A Faraway Island (23 page)

“You may walk him,” the doctor’s wife tells her, “whenever you like.”

Stephie helps the summer guests carry in their belongings. The son will have her bedroom. She hears his mother call him, and learns that his name is Sven. She wonders how old he is. Seventeen, maybe eighteen.

When everything is in order, the doctor’s wife gives Stephie a coin.

“Thank you for helping,” she says.

Stephie blushes. “You don’t need to pay me.”

“Oh, please don’t be offended,” says the doctor’s wife. “Buy yourself some sweets. Incidentally, where do you come from?”

“From Vienna,” Stephie tells her, putting the coin in her dress pocket. “Thank you very much.”

That afternoon Stephie goes to Auntie Alma’s. Their summer guests won’t be arriving until the next day. Auntie Alma, Nellie, Elsa, and John are just moving the last of their things down to the basement.

“I heard you got a book as an award at school,” Auntie Alma says.

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, I want you to know how proud Nellie was of her
big sister when she came home and told us. You’re certainly a clever girl, I must say.”

“Not that it will matter,” Stephie answers.

“What do you mean?”

“Being clever at school. Since I’m not to be allowed to continue anyway.”

“To grammar school?”

Stephie nods.

“Well, you have to understand Märta and Evert’s situation,” Auntie Alma tells her. “It’s very expensive to have a child who boards in Göteborg. Not to mention the books and all the other costs.”

“I think Uncle Evert would let me go. Aunt Märta’s the one who’s against it.”

Auntie Alma sits quietly for a few minutes.

“Has it ever occurred to you that Märta might not want to see you go off to Göteborg?” she asks. “That she would miss you?”

It’s so ridiculous Stephie has to laugh. Aunt Märta, miss her!

“She doesn’t even like me,” she answers. “I can’t imagine why she took me in.”

“Has Märta ever told you about Anna-Lisa?” Auntie Alma asks. “Or has Evert, for that matter?”

“No. Who’s Anna-Lisa?”

“Anna-Lisa was Märta and Evert’s daughter,” Auntie Alma tells her. “Their only child.”

“I didn’t know they had children.”

“It’s fourteen years now since she passed away,” says Auntie Alma. “She was twelve when she died.”

“What did she die of?”

“Anna-Lisa was never a healthy child. Even as a baby she was often ill. Märta took wonderful care of her and was always very protective. But when Anna-Lisa was eleven she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. She lived her last six months at a sanatorium on the mainland, far away. The doctors said the dry inland country air would do her good. But it didn’t help.”

“The knitted cap,” Stephie says. “And the sled.”

“What about them?” asks Auntie Alma.

“Presents I’ve been given. They must have been hers. Anna-Lisa’s.”

It’s strange to think that the cap and mittens she wore all winter once belonged to another girl, a girl who died before she herself was born. Did Anna-Lisa ever wear them? Or did she die before Aunt Märta finished knitting them?

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Stephie asks. “Why don’t they have any photographs of her at home?”

“It was terribly painful for Märta,” Auntie Alma tells her. “She couldn’t even bear to see a picture of her after-ward. For over a year, Märta walked around more dead than alive herself. If she hadn’t had her faith in God, who knows where it would have ended. You should have seen her before, when Anna-Lisa was alive. So different from the way she is now. Full of life and afraid of nothing. She had an answer to every question and never hesitated to speak her mind. Though there was never a harsh word to Anna-Lisa, I’m sure. Märta was as careful of her as if she had been made of china.”

“But why did she take me in?”

“I don’t know. I’ve wondered myself. Perhaps out of the desire to save a child, because she wasn’t able to save Anna-Lisa.”

“Why couldn’t I live with you?” The words slip out of Stephie’s mouth before she can stop them. “We were supposed to stay with the same family. They promised.”

“I know,” said Auntie Alma. “I would have been happy to take you both, but Sigurd was against it. He felt one was enough. So the relief committee asked if I could find another family on the island, so you’d at least be close to each other. Märta never hesitated. But she didn’t want a little child, and so it was you.”

“Stephie!” Nellie shouts from behind the house. “Stephie, come see what we found!”

Auntie Alma smiles. “Run along and play,” she says. “It’s no use brooding. We have to make the best of our lot in life.”

Stephie goes around to the backyard. Nellie and the little ones have pulled up a fat worm in Auntie Alma’s potato patch. It’s suspended between Nellie’s thumb and index finger.

“Just look at this yucky thing,” Nellie shouts gleefully.

Stephie takes the worm from Nellie. It squirms between her fingers.

“Let’s put it back now,” she says. “It wants to be in the soil.”

Carefully, she places the worm next to a potato plant. It vanishes quickly down into the ground.

“The worm went home,” says John. “To his house.”

When Stephie is ready to leave, Auntie Alma calls her inside.

“I’ve got something for you,” she says secretively.

On the kitchen table is a flat, soft package.

“For me?”

“Yes, for you.”

