The Girl Between

by Lisa Strømme

  “Tullik!” I shouted again. “It’s Johanne! Are you there?” For a few seconds I looked up and waited, but no answer came.

  Holding up my lantern, I stepped onto the bench and leaned in toward the window.

  At first there was nothing but shadows moving behind the wavering candlelight. But then I wiped away the rain and cupped my hand to the glass until I could make sense of the shapes that swirled within.

  I almost cried out when I caught sight of Tullik and thought for one horrible second that she might be dead.

  She was sprawled out on the bed, her right arm hanging out as if it had been abandoned by the rest of her body. Her hair was strewn in auburn waves about her head. Draped across the top corner of the mattress, it hung over the side of the bed, and the tips of it brushed the floor. Her blouse was open, and her breasts were exposed. Beneath her petticoat one leg was straight and the other bent up at the knee. Her eyes were closed, but when I studied her face, I could see that she was not in pain, or lifeless, but serene, like a goddess or an angel. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and her full lips slightly parted; her eyes were closed gently beneath lightly arched eyebrows. Never before had she seemed so tranquil, so free from longing or question or pain.

  “Tullik.” My voice was barely a whisper.

  Munch was sitting on a chair by the bed. He was naked from the waist up. His sketchbook was propped on his knee, and his arm was moving in squiggles and circles across the page as he watched Tullik, sketching the outline of her body with a stick of charcoal. His mustache moved softly as he talked to her in a low, inaudible voice. An empty bottle of wine and two glasses stood on the table by the bed. Tullik and Munch were oblivious to the rain, to the thunder, to me—to anything other than each other. Here, in the midst of this monstrous and violent storm, the lovers had found their peace.

  Seeing Tullik so untroubled made me reluctant to disturb her, but the rain was beating down so relentlessly, and I was so cold and wet that I knew I would develop a chill if I stayed outside all night waiting for her. And then there were the questions we would have to answer in the morning: Where had she been? What was she doing out in the storm all night? This time I would not be able to defend her. Caroline would know exactly where she had been, and Tullik would be banished. She would never see Edvard again. I had to get her home before sunrise.

  I picked up a stone and tapped it hard against the window until they noticed me. Munch was the first to respond. He looked over his shoulder to locate the noise, and I drove the stone faster, tapping like a woodpecker to draw his attention.

  He laid his sketchbook down on the bed and Tullik stirred, sitting up and buttoning her blouse.

  “It’s me!” I shouted through the window. “It’s Johanne.”

  Munch came to the back door.

  “Johanne, what are you doing out in this storm?” he said, pulling on his shirt as I entered the house. “Look at you! You’re soaked to the core. Come in, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I need to get Tullik back before they find out she’s gone,” I said, trying not to look at him.

  “Johanne, darling!” Tullik drawled, as though I were a guest at a Kristiania party.

  “Tullik, I was worried about you. If they find out you’re gone, they’ll—”

  “Oh, who cares about what they’ll do,” she said. “They can’t stop me.”

  Munch handed me a towel, and I wiped my face.

  “But what if they send you away to—”

  “There’s nothing they can do,” she said flatly.

  “You know how Caroline feels about this,” I said, “and your mother and father.”

  Tullik sauntered over to Munch, who had returned to the chair. She climbed into his lap and slipped her arms around his neck, tipping his head forward and bringing it to rest at her breast. Her hair fell over them both in long, fiery tendrils as they embraced. Tullik pressed him closer, and he nestled against her heart with his arms around her waist like a child with its mother. She leaned down over him and kissed his neck, softly, tenderly, whispering intimacies I could not hear. I tried to avert my eyes, but felt them pulled again to the lovers and could not look away.

  “You can take me home, if you like, Johanne,” she said when she finally drew away from him. “Things will be different now anyway.” She lifted Munch’s face and cupped it in her hands, bringing his strong jaw up and brushing his lips with her thumbs. “Won’t they, dear?”

