referred to the unfinished lane as Gørvell Allée.
***
3
When Nesje got down to the Gørvell house, he saw a woman standing down by the water, out on the dock. She was not very young, possibly in her early thirties, and she had a black headscarf and carried a gray canvas travel case. She wore a white apron over her skirt, as if she were planning to serve at a wedding.
Since there was no one else around, he thought he ought to go down and talk to her. She was following something out on the water with her eyes, but looked over at him once he grew near.
“Don’t you see the pollock?” she called out.
A school of pollock was passing right in front of the dock, moving up the fjord. The surface was choppy, the water swirling, the fish moving swiftly, and a flock of seagulls followed the school, diving down frequently to try to snatch something.
“If only you had some fishing line and a boat handy, we could row out and catch some!” she said.
Nesje realized there was a net in the boathouse.
“Well, you should come with me, then!” he called. Gørvell kept a small, two-man faering moored to the dock, and Nesje pointed to it. There wasn’t time for many words.
“Pull the boat in!” he said.
He yanked open the door to the boathouse. The net was in a crate. He pulled off his neckerchief and his good jacket and grabbed the net. By the time he emerged, she already had the boat back to the dock. She removed her apron, rolled it up, and stuck it in her travel bag, which she tossed up into the little loft in the boathouse. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that she had a slight limp. She maneuvered the boat over alongside the dock and undid the mooring line. He hopped in first and then held the boat steady so she could join him. There were two sets of oars, and they flung them into place and rowed so the water churned and frothed. The sea glittered, and she was as eager as he was. It did not take the long to reach the seething school of fish.
“You’ve got them now!” she exclaimed. He stood up in the boat and cast the net as far as he could. The net fell right over the school of fish, and she rowed as hard as she could for shore. The fish swam straight into the mesh, pulling with a tremendous force. He hauled it in. There were at least twenty fish in the net. Once the net and the fish were safely in the boat, she used the oars to hold the boat steady despite the current and laughed.
And there was no denying that he was smiling, too.
He plucked the fish from of the net, cut under their gills, and broke their necks. They rowed back, with her still laughing.
“They’re basically my fish,” she pointed out.
“Where did you come from?” he asked. “And . . . how did you get here?”
“My brother, Ola, dropped me off.”
She pointed to the fjord, and way off in the distance he could see one of the larger faerings, as the boats were called. They were a common enough boat in the outer district, bigger than the standard two-man faerings because they were used for fishing and hauling freight, but still manageable for one person to row. In that larger faering out there on the Molde Fjord, Nesje could just make out a man hoisting the sail. The sail went up, and as the man received some assistance from the offshore breeze, the boat darted away over the fjord.
“Why did he drop you off here?” Nesje asked.
“Well, I suppose he didn’t want me hanging around home anymore! I’m Serianna, and you?”
She held out her hand, which was surprisingly small, but clearly accustomed to work.
“They call me Nesje,” he said.
“Then I suppose I’ll call you Nesje, too,” she said.
He figured she was probably planning to look for work, although he did not expect she would find any.
“If you were looking for work, you should have come on Moving Day,” he said. “I think Gørvell already has all the serving folk he needs now.”
“You know, I thought I might smoke a pipe with Gørvell,” the woman said. “I figured then he would realize that he needs me! You wouldn’t happen to have any tobacco, would you?” she said.
She placed her oars in the boat, pulled a pipe out of her shift, and popped it into her mouth.
Nesje was tongue-tied for a moment. He had heard of women who smoked, but he had never seen one with his own eyes. His breath caught in his throat.
“I haven’t tasted tobacco in years,” Nesje said. “You should go to Gørvell’s mercantile when they open. They stock that kind of thing there.”
He rowed in against the dock and she hopped out. He passed her the box of fish and straightened out the net before tying the mooring line and then pushing the boat back out.
“You take the fish,” she said.
“I’ll bring them to the kitchen,” Nesje said. “It was Gørvell’s boat and Gørvell’s net.”
“We were the ones who caught them,” she said. “Where can I find this Gørvell?”
“Gørvell’s not up yet, I wouldn’t think. And I don’t know if he’ll have time to talk to you, either,” Nesje said.
She started walking up toward the house. He asked her to wait by the servants’ quarters while he brought the fish to the kitchen door.
Nesje was wrong. Claus Gørvell was not asleep. He was standing on the front steps, squinting up at the sky.
“Who’s that you found there, Nesje?” he said.