“But why? My birthday’s not until July.”

“I know, but it’s something you need now. Aren’t you going to open it?”

Stephie removes the ribbon and unwraps her present. It’s a bathing suit. Red with white polka dots and a frilly neckline.

“It’s beautiful!” Stephie gushes. She holds the bathing suit up to her front. It looks just right.

“I think it should fit you,” Auntie Alma says. She smiles. “So now you can swim a lot this summer and not have to spend your time sitting on the beach.”

“Do you think,” Stephie asks her, “that if Anna-Lisa had lived she would have had to wear some old, hand-me-down bathing suit?”

“If Anna-Lisa had lived,” Auntie Alma replies, “you might not have been here at all.” She smiles again. “You know, I’d really like to see you try the bathing suit on before you go home.”

Stephie goes up to Nellie’s room and pulls the bathing suit on. It’s perfect. Tomorrow she’s going to the beach.

There’s
a separate door to the basement at the back of the house. Every morning Stephie goes out through it, around the house, and up the front steps. She knocks on the door and waits.

Sometimes the doctor’s wife answers, but more often it’s the daughter, Karin. The moment the door opens Putte comes running, wagging his tail and licking Stephie’s hands and knees. Karin goes and gets his leash from its hook in the hall and clips it onto his collar.

“Do you need any errands run?” Stephie always asks.

Some days there’s a letter to mail or something the doctor’s wife has forgotten to order from the shop. The shopkeeper hires a messenger boy for the summer, and the boy delivers orders to the summer guests on a bicycle with a big
metal box on the front. The summer guests phone in their orders.

If she’s going to do an errand at the post office or the shop, Stephie usually takes the bike, tying Putte’s leash to the handlebars. He runs alongside. Otherwise she takes him for a walk along little paths too narrow to bike on. Putte noses around, sniffing, straining eagerly at the leash. Stephie almost has to run to keep up.

She’s not allowed to take off Putte’s leash, but sometimes she can’t resist. He just loves to fetch sticks she throws, and always comes when she calls. If Stephie’s sitting on a rock, he often comes over and puts his head in her lap, wanting to be scratched behind the ears and under the chin.

When Stephie returns with Putte, she usually finds the doctor’s wife and Karin and her fiancé enjoying their morning coffee at the table in the yard. Uncle Evert set up the furniture in the shade over by the rock face. The doctor works in Göteborg all week, and joins his family only on weekends. Stephie doesn’t know where Sven spends his time. She imagines him sleeping late.

One morning when she’s out walking Putte up among the rocks and the scraggly vegetation, she bumps into Sven. She’s standing on a boulder gazing out across the ocean. Luckily, Putte’s on his leash. She’s afraid if anyone in the doctor’s family were to see that she sometimes lets him run freely, she wouldn’t be allowed to walk him anymore.

“Hi there!” Sven calls out. “What a beautiful morning!”

To Stephie there is nothing special about this particular morning. The sun is shining and there is a gentle wind blowing off the water.

Putte recognizes Sven and grows eager. Sven hops down off his rock and approaches them. Putte romps between his legs, begging to be patted.

“Hiya, Putte. Hi, you old thing.”

Sven plays with Putte, but not gently, as Stephie does. He’s rougher.

“You can let him off the leash now,” says Sven. “He won’t run away.”

He never runs away from me
, Stephie thinks, but she doesn’t say it.

Sven stops playing with Putte and sits down on a rocky ledge, his feet blocking the path in front of Stephie. She picks up the end of Putte’s leash, but stays where she is.

“The ocean,” says Sven. “I can look at it forever, can’t you? It’s always changing.”

“Uh-huh,” Stephie replies. “Depending on the weather.”

She wishes Sven would move his feet so she could pass.

“Don’t you like the ocean?”

“It’s so big. I’d like it better if I weren’t on an island. If it was all one.”

“One what?”

“One whole place. The people. The city.”

“How long have you been here?” Sven asks.

“Since last August. Ten months.”

“And your family?”

“Mother and Father are still in Vienna. My little sister is here, living with a different family.”

“And what are they like, your family here? The Janssons.”

“Good,” Stephie tells him.

“You’re different from them,” Sven says. “That doesn’t mean you have to be alone.”

Putte whines, pulling at the leash.

“I’ve got to get going,” Stephie says.

“Wait,” Sven answers. “I’d like to read you something.”

He pulls off the little knapsack he’s carrying and opens it, rummaging around. He has to retrieve a crumply bag of sandwiches, a thermos, and a sweater before he gets to the thick book at the bottom.

“It’s in English,” Sven tells her. “Do you speak English?”

“No.”

“That’s all right. I’ll translate.” He leafs through the book until he finds what he is looking for. “‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main….’”

Stephie stands stock-still, absorbed. Sven’s voice is different when he reads than when he talks, deeper and calmer.

“‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’”

Sven stops and looks up from the page. He and Stephie are both quiet for a few moments. Then Sven closes the book.