Henrik: And if I don’t want to?
Anna: Don’t want to what?
Henrik: If I don’t want to be part of this spectacle in the cathedral? What’ll you do then?
Anna (angry): Well, I’ll tell you, Henrik Bergman. Then I’ll give you your ring back.
Henrik: But this is mad.
Anna: What is it that’s mad?
Henrik: Are you sacrificing our life together, our life, for a shabby ritual?
Anna: It’s you who’s sacrificing our life together for a foolish, theatrical, melodramatic, sentimental . . . I don’t know what. My celebration is anyhow a celebration. Everyone will be happy, and everyone will be aware that you and I are at last properly married.
Henrik: But we’re going to live here! This is where we’re going to live, don’t you see? It’s important that we start our new life here, just here, in this church.
Anna: Important to you but not to me.
Henrik: Don’t you understand at all what I mean?
Anna: I don’t want to understand.
Henrik: If you loved me, you’d understand.
Anna (angry): Don’t give me that! I might just as well say that if you loved me, you’d let me have my wedding.
Henrik: There’s no limit to how spoiled you are. Don’t you understand that this is serious?
Anna: I shall tell you what I understand . . . you don’t like my family. You want to humiliate my mother as much as you can. You want to demonstrate your new power. Anna, come with me. Anna, don’t bother about what your family thinks any longer. You want to get even in a very hurtful and sophisticated way. That’s what it is, Henrik! Admit it!
Henrik: It’s amazing how you can misinterpret things. Horrible and amazing. But of course, it’s good now that I really know . . .
Anna (even more angry): . . . don’t stand there looking like that. What’s that stupid grin all about?
Henrik: All I can see is that you’re on your family’S side, against me.
Anna: Are you really and truly crazy? I nearly killed my mother in order to come to you. And Papa, what do you think he thought when . . . ?
Henrik: . . . I’m only asking a silly little sacrifice of you.
Anna: You’re still crazy. You know what, Henrik? Sometimes you seem to me to be painfully lower-class. You’ve a way of making yourself worse than . . .
Henrik: What did you say?
Anna: You make yourself out to be stupider than you are. You put on an act that doesn’t suit you at all. Do you know what? You flirt with your poverty and your wretched miserable childhood and your poor wretched mother. It’s disgusting.
Henrik: I remember when you asked me what Frida did, and I told you she was a waitress. I remember your tone of voice. I remember your expression.
Anna: It’s not necessary to wear dirty shirts and have holes in your socks. It’s not necessary to go around with dandruff on your collar and dirty nails.
Henrik: I never have dirty nails.
Anna: You aren’t always clean, and sometimes you smell of sweat.
Henrik: Now you’ve gone too far.
Anna: Of course. The pastor can’t stand the truth.
Henrik: I can’t stand your being cruel.
Anna: Don’t trample on me, Henrik.
Henrik: I’m glad this conversation occurred before the wedding.
Anna: So am I! Now we both know where we stand. We almost made a huge mistake.
Henrik: So you’re prepared to throw away . . .
Anna: Am I throwing it away?
Henrik: No, the awful thing is we’re both . . .
Anna: Well, it was remarkably easy.
Henrik: Terribly.
Anna: I want to cry, but I can’t. I’m far too miserable.
Henrik: I want to cry, too, I’m so horribly miserable. I don’t want to lose you.
Anna: It didn’t sound like that just now.
Henrik: No, I know.
Distance, geographical as well as spiritual. The sunlight has gone into the blue-black wall of snow slowly looming up over the forest. The daylight is gray but sharp. Anna sits down on the altar rail’s dirty kneeler. Henrik sits down on it, too, but at a distance — several steps away Their grief is palpable, but so are the anger and the poisonous words just spoken, and what has not been said. This story of good intentions could end here, as the main characters now consider themselves abandoned, alien, and alone. Anna is thinking with revulsion about that man’s body and his smells. Henrik is thinking with distaste about this cruel, spoiled child. Both are thinking (perhaps) how terrible to have to live together for just one day, one hour. Humiliating. Unworthy. Frightening.
