Deep Sea

by Annika Thor

  “How can you say something so unfair?” Stephie asks. “Auntie Alma has always treated you as if you were her own child.”

  “I wish I was!”

  “How can you say that? You have parents of your own, or have you forgotten?”

  Nellie doesn’t reply, just shrugs. Stephie feels like taking her by the shoulders and giving her a shake. She’d like to shake her sister until the old lively, warmhearted Nellie comes out of this grumpy stranger with her closed-up face.

  That’s when she sees what’s different about the room.

  Nellie’s portraits of Mamma and Papa—the same ones Stephie has—are missing. They’ve always been on the dresser, where the new family photo is now.

  “Where did you put your pictures?” Stephie asks. “Of Mamma and Papa?”

  “In my drawer,” Nellie tells her glumly.

  “Why?”

  “This is Elsa’s room now, too. I don’t think she wants to look at them all the time.”

  “Did she say that?”

  “No.”

  “Nellie,” says Stephie. “They’re our parents. Your parents. I don’t want you to forget that. You do write to them, don’t you?”

  “Sure I do. I write once a week. Alternate weeks to Mamma and Papa. Any other questions?”

  Nellie’s voice is harsh. As if she feels the need to defend herself. As if Stephie were her enemy.

  Stephie goes down on her knees in front of Nellie. She takes her hands and tries to hold her gaze.

  At that very moment, Auntie Alma calls them.

  “Stephie! Nellie! Come have some juice.”

  Nellie pushes Stephie away and stands up.

  “Auntie Alma’s calling,” she says. “I’m going down.”

  Stephie politely declines to stay for sweet rolls and juice. She knows Auntie Alma will be offended, but she can’t just sit there pretending. She needs to be by herself, now that Nellie doesn’t want to talk to her anymore.

  Take care of Nellie. She can hear her father’s voice from the railroad station in Vienna, the last time they saw each other, nearly four years ago. Take care of Nellie. Both Papa and Mamma write that to her often. Take care of Nellie. She’s so young.

  Stephie has let her parents down. She should never have agreed to go to grammar school in the city. She and Nellie ought to have stuck together. And she’s the one who bears the responsibility since she’s older.

  Maybe she shouldn’t start high school, for Nellie’s sake? But if she doesn’t continue her education, she’ll have to get a job. And there are no jobs for girls on the island. The girls here do as Vera has done, take domestic jobs in the city, or work in the factories. Unless they marry fishermen and stay on the island.

  It’s too late, anyway.

  She can’t take care of Nellie anymore, because Nellie is never again going to let her.

  8

  Before taking the boat back to Göteborg on Sunday evening, Stephie asks Aunt Märta to phone the relief committee to find out whether they will pay her room and board for another three years, while she’s in high school. Aunt Märta promises.

  On her way back, Stephie stands out on deck again, but this time, she mostly just stares down into the water. The surface of the sea is unruffled and gleaming. Somewhere at the bottom, in the depths, might be the missing submarine, the Wolf.

  That night she dreams that she has been shut up in a narrow room with some other people. There’s almost no air. She wakes up feeling as if she is suffocating.

  On Wednesday, Miss Björk is at her desk at the front of the room, a pile of test papers before her, gazing out at the class. Thirty-four pair of eyes meet hers—nervous, pleading, or self-confident. Then there is May, who just stares down at her desktop.

  “Your test results,” says Miss Björk, “aren’t exactly brilliant. No one had a perfect score this time. On the other hand, no one who turned in a test paper failed, though there are a few borderline cases. I’m not going to keep you in suspense. Ulla, would you return the test papers, please?”

  The class monitor walks forward to the teacher’s desk and collects the pile. One by one, she returns the tests. A few of the girls leaf eagerly through theirs. Others try to look unperturbed. Stephie just glances at hers. She already knows that she got 28 out of 32. That will give her an A-minus. She would have had an A if she’d done that last problem. But she couldn’t do it without letting May down.

  Stephie looks toward May, but May’s eyes are still glued to her desktop.

  “And then we have May,” says Miss Björk. “You didn’t turn in a test paper. I assume you fell ill during the exam?”

  May looks up. Her lips are moving, but no sound comes out.

  “Isn’t that right?” asks Miss Björk. “You certainly did look ill to me. So I’ve decided not to count this test toward your grade. But if I am going to be able to give you a final grade, you are going to have to prove that you did your work on this section of the course. I’ve made up an extra assignment for you. I’ll give you two weeks to do it at home. Come see me in the staff room on your lunch break today, and we’ll look through it together.”

  May’s lips are moving again, but it’s like watching an old silent movie. Stephie can read her lips, though. May is saying, Thank you, Miss Björk.

  After her lunchtime talk with Miss Björk, May is bright and chipper again. Their teacher has promised to pass May in math if she does her extra assignment diligently.

  “ ‘On one condition,’ she said,” May tells Stephie.

  “What condition?”

  “That I apply for the classics program in high school and never take any math again. As if I’d do anything else!”

  “So we won’t be classmates next year,” says Stephie.

  “No, that’s too bad.” May puts her arm around Stephie’s shoulders. “But we’ll always be best friends. No matter what.”

