Ebba is the eldest and a trifle out of it, which she has always been. She is also deaf and doesn’t say much. She has a faithful friend, a very old labrador with rheumatism. Ebba’s face is like a withered rose petal. She was probably a beautiful girl.
Despite her age, Beda’s hair is still dark, her eyes also dark, and tragic. She reads novels, plays Chopin with more passion than instinct, is quarrelsome, and complains loudly about almost everything. Now and again, she departs, but she always comes back. Her departures are sensational and her returns ordinary. In contrast to her sisters, it is said that she has experienced passion.
Finally, Blenda is small, quick, and controlled. She has a renowned capacity for getting her own way. Her hair is iron gray, her forehead low and broad, her nose large with a reddish tinge, her mouth sarcastically curved, appropriate for lightning attacks and ironic invective.
Once a year they go to the capital, mixing in circles, going to concerts and theaters, ordering expensive and stylish items from the leading fashion houses in town. Occasionally, they go for a cure at a resort in southern Germany or Austria.
That’s the situation with the aunts of Elfvik.
The sisters’ bedrooms, though horribly cluttered, are furnished according to each woman’s personal taste. Ebba inhabits bright florals, Beda purple and art nouveau, while Blenda lives in blue, pale blue, dark blue, dull blue. At this particular moment, agitation reigns. They are dressing for dinner, advising, helping one another, squabbling. Their rooms are interconnected with doors that are often locked, but at the moment they are all wide open.
Blenda: Can you see them?
Beda: What are they doing?
Ebba: Bless my soul! They’re down at the bathing hut.
Blenda: What! Are they going swimming in that cold water?
Ebba: Bless my soul! They are indeed!
Blenda: How foolish. Alma, that fat cow. How foolish.
Beda: Move over, so I can see.
Blenda: They’re going into the bathing hut.
Ebba: They’re going to go into the water.
Beda: At this time of year! The water can’t be more than ten degrees.
Blenda: Can I wear my pale blue?
Beda: Isn’t that too elegant? Alma might feel socially degraded. She’s probably only got something black.
Blenda: Then I’ll take the pale gray.
Beda: My dear, that’s even more elegant.
Ebba (trumpets): Bless my soul! The Ljusan’s rising.
Blenda: What did you say?
Ebba: Alma, that mountain of flesh, has gone into the water.
Beda: Don’t stand there staring. Put your corsets on, and I’ll help you lace them.
Ebba: What did you say? Dear Henrik’s naked now!
Beda: No! I must see that.
Blenda: Don’t push. God, he’s good-looking, that boy!
Ebba: Goodness, how thin he is.
Beda: But lovely shoulders. And handsomely built.
Blenda: I wonder why they’ve come, I really do.
Beda: That’s not difficult to guess.
Ebba: He’s swimming very strongly.
Blenda: Shall I really take the pale gray?
Beda: Yes, I think it’s all right. It’ll look really good with your red nose.
Ebba: Now they’re going back to the bathing hut. Heavens above, what would we have done if they’d drowned?
Blenda: Paid for the funeral, I suppose.
Beda: Ebba, come on now, so that I can get you dressed.
Ebba: No, no. I must see them as they come out.
Beda: Are they coming out now?
Ebba: What? They’re coming in, and they’re holding hands!
Blenda: I’ve a good idea why they’ve come.
Beda: So what, you old miser.
Blenda: They’ll not get a cent out of us, I’m telling you. Not a cent. They’ve had their loan, and they don’t have to pay it back until Henrik’s ordained.
Ebba: How good-looking he is, dear Henrik! But going naked like that, both of them. How extraordinary.
Beda (to Ebba): I’ve got your pink out. (Shudders.) The pink!
Ebba: No, I don’t want that. I want the floral one. The one with roses and lace.
Beda: Oh, goodness. That makes you look even more hideous.
Ebba: Now that was really nasty of you. I heard.
Blenda: She’s dolling herself up as if she were going to perform at the Royal Theater.
Beda: What’s wrong with that, may I ask?
Blenda: There’s nothing really wrong with the dress.
Beda: I want to look really nice for the boy. He may need to see a little style and beauty, perhaps.
