12
Should she consult Karl? No, it would be useless. Karl never noticed what was going on. That was his forte, Lotta had realized it long ago. But perhaps it was her duty to talk to Karl. Thomas was such an old friend, such a dear friend, and now that he was on his own… (Already, she knew, she was phrasing her story as she would phrase it to Karl.) He had had such a difficult time. First Johanna’s death and then Minna so cold and hard, not at all what a daughter should be. Minna hadn’t visited her father for months, and he never spoke of going to see her in Åbo. (And a small part of Lotta was comforted, as it always was when other people’s children failed them.)
Yes, she would go to Karl. She would talk it over openly and sensibly It was no good getting too emotional about these things. Thomas was not himself. He seemed to be avoiding his oldest friends. But Lotta wasn’t going to let herself be hurt. She had a duty to Thomas which was more important than the fact that he didn’t seem to…
Better not to think of that. The sense of Thomas in her life, which had always been warm and consoling, was suddenly a bruise she didn’t dare to press.
She would talk to Karl. She had reached this point, and it would be weak to turn back. Lotta squared her shoulders, drew in her stomach, and stepped down the gravel path towards Karl’s workshop.
She rarely went there. The sight of Karl’s long thin figure disappearing down the path – ‘his’ path – each morning was enough. He appeared to stroll casually, even to stray along as if he weren’t quite sure where he was going, but she wasn’t fooled. She knew Karl’s iron determination to live as he wanted to live, and in no other way. Quietly, but with great force, he wore his world down until it did what he wanted.
She flung her head back, and tapped at the door. After an unsettling pause, Karl called, ‘Come in.’
She pushed open the door, and the fragrance of wood wrapped around her. Everybody loved it. Visitors whom Karl invited into his workshop would stand and snuff up great nosefuls of it. ‘Oh! How wonderful! Imagine working with this beautiful wood all day long. How I wish I had such a talent.’ Karl would explain that every wood had its own scent, as well as its own density and grain. He would let the visitors smell apple wood, cedar, and a hard wood from South America which he said smelled of gooseberries. Lotta could never remember its name. They would sniff the South American wood, holding it close to their noses in rapture. ‘Yes! You’re right! It smells exactly like gooseberries.’
‘My dear Lotta!’ said Karl smoothly. ‘This is a surprise.’
‘I need to talk to you, Karl.’
‘Well, here I am. Talk away,’ he said, keeping a faint preoccupied smile on his face. What had he been doing before she knocked? He didn’t seem to be busy. There were no curls of shaven wood on the floor. He hadn’t even put on his working smock. He was just sitting in his basket chair, doing nothing. A pang of pain shot up her spine. She’d walked too fast down that path.
‘I’m concerned about Thomas,’ said Lotta. She was pleased with the calm seriousness of her voice, and the way she had chosen the word ‘concerned’ rather than ‘worried’. Karl wouldn’t be able to say she was being too emotional. Surely you’re overreacting, my dear Lotta. You’re making too much of this.
He sat there, silent, the preoccupied look on his face deepening.
‘About Thomas?’ he said at last.
‘Yes. He isn’t himself. He’s unhappy.’
‘How long is it since Johanna died?’ asked Karl, as if he genuinely couldn’t remember.
‘This has nothing to do with Johanna,’ rapped out Lotta, then she caught herself. Karl had done it again. He’d pushed her into saying more than she meant.
‘A widower surely has a right to be unhappy. Almost, one might say, a duty,’ murmured Karl. ‘I should mourn you, my dear Lotta, if you were to die.’
She looked at him, but made no answer.
‘Why are you so… concerned?’ asked Karl. His tone was neutral. She couldn’t tell if there were malice in the question, or not.
‘Thomas is our oldest friend,’ she said. ‘Naturally I am concerned for him. He’s living alone out there, and a man who spends too much time on his own gets strange ideas.’
‘I thought he had a girl to look after him.’
‘Yes.’
‘So he’s not alone.’
Lotta stared at her husband’s bland face. He was sitting comfortably in his basket chair, his legs crossed, one hand clasping a slender ankle.
