by Annika Thor
Stephie knows she has Miss Björk to thank for the improvement. She knows she gave Miss Krantz a talking-to, ordering her to treat Stephie better. It’s amazing that she was able to get her German teacher to change her ways, since Miss Krantz has been teaching for thirty years, and Miss Björk only for five. Stephie feels very lucky to have a homeroom teacher like Miss Björk.
However, her geography teacher, Mr. Lundkvist, is still a problem. As recently as last autumn, he stood in front of the brand-new map of Europe, boasting about Germany’s victories. He claimed that the new borders would be permanent, and that the German-occupied countries would eventually be integrated into the German Reich. He made a sweeping gesture along the whole of the map, from Norway in the north to Greece in the south, and from Paris in the west to Moscow in the east.
“And when that happens,” Mr. Lundkvist went on, “Sweden won’t be able to stay neutral. I’m sure you can see how that would be a geopolitical impossibility.”
As usual, May objected, and, as usual, Mr. Lundkvist threatened to lower her grade.
But now it’s spring 1943, and Mr. Lundkvist seems less sure of himself. Things aren’t going so well for the Germans anymore. During the autumn, the English won a huge battle in the North African desert, and it looks as if the German army will soon have to withdraw entirely from North Africa. In the east, the Russians put a stop to the German offensive at one of the big Russian cities, Stalingrad. The Russians managed to surround the German troops and, in the end, defeated them. Stephie has seen newsreels of frozen, hollow-eyed soldiers surrendering, hands up.
“This is the beginning of the end,” May’s father said when they heard the news. “Soon the Thousand-Year Reich will fall. How could they have imagined they could beat the Russians?”
The beginning of the end. But when will the end finally come?
Miss Björk passes out the tests. Stephie’s reflections come to an end when a piece of paper with purple type and the strong smell of duplicating fluid lands on her desk. She gets an encouraging smile along with it.
No one is allowed to start until all the tests have been distributed. They have three hours to solve the problems, from nine to noon.
Quickly, Stephie reads through the whole sheet. Eight problems. The first six are easy. Then there’s a geometry question she’s not sure about. Number eight is difficult, too, but as she reads through it a second time, something strikes her, and she knows how to solve it.
Eagerly, she gets out a piece of graph paper and picks up her pencil to begin her work. Before starting, though, she takes a quick look at May, who’s sitting in the same row, over by the window.
May has the test in her hand and is holding it at arm’s length, staring at the problems as if she’s never seen any math before in her life. There’s a big red blotch on each of her cheeks. Stephie can tell she’s terrified. She wishes she could go over to May and tell her the problems aren’t as hard as they look.
You can do the first six easy as pie, she’d like to say. They’re exactly the kind we’ve been practicing. Even if you make a mistake or two in working out the first six, you’ll pass. Just don’t freeze up. You’ll be fine.
But she’s not allowed to leave her seat, and certainly not to talk. She can’t help May get started. In fact, she can’t even catch her eye.
Well, it won’t do May any good if Stephie just sits there not getting started herself. So she reads problem eight one more time and decides to start with that one first.
An hour later, she is done with five of the problems. She has two of the easy ones left, and number seven, the hardest of all.
Miss Björk is walking around the auditorium. She stops by May and puts a hand on her shoulder. May looks up at her, her eyes pleading for help. Even though May’s seat is several yards away, Stephie can see that she’s perspiring.
What makes math so hard for May, who has such an easy time with all her other subjects?
Stephie does the two easy problems and tackles the tough one. She glances at the clock. Quarter to eleven. She should have plenty of time to do the last problem and then make a clean ink copy of her work by noon.
A sob breaks the silence. Stephie looks up. May is sitting weeping, her head in her hands. Crumpled sheets of paper fall to the floor.
Miss Björk gets up from her seat at the front of the room and walks toward May, but before she gets there, May stands up and rushes to the door, crying her eyes out. Miss Björk watches her helplessly. She can’t leave the auditorium unmonitored in the middle of a test.
