Alma bends over the girl, who has already crept down into bed. “Good night, my dear,” she whispers. “Good night, and don’t forget to count the windowpanes. You should always do that in a new place; then your dreams come true.” “Good night, Mrs. Alma,” whispers Anna, “and thank you for letting us come. It’s been a lovely evening.” She declines to throw her arms around Alma. Something stops her, but Alma strokes her cheek. “Will you put the lamp out, or do you want it left on?” “Thank you, I’ll put it out in a minute.” “Just don’t fall asleep over it,” warns Alma. “No, no,” smiles Anna, and Alma patters out of the room in her gray dressing gown, the thin, severe pigtail down her back. When she has taken off her corsets, her body collapses, her head protrudes, and her back bows as if she were bearing an intolerable burden.
Henrik is sitting on the made-up couch jammed up against the sideboard. He has got his nightshirt on and is winding up his pocket watch with a tiny key, a lighted candle on a chair in front of him. His mother comes toward him out of the semidarkness, moving without a sound, her face glowing chalk-white, but her eyes have vanished. She is like a huge blind fish at a great depth. Now she is there, puts the candle up on the sideboard, and sits down on the chair, her eyes visible again. She is breathing heavily: ’Anna’s a sweet girl,” she whispers abruptly, her breath smelling of sour milk. ’Anna’s a very nice girl and so lovely, a real princess. You must take good care of her’ Henrik shakes his head. “It’s still like a dream,” he whispers, trying to avoid his mother’s breath. “I don’t think it has anything to do with me.” His mother leans over and kisses him on the mouth. “Good night, my darling boy. Sleep well. You mustn’t feel guilty about your grandmother. No one is more guiltless than you are.” Alma looks at her son with glazed eyes, her lips moist. Henrik shakes his head, thinks of saying something but changes his mind. “Good night, then,” says Alma, kissing Henrik’s hand. “Good night, and don’t forget to blow the candle out.” She nods twice and disappears, wheezing faintly in the darkness, and closing her door soundlessly behind her. Henrik remains sitting there, frightened and at a loss: What’s happening? he says to himself.
Alma has taken off her dressing gown and is puttering around her room, silently moving hither and thither. The dining room clock strikes eleven, and the church clock replies; the wind whistles down the street making a signboard screech, then silence returns. Alma has pulled the covers up over her stomach and is sitting upright, looking at the little ivory cross hanging on the wall of the alcove, her hands clasped. “Dear Lord,” she says. “Forgive me my sins today, and on all days. Dear Lord, keep and bless my little boy! Dear Lord, forgive me that I cannot love that girl. Dear Lord, take her out of Henrik’s life. If I am wrong, if my thoughts are simply dark with malice, punish me, Lord! Punish mel Not him, or her!”
She turns out the paraffin lamp but lies awake for a long time, staring out into the darkness, listening intently. Something’s moving there in the dining room. Sure to be Henrik on his way to that unknown woman. Alma has to sit up, her heart running riot and she almost suffocating. Of course Henrik is on his way to that unknown woman!
Anna is exhilarated when the pale figure appears in the gray rectangle of the door. She flings the covers aside and moves over to the wall. He is at once in her arms. They whisper and laugh. This is a very dignified mutual rebellion against parents.
Anna: Your feet are cold.
Henrik: But they’ll warm up now.
Anna: My feet are always warm. I have to stick them outside the covers. Then it’s wonderful pulling them back in.
Henrik: You and all your pleasures.
Anna: Yes, I’m pleasure-loving, boundlessly. I’ll soon teach you, you’ll see.
Henrik: What will you teach me?
Anna: Lie down, so I can kiss you. (Kisses his mouth.) Well?
Henrik: Yes, please.
Anna: Supposing your mother hears us?
Henrik: . . . is that also?
Anna: Of course.
Henrik: You’re quite ruthless. (Delighted.) Are you?
Anna: You’re mine. I’m quite ruthless.
Henrik: Poor Mama.
Anna: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me into a land the Lord shall give me.” Isn’t that what it says?
Henrik: Not quite, but it sounded good.
Anna: Poor Henrik!
Henrik: Just imagine, here I am, in my old childhood bed, snuggled up with you. I can’t believe it.
Anna: But you have to go back to your own bed. We mustn’t fall asleep together.
