Carl smiles winningly and pats Henrik on the cheek with a soft little hand.
They sit out on the Flustret’s glassed-in veranda. The evening is still; people have settled out-of-doors in the mild early summer twilight. Only a few seedy lecturers huddle indoors in bitter solitude, guarding their night drinks. A slim, strikingly lovely waitress comes up to the table to take their order. She gives a little bob and greets them.
Frida: Good evening, sir. Good evening, Mr. Bergman. What would you like this evening?
Carl: Half a bottle of punsch liqueur, Miss Frida, if we may? The usual — and some cigars, please.
Frida: I’ll tell the girl.
She nods and turns on her heel. Carl watches her go, a blue gaze behind the pince-nez.
Carl: You seem to know Miss Frida, Mr. Bergman.
Henrik: No, not really. We sometimes come here to eat when we have any money. No, I don’t know her.
Carl (sharp-eyed): Color has come into the pastor’s cheeks, Mr. Bergman. Is this a denial? Are we going to hear the cock crow?
Henrik: I know only that her name’s Frida and she’s from Ångermaland. (Pulls himself together.) Nice-looking girl.
Carl: Very nice looking, very. Doubtful reputation. Or? What do you think, Mr. Bergman? Theological training is said to provide insight into human weaknesses. Or should I say a nose for them?
The cigarette girl comes with her tray and supplies the gentlemen with Havana cigars. Carl pays and tips her generously. The girl clips and lights their cigars. They puff away and lean back.
Carl: Well, Mr. Bergman, what did you think of the evening?
Henrik: In what way, Mr. Åkerblom?
Carl: What did you think of us, to put it bluntly?
Henrik: I’ve never had a four-course dinner with three different wines before. It was like being at the theater. I was sitting there in the middle of your play, expected to perform with you, but didn’t know my lines.
Carl: Very well put!
Henrik: It was all very attractive but also repelling. Or rather, inaccessible. I don’t mean to be critical.
Carl: Inaccessible?
Henrik: Even if I wanted to get into your world and had ambitions to act in your play it would be impossible.
Frida brings the liqueur in a cooler and two small glasses with no stems, slightly misted over. Carl looks at Henrik with mild attention. Henrik doesn’t dare meet Frida’s eyes. Supposing she kisses me on the mouth, or puts her hand on the back of my neck? What would that matter? Actually, things are inaccessible in her direction, too. Perhaps in all directions? Outside? thinks Henrik with bitter voluptuousness. Outside?
Carl: My stepmother, Karin, plays the main part in our insignificant family drama. Mammchen is a remarkable character, considerably larger than life. Some people say that’s our little bit of luck; others maintain she’s an out-and-out bitch. If anyone happened to ask me, I would say she wants what is good and does what is evil, to paraphrase — yes, it’s Romans, isn’t it? Her ambition is to keep the family together, whatever point there is in that. If something doesn’t fit in with the pattern, she cuts it out, amputates it, deforms it. She does that well, the charming little lady.
Carl raises his glass to Henrik, who answers his toast, and they look at each other with sympathy.
Carl: May I be so bold as to suggest a fraternal toast? My name’s Carl Ebehard, ’89. Thank you.
Henrik: Erik Henrik Fredrik, ’06. Thank you.
The ritual is carried out, and the newly created brothers carefully observe the quiet that usually follows such a significant event.
Carl: I’m an inventor, really, and have had a few minor inventions accepted by the Royal Patent Office. I’m a failure in the eyes of the family, the black sheep. I’ve been in the lunatic asylum a couple of times. I’m no madder than anyone else but am considered somewhat incoherent. Our family has produced so damned much normality that there’s some surplus craziness, and I see to that. In addition, I happened to clash with the law a few years ago. I imitate other people’s handwriting far too well. To be a priest, one should believe in some kind of god, shouldn’t one? Isn’t that one of the principal conditions?
Henrik: Yes, that’s probably a principal condition.
Carl: How the hell can any young person today believe in God? Excuse the intentionally tactless way I put it.
