House of Orphans

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘It all sounds most attractive, my dear,’ he said at last. She looked at him severely.

  ‘I don’t believe you’ve heard a word I’ve said.’

  ‘I’ve heard every word. First of all they brought a paper which wasn’t in the least like the one you’d chosen. Couldn’t they tell the difference between pearl grey and dove grey? But you insisted, and of course they had the right paper in stock all the time. They’d just made a muddle.’

  ‘Yes.’ But she was still suspicious.

  ‘And so tomorrow you’ll be back at home,’ he said. ‘Back with Ulf.’

  Never, he thought, had a man suited his forename less. What could have possessed his parents? Surely, even in his cradle, Ulf must have been neat, even urbane. If his poor Minna had wanted a wolf, she certainly hadn’t found one.

  No children yet. Would there ever be children? When he asked Minna about it once, quite gently and tactfully, he’d thought, she’d flinched away.

  She kept so much from him. What was she hiding now, he wondered. She was going back to Åbo satisfied, and yet as far as he knew she hadn’t spoken to Eeva. Lotta’s summons hadn’t led to a confrontation. He’d surely have known if there’d been one. Eeva – yes, Eeva was the same as ever. The fire that had sprung up in her when the letter arrived had died down. Or perhaps it was still there, but hidden. My God, he thought, what am I, that they both hide things from me?

  She was bringing in a dish of potatoes. She put it on the table, and began to collect the soup plates. No, she was absent. Her body was here, serving them, but her mind and spirit were withdrawn. Her hands moved quickly and deftly. Suddenly, seeing them against the plates, he saw how fine they were. Red and rough, yes, and there were burn marks across her knuckles. That would be from reaching for pots from the racks inside the oven. They were not deep burns, but everyday scorches across the tight skin of her knuckles. Kirstin and Jenny had always had such marks. On them it had seemed natural, but he flinched from the thought of Eeva’s hands groping for an iron pot and brushing against the iron rack. She would pull out her hand, suck the burn and then carry on. She ought to run her hand under cold water for five minutes at least, but probably, like Kirstin and Jenny, she wouldn’t listen to this advice and instead would rub the burn with a little piece of butter.

  His daughter was playing with the stem of her glass, looking down at the cloth. She didn’t want to look at Eeva. Her hands were smooth, but they were not as fine as Eeva’s. No, he thought, that beauty of Eeva’s, you can’t do anything about it, and nor can I. There were Eeva’s hands, balancing the soup plates and the tureen. They hadn’t eaten much soup. Eeva would eat it in the kitchen, after them. The same taste would be in her mouth as had been in his. It seemed a miracle that this could happen. He looked at her, and her beauty hurt him in the pit of his stomach, and made him helpless.

  Helpless, and stupid. He dug the nails of one hand into the palm of the other. They mustn’t see it in his eyes, neither of them must know. His daughter would be disgusted, and Eeva – Eeva would be frightened. It almost frightened him, what he felt for her. If she guessed it, she would leave.

  There were cutlets on his plate in front of him. He’d have to do something with them. Cut them up, dip them in sauce, put them in his mouth, chew and swallow them. She’d made sauce because of Minna. His potatoes were almost cold. He put a piece of meat in his mouth, and his tongue quivered with revulsion.

  ‘Why aren’t you eating, Father?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  All the same, you must eat something.’

  Minna was cutting her meat into the smallest possible pieces, dipping them in sauce and swallowing calmly.

  And then, suddenly, she was there in front of him. Four-year-old Minna, sitting in her place in her blue and white ruffled pinafore, raging at the sight of the English custard which Johanna believed should be eaten by the child at least three times a week. Minna turned her face aside from the dish, her eyes tight shut, her nose screwed up to reject even the smell of it. Johanna sat beside her, chair drawn close to Minna’s, spoon in hand, implacable. The custard must have gone cold, or at least lukewarm. Skin was forming on it. Suddenly Johanna seized hold of Minna’s nose, gripped it firmly, waited until Minna had to open her mouth to breathe, and rammed in the spoonful of custard. He heard the spoon grate on Minna’s teeth, and he flinched. She coughed, spluttered. She would not swallow it, she would not. Johanna held the spoon there, but suddenly Minna leaned forward and gagged with all her force, spitting out spoon and custard. Strings of saliva ran down from her mouth.

