Dear Thérèse,
Forgive me, I don’t know your last name so I address you by your first although we never met. Nils never spoke of you to me, but I knew that he had lived with a woman in Paris, and once in conversation Georg Pauli mentioned your name by mistake. He was embarrassed, but I did not care.
After decades of banishment, you are returning to Nils’s studio, one you never saw. It seems only fair. I wonder, what was Nils like when he was with you? Could you make him happy? That was a hard time in his life, so I doubt it. I doubt anyone could have done that. He could be joyful—a sharper, shorter feeling—but even when things went well for him, he lived with a shadow. I think you took good care of him, and thank you for that.
What has your life been since he left? I do not apologize for taking him away, because what would that mean? But I am sorry if it hurt you. We made a life that was not perfect, but I think it was a full one for Nils.
I wish you well.
Yours truly,
Sofie Olsson
Well, it was not difficult to be understanding to a woman she had never met, in a letter that could not be sent. But it was true, that what had come before her did not interest her.
Chapter Fifty
MAY 1933
AT FIRST CECILIA was not terribly concerned when she read about rallies in Stockholm for the Swedish National Socialist Party or demonstrations in Lund against “foreign influences.” What she felt was bafflement: Why were the Swedes following the Germans in their dangerous delusions? Lisbeth was even less concerned, insisting that Cecilia was exaggerating the movement’s importance.
“I do not exaggerate,” Cecilia countered. “I notice.” She would say to Lisbeth over the newspaper, “The Farmers’ League is claiming that they will protect Swedes from ‘inferior foreign racial elements’ and ‘degenerative influences.’”
And Lisbeth would respond, “Cecilia, what do you expect? You’re talking about the Farmers’ League.”
On another day, Cecilia said, “I heard in Stockholm last week that the crown prince sympathizes with the Germans’ plan for expansion.”
“And that is only a silly rumour. And even if he did, it doesn’t mean that anything would come of it, or that a sizable number of Swedes would ever agree with him.”
But Cecilia knew—because by now she was following more closely, and was worried—that thirty thousand of her compatriots had voted for the Swedish National Socialist Party in the last election. The number sickened her. Thirty thousand was not insignificant.
* * *
—
Cecilia and the housekeeper, Mrs. Goransson, were making the final arrangements for the fiddling competition on the weekend. There was a boy from Jonkoping who was said to be wonderful, and Mikael Lennart from Falsterbo would defend his crown. In the final round, on Sunday, each of the three finalists would play his version of Bellman’s complicated minuet, “Alas, thou my mother.” In the past Lars would have loved seeing Lennart’s stocky body in his vest and breeches and embroidered stockings, and the brave, plaintive sounds he would cajole from his fiddle. Even now, music seemed to animate him more than anything else, especially the old songs. He would strike his knee in time to Bellman’s melodies, although there was no other sign that he recognized them.
As usual, there would be a lunch for the judges and the patrons before the final session. And afterwards, a reception that included the finalists and their families and more of the village dignitaries.
“I think we will be twenty for lunch,” Cecilia said, looking up from her page of notes. “If Mr. Astrom has some very fresh haddock, then let’s have haddock with mustard butter before the roast lamb, but only if Ingrid is absolutely certain of its freshness. And have her make sure to use only really ripe fruit in the tarts. Last Sunday the apricots were too hard. The blue-and-white dishes for lunch, and for the reception, use the ‘Lilies’ pattern.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And see if Peder can find enough hydrangeas to fill the big Chinese pots for the reception.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
But the housekeeper stood there, not leaving. Cecilia stopped ticking items off her list.
“Mrs. Goransson. Is there anything else?”
“Not really, only I just wondered…I wondered if Mr. Martensson or Mr. Lundholm would be coming to the lunch or the reception.”
How strange. Mrs. Goransson had never asked about a guest list before.
