The Bakelite butler appeared in the doorway. He pointed at the clock on the wall. It chimed eleven. All the lights went out. The darkness pressed in on her from all sides until she could barely breathe. Bright blotches of light swam in her vision as her brain tried to fill the void.
Hedvig waited for her captor in the dark.
It had been her birthday. They had been for a walk in the park, Hedvig and her father and the family dog. Her sister and stepmother had stayed behind to organize the party. Hedvig decided to take a little path she hadn’t seen before, and all of a sudden an unearthly music had filled the air: instruments she had no name for, at once hoarse and sweet. Over them hovered a voice, singing a wordless melody. She stopped dead in her tracks. Her father came up behind her.
“Father, I must have this music,” she said. “I need it.”
“Of course,” her father replied. “I will find out where it’s coming from. Anything for my birthday girl.” He kissed her cheek.
A week later he came home with a package under his arm, and Hedvig outraced the dog to greet him, and she didn’t understand why he burst into tears.
Quiet footsteps approached; the mattress dipped as someone sat down on the edge of the bed.
“My name is Lord Ruben,” said a young baritone. “You may call me ‘my lord.’ ”
“The lord of what?” Hedvig said.
“The underground,” he replied. “This is my domain.”
“Will you rape me now?” Hedvig said into the darkness.
“Of course not,” Ruben said. “But I need your help. An evil countess put a curse on me so that I may never show my face to you. But if you will be faithful to me without ever seeing my face, then one day I will be free. If you break your promise, I will be in her power completely and forced to marry her.”
“Just like what you’re doing to me.”
He touched her hand. Hedvig pulled away.
“Whatever you decide, you will remain here,” Ruben said.
There was no way to tell the difference between night and day, only that the lights came on and switched off: at seven in what was presumably the morning, and eleven at night. Hedvig’s only company in the daytime were the butler and two footmen, who moved quietly through the rooms, serving meals at regular intervals, dusting and cleaning. They obeyed her commands, all except one: to let her out.
In the beginning, Hedvig broke a lot of things. She smashed glass, flipped furniture over, tore at curtains and bedsheets. When the rage had left her, she put on one of the three gramophone records and let the music carry her away. It seemed different every time; it swirled and shifted, enveloped her in soothing green and bronze notes. It obliterated time and space. She only came to when the butler touched her arm and led her away for bedtime.
Lord Ruben would arrive shortly after, smelling of wine and heavy perfume. He wouldn’t mention the mess. He wouldn’t touch her either. He just lay there, breathing quietly. When the lights came back on, he would be gone and the furniture replaced.
Tears replaced destruction. Hedvig would find herself weeping on the floor, in an armchair, on the bed, in the bath. Again, the music soothed her.
Eventually, boredom won out.
Hedvig rediscovered the sewing machine and recalled the lessons of her childhood. She cut fabric and constructed dresses after her own mind, fantastical creations in silk and velvet and fine lace. She hung them on dress forms and doors and chairs, perfecting her technique: bodices encrusted with glass and metal, skirts flaring like trumpet flowers or falling in asymmetrical cascades. For each dress, an imagined party, a dance with her butler.
One night, Lord Ruben touched her. She let him; fighting would do no good. As he moved on top of her she lay still, clenching her jaws against the pain. He cried into her hair afterward.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“If you love me, then let me go,” she whispered back.
“I can’t. It would be my undoing.”
“But what about me?”
“They haven’t tried to get you back, you know,” he said. “They know where you are. I haven’t heard from them at all. Perhaps they don’t love you, after all.”
The days bled into one another, and so did the nights. Some nights Lord Ruben lay on top of her, some not. She found herself pregnant and walked the halls with a growing belly. She gave birth to a boy, assisted by Bakelite hands. She named him Gustav. Lord Ruben was of no help when the baby fussed and screamed; he merely fell asleep and slept like the dead until he suddenly got up and left, and the lights came on, and it was morning.