Henrik: I’m not sure Mama would serve us coffee in bed!
Anna: Good night.
Henrik: Good night. Please don’t forget me.
Anna: I shall at once begin to think about you.
Henrik closes the door and pads back to his bed in the dining room. He doesn’t hear his mother weeping into her pillow.
The remarks made at early breakfast the next day are almost impossible to register. Alma appears in her dressing gown, her hair untidy and face swollen with tears, her mouth trembling and pitiful. Anna and Henrik are cheerful but diffident, politely curbing their delight at departing, their delight in their love, their joy in touching, their joy in belonging.
Alma: Would you like some more coffee, Anna?
Anna: No, thank you. Please, do sit down. I’ll get it myself. More Coffee, Henrik?
Henrik: Yes, please. Are we in a hurry?
Alma: The train to Sundsvall leaves at quarter past seven.
Henrik: Then I’ve time for another sandwich.
Alma: Cheese or salami, Henrik?
Henrik: Both, please.
Anna: We have to change trains twice. We won’t arrive until this afternoon.
Alma: I’ve put together a little basket of food for you. It’s in the hall.
Anna: How thoughtful of you, Mrs. Alma!
Alma: Oh, my dear child!
Henrik: It’s begun to rain.
Anna: Real autumn rain.
Alma: I’ve got a big umbrella you cam barrow. Put it in the baggage room when you get to the station; then I’ll pick it up later on.
Henrik: Thank you, Mamma dear.
Alma: Oh, that’s all right.
Anna: It’s fun going by train when it’s raining. You can curl up together and eat chocolate and sandwiches — and oranges, of course.
Alma: I have something for Anna.
Alma hurries into her room and stays there. They can hear her blowing her nose and opening a drawer.
Anna (whispers): Your mother’s been crying.
Henrik: Has she?
Anna: Didn’t you see her eyes were red-rimmed and her face swollen? She’s been crying.
Henrik (lightly): Mama’s face is always swollen. And she is also always crying. I think she likes crying.
Anna: She knows.
Henrik: Knows what?
Anna: Don’t act stupid.
Henrik: Do you mean she heard . . . ?
Anna (nods): Yes, I do. And now she thinks a fallen woman is taking away her little boy.
Henrik: Ah, you’re imagining things.
Anna: Ssh! Here she comes.
Alma opens the door. She has put on her little lace cap and done her hair. She has also exchanged her down-at-the-heel slippers for shoes. In her hand she has a slim wrought gold chain with a little medallion with A engraved on it, surrounded by some very small rubies. Alma holds it out and Anna gets up, almost frightened. There is no friendliness in Alma’s gesture.
Alma (matter-of-factly): I was given this medallion on the day I got engaged. Henrik’s father gave it to me. Of course, it cost far too much, but he wasn’t bothered about money. As you see, Anna, there’s a big A engraved on it. So I think you should have it now as a gift from Henrik’s father, as if he were here. There. May I put it around your neck?
Anna: It’s much too grand. You really shouldn’t . . .
Alma: Hush
now, silly girl. It’s a simple present. I’m sure you’re used to better things.
Anna (tonelessly): Thank you.
Alma: You’d better be off now. I won’t come with you. I hope you don’t mind. I find walking difficult. My asthma. (Kisses her son.) Good-bye, Anna. I hope I shall be well enough to come to the wedding. Hurry now! Here’s the umbrella. (Kisses Anna on the cheeks.) Thank you for taking the trouble to come here.
Anna (panic-stricken): We’ll be back soon.
Alma: I hope so.
Henrik: Good-bye, Mama.
They race down the stairs and out into the rain. They carry the large suitcase between them, Henrik holding the umbrella over Anna as they dash along the empty wet pavement. They run as if escaping from some danger. Suddenly Henrik laughs.
Henrik: That woman! That woman!
Anna: What is it, Henrik?
Henrik: That woman is my mother!
Anna: Come on, now.
Henrik: Yes, we must hurry.
Is Alma standing behind the curtain? In my grandmother’s diary, which is somewhat sporadic, there is a note on the fourteenth of September 1912: Henrik came with his fiancée. She is surprisingly beautiful and he seems happy. Fredrik Paulin called in the evening. He talked about tedious things from the past. That was inappropriate and made Henrik sad.