  He hadn’t told her. About Germany. About leaving. He hadn’t told her.

  “Tullik, we need to go,” I said sharply, infuriated that he could be so detached. Like the day in the garden with Ragna and Caroline. He didn’t fight for Tullik, didn’t want to protect her fragility. He was planning to leave, and her poor soul would be crushed. But Munch had his art. His one singular love, and that was all he needed.

  “Take this sketch with you, Tullik,” he said, tearing a memory from his sketchbook. “And I have another canvas for you, over here: Moonlight, a landscape.” He crossed to the side of the room and picked up a rectangular painting of the coastline, pale turquoise with the column of the moon lying phallic across the sea. The sketch and the painting were pieces of him, the only pieces he could give, the only pieces she could keep.

  “Look, Johanne,” she said, taking Moonlight from him. “It’s Åsgårdstrand. Beautiful and still in the night.”

  She sank into the tranquil picture, and I guided her out into the street. As we headed back to the storm-battered forest, she seemed unfazed by the flooding and the rain, as if they were doing her good, her own horse cure. We carried the art back to the house, and she skipped through the pools as if her skin were made of oil and she couldn’t get wet.

  “I think he’s going to ask me to marry him,” she said. “In fact, I’m sure of it.”

  I wished I could have contradicted her. I wanted to tell her the truth: that he was leaving and going back to Germany. But how could I blight her happiness? It was the first time she had been at peace in weeks. I allowed her to believe it.

  “We should marry in Borre,” she said. “He won’t want to get married in Kristiania.”

  “We must hurry back,” I said. “I don’t want you to get ill out here.”

  The thunder had finally subsided and given way to a constant drizzle that showed no sign of diminishing. The lantern dangled at my side with no real purpose other than providing a false sense of comfort in the dark.

  At the church, the road was coming up for air after the storm’s attack. Small islands had appeared on higher areas where the fallen rain had receded, running into ditches and sinking deep down into the earth. The ground would be sodden for days.

  We walked along the side of the house as water overflowed from the gutters above us. My clothes were drenched and sticking to my skin. I was shivering. Icy blue. My head was fuzzy. At the back door, I dropped the painting. Moonlight clattered to the ground, and I reached for Tullik’s arm.

  “Get me inside, Tullik,” I said. Then blackness enveloped me. My knees keeled, and I sank to the ground.

  18

  BURGUNDY

  Colour becomes fixed in bodies more or less permanently; superficially, or thoroughly.

  —THEORY OF COLOURS, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

  I awoke on the kitchen floor. A blanket was laid over me. My head was heavy. Deep purple. A painful burn passed across my brow. I rose to my knees. Ears throbbing. My hair was still damp, and my clothes were cold. Something was tapping. At first I thought it was my own head, but then it became clearer. There was knocking at the back door. I picked myself up and tried to tidy my hair. I pulled a clean apron from the peg. The knocking ended.

  Curious, I went out into the misty gray morning. It had stopped raining, but the constant dripping and the sound of running water pouring from every orifice of the house gave the appearance of rain. It was as though the whole hous
e was leaking from the inside. In the back garden the plants were battered. The lilac bush had changed shape; it had been pounded in the middle, turning it into a sort of a heart with a rounded bottom.

  The rain had wrought unmitigated disaster to the hen coop. Ingrid and Dorothea, whom I was now able to identify by appearance alone, were over in the far corner of the cage, unable to scale a large puddle that covered the ground. Water was pouring from the hutch where the roof had bowed under the weight of the rain. The hay was flat and wet, and the other birds were pecking about miserably, unsure of where to lay their eggs.

  “Come on now, ladies,” I said, reaching for the brush. “We can fix this.”

  I swept the water to the side where the ground was uneven and there was enough of an incline for it to drain away. Then I lifted the roof and poured the water off. I was about to fetch some fresh straw from the shed when I heard the gritty clop of hooves at the side of the house.

