Deep Sea (14 page)

After the maypole dancing, they go home. That evening there’s going to be a dance in the harbor on one of the nearby islands. Stephie wonders if Vera is planning to go. She didn’t come down to the maypole even though it’s Wednesday and she ought to have the day off.

“Tonight you’re supposed to pick seven kinds of flowers, you know,” says Miss Björk.

“Seven kinds of flowers?”

“Yes, and put them under your pillow. Then you’ll dream about the man you’re going to marry. But, of course, a good student like you ought to identify the flowers by genus and species first.”

Stephie laughs. “I’ll be sure to do that.”

At the turn in the road that leads to the shop, they run into Vera. Miss Björk and Janice continue on home.
Stephie and Vera sit down on the stone wall, side by side.

“Are you going to the dance tonight?” Stephie asks.

Vera shakes her head.

“Don’t you have the day off?”

“I do,” says Vera. “But just look at me.”

Stephie looks at Vera, who appears the way she always does, except maybe that her face is a little chubbier and her blouse seems to be pulling across her chest.

“You look fine,” says Stephie. “But if you’re not going dancing, maybe you’d like to come and pick flowers with me tonight?”

“Pick flowers?”

Stephie explains the custom. Vera didn’t know about putting flowers under your pillow, either. But after listening to Stephie, she shakes her head again.

“No, there’s no point in my doing it.”

“Don’t you want to know who you’re going to marry?”

“Good grief, Stephie,” says Vera. Then she promises to go along and pick flowers after all.

You’re supposed to pick the flowers in silence when the Midsummer Night, never truly black, is at its darkest. So later that evening, Stephie and Vera stumble around in the dusky night, hunting out their seven different kinds. It’s not easy to find so many on this island, with
its stony terrain. In the end, they each have six: buttercups, bitter vetch, clover, tufted vetch, crimson cranes-bill, and babies’ slippers. They don’t pick the German catchfly growing on the verge since the sticky stalks would stain their pillows.

Vera points to a flower bed outside one of the houses, where there are plenty of bleeding hearts and peonies growing.

Stephie shakes her head. The flowers have to be wild.

In a crevice, they spy something blue and purple. Wild pansies—the island’s signature flower.

Carefully, they each pick one of the little pansies. Now tradition demands that they go home without either talking or laughing.

Vera starts to tease Stephie, making funny faces and joking around. When that doesn’t make Stephie laugh, Vera starts doing some of her old showpieces. She mimes the shopkeeper’s affectations, the way he fusses over the customers, and she acts out the postmistress and her nosiness, doing all this without saying a word.

Stephie presses her lips together as hard as she can. She is not going to laugh!

By the time they come to the crossroads where they go their separate ways, Stephie’s face is bright red with the effort. They part without a word.

As Stephie tiptoes to the kitchen settle in the basement, where she’s sleeping all summer, she’s as quiet as a mouse so she won’t wake Aunt Märta. The sky is
already brightening toward the east, by the mainland. The shortest night of the year is over.

Although Stephie is tired, she can’t fall asleep. She wonders whether Miss Björk and Janice have flowers under their pillows, too. Neither of them is married. But Stephie doesn’t think Miss Björk really wants to get married. She has a job, a nice apartment, and her girls at school.

What about Janice? She looks so romantic. Stephie’s sure she receives huge bouquets of roses from secret admirers at the ballet, and goes out to supper with elegant gentlemen late in the evenings after her performances.

Ballerinas probably can’t marry and have children. Not unless they give up dancing
, Stephie thinks.
The same way an opera singer has to choose between her career and having a family
.

Stephie sighs. “If Mamma never gets to sing the Queen of the Night, I’m to blame,” she says softly.

The idea strikes Stephie like a bolt of lightning. She’s never thought of Mamma that way before. Mamma’s always been Mamma, not a person with dreams and desires of her own. Of course Stephie is aware that Mamma had a life before she met Papa, married him, and had children. That she learned to play the piano and took singing lessons from a very early age. That she sang her first big role at the opera at just nineteen, and that everyone predicted she would have a brilliant career. And that she quit the opera after four years because she was pregnant.

Does getting married and having children necessarily mean having to give up what you want most of all?

Mamma had planned to take up her singing again when Stephie and Nellie were bigger. She went on taking lessons, and singing at home and among friends. But the year Nellie started school, the Nazis came to power in Vienna. The opera was closed to Jewish singers and musicians. Mamma wasn’t even allowed to sit in the audience and watch her former colleagues perform.

Now she’s in Theresienstadt. And she didn’t get to sing there, either. Why?

Eventually, Stephie falls asleep. She is still sleeping deeply when Aunt Märta brings her a cup of coffee in bed. She doesn’t remember anything she may have dreamed.

T
he card from Papa takes a very long time to arrive. It’s dated May 17, but Stephie doesn’t receive it until the end of June.

Mamma sang yesterday
. This must mean that the performance of
The Magic Flute
took place. Whatever was
crossed out in Papa’s last card didn’t manage to prevent it after all!

Stephie wishes Papa had written more about Mamma’s singing, instead of urging Stephie on about her future. He doesn’t seem to realize that she’s nearly grown up. That she knows what’s best for her on her own now.

