A Faraway Island

by Annika Thor

  Down at the harbor there’s always something happening. Boats coming and going. Fishermen cleaning out their nets and repairing their boats. Above each boathouse is a name. Stephie reads them: JUNO, INEZ, SWEDEN, MATILDA, NORTH SEA … Now she knows that the hanging triangular shapes she once thought were bats are splayed fish drying on long wooden racks.

  There are always some older men on the benches of the boathouses, talking and smoking their pipes. One of them offers the girls a piece of candy from his bag whenever they pass by. These are hard candies, dark red, sweet and pungent.

  One day a freighter has pulled in. Two of the crew members are working on deck.

  “I’ll bet they’re headed for Hamburg,” Stephie says. “Or Amsterdam.”

  “Amsterdam!” Nellie exclaims. “Isn’t that where we’ll be going, too?”

  “Right.”

  Nellie walks over to the edge of the dock. “Can we come along?” she asks one of the sailors. “We want to get to Amsterdam.”

  The man responds in Swedish, then goes back to what he was doing.

  “I don’t think he understood what I meant,” Nellie says to Stephie. “Why don’t you try?”

  Stephie knows their parents are still in Vienna. They can’t leave until they have their entry visas for America. Still, she, too, feels they’d be closer to each other if she and Nellie were in Amsterdam.

  “Oh, please,” Stephie appeals to the sailor. “Won’t you take us along? We’re going to Amsterdam.”

  The sailor looks down at her, shaking his head with a smile.

  Boat tickets cost money. That must be why he won’t take the girls.

  Stephie turns her dress pockets inside out to show they don’t have any money.

  “Gypsy kids,” one man says to the other. “How do you think they ended up here?”

  He forages in his own pocket, then throws something to Stephie. She catches it in her hand: it’s a small, shiny coin.

  The crew members are done with their work. One of them starts untying the mooring ropes.

  “Please!” Stephie shouts. “Please don’t leave without us!”

  The boat pulls away from the dock. Slowly it glides out toward the harbor entrance. Stephie begins to run along the dock and out onto the breakwater. Nellie is close on her heels.

  “Take us with you! Take us with you!” the two of them cry.

  The freighter rounds the breakwater and is on the open sea. The men wave to the girls.

  “We’re shipwrecked,” says Stephie. “Alone on a desert island. A ship passed, but it didn’t see our smoke signals. We’ll have to wait for the next one.”

  “Will anybody save us?” Nellie asks.

  “Oh, yes,” says Stephie. “We’ll be rescued next time around.”

  They stand, watching from the breakwater, until the freighter disappears against the horizon. Then, slowly, they make their way toward the village.

  On the dock is a big, awkward-looking boy in clothes that are too small for him. Stephie recognizes him. He spends almost every afternoon down at the harbor, helping clean the nets and bail out the dinghies. When the steam-boat from town comes in, he brings deliveries ashore for the shopkeeper.

  “Want a boat ride?” he asks them. “I’ve got a boat, too, you know.”

  He looks at Stephie expectantly. His mouth gapes, his face is pimply.

  “No,” Stephie says, pulling Nellie along. She picks up speed to pass him by.

  “Are you sad, Stephie?” Nellie asks her. “Because the sailors wouldn’t take us?”

  Stephie doesn’t answer.

  “I’m not upset,” Nellie tells her. “I’d rather go home.”

  “We’re not ever going to be able to go home,” Stephie sputters. “Don’t you see?”

  “You’re mean to me,” Nellie cries. “I’m going to tell Mamma how mean you’re being.”

  She starts to run up the street. Stephie runs after her, grabbing her by one braid.

  “Ow,” Nellie whines, aiming a kick at Stephie’s leg.

  Stephie holds on to Nellie tightly, looking her straight in the eye.

  “You’re not going to write a single word about this to Mamma, do you hear? Especially not about wanting to go home. You mustn’t write anything that will make her unhappy. Understand?”

  Nellie stares angrily down at her feet and nods.

  “Promise?”

  Nellie nods again. Stephie lets her go, and Nellie takes a few steps back to get beyond her sister’s reach.