The guard dashes by in the aisle and says “Forsboda nextf” Anna and Henrik are sitting side by side, holding hands, tense but solemn. The rain has followed them inland, but sunlight suddenly pours into the dusty compartment and draws sharp contours and rushing shadows over faces and paneling. It is afternoon and the sun is already low. Henrik leans his face against Anna’s cheek and says, “Anna, whatever happens, whatever surprises we come across, whatever peculiar people we have to look after, we’ll be together.” “Yes, now we’ll always be together,” whispers Anna through the clatter and squealing brakes, the wheels thundering over a small bridge, the engine making one last effort with an extra chug and billowing smoke. Then the train is standing at the shining wet stone platform of Forsboda station. The guard’s door slams, the gate’s bell rings, the signal is dropped, the stationmaster makes a sign with his arm, and the engine pulls out with its cylinders chugging. This is only a small local train and at once disappears around the curve by the lake. Anna and Henrik are left looking around on the platform, two suitcases between them, one large, the other smaller.
A horse and buggy are waiting beside the wall of the station building, the hood down. Alongside the trap is a man in a long coat with gold braid on his collar and a peaked cap pulled down over his forehead. “Is it the pastor?” says peaked cap, without moving. “That’s right,” says Henrik. “Then you’re to come with me. The squire says I’m to drive the pastor to the parsonage. But he didn’t say anything about anyone being with him.” “This is my fiancee,” says Henrik. “Oh, yes, then your fiancee’ll have to come, too, though the squire didn’t say anything about any fiancee,” says peaked cap, still without moving. Anna and Henrik pick up their suitcases and carry them to the buggy. Peaked cap heaves them in under the seat, and the couple climb up. The driver sits on a board behind the passengers. “Lucky I didn’t take the small buggy because it’s got only two seats,” says peaked cap, smacking his lips at the horse, which sets off at a spanking pace. “You’d have had to stay behind at the station, Miss,” peaked cap adds, smiling toothlessly, but not in an unfriendly way.
Henrik realizes this is a joke inviting him to converse, so he asks whether it has been raining all day “It’s been raining all day and there’ll be more this evening, so it’s just as well I didn’t take the small carriage, because it’s got no hood. I let the hood down just before the train came in.”
Then nothing is said for a long while. “There’s the church,” says peaked cap, pointing at a huge, unwieldy nineteenth-century cathedral flung down on a slope and surrounded by sparse autumn-red trees. “The pastor won’t be preaching much in the big church, I suppose, but more in the estate chapel.” His tone of voice is not free of classification. “The pastor’s probably mostly for the estate chapel. Gabriel de Geer, the one who started up the Iron Works, and arranged for the Sawmill and built the Manor, that was a hundred years ago, or thereabouts, and he promptly wanted a greenhouse or more like a palm house. He wanted palm trees he could put out in the summer and they had to be indoors in the winter, so he built a special house for his palm trees. But Nordenson’s father, who took over after de Geer, naturally thought it was crazy to raise those palm trees and to use all that wood to keep the palms warm. He burned up all the palm trees and presented the palm house to the cathedral chapter, so the people living near the Works and the Sawmill should have a House of God and not have to travel the ten kilometers to the big church. And that was a good thought. Nordenson’s father was a good man. But then the Pentecostalists came along. So people preferred to go to the prayer house. Though Nordenson’s father was a good man.”
After this long speech, peaked cap has drained his resources and is silent for the rest of the journey. They are taken at a brisk pace along a sandy road that runs uphill and downhill between groups of well-built farms and wide strips of darkening forest. There’s an icy wind blowing, which may bring snow. The sun is resting on a spiky ridge, the light is raw, yellowish. “You cold, Pastor?” asks the driver. “You needn’t worry about us,” says Anna, turning around. The driver nods silently.
The parsonage is a low building with two wings and a garden with a summer house and tall elms in their autumn splendor. Lights are already on in several windows, and dinner is being prepared in the kitchen.
Henrik knocks on the door, but no one seems to hear or see or be expecting visitors, so he and Anna go through the porch into the front hall. They can hear voices from various directions, and someone is walking quickly across the floor upstairs. A grandfather clock, decorated and painted, strikes five loudly, but reads four o’clock.