“Mr. Martensson has been invited to both, as he is on the board of the Folk School, and Mr. Lundholm has been asked to the reception. Miss Gregorius would know if they have accepted.”
Mrs. Goransson stared into her blouse, and felt for the watch that was pinned over her heart.
“It’s only a silly piece of gossip, ma’am.”
“Well, then, tell me what it is.”
“I think it’s foolish, really…but some people are saying that the only people who should wear the local dress are those who were born in the village. That’s silly, of course, but they say that Mr. Martensson and Mr. Lundholm agree with…”
Why was the woman presuming to discuss what she would wear? That was her maid’s province. She cut her off.
“Thank you, Mrs. Goransson, that will be all. I will plan my dress with Dorrit.”
Even as she turned away, Cecilia felt as though some part of her had been anticipating this conversation.
Siljevik, 22 May 1933
Dear Sofie,
Each year the details for the fiddling competition seem to multiply. Although we are far from finished, I long for it to be Saturday, just so that the preparations will be over! And don’t worry if it becomes too difficult for you to get here—I completely understand.
Annoyingly, in the midst of all the busyness, I find I can’t shake off the conversation I wrote you about, the one with my housekeeper about the local dress. I wouldn’t have worn the Siljevik dress in any case. I almost never do these days. My mother-in-law looked so beautiful, so ordered and placid in hers. As I age, I look haunted, almost disoriented in mine. A dark foreigner in spite of my blue eyes, a stranger who has mysteriously washed up on the shore of Lake Siljan without any clothes and been forced to put on the local dress.
This new “rule” is particularly twisted: would Askebo exclude you, the designer of the Askebo dress, from wearing it because you were born in Hallsberg? Of all innocent things to be touched by this madness, the Siljevik dress. But very little is innocent these days. Perhaps we succeeded too well when we set out to encourage the old customs. They were sick and dying when we started collecting bonnets and timber buildings and folk songs. And now they have become strangely powerful. Too powerful, because now they are being used to exclude people from the inner circle.
This reminds me of the story of Bernhard Zondek, which the newspaper placed low down, on a back page, where it would be easy to overlook. Miss Gregorius says I have eagle eyes for any stories about the Germans, so perhaps you missed it. Dr. Zondek is a German gynaecologist who invented a pregnancy test, something to do with mice. He was the head of his department at a Berlin hospital and a professor at the university, and dismissed from both posts as a Jew. A large number of British professors published a letter in the Times to protest the treatment of such a distinguished scientist. Then he was invited to join the staff of the Biochemical Institute at the University of Stockholm. To our shame, one thousand Swedish doctors objected to his admission. Fortunately for him, Dr. Zondek has since moved to Palestine.
Miss Gregorius thinks I worry too much, but the idea of a thousand Swedish doctors wanting to bar one eminent scientist stuns me.
Your friend,
Cecilia
After she read Cecilia’s letter, Sofie made a decision: she would go to the fiddling contest and take Marianne’s daughter, Ebba, with her. She liked to say she had a grandchild for every occasion, and Ebba was studying the violin. Of course, there would be no relaxed chat with Cecilia, who would be busy, but it might be nice for
her just to see Sofie’s face.
Rummaging for her letter paper in her untidy desk—she never had a moment to straighten it any more—she thought ruefully of the time when she believed that their shared widowhoods would bring her closer to Cecilia. That had turned into a dark joke. Poor Cecilia had the worst of two worlds, losing the bright spark of the old Lars while inheriting the care of a baby who would never develop.
On the morning of the contest, Sofie decided against her folk dress, although she knew many women would be wearing theirs. She would have enjoyed responding to anyone who challenged her right to wear the Askebo dress—one of the bonuses of being old was that she had no trouble being sharp when the occasion warranted. But Swedes were usually too polite for such confrontations, and it was more important to give Cecilia some company. She chose a light grey dress with red smocking at the yoke and cuffs. Ebba, on the other hand, with the half-conscious arrogance of sixteen-year-old beauty, wore the red skirt and jacket of her village, with the long points of her white collar trimmed with lace.
