by Annika Thor
Stephie’s words immediately erect a mountain between them. How can eight words take up so much space? They fill the entire room with a rumbling silence.
Aunt Märta sits perfectly still. She stares at her right hand, the one holding the needle with the dangling thread, as if she isn’t sure what she had been planning to do with it.
“I’m sorry,” says Stephie. “I’m terribly sorry, Aunt Märta, but I have to do it.”
“Are you certain?” Aunt Märta asks, her voice dull and distant.
“Yes.”
“Is it because of the fuss about the collection?”
“That’s not the only reason.”
“Have you lost your faith?”
I never had any to begin with, Stephie thinks but is unable to say. Her years of false Christianity cling to her stickily. She has been pretending for too long to be able to tell Aunt Märta the whole truth now.
“Yes.”
“Will you pray with me for its return?”
Aunt Märta rises from her chair. The overalls slip to the floor. She falls to her knees on the hard kitchen floor and clasps her hands.
“Dear Jesus,” she prays. “See to our sister who wanders in darkness. Show her Your light …”
Aunt Märta’s scraggy hand reaches out for Stephie’s. She pulls it, not hard but in a grip that is impossible to resist. Stephie falls to her knees beside her.
“… and open her heart to Your love …”
She doesn’t want Jesus’ love. But does that mean she will have to lose Aunt Märta’s?
Aunt Märta’s love. She has never thought in those terms before. That Aunt Märta loves her.
She remembers the first time she saw Aunt Märta. It was at Auntie Alma’s. She seemed so cold, Stephie thought she must have a film of ice around her. She remembers the time Aunt Märta slapped her face on the stairs, and the time she punished her for having taken Auntie Alma’s china dog. She also recalls the joy she felt the time Aunt Märta defended her and called her “my girl.”
Mamma and Papa are so far away. Aunt Märta and Uncle Evert are all she has. Isn’t it worth accepting Jesus, too, in the bargain?
“… still her uneasy heart,” Aunt Märta prays.
Still her uneasy heart. Summer vacation will be over soon, and Stephie hasn’t heard from Mamma and Papa once. Where are they? Are they still in Theresienstadt? Or are they abgereist, departed, that blurry word Judith used but refused to explain?
You have betrayed your own people, Judith had said. In that case, she has also betrayed Mamma and Papa.
She ought to have done more. She ought not to have given up without getting them permits to come to Sweden. If only she hadn’t been so young when she’d gotten here! Now that she’s nearly grown up, it’s too late. Mamma and Papa wouldn’t be released from the camp even if Sweden agreed to have them.
“Can’t you pray?” Aunt Märta asks, her hand grazing Stephie’s shoulder. “Try!”
“God,” says Stephie, “if you exist, God, give me my mamma and papa back!” Tears run down her cheeks. “Mamma!” she cries. “I want my mamma here.”
Later, when Aunt Märta has wrapped Stephie in a blanket, led her to the kitchen settle, and given her a cup of hot honey water to drink, they sit silently as the August evening turns to night.
Aunt Märta stirs her coffee.
“I know,” she says, “that I cannot replace your mother. But I also want you to know that whatever happens, you will always have a home here, with me and Evert.”
“I’m sorry,” says Stephie. “I’m sorry to be ungrateful. But I cannot change my mind.”
“There’s no need to apologize.”
Aunt Märta takes a swallow from her cup.
“I don’t want you to imagine,” she says slowly, “that I haven’t wondered whether we did the right thing, Alma and I. Wondered if it was wrong to have you and Nellie baptized and taken up as members of the congregation. Perhaps we should have waited. But I thought Jesus would be a comfort to you, as he was to me in my hour of greatest need.”
She sits silently again.
“When Anna-Lisa died?” Stephie asks in a whisper.
This is the first time she has ever said Anna-Lisa’s name in Aunt Märta’s presence. She has only talked to Auntie Alma about Aunt Märta and Uncle Evert’s daughter, who died of tuberculosis at the age of twelve. And Uncle Evert knows that Stephie knows that the red sled they gave her the first winter on the island had belonged to Anna-Lisa. But in all these years, Aunt Märta has never said a word about her child who died, and Stephie has yielded to her silence.
