Deep Sea

by Annika Thor

  “I see you’ve picked up your spring shoes from the shoemaker,” Judith says, looking at Stephie’s feet.

  “I have.”

  “I actually thought you were lying about them,” Judith tells her. “You gave me such a funny look when you told me they were being resoled. What are your foster parents like, really?”

  Stephie does her best to describe Aunt Märta and Uncle Evert. Judith listens attentively.

  “Swedish people are so strange,” she says when Stephie is done. “You’d think they were as thick-skinned as elephants and had no feelings.”

  “Oh, they do have feelings,” says Stephie. “Only they show them differently.”

  “I just wish the war would end and I could go to Palestine,” Judith says. “Where will you go?”

  “Home, I imagine,” says Stephie.

  “Home?” Judith asks. “We don’t have homes anymore. They took away our homes. They took away our right to live.”

  “But after the war,” says Stephie, “when the Germans are gone, don’t you think things can be like they were before?”

  “Things will never be like before. Never!”

  Stephie considers. Judith may be right.

  “We lived in Leopoldstadt,” says Judith. “I’ll never forget when they blew up the synagogue on Leopoldsgasse. Huge blocks of stone flew yards and yards up into the air. It looked like a war zone.”

  Judith lies down on the grassy edge of the canal, her legs extended straight out over the dark surface of the water. She clasps her hands behind her head and stares up into the sky.

  “I hope it will all be gone,” she says. “Every single house, every single church, every single street. I hope they bomb it all to rack and ruin. All of Vienna. I hope no one will be able to make a home there again. Never ever.”

  Stephie looks down at Judith’s lovely face surrounded by her curly angelic head of hair. Her blue eyes gleam with hate.

  She tries to imagine Vienna leveled to the ground. Her school in ruins, the house where they lived crushed by a bomb. The beautiful streets with the shop windows black gaping holes, the tram tracks torn up. The big Ferris wheel in Prater Park a distorted steel skeleton.

  “No,” says Stephie. “I wouldn’t want that.”

  Then she sees that Judith is crying.

  Stephie is unable to get Judith’s words out of her mind.

  We don’t have homes anymore.

  Until now, she always imagined that when the war was over, things would be like before. That Mamma, Papa, Nellie, and she would return to their big apartment near Prater Park and that they would be a family again.

  But other people live in their apartment now, people who aren’t Jewish and therefore have the right to live normal lives. Unless the house has been bombed, as Judith wishes.

  And can they ever be a family again? Is it possible to be reunited just like that, after four, five, or six years, and live together as if nothing had happened? If the war goes on for a couple more years, Stephie will be an adult when it ends. Nellie, her little sister, will be an obstinate teenager who feels more at home in Sweden than in Vienna.

  The thought of Nellie makes her stomach seize up. They used to be so close. Now they live separate lives. It’s as though they’re not even sisters.

  The memory of slapping Nellie burns Stephie’s insides. She doesn’t want to think about it.

  It will work out, she persuades herself. We are a family. We love each other. It may take some time, but we will have a good life. If only the war will end.

  We has a different meaning to Stephie and Judith. To Stephie, we means “my family.” To Judith, it means “all Jews.”

  Before the Germans came, Stephie never thought of herself as a Jew. Being Jewish simply meant going to synagogue a few times a year, the same way her Christian friends went to church at Christmas and Easter. It was the Germans who separated her and Nellie, Mamma, and Papa from the others, made them members of a particular group, forced them to move and forced the girls to change schools.

  The Germans made her a Jew. When she came to the island, she became a Christian. A member of the Pentecostal church, “redeemed” and baptized. But always filled with secret doubts. With a feeling of not belonging, a feeling of pretending.

  Judith seems so sure of who she is. Sometimes Stephie envies her that, even though she knows the war and persecution have caused Judith more problems than they have her. But Judith’s we is broader and less fragile. And she has brothers in Palestine, as well as her dream of joining them there.

