The Best Intentions (23 page)

Lisen:
Have they been to see his mother?

Karin:
Anna says in her letter that they're going to Söderhamn today. Then they're going on to Forsboda to look at the parsonage. They've been promised it'll be repaired, Anna says. They're going to stay with the Nordensons. Nordenson is the squire there. He runs the whole estate.

Lisen:
Is he related to the Nordensons of Sjösätra?

Karin:
Yes, indeed, they're half brothers.

Lisen:
There was money there, wasn't there?

Karin:
They say so.

Lisen:
My sister worked for a cousin of the Nordensons of Sjösätra?. His name was . . . if I remember . . . yes, what was his name
now? Helmerson. His wife was a real, well . . . Helmerson was, too, for that matter. So it didn't last long.

Karin:
Perhaps Nordenson will be all right.

Lisen
(
skeptical
): Of course.

Karin:
Oscar says the Iron Works are in severe financial difficulties. He usually knows.

Lisen:
But the estate doesn't pay for the priest, does it?

Karin:
No, he'll get his stipend all right.

Lisen:
Our little Anna — just think.

Karin:
Yes, it's strange, isn't it, Miss Lisen?

The stove crackles, the lid of the pan rattles faintly and puffs out steam. A fly hits the window and falls on its back. Mrs. Karin stops cleaning black currants, props her elbow on the table, and sits there without moving. Miss Lisen goes on working, but as if at a different pace. She is looking at what her hands are doing.

Lisen
(
after long silence
): Yes, yes. Yes, indeed.

Karin:
I no longer know anything.

Lisen:
It's lonely for Mrs. Åkerblom.

Karin:
I don't mind that.

Lisen:
Oh, really?

Karin:
No, solitude doesn't worry me.

Lisen:
But then what on earth . . . ?

Karin:
Sometimes I wonder whether I have ever grasped
the innermost reason
why I do this or that. Do you understand, Miss Lisen?

Lisen:
I don't understand what you mean by the innermost reason.

Karin:
No. No, of course not.

Lisen:
If you start thinking that way, then you start getting muddled. For behind what you call “the innermost reason” there might be hidden other reasons that are even farther in. And so on.

Karin:
That's true.

Lisen:
May I give you some more hot coffee? (
Mrs. Karin holds out her cup
.)

Henrik's mother sends a brief message to say that unfortunately she can't meet the newly engaged couple at the station because her asthma has got worse during the summer. So she has taken up her post at the open front door in her best purple silk dress, a lace cap on the thin, carefully arranged hair, and a large welcoming smile, which nevertheless does not go as far as the sorrowful eyes. Anna allows herself to be embraced and sinks into a shapeless darkness smelling faintly of perspiration. Then Alma holds her fat little hands up toward her son, takes hold of his face, and kisses him on his forehead, cheeks, and chin, her light-colored eyes at once filling with tears and her breathing heavy.

Alma:
. . . and you've gone and shaved off your terrible little mustache. (
Teasing
.) We'll see what Anna and I can achieve with our combined forces. We'll probably sort him out, don't you think, Anna! But come on in, dear child, we mustn't go on standing here on the stairs. Let me look at you! Your fiancée is even more beautiful than the photograph you sent me. Dear, dear child, may you be happy with my boy! Let's see now! Are you happy now, Henrik? No, no, how silly I am. You must be quite embarrassed by my obtrusiveness. Now, let's see. This is what I think. Anna can have Henrik's old room. The trouble is, I usually have a paying guest. He's been kind enough to move out for a few days, but he smokes cigars. I've aired and aired the room, but I think it still smells of cigars.

Anna assures her she can't smell cigars but says nothing about the smell of mold oozing out of the dark green, partially faded wallpaper.

Alma:
But maybe it will be fun for you to sleep in your fiancé's boyhood room, Anna. Yes, that photograph above the bed is of Henrik's father, taken when we were engaged. I don't think it does him justice at all . . . he was so cheerful and handsome.

Anna:
I think he's very handsome, and very like Henrik. He looks like an actor.

Alma:
An actor? Well, perhaps, I don't know. He loved singing. He was so musical. And then he went and married a clumsy little fatty like me. Well, I wasn't so fat then as . . . but actually, there were several courting me, so there was competition, you see, Anna.

