Sofie & Cecilia

by Katherine Ashenburg

  She sighed over some of the American society portraits. The Americans loved them, but they showed Lars’s weakest side, a superficiality that was almost flashy. Some were formidable, such as his picture of two thoroughbreds, Mrs. Thurston and her English setter, or his rhapsodic picture of Isabella Gardner on her balcony, flinging her long arms open to the Venetian night. With others he went through the motions, and most clients could not tell the difference. Lars had so much facility that he could be impressive even when it was not his metier. But you had only to look at Singer Sargent’s portraits to see what a real master of that form did with his subjects.

  She propped up yet another picture of a woman in a taffeta evening dress and her moustachioed husband against a stack on the floor. It must take extraordinary discipline to turn away from what you do very well, in order to concentrate on what you do superbly. Lars had that discipline before and after America, but in the years when he travelled there regularly, the fame and the money were irresistible. He thought she was too European to enjoy America, but it was its effect on his art that had worried her. And she was right: the American trips had weakened his work, and although he recovered himself when he returned to Sweden, in a small way the damage was permanent.

  For one thing, the Americans were too prudish to appreciate his nudes, and few were sold there. Still, those who bought them were reluctant to sell them back to her. She did manage to buy an early one, a lyrical little oil of a mother introducing her boy to the water. The American owner had had the mother’s private hair painted over, but Cecilia had a restorer return it to its original state. The thought of that did make her smile. What a craft, restoring private hair after it proved too embarrassing for previous owners.

  Strange that Lisbeth, of all people, was blind to the crudeness of Lars’s late nudes. It was vulgar to think of them as lip-smacking, but to Cecilia that was the inevitable word. Well, in spite of Lisbeth, they were not going to be shown in the gallery. Or anywhere else, at least the ones Cecilia owned or could buy back. The question was, how to dispose of them? Perhaps in a bonfire at Tallmon. That had a certain symbolic rightness. She would have to make a discreet arrangement with the caretaker.

  * * *

  —

  Lisbeth was eager to read the catalogue and, even more, the essays Cecilia was writing to accompany it. She said, “I’d be glad to look over what you have finished, Cecilia. Or, if you’d like another pair of eyes on something you’re writing, I’m happy to read it.”

  “Thank you,” Cecilia said, “there’s no need just yet.”

  She was determined to keep it from Lisbeth as long as she could. Lisbeth would not like her reserve about certain works, or her bluntness about others. She would say Cecilia was undermining their work by qualifying his achievement. But, as Cecilia told Lars’s dissatisfied clients when they wanted shoulders painted broader or a neck made slimmer, there was no way around the truth. She would borrow the word Sofie often used to describe Lars’s work—“robust.” She would tell Lisbeth that his work was robust enough to bear it.

  Thinking of Sofie put Cecilia in mind of the scene she had glimpsed in the tent at the fiddling competition. Out of the corner of her eye, as Lisbeth bent down to kiss her, Cecilia had seen a sleeve with telltale red smocking on the cuff open and then immediately close the tent flap. Lisbeth had not seen it, and Cecilia would not mention it to her. What did Sofie think? She could not imagine. Any more than she could imagine her life without Lisbeth.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  AUTUMN 1933

  DORA HELMERSEN HAD come to Askebo to see Sofie’s work. As usual, she spoke little. Watching the photographer walk around the workshop, Sofie realized she cared more about Miss Helmersen’s opinion than she had imagined she would. Taciturn people had power, whether they knew it or not.

  Miss Helmersen stopped at a winter scene where the snow bordering the river was mauve. She inspected smoky clouds inside a thin outline of pale gold, a mottled sky of red and purple, a blue sky almost covered by a white cloud cracked like plaster. Sofie stood by the window, remembering how she had waited for the verdicts of Mr. Lindstrom, her first art teacher, and Professor Malmstrom.

  Finally, Miss Helmersen said, “Many sunsets.”

  Sofie nodded.

