A Faraway Island

by Annika Thor

  Britta misses a step now. She walks over to Stephie’s end and takes the rope from her hand.

  “Your turn,” she says.

  “Stop showing off,” Sylvia says to Stephie. “Don’t think you can butter Miss Bergström up, either. Little Princess from Vienna. Who asked you to come here, anyway?”

  Stephie pretends she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t care what Sylvia thinks.

  She runs in under the turning jump rope, counting silently to herself. One … and … two … and … one … and … two … and—

  There’s a sudden tug and the rope is pulled tight. Stephie falls down, scraping the palms of her hands on the hard gravel. Sylvia smiles mockingly as she drops the rope and walks off with her entourage.

  When November arrives, the island is even grayer than it was over the summer. Only the juniper bushes are still green. It’s dark when Stephie leaves for school in the morning, and it’s dark by the time she returns in the afternoon. She has a long walk. The wind blowing in off the ocean bites right through her coat; her knees go blue with the cold.

  Still, she’s pleased to be going to school. How would she have made the days pass otherwise? The afternoons and evenings with Aunt Märta are long enough. They never just sit chatting as Stephie and Mamma would.

  The minute Stephie walked in after school, she and her mother used to sit down, Mamma with a cup of coffee and Stephie with hot chocolate. Stephie would tell her mother what she had done that day, and what she had seen on her way home. Mamma might tell her a story about her own childhood or about when she performed at the opera. They would talk about the books they were reading, or about the trips they planned to go on together when Stephie was older.

  Writing to someone is not the same as talking face to face. A conversation is so much more than words: a conversation is eyes, smiles, the silences between the words. When Stephie writes to her mother, her hand can’t keep up with her mind, so it’s difficult to get everything on paper; all the thoughts and feelings run through her head. And once the letter has been mailed, it can take several weeks before she gets an answer.

  Aunt Märta never asks Stephie any questions or tells her any stories. She makes sure that Stephie does her homework, cleans her room, and helps with the housework. Nothing more.

  In the evenings Aunt Märta sits in the front room and knits. At seven she turns on the radio to hear the news and the evening prayers. But the minute music comes on, she turns it off. “Secular” music is sinful, Aunt Märta tells Stephie, and secular music includes everything but hymns and spiritual songs like the ones the choir sings at the Pentecostal Church. Jazz, popular music, and classical music, it’s all the same to Aunt Märta—the devil’s playground.

  Sometimes when Aunt Märta is out, Stephie turns on the radio. Except for those times, the white frame house is silent.

  Things are different when Uncle Evert is home. He talks to Stephie, tells stories about things that happened on board the fishing boat, asks her about school, praises her progress with Swedish, and makes a joke of her mistakes.

  “I’ll take you out on the Diana next summer,” he tells her. “I’ll teach you to row the dinghy, too.”

  Summer is a long way off. Stephie won’t be here then, though she doesn’t tell Uncle Evert that. She’s already been in Sweden three months. “Six months at the very most,” her father promised.

  But the letters from home no longer contain updates about entry visas, Amsterdam, or America. Her father writes that he and Mamma have moved to an even smaller room, and that Mamma now has a job keeping house for an older lady. Mamma, a housekeeper! Stephie can’t imagine her mother wearing an apron and working in someone else’s kitchen.

  Mamma doesn’t write anything about her work. Her letters are full of questions about Aunt Märta and Uncle Evert, about school, about whether Stephie is making friends on the island. Stephie answers that everyone is kind to her, that she has lots of friends and is doing well at school. The last part, at least, is true. She often even learns the verses of the hymns by heart, though she only just barely understands what they’re about.

  In every letter, Mamma asks Stephie to remind Nellie to write home.

  You’re the big sister, and I depend on you to help your little sister, Mamma writes. Be sure she writes to us regularly, and try to help her keep up her German. Her spelling has become so much worse. Of course, I’m pleased that you’re learning Swedish, but German is your mother tongue and one day you will be back.

  “Tomorrow,” Nellie promises when Stephie tells her to write home. “I’ll do it tomorrow. Today I’m going to play with Sonja after school.” Sonja is a friend from class.