  What do I have? Stephie asks herself. Who am I? Who am I going to become?

  18

  After the end-of-semester gathering in the auditorium, Stephie and her classmates go to their homeroom. The atmosphere is solemn. They have been together for three years, and now they are going to be split up. Some will stay at the grammar school for a fourth year and come out with a junior secondary degree. Others will go on to the high school in the same building. A few plan to change schools.

  Miss Björk passes out their report cards. She calls each girl up to the front of the room, saying a few personal words to every single one.

  “May,” she says. “You and math don’t get along so well. But after this semester, you’ll never have to see each other again. And you’ll be able to devote yourself to the things at which you are good. I wish you the very best of luck.”

  To Harriet, one of the two prettiest and most popular girls in the class, she says, “I get to keep you for another year. You may not be the brightest student, but your sense of humor has lightened up our days. I hope you stay just as you are, not only in school but for your whole life.”

  Stephie is the second-to-last person on the class roll.

  “Stephie,” Miss Björk says. “It is a joy for a teacher to have a pupil like you. You have every reason to be satisfied with your grades, and I’m sure when you graduate from high school in two years, your marks will be just as good. We’ll see each other again soon!”

  As Stephie walks back to her seat, she hears two girls whisper something about her being Miss Björk’s pet.

  She opens the envelope and looks at her report card. Two B-pluses, otherwise only As and A-minuses. Yes, she is pleased.

  That evening, Stephie and Vera meet as usual. This will be their last Wednesday at the café for a while. But they will be seeing each other. Vera’s employers are going to be the tenants in the summer cottage belonging to the shopkeeper on the island. Vera and her mistress will spend the whole summer there.

  “Her heaaaalth’s not very good, you know,” Vera tells Stephie, drawing out the word health to show how spoiled and affected she thinks her mistress is. “But the fresh sea air and the cold swims will be soooo good for her. And I think her husband’s quite glad to be in the city by himself, away from her nagging. He even suggested I stay and do his cooking, but his wife wouldn’t hear of it.”

  Vera tosses her mane of red hair and laughs.

  “I’m so glad they’re renting on our island and not one of the others,” says Stephie. “We’ll get to see at least as much of each other as we do here in town. We can go swimming and take bike rides when you have time off. And lie in our special spot on the cliffs, and jump from the rock.”

  But Vera doesn’t look very happy.

  “I’d rather be going somewhere else,” she says. “See something new. People are such gossips at home.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Vera says, “actually, if I’d had my choice, I would have stayed in town.”

  “And done your employer’s cooking?”

  “No,” says Vera. “I wouldn’t have stayed alone with him in the apartment. Not on your life.”

  “Is it because of Rikard that you want to stay in town?”

  “Maybe,” Vera says, clamming up like a mussel that’s been tapped against a stone.

  Stephie feels hurt that Vera tells her so little about Rikard, even though she remembers how she never told Vera or
May that she was in love with Sven during her first year at grammar school. That was different, though. It was a secret romance—not even Sven himself knew of her feelings for him.

  It’s different with Vera and Rikard. They’re a couple, which surprises Stephie a little. Vera always said she intended to marry a wealthy man, and Rikard is anything but wealthy. Stephie figures she must be in love with him, although it doesn’t always seem that way.

  Stephie thinks about how Vera finds the island boring now. It’s true that there is nowhere for young people to go out. There are no dance halls, not even outdoor dancing of the kind some of the islands are said to arrange for the summer guests. So it must be dull when you’re used to dancing every weekend.

  “Well, I’m glad, anyway,” says Stephie. “That you’re coming to the island, I mean.”

  When she says that, Vera looks straight into her eyes. Her green gaze is kind.

  “I’m sorry,” Vera replies. “I’m being silly. Of course it will be fun to spend time with you.”

  Vera looks down into her coffee cup for a moment. When she looks up again, her expression has changed—as if she had pulled down an invisible visor to shield her from the rest of the world.