Blenda (laughing maliciously): Ha ha!
Ebba: Who’s taken my perfume? (Squeals.) My perfume!
Beda: An old biddy like you shouldn’t use perfume. It’s obscene!
Ebba: Now you’re being nasty again. Where’s my ear trumpet?
Beda: Supposing this is about money again. Do we have to be so impossible?
Blenda: Certainly, Beda dearest. Times are hard, and people have to learn to live according to their means.
Beda: They don’t appear to be living off the fat of the land.
Blenda: Alma’s never been able to manage money. Do you remember when we sent her fifty kronor when Henrik’s father passed away? Do you know what Alma bought? A pair of very elegant shoes to go with her mourning clothes. She told me herself! Is that a way to be economical? I’m only asking.
Ebba: They’re on their way back from the bathing hut now. Heavens, what a lovely way he looks at his mother. What a nice boy he is.
The living room and dining room meet at an angle to the big window facing the sunset. Everything here is light: airy summer curtains, white handmade furniture à la Carl Larsson, yellow wallpaper, large basket chairs, a piano, a lime-green sideboard, brightly colored rag rugs on the wide, well-scrubbed floorboards. Modern art of a kind on the walls — women as flowers and flowers as women, comely young girls in white, vaguely gazing into a delightful future.
The sisters march in in single file: Ebba, Beda, and Blenda. Alma and Henrik are already in place, the mother in a much too tight purple silk dress, tortured by her tightly laced corset, Henrik in a neat but shiny suit and stiff collar and necktie. Blenda at once says dinner is served, and when they have taken their places, she presses a concealed electric bell. Immediately, two young serving girls appear with a steaming tureen and warm plates. Nettle soup with egg-halves.
After dinner, they have coffee on the veranda. Alma and Henrik are put on the rattan sofa; Blenda takes the rocking chair, strategically placed outside the horizontal sunlight. Beda has sat down on the steps to the terrace. She is smoking a cigarette in an elegant holder. Ebba is sitting with her back to the view with her ear trumpet at the ready.
So the time has come. Alma is wheezing slightly, whether from the tension or the good food and excellent wine is hard to say. Henrik is pale and keeps tying his fingers into knots.
Blenda: We assume that Alma and Henrik have not come this long way out of family affection. I seem to remember it is three years since we last saw you. The reason for your journey at the time was the loan that would cover the costs of Henrik’s studies.
Blenda rocks cautiously in her chair and gazes at Alma with cool benevolence. Beda closes her eyes and allows herself to be exposed to the last rays of the sun. Ebba has her ear trumpet at the ready and is sucking at her false teeth.
Alma: The money’s come to an end. It’s as simple as that.
Blenda: Oh, so the money’s gone. It was supposed to last for four years, and not even three have gone by.
Alma: Everything’s got more expensive.
Blenda: You decided on the size of the loan yourself, Alma. I don’t remember haggling.
Alma: No, no, Blenda, you were very generous.
Blenda: And now the money’s all gone?
Alma: I reckoned on Henrik’s grandfather helping us, becaus
e after all, Henrik was to keep up the family tradition and become a priest.
Blenda: But Henrik’s grandfather didn’t help?
Alma: No. We begged for a whole day. We got nothing but twelve kronor for our railway tickets. So that we could get back to Söderhamn. Plus a pittance of a monthly allowance.
Blenda: That was generous.
Alma: Times are hard, Blenda. I have piano pupils, but that doesn’t bring in much, and some of them have stopped taking lessons.
Blenda: And now you want another loan, Alma?
Alma: Henrik and I have thoroughly discussed whether he should interrupt his studies and apply for a job with the Telegraph Office in Söderhamn. That was our only way out. But then something happened.
Ebba: What?
Alma: Then something happened.
Beda: That sounds plausible!
Alma: Something pleasant.
Ebba: What is she saying?
Blenda: Something pleasant happened.
Alma: I think Henrik should tell you himself.
Henrik: You see, I had an oral exam in church history with the dreaded Professor Sundelius. Three of us took it, and I was the only one to pass. After the exam, the professor asked to speak to me alone. He offered me a cigar and was extremely friendly. Quite unlike his usual sarcastic self.
