It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. Senator K. Thorvaldson arrived home from Florida on Tuesday morning. He wanted to come sooner but he was flying on a special low rate for old Norwegian bachelors and the ticket had complicated restrictions, so he could only fly on a Monday or a Thursday after sunset by way of Dallas, Texas. In Dallas he got bumped and his bag went to Phoenix. He got on a later plane that sat at the gate for an hour and a half, so the trip took eleven hours, and when the old man landed in Minnesota at 8:45 A.M., most of the Christian patience and good humor were drained out of him. When Corinne Ingqvist picked him up at 9:30, he was mumbling to himself. “What’s the matter?” she said. “You look like you’re about to shoot somebody.”
She looked fresh and lovely. She had come from teaching her poetry class. She is Senator K.’s second-niece once removed on his mother’s side of his father, she lives near the airport, and she was going up to Lake Wobegon anyway to ask her father for a loan.
They got in her red VW and headed north on Lyndale Avenue, through the city of Minneapolis, and he said he would never patronize that airline again or speak to anyone else who did. They coasted along the West River Road, through the cornfields and truck farms, the long plots of rich black dirt plowed toward the Mississippi, and saw a girl and her father trotting down a road on two black horses. In Anoka they turned left onto Highway 10. She stopped for ice-cream cones at Santa Claus Land and by Monticello he was cooling down. Through Saint Cloud he was telling her how young and beautiful she looks and if she’s been waiting all these years for him, she shouldn’t wait any longer.
She said, “What happened to that lady from Maine you were in love with?” She turned and looked at him. “Are you going to marry her or not?” He said, “Keep your eyes on the road. You’re the pilot, I’m the copilot, I’m the one who gets to look at scenery.”
He said, “Look at that. The Holiday Inn sign says ‘Congratulations Myrna and Marvin.’ You don’t think that could be your cousin Marvin, do you? He still lives in Tulsa, I thought. So why would the Holiday Inn here know about him? But I suppose maybe he’s traveling and he’s a guest here tonight. But I thought his wife’s name was Marcie, so why would it say Myrna and—unless he’s traveling with another woman, of course! But then why would they say ‘Congratulations’? It doesn’t seem to me like the sort of thing that a national motel chain should be encouraging, does it, Corinne?”
“You go right ahead and have your fun,” she said. “And someday you’re going to need my advice in matters of the heart, and I may not be there to give it to you. So tell me. You going to ask her to marry you or not?”
“I already asked,” he said, “and now it’s up to her, I guess. Funny, when I was young I thought a lot about love, thought too much—at least I think I did. I loved so many women, all so splendid and lovely, and I thought about each one and how she might not be the one for me, and eventually convinced myself. Now I’m older and wiser, I finally fell in love and didn’t think about it, just asked her to marry me, and now she’s thinking about it.”
The sky was turning dark with clouds as they drove north. She put her foot on the brake and veered left onto the turnoff toward Lake Wobegon. The turnoff is just before a sharp bend in the highway and when you brake for the turn, you think of the speeding truck that might leap from the bend and roll you flat as a pancake. This turn might be your last. You brake and at the last moment you hit the gas and swerve left, as if crossing a forbidden border. Where the county road leaves the highway, there’s a dip in the road and a bump that lets you know you’re back in the land of where you come from. You hit the bump and see George Washington’s face on the schoolroom wall and hear the Nicene Creed, “I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible,” and smell tunafish casserole.
Corinne doesn’t believe in God, but there is some evidence to show that God believes in her. She has a gift to teach, a sacred gift. Fifteen years in dreary bluish-green classrooms, pacing as she talks, this solid woman carries a flame. She cares what she says, if it is precisely truthful and if it can be heard correctly; her dark eyes flash, her hands flutter, she lifts her head and stands on tiptoe to give the sentence coming out of her mouth a little more arc. Now she is driving home to do research on her dad. She wants him to loan her fifty thousand dollars to buy a house. Hjalmar is president of First Ingqvist State Bank, and he and his daughter have had their differences. Some of their arguments made the glasses rattle in the pantry and the family dog cringe behind the couch.
“So how’s your dad doing?” Senator asked as they came over the hill and around the curve into town. She said, “He looks a lot older all of a sudden. He’s got me worried. He’s so stubborn, he won’t see a doctor.” Senator is a year older than Hjalmar. He sat up straight. “Anyway, I hope he gives me this loan. If he doesn’t, I’m going to marry some rich old man—some rich old black man—some rich old black gay man—and buy the house next door to him.”
Past the grain elevators and over the tracks and into town they cruised, past the traffic light, flashing amber, and she dropped him at his sister-in-law’s little green house. “Good luck, goodbye, God bless you,” he said, and ducked his head and trudged up the walk toward bed.
Hjalmar was waiting for her in his office, sitting in his swivel chair, his skinny old legs up on his desk, the pink socks and two-tone shoes. His thin white hair was combed across his old pink head. She pushed the application across the desk and he studied it. “Is all of this, what you list here, is that credit-card debt? Mmmm-hmmmm. You made a mistake here—nine times eight is seventy-two, not twenty-seven.” He swung his legs down and sat up. “Is this all your income? Mmmm-hmmmm. I thought I gave you some bonds about five years ago.”
“I sold them.”
“Mmmmmm. Emergency?”
“No, I went to France for the summer. Remember?”
No, he didn’t. You sell bonds to go to France? It doesn’t make sense, does it? You sell bonds to buy other bonds. Bonds don’t have anything to do with France. To go to France you save money in a Vacation Savings Account, you don’t sell your securities to take a trip.
He grunted, hnnnh. “What’s this house like?”
“It has big windows across the front of the living room,” she said, smiling beautifully. “Actually, it’s like one big window that looks down the hill toward the river. Actually, the hill is two hills, with a big lawn between, like a terrace. There’s an old stone water tank by the house, a handsome stone tower like something the Romans might have built except newer. It’s covered with vines, and birds nest there. Toward the road is a field, already fenced in almost, I could keep a horse there. There are eight or ten magnificent oak trees. It’s peaceful and gorgeous. The river flows by—”
“How old is the furnace?” She didn’t know. “How about the plumbing? Good water pressure? How old is the roof? Any leakage in the basement?” The house was in reasonably good shape, she thought. It wasn’t sound plumbing that attracted her to it, however. “Of course not,” he said.
“So? Do I pass?” she asked.
“Well, I don’t know,” he said, “I have to make sure it’s a good loan.” He hesitated. He had the check in his pocket, made out to her. He intended to give it to her. He was unsure of his timing. Should he seem more reluctant? Was he being too easy on her? Would she respect him more if he made her wait until tomorrow?
“I guess I could try a bank in the Cities,” she offered.
“It’s too late to take your business elsewhere,” he said. “I’m your father. It’s too late to shop for another one.” He gave her the check. A personal check for fifty thousand. “Pay me back when you can,” he said, the old smoothie. He offered his hand. They shook hands. And he took her out to lunch. Meat loaf, whipped potatoes, string beans, bread, and tapioca pudding—a lunch you can seal a bargain on and know it’ll stay sealed.