  On their way home from school, Stephie and May split up outside the Co-Op. May’s going to pick up Ninni and Erik, while Stephie’s going to phone Aunt Märta from the store and then shop for dinner.

  The phone rings and rings before Aunt Märta answers.

  “Jansson residence,” she says at last.

  “It’s me,” says Stephie. “Aunt Märta, were you able to call the relief committee?”

  There’s a moment of silence. Then she speaks.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What did they say?”

  Silence again.

  “Do you really think you need to go on to high school, dear?” Stephie hears.

  “Was that what they asked?”

  “They said most of the refugee children your age are already earning their keep,” says Aunt Märta. “It’s hard for them to collect money now. Everyone needs everything they have. They said they could offer you one more year of school. That would get you a junior secondary degree, and a good office job. Maybe you could eventually study nursing. Nursing students have free room and board while they’re in training.”

  Stephie’s hand is gripping the black receiver tightly. She has to hold on to something.

  “And what did you say, Aunt Märta?”

  “That it sounded like a sensible plan. Girls always end up getting married, in any case. Of course, schooling’s a fine thing, but high school won’t prepare you for a profession. High school won’t get you a better job.”

  “But you know I want to be a doctor,” Stephie says softly. “You know that, Aunt Märta.”

  “My dear girl,” Aunt Märta says. “Times being what they are, I think you’re going to have to put such fancies out of your mind.”

  Stephie can tell she’s about to cry. She feels the girl behind the counter staring at her in curiosity. So she brings the conversation to an end, pays, and leaves.

  She sits down on a bench by a sandbox between the houses. She hadn’t expected this. When a way was finally found for her to go on to grammar school, she had assumed there would be no question that she would go to high school, too.


  Junior secondary diploma. Office job. Nurse’s training. That wasn’t the future she had envisaged for herself. Nor the one Mamma and Papa had imagined for her, either.

  Her old bitterness rises. If Anna-Lisa, Aunt Märta’s and Uncle Evert’s own daughter, hadn’t died at the age of twelve, if she had wanted to go on to high school, surely they would have let her. They would have been proud to have such a gifted daughter. But a foster child is a different matter.

  Stephie’s been sitting on the bench for twenty minutes when she realizes that May is waiting for the dinner groceries. The groceries she’s forgotten all about buying!

  She goes back to the Co-Op, trying not to notice the sympathetic gaze of the shop assistant. When the girl asks Stephie if everything is all right, Stephie answers curtly.

  “Of course.”

  Stephie doesn’t say anything to May as they make dinner and eat. She just can’t right now, not with all the kids around. After that, she has to go out. Vera is expecting her at the café. For once, Stephie’s not looking forward to her Wednesday evening. She’d much rather take a walk with May and talk about their future school situations.

  Vera’s already there when Stephie arrives. She’s a bit pale, but her lips are defiantly red. They each order a cup of coffee and an iced almond cake.

  Stephie just can’t keep it to herself any longer. The whole story, beginning with the relief committee and Aunt Märta, and on to her dreams of finishing high school, run right out of her, a long stream of words.

  “And then she says girls always just get married anyhow!” Stephie finishes indignantly.

  “Well, you will get married, won’t you?”

  “I might, but not until I’ve become a doctor,” says Stephie.

  “That’s sure stingy of the Janssons,” says Vera. “I’m sure they could afford to keep you in school themselves, since it’s so important to you. They’re quite well off.”

  Stephie doesn’t reply. She may very well have been thinking the same thing herself just a little while ago, but she’d never criticize Aunt Märta and Uncle Evert in front of Vera.

  “How did it go with that photographer?” she asks to change the subject.

  Vera stirs her coffee, staring down into the vortex she’s created in the brown liquid.

  “All right.”

  Vera is never so short with Stephie.

  “All right?”

  “Yes. He took three rolls, and promised to send them to Look magazine this week.”

  “Will you get to see them?”

  Vera shrugs. “I don’t know that I want to.”

  Stephie’s very confused. “You don’t want to see them?”

  “Forget it,” says Vera. “Let’s talk about something nice now. Are you coming along to Rota on Saturday? Please?”

  Suddenly Stephie realizes how angry she is with Aunt Märta. Angry with all her rules and all her preconceptions about how a life should be lived. About girls just getting married. About it being sinful to go out dancing.

  Why should she obey Aunt Märta’s rules? Why should she pay any attention to a god who forbids every bit of fun? Just a couple of hours ago, she would have answered For Aunt Märta’s sake. But now she doesn’t care about Aunt Märta’s sake.

  “Yes,” she says. “I’ll come. If you’ll lend me something to wear.”

  9

  Miss Björk can tell immediately that something’s not right. After biology class the next morning, she asks Stephie to help her carry the posters back up to the map room.

  “What’s the matter?” she asks with concern.

  “The relief committee said no,” says Stephie. “They won’t pay for high school. They’ll let me do a fourth year so I can get a junior secondary degree, but that’s it.”

  Miss Björk frowns. Then she grins.