Henrik:
Then I'll sleep on the couch in the dining room. That's fine by me.

Alma:
No, no.
I
'll sleep on the couch in the dining room. Then you can be nice and comfy in my room, Henrik. (
jokingly
.) I'll lie like the drawn sword between the two lovers. (
Laughs
.)

Henrik
(
decisively
): Now you're being silly, Mama. I'll sleep on the couch, and that's it!

Alma:
Just listen to this dictator! Is he like this with you, or is it just his old mother he orders about? And now here we are, standing around arguing! I've put out some tea and sandwiches in the dining room. Henrik said in his letter that you were going to have dinner at the station restaurant in Gävle. Otherwise, of course I'd have had something extra special for you.

Henrik:
That'll be lovely. I promise you, Mama's sandwiches are delicious, artistic masterpieces.

Alma:
Now you're making fun of your old mother, Henrik. My asthma means I always have to watch my weight. The doctor's told me so, and food doesn't interest me any longer, not the way it used to.

Alma holds out her hand in silent appeal, and Anna hastily kisses it.

Alma:
My child, my dear little child.

For a brief moment, the two women stand close together. Henrik, on his way toward the open dining room door, turns around and sees the quick, indecisive gesture. Alma has put her heavy arm around the young woman's shoulders, her face stiffening in sudden pain. Henrik thinks of a word that opens up like a little shutter somewhere in his mind: inevitable,
inevitable
. Then at the same moment, everything is ordinary again, and he hears Anna's voice: “What is it, Henrik?”

Henrik:
I think Mama likes her daughter-in-law. We were a little jumpy, you and I.

Showing the albums, the eternal last resort for the first visit of a fiancée when conversation has run out and the minutes have become long. Showing the albums, on the sofa, lit by the paraffin lamp, Alma and Anna close together, the magnifying glass. Henrik sits on the other side of the round table. He has been given permission to smoke his pipe. Now he is hiding in the half-light and behind the cloud of pipe smoke, so he can watch his mother and his fiancée undisturbed.

Alma
(
points with a plump little finger
): There you are, Henrik! One summer in Öregrund. Henrik must be . . . how old were you that summer when we went to all that expense of a summer holiday in Öregrund? You were eleven years old. Eleven.

Henrik:
And I got scarlet fever in the autumn.

Alma:
No, no, that was the following autumn. I remember that very well. You were so well after that summer by the sea, you didn't get sick once all through the winter. How small he was. And that sailboat, he made it all by himself from drawings in a magazine. He was such a lonely child, poor Henrik. The best thing he knew was collecting plants and examining them and classifying them from the flora. Do you remember your fine collection of plants, Henrik? I've kept it somewhere in the attic. Poor Henrik, I have to laugh, though I ought to cry when I see that photo from Öregrund. Anna, will you have a little more port?

Anna:
Yes, please, only not too much.

Henrik:
I'll stick to brandy.

Alma:
Yes, heavens above.

And Alma laughs and looks at the photograph from Öregrund. Alma's loud laugh is remarkably unlike all her other airs, a friendly laugh of good teeth, amiable and attractive.

Alma:
Poor little Henrik! Look Anna, how appalling! (
Points
.) That's me and I'd already become “fat little Mama,” but I had a gigantic feather in my hat. And that's one of the sisters from Elfvik; that must be Beda. Yes, it's Beda. She had a wasp-waist and always needed help lacing up her corsets. And my goodness, that summer we had a maid, that was old Rike, just think what we could afford in those days. I've never been any good with money. Nor has Henrik. You'll soon find that out, Anna. I had sold the family jewels — doesn't matter, anyway. And that's my best friend. She was also widowed young. Do you remember Aunt Hedvig, who had eczema? She was so nice and kind, do you remember her, Henrik? She died a year or so later. (
Laughs
.) She wasn't exactly a sylph, either. We were all fat, and then skinny little Henrik whom we all pampered and fussed over! Heavens, how we loved you and spoiled you. Do you remember playing church, and you were the priest and we were the congregation? In that cramped little cottage? How did all us fatties fit into it? (
Laughs
.) You were so good and sweet. We just felt like eating you up, and you were always happy
and good-tempered and polite and friendly. Ah me, sad to say, you never mixed with other children, either, although I invited your school friends home, but Henrik used to go and hide, or lock himself in the toilet. (
Laughs, then becomes serious
.) Dearest Anna, you must look after him now. It'll be lonely and sad for me (
she cries
), but life is like that, isn't it? And life has never been particularly kind to Alma Bergman. But I've always been resigned to my fate and thought things would get better. And now Henrik's the priest I dreamed he would be. That's so important. No, I'm not complaining. (
She weeps
.)