  ‘Johanna! My God,’ he protested. The next moment Johanna had stood up, shoving back her chair. She was behind Minna, looming over her. And then she did it. One hand plucked up the spoon which had fallen into the bowl, the other grasped the back of Minna’s neck and pushed her face down into the custard. Yes, right down into the custard, so that it overflowed the bowl. And she held Minna there while the child flailed.

  He leapt up, reached across the table, and seized Minna by the shoulders, tearing her from her mother’s grip. He dragged her through china and cutlery, across the cloth, into his arms.

  She was rigid, choking, her face a mess of slime. He cleaned out her mouth with his finger, wiped her nostrils, then her eyes, talking to her all the while, telling her that she was all right, he had got her. She was breathing. The custard was in her hair and running down inside her clothes. Suddenly she arched her back, went stiff in his arms, and let out a series of terrible, high-pitched shrieks without a breath between them, like the screaming of a child with meningitis. It was only for a few moments, and then she went soft again and he caught her close to him. She pressed her face into his shoulder and clung and sobbed until she was exhausted.

  Johanna. What was Johanna doing? Her face rigid, she was cleaning the tablecloth with a napkin.

  ‘Johanna,’ he’d said. She’d looked at him, the custard-sodden napkin in her hand, her face pale. ‘Never,’ he said. ‘Never do that again to her. Never.’

  ‘She must learn.’

  ‘Not like that. Never like that.’

  He had carried Minna upstairs. She was limp and quiet now, and he thought she might have fallen asleep, quite suddenly, as children do after pain. But when he sat on her bed with her, and gently lifted her down onto his lap, he saw that her dark blue eyes were wide open. They were fixed on him, and there was a blankness in them that made him want to press her close to him again, so that he wouldn’t have to see it. She wasn’t crying any more, but she hiccuped suddenly, and he stood up with her in his arms, and poured her a drink of water from the covered jug beside her bed.

  ‘I’ll call Jenny in a minute,’ he promised, ‘and we’ll bath you and make you comfortable. Look,’ he went on, ‘Papa’s all dirty too. We’ll get Minna clean and then we’ll get Papa clean.’

  She pulled at the neck of her pinafore. A wave of disgust and anguish crossed her face as she touched the slime of the custard.

  ‘Never mind, Minna, those clothes can all be washed. Let’s get you undressed. Look, I can untie your pinafore so that it won’t even touch your face when I take it off.’

  ‘I don’t want Mama to come here,’ she said. Tears rolled down her face again. It was no use pretending to her. She’d felt it, she’d known it. Johanna would have broken her, to make her obey.

  ‘Mama was wrong,’ he said quietly. Whatever happened, Minna was going to know that. ‘It was naughty of Mama.’

  Minna was watching him carefully. Her eyes were red and swollen in a puffed white face. ‘I will tell Mama that she must never behave like that to you again,’ he said. Minna nodded convulsively.

  He said no more. He called Jenny to prepare the bath, and began to untie the strings of Minna’s pinafore, taking care that the sodden material did not brush against her skin.

  As far as he knew, nothing like that had happened again. Johanna would never admit it, but he thought she too had been frightened. Afraid of herself, the wors
t kind of fear.

  Minna never mentioned it. Perhaps she had forgotten. It was the only time he had ever spoken to Johanna in criticism about her conduct with the child. He had left Minna to her mother more and more. Had he believed it was Johanna’s right? Had he truly believed that Johanna’s cool control was what his daughter needed to learn?

  My daughter, he thought. Eeva had taken away the plates again. There was fruit to eat now: preserved gooseberries from last year. Before long, this season’s would ripen. Minna ate steadily. If only we could see the marks that our lives leave on us, he thought, we’d be more tender with one another.