‘Men get strange ideas, at Thomas’s time of life. They are easily influenced,’ she said at last.
‘And who do you think is going to influence our dear friend Thomas?’ he asked. How carefully he was watching her. Like a cat.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about, Karl. It’s not suitable or sensible for Thomas to be alone in the house with a young girl who is… well, who is capable of exploiting his weaknesses.’
‘Let me be sure that I’ve got this right, Lotta. Thomas is forty-five –’
‘Forty-seven.’
‘Forty-seven. I stand corrected. A professional man from a good family, well established, well connected. This girl, what is she?’
‘He got her from the House of Orphans.’
‘Precisely. She’s a girl of no family, with nothing. What age is she? Sixteen, seventeen? And yet you say that Thomas is weak. So presumably you think the girl is strong?’
‘That’s not what I said.’
‘Let us at least try to be logical, my dear Lotta. You are concerned about Thomas’s weakness, not the girl’s?’
‘You don’t understand, Karl. A girl like that can’t be trusted.’
‘I bow to your superior knowledge, Lotta. I have never laid eyes on the girl. But what I don’t understand is why you are so troubled. Thomas is hardly going to marry her. In a year’s time she will have moved on elsewhere and Thomas will feel that he has been a little foolish, and there will be the end of it.’
‘I can’t believe that you can be so cynical, Karl.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s not cynicism, Lotta. I’m a realist.’
He was waiting for her to go. She had exposed herself to him, and for nothing. Lotta pressed her lips together.
‘I disagree,’ she said. ‘I can’t allow Thomas to make a fool of himself. There are always consequences.’
‘You must do as you think fit,’ he said. ‘After all, Thomas is your oldest friend,’ and he half rose from his chair, as if she were a casual visitor who had overstayed her time.
We live together, she thought in horror, but we hate each other.
Quickly, she put the thought away where she would not be able to find it. She turned, and went out of the workshop into the bright sunshine. But although it was warm, it made her shiver all over.
She would go to Anna-Liisa. God has placed me here and I must do my duty, she thought. He has placed me here to take care of Thomas, and Erika, and Simon. And Karl. God gives us nothing to bear that we cannot bear. Yes, she would go now, immediately. She would think of the right words on the way.
Lotta put two pots of last year’s lingonberry jam in her basket. Anna-Liisa loved sweet things. Lingonberry jam was always so much appreciated. I’ll make more this summer, Lotta thought. She always supervised her own jam-making.
Already, summer dust was lying in the streets. Her skirts would need a good brushing when she got back. Yes, Anna-Liisa was a sensible woman. They would be able to reach an understanding. Anna-Liisa had sent the girl to Thomas, and it had been a mistake, but it could be put right.
Suddenly a child ran across Lotta’s path. She’d nearly tripped over him, not looking where she was going. Had she actually tripped him? He’d fallen hard, but already he was scrambling to his feet. Like a little animal, she couldn’t help thinking. Slowly, painfully, she began to bend towards him. He stared up at her, the tall column of her, and started to cry, squaring his mouth. His face was dirty. He was barefoot, in a shirt that was too big for him, and a pair of t
rousers that made him look like a little old man.
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked a little stiffly, bending further so that her shadow fell over him. She wasn’t used to talking to this type of child. But he just yelled. Tears tracked down his dusty face, and he rubbed snot across his cheeks. A girl ran up, an older girl, maybe seven or eight. She was small and thin but she bent and hauled the little boy into her arms. She staggered under his weight but he clung to her like a monkey, wrapping his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist. The girl stood with her feet wide apart, to balance the child’s weight, and stared up at Lotta.
‘Has he hurt himself?’ asked Lotta.
The girl shook her head. She hoisted the child higher. She looked so capable, so confident, though she didn’t come any higher than Lotta’s waist. But I’m a tall woman, and she’s very small. Small for her age, perhaps. She’s probably older than she looks.
‘He always yells like this, ’cept when he’s really hurt. He’ll be all right with me. He gets scared, see.’ And in a different voice, a real mother’s voice, she said to the howling child, It’s all right, give over now, Frossi’s got you.’