“That’s right,” says Aunt Märta. “When Anna-Lisa died, I don’t think I could have gone on living if I hadn’t had my faith. And then later, you came along.”
That night, Stephie dreams about Mamma. She’s in her Queen of the Night costume, a shiny black velvet dress, and her face is as pale as the moon. Stephie can see that she’s singing, but she cannot hear a word.
31
“No, nothing today, either.”
Miss Holm looks regretfully at Stephie over the rims of her gold-framed glasses.
“But I’m sure you’ll hear tomorrow,” the postmistress continues quickly.
Stephie nods in agreement. Miss Holm means well. Still, her attempts at encouragement are nothing but empty phrases. She knows no more than Stephie about why the cards from Mamma and Papa have stopped arriving.
Stephie puts her letter on the counter. Miss Holm stamps it, postmarks it, and accepts Stephie’s two tenöre coins.
“Stop by again tomorrow. I’m sure there will be something for you.”
Nellie and her summer friend, Maud, are sitting on the stone wall outside the shop by the post office, eating caramels from a big bag.
“Want one?” Maud asks, holding out the bag to Stephie.
Stephie puts a caramel in her mouth. It’s sticky and sweet.
“Have another,” Maud offers.
Stephie shakes her head.
“There wasn’t a card today, either,” she tells Nellie.
“All right, then.” Nellie’s tone is brusque.
“Are you almost like orphans?” Maud asks. “That’s what Nellie says.”
“No, we’re not,” Stephie hisses. “It’s just that our parents can’t come to Sweden until the war is over. Don’t talk so much foolishness, Nellie!”
I didn’t say we are orphans,” Nellie says defensively. “I just said that when we first came, it was almost like the story in that book …” She turns to Maud. “The one you lent me. What was it called again?”
“Anne of Green Gables,” says Maud.
Aha, Stephie thinks, so Nellie borrows books from Maud. That’s a good thing. Otherwise, Nellie isn’t particularly interested in reading, and she certainly never reads any German books nowadays. Her school grades are only average. She’ll never get a scholarship in two years, when she finishes compulsory school. Stephie can only hope that the war will be over by then and Nellie will be able to continue her education anyway.
Maud whispers something to Nellie, and both girls giggle.
“Ask her!” says Maud, nudging Nellie with her elbow.
“No,” says Nellie. “You ask her.”
“No, you do it.”
“Who’s the father of Vera’s baby?” Nellie asks.
Vera’s almost five months pregnant now, and there’s no hiding her stomach any longer.
“Her fiancé, of course,” Stephie replies.
“What’s his name?”
“Rikard.”
“Do you know him?”
“No,” says Stephie, “I’ve met him, but I can’t say I know him.”
“Why aren’t they married?” asks Maud. “You’re supposed to be married before you have babies.”
“It’s a sin,” says Nellie. “What Vera did.” She pinches her lips like one of the ladies at the Pentecostal church. “A siiiin,” she repeats.
“A siiiin,” Maud echoes with a giggle.
“Yes,” Stephie answers. “I’ve resigned from the congregation.”
“Jesus will be upset,” says Nellie. “Auntie Alma says so.”
“Jesus can’t be upset,” Maud tells her. “He’s dead.” She laughs.
Nellie looks anxious, but then she joins in with a high-pitched, exaggerated laugh.
Stephie doesn’t join in. Why is Nellie so desperately eager to please Maud?
If she hadn’t been making the very same prediction every day for weeks now, one might think Miss Holm could predict the future.
“Here it is at last!” she cries out triumphantly the next day as she extends a postcard to Stephie.
Stephie’s excitement about reading the card right away is offset by the knowledge that if she reads it in the post office, Miss Holm won’t let her leave until she hears exactly what it says. Trying to appear offhanded, she puts the card in her pocket.
“Thank you very much.”
