by Lisa Strømme
“My sister and I collected the ripe ones this morning,” he said. “Come up to the house.”
I wanted to refuse him. Mother would skin me alive if she knew I had been caught trying to steal strawberries, let alone from him. But I could not return empty-handed, and although Munch’s face was serious, his eyes were kind.
“We can’t let Hans go without now, can we?” he said, fetching my bowl from the fence.
He was carrying a beige sketchbook. The edges of it were frayed, and the cover was marked with scribbles and coffee stains. He tucked it under his arm and turned to go up the hill. I walked in his footsteps, my dirty feet stepping where his boots flattened the grass. When I raised my head at the brow of the hill, I immediately noticed the paintings.
Two large canvases, almost as tall as me, loomed in the near distance. Like bathers reclining in the sun, they were leaning against the wall of the burgundy outbuilding, his temporary studio. The pictures were so compelling I couldn’t help but look. One was of a lady, a dark figure, staring mournfully at what looked like her own shadow. She was so utterly desolate that my chest tightened and a wave of sadness invaded my throat.
The other painting was of a lush scene where a man and woman were resting by a tree. The woman was wearing a light-blue apron and holding a bowl of red berries that ignited my curiosity and somehow intensified my sadness. I wanted to reach out and touch the couple. They seemed wounded.
When we reached the hut, Munch called out to his sister.
“Inger! Johanne’s looking for strawberries.”
I hovered outside while he climbed the steps to the back door.
Returning to the couple in the painting, I saw that the woman holding the berries was with child, her swelling belly visible above the bowl. They were cherries and the tree was ripe, like her, abundant and in its prime. But the man was tired and his bones were heavy. He was slumped on a tree stump with a walking cane resting by his side. At the center of the painting, the circle from a freshly cut bough blemished the tree trunk and robbed them both of their happiness.
“Hello,” Inger said, appearing in the open doorway.
I tugged my gaze from the pictures and looked at her with a fixed smile. She was dressed in black from head to toe, with the exception of a white collar that frilled around her neck. Her dark-brown hair was scraped into a severe bun at the back of her head.
“We collected them this morning,” she said, presenting me with the bowl as though she owed me the fruit. “There’s plenty.”
I looked at the small collection of strawberries, knowing they were everything they had.
Inger’s features were similar to Munch’s, although her expression was more open than his and her eyes were darker and wider. In a way she resembled the woman on the canvas, tormented by her own shadow.
“It’s for the Heyerdahls,” I said guiltily.
“Yes, I saw the boat come in from up here—we have a splendid view,” said Inger, smiling as she handed me the bowl. “You’re the Strawberry Girl, aren’t you? You’ve grown since last summer.”
Munch emerged again from the house.
“Subjects in paintings grow and change, Inger, like life. They are life. They change with our moods and the time of the day. Different each time we look at them.”
I watched him as he talked, waving his hands, carving pictures into the air.
“How are your own paintings coming along, Johanne?” he said.
“Oh, they’re just sketches,” I said. “I don’t have paints; Mother would consider them dirty. Although I do read the book you gave me, every day.”
“Why don’t you come back again tomorrow?” he said. “You can have some of my paints. I’m going to start mixing them from…” His soft voice drifted away and his hands moved in circles, as if completing his sentence.
“Mother won’t allow it,” I said.
“She doesn’t have to know, does she?” he said, looking pointedly at the strawberries in my hands.
“I suppose not.”
“Then tomorrow it is,” he said. “I’ll set aside a canvas for you.”
The sun branded my back as I ran up Nygårdsgaten and reminded me how late I was. With my ripped skirt and grimy arms, I was like a sketch that had been crumpled and cast away, an idea that had been scribbled out. But all I could think about was tomorrow. Tomorrow I would see him again. Tomorrow I would paint.
Mother’s friend, Fru Berg, was at our gate when I rounded the top of the hill. Plump and puffy-cheeked, she looked as tired from coming a few paces down the hill as I was from having run up the whole of it. Her substantial bosom was hanging over the fence, which strained to prop her up for her daily gossip with my mother. I slowed to a walk.
