by Annika Thor
After a while, Stephie waits at the bottom for Vera, who has to come down again to get home. May sleds down once with Nellie in front of her.
“What did you do that for?” Stephie asks when Vera comes to a halt in front of her.
“Do what?”
“You squeezed us into the drift.”
“Sorry,” Vera says, but Stephie can see she doesn’t mean it.
“Wait a minute so I can introduce you to May.”
“No time,” says Vera. “I’ve got to get home.”
She walks off, pulling her sled.
Stephie’s angry. If Vera has made up her mind not to have anything to do with May, Stephie’s not going to go out of her way to persuade her.
Two days later, though, after she has walked May to the boat, Stephie goes to Vera’s.
“Is she gone now?” Vera asks. “The girl from the city?”
“Yes,” says Stephie.
“Good.”
That’s their whole discussion about May’s visit.
letter arrives on the second-to-last day of Christmas vacation, the day before Stephie is due back in Göteborg. Uncle Evert picked it up when he was seeing to the Diana.
“I just happened to stop in at the post office,” he says. “That turned out to be lucky. Otherwise it would have ended up lying there until after you left.”
Stephie takes the long, thin envelope from him. The address in Göteborg, care of Söderberg, has been crossed out, and next to it someone has written Please forward to and the address to the island.
But what grabs Stephie’s attention is not so much the address as the stamp. It’s not American; it’s not even Spanish or Cuban. The picture on the little brown square with toothed edges is of Hitler standing at a podium. Under the picture is the text Deutsches Reich in angular Gothic print. Peering closely, Stephie manages to read the postmark: Vienna, December 23, 1940.
They’re still there.
They didn’t get out.
“What is it?” asks Uncle Evert. “Is something wrong?”
“This letter was mailed in Vienna,” Stephie tells him.
Uncle Evert looks concerned. “Open it, for heaven’s sake. No matter what it says, it can’t be worse than the uncertainty.”
He passes her his pocketknife. With trembling hands Stephie opens the envelope and unfolds the single sheet of thin paper.
Dearest little Stephie,
Unfortunately, I have bad news. We were meant to depart the day before yesterday, but as you see we are still here. Mamma fell suddenly ill on Sunday and had to be hospitalized. It’s double pneumonia, so you’ll understand that she couldn’t possibly make the trip. As far as the other doctors and I can determine, there is no risk that she will not recover, but she was already weak, having worked so hard for so long, and without enough to eat, so she will need to stay in the hospital for some time.
Therefore, I can tell you very little about the future right now. I don’t know whether it will be possible for us to renew our visas and leave, or what will happen if we cannot. I had already given notice on our room, since we were leaving, so now I will be looking for a new place to live, and I’ll let you know the address as soon as possible.
Aunt Emilie and her family left as planned. We hope to hear from them once they have arrived. Mamma sends her love. I look in on her as often as I can, and spend the evenings with her after work. At least we are at the same hospital! In fact, we are almost seeing more of each other now than before Mamma fell ill.
All my love,
Papa
Stephie looks up from the letter and right into Uncle Evert’s eyes.
“Is it that bad?” he asks.
She nods mutely.
“They aren’t going to be able to leave?”
She shakes her head.
“What about later?”
“Maybe.”
Her voice sounds strangely distant, as if it were someone else’s.
Aunt Märta comes into the sitting room from the adjacent kitchen.
“What on earth has happened?”
“Stephie’s parents never left for America,” Uncle Evert tells her.
Their voices are distant, too. Nothing around her seems real. Stephie feels as if huge iron tongs have her by the chest and are closing. She can’t breathe. Everything goes black before her eyes.
When she comes to, she’s lying on the kitchen settle. Aunt Märta is bathing her forehead with a washcloth soaked in ammonia solution. The powerful odor makes Stephie sneeze.
“I guess I fainted.”
“You fell like a broken mast,” says Uncle Evert.
“Hush now,” says Aunt Märta. “Let the poor girl rest.”
They leave her lying on the settle. Aunt Märta prepares dinner and Uncle Evert goes upstairs to have a wash and change his clothes. Eyes closed, Stephie lies there, listening to the familiar sounds: the clatter of plates and kitchen utensils, steps on the stairs. She’s there, but a part of her is elsewhere.
Behind her eyelids she sees a different room, a hospital ward with lots of beds. Her mamma is lying in one of them. Her face, surrounded by her black hair, is as white as the pillowcase. Her lips, too, are pale, not red with lipstick as they used to be, and she has big black rings under her eyes. Her cheeks are hollow, and the skin over her high cheekbones is pulled tight. Papa is sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s wearing his white doctor’s uniform. He’s holding Mamma’s hand and talking softly to her.
Stephie can see it all as clearly as if it were a film, a silent movie. But it’s not beautiful and romantic, as in ’Til We Meet Again, with the fatally ill woman going around in gorgeous ball gowns. It is nothing but horrible.
Though there are no sounds to go with the images, Stephie knows what her papa is saying to her mamma.
“Please don’t die; you mustn’t die.”
“What are you saying, dear?”
Stephie opens her eyes. Aunt Märta is holding her shoulders, shaking her lightly.
