“Were you able to help out?”
“Able? Forced more like it.”
Her father had beaten them with flower supports if they did not obey him. He hit Flora the least, but he was always beating Rosa, the oldest sister. She should have known better. Rosa had no patience and she hated getting her fingers coarsened and cracked. She hated dirt and especially its smell. She would sneak away from the weeding and go to the beach to swim. She ought to have learned what would happen when she returned. It was as if she forgot from one time to the next.
Flora could still remember her crying when her father took Rosa into the tool shed. Afterwards she was striped and swollen over her entire back. The sisters had to fan her with rhubarb leaves and clean her with water.
Life had since gone well for all four girls. Rosa had married a ship owner and moved to Göteborg. Viola had gotten a job at NK, and Reseda became the principal of a school for girls.
None of them were living any more. Only Flora herself.
Creamed wheat. What else was she ever going to have? Who would have time to sit and wait until she had swallowed something that she would have had to chew. The slimy, salty taste triggered her gag reflex. She started gagging, but took hold of herself and swallowed.
The white uniform was talking to an older one. “Think if we could get them into snowsuits and put them on snow boards out there. Or sleds. We could pull them all around Råcksta. They’d like that, don’t you think?”
“We wouldn’t like it.”
“Oh, Ing-Marie, don’t be such a spoilsport. You have to keep the child in you alive.”
“You keep your child and don’t show it to us!”
The younger one was drying Flora’s chin.
“Flora, wouldn’t that be a lot of fun? Of course you went sledding when you were a child? Wasn’t that a lot of fun? You remember, don’t you? Oh, Ing-Marie, you can enliven them by helping them remember the good things from their youth. I’ve read up on it, and it’s true.”
Flora wanted to cough, so that the creamed wheat would fall into her airway and force her to cough up both the creamed wheat and all the slime, too, and make an end to this ridiculous breakfast. But she didn’t. She had always been such a good and dutiful girl.
The day before Midsummer, Sven asked her if she would consider moving back to Hässelby to his house, and to be a mother to his daughter as well as his wife. He had said it in that order. Mother to my daughter and my wife.
The evening was beautiful and mild. They had eaten dinner at a restaurant and were wandering down Saint Eriksgatan with the breeze brushing softly against her neck and arms. She was so happy. She stopped in the middle of the street and embraced him.
She thought about the child.
“She’ll get used to it,” said Sven. “Finally there will be some stability in her life. Give her a little time. She’ll come to love you, just as much as I do.”
They got married a short time later. Flora had always dreamed about a big church wedding, but it was so soon after the French wife’s death that she thought it would be too scandalous. Everything had to be kept simple. On the other hand, she was able to convince Sven that they take a honeymoon in London. She had always wanted to go there.
The hotel was close to Oxford Street, but she had forgotten its name. He took her to the theater. He had been in London many times before. One of the Sandy business’s daughter’s concerns was located here. They visited it together and were guided around the most modern plant. Flora was able to try out her English. Everything was still there, just waiting to be used. She noticed that he was impressed.
She was getting dressed, as they were going to Albert Hall. She wanted to experience everything, everything that she had only read about.
It was late afternoon of their third day. A knock on the door.
A man stood there with a telegram from Sweden. It was urgent. The girl was ill.
They traveled home early the next morning. Sven wanted to travel that very night, but there were no seats on the plane. During the whole trip, he was silent and thoughtful. She saw that he was suffering, that he blamed himself for leaving the girl behind, that he was reliving the death of the girl’s mother.
Of course there was nothing really wrong with Justine. She had just had a bit of fever. The temperature had been over one hundred and four, so Sven’s mother had thought it best to send for him.
Don’t children often get high fevers? Wasn’t that part of being a child?
She quit working for the company. During the night, she lay beside Sven. She lay there and listened to his light snoring and tried to forget that the child was on the other side of the wall. She wanted her own child, so that she could become a real mother.
He would never regret that he had taken her to be his wife. She would be his beautiful representative, who made fine dinners for all his business acquaintances. She would converse in English and they would be impressed: What a beautiful and talented young wife you have there, Mr. Dalvik.
She and the girl. They were alone in the house. Sven had gone to work. Justine had left the breakfast table without eating as much as a bread crumb.
“She has to eat,” she whispered to Sven. “You see how thin and undernourished she is. Children need food in order to grow.”
“It’ll come. Give her some time; have a little patience.” She stood at the kitchen window and saw him get into the car. She waved and he threw her a kiss. The classical tableau.
She was taken by the desire to call him back, take me with you. I want to be with you, not this child.
She was in the house. She cleaned up after breakfast and went upstairs to make the beds. The girl was in Sven’s bed. She had rolled herself into the blanket with her head in the pillow.
Flora sat next to her.
“Justine,” she said softly. “We ought to be friends, you and me. I want to be your friend. Don’t you want to be mine?”
The child did not answer. Flora then realized that the child hardly ever spoke.
She laid her hand on the blanket. The tense body jerked away.
“I’ve come here to be your mother,” said Flora, and she raised her voice a bit. “You must stop ignoring me. I am asking you nicely to be friends, you and me. You are to look at me and answer.”