  I turned and squinted against the mist. My head boomed. It was too early for Fru Berg, and she never arrived by horse and cart. I leaned the brush against the hen coop and peered around the side of the house. A man was approaching, walking alongside a large black horse, holding the reins in his hand. As he drew closer, I could see that he was wearing a naval uniform: a peaked cap and a blue jacket with silver buttons and silver brocades that shone through the mist. It was as if I were seeing just an outline of a man.

  “Hello?” I called, clinging to the cage.

  “Is there someone there?” the man said. He had a heavy Swedish accent.

  “Yes, I am here. I’m Johanne, the maid.”

  “Forgive me for the hour,” he said. “Our ship got tossed to Horten in the storm, and we arrived early.”

  I guessed the man was a friend of the admiral’s.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I am a naval officer in the service of Prince Carl of Sweden. His Royal Highness and four of his officers would like to dine here with Admiral Ihlen this evening. It would also please His Royal Highness if he could sleep here until tomorrow morning, if it’s not too much of an imposition. Perhaps you could tell your mistress?”

  My chest was fluttering. I felt as though I was being arrested, guilty of some unknown crime. Did he say His Royal Highness?

  “Won’t you come inside? I was about to light the stove.”

  “Much obliged,” he said, looking for a place to tie his horse.

  I waited, stupefied, unable to find words to help him. He hooked the reins around the fence post and pulled them tight, slapping the mare on the neck before turning to face me.

  “Let me show you to the parlor,” I said.

  As he followed me through the house, I listened to the alternate clip and thud of his boots as he walked across the rugs and the bare floorboards. All I could think about was Tullik and the painting. Had she been caught in the night? Did she manage to hide the pictures?

  “I will put on some coffee and let my mistress know you are here,” I said, bowing clumsily as I left him alone. I ran upstairs and pummeled the Ihlens’ bedroom door.

  “Goodness, Johanne,” Fru Ihlen said, appearing in a sleepy haze, her hair still tied in rags. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “I’m sorry, Fru Ihlen. A man is here—a naval officer. He says he has come from the ship of Prince Carl of Sweden and that the prince and four of his men would like to dine here tonight. If it’s not too much trouble, the prince would like to sleep here too.”

  Julie’s eyes widened. She stood there staring at me in horror, as though I had thrown a bucket of cold water in her face.

  “Prince Carl?” she said. “Here? At Solbakken?”

  “His man is waiting in the parlor.”

  She inhaled, filling her chest with ideas.

  “Run down and tell him he must join us for breakfast,” she said. “Put on the coffee and awaken Ragna. I will inform the admiral and the girls.”

  “Yes, Fru Ihlen.”

  I scampered back down the stairs and hurried to the kitchen, where I lit the stove and put the water on to boil. Ragna was already awake. She sneaked in behind me, tying her apron.

  “What’s the fuss?” she said.

  I turned to face her, wringing a dishcloth in my hands.

  “Why is your hair wet?” she said, eyes darting. “And your clothes, they’re damp.”

  “The Prince of Sweden and four of his men are coming for dinner. The prince will stay here tonight. His officer is having breakfast with the family. He’s waiting for coffee in the parlor.”

  Ragna chewed at the inside of her lips, gnawing with her incisors like a mouse through rope. Her eyes fixed on a stain on the floor as hundreds of meals rushed through her mind. I had seen her do this before, when forced to make a banquet out of very little, and I had to admire her resourcefulness. She knew cooking the way I knew fruit.

  “I will go up to Gannestad to get chickens,” she said, still staring at her spot as though plotting a crime. “I’ll leave after breakfast. You will go over to the rectory and ask for salmon, milk, and cream. Find as much fruit as you can in the garden; there’s still rhubarb and apples—I will make a tart. Bring it as quickly as you can.”

  A whooping sound at the back door told me that Fru Berg had arrived.

  “Whose is the mare?” she said, flabbergasted.

  “We are to have a royal guest,” Ragna said. “Prince Carl of Sweden.”