“Goodness, Johanne, look at you,” Fru Berg said, staring at my dress and my mucky feet. “Have you been in a war?” She was a washerwoman and, like my mother, was obsessed with starched collars and pristine skirts. Smears and stains on clothes were the marks that tainted a person’s character. To Fru Berg, I must have been a lost cause.
Mother came flying from the kitchen. She had changed into her best pin-striped skirt and the white blouse she saved for church. Her slight body, already tense, tightened further when she saw me.
“Where’ve you been, Johanne? It’s past twelve. They’ll be here any minute. I’ve had to do the floors and sheets myself.” She glanced at the tear in my skirt. “How did you…? Look at the state of you,” she said, her voice high-pitched and resentful.
“You wanted a full bowl,” I said.
Her lips pressed together, and her cheeks ballooned as though filling with steam. If we had been alone she would have slapped me, hard, but Fru Berg’s beady eyes deflated her rage.
“You see, Benedikte,” she said. “This is why she needs a job. She runs around looking like an urchin all summer. She sells fruit, yes, but we’ll get more out of her as a housemaid.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Fru Berg and I have found you a job. You are to be a housemaid for Admiral Ihlen and his family in Borre.”
“But I pick strawberries,” I said incredulously.
“And you’ll continue to pick your fruit. You can do that in your spare time, but from Monday to Saturday you will be a housemaid. You start tomorrow.”
2
PRIMER
In the process of coloring, the preparation merely washed as it were underneath, was always effective.
—THEORY OF COLOURS, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
I was washing my feet at the water pump when they arrived. A clop of hooves echoed meekly on the dusty road, and I looked up to see a dappled pony straining against the weight of a heavily loaded cart. The horse nodded its head, as though trying to draw strength from its neck muscles, where perspiration beaded and coated its skin.
My father looked out of place on the wagon. He was a sailmaker and never used a cart or a horse; he didn’t like the way they jiggled his bones and preferred the gentle rock of the sea. The wagon was borrowed from Father’s friend, Svein Karlsen, but it was my brother, Andreas, who was adept with the reins. He was sitting in the middle, bolstered by Father and Herr Heyerdahl. Easing in the fatigued pony, he brought them to a standstill. Mother had forced Andreas into his Sunday best, and he looked stiff in his black vest and white shirt. Even his cap had been cleaned.
“Well done, boy,” Herr Heyerdahl’s voice boomed as he patted Andreas on the knee.
Thirteen, and shy to the point of silence, Andreas barely spoke at all. He hopped down from the wagon with his chin pressed into his neck and tied the horse’s reins to our fence.
Herr Heyerdahl had become rounder in the last year. The buttons on his vest were challenged by his protruding belly, which he clasped as he huffed to the ground. His beard and mustache were also longer and tapered to a neat point below his chin. Father was already at the
back of the wagon assisting Fru Heyerdahl, a prim lady in a flowery bonnet. She was squashed between trunks and large canvases that looked as though they could topple and crush her at any moment. Their two children, Sigrid and Hans, jumped from the wagon and flew around the garden like birds freed from a cage.
Mother trotted across to greet her guests.
“Welcome back to Åsgårdstrand,” she said in a sugary voice.
I pushed the handle of the water pump with renewed force to drown out her platitudes.
“Sara, what a pleasure,” Herr Heyerdahl was saying. “Halvor tells me you’ve been working hard for us again. You shouldn’t go to such trouble.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” Mother gushed. “I hope you’ll find everything to your liking.”
While she continued to fuss, I noticed Herr Heyerdahl’s attention begin to slip, and it was only his manners that glued the smile to his face. He glanced over Mother’s shoulder and looked at me like a man overboard, reaching for a hand.
“Johanne!” he said.
“She’s been out picking fruit, hasn’t had time to get cleaned up,” Mother babbled. “Don’t pay any attention to—”
“Goodness, you’ve grown,” he said. “You still have the cornfield hair and those lovely blue eyes, though.”
I shook the water from my feet and dipped my head.