  “But I’m going to tell Auntie Alma,” she shouts over her shoulder as she turns and runs down the street.

  There’s a war on in Europe now. Papa has written and described what happened: Germany invaded Poland, then England and France declared war on Germany. Because Austria is part of the German empire, this means that Stephie’s country is also at war.

  We don’t really know what this will mean for us yet, her father wrote. It may be more difficult to get out of the country, or just the opposite: perhaps America and other nations that are not involved in the war will now be more willing to take in refugees. Time will tell.

  During her rambles around the island, Stephie spends a lot of time thinking about all the things her father’s letter didn’t say. Will Papa have to join the army? Or be sent back to the labor camp? Will passenger boats be crossing the Atlantic during the war? Might the war spread all the way to Sweden?

  One day Stephie invents a new game.

  “Now we’re in Vienna,” she tells Nellie.

  Nellie looks around, bewildered. “We are?”

  “Don’t you see?” Stephie insists. “We’re walking down Kärntnerstrasse; we’re on the wide sidewalk there. The street is lined with fancy shops on both sides.” She points to the bedrock rising on either side of the path.

  “The shop windows are bright,” she continues, “and full of beautiful things. Clothes, shoes, fur coats, perfume. Do you see?”

  Nellie nods eagerly.

  “Close your eyes,” Stephie tells her. “Listen carefully. Can you hear the clattering of the tramway, and the passing cars?”

  She shuts her own eyes, too, listening. When you aren’t looking you can easily imagine that the breaking waves sound like traffic noises.

  “Here comes a tram,” Nellie shouts. “And another.”

  “Right,” Stephie agrees. “Now we’re passing the opera house. Remember when we got to go see The Magic Flute? You were so little you fell asleep in the middle of the second act. Now we’re turning the corner up toward Heldenplatz. Look, there’s the statue of the horseman. And an old lady feeding the pigeons.”

  “I’d rather go to the park,” Nellie interrupts her. “To the playground. It’s a lot more fun there.”

  “But we’re going in the other direction today,” Stephie insists. “Tomorrow you get to decide. Come on, let’s cut across Heldenplatz.”

  “Where are we headed?” Nellie asks.

  “To the Freyung to see what’s for sale at the market.”

  “That’s a long way,” Nellie protests. “I want to go home now.”

  “No, it’s not so far. Close your eyes and hold my hand. We’ll be there soon.”

  Stephie shuts her eyes again, almost feeling as if she really were on the narrow streets of the old town. She has to think about every step so as not to stumble on the rough path. Pretending the bumps are cobblestones rather than rocks and roots, she goes on.

  The sound of footsteps disturbs their fantasy game. Stephie’s eyes snap open.

  On the path in front of them is the girl with the red hair. She smiles and tosses her hair; it blows in the wind.

  “Hello!” she says. “My name’s Vera. What are yours?”

  “Stephie.”

  Nellie stands silently, eyes lowered. Stephie gives her a nudge.

  “Nellie,” she says softly, not looking at Vera.

  “Come on,” says Vera, motioning for them to follow her. They scale a low stone wall and cross a slope with dry grass and
heather before arriving at a crevice in the bedrock. There’s a tangle of thorny bushes there. Big, black berries shine out among the leaves. Vera picks a few and extends them in the palm of her hand. Stephie hesitates. Is this a nasty joke? Will the berries be bitter, so they’ll have to spit them out? Will Vera laugh at them?

  “Stephie, are they poison?” Nellie whispers from behind her.

  Stephie takes a berry and puts it in her mouth. It’s sweet and tasty. She takes another.

  “So they’re not poison?” Nellie asks, reaching out. Vera gives her a few berries. Nellie puts them all in her mouth at once. “Yum,” she declares. There’s deep purple juice on her lips.

  “Blackberries,” Vera explains. “Haven’t you ever tasted them before? Black berries, not black bears!”

  She begins imitating a bear: crawling on all fours and growling loudly. When Vera rears up on her back legs, Nellie is doubled over with laughter. But suddenly Nellie becomes serious.

  “Stephie, are there any bears here? For real?”

