Deep Sea (22 page)

“Sit back down.”

Nellie does, reluctantly.

“Do you remember when Mamma got sick, the second winter after we left? She got pneumonia right when she and Papa were supposed to be leaving for America.”

“Of course,” says Nellie. “Of course I remember.”

“Mamma got sick again,” Stephie tells her. “In the camp. At Theresienstadt.”

“Oh?”

“She got seriously ill,” Stephie continues. “Typhus. I don’t know much about it, though.”

“But Papa can take care of her, right?”

Now Stephie can clearly hear Nellie’s concern.

“Nellie,” says Stephie. “Mamma is dead.”

For an instant, there is total silence. Neither of them moves a muscle.

Then a seagull screeches overhead. Nellie is on her feet again.

“You liar!” she cries. “She’s not dead! You’re just making that up to punish me. You think you do everything right, and I’m stupid and mean. You liar!”

The tears stream from her eyes. Stephie stands, and Nellie pounds her with her fists.

“Liar! Liar!” she screams.

Stephie takes Nellie by the wrists and holds her still. Nellie struggles, but eventually gives up. Her body is quaking with sobs. Stephie puts her arms around her, holding her tight.

“It’s my fault,” Nellie sobs. “It’s my fault she’s dead.”

“Why on earth would it be your fault?”

“For wishing I was Aunt Alma and Uncle Sigurd’s own child. I didn’t want any other mother than Auntie Alma.”

“Listen to me now, Nellie,” says Stephie. “Nothing is your fault. We were sent here like packages with address labels around our necks. That wasn’t our fault, and it wasn’t Mamma and Papa’s fault, either. You were
so little. I promised I would take care of you, but I couldn’t.”

“The first evening here,” Nellie whispers. “When you left with Aunt Märta. I thought you were never coming back.”

“I had no choice. I had to go.”

“If nobody ever has any choice,” Nellie asks her, “then whose fault is it?”

T
he days pass. The first raging grief slides into a more muffled sorrow. Stephie misses Mamma all the time, and sometimes she cries.

“Let her cry,” she hears Miss Björk tell Aunt Märta. “It eases the grief. I know. I lost my mother when I was her age.”

“I should never have come to Sweden,” Stephie says, weeping. “I should have been there.”

“That’s not true,” says Miss Björk firmly.

“Yes, it is. I ought to have been there, with Mamma.”

“And if you had died, too? Do you think it would have been better for her to know that? Or for your papa? Believe me, Stephanie, as long as your mother was alive, she was grateful that you and Nellie were in
good hands. And what do you think is comforting your papa now? Knowing that the two of you are safe.”

Papa. Oh, how lonely he must be.

“I don’t know your parents,” says Miss Björk, “but from all you’ve told me, there is one thing I feel sure of.”

“What’s that?”

“That whatever happens, they wouldn’t want you to give up. You are here for a reason, Stephanie. And that reason is for you to go on living and to make the best of your life.”

Stephie looks up and meets Hedvig Björk’s clear, serious gaze. Stephie knows what she is thinking about. There are fewer than three weeks left before the tests that will determine whether she can skip the first year of high school. It all feels very far away, as if it no longer has anything to do with her.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” says Stephie. “Not now.”

“But I know you can,” says Miss Björk. “You’ll pass. We’ll start studying again tomorrow morning. All right?”

“All right.”

“Your mamma would be proud of you,” says Miss Björk.

Gradually, life’s daily routines return. Every morning, Stephie goes upstairs to study with Miss Björk. She has
to work hard now; there isn’t much time left before the tests.

Everyone is so kind to her. Aunt Märta looks after her and makes her favorite meals. Miss Björk encourages her, and Janice tries to make her laugh. Uncle Evert comes home and takes her out in the little rowboat. He doesn’t say much, but listening to the rhythm of the oars and looking into his eyes calms her.

Vera brings over a tin cup with the very first blackberries of the summer.

“From our spot,” she tells Stephie.

Vera seems happy, in spite of not being able to go back to her job in Göteborg when summer is over. Her mistress doesn’t want a housemaid who’s expecting, and Rikard hasn’t yet managed to arrange an apartment for them to live in once they’re married.

“Things will all work out,” Vera says, stroking her tummy. “What do you think it’s going to be, a boy or a girl?”

“A girl,” says Stephie.

“I hope so,” says Vera. “Though it’s probably easier to be a boy.”

Stephie has no idea how May hears the news, but after a week or so, she gets a long letter. May writes how sorry she feels for Stephie, and how much she wishes she could help. She sends greetings from her whole family, and a drawing from Gunnel, with Stephie as a princess.

Stephie, in turn, writes to Papa. She has never had so
much trouble formulating a letter. She has to start over and over again. The fountain pen trembles in her hand. But finally she finds the words.

She mails the letter.