The field where the competition was held was crowded, and tiny Cecilia in her dark dress with sheer voile sleeves was not easy to find. When they located her, she spread her arms wide to embrace them and was lavish in her praise of the embroidery on Ebba’s jacket. But she and the master of ceremonies needed to consult about something, so Sofie and Ebba took the seats Miss Gregorius had saved for them. A wooden path had been built through the field so that Lars could be wheeled to the front row, dressed in his Siljevik folk suit with its white coat and knickers. Sofie remembered when he had been so handsome in that suit, and for a minute or two he could still look surprisingly good in his chair. But the long coat demanded a man who could stand. Sofie went over to him, to greet him and introduce Ebba. She took the hand that did not lie in his lap in both of hers and looked closely into his eyes, but Lars met her with a blank face.
They returned to their seats and while Sofie tried to read her programme, Ebba followed Miss Gregorius’s movements.
“Just watch her, Grandmamma. She is everywhere, either showing people to their seats, or rearranging the contestants’ chairs, or seeing that the ushers have enough programmes.”
“Mmmm,” Sofie said. Miss Gregorius was pretty, but otherwise she could not understand why Ebba was so impressed.
“And look at how well she and Mrs. Vogt manage things: Miss Gregorius will give Mrs. Vogt a look from halfway across the field, and it will remind her of something and she changes her direction.”
“Yes, I suppose,” Sofie said. Ebba could be over-imaginative.
Finally, after too many introductory speeches, the competition began. As always, the music opened Sofie’s heart. While the fiddlers negotiated Bellman’s difficulties she sat, filled with gratitude for Cecilia and Lars, whose love for Swedish things was astute as well as generous. Occasionally, when a fiddler played a daunting bridge with almost impossible ease, she even felt close to tears—this new and unpredictable tearfulness was a part of old age she did not enjoy. She looked at the audience, a sea of breeches and silver-clasped vests, and the threat of tears receded. It reminded her of a picture she had recently seen in Das Bild, of Nazi officials at a folk-dancing festival giving their smiling blessing to rows of blond men in lederhosen and women in dirndls. Except for the Nazi uniforms and the swastika floating over the podium, it looked like a vast version of the Siljevik fiddling contest. Perhaps Cecilia was right, and something wholesome they had nurtured was revealing an unexpectedly sinister side.
While the judges deliberated, Sofie looked around for a washroom. Miss Gregorius would know where it was, but she was nowhere to be seen. Sofie made her way across the field, toward a small tent some distance from the stage. There was often a place where the dignitaries could rest and take some refreshment, especially if it was a hot day, with a toilet at the back, and that was probably it.
She moved the canvas flap of the tent aside, and for one astonishing moment found Cecilia lifting up her hands to cup Miss Gregorius’s face. With her arms around Cecilia, the younger, taller woman was bending down to…Sofie closed the flap instantly before she saw more. In the first distracted minute, she told herself that she and Cecilia, too, could have had such a tender embrace. For example, when Markus had died. Reticence had kept them from it, but it would have been possible. Although the idea of Cecilia taking her face in her hands…no, that was hard to imagine. And she would not think of the look on Miss Gregorius’s face as she bent down. Sofie slipped away quickly, stepping carefully over the ropes that coiled like thick beige snakes in the grass. It would not do to trip, especially when her heart was beating so fast. They had not seen her, she was sure of that. Probably Cecilia had been having a moment of upset about the pro-German supporters in the village, and Miss Gregorius was comforting her. No doubt that was it.
The washroom would have to wait.
* * *
—
The crown went to the boy from Jonkoping, who was Ebba’s favourite. As Sofie had predicted, Cecilia was surrounded by well-wishers and no one, including Sofie, got more than a few hurried words with her. Miss Gregorius insisted that they come back to the house for the reception, at least for a little food before they took the train back to Falun. Sofie agreed, if only because she still wanted a washroom.
