The Best Intentions (18 page)

Karin:
Has it never occurred to you that I was so enthusiastic because I wanted him to contradict me: “No, no, Mammschen dear, I like it much better here at home with you and Papa.”

Johan
(
astonished
): Don't tell me you hoped that would happen?

Karin:
The opposite happened. He was still enthusiastic.

Johan:
And then our little girl is away. In a hospital. Far away. Thank goodness almost better, at last! But the house has been damned empty.

Karin:
Yes, of course. But she likes it there at the sanatorium and has learned German properly. She doesn't seem to have missed us.

Johan:
And now you're going over there to bring her back.

Karin:
Would it upset you if Anna and I made a detour through Italy? I think it'd be fun to go to Florence just once more in my life.

Johan:
Then you'd be away quite a long time?

Karin:
Four weeks at the most. You could come with us, Johan!

Johan:
You know I couldn't.

Karin:
We could take it carefully. You'd enjoy a little trip, Johan. Imagine . . . Tuscany in the spring!

Johan:
You must go. Not me.

Karin:
Anna would be so pleased.

Johan:
I'll stay at home and count the days.

Karin:
It's good that Anna's not coming home just yet. May can be so cold and wet. In June, we'll go straight to the country.

Johan:
Do you think she'll want to wait that long?

Karin:
What do you mean? Tell me what you mean.

Johan:
I just meant that perhaps there's someone she wants to come back to. Now that she's well again.

Karin:
I don't really understand. Do you mean . . . ?

The traffic superintendent looks at his wife with a thoughtful expression on his face: It is a moral and strategic dilemma for him. He
doesn't like keeping secrets from Karin. He ought to keep quiet. But he doesn't. Quick decisions and extensive consequences.

Karin:
What is it, Johan? I can see you want to tell me something that's worrying you.

He doesn't answer, but opens the bedside table drawer and takes out a letter. It's a letter from Anna. To Ernst. Not sealed. Quite thick.

Johan:
When the afternoon mail came, you weren't at home. So I took it. Here's a letter from Anna to Ernst. It was posted in Ascona four days ago.

Karin:
Ernst's coming back from Christiania next week. There's no point in foewarding it.

Johan:
Anna seems to have forgotten to seal the envelope. Or she did it so carelessly, it's come open by itself.

Karin:
Why do you say it like that? That's nothing remarkable. It often happens . . .

Johan:
There's another letter inside the letter.

Karin:
. . . another letter? To Henrik Bergman.

Johan:
It says on the envelope “to be forwarded because I don't know his address.”

Karin:
But that letter's sealed.

Johan:
That letter was sealed, but I've opened it.

Karin:
What do you think Anna'll say . . . ?

Johan:
It was simple. A little steam from the kettle.

Karin:
Have you read the letter?

Johan:
No, I haven't read it.

Karin:
Why haven't you read it?

Johan:
I don't know. Ashamed to, perhaps.

Karin:
If we read that letter, it'd be for Anna's good.

Johan:
Or from jealousy. Or because we're furious that the girl is going behind our backs. Or because we don't accept young Bergman.

Karin:
Naturally, Johan. It's easy to complicate one's deepest motives. You can read about that kind of fun in novels.

Johan:
Read it! I find it difficult to make out Anna's handwriting.

Karin takes the letter to Henrik Bergman, opens it, puts on the glasses she has just taken off, unfolds the many pages, and reads in silence. She shakes her head.

Karin:
Oh, just listen to this!

But Johan is not allowed to listen to anything. Mrs. Karin turns the pages, frowning and scratching her cheek.

Johan:
I was given nothing to listen to.

Karin
(
reads
): “. . . all long ago. When I think back, I realize how childish, immature, and spoiled I was. The long time I've spent here at the sanatorium and the proximity of contemporaries who are much sicker than I am have made me think again. And then I've said to myself . . .”

Johan
(
quietly
): . . . you mustn't read any more.

Karin:
. . . if
you
don't want to hear it, then I'll read it to myself.

Johan:
It's not right.

Karin
(
reads
): “. . . and then I've said to myself, I feel a responsibility for you, Henrik, a responsibility I thought I hadn't the energy to bear and so I tried to unburden myself of you. I was ill, too. I couldn't think clearly It was nice just to sink into a fever and be looked after. I felt humiliated and deceived. I thought you'd lied. I was convinced I'd never be able to trust you again. Now, afterward, this all seems unreal and distant. And also, my guilt is at least as great as yours, if it can be called guilt when you're blinded and confused.”

Mrs. Karin stops and puts down the crisply folded sheets of paper with the golden emblem of the sanatorium on the left-hand edge. She finds it hard to control an emotion leaping up her throat and forcing her to swallow.

Johan:
. . . strange to think . . .

Karin
(
reads on
): “. . . I know nothing. But if it is true that after almost two years you still look on me as you did when we were sitting on the jetty at Duvtjärn washing the blood out of that bedspread . . .”

Johan:
. . . one must blame oneself . . .

Karin:
” . . . it's so easy to say you love someone. I love you, dear Papa. I love you, brother dear. But you are really using a word you don't
know the meaning of. So I dare not write that I love you, Henrik. I don't dare do that. But if you will take my hand and help me out of my great grief, then perhaps we can teach each other what that word entails . . .” (
Pause.
)

Johan:
Now we know more than we wanted to know.

Karin:
Yes, it's going to be difficult now.

Johan:
We can't suppress the letter.

Karin:
He shouldn't have it.

Johan:
I beg of you, Karin.

Karin:
For Anna's sake.

Johan:
And if she finds out that we . . .

Karin:
Letters get lost. It happens every day.

Johan:
It mustn't happen.

Karin:
That's silly, Johan.