Stephie hesitates only for a moment. Then she piles up her work, which, fortunately, is quite neat. She checks quickly that the answers to the seven problems she has finished are clear, and that it is possible to see how she has worked them out. She carries the papers to the front of the room, and gives them to Miss Björk, who is back in her seat.
“I’m finished,” she says.
Miss Björk looks at the graph paper, full of penciled work. She leafs through the pile.
“Are you sure?” she asks.
“Yes,” Stephie replies.
Miss Björk nods.
“All right, then,” she says.
Stephie finds May on the basement stairs, outside the door marked BOMB SHELTER.
“I’ll never pass,” May sniffles. “I can’t do it. I might as well quit school right now.”
She turns her round face toward Stephie, her tears running and her eyes red. She holds her glasses in her hand.
“I have no idea what x times two and the square root of y is! Sometimes, in class, I think I understand, and when you explain things to me, too. But when I’m trying to do it alone, all the x’s and y’s turn into scary crawling bugs that I can’t pin down. Don’t you see?”
Stephie nods. “But you should have turned in what you’d done,” she says. “The worst thing that could have happened would have been that your answers were wrong. And who knows, you might have gotten something right.”
May has stopped crying now.
“Thanks a lot,” she says. “That’s it? That my answers were wrong? My answers were worse than wrong. They were an utter and complete disaster.”
Stephie smiles. May sounds more like herself again.
“You’ll have to talk to Miss Björk,” says Stephie. “Maybe she can figure something out. You can’t let a few little bugs keep you from getting into high school, can you?”
May smiles now, too, though one corner of her mouth gives a twitch, and her eyes still look miserable.
“No,” she says. “No, I can’t.”
4
Every Wednesday night, Stephie and Vera, Stephie’s friend from the island, meet at a café. Stephie feels a bit funny about spending her money on a luxury instead of adding something else to the food box for Mamma and Papa. But she feels just as funny about saying that to Vera, because then Vera would want to treat her every week.
Vera moved to the city about a year ago and has an income now. She’s the housemaid for a family that lives in the center of town, quite near where Stephie lived when she boarded with her old friend Sven and his mother and father, when she first started grammar school. Vera is satisfied with the job. She has a nice little room of her own off the kitchen. The lady of the house is kind, and there are no kids to look after. Vera has Wednesday and Saturday evenings off, and all day Thursday. Lots of other girls have only one afternoon and one evening off each week, Vera explains to Stephie. She’s gotten to know several girls who have domestic jobs, and they’ve told her.
Vera goes out dancing with them at Rota, the restaurant at the Liseberg Amusement Park. It’s really called the Rotunda, but everybody says Rota, according to Vera. She’s been nagging Stephie for months to get her to come along.
“We have such a good time,” Vera says. “I think it would do you good to get out. All you ever do is sit and study.”
That’s not true. Stephie goes to the café with Vera, and she also goes to the movies, and sometimes to concerts. There
’s been a kind of unspoken pact between Stephie and Aunt Märta since the time two years ago when Miss Holm, the postmistress from the island, spotted Stephie outside a movie theater and almost got her thrown out of the Pentecostal congregation.
“I trust you to know the difference between right and wrong,” Aunt Märta said at the time. “But if they decide to exclude you, I won’t have any say in the matter.”
When it comes to going out dancing, however, Stephie knows that would be crossing the line. Dancing is about as sinful as you can get.
Vera leans forward across the table.
“Stephie,” she says. “What do you think could happen? Who might see you there? I’ve never, ever bumped into anyone from the island at Rota. Nobody’s going to find you. And we’d have such a good time.”
She gives Stephie a pleading look with those green eyes of hers. She’s had her red hair cut to the latest fashion, shoulder length with a wave across the forehead. Still, Vera’s hair always looks like it’s trying to break free from its well-sculpted style and frizz up around her head, as it did when she and Stephie first became friends.