  “And much red.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Miss Helmersen indicated a sunset seen through leafless branches, their black tangles like the struggles of a beginning lacemaker.

  “You have been busy.”

  Sofie understood this was as much admiration as she was going to get from Miss Helmersen. It was far from the enthusiasm with which Nils had met her textiles, or the discernment of MacDonald Lawrie, but she was content.

  Afterwards, they sat at the round table in the parlour, where long ago Nils had painted her ball of black wool and the unfinished stocking, and drank tea. Miss Helmersen said, abruptly, “And you are wearing red, too.”

  This was apparently a reference to all the red she had noted in Sofie’s paintings.

  “They say it’s not a colour for older women, but since my hair is still dark, I still wear it.”

  She thought of Nils’s red dressing gown. Marianne had had it cleaned and mended, but Sofie had never worn it after she had torn up the lily bed.

  “In Asia long ago,” Miss Helmersen said, “they covered sick people with a red quilt, in the hope that the strength of the colour would help the person recover.”

  “And brides in China and Japan wear red,” Sofie added. “The custom began at a time when red dye faded quickly, which underlined its connection with young, passionate love.” She hoped this was not too intimate a subject for Miss Helmersen.

  But Miss Helmersen smiled drily and said, “We have longer-lasting dyes now.”

  * * *

  —

  A few weeks after Miss Helmersen’s visit, Sofie entertained other visitors. But for these, she put away her paintings. Cecilia had written to Sofie that Miss Gregorius had business in Falun. If Sofie had time, Miss Gregorius would drop Cecilia off at the house. And if her appointment did not last too long, she might join them later. Miss Gregorius drove an automobile, a Volvo sedan with the latest accessory, a compartment under the dashboard in which to store your driving gloves when the car was not in use. While you drove, you stored your dress gloves in the compartment.

  Of course Sofie had time for a visit from Cecilia. And Miss Gregorius too, if it was convenient.

  On the surface, things went on as before for Sofie with Cecilia. They exchanged letters and occasionally met in Dalarna and Stockholm. At times Sofie forgot about the scene in the tent at the fiddling competition, and each time the memory returned the shock was less. But it left a small awkwardness in her behaviour. More important, when she allowed herself to think about it—and mostly she did not—Sofie wondered how well she really knew Cecilia.

  * * *

  —

  Sofie and Cecilia walked along the river. Looking not at each other, but at the roots and changes in the ground along the riverbank, they talked about Howards End. They had both enjoyed the clash, comic but potentially tragic, between the bohemian, cultured Schlegel family and the conventional, business-minded Wilcoxes. And what a wonderful man E. M. Forster must be, Sofie said, to have created Margaret Schlegel, one of the most complex, intelligent heroines they knew.

  The odd one out in the bourgeois Wilcox family was the mother, who was intuitive, with deep feelings. Cecilia was talking warmly about her when Sofie interrupted.

  “Wait a minute. When we read To the Lighthouse, you told me you were through worshipping at the shrines of these Angels in the House. You said their influence was ‘pernicious.’”

  “But Mrs. Wilcox is different,” Cecilia protested. “There is something almost mystical about her. She is unsophisticated, even naive. And she appears in the novel so briefly…” Her voice trailed off as she saw the skepticism in Sofie’s face. “All right, perhaps I was extreme in my rejection of Mrs. Ramsay.
All I meant was that we have to think hard about these models of apparent perfection. Their selflessness can be so seductive that we forget to question it.”

  Perhaps thinking it was better to distract Sofie with her own Achilles heel, Cecilia said, half-teasing, “I don’t suppose that you will be defending Mr. Wilcox.”

  Sofie had finished the book, but Cecilia was just at the point when Mr. Wilcox, who had confessed to an adulterous affair, was proposing to shun Margaret Schlegel’s unmarried sister, who was pregnant.

  Sofie said, smiling, “I think, by the time you come to the end…”

  “Don’t!” Cecilia ordered, putting her hands up to her ears. “You know I hate to have the end ruined.”