Frossi? What an extraordinary name, thought Lotta. And she thinks the child’s scared of me. Yes, very likely. She fumbled in her basket for a coin, and gave it to the girl. The girl stared, and then stuffed it away somewhere inside her skirt.
‘Take him home to your mother,’ advised Lotta.
‘Mum’s at work. I take care of the littl’uns, see.’
And the girl was off, disappearing round the corner into the warren of little wooden houses where Lotta never had occasion to go. She hadn’t said thank you for the coin, Lotta realized. Well, never mind. Cast your bread upon the waters, she told herself.
Anna-Liisa was at home. She was just about to have coffee, she told Lotta, her eyes lightening at the sight of the jam. Lingonberry jam – her favourite! She liked her tea the Russian way, with a spoonful of jam. And sit down, please, Mrs Eriksson. Can I take your basket? No? Do you mind the sun, or shall I draw down the blind?
Lotta sat down carefully, slowly. The pain was bad today. She forced her spine straight. The coffee came, brought by a drab, nervous girl who didn’t inspire confidence. But it was excellent coffee, fragrant and smoking hot, and there were little almond biscuits that Lotta couldn’t have made better herself.
‘If there’s one thing they do all know by the time they leave me, it’s how to make coffee,’ said Anna-Liisa. Lotta couldn’t help herself: a vision jumped into her mind of all the other things a girl might know by the time she left the House of Orphans. And now that she was sitting in Anna-Liisa’s parlour, the subject of Eeva wasn’t quite so easy to open. But then, blessedly, Anna-Liisa opened it herself.
‘This is usually the doctor’s day,’ she said comfortably. ‘But he’s got an emergency. A maternity case.’
The two women caught each other’s eye, then looked away. One of us unmarried, the other childless, thought Lotta. Why, Thomas knows more about birth than either of us. It was an odd thought.
‘He’s very good. We had a new girl with a really nasty throat last week – and he isolated her at once and came that same evening and then the next morning. It turned out all right, but you can’t be too careful, what with the diphtheria that was in the paper.’
‘No.’
‘I don’t know what we’d do without him.’
‘Yes.’ Lotta leaned forward. ‘Anna-Liisa, I need to talk to you about a very delicate matter.’
‘Delicate?’ asked Anna-Liisa, as if the word were new to her.
‘Yes. Delicate. You remember the girl who went to Dr Eklund as a servant?’
‘Of course I do. But what do you mean, Mrs Eriksson, “went”? She’s still there, isn’t she? She’s given satisfaction?’
‘Oh yes, there’s no difficulty of that sort,’ soothed Lotta. ‘It’s not a question of her work. No. It’s more the nature of her position.’
But Anna-Liisa clearly wasn’t following. She looked baffled. The nature of her position?’
‘That is, the girl – Eeva – is very young. She’s used to a house full of people. And now she’s on her own.’
‘But she’s not on her own. The doctor’s there, living in the same house.’
Lotta let a silence fall, then lengthen. ‘Exactly,’ she said.
Anna-Liisa’s healthy colour darkened. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘well, if you mean… Well, if you’re saying… No, I shan’t believe such a thing of the doctor.’
‘Of course not,’ said Lotta quickly. ‘It’s not him I’m worried about. It’s her. After all, with her background and the kind of inheritance these girls have, there’s always a risk. All I’m saying is that I simply think it would be wiser if Eeva were found a family where there was a woman in the house, who could keep an eye on her.’
Anna-Liisa’s flush deepened. But she wasn’t embarrassed, Lotta realized. She was angry. ‘I’ll never believe that of the doctor,’ she repeated, as if everything else Lotta had said meant nothing to her. ‘He’s a good man. Why, only last week he sat all night with the Makkonen boy, and you know as well as I do that none of those Makkonens have got a pot to piss in.’ She caught herself. ‘Pardon the expression, I’m that upset, I can’t credit what you’re saying.’
Her accent was lapsing, broadening. She was a working woman in the end, in spite of the coffee and the parlour. She was on one side of the fence, and Lotta was on the other, and Lotta realized that she’d been a fool to come to Anna-Liisa.