  “No,” Stephie reassures her. “Bears live in big forests. There are hardly even any trees on this island.”

  Nellie peeks suspiciously into the deep crevice in the bedrock. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” Stephie replies. “I promise.”

  But as her eyes follow Nellie’s into the rock crevice, she, too, begins to wonder what other wild, dangerous animals could be hiding in there.

  They all pick berries, eating them right off the bushes, and soon their fingers are all purple. Vera laughs and prattles. Stephie answers, using the few words of Swedish she knows.

  Stephie’s skirt gets caught on a thorny branch. She tries to disentangle it, but the thorns grip like claws and refuse to let go. Stephie pulls harder. The cloth rips with a loud sound.

  She stares down at her skirt; a gaping hole stares back. Next to it is a berry stain from her hands. What will Aunt Märta say?

  Vera looks frightened. Only Nellie continues picking and eating the berries as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Have to go home,” Stephie tells Vera.

  Vera nods understandingly. “Fix it,” she says, making sewing motions.

  The three girls walk part of the way together. Then Vera turns off, up a path so narrow it’s almost invisible. With a wave and a smile she’s gone.

  Stephie decides to go straight home. If she’s lucky Aunt Märta will be out, and even if she’s at home, Stephie ought to be able to sneak up the stairs and change her dress. She has another very similar one, and Aunt Märta probably won’t recall which one Stephie wore that morning. She’ll take the torn one in her knapsack to Auntie Alma’s tomorrow morning. Surely Auntie Alma will be able to show her how to mend the rip and remove the stain. Aunt Märta will never need to know.

  Stephie and Nellie part when they get to the yellow house. Continuing on, Stephie reaches the crest of the hill and looks to see if she can spot Aunt Märta’s bicycle. She’s in luck. The bike isn’t leaning against the house. She hurries down the slope and runs the rest of the way. She pulls open the door, then lets it slam behind her. She hears footsteps coming down, but she’s already halfway up the stairs. Too late to escape.

  Aunt Märta’s eyes are drawn like magnets to Stephie’s torn, stained skirt.

  “I’m sorry,” Stephie stammers.

  “Go straight to your room,” Aunt Märta instructs her. “Take off that dress and have a wash. You will stay in your room for the rest of the day.”

  Stephie does as she’s told. As usual, she folds her dress over the back of the chair and goes out to the washstand. She doesn’t dare to put a clean one on afterward, simply pulls on her nightgown over her undergarments, although it’s still broad daylight.

  Aunt Märta comes into the room, gathers up the dress, and goes out again without a word. The door bangs shut behind her.

  Stephie opens her bottom dresser drawer. Removing the china dog from its handkerchief, she stands it next to her photographs. Then she takes out her jewelry box and opens the lid. Soft music plays and a ballerina begins to turn on her pointed leg. The jewelry box was a present from her mother on Stephie’s tenth birthday. When the music stops, she shuts the lid and opens it again. The ballerina turns and dances once more.

  “Mamma,” she whispers to the picture. “Mamma, I want to come home.”

  She hears noise from the kitchen. After a while the smell of food wafts up, but Aunt Märta doesn’t call her. Then there’s more noise, followed by silence.

  Stephie hasn’t eaten anything but blackberries since breakfast. Even fish would taste good right now.

  Not until several hours later does Aunt Märta bring her up a glass of milk and some bread and butter. She puts the plate down by the window. As she is leaving, she turns around.

  “Vera Hedberg. What kind of company is that to keep?” Aunt Märta says. “Sloppy and trashy, just like her mother.”

  She closes the door behind her so fast Stephie doesn’t have time to ask what she means. What’s wrong with Vera and her mother?

  When Stephie sits down by the window to eat, she notices Aunt Märta’s bicycle leaning up against the woodshed. The chain has come off.

  On a Sunday evening toward the end of September, Aunt Märta tells Stephie to put her coat on. They’re going to a “revival meeting,” she explains. Stephie doesn’t have the slightest idea what that means, but she pulls on her coat obediently and goes along. They walk into the village and toward the rectangular wooden house called the Pentecostal Church.

