Astrid and Veronika (7 page)

She put the glass on the table and went to the bench to prepare the mayonnaise. She started whisking oil into mustard and egg yolks in a bowl, her hip against the edge of the bench and one foot lightly resting on top of the other. Her hands moved, the music played. There was no forewarning of the sudden flash of a memory, which hit her with an almost physical force. The two of them in his mother’s kitchen, laughing. James making mayonnaise. For her, in another life. His tanned hands moving with grace, effortlessly, doing their job while he talked to her of wonderful things to come. Her own hands stopped moving, resting on the bench, whisk in hand.

Just then, she heard footsteps on the porch. She put down the whisk and went to open the door. Her guest was lit by the lamp in the hallway behind, and Veronika saw Astrid’s pale face set off by a man’s white shirt. Her guest held out both hands, one offering a bottle filled with a dark red liquid, the other two small glasses, upside down and held by their slim stems. Veronika took the gifts, then gently touched the old woman’s elbow with hers and guided her inside, kicking the door closed with her foot.

In the kitchen, Astrid refused the chair and instead walked up to the window, where she stood with her hands on her back, her eyes set on her own house. Veronika couldn’t make out the shape of her body underneath the shirt, which was too big and hung loosely over her buttocks. Like the checked shirt she had been wearing on their walk, this one reached to midthigh, and the sleeves were rolled up to expose surprisingly slender wrists. Veronika could see the scalp through strands of grey hair at the top of the old woman’s head. Astrid had removed her shoes by the front door and her dark socks were a little too big as well, leaving an empty tip at the toes. The bottoms of the dark trousers looked wet from her walk across the dewy grass. Veronika offered her a glass of wine, which she accepted with a small start. She held the glass with both hands and drank slowly, her eyes closed. Neither of them spoke and in the stillness the music filled the room.

They sat down opposite each other at the table. The hot steam from the bowl of potatoes stirred in the light breeze from the window. The trout rested bright pink on a plate, surrounded by wedges of lemon, with the mayonnaise in a separate bowl alongside. There was knäckebröd, wedges of the large round crisp local rye bread in a small basket, butter, and cheese so mature it was crumbling. They began to eat. Veronika talked a little about New Zealand, about the book.

‘I thought I was writing a love story this time. Now I am not so sure,’ she said. ‘It is as if it has slipped out of my hands. Or off the screen of my laptop. I am beginning to think that perhaps there is another story intruding.’

The old woman listened, saying nothing and keeping her eyes on her plate. Whenever there was a moment of comfortable silence, the music expanded to fill the space. Suddenly, Astrid looked up.

‘They talk about me, I know. In the village.’ She smiled, a strange little grimace with firmly closed lips. ‘I don’t understand how they still find things to say. But they always have. Yet they don’t know anything worth knowing.’ She turned the glass in her hand. ‘I am sure you have heard that they call me “the witch”. I don’t mind. Perhaps there is something to that,’ she said, again with an odd smile, her eyes on the glass. ‘Lately, I have felt that it would be a relief to tell the truth. Or my version of some truth.’ Astrid looked up and her eyes met Veronika’s. ‘But then who should I tell?’

Veronika said nothing, turning her wine glass in her hand. They continued the meal in silence, pausing now and then with the cutlery on their plates and elbows resting on the table. Veronika opened a second bottle of wine. She went up to change the music, putting on a recording with songs with lyrics by Erik Axel Karlfeldt. She paused for a moment to listen to the words:

She returned to the table and sat down. Across from her, Astrid’s face glowed with new warmth. Suddenly Veronika thought she could see the young woman who had looked out the windows with such longing, curious about the worlds beyond the forests and the mountains. She searched the old face for traces of the long-lost beauty, for hope. She thought about how modern science could develop the adult face from a child’s. How it was sometimes done in cases when children went missing. She tried to do the reverse, constructing the young face from the old one across the table.

