Also by Karl Marlantes
Matterhorn
What It Is Like to Go to War
DEEP
RIVER
A NOVEL
KARL
MARLANTES
Copyright © 2019 by Karl Marlantes
Cover design by Daniel Rembert
Cover photograph © Hum Images / Alamy Stock Photo
Map © Martin Lubikowski, ML Design, London
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FIRST EDITION
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
This book is set in 11.5-point Janson MT
by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH.
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: July 2019
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.
ISBN 978-0-8021-2538-5
eISBN 978-0-8021-4619-9
Atlantic Monthly Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
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For Anniki
Contents
Cover
Also by Karl Marlantes
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Index of Main Characters
Map
PART ONE: 1893–1904
Prologue
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
PART TWO: 1904–1910
Prologue
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
Chapter fourteen
Chapter fifteen
Chapter sixteen
Chapter seventeen
Chapter eighteen
Chapter nineteen
Chapter twenty
Chapter twenty-one
Chapter twenty-two
Chapter twenty-three
Chapter twenty-four
Chapter twenty-five
Chapter twenty-six
Chapter twenty-seven
Chapter twenty-eight
Chapter twenty-nine
Chapter thirty
Chapter thirty-one
Chapter thirty-two
Chapter thirty-three
PART THREE: 1910–1917
Prologue
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
Chapter fourteen
Chapter fifteen
PART FOUR: 1917–1919
Prologue
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
Chapter fourteen
Chapter fifteen
Chapter sixteen
Chapter seventeen
Chapter eighteen
Chapter nineteen
Chapter twenty
Chapter twenty-one
Chapter twenty-two
Chapter twenty-three
PART FIVE: 1919–1932
Prologue
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
Chapter fourteen
Chapter fifteen
Chapter sixteen
Chapter seventeen
Chapter eighteen
Chapter nineteen
Chapter twenty
Chapter twenty-one
Chapter twenty-two
Chapter twenty-three
Chapter twenty-four
Chapter twenty-five
Chapter twenty-six
Chapter twenty-seven
Chapter twenty-eight
Chapter twenty-nine
Lördagsvalsen
Author’s Comment
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
Index of Main Characters
THE KOSKI FAMILY
Tapio Koski (Tah-pee-oh Koh-skee): Ilmari, Aino, and Matti’s father
Maíjaliisa Koski (MY-uh-LEE-suh): Ilmari, Aino, and Matti’s mother
Ilmari Koski (IL-mah-ree): The eldest Koski sibling
Aino Koski (EYE-no): The middle Koski sibling
Matti Koski (MAT-tee): The youngest Koski sibling
OTHER CHARACTERS
Oskar Penttilä/Voitto (OS-kar PEN-ta-lah)/(VOY-toh): A communist activist and Aino’s first love as a teenager in Finland
Gunnar Långström (GOO-nar LYNG-strum): Oskar Penttilä’s friend, also an activist
Aksel Långström (AK-suhl LYNG-strum): Gunnar’s younger brother, and, after he immigrates to America, Matti’s friend and fellow logger
Vasutäti/Mowitch (VA-soo tah-tee)/(MOH-witch): A Native American woman and mentor to Ilmari after he immigrates to Washington
John Reder (John REE-dur): Owner of the logging company that Matti Koski and Aksel Långström work for after immigrating to Washington
Margaret Reder (Margaret REE-dur): John Reder’s wife
Alma Wittala (AHL-muh VIH-tah-lah): The manager of the kitchen at John Reder’s camp
Kullerikki /Kullervo (KUH-lur-ee-kee/KUH-lur-voh): Young whistle punk befriended by Matti and Aksel
Louhi Jokinen (LAU-hih YOH-kih-nen): A Nordland businesswoman
Rauha Jokinen (RAU-ha YOH-kih-nen): Louhi’s daughter
Jouka Kaukonen (YOO-kuh KAU-koh-nen): A fellow logger and friend of Matti and Aksel
Lempi Rompinen (Lem-pee RAHM-pih-nun): A friend of Aino
Joe Hillström/Joe Hill (Joe HILL-strum): Swedish-American labor activist and songwriter who recruits Aino to the Industrial Workers
of the World
Kyllikki Saari (KI-luh-kee SAH-ree): A young Finnish-American woman from Astoria, Oregon who is courted by Matti Koski
Jens Lerback (YENS LUHR-bak)
Yrjö Rautio (YUR-hoh RAU-ti-oh)
Members of the Bachelor
Boys along with Aksel and
Kullervo
PART ONE
1893–1904
Prologue
A thread of light on the eastern horizon announced the dawning of full daylight and with it the end of a night the Koski family would never talk about and never forget. A skylark called across the rye field, full throated, pouring out its desire to mate and be fertile. The cold blue sky into which it would rise sat back and let it sing.