Anna: Henrik?
(Henrik says nothing.)
Anna: Henrik.
Henrik: No.
Anna (holds out a hand): Henrik!
Henrik: Don’t be affected.
Anna: I’m miserable.
Henrik: Are you? Too bad.
Anna: I said terrible things.
Henrik: Yes.
Anna: Can you ever forgive me?
Henrik: I don’t know.
Anna: So this is the end?
Henrik: I think so.
Anna (sigh): It feels like it.
Henrik: Words flown out can’t be caught on the wing.
Anna: What do you mean?
Henrik: That’s Luther. He means that one can say anything. But not just anything. Certain words are irretrievable.
Anna: And you mean that now I’ve . . .
Henrik: Yes.
Anna: But that’s terrible.
Henrik: Yes, it’s terrible.
Anna: But you’re a priest.
Henrik: My profession has nothing to do with . . .
Anna: You must forgive me.
Henrik: I can’t. I’m furious. I hate you. In fact, I think I could hit you.
Anna: Well, at least that’s clear.
Henrik: You’re welcome.
Anna: Here I am, sitting here humiliating myself and . . .
Henrik: No one asked you to.
Anna: . . . and going on about you — that you should forgive me!
Henrik: If I were capable of it, I’d get up, go out that door, slam it shut, and never come back.
Anna: Are you crying?
Henrik: Yes, I’m crying, but I’m crying because I’m in such a rage. No, don’t come any closer. Don’t touch me.
Anna touches him. He knocks her arm away, the blow striking harder than he had intended. She is frightened and falls back against the altar rail. Astonishment and horror.
Anna: You hit me!
Henrik (pure rage): I may hit you again! Go away! I never want to see you again. You’re vile. You torment me. You torment me because you want to torment me. Go away. For Christ’s sake.
Anna: What a coward! Now I’m beginning to understand why Mama was frightened of you. I’m beginning to understand . . .
Henrik (interrupts): . . . oh, yes, that’s really good. Your mother and you will fall into each other’s arms and thank God you’ve escaped with nothing but fright and loss of virginity.
Anna: God, how crude you are. It wasn’t just Mama and Papa, I’ll have you know. Ernst warned me too. Constantly. He said you were a dual personality no one could . . .
Henrik (white): What did he say? What did Ernst say?
Anna: That you were untrustworthy. That you were a liar. The worst kind of liar, because you never knew when you were lying. He said you were incapable of telling between the truth and a lie. That was the real reason you became a priest.
Henrik: Did Ernst say that?
Anna: No.
Henrik: What did Ernst say about me?
Anna: Nothing. He likes you. You know that.
Henrik: Now I know nothing.
Anna: I think you should go back to Frida. Carl thought she’d be a good wife for a priest. For Anna Å kerblom, this will have been an instructive interlude.
Henrik: Stop acting. You do it so badly. And leave Frida out of
this squalid . . .
Anna: Miss Frida made no demands. She loved her dear Henrik. Her motherliness no doubt knew no bounds.
Henrik: Shut up.
Anna: Your crudeness is really . . .
Henrik: . . . on a level with yours.
Anna: Yes, maybe so.
Speechlessness and anger, they are almost audible, echoing in the darkening church, freeing themselves from the protagonists and striking against roof and walls, maybe even breaking windows and rushing like searing flames along the stone flags.
Henrik: I’m beginning to recognize my life now. It’s at last coming back, and it looks as it has always looked. I was dreaming. Now I am awake.
Anna: Sometimes you sound like a novel. A cheap romance.
Henrik: I don’t know any better.
Anna: And we were supposed to have children! Three children! Two boys and a girl. How filthy everything is. And stupid. This is all crazy. Here I am, sitting in a decaying palm house in the wilderness and it’s getting dark, and I think it’s starting to snow. Me. This is really crazy. A strange man shouting at me, hitting me! It’s all quite mad.
Henrik: How can we go on living after this?
Anna: Oh, I’m sure that’s possible.
