by Annika Thor
“Are you all right?” Vera asks.
“I think I’m fine.”
“Sorry, I’m not accustomed to leading, you know. I guess I was too rough. I really hope I didn’t hurt you.”
Stephie smooths down her dress. “How do I look?” she asks.
“A bit ruffled,” says Vera. “It’s time to fix ourselves up and get going. Rota opens at eight, so we ought to be there then. It gets awfully crowded later. And we’ll want a table close to the dance floor.”
Vera fixes Stephie’s hair and her own. They get their coats from Vera’s room and are about to leave when Vera catches sight of Stephie’s sensible, flat shoes with laces.
“Oh, no! You can’t be seen in those shoes!” she cries. “What are we going to do?”
Vera’s shoes are sixes and Stephie wears fives. Even if Vera had two pairs of dancing shoes, Stephie couldn’t borrow one.
Vera’s frown only lasts a moment. “Hang on,” she says.
She vanishes, returning shortly with a pair of high-heeled shoes in hand.
“Where did you get those?”
“They’re my mistress’s.”
“You’re crazy. What if I ruin them?”
“Just take a look!”
She pulls Stephie into one of the bedrooms. There’s a big double bed. Vera opens a closet. From floor to ceiling, there are shoe boxes, piles and piles of shoe boxes.
“You don’t really think she can keep track of all her shoes, do you? I took a pair from the very bottom, one she never wears. Let’s go!”
10
By the time they get to Rota, it’s ten to eight and there’s already a line. They wait their turn, buy tickets, and are finally in the lobby, hanging up their coats. The dance music is playing inside.
Vera gives Stephie a smile. “Ready?”
Now Stephie sees what gave the place the name Rotunda. The huge dance floor is circular. There’s a fountain in the middle, surrounded by flower arrangements. Above the fountain is an enormous chandelier. Along the walls are raised galleries with little tables. On the stage is the band, eleven white-tuxedoed men. Everything is glittering and twinkling.
“Oooh” is all Stephie can manage.
Vera makes her way to one of the tables.
“Right by the dance floor and really close to the band,” she whispers to Stephie. “Where everybody can see us.”
They take their table, and Vera orders them soft drinks and cream cake. Stephie gives her a strange look. Vera almost never eats cream cake. At the café, she’s always saying she needs to think about her figure.
Vera notices her gaze.
“It’s different here,” she says. “If you have a piece of cream cake in front of you, the boys know you aren’t worried about gaining weight. And nobody says you have to finish it.”
A young man with glasses asks Vera to dance almost right away. Stephie sips her soft drink, pokes around at her cake, and keeps an eye on Vera’s blue dress, watching the skirt twirl around and around. When will it be her turn?
She lets her eyes wander around the room. Groups of boys stand here and there, leaning nonchalantly against the walls, hands in their trouser pockets. But all the girls are seated. So many pretty girls waiting to be asked to dance. Why would anyone notice her?
After two dances, the young man accompanies Vera back to the table, pulls her chair out for her, and bows.
“What a bore!” Vera whispers as he walks away. “And not much of a dancer, either. Between songs, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Not so much as a ‘Do you come here often?’ ”
Someone asks Vera to dance again. After that, she just dances and dances. Stephie starts to regret having come along. She doesn’t want to sit there like a wallflower until it’s time to go home.
Then the young man with the glasses comes back. He may have wanted to ask Vera to dance again, but, seeing Stephie alone, he bows politely.
“May I have this dance?” he asks.
At last! Stephie doesn’t mind at all that Vera dismissed him as boring. She follows him to the dance floor.
He really isn’t much of a dancer. Twice he almost steps on Stephie’s toes. He blushes furiously each time, apologizing profusely.
They have two dances in a row without exchanging more than a couple of words. Then he walks her back to her seat.
So that was it. Her Saturday-evening fun.
There are more and more couples on the dance floor now, and fewer and fewer girls at the tables. Everyone must notice her sitting by herself, dance after dance.
