By daybreak the King was already there, and when he saw the gold he was astonished and delighted, but his heart became only more greedy. He had the miller’s daughter taken into another room full of straw, which was much larger, and commanded her to spin that also in one night if she valued her life.
The girl knew not how to help herself, and was crying, when the door opened again, and the little man appeared, and said, “What will you give me if I spin that straw into gold for you?”
“The ring on my finger,” answered the girl.
The little man took the ring, again began to turn the wheel, and by morning had spun all the straw into glittering gold.
The King rejoiced beyond measure at the sight, but still he had not gold enough, and he had the miller’s daughter taken into a still larger room full of straw, and said, “You must spin this too, in the course of this night. But if you succeed, you shall be my wife.”
Even if she be a miller’s daughter, thought he, I could not find a richer wife in the whole world.
When the girl was alone the manikin came again for the third time, and said, “What will you give me if I spin the straw for you this time also?”
“I have nothing left that I could give,” answered the girl.
“Then promise me, if you should become Queen, to give me your first child.”
Who knows whether that will ever happen, thought the miller’s daughter. And, not knowing how else to help herself in this strait, she promised the manikin what he wanted. And for that he once more spun the straw into gold.
And when the King came in the morning, and found all as he had wished, he took her in marriage, and the pretty miller’s daughter became a queen.
A year after, she brought a beautiful child into the world, and she never gave a thought to the manikin.
But suddenly he came into her room, and said, “Now give me what you promised.”
The Queen was horror-struck, and offered the manikin all the riches of the kingdom if he would leave her the child.
But the manikin said, “No. Something alive is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world.”
Then the Queen began to lament and cry, so that the manikin pitied her. “I will give you three days’ time,” said he. “If by that time you find out my name, then shall you keep your child.”
So the Queen thought the whole night of all the names that she had ever heard, and she sent a messenger over the country to inquire, far and wide, for any other names that there might be.
When the manikin came the next day, she began with Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar, and said all the names she knew, one after another. But to everyone the little man said, “That is not my name.”
On the second day she had inquiries made in the neighborhood as to the names of the people there, and she repeated to the manikin the most uncommon and curious. “Perhaps your name is Shortribs, or Sheepshanks, or Laceleg?”
But he always answered, “That is not my name.”
On the third day the messenger came back again, and said, “I have not been able to find a single new name. But as I came to a high mountain at the end of the forest, where the fox and the hare bid each other good night, there I saw a little house. And before the house a fire was burning, and round about the fire quite a ridiculous little man was jumping. He hopped upon one leg, and shouted: ‘Today I bake, tomorrow brew, the next I’ll have the young Queen’s child! Ha, glad am I that no one knew that Rumpelstiltskin I am styled.’”
You may imagine how glad the Queen was when she heard the name. And when soon afterward the little man came in, and asked, “Now, mistress Queen, what is my name?” at first she said, “Is your name Conrad? No. Is your name Harry? No. Perhaps your name is Rumpelstiltskin?”
“The Devil has told you that! The Devil has told you that!” cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in. And then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.
Come unto Me
JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST
Translated by Marlaine Delargy
I
For the second time in less than a month, Annika was walking up the aisle of the church with Robert. This time they didn’t continue as far as the altar but turned aside and slipped into a pew at the front of the chancel. The spot where they had exchanged their wedding vows was now occupied by a black coffin.
Inside the coffin lay Albert, Robert’s father, who was the former managing director of Axryd’s, Sweden’s largest bread manufacturer. The church was packed. There were few friends, but on the other hand plenty of interested parties had turned up—people whose welfare was linked to Axryd’s successes in a variety of ways: representatives from overseas branches, shareholders, directors of subcontractors …
People kept looking at Robert, exchanging glances, murmuring among themselves. He was the only child and the sole heir. Everything depended on him now. Robert’s soft fingers drummed on the cover of the hymnbook and Annika stroked his wedding ring; she took his hand in hers and squeezed it gently.
She couldn’t say that she knew him. A dating website had brought them together on the basis of their mutual interest in literature in general and Selma Lagerlöf in particular. They had clicked. They had found plenty to talk about: books they had read, films they had seen, countries they had visited. They shared the same opinions, and they laughed at the same things.
He was forty-five, she was forty-one. They had both picked their way through a number of doomed relationships, including marriages, and were afraid of a lonely old age. They had a great deal in common, including this fear. When Robert proposed after six months, Annika saw no reason to turn him down. They had such fun together.
Robert was reluctant to talk about either his family or the company, and it wasn’t until they announced the wedding that Annika realized how rich they actually were. Robert’s father paid for everything, with no expense spared—the bus drawn by four white horses, the symphony orchestra, the castle, the reception catered by chefs with a national reputation for excellence, five hundred guests. It was a fairy-tale wedding, where Annika felt like an uninvited guest.
Albert’s generosity hadn’t done him much good. During the reception he had embarked upon the journey that would eventually lead him to the black coffin.