Alma (excited): He offered Henrik a cigar!
Henrik: I’ve said that, Mama.
Alma: Sorry, sorry.
Henrik: Well, we chatted for a while about this and that. Among other things, he said that anyone good at church history shows industry, good memory, and self-discipline. He thought I had shown unusual talent when I’d elucidated the Apostolic symbolism. That’s quite complicated and requires some scholastic classification.
Ebba: What’s he saying, Blenda?
Blenda: Not now, Ebba. (Hoots.) Later, later.
Henrik: He suggested I should go over to the academic side. That I ought to write a thesis for a doctorate. The professor offered to be my adviser. Then later on I would be sure to get a fellowship. He said most theologians were idiots and they had to nurture the few talents they have.
Alma: Flattering for Henrik, you see, Blenda. Professor Sundelius will become archbishop or a cabinet minister any moment now.
Henrik: Then I told him the truth, that I had no means. I hadn’t even enough capital to complete my theology exams. Then the professor said that if I could arrange for the first years on my own, later on I would be awarded something called a postgraduate scholarship. That’s quite a lot of money, you see, Aunt Blenda. Nearly all those who get them are married with children and servants.
Blenda: Well I never!
Alma (diving in): Now we’ve come to you to ask for an interest-free loan of six thousand kronor. Professor Sundelius reckoned that was just about what was needed.
Blenda: Well I never!
Alma: We wanted to turn to you first. I mean, before we went to the Upplands Bank. The professor promised to write a recommendation. He would guarantee the loan, he said.
Blenda: What do you think, Beda?
Beda (laughs): I’m speechless.
Ebba: What are you talking about? Is it about money?
Blenda: Henrik’s going to be a professor! And needs six thousand kronor, apart from the two thousand he’s already borrowed. Do you understand?
Ebba: Have we got that much money?
Blenda: That is the big question.
Blenda laughs with a crackling sound. Beda smiles and peers at Henrik from under her long dark eyelashes. Henrik’s pallor has turned to scarlet. Alma is breathing heavily. Suddenly, Blenda gets up and claps her hands together.
Blenda: If we’re going to get something done, then we’d better do it at once. Would you mind coming with me into my study, Alma and Henrik?
Blenda’s study has a special entrance from the hall and is rather cramped. The shelves are crammed with office books. In the middle of the floor there’s a sloping office desk and over by the window an ordinary desk and some chairs of stained wood. In a corner a leather sofa and armchair, a round table with a brass top and everything for the smoker. Blenda turns on the electric light, frees a little key from a gold chain around her neck, opens the middle drawer of the desk, takes out some shiny metal keys, and opens the safe skulking behind a screen by the door.
Neither Alma nor Henrik can see what she is doing behind the screen. When she appears again, she has a bundle of banknotes in her right hand. She puts the money down on the desk, locks up the keys to the safe, and fastens the drawer key back onto the gold chain. Then she starts counting. Six thousand riksdaler in notes. When at last she stops counting, she hands the money to Alma, who is standing there as if she had been struck by lightning.
Alma: Maybe I should sign a receipt.
Blenda: Henrik, please go out to your aunts for a moment. I would like to talk to your mother alone.
Henrik bows and goes to the door. He has a nasty feeling something may have gone wrong. After he has left the room, Alma is asked to sit down. Blenda starts leafing through the telephone directory.
Blenda: Funnily enough, we have the Upsala telephone directory here in the office. I was going to telephone Professor Sundelius and thank him on behalf of the family for his worthy contribution to the family’s promising youth. Yes, here’s the number, one-five-four-three.
She lifts the receiver and, smiling, looks at Alma, whose face has turned ashen, tears dimming the wide-eyed gaze. Blenda slowly hangs up the receiver.
Blenda: Maybe I’ll phone another day. It’s not very polite to disturb such a prominent man after eight in the evening.
Blenda sits down opposite Alma and looks at her with something that might be described as tender irony.
Blenda: Alma, you know perfectly well my sisters and I are proud to be able to help Henrik toward a brilliant future.