  “What? Here? At Solbakken?” Fru Berg searched Ragna’s face for a shred of humor. “Are you trying to put me in an early grave?” She grabbed her bosom.

  “It’s true,” I said. “One of his men is here now; he’s staying for breakfast. There will be five of them for dinner, including the prince. The prince will sleep here too.”

  “Lord have mercy!” Fru Berg said, as though the prince’s visit was a test sent directly from the Lord Himself. She began babbling about cleaning agents and furniture polish and started charging about the room.

  “That’s enough, Benedikte,” Fru Ihlen said, gliding gracefully into the kitchen with immaculate composure. “Johanne, dear, we will have to ask you to sleep at home tonight; the prince will have Milly’s room. We need the best china and silver, polished until it’s gleaming. The rugs will need to be beaten, and I need fresh flowers in the parlor and dining room. I will have Caroline fetch the family’s finest bed linen and tablecloths from my sister in Horten. What we keep here at Solbakken won’t do. Oh, and the glasses… Use the crystal on the top shelf of the dresser. Johanne, make sure you can see your face in it. After breakfast I want you all to set to work. The prince and his men are due to arrive at five o’clock.”

  The three of us nodded in silence, and I returned to the coffee.

  “Bring a tray with three cups, Johanne,” Fru Ihlen said. “We will take it in the parlor.”

  • • •

  The day was a blur of excitement and tension. We gathered the best of everything we could find and spent every minute sweeping, polishing, brushing, washing, and shining. Fru Ihlen sailed among us like an ocean liner in a stormy sea, swaying with the tides, overseeing the preparations with a steady but gentle hand. Even when she herself spilled a bottle of carbolic acid in the admiral’s office, creating an overpowering odor in the house, she simply closed the door to the office and opened all the windows, asking me to bring fragrant flowers. I cut sprigs of lavender and left them to stand in vases about the house.

  Due to the commotion, it was late morning before I got to Tullik. She had not left her room and wasn’t present at the breakfast table. When Caroline took the carriage to Horten, I raced up the stairs and burst into Tullik’s bedroom.

  “Johanne, are you all right?” she said.

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  “You collapsed. You were not well. I heard noises downstairs and couldn’t carry you, so I had to leave you ther
e. I wrapped you in a blanket and took the painting and came to my room.”

  “Good. That’s good, Tullik,” I said.

  “Are you ill?”

  “I have no time to be ill. The Prince of Sweden is coming here tonight. You must get ready.”

  “Who cares about a prince?”

  “Your family does.”

  “A prince is nothing to me. I have Edvard. And soon I will be his wife. I’m sure he will propose any day. Did I tell you that? Did I tell you he is going to propose to me?”

  “Yes, Tullik. But I must go now. You should get dressed.”

  Caroline returned from Horten laden with treasures and heirlooms that spanned generations of Julie’s family, the Nicolaysens.

  “Aunt Bolette let us have the embroidered tablecloth,” she said to her mother as they prepared the dining room, “and when Grandmother Aars heard the prince was coming, she gave me a set of wine goblets that were one of her mother’s wedding gifts! I was almost afraid to bring them back. They’re packed in the chest, but the slightest bump could have cracked them all.”

  Throughout the day Ragna kept trying to interrupt Caroline, indicating she had something to tell her. Each time, the pit of my stomach fluttered with fear. If Tullik was exposed—if the Ihlens found out she had seen Munch again—I knew she would be sent from here, sent to live with Grandmother Aars or Aunt Bolette. Anywhere away from Munch. They could not know that he was leaving and the threat he posed to their daughter would soon be gone.

  Thankfully, Caroline was too busy trying to turn Solbakken into a palace to be pestered by Ragna and fobbed her off at every attempt. Having a royal prince as a guest would no doubt elevate her position in Kristiania to new and dazzling heights. It was the stuff of Caroline’s dreams, and she wanted everything to be perfect.