She remembered how one day, just after she had arrived, she had been to the shop, and the woman at the checkout had talked about ‘the witch’, insisting on showing Veronika an old black-and-white postcard. The tattered picture had showed a pretty, young blonde girl dressed in the traditional costume, posing on a wooden fence, a shy smile on her face.

‘It’s her. Truly. Hard to believe, isn’t it?’ the woman had said gleefully.

But now Veronika didn’t think it was hard to believe: it just required a certain perspective. The eyes were still beautiful, bright blue, but they looked at the world with an expression of caution and suspicion. Poor eyesight, or perhaps life itself, had set them in a permanent squint. The skin stretched tightly over her forehead, and with her thin grey hair pushed back, the shape of the cranium was disturbingly exposed, evoking simultaneously a baby’s vulnerable softness and a death’s skull. Veronika thought about the young girl’s thick braids falling from the edge of the hat down over her chest. The straight nose, the white teeth. The smile. Here, in the flickering candlelight, the nose was long and narrow, and the shadows down either side of the mouth were deep recesses. The mouth was a thin line, hiding gums that seemed largely toothless. It was impossible to associate it with the young girl’s hopeful smile. And perhaps there had never been much hope.

When the music ended, Astrid sat with both hands on the table, her half-filled glass between them. She was looking out the window. Very softly she began to sing.
Hon kommer utför ängarna vid Sjugareby . . .
She closed her eyes and her voice picked up, became more confident. Veronika looked at the old woman, then closed her own eyes and listened. While Astrid’s spoken words were slow and hesitant, the lyrics of the song flowed with clarity and beauty. She finished the last verse and they were both silent for a moment.

‘I used to love singing,’ said Astrid. ‘My mother used to sing to me — songs with words I didn’t understand. I just absorbed them, the way children do. Listened to her voice and memorised the sounds. Later, at school, I learnt the local songs. Like this one.’ And she began to sing again.

Later, Veronika made coffee and as she put cups on the table, Astrid got up and collected the bottle and the two small glasses she had brought. ‘I haven’t bothered to look for them for several years,’ she suddenly said, indicating the bottle with a slight nod. ‘The wild strawberries.’ She sat down at the table again and picked up the corkscrew. ‘I planted them behind my house over sixty years ago. I got them from the forest and people said it couldn’t be done. That wild strawberries couldn’t be transferred. But I cared for my patch and the plants thrived. Each year I would run out to clear it as soon as the soil thawed in the spring. And later, I collected the new offshoots and planted them in pots until they were strong enough to go back into the patch. I kept looking after it all summer. Picked the berries as they ripened. They were the sweetest — small and bright red with a perfume that stayed on your hands long after you had finished picking. I used to make jam and conserve. Cordial. And sometimes this liqueur.’

She peeled off the wax covering the cork, inserted the corkscrew and opened the bottle. She put her nose to the opening and smelled the contents before filling the two glasses with the deep red liquid.

‘I didn’t know I still had a bottle left. It’s been so long. I didn’t think there would be anything left behind the house, either. But when I checked the other day, I found it — my strawberry patch — overgrown and hidden under weeds, but still there.’

She lifted her glass and looked straight at Veronika. ‘Like secrets,’ she said. ‘Like memories. You can make yourself believe that they have been erased. But they are there, if you look closely. If you have a wish to uncover them.’

Veronika took her glass and held it up to the light. The content was burgundy red, mysterious and evocative, like a witch’s brew. She could smell the fragrance of the ripe berries as she held the glass to her nose. She closed her eyes, took a sip and let the sweetness fill her mouth.

They sat at the table with their glasses before them, drinking slowly while the music played. Astrid kept her eyes on her house across the field, where pale sheets of mist were moving over the grass.

‘Wild strawberries,’ she said, turning the thin stem of the glass in her hand.

There was a place in the forest, high up on the hills beyond the village, where I used to go. You had to know it to find it, there were no paths. A small clearing in the midst of the dense forest, with soft, silvery grass and wild strawberries. I happened on it when I was out looking for mushrooms in the autumn, and after that it became my secret hideaway. It was as if the dark firs around it stood guard — over the place itself, and over me. I sometimes came for a whole day, spread my blanket and lay down. I was alone in the world, and safe.