“Hello, Herr Heyerdahl,” I said. I may have been the opposite of my mother, but I wasn’t impolite.
“You’ve been collecting fruit? So early in the season? What did you find?” he said, studying me with his painter’s eyes.
My cheeks reddened. “Strawberries,” I said, desperately aware of my mother’s stare.
“It’s still early,” she interrupted, “but you can be sure she’ll bring you plenty more when they ripen.” She was trying hard to find words that would turn him, anything to divert his attention from me. She seemed afraid that by simply looking at me, Herr Heyerdahl would change his mind about the summer rental and immediately order everyone back onto the wagon. But he was unflinching.
“They don’t call you the Strawberry Girl for nothing! Where did you find them?” he said.
“Oh, down by the forest,” I said casually.
“Really, Johanne, you must get your boots on now,” Mother continued. “We need to leave the Heyerdahls to settle in. Halvor!” she yelled. “What about our trunk? Is it on yet?”
“We’re ready, Sara,” Father whispered, his voice reduced by the silence that governed him.
I climbed into the back of the wagon and sat on a trunk containing the clothes and the bed linen. Mother settled down beside me and threw my boots and a pair of stockings at me.
“Get these on,” she said, gripping the edge of the wagon as she sat down. “Honestly, Johanne, the sooner we get you into a proper uniform, the better.”
Andreas snapped the reins and pulled at the pony’s bit to steer her around. We rattled away from our home and down the hill toward the pier. The road faded away in front of me, and at this oblique angle everything appeared to be in reverse. Not just the familiar white timber cottages and the lilac draping over the fences, but me. My life was in reverse. For many months I had tried to disassociate myself from the Painting, for the innocence and expectation of it were heavy burdens to bear, but now I sorely needed it. I needed its freedom. As the Strawberry Girl, I was free to dance with nature, to ramble and run, untethered by the bindings that fixed others to their post. I could roam the forests and hedgerows, explore the beach and the rocks. I was a wanderer, like him. That was how we kept finding each other. And tomorrow I would have painted. I would have finally been able to put what I’d read in the book into practice, to mix colors and experiment with them on a real canvas. But instead, I would be a maid in a uniform with no freedom at all.
I saw my summer in the distance at the top of the hill, shrinking and dimming, as though I was leaving it at home for the Heyerdahls alone to enjoy. This season was mine. Could she be so cruel as to take it from me?
Mother flinched as we passed Munch’s hut.
“Look away, Johanne,” she said as the wagon rolled past the paintings, still leaning against the outbuilding in the sun.
“They’re only paintings,” I said. “What harm can they do?”
“Johanne Lien!”
I might as well have taken the Lord’s name in vain.
“I don’t want you seeing it,” she said, twisting in her seat. “The medical doctors in Kristiania say those paintings can cause illnesses. I don’t want you looking at that kind of filth. At least you won’t have to be exposed to all of that this summer,” she said, dropping her hand from her face. “The Ihlens are a very respectable family, and you’ll be surrounded by ladies. They have three daughters, and they wear the finest clothes in all of Kristiania. Fru Berg does their laundry.”
“So what do they need me for?” I said.
“Oh, Johanne, you have a lot to learn,” she said.
I pulled at the tear in my skirt and made curling shapes from the frayed threads.
• • •
The air was downy and warm when we reached the back of the fishermen’s huts. Usually the water offered a breeze, something to grasp onto, but our lungs were tight as we inhaled. There was complete pandemonium as half the local townsfolk were relocating to the huts, and the tranquility of the morning was shattered by the invasion.
The place was packed with families, carts, and trunks. Men were carrying boxes high above their heads. Sweat trickled from their brows as they navigated the carts and stepped over the piles of fresh horse dung that steamed in the road. Children ran amuck, scattering out along the pier, running with hoops to the bathing house; some of the little ones were crying from the heat and confusion. Dogs chased after seagulls, barking excitedly, tongues hanging. Horses whinnied, swatting flies with their tails. Women beat the air with their hats while trying to keep track of their children, their husbands, their belongings. Tempers were beginning to fray in the heat and a wave of arguments had erupted: disagreements concerning keys and rooms.
