The Best Intentions (16 page)

Anna:
Don't stand watching for me. No, you may not touch me.

Henrik:
Surely we can talk to each other! Just for a few minutes?

Anna:
You've misunderstood everything, Henrik.
I
don't want to talk to
you.
We have nothing more to say to each other. Can't you leave me in peace?

Anna starts crying openly and vehemently, like a child. Martha comes waddling over in her gleaming matt fur coat and Russian fur hat. She is annoyed and tugs at Henrik's arm.

Martha:
You must leave the girl alone. Don't you see you're frightening her?

Henrik:
Please don't interfere. This is none of your business.

Martha:
You're behaving like a fool. For that matter, we haven't time to stand here. We're going to a concert in the university hall, and it's nearly seven o'clock.

Anna:
Can't you leave me in peace? Please, Henrik, I'm asking you as kind;y as I can. Leave me alone!

Henrik:
How are you? You look ill.

Anna:
Yes. No, I don't know. I'm probably just miserable.

Henrik:
I can't go on living.

Anna:
Oh, don't be so dramatic! Of course you can go on living, and so can I.

Henrik:
Anna,
speak to me!

Anna:
Don't touch me, I say. Don't
touch
me! You mustn't touch me. You're disgusting.

Henrik is paralyzed by her tone of voice. He has never heard such a tone of voice before. He sees the contempt in her eyes and has never seen anything like it before. (Henrik is a sheltered person, as if invisible. He has lived with his invisibility without it worrying him. He has always been rather indifferent to Frida's comments. Anna is looking at him with obvious contempt, no doubt about it, and he cannot misunderstand the look in her eyes — it is for him in particular, or rather someone a long way inside the role-playing, someone who for one painful moment realizes the extent of his destitution. That's what it was like, and that's how it would be, a lifetime.
He has at last been seen
.)
He drops Anna's arm and lets her go. She is no longer crying. The two women soon vanish into the darkness and the swirling snow

After Christmas, Anna was to return to the nursing school. Nothing had been as usual. The traffic superintendent had had a slight stroke and was paralyzed on one side, a paralysis which seems to be easing. Carl had been threatened with personal bankruptcy a week before Christmas. His parents and Oscar had rescued him, but had put him in the hands of a financial guardian, his stepmother declaring herself willing to oversee his finances in the future. The girls had measles. Svea had proclaimed that this was probably her last Christmas on earth, and Anna was suffering from grief and love sickness, combined with a persistent cough that would not go away. The day after the new year (1910) began, she received a letter in an unfamiliar handwriting, very neat and well written. She read it with rising astonishment.

Highly Esteemed Miss Åkerblom. I apologize for troubling You, but I find myself compelled to write to You, on an urgent matter of extreme importance to both You, Esteemed Miss Åkerblom, and to the Undersigned. May I be so bold as to request a Conversation? In that case, I suggest that we meet at Lagerberg's coffeehouse on Thursday at two o'clock. The Undersigned will be easy to recognize. I have a dark red winter coat and ditto hat. If the Esteemed Miss Åkerblom considers it worth the trouble to meet me, I would be singularly grateful. If not, I request You to disregard this letter. With great respect, Yours Faithfully, Frida Strandberg.

A few minutes after two o'clock, Anna goes into Lagerberg's coffeehouse on the corner of Drottninggatan and Vastra Agatan. It is almost empty. Two older ladies with well-groomed coiffures and large aprons are talking quietly to a professor of civil law in a top hat. Outside, it is snowing gently. Inside, the tiled stoves spread a fragrant warmth, releasing a multishimmering, roseate harmony over the seduction of the coffeehouse's delicious and much-renowned confectionary, while the pervasive aroma of freshly made coffee serves as a provocative counterpoint.

One of the well-groomed ladies asks Anna if there is anything she would like, and Anna says “hot chocolate with whipped cream and a small coffee cake,” and “ please, can I have it served in the inner room?” “Yes, of course, please go on in, Miss Åkerblom.”

Frida Strandberg is already there and gets up when Anna approaches. She holds out her hand, and they greet each other with reserve and no attempt at false cheer. Frida's wine-red woolen coat is
simple and becoming, her hat of the same material trimmed with fur. Anna is wearing the fur coat she had received as a Christmas present, tailor-made and elegant, and a small sable beret is perched on her back-combed hair.