Henrik: You don’t see the worst of it?
Anna: And what would that be?
Henrik: Our love. We’ve thrown it all away on a . . .
Anna:. . . a trifle.
Henrik: I don’t care about that wedding. It can be anywhere. At the North Pole.
Anna: I don’t care either. You can decide.
Henrik: No, no. That ritual means more to you than to me. And also, it’s stupid to make your mother more miserable than she already is.
Anna: She could come here.
Henrik: Your mother and my mother! Here? Then a gigantic binge, in which everyone drowns in a sea of theatrical idiots, would be better.
Anna: Let’s not get married. I’ll be your housekeeper.
Henrik: Thanks for the offer. I’ll take it into consideration.
Anna: Henrik!
Henrik: Yes. Anna.
Anna: Now we’ve shouted and quarreled before God. What do you think He says about it?
Henrik: I don’t know. The place is a little odd.
Anna: Do you think this is a sort of marriage?
Henrik: No, I don’t. We were heading straight for the destruction of our love.
Anna: To think that we go around with so much hatred in us.
Henrik: Yes. I’m so tired, Anna.
Anna: So am I. How shall we get away from here?
Henrik: Come and sit down here beside me.
Anna: You’re not going to hit me anymore!
Henrik: Anna!
Anna: Is that all right?
Henrik: Give me your hand. It’s icy cold. Are you cold?
Anna: Not really. Only inside.
Henrik: There. Is that all right?
Anna: I have to cry.
Henrik: I’ll hold you.
Anna (cries): Do you think we’ll be any wiser after this?
Henrik: I don’t know. More careful.
Anna: . . . more careful with what we’ve got?
Henrik: Something like that.
They are close together as dusk falls.
My parents were married on Friday, March fifteenth, 1913, in Upsala Cathedral in front of a large congregation of relatives, friends, and acquaintances. The Academic Choir sang, and Dean Tisell officiated. Bridesmaids and ushers assisted, and the little bridesmaids trod on the veil. After the wedding, a dinner was given at the Gillet in their large banquet room. However much I search through albums and the family photographs, I cannot find any photographs of the wedding. This is remarkable considering that the Åkerbloms were very much a photographing family and innumerable, less important gatherings are recorded. In our home, an abundance of happy brides and handsome bridegrooms sat on stove mantles and small tables, but I have never seen any photographs of my mother and father’s wedding. There are explanations, the simplest being presumably that my mother (who loved saving things and sticking them in albums) did not think the bride sufficiently beautiful, or that the wedding dress was not becoming, or that the young couple simply looked fatuous. Another explanation is that the photo session was canceled. Something got in the way; someone felt ill, sad, or perhaps simply annoyed. A third (just as unlikely) explanation is that the photographer bungled the job, none of the photographs came out, and one cannot really dress up with the wedding crown and bouquets all over again. That is an extremely unlikely possibility. Wennerström and Son on Upper Slottsgatan was the town’s most prominent photography studio, and it is inconceivable that it could make a mistake of that magnitude.
The fact is, however, that no wedding photographs exist in albums or archives. Also, I never asked my parents about their wedding. On the whole, I asked my parents far too little about everything. I regret that, especially now as I sit here with considerable gaps in my documentary material. I regret it in general. All that indifference and lack of curiosity. So foolish and so very like the Bergmans!
In any event, the wedding was splendid and the dinner festive. I possess a yellowed invitation card (very beautiful with the bridal couple’s initials intertwined on the front and the actual invitation in elegant print on the inside). The speeches were doubtless excellent, moving, and amusing, the waltzes dazzling, and the food exquisite. If the producer has plenty of money, he is very welcome to portray all these festivities on film. Things of that kind are called “production values,” after all.