“Nobody’s going to die, my dear girl,” she says, running a hand over Stephie’s forehead. “Don’t be afraid. Nobody’s going to die.”
elevator stops at the fourth floor. Stephie gets out, closing the gate behind her. She finds her key, inserts it in the lock, and turns it. Christmas vacation is over. She’s back in the city again.
Putte is waiting by the door, wagging his tail. She bends down and scratches him behind the ears. Then he lies on his back, legs in the air, so she’ll scratch his stomach.
“Putte’s missed you,” Sven says from the far end of the hall.
And what about you? Stephie wonders. Did you miss me?
“How was your vacation?” he asks while she’s hanging up her overcoat.
“Fine,” she answers.
She doesn’t have the energy to tell him about her parents’ not having left for America. Not right now.
“I heard May was going out to visit you,” says Sven. “I bumped into her in town one day.”
“In town,” he says, as if they met just anywhere! He’s playing a game, and Stephie chooses to play along.
“Oh,” she says, matching his light tone of voice.
“Did she tell you we’d seen each other?”
Is Stephie wrong to sense a shade of worry under his nonchalance? Is there something about their meeting May didn’t tell her?
“Yes, on Kaptensgatan,” she says. “With Putte.”
Sven nods. “We were out for a long walk, me and Putte.”
She tries approaching the matter from a different angle. “I called,” she said, “to wish you a happy new year. But you weren’t home. Elna said you’d gone to a friend’s country place with him.”
“Right,” Sven says very fast. Maybe a little too fast? “Erik, a classmate. His family has a country place at Särö. It was just like you said, a little dull being on my own for the whole vacation.”
Everything he says sounds perfectly reasonable. Still, she feels that he’s keeping something from
her. She doesn’t know why, but she’s absolutely sure. If only she could figure out the right question to ask to clear it all up. But before she can open her mouth, Sven goes on.
“Gosh, I should have thanked you for the letter opener right away! It’s really beautiful. I’m ashamed that I didn’t get you anything. That was thoughtless of me.”
“Not at all,” Stephie says, though she doesn’t really mean it. She would actually have loved it if he had given her something. Nothing big or expensive, just something to show that he was thinking of her.
“It’s a bit late now,” Sven says, “but … well, here you are.”
He hands her a little package, a square box in wrapping paper. It looks like something from a jewelry store. Could it be jewelry? A ring?
She unwraps the package and raises the lid. The box contains something that looks like a silver coin about the size of a two-krona piece. But it’s not an ordinary coin with the profile of the king on one side and the coat of arms of Sweden on the other. Instead of the king, there’s an angel, and on the other side are two clasped hands.
Two hands—hers and Sven’s?
“It’s an amulet,” Sven explains. “For good luck. I found it in a strange little shop, full of the most amazing things.”
“Where is it?”
“On Vallgatan.”
“Is the shopkeeper an elderly man? With an accent?”
“How did you know?”
“That’s where I bought your opener!”
They bought their presents for each other at the same place.
It seems like a secret portent.
Since it’s Sunday and Stephie has just come back, she is invited to join the family in the dining room for dinner. She sits erect on one of the uncomfortable mahogany chairs, feeling a bit of the horsehair stuffing poking into her thigh.
“How are the Janssons doing?” Mrs. Söderberg asks in her most silken tone.
“Fine, thank you.”
“And the fishing is all right?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“It must be very isolated out there in the winter,” the doctor’s wife continues. “What a hard life they lead!”
“Ah, well,” the doctor interjects. “Just think of all the city problems they don’t have to deal with.”
“You sound as if you were talking about some savages at the ends of the earth,” Sven tells them.
“Absurd,” the doctor snorts. “You always have to misinterpret everything.”
As always, Mrs. Söderberg is quick to defuse a conflict.
“Stephie, I do hope you remembered to thank Mrs. Jansson for the lovely flowers?”
“Of course. She sends you best wishes for the new year.”
“And your parents, Stephie? How did their journey go?”
Sven looks surprised and a bit embarrassed, as if he wishes he had remembered to ask her himself.
“They weren’t able to leave,” Stephie says. “Mamma fell ill.”
She hopes there will be no more questions, at least not right now, while they’re sitting around the big table under the crystal chandelier, eating roast veal with cucumber salad.
But Mrs. Söderberg pursues the subject.
“Oh dear, she fell ill? I do hope it’s nothing serious.”
“Pneumonia,” says Stephie, who can hear how abrupt, and almost unfriendly, her own voice sounds. But suddenly a lump in her throat is making it difficult to speak.
“My, my,” says the doctor. “I hope she’s in good hands. But your father is a doctor, too, isn’t he?”
“She’s in the hospital.” Stephie gulps. “She’s getting better.”
“That’s fine, then,” says Mrs. Söderberg. “I’m sure it would do her the world of good to convalesce in the countryside. Could that be arranged? And then they can make their trip later, when she has recovered her strength.”
Stephie reaches the breaking point.
“You have no idea!” she bursts out. “No idea at all! You can’t imagine what it’s really like for them.”