Vera thinks it’s important to look like a young lady. They aren’t kids anymore; Vera is sixteen. Not long ago, she boasted to Stephie that when she meets new people, she always tells them she’s eighteen, and they believe her. Vera’s breasts protrude under her tight sweater, she has red lipstick on, and in her dresser drawer are two pairs of silk stockings she saves to wear dancing.
Stephie is only four months younger than Vera, but she sometimes feels childish around her. She can tell she looks like a schoolgirl in her white blouses, her neatly buttoned cardigans, and her pleated skirts. She still has short hair, simply cut and with a side part. She doesn’t very often think about her appearance, but when she’s with Vera, she can hardly help it.
Vera is gorgeous. She was already pretty when they were in elementary school, but over the last six months she has blossomed into a real beauty. She could be on the cover of a magazine, Stephie thinks, or in a movie.
“I forgot to tell you!” Vera suddenly bursts out. “I’m getting my picture taken tomorrow.”
“Where?”
Vera tells her all about it. The previous Saturday, at Rota, an “old man” came up to her. “Well, he wasn’t all that old,” she said, “maybe forty, but nobody over twenty-five goes dancing there.” At first she found him a bit scary, but he was very polite, telling her he was a photographer with a studio of his own. He even gave her his business card, with his name and address embossed on it. He said she had the most fascinating face, explaining that he had lots of contacts at the magazines and would definitely be able to sell her picture to one of the big, glossy ones. After that, the sky was the limit for a pretty girl like her, he told her. He asked how old she was, and she said eighteen, as usual. That was when he gave her the business card and told her to stop by when she had time. Then he bowed and left.
“You know, he was quite good-looking,” says Vera. “He was dark-haired, and had such a fine suit on.”
Stephie feels her anxiety rising. There’s something about Vera’s story that doesn’t add up.
“Do you really think you ought to go?” she begins.
Vera shrugs and laughs.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “He even said I could bring a girlfriend along if I liked. You don’t happen to be free tomorrow at three?”
Stephie considers. She has German at three on Thursdays. Does she really dare tempt fate and Miss Krantz?
“Not really,” she says. “I’ve got German class.”
“Skip it!” says Vera. “You already know German. Keep me company!”
“Couldn’t you go later? I’ll be done by four.”
“That won’t work,” says Vera. “He said it would take at least two hours, and I have to be back by six to do the dinner dishes.”
“What if I came and met you there after school?”
“No,” Vera replies. “I’d feel like a baby. As if I needed to be picked up. It would be different if you came along. Maybe he’d take your picture, too.”
Stephie laughs. “I don’t think I was meant to be a cover girl.”
“You’re very pretty,” says Vera, “with your dark eyes and high cheekbones. All you need is a little makeup and a different hairdo. Come dancing on Saturday and I’ll make you up!”
Her eyes gleam.
“Stop it,” says Stephie. “You know I don’t want to. And actually, I’m spending this weekend on the island.”
They don’t mention the photographer again. But on the tram back to Sandarna, Stephie’s stomach tightens once more, just thinking about it.
5
“It would have been nice if you’d come along.”
Stephie’s in German class, listening to Miss Krantz going on and on about the uses of the conjunctive in German. She sneaks a peek at the watch Aunt Märta and Uncle Evert gave her for her fifteenth birthday. Ten after three.
Right now, Vera’s in that photographer’s studio, unless she had second thoughts. But that’s not likely.
Vera wants to “be somebody,” which means she either wants to become a film star or marry rich.
“ ‘May you succeed in all you undertake!’ ” Miss Krantz says. “Translation, Ulla?”
Stephie imagines a photograph of Vera, head cocked, eyes sparkling beneath the wave across her forehead. Maybe this is the right thing for Vera to be doing. Maybe this photographer really is going to rescue her from cooking, cleaning, and looking after others for the rest of her life. Maybe Stephie is worrying about nothing.