Johan:
Do as you please. But I don't want to know.

Karin:
Just as I thought.

Johan:
Do you really imagine we can stop . . . ?

Karin:
Maybe not. (
Pause.
) But now I'm going to tell you something important. Sometimes I am
quite sure
when something is right or wrong. I am so sure, it's as if it were written down. And I am sure that it is wrong with Anna and Henrik Bergman. So I'll burn the letter to Ernst and the letter to Henrik. And I'll go to Italy with Anna and stay away the whole summer if that proves necessary. Are you listening to what I'm saying, Johan?

Johan:
In this case, you're going too far.

Karin:
I don't think so.

Johan:
Evil breeds worse evil.

Karin:
That remains to be seen.

Johan:
I don't understand how you dare!

Then silence falls in the bedroom: despondency, anxiety, revulsion, anger, jealousy, grief: Anna's leaving me. She has already left me. Anna is going away and taking the light with her.

Mrs. Karin leafs through the many closely written pages, reading here and there, her forehead scarlet: I know that Anna is uncertain deep down. She only opposes us when she's angry or upset. I must be careful. She really wants to please her mother. Her looks can be pleading . . . tell me what to do. I know so little.

Karin
(
suddenly
): Yes, well, it says here that Henrik Bergman has been ordained. (
Reads
) “I grieve that I couldn't be at your ordination, and I think about how your mother must have . . .” Oh, yes. Then he promptly disappears from town, what a . . .

She falls silent. It's painful that Johan doesn't understand. Even distances himself. It's been like that so often in their life together. She has had to carry out all the unpleasant decisions on her own.

Karin:
Johan.

Johan:
Yes.

Karin:
Are you miserable?

Johan:
I'm at a loss and miserable.

Karin:
Can't we try to be nice to each other although we disagree on this matter?

Johan:
But this is
vital
, Karin.

Karin:
Just because of that. I don't want you to retreat. I don't mind taking the responsibility, but you mustn't retreat.

Johan:
But it's
vital
.

Karin:
I heard you say so.

Johan:
For you and me.

Karin:
For us?

Johan:
If you carry out what you plan to do, then you'll harm Anna. If you harm Anna, you harm me. If you harm me, you harm yourself.

Karin:
How can you be so sure that I'll harm Anna? It's horrible of you to say that.

Johan:
You'll stop her from living her own life. You can only make her anxious and uncertain, but you can't change anything. You can damage but not change.

Karin:
And you're sure of that?

Johan:
Yes.

Karin:
You know?

Johan:
Sometimes, though not often, I think about the future. Both you and I know that I'll soon be leaving you. We know that, though we never talk about anything so embarrassing and unfortunate. You'll be left alone and will go on ruling your kingdom. I think you'll find yourself rather isolated. Don't make yourself lonelier than you need to.

Karin is sitting upright in her bed, not leaning back against the pillows. With a hasty movement, she takes off her glasses and puts them, not on the bedside table, but in front of her, right across the scattered sheets of paper. Her face is in the shadow, her hands on the covers. For a brief moment she is open, vulnerable. Johan tries to take her hand, but she withdraws it, though not roughly.

Karin:
I don't think I can be lonelier than I already am.

Johan:
I don't understand.

Karin:
Ernst is moving to Christiania. For good.

Johan:
Does that seem so bad?

Karin:
Yes, it does.

Johan:
Ernst is really the only person . . .

Karin:
I don't know, I can't classify. But Ernst . . .

She gets no further, and slaps the covers with her hand, once, twice.

Johan:
Is it so
bad?

Karin:
I'm not going to complain.

Johan:
Our children are leaving us. That's a fact.

Karin:
I'm not complaining.

Johan:
But I presume it's a terrible desolation.

Karin:
You use such dramatic words.

Johan:
I presume it's like this — this moment had to come. We're not prepared for it. And now we're nonplussed and close to tears.

Karin:
That's not true. I have given the children a free hand. I have tried to protect them, but I've never shut them in. Neither Ernst nor Anna. You can't say I've ever forced them.

Johan:
Yes, yes, yes. I've sat there in my study and sometimes listened to voices and footsteps. Then I hear the hall door and I know Anna's back from school. And my heart starts beating. Will she come running through the salon, fling open the door without knocking? Will she come to me in the study? And give me a hug? And then start telling me something important at top speed?

Karin:
But that's so long ago.

Johan:
Yes I suppose it is. Is it?

Karin (
decisive
): There's no point in us sitting here grieving over something irretrievable. The main thing is that we're all healthy and more or less content with life. You and I are largely worn out and must have the sense to retire from the scene. (
Smiles.
) Isn't that so, my dear?

Johan:
But you're about to start steering Anna's life. How does that fit in?

Karin:
I can't stand aside while a misfortune is happening before my very eyes.

Johan:
So you've decided.

Karin:
Decided? That would mean I had once hesitated.

Johan:
Good night then, Karin.

Karin:
Good night.

She leans forward and kisses him on the cheek, pats his hand, then gathers up the sheets of paper and puts them back in the envelope, which is then slipped into the bigger envelope, places the latter in the drawer of the bedside table, and turns the key. After that Mrs. Karin puts out the bedside lamp and lies comfortably on her back with her hands on her chest. A few minutes later her deep breathing confirms that she has left all her troubles for the next seven hours.

Johan Åkerblom lies awake for a long time, partly because he has to empty his bladder every three hours, partly because he has a grinding pain in his left side, and partly because his knee and hip are aching quietly but persistently, presumably indicating a change in the weather. The light by his bed is out, but the streetlamp sends a pale light through the blind and throws shadows on the ceiling. I'm not crying, but I'm certainly
desolated
.