Märta Werkelin energetically shakes her head and blows her nose. “No, no, I must go at once. There’s just something I must say first.” They all remain standing, Märta propped against the wall, Henrik with his hand on the banister rail, Anna by the door into the dining room. Märta tugs at her long shawl.
Märta: It’s all so terrible, and I’m so miserable. Why do things have to be like this evening? It’s . . . it’s grotesque. It’s . . . it’s sick. And I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed because I didn’t dare come out with what I was thinking all the time. I was thinking that what is going on now, at this moment, is exactly like the story of my blouse.
She blows her nose again and is surprisingly beautiful in her agitation, tears in her slightly protruding eyes, her lips swollen with crying, and the shiny hair over her shoulders.
Märta: It’s like my blouse. One day I put on a lovely blouse. It was in the spring, and the weather was beautiful. I wanted the schoolchildren to see that their teacher could be well dressed. They were to be allowed to see something beautiful. The blouse is of genuine lace with a high collar and Russian buttoning, if you know what I mean, and widens over the sleeves, and the cuffs are of another material. The lace is openwork, and there’s red silk under the lace. Then I put on the gold brooch I’ve inherited. I pinned it at the neck and then braided my hair into one thick plait that hung down my back. Then I went down to the children, and we went out onto the bank below the school, and we sat there and had our lessons, which was nothing special. Then came the talk. About the blouse. Never directly. And I was so terribly ashamed. It was almost as if I’d done something indecent. But no one ever came to me and said anything directly (pause), and tonight, it was exactly like that blouse. I don’t know how I can explain what I mean, but it’s the same thing. What kind of hatred is it? What kind of animosity? Things are difficult enough anyhow out here in the darkness. And now the pastor’ll leave, I can see that. You don’t have to tolerate this vileness, either of you, or this darkness. But I have to stay. I don’t have any offers to be a teacher at the palace. (Laughs.) That sounded like envy, but I’m not envious, forgive me! I don’t begrudge you leaving. I must go now. You poor things, you must be dreadfully sad after all that nastiness this evening, and then I come here bawling on top of everything else. Good night and forgive me. No, please don’t say anything. I’m grateful to you both for listening to me so patiently. Good night.
Märta Werkelin holds out a delicate hand and says good night once again. Then she vanishes into the arctic night, half-running down the slope to the gate, and is gone.
Anna turns out the lamps in the dining room and closes the stove doors. A heavy, wordless fury is slowly moving inside her. Henrik turns out the lamp in the hall. The nightlight is burning flutteringly on the upstairs landing outside the bedrooms and the workroom, moonlight coming through the window to the right of the stairs. There are toys and building bricks on the rug on the floor. Petrus and Dag have been using the landing as a playroom, which has actually been forbidden since the day Dag fell down the steep stairs. Henrik goes into their bedroom and lights the candles by the beds. He quickly pulls off his clothes and washes in the basin, then cleans his teeth. The stove is still warm after the evening fire, the curtains carefully drawn across.
Anna picks up the toys and bricks. She goes back and forth across the rag rug on the landing. She is not systematic or quick. She flings something into the big wooden box, and he can hear it. Then she leaves it all and opens the door of the room where Dag and Petrus are asleep. (This is really Anna’s room, which had been turned into a nursery while Alma had been staying with them. After her death, no one had got around to converting it back again.) The boys are sound asleep and undisturbable. Dag is in Petrus’s bed. Anna lifts her son up and tucks him in his own bed, letting her hand rest on his head, on his hair, his cheek. An anger without words. Petrus is breathing soundlessly, his face smooth, his mouth half-open, his eyelids twitching, a pulse beating in the stretched neck. Could he possibly be awake? Is he pretending to be asleep? No, he is almost certainly asleep.
Anger with Henrik, wordless and blind. It fumbles and stumbles. The child moves inside her, uneasily, without softness.
She closes the door and returns to clearing the landing rug. Wooden trains, fir cones, and a sheet of paper, building bricks, a large tin soldier, a teddy bear with one ear missing. Henrik is cleaning his teeth and spitting into the basin. She’s asked him ten times to spit into the pail. Anna shifts her feet, barely muffled by the rag rug. Henrik stops cleaning his teeth and pours the water into the pail. It turns quiet, as Anna has stopped. She is holding a rag doll in her hands. Moonlight.
Henrik (invisible): Are you coming?
Anna: Soon.
Henrik (invisible): Is there something?
Anna: No. What do you mean?
Anna takes a few steps, stops indecisively, goes back, stops again, and throws the rag doll into the box.
Henrik: You’re making a terrible noise stamping about out there.
Anna: Am I now?