The days were less lonely, less dull, even though there was screaming and vomit and shit and she was ready to smash the baby against the wall more than once, but the wordless footmen soothed her, and so did the gramophones. She lost herself in the intricate loops and strands of music.
“Your sister is getting married,” Lord Ruben said one night. “Since you’ve been a good girl, you have my permission to watch the wedding.”
Hedvig gasped.
“You’ll watch it from the car, of course,” he continued. “They didn’t invite you, after all.”
The daylight was too bright. The air was too sharp. Hedvig sat outside the church in the big black car as the bells rang and people poured outside. The happy couple came last and were showered with flowers and rice. Hedvig touched the door handle. Soon she would rush out there, back to her family, and join them. Everything would be all right. They would receive her with open arms.
Except they looked happy. Hedvig wasn’t there with them, on this day of all days, but her sister and stepmother and father were smiling and cheering. They didn’t look like they missed her at all. The church bells crashed overhead. It was all too much. Hedvig clapped her hands over her ears and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the revelers had left and her stepmother stood outside the car, rapping on the window. The butler leaned back and rolled the window on Hedvig’s side down.
“It is you!” the stepmother exclaimed. “I thought I saw—”
“You didn’t invite me,” Hedvig said. “Did you even come to look for me?”
Her stepmother’s eyes filled with tears. “Of course we invited you, love. Of course we tried to visit you. He said that you didn’t want to talk to us, that you were happy.”
“I don’t believe you,” Hedvig said. “If you really loved me, you would have tried harder.”
“Oh, darling.” Her stepmother wiped her cheeks. “Your father made a deal. A promise is a promise, no matter how terrible the consequences are. You know that.”
“But couldn’t he just give the records back and let me go?” Hedvig said. “I could go home.”
“You know it doesn’t work like that. It’s done.”
They were both silent for a moment.
“Is he kind to you, at least?” the stepmother asked hopefully.
“He only visits me in the dark, and he makes me do things, and he won’t help me with our Gustav,” Hedvig said.
“You have a son!”
“I think Gustav looks like him.” Hedvig looked at her hands. “But I will never know.”
Her stepmother’s hand came into view. It held a tiny cigarette lighter, embossed with flowers.
“The spell would break,” Hedvig said. “He’d be forced to marry the countess.”
“And why should you save him from that fate?” her stepmother asked, and dropped the lighter in Hedvig’s lap.
Hedvig looked up. “Will you not save me?”
Her stepmother shook her head. “We can’t. There are rules.” She stepped away from the car, and her eyes filled with tears. “Good-bye, Hedvig. Remember that we love you.”
“Where is Father?” Hedvig called after her, but then she saw him: pale and hunched behind the steering wheel of a car on the other side of the street. Her stepmother got in. Her father gave Hedvig a wordless look, then drove away.
Hedvig did it the following night, when Lord Ruben’s breaths had e
vened out. She pressed the button on the cigarette lighter. In the faint yellow light, he was young and frail-looking: very pale, with dark eyebrows and hair, a long nose, and carefully carved lips, like a painting. He looked just like Gustav. The lighter abruptly became too hot, and Hedvig dropped it without thinking. It landed on Lord Ruben’s chest and went out. He screamed.
The air abruptly went cold. Gray light crept in from somewhere to Hedvig’s right. There was the noise of dripping water.
They lay on a filthy mattress in a tunnel. Around them, gravel, concrete, refuse. A rat slunk away into the darkness. Gustav lay on a pile of rags next to her, still sleeping. Lord Ruben stared up at her with eyes that had misted over.
“I can’t see,” he said. “Why can’t I see? Did you look? You looked, didn’t you.”
“I did,” Hedvig replied.
“You’ve ruined everything,” he said. “She knows I’ve been seen. This is my punishment.”
“Who is she really? Who are you?”