It was on this morning in 1891 that Maíjaliisa Koski returned from a three-day absence, helping a Swedish-speaking woman from a poor fisherman’s family with a difficult delivery. She found her two oldest daughters and her baby son laid out in their Sunday clothes on the rough planks of the kitchen floor. Although cleaned just hours earlier, the house still smelled of vomit and excrement. Her husband, Tapio; her oldest son, Ilmari Väinö; age twelve, her daughter, Aino, age three; and her now youngest son, Lemminki Matti, two, were sitting on the floor, their backs against the wall, staring dumbly at the bodies. Maíjaliisa threw herself to the floor beside her dead children and covered their faces with kisses.
She’d left them with mild fevers just three days earlier, begged by the woman’s husband who’d skied and run over thirty kilometers from the coast through the spring thaw to reach her, a midwife renowned throughout the Kokkola region. Knowing that a mother and baby might die, flattered by the heroic effort of the father to reach her, she thought her own children would all pull through.
Few survived cholera.
When she’d finished crying, she stood and looked at her husband. “We’ll bury them tomorrow in the churchyard. I want to be with them today.”
Her husband said, “Yoh.”
* * *
That terrible night marked the children differently. Aino, in whose little arms her baby brother, Väinö Ahti, had died, learned that no one was coming. She was as alone as the meaning of her name—the only one. Ilmari, ill to the point of staggering, had exhausted himself bringing snow from the remaining patches to stem his sisters’ fevers. He’d fainted and had visions of angels coming for his siblings. When he regained consciousness, soaked with melted snow, his father was slumped unconscious against the ladder leading to the loft where his sisters Mielikki and Lokka lay dead in the bed all the children shared. From that night, Ilmari knew there was a God and God was to be feared, but He sent angels. Lemminki Matti, not fully aware of what was happening, retained a vague uneasiness about the future. As he grew older, he realized the wealthy feared the future less than the poor. How wealth was attained was less important than gaining it.
The children never knew the name of the woman Maíjaliisa went to help that night nor the name of her son who survived and grew to manhood, but their fates were linked.
1
That September of 1901, four years after Ilmari left for America, both for its opportunity and for fear of being drafted into the Russian army, the district was still without a teacher. The Evengelical Lutheran Church of Finland would not confirm an illiterate child, and this made even the poorest of Finnish peasants different from peasants in almost all other European countries: all children learned to read in church-led confirmation classes. For further education, however, the parents had to pay. This was where the bulk of Maíjaliisa’s midwifing earnings went. Classes were rotated among farmhouses.
To find a teacher, Maíjaliisa and the other mothers had been writing letters most of the summer. The geese were already on their way south when Tapio came from Kokkola with a letter saying that a young man named Järvinen from the University of Helsinki had accepted the post.
He turned out to be a radical, giving the parents great concern. Aino, now thirteen, along with the other teenage girls, fell in love with him.
Her feelings for the teacher intensified when it was the Koskis’ week to board him.
Aino was at the kitchen table working on an essay Järvinen had assigned, when he sat down next to her. He carefully slipped a small pamphlet in front of her, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in Russian.
“Are you supposed to have that?” she whispered.
He put a finger to his lips. “No. You are.”
Aino looked over to see Maíjaliisa knitting and Tapio snoring, the harness he’d been working on still in his hands. “Why me?”
“Your mother told me your father’s been teaching you Russian. She says he’s fluent because he worked in Saint Petersburg as a young man.”
“He stopped teaching me when the czar began making it the language of government.”
Järvinen chuckled. He waggled the booklet in front of her. “I can help you with the Russian, but I’m really giving it to you because of your questions in class. Why do people let the czar be so rich and stay poor themselves? Why must families who can barely feed their children do work rent on horse stables and roads that go nowhere for some count who lives in Stockholm? Good questions. This might help answer them.” He slid it under her work. “Just between you and me.”