Carl: . . . an inner voice? A feeling of being in someone’s hands? Of not being left out, excluded? Like a warm breath on your cheek? Like being a small pulse beating in an immense circulation system? A not insignificant pulse, despite the vastness of the network of arteries and veins. Purpose, pattern, moments of grace? No, I’m not being ironic. It’s just my throat never ceases throwing up sarcastic belches. I’m being terribly serious, young man.
Henrik: Why do you ask, if you know?
Carl: I think a man born blind can perfectly well imagine things in red, blue, and yellow.
Henrik: I’m an irresolute person. I like to think the cassock may perhaps be a good corset. I’ll probably be a good priest for my own sake. Not for humanity’s.
Frida returns, puts the bill down on the table beside Carl, then glances at Henrik.
Frida: I’m sorry to bring you the bill, but as you gentlemen perhaps saw on the notice down in the hall, we’re closing early tonight. We have a breakfast for the whole Senate tomorrow morning, and we have to set all the tables tonight.
Carl: So Miss Frida is . . .
Frida: . . . busy this evening? (Laughs.) You could say that.
While Carl is paying and putting back his wallet with some ceremony, Frida leans over behind Henrik and pinches his ear. This occurs swiftly and unnoticeably. She smells good, slightly pungently of sweat and rosewater.
Carl Åkerblom and Henrik Bergman are standing by the railing around Svandammen looking at the black swan floating as if dreaming through the dark mirrorlike water. Fine rain has begun to fall.
Henrik (after a long silence): And your half sister? Anna?
Carl: Anna? She’s just twenty. You saw for yourself.
Henrik: Yes. Yes, of course.
Carl: She’s training at Sophiahemmet’s school of nursing. Mammchen maintains that young women must have an education. That they must stand on their own two feet, and so on. Mammchen believes that she believes that. She herself gave up her teacher training in order to marry.
Henrik: Your little sister is very . . .
Carl: . . . attractive. Exactly. We’ve had a great many suitors coming to the house, but Our Lord Father has frightened them all away with his appalling but extremely sophisticated jealousy and Our Lady Mother has frightened them even more with the scarcely cheerful prospect of having Karin Åkerblom as mother-in-law. At the moment, that young genius Torsten Bohlin is frequenting the family. Nothing at all deters him, and he appears to be amazingly tolerated. But then he’s a man of the future, too, and he’ll obviously be a cabinet minister or an archbishop. Anna seems unusually amused by his attentions. Though my theory is that Anna’s destiny is written in another book.
Henrik: Look, here comes the other black swan out of their house. This rain’s very pleasant.
Carl: After the drought. Yes. Anna’s destiny will probably be to love a madman or a sex murderer or perhaps a nonentity.
Henrik: Why are you so sure of that?
Carl: Our little princess is so well adjusted and clever and purehearted and tenderhearted and loving; there’s no limit to it.
Henrik: But that sounds good. All of it? Or?
Carl: You see, my boy, she possesses a splinter of glass, a sharp splinter that cuts. (Laughs.) Now I’ve terrified you all right!
Henrik: I don’t understand what you mean.
Carl: Nor is it something you can understand just like that. But I know her. I recognize her.
Henrik: That sounds like a more sophisticated kind of literature.
Carl: Of course, of course.
Henrik: Let’s go, shall we? It’s raining quite hard now.
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Carl: You can share my umbrella. Since I have a markedly tragic view of the ways of the world, I always carry an umbrella. Whether I use it later on or not is my own free choice. It’s my shrewd way of combating determinism and deceiving chance.
Henrik (smiles): For obvious reasons, I can’t share your . . .
Carl: . . . view. I have no opinions, but I chatter. Do you know what, Henrik? I think Miss Frida would be an extraordinarily splendid minister’s wife.
Henrik does not reply to that. He is, quite simply, rendered speechless.
The term has ended and Henrik goes home.
It’s a hot day in mid-June, and the train chugs through the summer countryside, making a lengthy stop at each station. Silence, the buzz of flies. Chestnuts in flower reach out toward the closed windows of the compartment. No one is in sight, either at the stations or on board the train. Then on it chugs, first through the pine forest and then along the coast. It takes all day to travel by passenger train from Upsala to Söderhamn.