  But when the next day comes around, Nellie has plans to go to one of her classmates’, or she’s invited one of them back to Auntie Alma’s. Nellie is popular. Every morning when she gets to school a flock of girls is waiting for her, competing to be her chosen playmate. Nellie laughs and jokes as if she’s known Swedish her whole life.

  No one waits in the schoolyard for Stephie. Vera sticks with Sylvia’s gang, and Stephie’s not welcome among them. She has to seek out Britta and her friends if she wants someone to play with. Although they let her join in when she asks, she always feels like an intruder. They talk so easily about people and things she knows nothing about. No one ever invites her home after school. Once, she tries to ask Britta back with her.

  “It’s too far,” Britta answers. “I don’t think my mother would let me. Not at this time of year when it’s so dark.”

  The worst thing of all is Sylvia’s constant teasing. Stephie’s German accent, her clothes, her appearance—everything that makes her different from the others—is the object of Sylvia’s ridicule, and she nosedives straight at her target like a seagull swooping down to pick up a juicy morsel.

  “Horsehair,” Sylvia says, pulling on one of Stephie’s braids. “Look, her mane is braided! Why don’t you wear feathers in it as well, like a circus horse?”

  “Hee-hee-hee,” Sylvia’s crowd giggles. All but Vera, who just looks away and pretends not to hear.

  Svante likes Stephie’s braids. Sometimes he strokes one furtively as he walks by her in the classroom. When he touches her, Stephie pulls back from his big hands, hands that are never completely clean.

  Vera teases Svante, imitating his clumsy movements and the way he slurs his words. Vera is very good at imitation. She notices little details, gestures and expressions, and captures them perfectly.

  Once, when Miss Bergström is out of the room, Vera imitates her. When the teacher returns with a map, the class is laughing loudly. They have to pinch one another to stop before there’s trouble. Another time Vera waves her hands and rolls her r’s like the preacher at the Pentecostal Church, though it upsets Britta and the other children who go to Sunday school there.

  Of course Svante’s interest in Stephie hasn’t passed Sylvia by unnoticed.

  “The Princess from Vienna has an admirer,” she says with a sneer. “The Princess and the village idiot, just like in the fairy tales. Except Svante’s not likely to turn into a prince!”

  One day Svante pulls a package out of his schoolbag and hands it to Stephie. This happens during lunch break, when everyone is eating sandwiches and drinking milk in the classroom. At first Stephie thinks Svante’s offering her one of his sandwiches, which are wrapped in greasy brown paper.

  “No, thank you,” she declines politely. “I’ve got my own.”

  Svante laughs loudly. “It isn’t a sandwich,” he says. “It’s a present. For you.”

  “Come on, open it,” urges Britta, who sits next to her.

  “Yes, open it,” says Sylvia, leaning forward to get a better view. “We want to see what your admirer bought you.”

  “I’ll open it at home,” Stephie says, hurriedly pressing the package into her knapsack.

  Svante gets angry. “Open it now!” he tells her. “I want to be there when you do.”

  Stephie can’t avoid it, so she unwraps the gre
asy brown paper. The package contains a roughly hewn handmade frame.

  “Turn it over,” Svante orders her impatiently.

  Stephie turns the frame to the front. There’s a picture in the frame, a familiar face that glares at her. A face she’s seen thousands of times, in newspapers, on posters, in shop windows back home in Vienna. Black hair brushed down over the forehead, a black moustache, sinister eyes. It’s a blurry picture in black and white, probably from a magazine. A framed picture of Hitler.

  “I made it myself,” Svante tells her. “Do you like it?”

  Stephie stares at the picture, trying to make sense of it.

  She remembers seeing Hitler once in real life. It was last March, when the German army made a triumphal procession through the streets of Vienna. Hitler was there, chauffeured in a black Mercedes.

  Stephie and Evi snuck out to watch the parade, against the instructions of their mothers. At first it seemed exciting—like a special occasion.

  “Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!”

  People pushed and shoved to be able to see better. Lots of them raised their arms in the Nazi salute.

