A Blessed Child

by Linn Ullmann

  Last time he got out a pocket mirror. They were lying together on the camp bed; she had pulled the blanket up to her chin, suddenly not wanting him to see her breasts. He angled the mirror so both their faces were reflected in it and said:

  “You can see it, can’t you? We look like brother and sister.”

  Erika took the mirror from him and threw it under the bed. It didn’t break. She said she’d like a Coca-Cola. Or some chewing gum. Or something nice to eat.

  Ragnar sometimes says: Don’t leave me! And that just makes Erika want to get up and run away from the hut and never go back. She almost hates him then, hates him because she was missing him just before.

  Molly wants everybody to write something on the shoebox. She has written her name in big, sloping letters, like this: MOLLY. And now she wants the others to write other things.

  “Can’t I just write my name, too?” asks Laura when Molly gives her the shoebox.

  “No!” says Molly. “You have to write more.”

  “But you’ve only written your name,” says Laura.

  “Yes, but you have to write more,” declares Molly.

  Laura rolls her eyes. “But why? Why must I write more when it’s your funeral?”

  Rosa tugs Laura’s plait and tells her to buck up and do as Molly says. A cool wind is blowing across the water; they all lift their heads and shut their eyes, letting the wind stroke their faces. It lasts only a second or two. Molly stands up on tiptoe and stares straight at Laura. The wind rustles the black shift. She says: “You have to write more! Writing your name isn’t enough.”

  Laura takes the shoebox and writes swiftly:

  Thank you for the world so sweet

  Thank you for the food we eat

  Thank you for the bird you killed

  Let it spurt out blood and gore

  Rest in peace, AMEN

  Rosa looks over her daughter’s shoulder and says: “Oh, Laura, no!”

  Isak bends over the shoebox and reads. His earlobes flush red and he raises his hand to his fake beard as if he wants to tear it off.

  “You little brat,” he whispers to Laura. “Shall I cut off your fingers now or later?”

  Laura eyes her father defiantly.

  “But it’s true!”

  “What is?” he hisses.

  Laura shrugs.

  “About the bird.”

  “What does it say?” shouts Molly. “What did Laura write? What did Laura write?”

  “Nothing,” says Rosa tersely. “Laura hasn’t written anything.”

  “But she’s GOT TO!” shouts Molly. “She’s GOT TO write something.”

  Isak pulls himself together, raises a hand, and says:

  “Hush, the lot of you. Hush! Quiet! I must ask you all to be quiet now. It’s time for us to bury this bird.”

  “Finally,” mutters Erika.

  “Come on, Molly,” says Isak.

  He takes his youngest daughter’s hand in his.

  “HOY! HOY! HOY!” screams Molly.

  “Come on, Molly,” he repeats. “We must all be quiet now.”

  Without meeting Laura’s eye, Isak carefully takes the shoebox from her and passes it to Rosa.

  “Now you write something,” he says to his wife.

  “I’ll try,” says Rosa. “And then we’ll have a picnic. I’ve got lots of nice things in the basket.”

  Rosa writes: “Little bird, now you are flying to Baby Jesus in Heaven.”

  Rosa passes the box on to Erika.

  Erika writes: “Dear God, bless all the people and birds here on Earth, best wishes, Erika.”

  Erika passes the box to Isak.

  Isak writes: “We went not namelessly away / Our life was to give name.”

  When Erika catches sight of Ragnar, half hidden behind a tree, she doesn’t know how long he has been standing watching them. He is a fair way off, there in the clearing in the trees, where the woods stop being woods and start being beach instead. She doesn’t know how long, but she has sensed it, sensed that Ragnar is watching her. Every time she raises a hand or takes a step, it’s as if she is doing it for him.

  What do you think of the way I raise my hand? What do you think of the way I move along the beach? Am I beautiful in this white dress with this ribbon belt? Am I, Ragnar?

