57°03”N, 135°19”W #4
Now she can finally join her husband. Fear is replaced with a weary happiness: she can see Hampus again and she has not lost the child.
They dine at the captain’s table, and Anna is pleasantly surprised at the quality of life in high society: for their entourage alone, the ship’s kitchen slaughters three cows, three lambs and three dozen chickens every day, and the passengers in first class are young and bright.
After luncheon, they perform plays and recite poetry, and an officer strikes up an especially warm friendship with one of the young ladies, which gives the older women plenty to talk about.
Here in the tropics the air is humid, but they are brought buckets of ice with which to cool their drinks and themselves.
Everything is most agreeable, though jolly expensive, and they take to throwing their dirty clothes overboard, as it is cheaper to buy new ones than to have the old ones laundered.
Every evening, they gather on deck, cast their clothes into the sea and raise a merry toast to their socks.
Anna had hoped that the journey would give them a chance to open their hearts to each other, but Hampus spends all day in his cabin reading through the colony’s affairs.
He has no time for parlour games, nor for walks on the moonlit deck, and Anna has the idea of asking him to read these reports aloud to her.
That way, she can keep her husband company without disturbing his work, and at the same time she can learn about her new home, and so Hampus reads to her about Juvenaly of Alaska, a monk who was sent to convert the natives.
Soon after his arrival, however, Juvenaly disappears, and sailors begin telling stories of the man who tried to make the Aleutians relinquish their old gods.
The savages were unimpressed by the monk’s sermon and killed him.
Then, a miracle happened. Having been bludgeoned to death, Juvenaly stands up again and proclaims the greatness of his god and does not fall silent until the natives hack him to pieces and swallow his flesh, and this is how Juvenaly became patron saint of their new colony.
Anna makes the sign of the cross, but Hampus just scoffs.
The church has its own motivations to portray the natives as cruel barbarians, though the main reason that their true and righteous faith has not spread is that, instead of sending its best, most gifted clergymen, the church sends those it wishes to get rid of.
He suddenly remembers his wife’s disposition – surely this story is too much for her?
But Anna shakes her head: by her beloved’s side, she is ready to encounter even the infamous cannibals.
In April they reach the coast of South America.
They go ashore at Cartagena, and never in her life has Anna seen a place more disagreeable than this.
Dusty streets, filthy women with cigars wedged between their teeth, and fruit bats fluttering over the roofs.
Their leather wings make her hands sweaty, and though the hills surrounding the city are beautiful, even they are a source of disappointment.
With careful planning, these hills could be turned into profitable farmland, and the location of the city could not be better, from here fruit could be transported easily and efficiently to the great cities of America, but the locals seem uninterested in turning their natural bounty into money.
It pains her to look on as the possibility of progress goes to waste.
To Anna’s relief, they soon leave Cartagena behind them and take a train to Panama.
Legend has it that every mile of track cost the life of one labourer.
Of the three hundred Jamaicans sent to construct the railway, only twenty-five returned to their island alive.
Anna shudders. She imagines the men’s bones hidden beneath the tracks but decides to turn her thoughts to the future instead.
The isthmus connecting the Americas will soon be cut in two, the continents will release their grip on each other and allow two oceans to join together, and the wrongs of history can finally be left behind.
Anna leans her elbows against the windowsill and inspects the landscape.
The train passes through a jungle, and the trees grow so close to the track that she could reach out a hand and pluck a fragrant flower if she so desired.
My own beloved Mother, she writes, were everything not growing in such wild confusion, one could well imagine oneself driving through a most choice greenhouse.
They arrive at San Francisco. The city is a pleasant surprise, its population has grown ten-fold in as many years, and its boutiques are every bit as good as those in London and Paris.
Their arrival has been long anticipated, and local officials and politicians clamour round them like hungry gnats.
Hampus spends the daytime in meetings, and when he returns home in the evenings he is too tired to socialise, and the knotted feeling returns to Anna’s breast.
Inside her, a life continues to grow. Axons sprout from the brain stem, bringing nerves to the organs, the eyes, the ears and nose, and the foetus inside her begins to sense the world around it.
But to Anna the changes taking place under her skin remain secret.
Her waist expands, but though she presses a hand against her stomach, she still cannot feel the child inside her.
She takes drops to calm her nerves, listens to the beating of her heart and the child’s absent movements and dreams of the moment when they finally reach their home.
Before long, the moment is at hand: Anna feels the Alaskan soil under her feet.
She has chosen her attire carefully – a black, tastefully cut silk skirt, a cloak with fur trim, and a pink bonnet, the kind of attire that would not be out of place on the boulevards of Paris.
Her stomach is now clearly visible under her skirt, and knowing whispers spread through the crowds gathered on the quayside.
She will have her firstborn in this unknown town, on this strange continent, and she might well have been afraid, but she is not, for that morning she saw a whale.
She was standing on deck, and the creature’s gnarled back rose up from the sea.
Just then, Baranof Island appeared through the mists, and Anna saw the lighthouse crowning their new home.
This is surely a good omen; she decides that it must be and fills her lungs with the damp air of the Alaskan July.
The departing governor hosts them for three days.
Voevodskii has difficulty containing his excitement at returning to St Petersburg, but he does at least try to conceal his enthusiasm, and his wife welcomes Anna most warmly.
Anna Vasilevna’s friendship is overwhelming.
She kisses Anna as though they were long lost sisters, speaks empathetically about the difficulties that lie ahead, the servants’ laziness and the stubborn rector of the local girls’ school.
She gives Anna a hat made of sea-otter fur as a gift and speaks so much that Anna cannot get a word in.
Anna Vasilevna talks for three days, then the Voevodskiis set off on their journey back to the civilised world.
Anna and Hampus stand on the quayside and wave until they can no longer make out the governor and his wife on deck, then they turn to face the town that is now theirs.
Before them stands Novo-Arkhangelsk, the archangels’ new abode created on this rugged shoreline barely five decades ago.
The town was founded by the first governor of the Russian-American Company, Aleksandr Baranov, but to his misfortune he did not arrive in a pristine, uninhabited paradise.
Baranov began construction work on the town, but the Tlingit destroyed the fortress he built.
The Company was forced to pay an exorbitant ransom for those taken alive, and the Russians decided to abandon the town, but three years later Baranov returned.
Now he knew what to expect. He brought a troop of soldiers with him, expelled the natives and built a new fortress, surrounding it with a moat and manning its walls with guards and cannons.
Thus protected, a small village of low houses slowly built up around the stronghold, and this settlement became the capital of Russian Alaska.
Anna and Hampus have spent three days in Novo-Arkhangelsk, but it is already clear that the term “capital” makes it sound far grander than is the case.
They stroll along the main street, trying not to let their disappointment show: algae creeping its way up the walls, houses leaning against one another like drunkards.
Their brave northern colony is falling apart before their very eyes.
The city is rotten, but the governor’s fortress is worthy of its name.
Kekoor Castle is built on a hilltop and named after that hill.
There is a set of white steps leading to the summit, the yard smells of the sea and freshly painted wood, and on top of the governor’s house is a charming light that guides ships through fog and darkness to safety.
An elderly Yupik guards the lighthouse tower.
Anna and Hampus greet him politely. Luckily the house itself is equipped with modern conveniences, including a reception area on the first floor, a dancing and billiard hall, a smoking room and offices, while the ground floor is home to the bedrooms, the kitchen, the servants’ quarters and the governate’s natural history collections, stuffed birds and animals, the natives’ curious attire.