Henrik:
Now don't cry, Mama dear. We must be happy this evening.

Anna
(
cautiously
): You can come and stay with us for long periods, Mama. We'll have plenty of room in the parsonage.

Henrik:
Mama, dear, we're not going to abandon you. The hard times are over now. Everything will get better.

Alma
(
suddenly
): “. . . the hard times are over” . . . as if you knew! What do you know about my life? I have no intention of sponging on your kindness. I know I'm not very clever, but I'm not that stupid. You two must live your own life, and I shall bring mine to a close. That's it, and that's how it should be.

Alma's eyes are now wide open and calm, almost brilliant. That hermetic combination of slow, destructive, lamentable female misery, and then that dark blue gaze, the laugh, the words full of insight, the sudden sharpness — it is all beyond comprehension.

The photograph from Öregrund actually exists in the real world and is exactly as Alma describes it: a rickety little shack with a veranda and clumsy, fancy decorative fretwork. A small figure sitting hunched up on a garden chair, with stubbly fair hair and a sailor suit, bare legged, holding a sailboat on his lap and a shiny metal vasculum over his left shoulder. On his right are two tall, buxom women in white summer dresses and wide-brimmed hats. On the veranda, behind a bearing beam, you can just see a fat servant girl with a probably toothless but knowing smile. The viewer's spontaneous reaction must be . . . what is it like at night, and where does that spindly creature find space to live and breathe enveloped in all that billowing compact female flesh? How does he defend himself?

When the albums have run out, there is still music to be made. Mama Alma and Anna play duets. There's a great deal to choose from in arrangements for four hands, from the latest waltzes (Alma plays at
parties) to Haydn symphonies and choral pieces. However, their playing does not last long, which is a relief, for it turns out that Alma, quite naturally, is a much better player than Anna, something which Alma does not hesitate to demonstrate. Their playing is interrupted by the doorbell ringing.

Alma lifts her hands from the piano and explains with some embarrassment that it's sure to be Freddy — an old friend. She had met him quite by chance down at the market a few days before, and had happened to mention that she was expecting a visit from Henrik and his fiancée. “You remember Uncle Fred,” says Alma appealingly, slightly breathlessly “He's rather eccentric and very obstinate, and insisted on coming to meet Henrik and his wife-to-be. He was an archivist at the Foreign Office and was a member of Parliament for a spell, and now he's retired and has moved to Söderhamn to be near where he was born. Your father and he were friends in their youth. Now, there's the bell again. I must go and open the door. You must forgive me, my dear children.” The heavy woman moves lightly and is cheerfully embarrassed. She tugs at her skirt and waistband, smooths down her hair, and disappears into the dark hall, opens the door, greets her guest, and ushers him inside.

The first thing anyone notices about Uncle Freddy is his left eye, which is wide open and darkly penetrating, as if furious. His right eye is obscured by a frosted, opaque monocle. His face is broad and mouth narrow, his forehead high and head almost bald, his beard ice gray and well trimmed. This heavy, Caesarlike head rests directly on broad shoulders and a squat, somewhat stooping body. Large hard hands, silver-topped cane, heavy steps.

Freddy:
I see that I am unforgivably breaking into the innermost circle of the family. But your mother, my dear Henrik, insisted, and I have never been able to resist her requests. How are you, Henrik? It's been a long time. I don't think we've met for ten years or so. How do you do, Miss Åkerblom, this is indeed a pleasure. What a lovely young woman. Henrik has inherited his father's eye for female beauty. May I sit down for a few moments? I won't stay long, but I wouldn't say no to a glass of Alma's homemade liqueur. Thank you. Thank you. I'll sit here, no, I'm fine here. Don't let me disturb you. I heard music. Was it Haydn?