  “I’ve got to be going,” she says. “See you on the island next week.”

  The next day, Stephie catches the boat. She’s going to help Aunt Märta clean the house for the summer guests, and move their own things down to the basement rooms. At first, Miss Björk insisted that she and her friend could stay in the basement apartment, but Aunt Märta wouldn’t hear of it. “Summer guests live up top,” she said. “That’s how it always is and always will be.” Miss Björk had to give in.

  It’s going to be a summer of hard work. Stephie is going to have to study diligently in order to pass the entrance exam in August. But she’ll certainly have some time to relax as well. In July, May will be visiting for a couple of weeks. And her whole family will be coming for a Sunday outing at the beach when the weather is nice.

  The boat pulls up to the jetty. Stephie has returned to the island.

  19

  A week after school lets out, Hedvig Björk and her friend arrive. Stephie and Aunt Märta have spent the whole week taking things down to the basement rooms, airing the bedding, scrubbing the floors, and washing the windows. Now everything is spic-and-span. Stephie has picked wildflowers—saxifrage, cat’s-foot, water avens, and forget-me-nots—and put bouquets on the tables in the kitchen and sitting room.

  Aunt Märta scoffs at the flowers. “Are you really bringing those weeds inside?”

  “Miss Björk is interested in flowers,” Stephie tells her. “It’s part of her job.”

  The tenants’ suitcases arrive before they do, transported by the shopkeeper’s delivery boy on his motorbike. A little while later, the two women come walking down the slope toward the house. Miss Björk has on tight black trousers and a loose shirt. She’s most comfortable in trousers, but of course she always wears a skirt at school, or at least culottes.

  Her friend Janice has on a flowered summer dress. She is petite and delicate, no bigger than Stephie. In her company, slender Hedvig Björk looks big and strong. Janice has reddish blond hair and a pale, freckled complexion. She has on a wide-brimmed sun hat, probably to protect her skin. When she removes it, Stephie notices that she has green eyes like Vera’s.

  Aunt Märta has set the table out in the garden, and serves coffee with a freshly baked cake. That cake and the sugar for their coffee has used up the week’s whole ration of sugar. But Janice drinks her coffee black and has only half a slice of cake.

  Miss Björk and Aunt Märta get along well. They chat as if they were old friends, though they’ve met just once before.

  Janice smiles at Stephie.

  “I’m so happy to be here,” she says, with a slight English accent. “I’ve actually never been in the archipelago before, although I’ve lived in Göteborg since before the war.”

  Janice is a ballerina, and she has a position at the opera house in Göteborg. That means she performs in ballets and also in some operas that have dancing roles. Originally, she had planned to be there only a year, but when the war broke out, she ended up having to stay.

  Stephie studies Janice. Every move she makes is beautiful. Just the way she lifts her coffee cup to her lips is perfection.

  “I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to this summer,” Janice says. “It’s lovely here.” She waves her arm gently, indicating the sea and the horizon. “I believe people who live by the sea gain wisdom from it,” she continues. “From not being shut in like people in the mountains, or tied down to a monotonous plain. Being by the sea gives you an open view. Perhaps that helps people think freely. What do you think?”

  “Maybe,” says Stephie.

  She feels shy in Janice’s presence. But she thinks she’s going to like her.

  Stephie helps Miss Björk carry up their suitcases while Aunt Märta shows Janice the boathouse, the jetty, and the little boat. Miss Björk goes up the stairs first and puts her suitcase in Aunt Märta’s and Uncle Evert’s bedroom with its double bed. Stephie carries Janice’s suitcase into her own little room, setting it beside the bed. She has removed her photographs and other private things. But Jesus still softly smiles down from the painting above the dresser.