  A big crowd is gathered outside. Some people have started to go in, others stand chatting in groups. Auntie Alma is there, too, with Nellie and the little ones.

  “What kind of place is this?” Nellie asks Stephie in a whisper.

  “I’m not sure,” Stephie whispers back. “Some kind of church, though.”

  Inside, there is one big room with rows of wooden benches. In some ways it resembles the churches in Vienna. But in Vienna churches are old stone buildings with stained glass windows, icons, and the scent of hundreds of lit candles. Stephie’s been in churches like that with Evi and her mother.

  Here, there is nothing but a great big, bare room with a raised lectern, like in a classroom. No candles cast their flickering light over mysterious aisles and stone columns. No images of saints gaze solemnly down. There’s only the glare from the electric light fixture on the ceiling. The wooden floor smells newly scrubbed.

  The benches are filling up. Stephie sits between Aunt Märta and Nellie. Auntie Alma has John on her lap on the other side of Nellie, and then comes Elsa.

  When everyone is seated, the revival meeting begins.

  A tall, thin man stands at the lectern speaking in a monotonous voice. He holds his big hands in front of him, gesturing emphatically to stress his point. Stephie doesn’t understand everything he’s saying, but it’s about God and Jesus and sinners who ought to repent.

  “Come home to Jesus,” the man says. “He will embrace you, whoever you may be.”

  Sometimes he uses expressions that make Stephie sit up with a jolt. He speaks of “flaming arrows aimed at our hearts” and “the blood of the lamb.” Unusual, poetic words.

  In the row behind them is a woman who can’t seem to stop mumbling to herself.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” she says over and over again. Stephie turns around to look at her, but instantly feels Aunt Märta’s elbow nudge her in the side. Aunt Märta sits ramrod straight, her hands clasped tightly in her lap and her mouth firmly shut.

  The bench is hard. On Stephie’s other side, Nellie is squirming.

  Suddenly a woman at the very front gets up and begins to speak. She rambles on, babbling the same words over and over again. Stephie strains to listen but understands not a single word. It doesn’t sound like Swedish, or like any other language Stephie has ever heard.

  Stephie and Nellie glance at each other. Stephie’s afraid she may burst out laughing, though she can tell from Aunt Märta’s stern p
rofile that she mustn’t.

  Now the thin man starts babbling, too. And he gesticulates as he speaks.

  During the High Holy Days every autumn Stephie and Nellie would go to the synagogue with their parents. At temple you didn’t have to sit still the whole time. People came and went, stood outside the sanctuary chatting, saying hello to friends and wishing one another a happy holiday. The children would run around in the yard when they needed a break, then go back in and sit with their parents again. Up in the balcony, where Stephie and Nellie sat with Mamma looking down at Papa and the other men, ladies who smelled of perfume would pass around bags of candy.

  On the tenth day, the Day of Atonement, however, everyone was solemn and silent. Last fall lots of people wept when the rabbi read the prayer for the dead. Only a few weeks later the synagogue was gone—burned down on a terrible night in November. The same night that—

  She isn’t going to think about it. With effort, Stephie focuses her attention on the present. The thin man is looking out over the congregation.

  “Jesus Christ,” he says. “Jesus Christ is the answer to all your questions.”

  All your questions! Could Jesus explain why she had to be sent to a foreign country? Could he tell her and Nellie when they will see Mamma and Papa again?

  Now the thin man steps aside. A group of young people come up to the lectern. Something about their red cheeks and bright eyes makes them look alike. They don’t seem to have a single question in the world.

  They begin to sing, their voices clear. A young woman, her braids pinned up on top of her head, accompanies the choir on a guitar. This is the first music Stephie has heard since her arrival. The songs flow through her, filling her, warming her. She closes her eyes and feels pleasure course through her body. The music is so lovely, she can’t stop herself from crying.

  Nellie touches her arm gently. Stephie seizes Nellie’s hand and holds it tight. Nellie begins to cry, too. They weep throughout the singing, until the final tones fade away. Aunt Märta gets up and urges the sisters ahead of her down the aisle.