  She’d be gone tomorrow. He longed to smoke. As soon as they’d had their coffee he’d go and walk in the garden. It was the best time. Evening light, the scent of tobacco, the pale moths starting to fly. Most especially, he loved the sweet, pure fragrance of tobacco when he first lit his cigarette. He would go and walk in the garden and think about Eeva, where no one could see him.

  19

  There she stood, by his desk. It was three o’clock in the morning. She had opened the shutters and the light was full, but unfamiliar, in the way of midsummer light. It searched out corners of the room that it would never touch in the later hours of the day. Every object looked strange, with its shadow leaning the wrong way.

  He was still asleep, she was sure of that. His daughter was gone, and he’d walked about all evening, frowning and smoking. They certainly didn’t make each other happy, those two. She thought of her own father and for a moment could have felt sorry for Minna. But she wasn’t going to, no, she wasn’t. Not for either of them.

  The house felt empty and expectant. It knew something was going to happen. Just for this hour it belonged to her, and everything in it belonged to her. But it’s true, she thought, that when you clean a place and look after it, you feel you know it better than the owner. In the House of Orphans Sirkka used to talk about ‘my floors’, or ‘my tiles’: ‘I did have a job with my floors this morning, all scuffed up they were.’ And then Sirkka would stare down the river of waxed, glowing wood with possessive pride.

  Eeva smoothed her hand over the silky top of his desk. I could get like Sirkka if I stayed here too long. I must not get like her.

  Go now, go now, ticked the tall clock in the corner. Time to go, Eeva, or you’ll find yourself down in the kitchen again making dough for his morning rolls.

  She shivered. But why be frightened? She was getting out of here. He was sleeping and would sleep for hours yet.

  Even if he woke, he couldn’t stop you. Nothing can stop you.

  She glanced out. Morning light flickered over the tops of the trees. The birds were singing, full of themselves. So much green to fight her way through, before she reached the streets she knew.

  It’s myself I’m afraid of, she thought. It’s so easy to stay My floors, my tiles, my bed under the eaves. Food on the table three times a day. But it’s not that; no, it’s something else that keeps me.

  I’m afraid of having my life again, that’s it. I was never afraid before, not when I was little. I used to look forward and talk about when I grew up. It seemed natural that my life was my own. But in the House of Orphans they made us afraid.

  They made us obedient on the outside, no matter what we felt like inside. We thought we were real rebels if we whispered in bed, me and Kirsti. Anna-Liisa was smarter than we thought. Yes, she knew how to get us ready for a lifetime of doing what we were told, and muttering under our breath where no one could hear us. We’d spit into her coffee to make ourselves feel big, or wipe her china she was so proud of with a cloth we’d used to clean the toilet. Dad was right. That’s how it works and most people never realize it. You’re trapped both ways. You do as you are told and you do things that you think will make you big, but all the time you’re shrinking. In the end even if the door’s left open you can’t walk out of it. Maybe you work off your feelings by skimping the polish on the lock. So you look at Sirkka, or at old Agneta here. She’s decent, she works hard. But she’s living a life which has already been taken away from her.

  If you were here, Dad, what would you do?

  No, she would not think of him. She would not. Memories crowded into her head and they were always the wrong ones. How he lay there and told her that he’d wasted his life. No, Dad, no. It’s not true. You can’t have died thinking that.

  ‘“My talisman, preserve me,”’ she muttered. ‘Make me strong. Make me strong. They’ve done something to me, I’ve changed. Maybe it was never really me that was strong in the first place.’

  I’ve got to go now, she thought, there won’t be a better chance. My life will be over if I stay. I’ll go on living, I won’t be able to help it, but it won’t be my life. I’ll grow pleased with how well I serve him. I’ll start talking about ‘my kitchen’, just like Sirkka used to say. ‘My floors aren’t looking like they should.’ And he’ll follow me with that look in his eyes, and one day I’ll give in, and that’ll be the end. I’ll be trapped.

  He’s asleep. He can’t stop me. It’s me that’s stopping myself.