  A fat woman shoved the girls aside. A uniformed man stared nastily at them. Stephie and Evi tried to push back through the crowd to get away, but they couldn’t. In the end they pressed up against the wall of a building, making themselves as invisible as they could, until the parade passed and the crowd began to disperse.

  “Let me see,” says Sylvia from the row behind. “What is it?”

  She puts out a hand to take the picture from Stephie, who holds on to it, tight. In the tussle, Stephie knocks over her bottle of milk; the milk spills out over the picture and drips onto the floor.

  “Don’t you like it?” Svante asks in disappointment. “I thought you’d be pleased. You do come from Germany, don’t you?”

  He leans forward onto Stephie’s desk, pressing his huge hands on the surface and bringing his pimply face right up to hers.

  “Let me be,” Stephie cries. “Leave me alone, you idiot!”

  Miss Bergström appears in the doorway. “What on earth is going on here?” she asks.

  “It’s Stephie,” Sylvia tells her. “Svante tried to give her a present, but she wouldn’t accept it. She called him a stupid idiot.”

  “Stephanie,” Miss Bergström says sharply. “That is not how we address one another at our school. Perhaps you do, where you come from. But we don’t, here in Sweden.”

  Stephie rushes out of the classroom, down the stairs, and out into the schoolyard. She throws the picture to the ground, crushes it under her heel until that awful face is gone, and stamps on the frame until it breaks. Then she opens the door to the outhouse and tosses the whole thing into one of the holes, straight down into the smelly muck.

  “But you must understand that Svante didn’t mean any harm,” Britta says on their way home that day. “He can’t help being stupid. Just imagine what it must be like to be repeating sixth grade for the second time and still not know your multiplication tables! He doesn’t know anything about Hitler, either. I’m sure he honestly thought you’d be happy to get something that reminded you of home.”

  Stephie stops abruptly. “You’re the one who doesn’t see!” she screams at Britta. “You’re just as stupid as Svante. You know nothing about it. Absolutely nothing at all!”

  Britta looks offended. “But I do,” she begins. “I know Hitler is evil. My father says so, but—”

  “Your father doesn’t know anything,” Stephie interrupts. “My father’s been in a labor camp, but you probably don’t even know what that is.”

  She’s not being fair, she knows that. So she doesn’t wait for Britta to answer, just takes off, running along the side of the road at full speed.

  “Wait!” Britta shouts after her. “Stephie, wait!”

  She begins to run, too, catching up with Stephie just before she reaches the crossing where they go in separate directions.

  “See you tomorrow,” she says, “at Sunday school?”

  “No.”

  “Jesus will be angry if you don’t come,” says Britta accusingly.

  Stephie looks Britta right in the eye. “Jesus doesn’t exist,” Stephie says, putting all her father’s authority into her voice. “He couldn’t care less about me, or about you, or about anyone else, for that matter.”

  Britta blinks. Her bright eyes grow large, and tears well up in them. She takes a couple of steps back.

  “Of course He exists,” she cries. “Jesus lives and He loves me. But He doesn’t care about you, because you’re a vicious person. You’re—you’re not a real Christian!”

  The minute Britta is out of sight over the top of the hill, Stephie wishes she’d behaved differently. Not because Britta’s friendship is important to her. She’s actually tired of Britta’s endless know-it-all talk about Jesus. And she’s tired of jumping rope, too.

  But if she doesn’t have Britta for a friend, then she’s all alone. Alone at recess, alone walking back from school. And what if Britta tells her mother what Stephie said, and she tells Aunt Märta? Then Aunt Märta will realize Stephie hasn’t really been redeemed. That she’s only pretending to believe that Jesus is the son of God, which is kind of like lying. Maybe even worse.

  Should she turn around and run after Britta? Tell her she didn’t mean what she said and apologize? No, it’s too late. Britta’s house is just over the rise. Surely she’s already home, sitting with her mother in the kitchen, telling her all about her school day. Telling her about Stephie, Svante, and the picture of Hitler. About their quarrel on the way home. About what Stephie said about Jesus. Britta’s mother may already have lifted the receiver and asked the operator to connect her with Aunt Märta.