“Far beyond the starry skies …”
The cantor’s voice echoed desolately beneath the vaulted ceiling as the congregation mimed the words. Maintaining one’s dignity, keeping one’s distance: these were the watchwords in the alien world into which Annika had married. Robert stood there with his lips firmly clamped together, staring at the sea of extravagant wreaths before the altar, the final farewells to a powerful man.
It was difficult to make a connection between these accolades and the skinny little old man who had stood up to make a speech at the wedding reception. Albert had to cling on to the table with both hands just to get to his feet, and he managed only a few sentences before he collapsed.
A collective gasp passed through the magnificent room, and Robert fell to his knees by Albert’s side, supporting his father’s head in his hands as he shouted, “Call an ambulance!”
Albert grasped Robert’s wrist and whispered, “No.”
“Dad, we have to get you to hospital.”
“We need to talk first.”
“We can talk later, Dad. We’ve got—”
“Now!” the old man hissed. “We need to talk now!”
He was intractable, and eventually Robert picked up his frail body and carried him to a nearby room, where he laid him down on a sofa. Annika fetched a glass of water and placed it on a chair by his side.
“So,” Robert said to his father, “what was it you wanted to tell me?”
Albert waved impatiently at Annika. “Not her. Just you.”
“Dad,” Robert said, “Annika is my wife now, and if you have anything to say to me—”
“Out. I want her
out of here.”
Robert sighed and made a move to walk away, but Annika placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said. “You two talk. I’ll go.”
She kissed Robert gently on the cheek and left the room. As she closed the door behind her she was surrounded and whisked away by wedding guests, wanting to know how Albert was. That was when she began to realize how important the company was to those present.
Annika heard stories about Axryd’s. How a simple miller, Robert’s great-great-grandfather, had started baking bread, and soon came to dominate the market in Tingsryd. Under the leadership of Albert’s grandfather, the firm had conquered half of the province of Småland with bakeries in many different locations, and had then gone on to spread both north and south.
A series of wise strategic decisions, combined with a certain element of ruthlessness, had led to the expansion of the company during subsequent generations. Was Robert the right man to take up the reins?
The door opened and Robert slipped out to inform the paramedics that they could take his father. His shoulders slumped as he walked, his head was down and he didn’t even look in Annika’s direction.
People flocked around the stretcher, trooping after it on the way to the ambulance, then waving good-bye as if they were bidding farewell to a ship embarking on a long voyage, its destination far from home. Robert stood there with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the gravel drive.
Annika went over and tucked her arm beneath his. “Hello, you.”
Robert looked up. The skin around his eyes was taut, and his lips trembled slightly as he said, “Oh. Yes. Hello.”
“How are you doing?”
He swallowed and looked at her as if he was about to say something. Then he shook his head, changed tack and said, “I think I need … a little time out.”
With those words he left her and headed toward an arbor at the back of the castle. Annika watched him walk away, but had to go back inside with the guests, since it wasn’t really acceptable for both bride and groom to disappear from the celebrations.
Half an hour later she made her way to a window overlooking the arbor. Robert was sitting motionless on a stone seat. His hands were resting on his knees, and his face was frozen in an agonized expression.
Annika touched her wedding ring. What have I let myself in for?
She hadn’t known then, and she still didn’t know now. Albert had passed away a week later, and from then until the funeral Robert had been constantly involved in meetings with solicitors, accountants and advisers. Annika went to work on the Lancôme counter at the Åhléns department store as usual, but every day she came home to an empty five-room apartment on Strandvägen.
She had fallen in love with a playboy, but now she was married to a company director who must be quickly tempered in the fire in order to fulfill his role. Robert had had a privileged upbringing. He had been given whatever he wanted; anything he asked for had been done. While Albert was still alive, Annika had accompanied Robert on a number of occasions to the mansion in Djursholm where he had grown up. It was just over ten kilometers from the rented apartment in Råcksta where she had spent her childhood, but it might as well have been in a different country. Or on a different planet.
As long as Robert had been a carefree bon vivant, their shared interests and preferences had fooled Annika into thinking they were alike. With the death of his father, a deep-seated aspect of Robert’s character had been forced to the surface, one that was all about blood, family, tradition and responsibility. The problem was that Annika was now a part of this family and this responsibility. She had no idea how she was going to handle that.
And there was something she hadn’t told Robert. Something closely linked to family and bloodlines. She was unable to have children. Ever since Albert’s death she had been dreading the day when the topic would arise. Perhaps today would be that day, now that Robert’s predecessor had been laid in his grave, and it was time to think about his successor.
With a lump in her stomach, Annika got to her feet in the pew to mime along with the final hymn, after which the congregation began to file past the coffin in order to pay their last respects. Annika took Robert’s hand. It was ice-cold; she raised it to her lips and breathed warm air onto it as she smiled at him. His expression didn’t change one iota; he just kept on staring darkly in the direction of the coffin.