Frida:
Have you ordered, Miss Åkerblom?

Anna:
Yes, thank you. I have.

Frida:
It was kind of you to come.

Anna:
I suppose I was curious. (
Coughs.
)

Frida:
Aren't you well?

Anna:
A cold that won't go away.

Frida:
Have a little mineral water. I haven't used the glass.

Anna:
Thank you. That's kind of you.

Frida:
There's been an unusual amount of illness going around this year.

Anna:
Oh, has there?

Frida:
People get sick when they're unhappy. I think there's been an unusual number of unhappy people this autumn.

Anna:
Why just this autumn?

Frida:
The general strike, of course, and all that that's brought with it.

Anna:
Of course, the general strike.

Frida:
You're going to be a nurse, is that right, Miss Åkerblom?

Anna:
I'm just going back to the school of nursing.

Frida:
I would love to have been a nurse. But I had to earn my own living rather young, so . . .

Anna's order arrives, a large cup of hot chocolate beneath a mountain of whipped cream, the coffee cake in its crinkly paper, and a glass of water. The well-groomed lady smiles maternally and makes herself scarce. Frida watches her go.

Frida:
Do you know her?

Anna:
When we were children, Papa used to bring us here almost every Saturday.

A silence arises that foreshadows a turn in the conversation in the direction of its real purpose. Anna suppresses a cough and takes a sip of water, her cake still untouched. Frida looks at her own hand and the engagement ring. The letter, written on a kind of impulse, had not been difficult to compose. Now the undertaking has become almost unbearable.

I asked my mother how much she remembered of the situation. She hesitated, then answered that she had immediately liked Frida Strandberg, that she seemed older and more mature than her age, and that “she was good-looking.” She also remembered that both of them had noticed the engagement ring at about the same time and Frida had been slightly embarrassed.

Frida:
I must go to work in half an hour. So I want to say what I've got to say without dillydallying. It's not that simple. When I wrote that letter, I thought everything seemed so clear, but now it's difficult.

She smiles apologetically and shakes her head. Anna feels a wave of fever in her forehead and mouth. She starts to take her handkerchief out of her bag, but then stops.

Frida:
It's about Henrik. Miss Åkerblom, I'm asking you to take him back. He's . . . I don't know how to put it . . . he's . . . falling apart. It sounds peculiar when I say it like that, but I can't find a better expression. He doesn't sleep; he studies late into the night; and he looks so bad, one could just cry. I'm not saying this to arouse your pity. If there's no pity, I mean no feelings, then it'd be both stupid and tactless. I don't know much about the situation. He hasn't said anything. I've just guessed most of it.

A gesture of impatience and a quick smile. I suppose she wants me to say something, thinks Anna. But what is there to say?

Frida:
I try not to be angry and hurt. But no one can help their feelings. I can't help getting furious, for instance. Or that I like him, although he behaves so feebly. Do you know what I think, Miss Åkerblom? I think he's the most agonized person on two feet. He doesn't want to be with me any longer now, but do you think he dares say to me, now, Frida, let's leave it at that, it's over between us, I'm in love with someone else? He can't bring himself to say he doesn't want to be with me any longer, because he knows I'll be cross and miserable. And then he hurts me even more by saying nothing. I don't know that much about what's gone on before, or what you think, Miss Åkerblom, about all this. But I think we are three poor wretches all
suffering and crying in secret. So I feel that I must be the one to strike the first blow, so to speak. I must tell Henrik I won't go on with it any longer. For my own sake. I'm not going to let myself be hurt and — humiliated, yes, humiliated. He lies in my bed crying for someone else. It's humiliating for both him and me. It's humiliating. I'll tell you something, Miss Åkerblom, something I think about all the time. In a sense, he hasn't got a real life, poor thing. So nothing's worthwhile. The reason he's so miserable isn't hard to figure out. He's got a mother who — well, it sounds awful to say so — he's got a mother who's killing him. I don't know how she does it, because I know she loves him so much, he goes crazy with fear. In my profession, you learn quite a lot about people, you know, Miss Åkerblom. And I've only once ever seen him together with his mother. He hasn't even dared tell her we're engaged, rings and all. No, I was given the honor of waiting on them while they were having coffee at the Flustret. I arranged that. I wanted to see that woman. I can't call her anything better. No, I must go now if I'm to be there on time.