The girl leapt out of the bed, slid past Flora down to the floor like a hurt, furious animal. She stood in the doorway and her face was direct.
“You are not my mother. You’re a fucking whore.”
She had not gotten angry. She had gone to the bathroom and locked herself in. She stood in front of the mirror and cried. That child had made her cry. Sven’s child. But he was never going to know.
“Wake up, it’s daytime. We can’t have you sleeping. Why don’t we get you into a chair instead? Won’t that be nice?”
The white uniforms. While sitting in the orange-yellowish chair, she saw how they made her bed and mopped under it. The dust tended to collect there, making dust bunnies.
Then she looked at the other bed and saw that it was empty. Yes. The woman had died. Was it last night or a different night? Anyway, people always died at night.
They had dressed her in a pink housecoat with big white buttons. She used to look good in pink. She had colored her long eyelashes, and the pink evening dress rustled when she would slip it over her ears. Sound of spray, sound of music, he dances like a god, my husband. And she flowed through mirrored ballrooms, down stairs as wide as avenues.
“This is Märta. She will be your new roommate.”
A winkled old-lady face, suspicious.
“We hope that you will be comfortable together.”
“If only one person can speak, at least we’ll never have arguments.”
Now they sat across the table from each other.
How many roommates had they introduced? Was she supposed to outlive them all? That was just not right!
She bought the girl a doll. It was a very nice doll, one that she herself would have wanted whe
n she was a girl. It had real hair, a bow, and eyes that could open and shut. She had it wrapped up nicely.
The next day, when Sven had left, she went to the girl’s room and laid the package on the bed. Justine sat all curled up on the window sill, her hair unwashed and her mouth in a grimace.
“You shouldn’t sit in the window, you could fall!” Justine turned away her head.
“Go and wash up, and we can see what clothes we can find for you. And when you are ready, you can open your present.”
The girl went stiffly. She went into the bathroom, locked the door, and refused to open up again.
Flora pretended to leave the house. She crept behind a desk and was completely quiet.
Trench warfare was what it had become, pure trench warfare. That kid in there, prepping the cannons; she in the trenches.
What happened then?
The heat from the child’s skin, her hands hitting blow after blow. The naked body creeping into a corner.
“You are going to do as I say, you little brat! Are you a human or an animal? I’ll kill you if you don’t obey me, if you continue to humiliate me and treat me like I am invisible. Listen to me and don’t look away. From now on there are new rules in this house, and from now on I no longer want to be your mother!”
“What have you done with her?” asked Sven, but there was no reproach in his voice, just wonderment.
The girl sat between them, clean hair, scrubbed pink.
Chapter TEN
Carl Lüding called a meeting at nine Monday morning. He had sent his assistant, Jenny, to buy coffee cake. Now it lay there in the middle of the table, sticky and cut into pieces that were much too large.
“Please help yourselves,” he coaxed.
His long, well-kept fingers flipped a pen nervously. The name Norrbottenskuriren was inscribed on it, Berit noted. Well, why not. He was from Norrbotten Province.
No one was eating the coffee cake, not even Curt Lüding. He sat at the short end of the table. He brought his coffee mug to his lips, over and over, taking very small sips. He didn’t ask anyone how their weekend had been. No small talk this Monday. He was dressed in his dark suit, which he began to use during the winter. Earlier he had usually dressed in sweaters and corduroys. Something had happened to change him, Berit thought. He’s turning so-respectable.
They waited. Annie stared into her coffee cup. Lotta cleared her throat and coughed, as if she were coming down with a cold. From Lillian one could hear a kind of humming which was hardly audible; she always did that when she was angry or worried. Instead of saying something, she would walk around and hum.
An ambulance went by, sirens blasting.
The telephone rang.
“Is the answering machine on?” asked Carl Lüding. “Of course,” said Jenny.
“All right then, let’s begin. Yes, well, as you know, there’s a reason that I’ve called all of you together for a meeting so early on a Monday morning. As you all know, I started this publishing house a while ago, and then I pumped a lot of capital into it and took it over when the others weren’t interested any longer. Yes, you all know the story. And the years have gone by. Sometimes it was difficult; I won’t sweep that under the rug. But you’ve all done a wonderful job. It never would have come together without you. Many of you have been here for a long time, you Berit, for example, and you Margit… I imagine that you have feelings that are just as strong as mine for this place.”
He was quiet and looked out the window.
Snow was still on the ground. The thermometer showed minus seven degrees, and for the first time this winter, Berit had worn her fur.
Get to the point, you old hypocrite, she thought.
She craved a cigarette. She was trying to cut down and had begun chewing nicotine gum instead.
This was probably not the right time to quit.
“As you know,” her boss continued, “I was born and raised in Norrbotten, in a little village named Sangis. My father was a logger. My mother was a nurse for the district. I grew up among the spruce trees. You all know me so long that you’ve heard me talk in my wild dialect as soon as I loosen up, especially at our parties…”
Yes, that was right. Up to a few years ago he had thought it was great fun to have parties for the employees. He would even help organize them, and taught them all how to eat almond potatoes and surströmming when he had them over to his country house. He would sing for them, sad songs from the North. His wife Maud had been with him in those days, a glad and exuberant woman who was also from Norrland.