Henrik arrives at the west station at twenty-seven minutes past eight in the evening. Mama Alma is waiting at the entrance. He sees her at once — her heavy figure seems to be surrounded by an invisible aura of tearful desolation. Henrik smiles, puts down his suitcase, and embraces his mother.
She is very fat. Her face is round, her eyes wide open and anxious; she has a small snub nose, large sensitive mouth, and short neck. She is wearing a tight summer coat that is rather shabby and has a button missing. Her black hat with a feather in it has been knocked awry by their embrace. She laughs and cries in utter despair. Henrik makes an effort to return his mother’s show of affection. She smells of dried sweat and is wheezing asthmatically. “Let me look at you, my son. How pale you are, and how thin you are. I suppose you’ve not been bothering about food, of course! How nice of you to come back to your old mother for a few days. Are you really going to have a mustache? I don’t think your mama is all that keen on that mustache. You’ll probably have to shave it off now that you’re to be my darling boy again.”
Alma Bergman lives in three small rooms at the top of the inner courtyard block on the corner of Norralagatan and Köpmangatan. One of the rooms is Henrik’s and is rented out during the winter months.
Alma’s bedroom is a very small room, and then there’s the dining room, connected to a spacious kitchen by a curious serving passage. The apartment is very cluttered, as if its occupants had suddenly had to move from something much bigger and had not had the courage to part with bulky furniture, pictures, and other objects.
Over everything lies a sticky layer of proud poverty Perplexed abandonment. Hopelessness and tears.
While Alma produces something to eat, Henrik goes into his boyhood room: The narrow sagging bed. The broken wicker chair with cushions, the rickety desk with its old wounds from the ravages of his penknife, the unmatched chairs. The wardrobe with its cracked mirror, the bookcase of tattered books, the washstand with its illmatched jug and basin, the worn towels. The dirty window, its pelmet slipped from the curtain pole. The pictures of biblical scenes from his childhood (Jesus with the children, the return of the prodigal son). Above the bed is the photograph of his father. A young, handsome face; thin, wispy hair, brushed back off a high forehead; large blue eyes; a small self-conscious smile — pride, vulnerability, integrity, and suffering; the features of an actor.
In one corner by the window, somewhat cramped, is the altar with its altar runner and silver candlesticks, Thorvaldsen’s Jesus, and an open prayer book. In front of the altar, a prie-dieu embroidered in green and gold. The altar frontal is purple with a cross in dull red. A dazzling bunch of freshly picked cowslips stands at Jesus’ feet.
Henrik sinks down on one of the odd chairs, hides his face in his hands, and breathes deeply, as if suffering from an attack of asphyxiation.
He finds it hard to swallow, although he ought to be hungry, for he has eaten nothing but a few sandwiches he had taken with him for the long journey. His mother sits opposite him at the table, the paraffin lamp lit, dusk fallen outside the square windows.
Alma: Everything’s got so terribly expensive recently. Of course, you don’t have to think about things like that, but I hardly know how I’m going to manage. Just think, paraffin’s gone up by three öre, and five pounds of potatoes cost thirty-two öre. I can hardly afford beef nowadays but have to get ordinary pork, or perhaps another kind of meat for soup. And coal — you’ve no idea what a winter we’ve had — coal and wood have doubled in price. It meant wrapping up indoors, though I have to put the heat on for my piano pupils, and that costs an awful lot. What’s the matter, Henrik? You look so miserable. Has something awful happened? You know you can tell your old mother anything.
Henrik: I failed my church history exam.
He makes a helpless gesture and stares at his mother’s ear. She carefully puts down her teacup and places her fat little hand on the table, the heavy wedding ring glistening dully.
Alma: When did this happen?
Henrik: A few weeks ago.
Alma: And what will the consequences be?
Henrik: I’ll retake it at the end of November. Professor Sundelius won’t let me try any earlier.
Alma: So your finals will be delayed.
Henrik: By six months.
Alma: How are we going to manage, Henrik? The loan is almost all gone, and everything’s grown so expensive. Your fees and books and your keep. I can’t think what we can do. I’ve never been able to handle money.