Stephie puts a bite of cake in her mouth. The cream has already gone stiff and dry, but at least eating makes her look occupied.
Then Vera arrives with two young men in tow. She’s holding one by the hand, and the other is walking behind them.
“May I introduce you?” she asks. “This is Bengt and Rikard. My girlfriend Stephie.”
Stephie extends a hand. Rikard, the one who was holding Vera’s hand, is tall and fair and good-looking. Bengt is shorter, wide-shouldered, and less handsome. But he has lovely gray eyes.
They sit down at the girls’ table.
“Ah, I see you haven’t had time to eat tonight, either,” Rikard says, glancing at Vera’s untouched piece of cake.
They seem to have met before.
“That’s right,” Vera replies. “Which is too bad, since the whipped cream has already dried up.”
She pushes her plate away.
Bengt turns to Stephie. “Vera tells me you’re from Vienna,” he says. “Excuse me for being nosy, but how did you end up here?”
Stephie hesitates. She certainly can’t tell her whole story to someone she’s just met. Not here. It would spoil everybody’s evening.
“Stephie’s a refugee,” Vera answers for her. “She’s Jewish.”
Vera gives Bengt a look. Stephie can see that she’s trying to say No more questions. Bengt quickly changes the subject.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” he says. “Do you come often?”
“No,” says Stephie. “This is my first time.”
“Would you like to dance?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Bengt is a good dancer. He leads her calmly and confidently on the dance floor, a firm hand on her waist. It feels good having his arm around her, and the hand holding hers is large and warm. Even when Bengt spins her out across the floor, she feels secure, knowing that he’ll pull her back, like a boomerang.
Vera and Rikard are dancing nearby. Rikard lifts Vera, spinning her upside down. Vera’s skirt falls back across her upper body, revealing her white underwear and her garters.
Bengt smiles when he sees Stephie’s look.
“We’ll take things a bit easier, you and me,” he says. “Right?”
You and me. As if they belong together.
Stephie doesn’t really know how it’s happened, but suddenly it’s midnight and Rota is closing. They’ve been dancing and talking all evening, Vera and Rikard, she and Bengt. Bengt asked Stephie her age, but before she could open her mouth, Vera answered.
“Seventeen.”
So later, when he asks Stephie about school, she has to pretend she’s a sophomore in high school. Bengt graduated from the business high school and is now apprenticed to one of Sweden’s big companies. Rikard is a technical illustrator at a construction firm, studying engineering at night school.
Now they’re outside and about to go their separate ways. Unless, of course, the boys want to walk them home. She certainly can’t expect Bengt to walk her all the way out to Sandarna, though. He lives in Mölndal, the other direction altogether.
“You don’t want to go home yet, do you?” Rikard says. “It’s just midnight. You girls don’t have to be home any particular time, right?”
Stephie shakes her head. She told May and her parents she might sleep over at Vera’s, so they won’t worry about her.
“My employers are at a dinner party,” Vera says. “They tend to get back lat
e, and sleep late the next morning. They won’t notice what time I come in.”
“That settles it,” says Rikard. “I’ve got the key to my parents’ cabin. It’s not very far away. Do you want to come?”
“Sure,” says Vera. “All right, Stephie?”
Stephie has her doubts. Going along with two boys in the middle of the night? Well, Vera knows them. And she obviously wants to go, but not by herself. If Stephie says no, she’ll spoil things for Vera, who has gone out of her way to show Stephie a good time.
“All right,” she says. “I guess.”
11
They get to the cabin by bus, jolting slowly along a narrow country road. It’s late and dark, and after they get off the bus, they have to walk through the woods. Bengt takes Stephie’s arm to keep her from stumbling in her high heels. She’s a bit worried about the shoes, but she decides there isn’t much she can do now. Bengt’s steady grip on her arm makes her feel more secure.