“ ‘Whatever the circumstances, you’d better be careful,’ ” Miss Krantz says. “Translate into German, please, Lillian!”
Lillian starts hesitantly, then gets stuck on the verb form.
“ ‘Had it been me, I would never have done it,’ ” Miss Krantz interjects. “You translate, please, Stephie.”
And Stephie translates.
At twenty to four, the class is finally over. May’s got a student council meeting to attend, so Stephie is going home alone. May likes to be active in organizations and go to meetings. In addition to being on the student council, she’s the secretary of the local Social Democratic youth group.
As she’s crossing the schoolyard, Stephie hears her name. She doesn’t have to turn around to know that the voice belongs to Miss Björk. She stops and waits.
For the past three years, Hedvig Björk has been Stephie’s homeroom, math, and biology teacher. But she’s more than that—she’s also Stephie’s friend, almost like an older sister or cousin. The difficult winter when Stephie had to move out of Sven’s parents’ apartment, Miss Björk took her in until May’s family had moved into their new home.
“Hi!” says Miss Björk. “How are things?”
“Fine, thanks,” Stephie replies.
“I haven’t graded all the tests yet, but I just wanted to tell you that the seven problems you finished were all perfect. And I won’t be deducting any points for your having turned in a rough copy. You had a very good reason.”
But what about May? Stephie wonders. Does she dare ask? Or would that be taking advantage of their friendship? Miss Björk was still her teacher, after all.
“I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m going to do about May,” Miss Björk continues. “To tell you the truth, I’m wondering myself. I do know how important it is to her to pass. At high school, she’ll be in the classics program and not have to take any math at all. But with one failed test and two she just barely passed, and now this … I’m in a difficult position. I’ll make up my mind over the weekend. You’ll be getting your tests back on Wednesday.
“And what about you?” she goes on as they approach the other side of the schoolyard. “I guess you’ll choose the science program?”
Stephie nods. She’s planning to become a doctor. Like Papa. She’s going to help people who are ill—children, she hopes. Just think how wonderful it would be to cure a sick child, or save a chil
d’s life. That’s her dream.
“I’m sure you’ll get a full scholarship,” Miss Björk tells her. “And the relief committee will help out with a cost-of-living allowance until you finish your education, won’t they?”
Stephie is startled. She hadn’t thought about it. She’d just taken it for granted that the committee would go on paying her room and board and giving her a bit of money for clothes when she needed something. If they don’t … well, she certainly won’t be able to go on living with May’s family. They can’t afford an extra mouth to feed.
“I’m not sure,” she replies. “I’ll ask Aunt Märta to look into it.”
“Good idea,” says Miss Björk. “I’d be very surprised if they didn’t encourage a gifted girl like you to go on with her studies.”
They go their separate ways outside the gate. Hedvig Björk walks to her one-room apartment not far from school, and Stephie takes the tram to Sandarna.
It starts to pour as Stephie makes her way home, and by the time she opens the door of the building, with Ninni and Erik in tow, Gunnel, Kurre, and Olle are already standing there waiting.
With all the children inside, the apartment is crowded and noisy. Kurre and Olle play marbles on the kitchen floor. They’d never dare do that if their mother or even May were at home, but they have no respect for Stephie. Gunnel gets angry with Erik for drawing mustaches on her paper dolls, and begs Stephie to “give him what he deserves.” Ninni is tired and grumpy.
Stephie stands by the stove, frying sausages for all of them, thinking about how she’ll never be a good mother. Then she wonders if it’s easier when they’re your own children. Her next thought is about what’s going to happen if May doesn’t get into high school. She could attend grammar school for a fourth year and come out with a junior secondary diploma. But after that? Could Stephie go on boarding with May’s family if she was a high school student, and May, like Britten, who is two years younger, was making her own living and contributing to the family income? That wouldn’t feel good at all.