Chapter 24 continues
The story so far: A reunited Paul and Katka declare their love.
The sauna was the cornerstone of Finnish life. On the Iron Range, Finnish immigrants who homesteaded usually constructed one before they built their houses. Families used the steam bath as a spiritual place that enabled them to regenerate their sisu or life force. Because the sauna had no windows, it was also an exceedingly private place.
Anton was one of many non-Finns on the Iron Range who had embraced the tradition of the sauna. Iron Range saunas varied in size, but most included two rooms: the steam room and the changing room. Anton's sauna easily could accommodate eight men. He wanted to efficiently enable his boarders to bathe on a regular basis, for he had been convinced that cleanliness, above all else, prevented the spread of disease. He had first discovered this on his passage overseas. Later this theory had been confirmed as he spent many nights on filthy beds in the lumber camps. His boarders bathed in the sauna every Sunday.
As Katka approached the sauna, she noted with satisfaction that the previous bathers had indeed left the woodpile well stocked. She filled her apron with wood and opened the door.
The walls of the steam room were constructed of cedar. Katka knelt down and started the fire in the small, metal furnace. On top of the metal fire casing, flat rocks were arranged like buns in a bakery. They would heat up quickly and eventually provide the steam when water was drizzled on them. Two sturdy benches faced the fire. After lighting the fire, Katka took two empty buckets down to the creek and filled them with the ice-cold spring water. Then she dropped them off in the changing room and went back to find Paul.
"Where were you?" Paul asked quietly, when Katka finally got back to the cellar. "I was starting to worry."
"Let's go for walk." She beckoned him to follow her up the ladder.