The year I was sixteen, summer was late. But the week after midsummer it arrived abruptly, with day after day of still, hot weather. I had no direction, no one had talked to me about what to do after leaving school. I drifted aimlessly, usually heading for my secret place in the early morning and returning only when the sun sank below the firs and the entire space was slowly overtaken by shadow. Nobody missed me.

It was a shock to discover someone there one day. He was kneeling, picking berries and threading them onto a timothy straw. I stopped in my tracks, well inside the shade of the trees. Although I made no sound, he must have felt my presence, for he stood up, holding the straw in one hand, like a strand of bright red pearls. He smiled and opened the palms of both hands, as if apologising. As if acknowledging that he was intruding, and surrendering to the rightful owner.

I recognised him vaguely. I didn’t know his name, but I knew he came from the next village. He was tall and he looked strong, like someone used to hard work on the land. His skin was freckled from exposure to the sun and his fair hair bleached almost white. He had the clearest grey eyes with streaks of amber. But that, I only discovered later. He smiled and I cautiously left the safety of the shade, stepping into the bright sunshine. Turning my back to him, I spread my blanket and sat down, pulling my skirt down over my legs and hugging my shins. He stood for a moment, then sat down on the grass just to one side of my blanket. He turned to me and held out the straw. I hesitated, but he nodded, smiled and stretched his hand further forward until it became impossible for me not to accept the offering. We said nothing while I slowly pulled the berries off the straw, one by one. I offered him one for each that I put in my mouth.

After that first day the longing for the safety of my secret place slowly grew into a longing to meet him. Or perhaps the place and the boy merged in my mind.

His name was Lars. He was a year older than me, seventeen. He had further to walk, from the next village, and until the harvest was over he had little free time. I could never be sure whether he would be there when I arrived. On my way through the forest I used to pass a large granite block where I would stop, draw my breath and close my fists with my thumbs inside, then close my eyes and whisper: ‘Please, please, please let him be there today,’ before continuing. If he wasn’t, I felt it was because of something I had done wrong. That somehow I had to earn the right to such pleasure. And for me, the place itself was no longer enough.

One day when I arrived I found him sitting on the grass, his hands cupped around something I couldn’t quite see. As I came closer I heard the smallest sound from inside his hands. When I sat beside him, he opened them a little and allowed me to peek inside. All I could see was a soft bundle of grey down.

‘It’s a little baby owl,’ he said. ‘I found it right here, on the grass. Must have fallen from its nest.’ He raised his gaze and scanned the solid wall of dark trees. ‘It shouldn’t be out and about in broad daylight.’ He looked into his hands. ‘A fox might find it. Or a falcon.’

We sat silent, watching the small bird in his hands, our heads so close his hair touched mine.

‘I don’t think it’s injured.’ He gently stroked the downy head with his finger. ‘Just scared.’ He blew softly into his hands. ‘Perhaps if I put it in the shade under one of the trees it might survive until the evening and its mother will find it.’

‘Kill it.’

I sat with my arms pressed around my shins, my forehead on my knees and my eyes closed. ‘Kill it now,’ I said.

I knew he was watching me, but I kept my eyes closed.

‘The mother will never find it. Kill it!’ I could feel tears pounding behind my eyelids and I was fighting to keep them out of my voice. ‘Kill it for me.’

After quite a while I heard him rise, then his steps on the grass. Only when the branches rustled as he passed through the wall of trees did I release my tears. I sat hunched, hugging my legs, and the sun was hot on my back. My tears wet the cotton print of my dress. It felt as if he was gone for a long time, and all the while I struggled to control my crying. When finally he returned, he was empty-handed. I was still sobbing as he sat down beside me and put his arm around my shoulders. He said nothing. The air was still, the sun was high in the sky and we were the only people in the world. The skin of his arm was warm against my neck and his hand hugged my shoulder. I looked at our feet on the grass in front of us, his strong and tanned, mine slender and white.