A Blessed Child

by Linn Ullmann

  Not many tourists came to Hammarsö in winter, and those who did would never have called themselves tourists. They would never have set foot on the island in summer, either. Because then, the island was not itself. In summer, Hammarsö bloomed and grew beautiful, charming, alluring, but it was all dissimulation. Look at me, how beautiful I am in this pale evening light, how beautifully I dance with red poppies in my hair. No, those who came in winter loved the island for its gray-striped, stony landscape; its inconsolable cold wind; its long nights; its deserted road, plunged into darkness; and its empty beaches. In winter, the sky and the landscape were one, either white, gray, or black. Unchangeable. Immovable. And only if you dared take off your hat and bare your ears to the cold would you hear all the sounds of the island. The sea was always there. You could not avoid hearing the sea. But there was the sound of the forest, too, of the wind in the treetops and of heavy winter shoes on packed snow, of someone breathing in and out so his frosted breath streamed from his mouth. It was the sound of someone who knew the way and lithely negotiated bushes and thickets, went in among fir trees weighed down with snow. And there, at the end of the path that was not a path or even a line on the ground, since everything was covered in snow, lay an open white meadow. Here he stopped, the one who came to the island in winter and picked his way among bushes and thickets in the forest—he stopped and stretched. He had had to walk bent double and even crawl to get here, and just as he extended his arms to the sky, the sun broke through the cloud cover, making the snow sparkle and glisten and burn—the snow on the ground, in the trees, on his wet face, and in his wet hair.

  And the sudden, sharp white sunlight forced him to screw up his eyes to avoid being blinded, but when he opened them again he saw at once that it was still there. The lopsided hut with snow on the roof was still standing. And outside the hut, in the deep snow, a supermarket cart full of stones.

  Chapter 77

  When she rang Isak sometime in the spring, Simona said straight out that if he were really considering living here again, he would have to have the house thoroughly renovated. Or else he would have to sell it. Things simply couldn’t go on as they were.

  No, they couldn’t, said Isak, and he told her he had become a grandfather. Erika had had a daughter. Well, yes, it was tremendous news, of course. He was in Lund and she and her baby and husband were in Oslo, so he hadn’t seen the little girl yet. But he had gone to the effort of arranging for the best specialist in Oslo, an old friend and colleague, to be on hand during the delivery. But Erika hadn’t wanted a doctor there, of course. Father, I want to make my own decisions about the delivery, she had told him. I’ll be just fine with a midwife popping in, without the slightest interference from your colleagues. Erika had almost finished her own medical training, so…Had he mentioned that to Simona? That Erika had decided to be a doctor, like him? And that the little girl was already three months old?

  “Have you sent her a little romper, then?” asked Simona.

  “Oh yes. Of course. Rosa sees to all that,” replied Isak.

  Simona stood in the kitchen in the white limestone house with the telephone receiver in her right hand and looked out over the sea; the rain ran down the windowpane.

  She had stopped listening.

  “But it is a reminder,” said Isak suddenly.

  “Ah, yes,” said Simona.

  “I mean…of time passing,” said Isak.

  “Yes,” said Simona.

  When they spoke to each other in January, she repeated what she had now said many times: either the house must be fixed up or he must sell it. If it were up to her, she would be happy for everything to carry on as before, with her coming over a couple of times a month and having a cup of coffee, smoking a cigarette, lying on the bed and closing her eyes, and sort of vanishing from the face of the Earth, but her conscience would not allow her to mislead the old man about the true state of affairs. Isak said he would think about it. There was so much going on at the moment. Laura had completed her final year at school with mediocre marks and wanted to travel around the world with some boy called John, and Rosa seemed tired. He could not be away from her so much in the future; he had been away far too much, he said. Rosa was really not very well. She was complaining of pains in various places and didn’t get much sleep at night.