“She was standing on your dock,” Nesje said. “You can have pollock for dinner tonight if you’d like. We spotted a school of them, and―can you believe it―we caught quite a few.”
“You go ahead and take the fish home, Nesje. Just get them out of here before my mother sees them,” Gørvell said with a laugh.
But it was no joke. Claus Gørvell’s mother, Mrs. Anne Margrete Gørvell, was seventy years old, but she ran her bachelor son’s household with a firm hand. Nesje rarely saw her, because she didn’t come outside unless she had good reason, and he rarely went inside. But he was around the Gørvell estate all year round and caught a glimpse of her now and again through the window.
He wanted to say something more, but Gørvell gestured with his hand to show that the matter was resolved. Gørvell strode down his front steps.
“I suppose you’re looking for work,” Claus Gørvell said to Serianna, holding out his hand. “You look like you’re accustomed to work. But I don’t know yet if Sina will be staying on. If Sina stays, but Anna leaves, we’ll need an indoor girl. We already have enough outdoor help.”
He spoke as if she were familiar with everyone and everything at the Gørvell estate.
“I’d prefer to work outdoors,” Serianna said.
“An indoor girl is what we need right now,” Gørvell said. “You could inquire over at Moldegaard Manor.”
Nesje had a thought.
“Maybe Sina would stay if she could be the indoor girl,” he said. “Then this new one could take Sina’s place!”
“Really?” Gørvell said in surprise.
“It’s just a suggestion,” Nesje said.
Gørvell contemplated the unknown woman.
“I suppose you have a child or two?” he said.
“I had a daughter,” Serianna said.
“Where’s your daughter now?” Gørvell asked.
“In heaven,” Serianna said.
“Ah,” Gørvell said. “That is where our longing lies!”
Although, you certainly still have an interest in more earthly pursuits, don’t you, Gørvell? Nesje thought.
“All right, you can put Serianna to work,” Gørvell told Nesje. “I think Sina’s getting the fire going in the cookhouse. There’s some baking to be done now before the haymaking.”
“Baking is a skill I’ve mastered,” Serianna said.
“You’ll get by on fourteen speciedalar a year like the rest of them.”
“Plus food,” she stipulated.
“Yes, plus food,” Gørvell said.
“Do you have any tobacco?” she asked. “You probably do since you sell pipes in your mercantile?”
“Yes?” Gørvell said, stunned. He went back inside for his tobacco pouch and gave her a wad of tobacco pinched between his fingers. She had matches! She just lit up her pipe and started smoking away! Gørvell watched her. Then he chuckled and went back inside. He returned again just as quickly.
“We need to cut a few loads of peat before the haymaking begins,” he instructed Nesje. “Can you spend the rest of the week up in the peat bog?”
“What about the haymaking and the tools?”
“We won’t start for another two weeks.”
“I should have brought a boy with me to haul the peat to the drying field.”
“I’ll send someone up,” Gørvell said.
“How much peat should I harvest?”
“You need to fill up the barn in the far field,” Gørvell instructed.
“That’ll take a week. I suppose there’s a peat spade there, in the barn?”
“Yes, I think so. And take that fish with you,” Gørvell said and then turned on his heel and left.
Nesje walked up toward Rekneshaugen. Mrs. Louise Dahl was standing out in Humlehaven with Ole Gjelden. She was sixty years old and definitely old school as they say, but she did not think so highly of herself that she avoided speaking to Nesje. Ole Gjelden was digging and did not notice the haymaker from Rekneslia.
“What is that you’re carrying there, Nesje?” Louise Dahl inquired.
“A school of pollock swam by!” he explained. “So I went out with the net.”
“Would you care to sell me some of those, Nesje?”
There was no point in being difficult.
“How many would you be requiring, ma’am?” Nesje asked. He could sound educated when necessary.
“All you’ve got!” Mrs. Dahl said. “My son Bastian is coming home from Christiania today. He has earned his degree in philology now, just twenty-four years old.”
“It is widely known that Bastian Dahl has a rare gift,” Nesje said.
A few years earlier, Bastian Dahl had received top marks on his university entrance exam at Molde Academy. There were few people who not aware of that.
Nesje had been looking forward to his meal of pollock, but he sold the fish to Mrs. Dahl. He walked back to his house in Rekneslia, went inside, drank some water, and put on a heavier shirt. There was no need to wear a dress shirt up in the mountains. But he did not regret having worn his good shirt down to town that morning. Now he was to collect thirty skilling from Mrs. Louise Dahl the next time he passed Humlehaven. So that one quick boat trip was worth half a day’s labor!