Miss Holm looks disappointed.
Stephie goes out onto the steps. As she’s pulling out the card, she hears a commotion. A man shouts. A girl screams.
“No! No! Let me go!”
The voices are coming from the open door to the shop close by the post office. Stephie turns in that direction and sees Maud rushing down the shop steps as if shot out of a cannon.
But she wasn’t the one shouting. It was Nellie.
At a run, Stephie crosses the graveled yard between the post office and the shop, and up the five steps. It takes a fraction of a second for her eyes to adjust from the blinding sunshine outside to the dim light of the shop.
The shopkeeper is standing in the middle of the floor, his face scarlet with anger. He is holding Nellie tightly by her black braids. Nellie is sobbing hysterically. Caramels and other candies are all over the floor. Sylvia is standing on the stairs. She gives Stephie a scornful smile.
Behind Stephie, a couple of ladies peek in through the open door.
“What’s going on?” Stephie cries. “Let her go!”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” the shopkeeper roars. “But I don’t let thieves off so easily.”
“My sister is no thief!”
The shopkeeper gestures at the floor with his free hand.
“Oh, no? Just look at what she stole while her friend lured me into the stockroom to get her something!”
The ladies have pushed past Stephie. They’re looking at each other and muttering. The shopkeeper enjoys having an audience.
“Just look! Just look what this little Jew brat has done!”
“Don’t tell Auntie Alma!” Nellie sniffles. “Please, please don’t say anything to Auntie Alma. I’ll pay for every single piece.”
“Sylvia just happened to come downstairs,” the shopkeeper says to his customers, “and she saw this little rat standing there, stealing from the candy jars. The other girl’s the daughter of one of the summer guests. She was keeping guard to see when I came back.”
Sylvia raises her well-plucked eyebrows.
“I’m sure it wasn’t the first time,” she says. “It was just a lucky coincidence that I happened to be coming down.”
“But it was the first time!” Nellie cries. “And I’ll never do it again, just as long as Auntie Alma doesn’t find out.”
“Not a chance,” says the shopkeeper. “Don’t you go getting any ideas. I’m most certainly going to tell Mrs. Lindberg what you get yourself into when you take in kids from foreign countries. Sylvia, you mind the shop while I’m gone.”
Still holding Nellie tightly by the braids, the shopkeeper marches out the door, down the steps, across the graveled yard, and down the street in the direction of Auntie Alma’s house.
“Let her walk on her own,” Stephie pleads. “The least you could do is to let her walk on her own.”
“So she can run off and hide?” asks the shopkeeper. “Not on my watch. She deserves a good licking, and I intend to see that she gets one.”
Stephie follows them. What else can she do? The card is in her skirt pocket, forgotten. Her cheeks burn with shame. Her sister is a thief.
32
Although it’s not far from the shop to Auntie Alma’s, it feels as if they walk for an eternity. Nellie stumbles forward, the shopkeeper’s big hand on her neck. Stephie pushes her bike behind them, looking straight down into the gray, dusty road so as not to have to face the curious gazes of the people they pass.
At last they arrive. Maud’s mother is sitting in the garden with a friend. No one else is in sight.
“No, Mrs. Lindberg isn’t at home,” Maud’s mother tells him. “She’s gone to the next island over to visit a relative who’s ill. She took the two little ones with her. I’ve promised to make dinner for Nellie. Is something wrong? Why are you holding her like that?”
To Stephie’s surprise, the shopkeeper doesn’t answer. He doesn’t ask where Maud is, either. He just lets Nellie go.
“Don’t think you’re going to get off scot-free,” he mutters to her. “I’ll be calling Mrs. Lindberg tonight.”
The minute he lets go of Nellie, she rushes inside. Not down to the basement rooms where she, Auntie Alma, Uncle Sigurd, Elsa, and John are living during the summer, but through the veranda door and straight up the stairs to the rooms the summer tenants are renting. Stephie says a few words of apology to Maud’s mother and follows her sister.