Mrs. Söderberg gapes. Under her face powder, a red spot has appeared on each cheek. Although her mouth is open, for once she is silent.
“Go on,” Sven says to Stephie. “Tell them. They need to hear it.”
“That will be quite enough,” the doctor roars. “I won’t be insulted in my own home. If you aren’t comfortable here, Stephanie, you’ll just have to find yourself somewhere else to lodge. And, Sven, I forbid you to exploit the girl for your political nonsense.”
Now his wife has regained her composure.
“Settle down now,” she says. “Let us put this little episode behind us. If everyone is finished, I will ask Elna to clear.”
By the time Elna comes in to take the main dish away, the doctor and his wife are deep in discussion about some of their friends. Stephie and Sven sit in silence.
Although Mrs. Söderberg said they should put the matter behind them, it’s still very much present. Later in the evening, she knocks on Stephie’s door.
“Stephanie, my husband and I would like a word with you,” she says. “Please come along into the library.”
Stephie follows her through the hall and into the room they call their library. What is going to happen now? Are they going to throw her out? Will she be able to continue her schooling?
The doctor is in his armchair. His wife sits down next to him. No one asks Stephie to have a seat, so she remains standing.
“My wife and I are anything but pro-German,” the doctor begins. “I’m sure you know that, Stephanie. On the other hand, we are not members of the irresponsible groups who shout about the evil deeds of the Germans and want to involve Sweden in the war. The Germans are harsh toward their opponents, possibly harsher than necessary, but they are not inhuman. That’s my view, and I stand by it.”
“Stephanie, we know that your family has been hit hard by this war,” Mrs. Söderberg continues. “That’s why we wanted to be helpful and ensure you the opportunity to go on with your schooling. But we cannot tolerate behavior of the kind you have displayed today.”
Here it comes. They want her to leave.
“Still, we have decided to give you one last chance,” Mrs. Söderberg goes on. “If anything of the kind happens again, we will unfortunately have to inform the Janssons that we cannot allow you to go on living with us, Stephanie. Have we made ourselves perfectly clear?”
“Yes.”
“And another thing,” adds the doctor. “Sven has any number of preposterous ideas about politics, about which I assume he has told you. You mustn’t pay any attention to him, Stephanie.”
“Really,” his wife interjects. “To tell the truth, I think you ought to spend less time with Sven altogether. And above all, I do not think it is appropriate for the two of you to be in his room in the evenings.”
“That will be all,” says the doctor. “Good night, and I hope we will not need to have any more discussions of this kind.”
“Good night.”
When Stephie has pulled the library door closed behind her, she stands quietly in the dusky hallway. She catches a glimpse of her own reflection in the tall mirror over the hall table. The pale oval that is her face seems to be suspended all on its own in the air.
they throw you out, you can live with us,” May says when Stephie tells her the whole story at school the next day.
Stephie can’t help laughing. “Where would that be? Under the kitchen table?”
“Ha-ha,” says May. “We’re moving to a new apartment. What do you say about that?”
“A bigger one?”
“You bet! A two-bedroom in some new buildings they’re putting up out at Sandarna. With a real bathroom, too!”
“Amazing!”
“Papa signed us up a year ago. It’s in a neighborhood built with special priority for large families!”
“When will you be moving?”
“In March.”
“That’s wonderful news,” says Stephie.
“Isn’t it?” asks May. “Still, I’m going to miss Kaptensgatan. I’ve lived there ever since I was born.”
Stephie nods. “It’s not very far, though. You can go back and visit whenever you want.”
“I’m so sorry about your parents,” says May. “That they weren’t able to leave after all. But I’m sure it will work out somehow. I really think it will.”
They’re sitting on a bench in the schoolyard, waiting for the bell to ring after the lunch break. The pale January sun is shining, though it generates no warmth. Really it’s too cold to be sitting down, but the girls are perched on their schoolbags rather than on the cold bench. They have so much to talk about.
Stephie feels the amulet against her chest. She hung it on a silver chain and hasn’t taken it off. It’s under her dress now, so she can have it close to her but keep it to herself.
Suddenly she feels an irresistible urge to show it to May.
“Remember I told you Sven hadn’t given me a Christmas present?” she begins.
May nods.
“Well, he gave me something when I got back. Want to see?”
“Of course.”
Stephie undoes the top button on her coat, lifts the amulet out carefully, and shows it to May.
At that very moment, a double shadow is cast over the two of them. Stephie looks up to see Harriet and Lilian. She tries to hide the amulet, but it’s too late. May has grasped it between her thumb and index finger.
“What’s that?” asks Harriet.
“An amulet,” Stephie says, hoping the bell will ring and save her from having to say more.
“Did he give it to you?” Lilian asks secretively.
May looks at her in surprise. “It was a gift from a friend,” May tells Lilian. “I don’t think you know him.”
“Oh, a friend,” Lilian replies. “A very special friend of Stephanie’s.” She and Harriet giggle knowingly.
“It’s beautiful,” says Harriet.
“Let it go,” Stephie tells May.
She knows that she sounds curt, and that May is going to be offended, but she can’t stand the looks Harriet and Lilian are giving her, or their significant smiles.