Rikard’s parents’ cabin is on a hillside in an allotment, an area of community gardens, each with a tiny cabin almost playhouse-sized. The dark forest looms behind the rows of cottages, and a pale moon hangs above the treetops. The air is perfumed with the scent of flowering trees and newly mowed grass. There are lights in a couple of the cabins, but most are silent and dark. Singing can be heard coming from one over at the far end.
Rikard unlocks the door to a green wooden cabin in the row nearest the woods. The others settle down in rattan furniture on the glassed-in porch while Rikard gets four glasses, takes out a pocket flask, and pours the transparent liquid.
“Cheers, everybody!” he says.
They all raise their glasses. Stephie takes a little sip. It burns her mouth. Rikard and Bengt drink all of theirs, and Rikard pours refills. Stephie’s uncomfortable, but Bengt’s gray eyes look at her kindly.
“I guess you’re not much of a drinker,” he says.
Stephie blushes. “You’re right.”
Bengt extends a hand and pats her cheek. “Did you ever see a prettier face?” he asks Rikard and Vera.
Stephie sips her drink as the others finish the contents of the pocket flask and move on to another bottle Rikard got from inside the house. They all talk and laugh. Although she hasn’t had much to drink, Stephie is dizzy. It’s all so new to her. New and exciting. The moonlight. The scents. Bengt’s gray eyes searching hers.
She barely notices when Vera and Rikard get up and disappear into the cabin.
“Stephanie,” Bengt says, reaching out again. “Won’t you come sit next to me?”
He’s on a settee, she’s in an armchair. The spots where Rikard and Vera were sitting a little while ago are empty now.
“Come on,” Bengt repeats. “Sit over here.”
Stephie moves to the couch. Bengt puts his arm around her. She leans her head on his shoulder. It feels good. She’s so tired.
A little while later, he tilts her face toward his and kisses her.
Stephie’s been kissed once before. By Sven, that time he said she was like a younger sister to him. She had made him kiss her then, and not like a brother kisses a sister, but for real, on the lips.
But this kiss is different. Bengt presses his lips to hers, hard.
“Come on, open up,” he mumbles.
She opens her lips. His tongue pushes inside them, between her top and bottom teeth, seeking hers. It feels awful and nice at the same time. Her whole body is tingling in a way she’s never felt before.
“My little Jewess,” Bengt whispers.
His hand is on her left breast. What if he feels the stocking bundled in her bra! What if it falls out?
Now his hand is sliding down her body. He kisses her again. His hand reaches under her skirt, up her leg, toward the edge of her garter.…
This is wrong. She doesn’t want him doing this. She tries to break free, but he holds her tight. Now his hand is on the inside of her thigh, between her stocking and her underwear.
“Stop!” she cries.
His face moves a few inches from hers. His eyes don’t look as kind as before.
“What’s your problem?” he asks, annoyed.
“Let me go!” she says, pushing at his hand.
Bengt glowers at her. “Don’t play innocent,” he says. “A girl who goes off with guys like you did tonight can’t refuse. What do you imagine Rikard and your girlfriend are up to?”
Stephie listens. From inside the cabin, she hears a rhythmic creaking from the springs of a bed or a couch.
“I didn’t know,” she says. “Leave me alone.”
She puts the palms of both hands to his chest and pushes him away.
Bengt lets go, and she is freed.
“Is it me you don’t like?” he asks, sounding glum.
“No!” she is quick to reply.
“There must be something wrong with me,” Bengt insists. “Don’t try to make me believe you’re a virgin. I’ve heard a thing or two …”
“What have you heard?”
“… about Jewish girls,” says Bengt. “They say you’re the hottest girls in town. That’s what I’ve heard.”
Stephie just stares at him. She can hardly believe she saw anything handsome or kind in his gray eyes. Now she finds them ugly, bleary with drink, and scary in some other way, too. She gets up.
“I’m leaving,” she says.
He doesn’t answer her. Just slouches on the settee, watching her put on her coat. She hears Vera giggle in the cabin. How can she?
Stephie stumbles down the porch steps. The singing from the other cabin sounds more like drunken bellowing now. But above it she hears Bengt’s voice, saying awful words.