Ruben’s blind eyes filled with tears. “I am hers. She let me have the nights to myself, but only if no living being saw my face. It was going so well. I had a mansion. I had you, and a son. Now look at us. Look at what you did.” He pulled away and sobbed into his hands.
The air was very cold. Hedvig shivered in her thin shift and pulled what had become a soiled blanket closer around her. Ruben lay in front of her, shaking, not at all the commanding man she had come to imagine. It struck her that she could leave now.
“I’m free,” she whispered.
“Will you just leave me here?” Ruben said softly.
Hedvig thought of her father, who had given her away. She thought of her stepmother, who had talked about obeying the rules. She thought of her sister smiling next to her husband. She looked down at the man on the mattress. He was the only person she knew now.
“Where can we go?” she asked.
Lord Ruben let out a long, trembling sigh. “Vega, my sister. She might at least take our son in until we find somewhere to stay.”
They walked out of the culvert and into the wintry streets of Stockholm.
Lady Vega lived in Old Town, on a street winding away from the German church.
Lord Ruben pushed Hedvig toward the front door. “You can’t let her see me. The countess will know. She’ll take me then, for sure.”
Hedvig climbed the stairs to Lady Vega’s apartment. The woman who opened the door was short and fine-featured, much like a female version of Ruben, with crinkles at the corners of her eyes. She looked at Hedvig in confusion when she opened the door. Then she caught sight of Gustav and paled.
“I know that face,” she said. “That’s Ruben’s, isn’t it? Who are you?”
“I’m his wife, milady,” Hedvig said. “We need your help. Lord Ruben and I are out on the street.”
Vega squinted at her. “Since when is he a lord?”
Hedvig faltered.
“Where have you been living with him, exactly?” Vega asked.
“In his palace,” Hedvig said slowly. “Except it’s not there anymore, because I broke the spell. He’s waiting downstairs, but you can’t see him, because then the countess will—”
Vega uncrossed her arms. “This is absurd. Excuse me.” She pushed past Hedvig and ran downstairs.
Hedvig scooped Gustav up and came downstairs to find Vega shouting at Ruben.
“You’re not even man enough to show your face,” Vega shouted, shaking his arm. “You send your wife! Or whatever she is. . . . What have you told her? She calls you Lord Ruben!”
“You don’t understand,” Lord Ruben said, ducking out of her reach.
An engine roared behind them.
The enormous car that came charging down the street was black and shiny, with darkened windows. It stopped with a screech of tortured brakes. The passenger door opened. A shadow curled around Ruben’s arms and legs and pulled him inside. The door slammed shut. The car took off again, leaving the stench of exhaust and burning rubber. The two women stared down the street after it.
“I thought he was free,” Vega said numbly.
Hedvig clutched her son, who had gone very quiet. “What just happened?”
“The countess took him back.”
“Who took him back? Who is the countess?”
“The Countess de la Montagne. She is very dangerous,” Vega replied. “He got involved with her when he was very young. I thought ‘out on the streets’ meant he was finally free.”
“But I tried to tell you . . .”
“. . . and I didn’t listen. I’m sorry.” Vega turned around and studied Hedvig. “How long have you been together? You’re not wearing a ring.”
“You don’t know anything about me?” Hedvig said.
Vega shook her head. “I haven’t seen my brother in years.”
“My father promised me to him,” Hedvig said. “So I had to go live in his mansion.”
Vega stared at her. “He what?”
“I had to stay there and never see his face, or the countess would take him back.”
“He kept you prisoner.”
“Yes.”
“The little bastard. I had no idea he would do such a thing.”
Hedvig busied herself wiping her son’s nose.
“All this, and you want to go save him,” Vega said. “You’re insane.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Hedvig replied. “Will you help me or not?”
Vega shook her head. “He had it coming. And I’m not going up against the countess. But if you’re so set on it, you could maybe talk to old Natalia.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s a dealer, of sorts. You’ll find her in Hornstull.”