It comes back.

Abgereist
, says the stamp on the envelope.

Departed? Departed for where?

The entrance examinations for high school take two days. Stephie goes to Göteborg with Miss Björk and Janice, whose summer vacation is now over. Miss Björk has to prepare for her fall classes, and Janice is starting rehearsals at the opera house.

The tests go well. Stephie feels well prepared. The
night between the two test days, Stephie sleeps in her bed at May’s. After the tests, she’ll return to the island for the last week of her summer vacation.

It’s good to see May again, and the rest of her family, too. May’s mother gives her a hug and kisses both her cheeks, and Gunnel comes over and sits on Stephie’s lap. That night, Stephie and May lie whispering for a long time before they fall asleep.

The second day, Stephie finishes by early afternoon. She could take the three o’clock boat to the island, but she decides to wait and leave that evening instead. There is one thing she needs to do before going back.

At four-thirty, she rings the bell of the Jewish Children’s Home. Susie, the girl with the sulky face, opens the door. At first, she doesn’t recognize Stephie, but after a moment, she tells her to come in.

“Is Judith here?” Stephie asks.

“No, she’s not back from work yet. You can wait in the dayroom.”

Stephie sits down on a hard chair. She hears girls talking to each other, somewhere else in the building. A tall girl comes in to get a book and nods to Stephie.

“Are you looking for someone?” the girl asks.

“Yes, Judith.”

“Oh, are you her classmate from Vienna? The one who lives on an island?”

“Yes, I am,” says Stephie, wondering what Judith has been saying about her. But the girl gives her a friendly smile before leaving with the book under her arm.

Twenty minutes later, Judith finally arrives.

“Judith, you’ve got a visitor!” she hears Susie shout.

Stephie rises from the armchair just as Judith steps in the doorway, looking surprised.

“Stephie! What are you doing here?”

I shouldn’t have come
, Stephie thinks.
She doesn’t want to see me
.

But Judith walks into the room and takes one of Stephie’s hand in both of hers. Her eyes are bright.

“I’m so glad to see you! I behaved very foolishly. Can you forgive me?”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Stephie. “You were right, too, in a way. In fact, I resigned from the church congregation.”

“You did? Oh, I’m so glad you aren’t mad at me. You’re the only person here I know from home.”

“Judith,” Stephie asks. “What does
abgereist
mean?”

Judith’s smile vanishes. “Your parents?” she asks.

“Papa. Mamma is dead. She died in June, though I didn’t hear about it until a couple of weeks ago. You do know what
abgereist
means, don’t you?”

“Transported,” Judith tells her. “To another camp. Probably in Poland. No letters ever arrive from there. You can’t write or send packages.”

“What happens there?”

“I don’t know,” says Judith. “No one knows for sure. All you can do is hope.”

“Hope for what?”

“That the war will end. Fast, before they’re all dead.”

During the last vacation week on the island, the air is cooler, and the blue of the sea is a shade darker. Autumn is approaching.

On Monday, Uncle Evert takes the
Diana
out in a convoy with several fishing boats. Fishing together is safest, in case one of the boats hits a mine. That has happened several times this summer, but no one has been killed.

On Wednesday evening, the boats are already back. All but two. Two boats and their crews are missing.

“They got shot down,” Uncle Evert tells Stephie. “On purpose. No one, not even the Germans, can mistake a fishing boat for a naval vessel. They’re trying to frighten us. And it’s working. They were so close they could surely see the name and number of every single boat. They’ll get the rest of us next time.”

None of the boats go out fishing again that week. There are protest meetings on the islands and in the fishing villages along the coast. The boats that were with the two that got shot down change their names and numbers. Although no one is safe in these waters anymore, the risk is greatest for boats whose crews have seen too much.

“The
Liberty
,” suggests Uncle Evert. “Don’t you think a name meaning ‘freedom’ would be good, Stephie?”

Stephie nods. “
Liberty
’s a good name.

“Or maybe …,” says Uncle Evert. “Wasn’t your mother’s name Elisabeth?”

“Yes.”

“Shall we rename the boat after her?”

“Is the
Elisabeth
a good name for a boat?”

“Yes,” Uncle Evert answers. “A very good name.”

Stephie helps paint the new name—
Elisabeth
—in big black letters on the rounded stern. Uncle Evert paints the name of the island and the boat’s number.

“We’ll go out again next week,” he says. “Those Germans can’t get rid of us that easily. Soon it will be their turn to be afraid.”

S
tephie is standing on a cliff a couple of yards above the sea, in the hard September wind. It makes the water choppy, tearing up waves every which way and leaving a line of white foam along the shoreline.

She knows quite a lot about the sea now. Uncle Evert has taught her well. The vastness no longer frightens her. She now respects the water’s dark depths, and the quick changes of weather and wind on the islands.