  “Then my lips are sealed,” Sofie said, and they both laughed. They were old hands at this conversation by now.

  Cecilia changed the subject to the forthcoming Vogt gallery. She felt that she and Miss Gregorius had collected enough of Lars’s American portraits, and in any case, not many owners were interested in selling them.

  She added, “But Lisbeth does not agree, and she thinks we should cast our net wider in the hopes of buying more.”

  Sofie assumed calling her Lisbeth was a slip. Still, she kept her face expressionless, in case Cecilia looked up at her.

  A few minutes later, Cecilia said, “Lisbeth and I have still not decided whether to hang all the etchings and engravings in their own rooms, or mix them chronologically with the paintings.”

  So, Sofie thought, this is deliberate. This is a step in a new direction.

  They were heading back toward the house when they heard the sound of Miss Gregorius’s car. They joined her at the little clearing where people parked.

  “Well,” she said, “what book have you two been talking over?”

  The three women strolled toward the house, talking about Mr. Wilcox, when Sofie spotted Anna talking to a young man at the front door. Even at a distance, she could see that the housekeeper was upset.

  Sofie said, “What is it, Anna?” and the man turned in her direction, holding his cap in his hands.

  He was ginger-haired, with a strong jaw.

  Sofie saw the resemblance instantly. She glanced at Cecilia. The look on her face told Sofie that Cecilia saw it too. To Sofie’s surprise, she found she could act as if it were not a shock. The visitor resembled Markus most, with something in the set of the eyes that was like Tilda.

  “What is it you want?” she asked him, while Anna wiped her hands, over and over, on her apron.

  “I wanted a tour of the house, ma’am,” he said, rotating his cap.

  “A tour of the house?”

  She was confused, on top of this strange calm. She pretended to herself that she was Miss Gregorius, who was regarding the scene with interest but nothing more.

  Anna leaped in.

  “I told him we don’t do that. That is, if the Homecraft Association or something has a special visitor, or has organized a tour…but people don’t just come…I don’t know how he got this idea.”

  The young man said, “My mother said, since I was in the area, there was the house of a famous painter I mustn’t miss. That people came from all over Sweden to see the house. I’m looking for work in Falun, so I came by, wanting to take the tour.”

  Where do you come from, she asked him quietly and was told, the Gamla Stan neighbourhood of Stockholm. Nils’s old neighbourhood. But there was no work in Stockholm, so he was hoping to find a job in the mine.

  “Well, as Anna has told you, we don’t show the house in that way. But since you are here, I think Anna has the time to give you a short tour.”

  Anna looked astounded, but before she could protest, Sofie told Cecilia and Miss Gregorius that they must see the burning bush down by the river, which was having a particularly spectacular autumn. She would take them to it. The young man thanked her. She thought back to the long-ago day spoiled by the garrulous maid, the broken toy omnibus and the snapped maroon thread. She had known, or suspected, for quite some time now. There was no reason to think Nils any different from other men. Or that it had made a difference to their life together.

  “And if there is no work at the mine,” she said to the man’s back as he followed Anna into the house, “I may be able to suggest other places to you.”

  The door closed, and the three women looked at each other.

  “That was kind of you,” Cecilia said.

  “Well, he is hardly to blame.”

  Miss Gregorius looked attentive, but said nothing. Of course, Cecilia would explain when they were alone.

  “There are worse sins,” Sofie added, “and I have forgiven them.”

  Cecilia looked into Sofie’s eyes for a minute before she nodded. She understands that too, Sofie thought. As the three women walked back to the river, just for a moment Cecilia put her arm around Sofie’s shoulder.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  JUNE 1934

  A FEW MONTHS later, Sofie asked Cecilia to visit Miss Helmersen’s photography studio in Falun with her. Although Sofie had been friendly with Miss Helmersen for almost twenty years and had mentioned her photographic experiments, Cecilia had never met her. It was not a comfortable occasion, as Cecilia did not really want to go, and she doubted that Miss Helmersen wanted her to be there. Still, the photographer had an imperturbability that suggested nothing Cecilia did or said, positive or negative, could really affect her. Which was fortunate, because Cecilia doubted she was going to be able to join Sofie in her enthusiasm for Miss Helmersen’s work.