  Simona sometimes wondered why Isak never mentioned his youngest daughter when they spoke on the phone. He spoke occasionally of Erika and occasionally of Laura, but never said anything about the little one. Of course, she would never ask him—it was none of her business—but she remembered the girl running about in a blue frock and dancing around the grown-ups’ legs, shouting something—hoppity, hoppity, hoppity. Something like that. She had heard that the girl had lost her mother many years before and lived with her grandmother. Didn’t know where she had heard it. Not from Isak, at any rate. Simona dragged the quilt after her to the smallest bedroom, the one with blue-painted walls, the yellowing calendar with pictures of kittens, and the tatty patchwork quilt on the bed. This was the smallest girl’s room. She sat down on the bed but stood straight up again as a cloud of dust whirled up and made her sneeze.

  She flopped down into the white basketwork chair by the window and wound the quilt around her. She had forgotten to pay the electric bill and now they had cut off the power supply. It didn’t matter. The pipes had burst several years ago, the water was turned off, everything that could happen had already happened, and nobody lived here anymore. Why pay for electricity, for heat and water and light that nobody used? She liked the cold, herself. It had sunk into the walls, the floors, the beds, the cupboards, and even the coffee cup she filled with scalding coffee from the thermos as soon as she stepped through the kitchen door. The cold was what it was; it suited this house, and as long as she had a quilt and thermos with her, everything was all right.

  “No, it’s not about the house this time!”

  Simona rang Isak in the middle of the peak season and told him Palle Quist was dead. One morning he simply didn’t get up. His wife called and called for him to come for breakfast, and when he didn’t reply, she went into their bedroom and found him lying on the floor. It happens like that sometimes, said Simona. His children were grown up now, after all, and his wife was smiling—but everyone grieves in their own way, of course. The funeral had been in Hammarsö Church. Simona was in no doubt that that was what Palle Quist himself would have wanted. He loved this island. There was a splendid obituary of him in the local paper, she said, headed “Death of an Optimist.”

  She could send it to Isak in Lund, if he cared to read it.

  Chapter 78

  In Oslo, an old lady and a young woman sat in large chintz armchairs, watching television. The young woman had small hands. Strips of green light flashed across the screen, and a correspondent was shouting BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, straight into the camera; he seemed unable to think of any more descriptive word than that for the rocket explosions over Baghdad. The flat was small and dark, but clean, neat, and smart. The old lady was crying, but not because of the war. Well, maybe because of that, too, but mainly because King Olav V was dead and everyone was so sad, whether they supported the monarchy or not, and because this winter, with its constant threats of war, was harder and colder than all other winters, and because nine years previously she had lost her only daughter. Her grief was constant, like the air she breathed, like the cold water she drank every morning.

  “No,” said the old lady, making a dismissive gesture with her hand. She just could not face the thought of all this!

  “All what?” asked Molly, looking at her.

  Her grandmother had been over forty when she had her daughter, and over seventy when she lost her. They didn’t talk about it very much, she and her granddaughter.

  Sometimes Molly’s grandmother would find something in a drawer or a box, a ribbon or a keepsake book, and say: Look, this was Ruth’s when she was little. Then Molly would smile and nod, but never say a word about how much she felt the loss of h
er mother, because those feelings belonged to her alone, and if she spoke of even one tiny memory, told the story, put it into words, it would be diminished by her grandmother’s perpetual crying. The memories were not that extensive; they were as small and hard as marbles. Molly was not yet eight when Ruth’s car swerved onto the incoming lane. She could remember the scent of her mother’s body at night, and a voice singing, Give me a twirl, Molly, give me a twirl so I can see how big you’ve grown. She remembered her mother’s hair.

  Her grandmother shook her head and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. She said: “King Olav couldn’t face the thought of this war…of this new age…not any of it! That’s why he died now.”

  “I think he died because he was old and sick,” said Molly.

  She got up to fetch a blanket from the sofa and arranged it over her grandmother’s legs. She decided she would skip the first lesson at school the next day and buy a big bouquet of flowers. Roses, or tulips perhaps? No, roses! Red roses!