She finds Nellie in the crawl space under the stairs to the attic. At first, Stephie thinks she’s crept in there to hide, like an injured animal, until she sees that Nellie is looking for something. From behind some other things, she pulls out a little suitcase.
Stephie recognizes it. It’s the one Nellie had when they arrived on the island. She has an identical one herself. It has moved with her from Vienna to the island, from the island to the apartment of the doctor’s family in Göteborg, from there to Miss Björk’s, and finally to Sandarna. Now it’s in the attic storage space in May’s family’s apartment building.
Nellie’s suitcase, though, has probably been put away for four years. She hasn’t moved since they came to Sweden.
“What do you need your suitcase for?” Stephie asks.
“You can’t really think Auntie Alma will still want me here when she finds out about this?”
“Don’t be silly. Of course she will.”
“What do you know?” asks Nellie. “And maybe I don’t want to stay here, either.”
“Where were you planning on going, then?”
Nellie shrugs. She looks determined, but Stephie sees a little quiver in her bottom lip that she recognizes from when Nellie was little and about to burst into tears.
“Nellie,” Stephie tells her, “Auntie Alma is going to be angry, but she’s not going to throw you out. I’m absolutely sure. You would be sure, too, if you thought it through. I’ve done worse things, you know, without Aunt Märta showing me the door, and you know how strict she is.”
Nellie looks incredulous. “You have?”
“Sure,” says Stephie. “I took Auntie Alma’s china dog, don’t you remember? And I went to the movies even though we aren’t allowed to.”
“You had to apologize in church,” says Nellie.
“Right.”
“Do you think I’ll have to apologize, too?”
“Maybe.”
Nellie sits down on her small suitcase, chin in hand. Her black braids reach almost all the way to the floor.
She sat that very same way four years ago in the railway station in Göteborg while they were waiting for someone to come and take charge of them.
Stephie sits down on the bottom step of the attic stairs.
“Why did you do it?” she asks.
Nellie sighs. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
Maud, Stephie thinks. She’s protecting Maud.
“Did Maud put you up to it?”
Nellie start
s to sniffle.
“Tell me,” says Stephie.
“She said it was my turn to treat her,” Nellie sobs. “She’s always got money she can spend on candy, and I never have any. When I told her I didn’t have any money, she said it was easy as pie to grab a couple of handfuls of sweets in the shop. She said she would get the shopkeeper to go into the storeroom, and I could take the candy and run out before he got back.”
“Then it’s just as much her fault,” Stephie tells her. “If not more.”
“What difference does that make?” Nellie asks bitterly. “Her mamma never gets mad. I’m always to blame if something breaks or gets ruined.”
“So why do you play with her? You’ve got other friends. Like Sonja.”
“She likes me,” says Nellie. “Maud, I mean.”
“Doesn’t Sonja?”
“Well, I guess so. But she always expects me to be the one to come up with things to do. And she hardly talks about anything but her grandma and her aunties and cousins and all the people she knows on other islands, and who she’s going to marry when she grows up.”
“But she’s your friend,” says Stephie. “Don’t forget that. She’s been your friend since your first day of school. And when Maud goes back to Göteborg this fall, Sonja will still be here, where you live.”
Nellie gets up. She puts the suitcase back in the crawl space.
“Will you stay?” she asks. “Until Auntie Alma gets back?”
Stephie nods. “Of course I will.”
They manage to tell Auntie Alma the whole story before the shopkeeper calls. Auntie Alma is angry and makes Nellie ask for forgiveness. First Auntie Alma’s, then Jesus’s, on her knees. Stephie looks away.
But when Auntie Alma hears how the shopkeeper behaved, she is just as angry with him, and says Nellie certainly isn’t going to be humiliated in front of that man.
“Treating a child that way! It’s not Christian,” she says.
“What about Maud?” Stephie asks. “Auntie Alma, aren’t you going to have a word with her mother?”
Auntie Alma considers. “I’m not really sure.”
“If it had been Sonja,” Stephie says, “you would have phoned her mother right away.”