She pats Alma’s plump knee and her plump cheek, where a tear is on its way down to the corner of her mouth. Alma mumbles something about how grateful she is.
Blenda: You don’t have to be grateful, Alma. I’m doing this because your boy is so splendidly gifted. Or perhaps for no particular reason. For your love for the boy, Alma. I don’t know. Shall we go back to the others? I think we should celebrate this evening with a bottle of champagne. Come now, Alma, don’t cry like that. I haven’t had such fun since our brother lost the inheritance case.
At the height of his career, the superintendent of traffic had had a summer residence built close to the river, the lakes, the forests, and the low, bluish mountains. Every year in mid-June, the move to the summer place was made, a massive undertaking, involving a whole host of special procedures. Curtains were taken down, rugs rolled up with moth-proofing and newspapers, furniture covered in ghostly yellowing sheets, chandeliers covered in tarlatan, a wagon loaded with necessities such as Johan Åkerblom’s special bed, special cushions for the little girls’ dollhouse, Miss Siri’s incomparable cake tins, Mrs. Martha’s paintbrushes, and Anna’s novels.
It is now early July, and a quiet sleepiness combined with shimmering heat has descended on people and the reflections in the water. The croquet balls roll listlessly. Someone is playing the piano, a sentimental romance by Gade. Miss Lisen is dozing on the viewing bench without noticing that her ball of wool has fallen to the ground. Mrs. Karin, the ruler of the household, is sitting on the upper veranda, white-clad and mild, in a broad-brimmed hat to shade her eyes. She is busy with a letter that doesn’t get written, her gray-blue gaze lost in the light above the hills. The superintendent of traffic himself is asleep in a hammock, his glasses on his forehead and a book on his stomach. Nevertheless, in the kitchen a certain limited industry reigns.
Miss Siri and Anna are preparing the strawberries. It’s a burden, of course, but they are making good headway. The atmosphere is confidentially talkative: some chat and some silence. Flies buzz on the sticky yellow strip of the flypaper, and the fat cat is purring half-asleep on the windowsill.
Miss Siri
: . . . well, I came to the house when you were born, Anna. I was to help Stava, but she was already ill, so I had to take over from the very start. She spent most of the time in bed in the maid’s room, issuing orders. No one knew how ill she was, so it was rather annoying, I’ll have you know, Anna. Then suddenly one morning she was dead. I was quite good at things, even then, though I was no more than twenty. But there was an awful lot to do. Mrs. Åkerblom wasn’t much older, either, and her stepsons were really unruly, yes, indeed. And the master didn’t do much to help with their upbringing, either. He was much too busy with his railway bridges. Then Rike and Runa — they were nice, willing girls but as thick as two sticks. So Mrs. Åkerblom and me had to take the responsibility and clear up the mess. We did that, too, although when the missis got with child again she was really ill, I’ll have you know — so I said to her . . . don’t wear yourself out, Mrs. Åkerblom, but get as much rest as you can, and I’ll take care of everything as long as you tell me how you want things. Well, that’s what I did. And then the missis got better again, and it’s been like that ever since, I mean, how things are to be done. The missis and I don’t always agree, but we both wage war on carelessness, dirt, and disorder. We don’t tolerate disorder in any way, if you know what I mean, Anna. (Pause.) Well, that’s how it’s been and that’s how it is.
Anna: Have you never been in love, Miss Siri?
Miss Siri: Oh, yes, there was someone at first who tried to pull my skirts over my head. But we had so little time, I never found out whether he had intentions or not.
Then Ernst saunters through the kitchen, pulls his sister’s pigtail, kisses the nape of Miss Siri’s neck, and asks if there’s any orange juice, then sits down at the table and greedily starts eating the finished strawberries. Miss Siri waits on the boy. She even hacks a piece of ice off the perpetually dripping block in the icebox, and then the glass of juice is on the table together with currant cakes. Ernst yawns and says he is going for a bicycle ride to the Gimmen. “Coming, too, Anna?” “In this heat!” cries Anna as Ernst takes the opportunity to tickle her. “We’re going swimming, too. Come on, lazybones! We must just tell Mama that we’re off.”
The Best Intentions Page 5