  Molly was planning to give a dinner party. First she had rung her sisters to ask if they wanted to come as well, but neither of them was able to. They made excuses. Erika had said it might be better if she and Laura didn’t come. Maybe it was time for Molly and Isak (who was passing through Oslo) to talk, just the two of them, undisturbed for once. Yes, why not? Molly had said. I can ask him why I live with the old lady and not in Sweden with him. Erika had said she didn’t think that would be wise.

  Molly was going to skip the whole day of school and use the time to go shopping, cook the dinner, and make the flat look nice. Neither she nor her grandmother was used to visitors. Molly preferred to go to her friends’ houses. Her grandmother’s flat wasn’t the sort of place you took your friends. Before too long, when she was eighteen and had left school, she would get a job and move out. If she decided to continue her studies, she’d do that later. But tomorrow, she was going to shine. Isak would see how pretty she’d grown. She would take his coat and hang it in the hall cupboard, and then place him beside her grandmother on the sofa and offer him a glass of white wine. A little aperitif ? she would say, and then they would both laugh and the atmosphere would be lighter. She must remember to remind her grandmother not to start crying. Isak wasn’t coming to dinner to hear about Ruth. Perhaps she could give her grandmother a sleeping pill and put her to bed? Molly looked across at her. They were still sitting in their armchairs, watching the war report. Molly stroked her grandmother’s rough cheek. The old woman smiled and patted her hand.

  Molly took a breath. Here’s the plan, Isak! I’ll decorate the place with flowers. Roses, no less. I’ll serve you white wine that I will buy at the wineshop even though I’m not eighteen yet. I will lay the table with fine white china and crystal glasses and silver flatware and linen napkins, because Grandmother has all those things in her cupboards, and I shall cook for you: you’re going to have tomato soup with basil to start, and fillet of beef for your main course, with red wine in your glass, and crème caramel for dessert. I will serve you all that and I won’t ask a single question about you or me or my siblings, about why I don’t live with you, why you don’t want me to, and…and…Molly often made speeches to Isak in her head, but she never reached the end of them because it might be true that he didn’t love her, after all. He gave her a few exhausted hours a year on the condition she kept to the rules: no demands; no emotional blackmail; spare me the histrionics—maybe the rage, the silent fury, would strike her one day, as it had others. She remembered him lifting her high, high in the air and saying she wasn’t to bathe in the sea because it could be dangerous.

  Molly tugged a hand through her hair. It was long and dark and thick. She looked across to her grandmother, who was falling asleep. The old lady often fell asleep in front of the television. Sometimes Molly would wake her and say: Time to get off to bed, Grandma! Then her grandmother would open her eyes, remember how everything was, and gasp No, no, no, or something like that. Sometimes Molly didn’t wake her completely, but just enough for her to be able to get up from her chair with her granddaughter’s support, move across the living room and into the bedroom to slump onto the bed. All with her eyes shut. As if there were an agreement between them that she need not wake up again that evening. When her grandmother was finally lying on the bed, Molly would undress her: first her dress, then her slip and tights, and finally her underpants. On rare occasions she would cast a glance at the old, pale body with its calluses and irregularities and wrinkles and varicose veins. But normally she did not stop until she had pulled a clean nightdress over her grandmother’s head and down over her body, pulled the covers up, switched off the bedside light, and whispered good night in her ear. That was what she would do tonight. It was time for Grandma to sleep now, straight through the night. And in the morning they would trim the roses with Grandma’s flower knife and fry the fillet of beef together, because Grandma knew exactly how to handle a nice piece of meat. The secret, she would say, is to let the meat rest for the same length of time as it had been frying in the pan. And although it would be Grandma who actually fried the meat, they would agree to tell Isak that Molly had done everything.