Henrik: Neither have I.
Alma: And we promised to pay back the loan as soon as you were ordained.
Henrik: I know, Mama.
Alma: I try to get more pupils, but piano lessons are the first thing people give up when things get so expensive. One can understand that.
Henrik: Yes, one can understand that.
Alma: I could start cleaning again, but my asthma’s got so bad, and my heart’s acting up, too.
Henrik: Mama, dear, you’re not to start cleaning.
Alma gets up with a sigh, filled with tenderness. She embraces her son and showers him with kisses, prattling away at the same time: “My little boy, my darling, my heart! You’re all I have. I live for you and you alone. We’ll help each other. We’ll never abandon each other, isn’t that right, my darling boy, isn’t that right?”
Gently but firmly, Henrik frees himself and puts his mother onto a chair. Holding her arms, he looks into her bright, tear-filled eyes.
Henrik: I can give up my studies, Mama. I’ll give them up and look for work and move back here again. Then first of all we’ll pay back the loan to the aunts in Elfvik. Then perhaps I could start studying again, when I’ve saved enough to manage on my own and not be a burden to anyone.
Alma laughs, a large hearty laugh of white teeth, and strokes her son’s face with her soft, fat hand.
Alma: My poor dear boy, you really are even sillier than me. Surely you don’t think we should stop now, just when we’re nearly there? Surely you don’t think I’m going to let you be some telegraph office clerk or a tutor? You . . . who’s going to be a priest. My priest!
His mother laughs again and gets up, filled with sudden energy. She goes across to the monstrous sideboard taking up all the space between the windows, gets out a bottle of port wine and two glasses, and pours it out. Henrik also starts laughing — this is all so familiar and charged with a remarkable sense of security — both of them in distress, then suddenly a laugh, irresistible, Mama laughing — so it’s not that bad. They toast each other and drink. She leans forward and sighs.
Alma: I’ve heard that really talented frauds never bother with small change. They go straight for the big money. In that way they’re regarded as more trustworthy and can finagle even more money for themselves.
Henrik: I don’t really understand.
Alma: Don’t you understand? We’ve been far too meek! The aunts will have to hand over a decent sum of money now. We’ll pay them a visit. At once. Tomorrow.<
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The mythical aunts live in a handsome wooden villa overlooking the Ljusnan River, twenty kilometers south of Bollnäs. They are Henrik’s grandfather’s sisters and are very old. Grandfather is their baby brother, the tail end of the family. The names of the aunts, from eldest to youngest, are Ebba, Beda, and Blenda.
Briefly, this is their situation: Grandfather’s father was a man who owned forests and land and possessed a good business sense. When the exploitation of Norrland began in all seriousness, the enterprising Leonhard created a fortune for himself, and when he died, he left a considerable inheritance. Grandfather Bergman thought that none of it should be touched, and that it ought to become part of and increase the working capital of the family farm. No one had dared oppose him except Blenda, who claimed a share of the inheritance for herself and her sisters. Their brother objected, but Blenda took the dispute to the county court in Gävle. Before this scandal had become public, Fredrik Bergman gave in, and with his heart trembling with hatred, he realized he would have to pay out the shares of the inheritance to his unmarried sisters. From then on, he refused to speak to them again, and the hatred on both sides became a well-established fact. Neither births, nor marriages, nor deaths could bridge their mutual bitterness.
Blenda, the youngest sister, who had shown so much enterprise, took over the management of the fortune. Through good sense and business acumen, she increased its value even more. She had a handsome wooden villa built, with a view over the most beautiful part of Lake Ljusnan. The house was filled with the most comfortable furniture of the day and decorated with the most tasteless wallpapers, tapestries, and pictures of the century.
The villa has a garden, almost a park, which runs down in terraces toward the river. The sisters work in it every spring, summer, and autumn, in white linen dresses, overalls, wide-brimmed hats, gloves, and clogs. All the love, tenderness, and inventiveness they possess are scarcely wasted on one another, but instead bestowed on the garden. The garden returns their devoted attentions with lush greenery, laden fruit trees, and dazzling flower beds.
The Best Intentions Page 4