  She hadn’t slept. She’d lain on her bed for three hours. Her heart thudded as if she’d been running, and it wouldn’t slow down. Better not to sleep, she told herself. She was resting her body, that was what mattered. It was a long walk to the station, but safer to walk than try to get a lift on a cart. Everyone knew the doctor. They’d want to know her business. Where have you come from, where are you going… Safer to follow quiet tracks and slip into the woods when she saw another traveller.

  It would take most of the day. Twelve hours at least, Matti reckoned. Stopping to rest would make it longer. Once she got to the station, she could wait. Never mind how long it took till a train came. She was good at waiting. She had her bundle with black bread, hard cheese, a handful of dried cranberries. Even if she missed the only train of the day, it didn’t matter. Another would come in the morning.

  She’d never travelled anywhere, except when they brought her to the House of Orphans. She’d never even bought a train ticket. She would say as little as possible. She wouldn’t ask questions, but watch what other people did, and copy them. She had money for her fare, and that would talk for her. No one would guess she’d run away.

  She was a good walker, strong and steady. She knew the best way to the station. Matti had told her, and drawn a map for her in the soil, with the point of a stick. He asked no questions. Didn’t ask why she wanted to know. Only remarked, ‘Pity they never ran the railroad as far as our town.’ He must have guessed that she had her reasons for leaving, but he never asked where she was going, or why, or whether she’d come back.

  She could count on Matti’s closed mouth. He’d say nothing to the doctor. She didn’t know why she was sure of it, but she was sure.

  ‘You don’t even need to go through town, Eeva. You’ll cut two, three hours off your journey if you follow the way I tell you. The high road’s good for carts and carriages, but you go across country, that’s the way. You take the Lindholm farm road as far as the first crossroads, and out east through Heimola forest. It’s no more than a logging track, but you won’t lose yourself. That’ll bring you out close to the Black Lake. Turn north, keep clear of the bog, follow the shore until you reach the inn. There’s a boatman there who’ll row you across for fifty pennies. Once you’re on the other side you’ll see the track again, and that takes you through onto the high road. After that you’ve only an hour’s walk north and you’re there.’

  Matti had paused and looked her full in the face. ‘Five years ago I’d have walked you all the way myself,’ he said. She looked down. There was something new in his face and voice. He was Matti, her friend. But she couldn’t fool herself: she had called out feeling in him. Better not to let him see that she knew it.

  ‘But my legs won’t let me now,’ Matti said. ‘My time’s past.’ He said it as if she couldn’t have noticed, hadn’t ever seen the clench of his teeth as he bent painfully to the earth. ‘You’re
a city girl, Eeva,’ he went on, ‘you don’t know how to thrive out here, as we do. Keep to the track and don’t wander off.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  He was old. He sang and whistled like a young man but his life was almost over. Soon he would seize up and then he’d spend his last years sitting on his porch in summer, by his stove in winter. When he died he would be well spoken of at his funeral, and then forgotten, because he belonged to no one. Only the doctor would speak of him, and what use was that?

  ‘Send a message if you find a way, Eeva,’ Matti had said, taking up his hoe. ‘So I know you got there safe.’

  ‘I will,’ she’d said, but she knew he could not read.

  Go now, Eeva, said the clock. Do you want to be like Matti? Life is quick, quick, quick…

  She had Lauri’s money, but she didn’t know if it was enough. Here was the doctor’s desk, where he worked. She walked around it. There were drawers with brass handles and brass keyholes. She tried the top drawer, and it slid open easily.

  It was full of papers, and letters tied with pink tape. No, she didn’t want to read them. She slid a hand underneath to see if he had hidden anything there, but there was nothing. She opened the second drawer. Cigars in wooden boxes, cigarettes, and a tobacco pouch embroidered with pansies. She’d never seen him smoke a pipe. There was a narrow wooden box. Perhaps he kept his money in it. But when she opened it, there was only a lock of fine, silky hair. A child’s hair, she thought. Probably his daughter’s hair. Her heart was beating fast, fast, like a thief’s.

  There was the money. Not locked or hidden. Just left lying as if it didn’t matter. A parchment envelope, open. Banknotes sliding out, carelessly, yes, just as if they were worthless. But she checked them, and they were good notes.