  She raises her hand, partly to wave to him, partly to shade her eyes from the sun. It’s that time of the afternoon when the light is at its whitest. Everything is white and glaring. You have to screw your eyes up really tight to see anything at all. Ragnar isn’t waving back. It’s not her he’s looking at. He’s looking at Isak. That’s hardly surprising, thinks Erika, because Isak does look very odd—at least if you’re seeing him from a distance, as Ragnar is. Isak is standing on a rock out in the water with his fake beard fluttering and his arms raised to the sky. He is speaking. It’s a kind of sermon.

  Erika turns back to Ragnar. He doesn’t notice her. She tries to wave, but Ragnar is looking only at Isak. He is standing quite, quite still behind the tree, staring at her father.

  Isak is the wicked king from the land of Dofeatovhok who has bewitched the island and everyone who lives there—the people, the sheep, the cows, the trees, the fish. He has an ear as big as the tall windows of the community center. He hears everything. Every sound. The slap of the flounder against the stony seabed. Fir cones opening. Your breathing as you run away through the woods. And everything he hears, he writes down in a book he hides in his house. In the grandfather clock? In the writing desk? Ragnar will defeat him, find the book, burn it, and free the king’s daughters. When Isak is dead, they will live in the secret hut in the woods and rule over land and sea themselves. But first, you must tell me everything about him: what he does in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, in the night when you all think he’s asleep. To kill him, I need to know him as a son would know him.

  Erika and Ragnar are almost fourteen now. There is something between them, something serious that must be kept secret. No one must know about it. No one.

  Isak stands on the rock out in the water and raises his arms to the sky and says: “Dear God, who reigns over Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and large parts of Hammarsö, take this little bird in Your hand and give it a place in Heaven.”

  He signals to the others to shift stones and dig a hole. Rosa grabs the spade Laura has put down on the ground and does as Isak says. Rosa is strong; it doesn’t take her long. Rosa can do things nobody else can or has the stamina for. Put the chains on the car tires. Make a soufflé. Dig a decently deep grave. Isak climbs down from the rock, wades through the water, and comes back up the beach. When the hole is deep enough, the shoebox is placed inside it. Everybody except Laura helps gather stones and fill in the hole again. Finally, Isak wedges the little wooden cross between the most attractive stones, which have been arranged on top.

  “Now we’ll all stand in a circle and Erika will sing,” he says.

  They form a circle. Erika, Isak, Rosa, Laura, and Molly. Erika opens the hymnbook. Just before she starts, she turns to see if Ragnar is still there, behind the tree.

  Isak takes her hand and squeezes it. He leans close to her.

  “He’s not there,” he whispers.

  Erika looks at her father.

  “He’s not there,” he says again.

  “Whisperers are liars,” mutters Laura.

  “Shhh,” says Isak.

  “SHHH,” shouts Molly. “Now Erika’s going to sing for the bird.”

  Erika lets go of Isak’s hand, takes a breath, and sings:

  Safely, safely gather’d in

  Far from sorrow, far from sin;

  No more childish griefs or fears

  No more sadness, no more tears;

  For the life so young and fair

  Now hath pass’d from earthly care:

  God Himself the soul will keep,

  Giving His beloved—sleep.

  Erika knows her voice won’t let her down. So she sings as loudly as she can. She wants Ra
gnar to hear her. He’s running through the woods now, through juniper and bramble thickets, along the path that isn’t a path but just a thin stripe in the earth, running and running and running until there is scarcely any air left in him. And her voice doesn’t let her down.

  Chapter 56

  Marion has a big bright pink beach bag and in it she keeps everything she needs to be Marion. Hairbrush, mirror, lip gloss, lipstick, Coca-Cola, tampons, True Life Stories, Smash Hits, contraceptive pills (Marion’s fifteen now, so she’s reached the age of consent, according to Swedish law), bikini briefs, T-shirt, towel, battery-driven tape player, battery-driven vibrator (or massager, as it’s also called) that buzzes noisily when you hold it in your hand, and then her Blondie cassette, which she’s played to bits. It’s the only one she wants to listen to, and though Erika has cassettes of the Jam and the Boomtown Rats, Marion refuses to play any tapes but her own. Of all Marion’s friends, Erika is the most awkward and the one most often punished. She feels unsure of herself among girls. They make her feel little: she isn’t one of them; she doesn’t toss her hair like they do, doesn’t wiggle her hips like they do when they walk. But she has one advantage over Frida and Emily, and that is being the only one who can salvage the Blondie cassette when it gets all tangled up in the tape player, as it often does. Especially when they’re lying on the rock, sunbathing. Suddenly it groans and goes quiet and then Erika has to coax out the long, light brown tape that has wound around itself and wind it carefully back into the cassette with the tip of her little finger. This requires technique, plus experience and patience. Marion has none of those things. Every time the music stops playing, she picks up the tape player and shakes it. When that doesn’t help, she sighs and gives it to Erika.