She was just a child when they were separated, a child who looked up to her parents and wanted to be like them. Now she’s almost sixteen and would like to see what it would be like to be with them in a grown-up way. Get to know them differently.

But she cannot. Not until the war is over.

Perhaps it won’t be long now. The victories of the Allies at Stalingrad and in North Africa are followed by further victories. In July, they make land in Sicily. On the Eastern Front, the Germans are on the offensive, but the Russians stop their progress, driving them back westward.

Stephie, Miss Björk, and Janice follow events from one day to the next. Aunt Märta often joins them to listen to the evening news at seven. Sometimes Janice is able to get the English BBC by fiddling with the dials on the old radio. The room is filled with a distant swishing sound, and fragments of words in foreign languages. Now and then, German voices break in, but Janice silences them with a quick twist of the dial.

The BBC has more detailed reports on the war, and
Miss Björk says they are more truthful, too. Because of what the Swedes call their neutrality, the Swedish authorities still censor the news bulletins.

Being neutral implies not taking a stand. Sweden means to stay out of the war at any price.

But freight cars carry iron ore to the German armaments industry from northern Swedish mines. And other trains pass, too, full of German soldiers on their way to and from occupied Norway. Many people are very upset about those trains full of Germans, and some demand that they not be permitted to cross Sweden.

“Do you know what the local stationmaster here said to the Germans?” May asks Stephie.

May has two weeks of vacation from the laundry where she is working this summer. She and Stephie sleep head to foot on the kitchen settle. Every midday, they go to the beach and lie in the sun on the cliffs. The weather is lovely, with the sun shining over the sea.

“No, what?”

“A train from Germany stopped and some Germans stuck their heads out the windows. ‘Is this Gote-Burg?’ they shouted. ‘Gote-Burg?’ the stationmaster answered. ‘No, I hate to tell you, but it’s Stalingrad,’ he said.”

Stephie laughs.

“You can imagine how fast they pulled those heads of theirs back in,” May says, giggling.

“Where did you hear that one?”

“Papa heard it down at the shipyard. Somebody read it in the paper. He says it’s a true story.”

May’s papa always has stories to tell about his coworkers or the foremen at the shipyard, or about something he saw on the tram. The stories are often critical of the people he calls “the powers that be.” Laughing at people with authority makes life easier to bear for people who are powerless themselves.

Vera’s the same
, Stephie thinks.
She imitates and jokes about people so she won’t have to be scared of them
.

“Let’s swim,” says May.

“I wonder if Vera’s going to turn up,” Stephie says. “She has the afternoon off today.”

“I don’t think she’ll want to be seen in a bathing suit much longer,” says May.

“Why not?”

“Didn’t you notice last night?” May asks. “Didn’t you see her tightening her belt so it wouldn’t show?”

“What are you talking about? So what wouldn’t show?”

May just stares at her.

“Stephanie,” she says. “I know you aren’t always very aware of these things, but are you trying to tell me you really don’t know?”

“What don’t I know?”

Stephie raises her voice. It annoys her that May is acting all superior, pretending to know more about Vera
than she does. Vera is Stephie’s friend, not May’s, although they do get along better now than they used to.

“That she’s in the family way,” May says calmly. “Surely you’ve noticed?”

Stephie can’t believe her ears. “Of course she’s not,” she replies. “Where did you get that from?”

May doesn’t say anything, but Stephie can tell from the look in her eyes that May is certain. She wasn’t just making it up.

Vera was sick to her stomach recently. She’s getting chubbier. She mentioned herself that she looked different. And the creaking bed in the cabin that night …

Stephie feels foolish. Silly and childish. How could she not have understood? And she considers herself Vera’s best friend!

“Are you sure?”

“Just ask her,” says May. “I can’t believe she hasn’t talked to you about it. Her best friend. I would have told you right away. But of course I’d never have gotten myself into that predicament.”

She sounds so dreadfully sensible, as if she thinks she is a better person than Vera.

“It’s his fault just as much as hers,” says Stephie.

“Oh, yes,” says May. “Don’t be angry. Come on, let’s take a swim.”

I
t’s Sunday morning, and Aunt Märta is getting ready to go to church, when May has an idea. Aunt Märta is wearing her navy-blue Sunday dress, and her bun is pulled tight at the back of her head. She’s standing at the mirror, fastening her straw hat with hat pins.

Stephie usually goes with her to church. She does it to make Aunt Märta happy. When they arrive at the prayer house arm in arm, Aunt Märta always looks so proud. But Stephie is ashamed. She doesn’t really believe in the things they preach. She doesn’t even think the songs are very nice anymore.

This Sunday, Aunt Märta has to go alone. It’s May’s last day on the island. After dinner, Stephie’s going to walk her to the steamboat.

“Do they take up collection at your church?” May asks Aunt Märta.

Aunt Märta turns to look at May.

“Certainly. It usually goes to our missions in heathen countries.”

“I was wondering,” May said, “and I hope you won’t be offended. I know you and Stephie send packages to her parents, and that they need both food and clothing. I was wondering whether one week’s collection could be used for them? Everyone here knows Stephie and Nellie.”