  It begins to rain. Stephie passes Auntie Alma’s house. She imagines the kitchen, warm and cozy. Nellie and the little ones are surely sitting around the table, eating sweet rolls hot out of the oven. In every single one of the houses she passes there are people, families of people talking to each other, caring about each other. She’s the only one who’s completely alone.

  When the village houses are behind her, Stephie is unprotected from the wind. Gusts press the rain down on her, hard. She pushes into the wind, hands over her face to keep the drops off. When she gets to the thicket, it’s not quite so bad, but then comes the long, open downhill path, and the wind takes her breath away.

  She ought to run the last stretch toward home, hurry inside and take off her wet clothes, rub herself dry on one of Aunt Märta’s rough linen towels until her skin stings. On cold, rainy days like today Aunt Märta usually has hot milk for her when she comes in from school.

  Stephie passes the house right by and goes down to the shore. The stones are wet and slippery. There are big heaps of rotting seaweed. Balancing awkwardly, she makes her way toward the thin strip of sand by the water’s edge. A wave comes at her before she can pull back. Her stockings are soaked all the way up to the knee. Her shoes are full of water.

  It’s not good to have wet, cold feet. You can get pneumonia and die.

  If she died, would anyone on the island except Nellie be sorry? she wonders. Who would write the news to her mother and father? Would Uncle Evert bury her here on the beach, like the sailor in a song Auntie Alma sometimes sings? When the sailor didn’t come home as he’d promised, the girl he loved went down to the beach and drowned herself in the waves. The sailor had an anchor inscribed on her grave marker, instead of a crucifix.

  The song is called “The Grave on the Beach.” It isn’t really a spiritual, but it is a very pretty, very sad song.

  The water is black and icy cold today. It was probably summer when that girl drowned.

  Stephie goes to the boathouse door and tugs at it. It isn’t locked.

  Inside are the scents of fish and pitch. Unfamiliar barrels and boxes line the walls.

  Black fishnets are suspended on poles up near the ceiling. There’s a broken oar, an old three-legged stool, and other objects Stephie can’t q
uite distinguish in the dark. She finds a folded tarp, sits down on it, and unties her wet shoes. Then she pulls a corner of the tarp over herself and lies down….

  Someone is shaking her by the shoulder.

  “Stephie,” Uncle Evert’s voice commands. “Come to, girl.”

  Stephie opens her eyes. Uncle Evert is leaning over her, slapping her cheeks gently. When he sees her eyes open, he stops.

  “What in the world are you doing in here?” he asks. She can’t tell if his tone is angry or concerned.

  “I fell asleep,” she answers foolishly. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

  “Wet as a drowned cat,” Uncle Evert comments as he lifts the tarp off her. “Why on earth did you come to the boathouse?”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeats, though she’s not really sure what she has to be sorry for.

  Uncle Evert lifts her up and carries her all the way to the house, over the slippery stones and up the path.

  “I can walk,” Stephie tells him. “I’m not sick.”

  But she’s glad Uncle Evert doesn’t put her down. It feels safe just to be lying in his arms. When she was very little, before Nellie was born, her papa used to carry her in his arms when she was falling asleep. Gently she leans her head on Uncle Evert’s shoulder.

  “What in the world?” Aunt Märta asks, too, when Uncle Evert comes into the kitchen with Stephie and lays her on the wooden kitchen bench. “Where did you find her?”

  “Lying in the boathouse,” Uncle Evert tells her. “Did something happen?”

  “Not that I know of,” Aunt Märta replies. “Where are your shoes, Stephie?”

  “I forgot them down there,” she whispers. “I took them off. They were so wet.”

  “But what did you go to the boathouse for?” Uncle Evert asks. “Was somebody mean to you?”

  “Yes,” Stephie whispers. “Well, no, not exactly mean …”

  That’s all she can get out in Swedish.

  “What a strange child,” she hears Aunt Märta say while she is helping her out of her coat and sweater. Stephie’s so cold she’s shivering and her teeth are chattering.