The wagon drew to a halt under the full force of the sun. My legs and feet were suffocating in my stockings and boots, and I had the urge to rip them off and run down to the water. I was perspiring from every pore. My blouse was tight, and the bones of my corset threatened to puncture my rib cage.
“Can’t you get into the shade?” Mother moaned.
“The road is blocked,” Father said, his gaze drifting to the sailboats in the bay. “We’ll just have to wait our turn.”
“But that could take hours,” she said. Attracted to chaos as if it were dust on a ledge, she became agitated. “Look! There’s Fru Hansen. Let me get down and ask her what’s going on. Halvor! Help me.”
Father hopped down obediently. Mother stepped over the chests and mats and candlesticks that were piled around us, inching her way to the back, where my father lifted her down in an ungainly fashion, revealing her lower legs. She checked all around her to see if anyone had noticed and muttered a criticism to my father, waving a hand at him as she merged into the crowd, determined to tidy it all away.
“What’s she doing?” I said.
“Oh, something about Fru Hansen having our keys,” Father said, shaking his head and returning to his spot on the driver’s seat.
“How’s that going to clear the road?” said Andreas, lifting his cap and wiping his brow.
As I watched my mother disappear into the throng behind us, my eyes were drawn to a mop of curly hair. Thomas. He was carrying a pallet of cod. The freshly caught silver skins shimmered in the sunlight. He had not noticed me, and for a moment I watched him as he paced purposefully down the street. Everything about Thomas had a sense of purpose, and I envied him for it. His muscular arms flexed with confidence, caring nothing for the burden of the pallet. The sea of people eddied around him and he lifted
his chin. Something warm brushed my chest and flushed my neck and cheeks. With no time to examine this quiver of nerves, I consigned it to the room in my head that I kept clear for thinking.
With my mother gone and Thomas advancing, I seized the moment. Twisting around in the wagon, I patted my father’s arm.
“Hmm?”
“You’ve heard that Mother’s sending me off to Borre for the summer?”
“She’s not sending you away, dear,” he said. The light drained from his face and his senses clouded at the thought of my absence. “You’ll be back on Sundays, and maybe some evenings too, if you’re not needed.” From his reply, I knew he had already had the Johanne will be a housemaid discussion, and like thousands of others, it was an argument he had pitifully lost.
“It’s just… There’s a dance tonight at the Grand Hotel,” I said, “and I thought, since I’ll be leaving tomorrow, that you might allow me to go?”
The question hung in the heat. Thomas thundered toward us.
“It’s the last chance I’ll get,” I pressed.
My father stretched his hand back and stroked my sticky hair.
“All right, dear,” he said. “If you tell me when you’re leaving and promise you won’t be too late.”
With his arms full of fish, Thomas could not wave, but he grinned at me anyway.
“Hello!” he called. “I have your dinner here.” He tipped the pallet my way as though every single cod was just for me. The salty smell filled my nostrils, and I found it oddly fresh and alluring.
“Where are you going?” I said.
“I’m delivering these to the ladies. We caught them this morning. They’ll be delicious with boiled potatoes and a glass of beer. You will be at the beach, won’t you?”
“If we ever get out of the road.”
“And the dance? Later? Will you come?”
I nodded, and he grinned again; the twinkle had returned to his eyes. As he walked away I could see the edge of his broad smile.
Movement was painstakingly slow, but when the sun finally released us from her molten grip, the wagons began to roll, and the ties that bound everyone’s good humor loosened and gave way to a lighter mood. We offloaded our belongings and heaved everything into the hut. Our own cottage on the hill was not roomy, but it always seemed larger due to Mother’s obsessive tidiness, although there would be nothing even she could do to make this seem bigger. Cramped and dark, the huts were built for men who needed no more than a primitive shelter to sleep in. They were divided horizontally. Some families would live upstairs, with doors that faced Nygårdsgaten, and others, like our family, would be downstairs, facing the beach.