When Tapio and Maíjaliisa were safely asleep, Aino lit the kerosene lamp next to her bed and stayed up until just before Maíjaliisa rose for her morning chores. Then she slipped the pamphlet under her mattress. Aware of Matti watching her, she said, “Don’t you say a word, or I’ll tell Father who took that mink trap from Mr. Kulmala.”
“No one here objected to the extra mink pelts.”
“Even more reason you’ll catch it when they find out the extra pelts are coming from a stolen trap.”
Matti glared at the obvious blackmail. “All right. I won’t tell; you won’t tell.”
“Deal.”
All through the winter Aino plied Järvinen with questions during lunch breaks, after school, after supper—whenever she could. Is there really going to be a revolution? Why aren’t the working classes already throwing off their chains?”
When Aino finished working through The Communist Manifesto, Järvinen gave her a Swedish translation of a pamphlet by Rosa Luxemburg titled Reform or Revolution? Aino daydreamed about meeting Rosa Luxemburg and being at her side reforming all of Europe. She also daydreamed about Mr. Järvinen.
That March of 1902, during another one of Järvinen’s weeks with the Koskis, he asked if Tapio would like to accompany him to hear a lecture by Erno Harmajärvi in Kokkola—and if Aino could come along.
Maíjaliisa shot a quick glare at Tapio. “He’s a socialist,” she said.
Aino held her breath.
“He’s really a Finnish nationalist,” Järvinen said.
Järvinen had hit Tapio where his heart beat. He’d named all his children after heroes and heroines of The Kalevala, the national epic poem of Finland. The reason he’d worked on churches in Russia was that he’d lost his government job by preaching Finnish independence.
Tapio looked at Maíjaliisa. “He’s right. What harm would it be for Aino to hear from someone who is actually doing something to get rid of these Russians?”
Aino stood up and whirled around silently clapping her hands. Her mother was shaking her head, tight-lipped.
Maíjaliisa urged Tapio over to the corner of the kitchen.
“They’ll have someone there taking names,” she said in a fierce whisper. “You know the Okhrana probably has your name from your time in Russia and the police are already keeping an eye on you for that speech about Finnish independence at last Midsummer’s Eve dance.” She took hold of his loose blouse with both hands and pulled him closer to her face. “I ask you. Don’t do this.”
Putting his large hands over hers, he gently pulled them away from his blouse. “Living in fear is not living.”
“Neither is living without
a husband.”
“When a woman is humiliated, it doesn’t make her less a woman. When a man is humiliated, there are only two choices for him, fight or live in shame. Would you have a husband who is not a man?”
They looked into each other’s eyes, neither of them blinking. Then Maíjaliisa sighed. They both knew her answer. She picked up her pipe and walked out the door.
* * *
At the lecture, two men stood just inside the door taking notes, their faces stern and unmoving. They would occasionally ask someone’s name, but it was clear that they didn’t need to ask either Tapio’s or Mr. Järvinen’s.
Aino, Tapio, and Mr. Järvinen filed into seats near the lectern. A few minutes later, a boy about Aino’s age sat down on a seat by the aisle. She quickly took off her glasses.
She hated them. One day Matti found out she couldn’t see a lark that he could. He told her father. Her father asked her that night at family reconciliation—when they all had to recite their sins before they could eat—if she had trouble seeing. She confessed she had been walking by the blackboard during lessons and memorizing it before taking her seat. Her parents drove her into Kokkola to a hardware store where they tried on wire-rimmed glasses until they found a pair that worked for her. It cost them several months of cash, so she felt guilty every time she wouldn’t wear them. Like now.
She smiled and looked down at her apron. He was very good-looking.
He politely asked if he could sit next to her. She nodded yes, then wished she’d said something instead of just nodding like an imbecile. He sat silent, intent on the empty podium. The intensity of his eyes drew her attention. She tried not to look at him.
He leaned over and whispered, “This is going to be interesting.”
She nodded, then resolving to say something, she whispered, “He’s really not a socialist. He’s a Finnish nationalist.” She glanced quickly to see how that went over.
Then the boy leaned back toward her and whispered, “He’s really not a Finnish nationalist. He’s a revolutionary.”
The way he said it excited her, the implication of the righting of all wrongs—of revolution. Then, both tried to sneak a look at the same time and their eyes met again. “I’m Oskar Penttilä,” he whispered. He looked around. “I’m called Voitto.”