His change had come with the divorce. Maud fell in love with someone else and left him, moved abroad, to Maastricht, in Holland; there was something to do about the parliament of the European Union. Carl Lüding hadn’t been himself after that event.
“Now, my dear friends, let me tell you what this is all about. This is the deal. Hold on to your seats, because great changes lie in store for us. I am planning to move our publishing house to Luleå in Norrland!”
He became silent and looked at each of them. The crows’ feet next to his eyes lifted.
“You’re surprised. I can tell.”
Somewhere in the building, a drill started up. There was always some kind of repair or renovation going on. It seemed the landlord sent out a notice every month: “Please excuse our dust. We are going to repair this and that during such and so week.”
“Why Luleå, you may ask? Let me explain. Running a publishing house up there is much more cost effective. Parliament has promised subsidies. It seems that a renowned publishing house is sorely needed up there. The entire Northern region is filled with amazing authors who are just waiting for us.”
He drank more of his coffee, his eyes shining, and he smiled slightly; he was relaxing.
He’s lost it, thought Berit. She bit her tongue, but didn’t feel it. The Northern region! Sweden’s very own Siberia!
“And us?” someone asked. It was Annie. “What will happen to us? Have you thought about that?”
Curt Lüding placed his pen on the table, and started it spinning with his finger. It spun around and fell to the floor with a clang.
“Here’s what I have to say about that,” he said, and he was still smiling. “Every organization needs to go through a reduction in order to reach its optimum efficiency. This can be painful, I am aware of that.”
“Curt, you didn’t answer my question!” Annie said shrilly. She was beginning to turn red all the way down to her neck.
“Yes!” Berit agreed. “What will happen with us?”
“But… you can come, too, of course. Everyone. I’m counting on taking care of the move during the summer, and then we’ll go full throttle from August onwards. And friends, Luleå is a wonderful city, believe me.”
“He’s gone absolutely fucking crazy!”
Berit and Annie were in the sushi restaurant on Upplandsgatan. The sushi didn’t taste the same today, as if it wasn’t properly fresh. They’d probably all get food poisoning that evening. But who the hell cared?
“The goddamned Northern region! Who the hell would want to move there?”
“Well,” said Annie. “This is even worse than we had imagined. We could handle moving to Bonniers. But that mosquito-infested hell-hole! He’s been plotting this for quite a while, the bastard. And not even hinted one damn thing about it.”
“He’s gotten so strange and weird. He’s undergone a complete personality change. If only Maud had stayed put! She never should have let this happen! Why’d she have to run off with that EU-guy!”
“What are you going to do, Berit? Are you going to move up there?”
“I’m not single. That’s a problem. Tor is never going to agree to leave Stockholm.”
“If you were on your own, then?”
“No, not a chance. This is my home. I was born here; my roots are here.”
“Fuck it all. Up there it’s winter all year round. The snow comes in September and stays till Midsummer. I couldn’t stand it. The darkne
ss unbroken for months! And those damned mosquitoes!”
“That bastard knows that we aren’t all going to move. He won’t have a snowball’s chance in hell to get us all move up there together. A couple of us would move there, maybe Jenny, maybe Ann-Sofi. She’s from there herself; at least, that’s what I’ve heard.”
“The question is, what are the rest of us to do?”
“Oh, you’ll land on your feet just fine. You’ll be offered another job. You’re capable; people know that you’ve been editing that old witch Karlberg. That alone will get you an offer.”
“Oh there’s a real silver lining. I’ll be rid of her!”
What a strange weekend it had been. The worry about Curt Lüding’s plans had been pushed away by that strange visit in Hässelby.
It was true, as Justine had said, that she had felt drawn to her former classmate’s house to see if anything had changed. If that poor girl had survived. She was practically filled with fear at the thought of running into Justine, but she had secretly hoped that Justine would be standing at the top of her stairs, thirty years older and strong at last. That she would be standing there in her wide, flowery pants and say: “Come on in.”
And then there she was! And did just that!
Berit had repressed all those events during her entire adult life. She had put it aside into her subconscious, but as she walked closer to the house, the whole thing returned to her like a tidal wave. She wanted to fall into the snow and scream, “Forgive me, Justine! We were just kids! Forgive us!”
They sat in the upstairs room with the view and drank glögg. They watched the sky change color and turn red and sparkle as if it were burning on the other side of Lake Mälar. It was a cold, formal winter day and perhaps she blabbered on too much, revealed more than she ought to have. She was not used to talking to anyone for such a long time.
Justine. Just as she had always felt her to be.
But neither of them mentioned their childhood.
The great bird scared her from her senses. Berit was not afraid of birds; the boys had had parakeets, and she had enjoyed them, even though they always messed up the place. But this enormous being that suddenly just appeared. It surprised her; it set its claws deep into her hair and pulled.
Good Night, My Darling Page 8