  The painting was there when Stephie arrived nearly four years ago. She never dared take it down or turn it toward the wall. When she had been baptized and became a member of the Pentecostal congregation, she would look at it for a little while every day, trying to feel the kind of love for Jesus that they talked about at Sunday school. But she never succeeded. She found the painting ugly.

  Sven had turned it toward the wall the summer he and his family were summer tenants at Aunt Märta’s and Uncle Evert’s. But once the family returned to town, the painting was back to its initial position. Elna, Sven’s family’s housemaid, had turned it face out when they left.

  “There was no stopping that woman once she got going,” Aunt Märta says to Stephie that evening as they have their dinner in the basement kitchen.

  “Who?” Stephie asks, although she thinks she knows who Aunt Märta means.

  “The redhead, of course,” Aunt Märta replies. “Miss Björk, now, she’s a substantial person.”

  “The redhead’s name is Janice,” Stephie says with her best English pronunciation.

  “Well, she certainly talks a blue streak. Do you know what she asked me? If I had ever spent the night out on one of the skerries! ‘Between sea and sky.’ What would be the point of that, I ask you?”

  “She thinks it’s lovely here,” Stephie tells her. “That we have an open view.”

  “I wonder what she’d say about it in November,” Aunt Märta says. “When the fog is thickest. She wouldn’t think much of the open view then.”

  Stephie doesn’t answer. If Aunt Märta’s set her mind on disliking Janice, there’s not much she can do about it.

  Vera and her employer’s family are now settled into the shopkeeper’s summer rental cottage. As is the custom every year, the island fills up with summer tenants who take over the houses while the fishermen’s families move down into their basement rooms. Since the war began, more and more people want to spend the summers in the archipelago. No one can go abroad anymore.

  Auntie Alma’s summer tenants have three children, two boys and a girl, who’s just Nellie’s age. Her name is Maud, and she’s a tomboy. She goes around in shorts and plays wild games with her brothers. Soon Nellie seems to have forgotten Sonja and her other classmates. She’s constantly on the heels of Maud and her brothers, climbing trees, building little houses in the woods, and coming home covered with scrapes and bruises.

  Auntie Alma complains to Aunt Märta about Nellie becoming so wild.

  “I hardly recognize her. She’s always been so nice and neat.”

  “You’ve spoiled her, Alma,” Aunt Märta says firmly. “And that always has a price. Speaking of which, you
spoil your own children as well.”

  “How can you say that?” Auntie Alma asks, bewildered. “In any case, Nellie’s changed completely. She’s suddenly a different girl.”

  “This, too, shall pass,” Aunt Märta comforts her. “She’ll settle down again; you’ll see.”

  But Stephie has her doubts. There’s something strange about Nellie this summer. Something abrupt and fierce. Stephie hardly recognizes her, either. There’s a glare in her eye when she looks at Stephie. Is she still angry about having been slapped, even though Stephie apologized and Nellie accepted her apology? Or is it something else?

  Could her own sister hate her?

  Every morning, Stephie goes upstairs to see Miss Björk for her private lessons. They’ve settled on nine to eleven as their study hours.

  They focus on math, physics, and chemistry. It’s hard work but fun, especially the math. Every day, Stephie comes back downstairs with homework for the afternoon. In the evenings, she has novels to read for the Swedish literature course. She has a few hours off in the middle of the day to go for a swim.

  On Wednesday mornings, Janice gives Stephie an English lesson, which allows Miss Björk to sleep in. Stephie loves it. She loves reading the poems and short stories by English authors that Janice gives her, and then discussing them in English. Janice teaches Stephie English songs, and sometimes she finds the BBC, an English radio station, when she turns the dial.

  Together they listen to news of the war, but it’s difficult to get a clear picture of what’s going on. The Allied victories in Italy and North Africa seem to have halted. One day, the newscaster informs them in his dry voice that Goebbels, Germany’s minister of propaganda, has declared Berlin “free from Jews.” When she hears that, Janice turns off the radio.

  Janice doesn’t give Stephie any homework.