  “You’ll have to fix that,” she says, and dives into the water.

  Marion wants to listen to “Sunday Girl” all the time, never anything but “Sunday Girl.” No one’s allowed to borrow Marion’s tape player. No one would ask to, anyway. You don’t ask Marion if you can borrow her things. Marion borrows things all the time, from Frida and Emily and sometimes from another girl she knows called Eva. But that’s different. From Erika, Marion has borrowed a scarf to tie around her waist, a hair clip, and a new white blouse that Erika said her mother bought her before she came to Hammarsö.

  This is your birthday present, but you’re getting it in advance, which means you WON’T be getting a parcel from me in the post, Elisabet had said as she wrapped the blouse in red tissue paper.

  Erika senses it’s an honor to be allowed to lend her things to Marion. It makes her the chosen one, the one with priority over the other girls. That’s how it is with the scarf. That’s how it is with the hair clip. Marion leans close to Erika, rests her head on her shoulder, and says: “You and me, Erika! We’re the best, closest, greatest friends in the world!”

  Marion’s skin is warm. She smells of apple. She has long slim arms you can fold yourself into.

  Erika unties the scarf from her waist, loosens the clip from her hair, and gives them both to Marion.

  “You’re an angel, Erika. Thanks so, so much!”

  Marion says she wants to borrow Erika’s white blouse to wear for the singing audition with Palle Quist. Erika had really intended to wear it herself. It accentuates her breasts nicely, and she wants Palle Quist to see that, but when Marion is going through Erika’s wardrobe and spots the blouse on its hanger, she exclaims: I want to try this on!

  It’s raining, they can’t sunbathe on the rock, and Marion has decided that with Frida and Emily’s assistance she will spend the day in Erika’s room, throwing out everything no longer worth keeping: clothes, magazines, books, pictures, toys. Erika perches on the edge of the bed and says nothing. That’s the rule. She’s not allowed to protest or to express any opinion about what is being taken out or jettisoned.

  “We’re doing it for your own good,” says Marion, raking through everything that was hidden in the old toy box under the bed. A teddy bear, a doll, two issues of Look and Learn, four Nancy Drew books, and a photograph album with pictures of Isak, Rosa, Erika, Laura, Molly, and Ragnar in it.

  “You’ve got to learn to sort out your stuff and get rid of everything you don’t need,” Marion says.

  Before Marion throws out the album she leafs quickly through it and looks at the photos. She sits on the floor with Frida and Emily. There are not many photos.

  One of them shows Isak with a hose in his hand, spraying water. He is making a monster face and clearly trying to scare his daughters, who are running around on the grass among the fruit trees, looking as if they are squealing with delight. Another picture shows Erika and Laura in the long grass in front of Isak’s house. It’s from the time when they still played together every day. Now Erika is too big to play with Laura. A third picture shows Erika with her father. They are sitting on the stone wall, legs dangling, skinny Erika and enormous Isak. They both have brown top hats on their heads. Their arms are folded and they are beaming at the camera, making roguish faces.

  “God, you look really stupid in this picture,” says Marion.

  Frida and Emily giggle.

  Erika giggles, too.

  “Yeah, my dad’s kind of stupid,” says Erika, thinking that he definitely isn’t but it’s absolutely vital to say he is.

  Erika wants to tell them that when she was younger, she and her father used to play a game in which she was Oliver and Isak was Fagin. But Marion has no doubt not read Oliver Twist or seen the film, and you can bet she’ll say Pathetic! or Mental! or Stupid! whatever Erika says.

  There’s a picture of a much younger, even spindlier Ragnar in his Niagara Falls T-shirt.