A strikingly good-looking woman with graying hair and large dark eyes comes to the stairs, and when she sees her guests she smiles kindly and calls out, ‘7U last! We’ve been waiting all day. The minister lost your letter with your arrival time in it, and Frid has been to meet every conceivable train. We couldn’t telephone you because the phone in the parish office has been out of order for three weeks. Anyhow, we didn’t know how to get hold of you. No one answered at Tradgardsgatan in Upsala. Welcome, both of you! My name’s Magda Sail and I’m the housekeeper here, and the reverend’s niece. Do come in! May I take your coats? Did you have a good journey? It’s a shame we live so far from the station. Did you get cold, Miss Bergman? The wind’s flared up terribly, so I suppose we’ll get snow after all this rain. I’ll tell the reverend you’re here. Please, do go into the drawing room for the time being. I’ll bring coffee in a jiffy.”
The lovely and talkative Mrs. Sail disappears into the interior of the house. Anna and Henrik sit down on separate chairs in the spacious drawing room with its pair of crystal chandeliers, Karl-Johan furniture upholstered in silk, and light wooden floor covered with endless patterned rag rugs. Mildly blinking churchmen and bracket lamps are on the walls, and the doors are open into a library of huge bookcases. A dying fire spreading little warmth is burning in the tiled stove, and a heavy imitation baroque wall clock says it is twenty to seven. A pendulum clock under a glass case strikes eight.
The Reverend Gransjö comes in from the library, moving slowly and supported by Mrs. Sail. His face is pale and shapely beneath a large beard, his eyes dark gray behind thick glasses, his hair brushed straight back and in disorder. He is wearing a cassock and slippers. His smile is welcoming but is disfigured by ill-fitting dentures. Anna and Henrik at once get up and go to meet him. Without saying anything or exclaiming, the old gentleman holds out a strong hand and silently greets them, the gray eyes observant. Then he nods as if pleased with what he has seen and signals to the young people to sit down. Mrs. Sail says she will go and get the coffee, and leaves. The Reverend Gransjö sits down
on a straight-backed chair by the drawing room table, a hand cupped around his ear to indicate he is hard of hearing. At the same time, he fishes his gold watch out of the waistcoat behind the buttoned-up cassock, looks at the watch, at the wall clock, and at the pendulum clock.
Reverend Gransjö: A truthful clock should say five past four. All the clocks in this house are wrong. They say it’s something to do with an underground magnetic field. My watch, on the other hand, is always right because it seems to be immune to the forces of the underworld.
Henrik fumbles for his own watch. It says ten past four.
Henrik: Mine says ten past four.
The old man is gazing at a spot to the right of Henrik’s feet, apparently absentmindedly. The silence is lengthy but not unpleasant.
Reverend Gransjö (suddenly): My great friend Professor Soderblom came to see me. He had words of praise for you, Henrik Bergman. I set great store by his judgment. We are old friends. Of course, he’s much younger than I am. Nevertheless we are old friends.
The reverend laughs silently and attractively, sucking cautiously on his dentures and turning his gray eyes to Anna.
Reverend Gransjö: He also spoke of you, Miss Åkerblom. I don’t know how he knew you, my dear, but he knows everyone. He assured me that Anna Åkerblom would make a good wife to a pastor. I hope you’re not offended that I repeat what Soderblom said to me, Henrik?
Henrik (smiles): On the contrary.
Reverend Gransjö: Yes, yes. Exactly. Wasn’t Magda going to bring some coffee? I won’t have any coffee. So I’ll leave you two young people, if you’ll excuse me. We are to go to Nordenson’s for dinner this evening, so I must go and change. And I would like to take a nap.
The Reverend Gransjö gets up rather laboriously, one arm flailing about for a moment, but then he catches hold of the back of a chair and at once regains his balance. Henrik and Anna have also risen.
Reverend Gransjö: Please, do be seated. I can manage perfectly well. It’s Magda who insists on propping me up all the time. So I’ll leave you now.
The old gentleman waves his big hand and smiles at Anna, who curtsies. Then he disappears through the library, and a door is opened and closed. A large black dog is standing in the doorway to the hall, his tail drooping. When Anna holds out her hand, he approaches suspiciously and sniffs with some reserve, after which he wags his tail three times and goes out again. Magda Sail comes in briskly with the coffeepot, followed by a tall pallid female carrying the tray.
The Best Intentions Page 18