  “Wow, then I’ll get to have you for another year! I’m not qualified to teach high school, you know. I’m nothing but a poor young secondary schoolmistress.”

  She hangs the posters of the internal organs of the human body back where they belong.

  “But seriously,” she says. “Was that a final decision?”

  “I think so. It sounded that way.”

  “Did you talk to them yourself?”

  “No, Aunt Märta called.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “That girls just get married. That I could study nursing after a while.”

  Miss Björk sighs. “When I hear things like that,” she says, “I realize how fortunate I’ve been. Of all the pupils at my all-girl grammar school, I was the only one who got to graduate from high school and go on to further education. It was all thanks to my mother. She wanted to go to university but ended up at teacher’s seminary. I thought things had changed, though, over the last twenty years. That people’s prejudices about women—”

  She stops herself short.

  “Well, I’m sure the last thing you want is a lecture on women’s rights just now,” she says. “And besides, the bell’s about to ring. Let me think on this one a bit. I bet I’ll figure something out. Come have tea with me on Sunday afternoon, and we’ll talk it through. Two o’clock?”

  “Thank you,” says Stephie. “Thank you so much, Miss Björk.”

  Vera finishes at six on Saturdays. At a quarter after, Stephie knocks at the kitchen door and Vera opens it, her hair in rollers.

  “Come on in,” she says, pulling Stephie into her little maid’s room off the kitchen. “My employers are invited out to dinner, but they haven’t left yet.”

  On the bed in Vera’s room is a newly ironed dress. It’s green with little white dots, buttons down the front, and shoulder pads.

  “Do you like it?”

  “It’s gorgeous,” says Stephie. “But don’t you want to wear it yourself?”

  Vera points to a blue-flowered dress hanging from the drapery rod that separates the sink from the rest of the room.

  “I’ll wear that one. Now let’s get started on your hair. I think you ought to take your blouse off.”

  Vera washes Stephie’s hair in the sink behind the curtain, and puts it in rollers. Then she plucks Stephie’s eyebrows with little tweezers. It hurts, but Stephie grits her teeth and bears it.

  Next, Vera looks critically at Stephie’s white undershirt. She pulls a brassiere out of a dresser drawer.

  “This is probably too big,” she says. “But we’ll stuff it with these old, worn-out stockings.”

  Stephie removes her undershirt. She’s a bit embarrassed about her breasts. Stephie puts on the brassiere, and Vera stuffs one stocking in each bra cup, arranging them carefully so they look natural.

  “No one will ever know once you have the dress on,” she says.

  Vera puts a little rouge on Stephie’s cheeks, powders them over, and puts red lipstick on her lips.

  While Vera’s doing her own makeup and brushing out her curls, Stephie examines herself in the mirror. With red on her lips, she can suddenly see a resemblance to Mamma. Vera may be right, she thinks. I just might be pretty.

  She purses her lips and tries to blink like a movie star, so her eyelashes brush her cheeks.

  But when Vera turns around with her billowing curls and smiling mouth, Stephie knows Vera has something she doesn’t. A gleam in her eyes, a sheen to her complexion, and something about her hair. Stephie can’t put a name to it.

  When Stephie’s hair has dried, Vera removes the rollers and arranges it in soft curls around her face. She brushes up her slanting bangs, putting in a bobby pin so they form a little roll across her forehead.

  “There you are,” Vera says, satisfied. “See how much older you look?”

  Vera lends Stephie a garter and one of her pairs of silk stockings.

  “Be careful with them,” Vera warns. “It’s really expensive to get them mended if they run.”

  Lastly, they put on the dresses. They walk out into the empty apartment to examine themselves in the big hall mirror with a gold frame. One blue body with red
gold hair, one green one with black curls. Vera puts an arm around Stephie’s waist.

  “Do you see now?” she asks. “See how pretty you are?”

  She opens the door to one of the rooms.

  “Come on,” she says. “Now I’m going to teach you to dance.”

  Vera turns on the big radio gramophone, turning the dials until she finds a station that plays modern dance music. Stephie’s a bit uncomfortable.

  “Are you … I mean are we allowed to be in here?”

  “What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Vera tells her. “We’re not going to do any harm. Just dance a little. May I have this dance, miss?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Stephie answers, playing along. Vera teaches Stephie how to position her arms. Left hand on her partner’s shoulder, right hand in his.

  “We’ll start with the two-step,” says Vera.

  The two-step’s easy. All Stephie has to do is follow Vera’s movements.

  “Head up a bit,” Vera instructs her. “That’s it. Do you come here often, miss?”

  “No,” says Stephie. “This is my first time.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Vera tells her. “I would have noticed a beauty like you if you’d been here before.”

  The music fades. Vera bows.

  “Thank you for the dance. May I have the next one as well?”

  They wait until the radio plays a fast swing melody. Vera takes Stephie by the hand.

  “Just follow,” she says. “The man always leads. Let him spin you around, and just follow.”

  With a tug, she pulls Stephie toward her, placing an arm around her waist. Then she pushes Stephie away again, out onto the floor, but without letting go of her hand. Stephie spins and flies, whirls, and dances across the floor. Suddenly she collides with a chair, loses her balance, and falls.