Anna:
. . . what shall I do?

Frida:
. . . take him, Miss Åkerblom, just decide. Henrik's the finest and best person I know. The kindest, and so good. I know no one better. I just want him to have a good life at last. He's never been happy in his whole life. He needs someone to love; then he won't have to hate himself so much. Now I really must go, or I shall get into trouble. Though that doesn't matter all that much, because I'm leaving and going to Hudiksvall for the summer. (
She smiles slightly.)
Maybe it's interesting to know that I'm getting out of town. I have a good friend — no, not in
that sense
— a good friend who lives in Hudiksvall, and he's got a fine boardinghouse he's going to sell, and he's building a hotel. He wants me to go there and run the restaurant, together with a girl who's been to catering school in Stockholm and in Switzerland. Lots of people think Norrland is going to be the place of the future, and it could be fun to be in on that future right from the beginning. So I'm leaving, though it'll be sad for me and I know I'll cry. But it's best that way. May I please pay for us both? I'll pay on my way out, if you wouldn't mind staying for a moment. Perhaps it wouldn't be exactly right if we paraded along the river together. Good-bye, then, Miss Åkerblom, and be careful with that cough.
(She goes, turns.)
Yes, one more thing. Don't ever tell Henrik . . . I mean, about my letter and our talk. That wouldn't be a good thing. He would just complicate matters. He'll always complicate everything, poor boy!

Suddenly, Frida Strandberg looks miserable, her eyes glistening, her lips trembling. She gestures dismissively. “I haven't cried all this time. Why now? How silly.”

Then she is gone, the red curtain swaying.

The cold descends after Epiphany, smoke rising straight up out of the chimneys, the sunlight glowing for an hour or two above the great brick structure of the castle and dusk soon falling. Children and sparrows are making a lot of noise around Carolina Hill; crystals of ice bloom on the windowpanes; and the sleigh bells jangle shrilly.

Anna has put on her uniform and is packing, back to nursing school now that the Christmas holidays are over. She has a temperature and feels wretched, coughing as she moves slowly between the cupboard, the chest of drawers, the wardrobe, sitting down on her bed, standing by the window, going to the door, going to her desk, starting a letter, tearing it up, throwing it into the wastepaper basket. “Dear Henrik, I want us to . . .” — and then she doesn't know what to say. Fever throbs in her body, and sometimes she finds it hard to breathe, especially after an attack of coughing.

Ernst opens the door. “Are you really going to go? You're not well. For God's sake, there must be limits to your sense of duty. I've been skiing in Old Upsala. It's twenty-five below zero. I'm going to have a brandy. Then I'm off to work. I'm working in the afternoons, so I won't see you for a while. I'll be coming to Stockholm sometime next week. We'll go to Dramaten and see Strindberg's latest play. Look after yourself, beloved little sister. Give me a kiss. Shall I take a message to Henrik? We'll both be singing tomorrow evening. Shall I give him your regards? All right, I
won't
give him your regards. Farewell, then, my little cranberry heart!”

So Ernst leaves and Anna weeps, is weeping again. She doesn't want to cry and doesn't really know why she is. Mama Karin looks in: “Wouldn't you like a little Ems water, dear? Let me feel your forehead. You really are ill. I'll telephone the matron and tell her you're ill. I'm not going to let you go in that state!” Anna sulkily shakes her head: “Leave me in peace, leave me alone. I forbid you to telephone Matron. She hates us making a fuss. A little Ems water would probably be nice.”

Mrs. Karin goes down to boil some Ems water. Anna sits at the desk. “Dearest, dearest Henrik, we must . . .” But she doesn't know what they must and tears up the sheet of paper. There's a discreet knock on the door, and her father pokes his head into the room. When
he sees Anna, he smiles and comes right in, making his way with the aid of two canes and ending up on the nearest chair.