‘I am not criticizing the doctor,’ she said stiffly.
‘I should think not,’ said Anna-Liisa, as if Lotta were anybody. But Lotta kept her patience.
‘I know it’s difficult and unpleasant. Believe me, these are matters I’d far rather not discuss. But I would never forgive myself if things got out of hand.’
Anna-Liisa was silent. But she was thinking now, Lotta could tell. Thinking hard. Anna-Liisa filled both coffee cups, and munched another biscuit. The flush in her cheeks was still high, but when she spoke her voice was quieter.
‘Of course,’ she said consideringly, ‘Eeva is growing up. I spoke to her after church on Sunday – I like to keep in touch with my girls – and I was quite struck how she’s altered. She was almost…
‘Almost what?’ urged Lotta.
‘Well, how can I put it?’ Anna-Liisa frowned, trying to recall what she’d thought. ‘If I hadn’t known it was our Eeva from the orphanage, I’d have said to myself, “What a beautiful girl.”’
‘Beautiful!’
‘Yes.’
The two women looked at each other. Lotta felt as if Anna-Liisa had found her way to the bruise that lay deep inside Lotta, and pressed on it, hard. She took a deep breath.
‘It can’t go on. She has got to be taken away.’
‘You’ll have to speak to him then, for I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to insult the doctor, after all he’s done for us.’
‘You can leave it all to me. But I must ask you to keep this discussion to yourself.’
Lotta had risen. She towered over Anna-Liisa, bringing all the force of what she was to bear. The woman would keep her mouth shut. She wouldn’t dare do otherwise, if she didn’t want to find herself out of a job. In this town, what Mrs Eriksson said counted.
Beautiful! That thin, sly girl with her broken-down boots. It was only thanks to Lotta that she even had decent clothes to cover her body. And it was thanks to Anna-Liisa that the girl had insinuated herself into Thomas’s house in the first place. No wonder she was trying to evade her responsibilities.
But you needn’t think I’ll let you, thought Lotta, looking down at the red, obstinate face. You can say goodbye to your parlour and your coffee and your lingonberry jam, if you won’t do what’s right.
It was later, much later, that she knew what to do. She hadn’t gone to bed. Karl had raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Lotta wrote a long letter to Erika, a long letter full of nothing, ful
l of all the little details of daily life that Erika liked. The new preacher, the progress of the big spring wash, the plush monkey she had bought for Simon. A dozen precise, searching questions about health and clothes and development, to reassure Erika that nothing about her or Simon had been forgotten while she was away. But not too many questions about Frans… No, Frans rarely featured in their letters, and neither did Karl. It was the married state, not the man to whom she was married, that gave Erika pleasure.
We hear such alarming things in the newspaper, my dear Erika, about the political situation in St Petersburg. Be sure to keep away from crowds, especially when you are out with Simon. I don’t have to tell you that the Russian temperament is very different from that of our own people. They are easy prey for agitators.
Lotta put down her pen. It was the same everywhere. People had forgotten that it was order that made civilization possible. Order, and the habit of duty, and acceptance of the situation in which God had placed you. Yes, she believed more firmly than ever as she grew older that the Almighty had a plan for everyone, no matter how lowly. To question God’s order was the same as questioning His goodness. It could only lead to misery. Lives torn apart, society writhing in wretched turmoil, envy and hatred and the disappearance of all that made life good. And yet there were people who wanted this. More than that, there were people at this very moment who were plotting and planning to bring it about.
Lotta looked about her quickly, as if she might catch one of them in the act. But all was still. She let her gaze rest on the dear, familiar furniture of her little sitting room, her own room where Karl never sat. There was the oak chest that had come to her from her grandmother. It had been in the family since the sixteenth century, and was black with age. It held the family Bible, papers and letters. Her grandmother had left the chest to Lotta in her will, because, she said, ‘My dear granddaughter Charlotta possesses an unequalled sense of family tradition, and will preserve our history as I mean it to be preserved.’
House of Orphans Page 11