“Just go, then!” he shouts. “Go to hell, you little Jewish slut.”
She practically runs down the path through the woods. The moon has gone behind a cloud, and it’s hard to see her way. The bushes rustle and a big bird rises. She wishes she could turn around and run back to the brightly lit porch. But Bengt is there. She never wants to see him again. Never!
Stephie stumbles, breaking one of the heels on her borrowed pumps. She takes them off and continues in her stocking feet, paying no heed to the fact that she is still wearing Vera’s silk stockings. She’s sure to have ruined them already. What does she care, though? This whole thing is Vera’s fault. She ought to have known better. She’s used to being around boys.
Stephie finally reaches the country road. There are no buses at this hour, of course. She pulls off the torn silk stockings and starts walking barefoot in the direction of town. After a while, she gets a lift with a truck driver. He’s a nice man and asks her no questions. He drops her at Järntorget, in the middle of town.
It’s beginning to get light out, and the trams have started running. Stephie reaches Sandarna at half past five. She unlocks the door quietly and sneaks inside. Luckily, May’s parents don’t hear her, but May wakes up when Stephie gets into bed. Stephie tries to give her a smile, a smile that says everything’s all right.
Though nothing is really all right. Nothing at all.
12
Stephie dozes uneasily for a couple of hours. The sheets tangle around her, trapping her arms and legs.
She dreams someone’s trying to catch her. Hands reach out, touching her body. She’s got a tingling sensation in the palms of her hands, on her lips, between her legs.
“Stephanie,” a voice says. “Stephanie, Stephanie!”
The voice resembles Sven’s. She turns around fast, and finds herself looking into a pair of gray eyes. But the eyes aren’t Sven’s, they’re Bengt’s, and the expression on his face is cold and scornful.
When she wakes up, she feels dirty. She spends a long time in the bathroom, washing her body from head to toe.
She tells May she went to Vera’s to spend the night, but they sat up talking until dawn, so she decided to head home.
“What was it like?” asks May. “Did you get to dance much?”
“Quite a lot,” Stephie tells her. “But not as muc
h as Vera.”
She tells her what it looked like at Rota and what she and Vera wore. But when May asks about the boys she danced with, Stephie answers curtly.
“One with glasses. And another one called Bengt.”
Not until one-thirty, just as she’s about to leave for Miss Björk’s, does Stephie realize her own clothes are still at Vera’s. And her shoes, what about her shoes? They are her only spring pair. She has to put on her heavy winter boots in spite of the warm weather.
“Good luck!” May wishes her. “I hope Miss Björk’s thought of something.”
Half an hour later, Stephie arrives at Hedvig Björk’s apartment and rings the doorbell. When she is let in, she hangs up her coat and leaves her boots in the tiny hall before following Miss Björk into her combined bedroom, study, and living room.
Stephie has always liked this apartment. The walls have floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. In front of the large window are a desk and a good chair. The bed in the corner is hidden during the day by a pretty curtain with calming colors—burgundy, gray-blue, and a pleasant shade of yellow. A comfortable armchair for reading sits in front of the fireplace, and next to it is a little table holding a pile of books.
Miss Björk moves the books aside and pulls the desk chair over to the table. While she’s in the kitchen getting the tea tray, Stephie examines the photographs on the mantelpiece. There’s a cute picture of Hedvig Björk as a child, and several of her parents and relatives.
Stephie notices a new picture, one that wasn’t here two years ago when Stephie was staying with Miss Björk. A woman in her thirties is looking solemnly into the camera. Could this be a sister? No, Stephie’s teacher has never mentioned brothers and sisters, and the woman in the picture doesn’t look at all like her. The woman’s mouth is softer, her nose pointier, and her face is surrounded by a mound of frizzy hair.
Miss Björk sets down the tray, which holds a teapot, two cups, and some slices of bread with butter and cucumber.
“English sandwiches,” she explains with a smile. “You sit in the armchair. I spent the morning there.”