  Molly raised her hand to stroke the old lady’s cheek again, but just then there was an explosion on the television screen. Her grandmother gave a moan and Molly pulled back her hand. Don’t wake up now. Don’t wake up now. You can sleep all night. Molly stood up from her chair and stretched her arms above her head. Tomorrow she would skip her first class. She glanced at the screen. It wasn’t the war in Iraq anymore, but close-ups of parents and children, of grieving people; of flowers and pieces of paper with poems and drawings on them; of thousands of lighted candles in the Palace Gardens. She turned off the television and went over to the window. It had started to snow. She opened the window, stuck her head out, and opened her mouth. Snow fell on her lips and tongue, cold and wet, and it made her smile. Snow fell on her cheeks and eyelids. When she stretched out her arms, snow fell on the palms of her hands as well. Yes, she thought. Yes! That was exactly how it would all happen. She would skip first class. Perhaps the whole day. And first thing when the shops opened the next morning, a large bouquet of red roses.

  Chapter 79

  In the winter of 1992, Isak rang Simona. It was evening, and she was at home. Isak had scarcely ever rung Simona’s private number before. They had an understanding that she would ring him if she had anything to report, or he would ring her when he knew she was at his house. Simona’s house was full of people. Four children, six grandchildren, and three nephews and nieces, of whom the youngest was only a few weeks old; and husband and brother-in-law and sister-in-law and a great-grandmother who still had all her wits about her but could no longer speak. They all needed to be fed.

  “Am I ringing at an inconvenient time?” asked Isak.

  “Yes,” said Simona.

  “My wife’s dead,” said Isak.

  “Rosa? My God!”

  “She was ill. There was nothing I could do for her.”

  “I feel for you in your sadness,” said Simona.

  “It’s dreadful,” said Isak.

  “And Laura, how’s she taking it?”

  “She’s thinking of moving to Oslo,” said Isak. “All my daughters will live in Oslo, then.”

  “I see,” said Simona, surveying her own hungry brood.

  “I’m thinking of killing myself,” said Isak suddenly.

  “It’s always an option, I suppose,” said Simona.

  “I can’t see any point in going on without her.”

  “I do know what you mean.”

  Simona did not know what else to say. The conversation he had embroiled her in now lay beyond what either really cared to discuss with the other.

  “But I expect you’re wondering why I’ve called?” said Isak.

  “Yes.”

  “I want to get away from everything here: sell the flat in Lund, sell the flat in Stockholm, and get my house on Hammarsö fixed up.”

  “It’s a huge
job,” said Simona.

  It all went quiet at the other end. She waited.

  Then he said: “I want you to know this, Simona. I’m moving to the island for good.”

  Simona tried to avoid being selfish in deed, but she did occasionally allow herself a selfish thought, and just now it occurred to her that there would be no more presiding over her icy refuge, and just because the old man had lost everything and thought he could regain some of it on Hammarsö. Why couldn’t he just stay where he was and let everything continue as before? She said: “You realize the place is run-down? You will hardly recognize the inside, after all these years.”

  “I know.”

  Simona looked out the kitchen window. She preferred the view from the other kitchen window. The one that until this phone call had also been hers. She said: “I’ll see to getting the heat turned back on and wash the sheets and towels and pillowcases.”

  Isak mumbled something at the other end and Simona said: “It’s the least I can do, make sure you arrive to a made-up bed.”

  Part V: The Light over the Water

  They had arranged to meet at Hammarsö Rooms and Restaurant, an inn that was open all year and located not far from the ferry terminal, the community center, and the church. They were going to have a cup of coffee and compose themselves before driving the final stretch to Isak’s house. Erika opened the door. She had to duck to avoid hitting her head on the lintel. She stepped over the high threshold and into the gloomy lobby. The orange-patterned linoleum floor had recently been scrubbed; it glistened, wet and slippery, with a clean hospital smell. Voices and laughter reached her from a television no one was watching. Behind the reception desk sat a woman, knitting.

  “Excuse me,” said Erika, taking off her gloves. They were now soaked and had been wet ever since she left Oslo, never really having had a chance to dry although she had draped them over the broken radiator in her hotel room in Sunne, and then again over the back of a chair in a motel room in Nynäshamn. She brushed a bit of snow from her anorak. That was wet, too. Everything she was wearing was cold and wet and suffocating, sticking to her skin.