  “That’s pathetic,” says Marion, pushing the album away.

  “Psycho boy!” says Frida.

  Emily rolls her eyes and turns expectantly to Marion.

  “This album clearly has got to go,” says Marion.

  She picks it up from the floor, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it is a dead mouse, and thrusts it down into the garbage bag.

  This, too, is a kind of honor. It confers honor, the fact that Marion wants to spend a whole day in Erika’s room clearing out her stuff, but when Marion goes through the closet and insists on throwing out the red anorak with the SAVE THE RIVER badge, Erika says no. Saying no to Marion might as well be saying yes to punishment, but Erika doesn’t want to throw out the anorak.

  “I don’t want to throw that one out,” Erika says.

  “Why not?” asks Marion, looking at her with eyebrows raised.

  “I wear it a lot.”

  “I know. And I don’t think you should,” says Marion.

  “We’re doing this for your own good,” says Frida.

  Marion holds the anorak up in front of her. Seeing it like that, through Marion’s eyes, Erika thinks it looks worn-out and frumpy.

  “It’s just really ugly,” says Marion.

  “But I don’t want to throw it away,” objects Erika.

  “Okay, whatever you say,” says Marion.

  She lets the anorak fall to the floor and goes quickly and carelessly through the rest of the clothes in the wardrobe. She’s lost interest by now; Erika’s things are no longer of any concern. She’s got to go home for dinner soon, she says. So do Frida and Emily.

  Erika feels embarrassed. To save the pathetic SAVE THE RIVER anorak from the garbage bag, she has provoked Marion’s wrath and by extension Frida’s and Emily’s.

  And then: “I want to try this one on!”

  Marion has found the hanger with the white blouse. She wrenches off her own T-shirt and stands in front of the other girls half naked. Frida whistles quietly. Marion jokingly spreads her arms wide and bows as if receiving applause for her striptease. Then she turns to the long mirror. Her back is slender and brown; her shoulders are broad. Her long black hair is fixed up in a loose knot at the back of her neck.

  “You’re gorgeous,” whispers Erika.

  It slips out. She looks quickly a
t the others to make sure they haven’t heard her.

  Everyone is looking at Marion’s reflection in the mirror.

  Marion laughs and puts on the blouse. She leaves the top few buttons undone.

  “Can I borrow this for a few days?”

  Erika nods.

  Marion turns away from the mirror and gives Erika a brief hug.

  “We’ve got to go now,” she says, and nods in Frida and Emily’s direction.

  The half-full garbage bag is left lying on the floor. Later, Erika wonders whether to throw it out or retrieve all her things and put them back in their places. She decides to throw everything away except the photo album. It’s nothing but a load of old junk, after all.

  The next day, the sun is shining again and Marion, Frida, Emily, and Eva are lying on the rock, sunbathing and listening to “Sunday Girl.” Erika is standing on the beach a little way off, looking at them and waiting for a sign.

  This is the rule: if the sun is shining and Marion doesn’t ring in the morning and say Come with us to the rock or something like that, Erika takes her things down to the stony beach. Usually Marion waves to her and calls Come sit with us out here, and then Erika wades out to the others with her towel, suntan lotion, magazines, and Coca-Cola. But this time, Marion doesn’t wave. It’s happened before. Erika stands on the beach looking at the girls on the rock, and Marion pretends not to see her. She’s still furious with Erika for what happened with the anorak. Or it might be for something else. Erika isn’t sure. Erika only knows she’s done something stupid. With her beach things under her arm, she turns around and goes back home. Maybe it was the photo of Ragnar in the album. Erika doesn’t think so. It’s such an old photo. She can’t be punished for old pictures. Everybody has old pictures. She thinks about what she and Ragnar do together on his bed in the secret hut. Those aren’t old pictures. They are now. Psycho boy! Erika looks back at the rock one last time before she walks onto the path that leads away from the beach and straight to Isak’s house. She knows they won’t wave to her. Marion stands up, a towel around her torso, and stretches her arms toward the sun; Frida, Emily, and Eva sit bending over something. A magazine, perhaps. From a distance, they look like long shadows.