Hedvig shifted her son on her hip.
“I’ll take the boy,” Vega said. “He deserves better. And stop calling my brother ‘lord.’ We’re middle-class.”
It was only half an hour’s walk from Old Town to Hornstull, on the western tip of the southern island. Old Natalia opened the door dressed in a turban and a silk robe. She was very thin and looked very old. The hallway beyond her smelled of cigar smoke and heavy perfume.
“What do you want?” Her voice was unexpectedly soft.
“Madam, I’m sorry to disturb you,” Hedvig said. “I’m looking to save my husband, and I’m told you might be able to help me.”
Natalia tilted her head. “Save him from what?”
“The Countess de la Montagne.”
The old woman let out a bright laugh. “Come in, you poor fool,” she said.
She made Hedvig tea and smoked a fat cigar while listening to Hedvig’s story about her capture and Ruben’s. When Hedvig was done talking, Natalia sat in silence for a long moment.
“You want to rescue him from the countess,” Natalia finally said.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Hedvig said. “But I can’t rest until I do.”
“You know that no one picks a fight with her, don’t you?”
“I know nothing about her,” Hedvig replied. “My only concern is to save him.”
“For some reason,” Natalia said, then sighed. “Well. You’re polite and you have guts, and for that I’ll help you.” She went over to a cabinet. “What skills do you have, then?”
Hedvig was quiet for a moment, then said, “I can make dresses.”
“Excellent,” Natalia said, and rummaged around in the cabinet.
She brought out a slender roll of fabric and a purse, then pushed a large suitcase toward Hedvig with her foot. Inside sat a portable sewing machine.
Natalia patted the roll. “This will give you all the fabric you need. The sewing machine will make you all the dresses you need. And the purse will give you whatever else you require. It’ll never run out.”
“That’s a very small roll of fabric,” Hedvig said.
Natalia grinned. “So it would appear,” she replied. “Don’t worry. Now. The countess is very fond of fashion and fine food, so make that for her.�
��
“And what do you want in exchange?” Hedvig said. “Nothing is for free. I have learned that much.”
“The satisfaction of seeing that bitch taken down is good enough for me,” said Natalia. “I tried in my time. It’s your turn now.”
Hedvig stood up.
Hedvig rented a little room at the back of an old lady’s apartment. She spent day and night sewing more of her dresses. The roll did in fact not run out but produced velvet and silks finer than she had ever seen. The sewing machine seemed to produce thread all by itself and made seams straight and fine, and it never pulled at the fabric. The dresses Hedvig made didn’t look like the pictures in the magazines, not at all, but she thought they had their own beauty. When she had made nine dresses, she went to find the countess.
The Countess de la Montagne lived in a lavish apartment that covered an entire floor of a building in the most expensive part of Östermalm. A butler opened the door, and Hedvig recoiled; it was the same butler who had served in the underground mansion. He looked at her, bowed, and left the door ajar. A while later he came back with his mistress in tow. Hedvig had imagined her as old and repellent; instead she was tall and coolly blonde, with square features. She looked at Hedvig like a hawk looks at a mouse.
“I have a lovely set of gowns I’d like to sell you,” Hedvig said. “They’re like nothing you have ever seen.”
“You dragged me to the front door for this?” the countess said to the butler.
Hedvig quickly opened her suitcase and held up a green bias-cut gown of her own design. The countess’s mouth dropped slightly open.
“Do you have more like that?”
“Nine of them, my lady,” Hedvig replied.
“Give her the small drawing room,” she told the butler, then pointed at Hedvig. “I’ll view them this afternoon.”
The butler guided Hedvig through a warren of rooms that were eerily reminiscent of the underground mansion: angular lines, dark wood, windows covered by heavy drapes. Here and there, Bakelite footmen and maids were busy with some task or other. There was no sign of human life. The butler showed her into a small drawing room and left.
The Starlit Wood Page 3