Let’s now look at a short scene on this sunny wedding day in March. The setting is the dining room in the Tradgardsgatan apartment house. The big table with its lion feet has been pushed up against the bulging stomach of the sideboard. A full-length mirror has been moved from Mrs. Karin’s bedroom and placed between the windows in the dining room. In front of the mirror, right in the middle of the flood of light, is the bride, ready, on her head the crown from the cathedral and the veil from the family bridal chest. Mrs. Söderström, employed by the most distinguished fashion house in Stockholm, is on her knees putting right a hem that has been trodden on (from nervousness). Anna is gazing at her image with matter-of-fact attention, rather like an actress just about to go on stage in an incomparable, brand-new part, thought up and written for her alone. Her breathing is under control, her heart thumping, her face pale, her gaze wide-eyed.
The dining room door opens, and in the mirror, Anna sees her brother Ernst in a well-cut morning coat and usher’s emblem. The siblings look at each other in silence for a few moments, then Ernst takes a few steps forward and tenderly embraces his sister. Mrs. Söderström bites off the thread and sticks the needle into the left shoulder strap of her apron, then she quietly moves aside, an important actress in the drama of the day, but nevertheless a shadow. With a firm hand, together with three highly professional women, for weeks she has been shaping this masterpiece and on this very morning brought her creation to Tradgardsgatan. She is standing with her forefinger against her lips, tall, broad shouldered, and dark complexioned, her black hair in a heavy knot on the top of her head. She has good reason to be pleased with her handiwork, since the young bride has to move with great dignity and much more slowly. Mrs. Söderström is sure to have pointed that out after the brother has left the room.
Ernst: Well?
Anna: Good.
Ernst: Really good, or are you just saying that?
Anna: You’ll have to guess.
Ernst: You’re beautiful.
Anna: So are you.
Ernst: But you’re pale, sister dear.
Anna: I’m probably terrified.
Ernst: You’ve got what you wanted. In everything.
Anna: I’m sorry Papa . . .
Ernst: Yes, it’s sad. Still, had he been here, he would have been sad. His darling leaving him. You can imagine. (Falls silent.)
Anna: When are you leaving?
Ernst: The day after tom
orrow.
Anna: And coming back?
Ernst: In a year — maybe. It’s a major expedition.
Anna: Then you’re going to stay in Christiania?
Ernst: My work is in Christiania.
Anna: Mama’ll be lonely now.
Ernst: Sometimes I think she wants to be lonely.
Anna: Has Henrik come?
Ernst: He’s a wreck! I had to give him a large brandy.
Anna: Tell him I’m coming in a moment. Has anyone fetched his poor mother from the hotel?
Ernst: Be calm, now, sister dear. There’s an organizer lying in wait around every corner. This festival of rejoicing is not to be allowed to fail.
Anna: Mama’s coming.
A light tap on the door. Without waiting for an answer, Mrs. Karin enters in dusky red brocade and the family jewelry. She is calm and smiling. She has put on weight recently and in some strange way seems broader in the shoulders, though that’s perhaps an illusion. Her gait is just as energetic, her movements as usual light and under control.
Karin: Ernst, would you be so kind as to make sure Carl doesn’t get drunk? He’s just come and doesn’t seem to be all that well.
Ernst: All right, Mama.
Karin: My dear Mrs. Söderström, what a masterpiece!
Mrs. Söderström: Thank you, Mrs. Åkerblom.
Karin: I would like to be alone with my daughter for a little while.
Mrs. Söderström: Of course, Mrs. Åkerblom.
And so mother and daughter are alone together. Mrs. Karin sinks into one of the high-backed dining room chairs that are scattered around looking rather lost (now that the table has been shifted up against the sideboard).
Karin: I’m feeling rather moved, I think. But that’s all part of it.
Anna: You know how grateful I am, Mama, for this splendid wedding.
Karin: You don’t have to be grateful, my heart.
Anna: It’s a pity that Papa . . .
Karin: Yes, yes.
Anna: I believe he’s with us at this moment. I can feel it.
Karin: Do you think so?
Anna: Mama, there’s one thing I must tell you.
Karin: Yes?
Anna: Henrik and I have postponed our honeymoon. Ernst was kind enough to cancel the train tickets and hotel rooms.
The Best Intentions Page 21