Annika followed his gaze and saw the most handsome man she had ever set eyes on. He hadn’t attended their wedding; she would have remembered. She had plenty of time to look at him, because he spent an age standing at the head of the coffin. He stood perfectly still, his fingers resting on the wood, his lips moving as if he was whispering something to the deceased.
Annika glanced around. Many of the guests were murmuring to each other, their heads close together. Some of the women were sitting openmouthed, staring at the man with a dreamy look in their eyes.
In spite of the fact that her question might be taken the wrong way, Annika just had to ask Robert, “Who’s that?” In order to sound more indifferent, she added, “I haven’t seen him before.”
Robert’s expression hardened and his lips narrowed. Then he said, “His name is Erik. He was my father’s … right-hand man.”
Erik had now left the coffin and was walking down the aisle toward his seat near the back of the church. As he passed Robert and Annika he nodded a greeting and smiled. Annika smiled back with some difficulty, since every drop of saliva had dried up and her tongue was stuck firmly to the roof of her mouth.
She wasn’t the kind of woman who fell head over heels for a good-looking guy; over the years she had enjoyed the attention of several men who could have been part of the Clooney or Pattinson families, but she had never reacted like this.
It wasn’t just the fact that Erik had a masculine beauty, with something of the Greek statue or a Paco Rabanne model about him; no, it was also the way he wore his beauty, the way one wears a favorite jumper that is far too big and faded from washing: totally relaxed, totally without pretension. He was probably about Annika’s age or a few years older, and the lines on his face served only to add character.
Several women stole a glance at Erik as he walked past, but Annika controlled herself and didn’t turn her head one millimeter.
That evening, when Annika and Robert were sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine, he took her hand.
“Darling,” he said, “I know I’ve been terribly busy, but it will be better now. Most things have been sorted out and you’ll be seeing more of me. If you think that’s a good idea, of course.”
“How can you say such a thing? Obviously it’s a good idea!”
“I might not be the most entertaining companion in the world. If you’ve changed your mind, then I won’t—”
Annika grabbed hold of the front of Robert’s shirt and pulled him close with such force that a few drops of wine spilled on the very expensive sofa. She kissed him fiercely and said, “Be quiet, you idiot. I married you because I want to be with you, okay?”
She put down her glass. He put down his. Then they subjected the expensive sofa to further depredations.
As they lay naked in each other’s arms afterward, Robert said, “This business of children …”
Annika tried not to stiffen, or to give any other indication that the topic terrified her. She merely nodded and said, “Yes?”
“I don’t know what your position is with regard to having children.”
In spite of the fear lurking in her breast, Annika couldn’t help smiling at Robert’s formal approach to such a personal matter. She turned the question back on him in the same format, “What’s your position?”
“I think …” he said as Annika held her breath. “I think it’s a bit overrated.”
Annika exhaled slowly. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure. Absolutely sure. How about you?”
Robert seemed genuinely disinclined to have children, so after a moment’s consideration Ann
ika decided to tell him the truth: that she couldn’t have children anyway.
Robert’s reaction was somewhat unexpected. His face lit up as if it had been struck by a sudden ray of sunlight; he held her tight and whispered, “That’s wonderful. Terrific. In that case we can … do as we please, without—”
He frowned, seemingly bewildered by his own sudden lack of formality.
Annika laughed; they kissed and cuddled, but just before they got carried away, a serious look came over Robert’s face. “There was one thing. We’re going to have to move. To Djursholm.”
“Okay,” Annika said, “fine by me. It’s a lovely place.”
“Yes,” Robert replied. “It is. It’s just that—”
“What? Do you think it’s too big for just the two of us?”
“No,” Robert said. “The thing is, Erik will be living there too.”
He explained the situation to Annika. On her brief visits to Djursholm she had seen very little apart from the drive and certain parts of the house. In fact, the property was quite extensive. There was a large garden, with a wide variety of trees and shrubs, a small lake teeming with imported carp, a barn housing six horses and an adjoining paddock. Annika would have recognized the names of two of the stallions if she had been interested in the sport of harness racing; they were now much sought after for breeding purposes.
All of this was Erik’s responsibility, and he also took care of other minor tasks as they arose.
“So he’s some kind of odd-job man?” Annika asked.
“Well, sort of,” Robert replied, refusing to look her in the eye. “He does lots of different things. And then there’s a cook and a cleaner too. Although they don’t live in.”
“But Erik does.”
“Yes.”
“And where exactly does he live? Has he got a place of his own?”
“No, he lives in the main house. He has a room.”
At some point in her life Annika had no doubt toyed with the idea of having staff. Now that the fantasy was about to become a reality, she discovered she wasn’t very keen. The thought of having someone around all the time, someone sleeping in the same house who could pop up at any moment … Plus the fact that this someone happened to be Erik … No, she wasn’t keen at all.
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