Later, on the train, Ebba chattered happily about her resolve to practice much more, so that she could become the first girl to compete in the fiddling contest. Then they were silent, while Sofie watched the lake and the sky. Blue clouds in a pink sky moved backward—she knew there was no backward or forward, but that was the effect—in a stately way, as if to say, our direction does not matter, we keep our dignity no matter what.
Ebba said, “Miss Gregorius is very nice, isn’t she?”
“Yes. She is what the French call serviable, very willing to help.”
Sofie still did not see what was so special about Miss Gregorius.
“Grandmamma, have you read The Well of Loneliness?”
Surprised, Sofie glanced at the book on Ebba’s lap—but no, it was a collection of Selma Lagerlof’s short stories.
“Surely you are too young to read a book like that.”
“I haven’t exactly read it,” Ebba admitted, “but I hear girls at school talking about it.”
“What put that into your head just now?”
Suddenly hesitant, Ebba said she wasn’t sure.
Indeed. Carefully, she asked Ebba, “Do the women in The Well of Loneliness have a Boston marriage?”
Ebba didn’t know that old-fashioned term, so Sofie explained that it could be two women who lived together as dear friends or who were in love with each other.
“Yes,” Ebba said, now looking as if she regretted bringing it up. “They are in love.”
The evening sky was the deep pink of a cyclamen, darkening to red. Sofie was very tired and a bit uncomfortable, even slightly cross. Not at Ebba, who was a dear, observant girl if only a little too talkative. The scene in the tent hovered at the edge of her mind, and she pushed it away. She would be glad to be home, in her own room. And there was one thing she felt sure of after today, at least. She did not need to feel guilty about neglecting Cecilia.
Chapter Fifty-one
AUTUMN 1933
CECILIA SPENT HOURS each day working on the catalogue of Lars’s work that was going to be published when the art gallery opened. Her study’s French formality was obscured, more and more, by paintings leaning against chairs, tables and walls, and by etchings and engravings piled on the slender-legged marquetry desk. It would have taken her quite a while to find the silver tray with her calling cards that had sat there for years in chilly splendour. Among the new office furniture that had been bought for Lisbeth was a heavy oak table, which she rarely used. Cecilia had it moved next to her own desk, where it looked like a doughty North Swedish workhorse standing next to a high-strung racehorse. The oak table was where she worked on the catalogue.
As she sifted through th
e pictures, memories slowed her writing. Early in their marriage Lars etched his own version of Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait with Saskia. In both pictures, the wife was in the background while the man occupied the foreground, holding a tool of his trade, a brush in Rembrandt’s case, an etching needle in Lars’s. Saskia sat, moon-faced and serious, while Cecilia stood with her arm angled on her hip, young, round-cheeked and confident. Confidence had never been her problem, but the round cheeks astounded her. In spite of the title, Vogt and His Wife, she saw herself as an equal, staring off into the distance, plotting the next move in Lars’s career. Saskia was a muse, but Lars had painted a partner.
Next, she pored over an etching of a nude girl lolling on a bed. Lars had begun it in a hotel room in Boston. The atmosphere in the picture was close, almost claustrophobic. The unhealthy heat of so many rooms in America almost seemed to rise from the paper. Lars had an alarmingly high fever on that day but would not stop working because the girl was such a perfect subject. He lay propped up on pillows drawing at the other end of the bed, literally febrile, and it gave the etching its quality of erotic intoxication.
How many etchings Lars had made of other artists manipulating their nude models into exactly the right position, or sitting on the edge of the bed after intimacies. There was one of Gervase Williams with his mistress crouched behind him on the bed. Cecilia could see more in these pictures than she had when they were new. Now that she was old, and now that there was Lisbeth, she recognized how weary Williams looked, how worn compared to his glorious Minny.
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