  They began by looking at the portraits, which were competent enough. Some of the landscapes were more than that, and Cecilia had a premonition that she had better stay with these views of snowy forests and lonely peaks as long as she could. To buy some time, she asked questions about simple technical details to do with the camera, and why Miss Helmersen had chosen to photograph such-and-such meadow or stream at this or that particular time of day. Then she asked about the finances involved in running a photography business. With her curious mixture of distance and candour, Miss Helmersen was more forthcoming than Cecilia had expected. Tersely, she explained how much she needed to bill each month to pay the rent as well as for the supplies and the occasional assistant.

  Sofie was fidgeting with her reading glasses, which she wore pinned to the yoke of her dress. Cecilia could see that these delaying tactics were annoying her.

  Miss Helmersen added, “The photographs of the dead carry the business. They account for more than half of my fees.”

  “That’s interesting,” Cecilia began, genuinely intrigued. But before she could continue, Sofie interrupted.

  “Miss Helmersen, may I show Mrs. Vogt some of the pictures from the little chest?” She nodded toward the alcove.

  Miss Helmersen indicated that Sofie could do whatever she chose, it was of no interest to her whatever. The pieces Sofie wanted Cecilia to see, the vases full of dead children’s faces and the bizarre multiple portraits of the same person or persons, were even more baffling than Cecilia had feared. She could not fathom what Sofie liked about them. Luckily, a lifetime of going to vernissages had given her a stock of ambiguous adjectives, and she used them all when looking at Miss Helmersen’s creations.

  “My, this is most original. I have never seen anything like it.”

  “That is impressive, how you manage to picture a boy playing cards with three others, and they are all the same boy. The way this one leans over his neighbour to spy on his hand is very effective.”

  “The effect here is very intense.”

  “All most unusual. I congratulate you, this is all so new to me.”

  Miss Helmersen remained civilly aloof throughout. Finally, as gracefully as she could and with thanks to Miss Helmersen, Cecilia manoeuvred Sofie out the door.

  “You did not like them.” Sofie stated the obvious as they walked up Kristinegatan.

  “No.”

  “I know they are strange, as is Miss Helmersen. She shows them to almost no one
, and does not care about their reception. It was only because I asked as a special favour that she agreed to show them to you.”

  “Sofie, I could not recommend that a gallery represent her or that a museum exhibit her work. I am a bit of a businesswoman, but not a spiritualist.”

  Cecilia saw that she had made things worse, and tried to repair it.

  “I’m not saying that Miss Helmersen intends to make that impression, but something about those multiple figures puts me in mind of table-tapping and people wanting to make contact with their dead.”

  As soon as she said that, Cecilia regretted what sounded like flippancy. It would be very natural for Sofie to long for contact with Markus and Nils, and that may have been part of Miss Helmersen’s appeal for her.

  But Sofie twitched her cape, although it sat perfectly straight on her shoulders, and said, with some heat, “It is not the spiritualism—if it even is that, Miss Helmersen denies it—that interests me. I think she is doing something akin to surrealism in her photographs.”

  “That may be, but it doesn’t make me any more enthusiastic about what I see.” Cecilia stopped in the street to face Sofie. “It’s your work that I would like to help.”

  “Oh…me,” Sofie said vaguely, as if she could barely summon up an idea of what that would mean. “Cecilia, you’ve been so patient with me. But I’m not sure what my work amounts to or if anything is to be done with it.”

  Cecilia sighed inwardly. It was more of the old, aggravating balancing act, keeping her protectiveness and her bossiness in check while she waited for Sofie to be ready.

  Chapter Fifty-four