Henrik: But your shoes are nice. (Looks out.) High-heeled.
Anna: Less appropriate, perhaps?
Henrik: What do you mean?
Anna: With reference to tonight’s meeting.
Henrik: What? What do you mean? (Stands, short pause.) Are you coming?
Anna: Soon.
Henrik (puzzled): I’ll go to bed then?
Anna: I’m coming in a minute.
Henrik: All right. (Disappears from the doorway.) Well, yes . . . (Pause.)
Anna: Henrik.
Henrik: Yes. (Fiddles with the pillows on his bed.)
Anna: We must send Petrus away. The sooner the better.
Henrik: Anna, dear. Let’s deal with that tomorrow, shall we?
Anna: No. Now!
She is standing in the bedroom doorway, starting to take out hairpins, her face half turned away, her voice slightly out of control. She has to breathe.
Henrik: Why all this hurry with Petrus, poor child? He doesn’t bother anyone, does he?
Anna: I never promised that he could live here forever. I never promised to be his surrogate mother. You’ll have to speak to Mrs. Johansson.
Henrik: Yes, of course. (Amenable.) I’ll speak to Mrs. Johansson.
Anna (shaking inwardly): It is hard enough anyhow. I can’t take the responsibility for another child, you must see that.
Henrik: Don’t be so angry, Anna.
Anna: I’m not angry. Why should I be angry?
Henrik (sits up in bed): Come over here and sit down.
Anna: I’m quite happy standing.
Henrik: I’ll speak to Mrs. Johansson.
Anna: At once. First thing tomorrow.
Henrik: As soon as possible.
Anna: I’ve tried to like that poor little thing, but I can’t. He’s like a dog.
Henrik: But you like dogs.
Anna (smiles slightly): Idiot.
Henrik: Yes, he’s strange.
Anna: He’s definitely a strange sort. We’d better clear the matter up as quickly as possible.
Henrik: It’ll be a wretched business, of course. Poor boy.
Anna: We’re actually going to have a child of our own.
Henrik (humbly): Yes, of course.
Anna: He kicks and makes himself felt all the time.
Henrik: She. It’s a girl.
Anna: Petrus is . . . he looks at me with his puppy dog eyes and I get angry, and then 1’m angry with myself, because you shouldn’t be antagonistic to a child.
Henrik (wearily): This has been a heavy evening, and I have to get up at six. Can’t we go to sleep now?
Anna: Do you understand what I mean?
Henrik (ready to drop): Of course I do.
Anna (lies down): Then we’d better go to sleep. Good night.
Henrik (kisses her): Good night, angriest.
Anna (kisses him): Good night, Pastor.
She blows out the bedside candle. Moonlight. P
etrus Farg is standing quite still out on the landing. He is wearing a long nightshirt with a red border, and bedsocks.
The morning is icily still and misty, and it is snowing slightly. At the parsonage, the indefatigable Mejan is in bed with a high temperature and a rasping cough. She has a stocking around her neck, and her face is red, her eyes feverish. Mia, who shares the bed and sleeps head to toe with Mejan, also has a cold, but she’s at the kitchen table preparing the midday meal. (At the parsonage they have breakfast at half past seven, porridge, eggs, and bread and something on it. At one o’clock, they have a hot drink, bread with something, a cooked dish, and that’s rightly called the midday meal. The evening meal is taken at five o’clock and is two cooked dishes. Before going to bed, they have tea or milk and crispbread with cheese on it.) So Mia is preparing the midday meal at the kitchen table, spreading bread with drippings and slices of sausage, setting the table and putting things straight. The yardman has brought in wood and is stacking it in the woodbox. Anna and Petrus are both carrying a basket of kindling for the insatiably greedy tiled stoves. Dag is already sitting in his chair sucking on a rusk, whining and sniffling.
Anna (comes in): . . . from today on, we’ll stop lighting the stove in the living room, the dining room, and the nursery. We’ll have to be content with keeping the kitchen, the girls’ room, and the upstairs rooms warm. I wonder if Dag’s got a temperature.
Mia: His nose is certainly running.
Anna: How are you, Mia?
Mia: Mejan is worse. She coughs so hard that the bed shakes. I don’t get much sleep.
Anna: You’ll have to move in with Petrus and Dag. We’ll get out the camp bed.
Mia: As long as Mejan gets better.
Anna: She must have hot drinks and keep warm.
Anna pours Ems salt and hot water into a cup and goes in to Mejan, who blinks red-eyed, her lips dry and her cough rasping.
Mejan: I feel better, so I think I’ll be able to get up for dinner.
Anna: Drink this and stay where you are in bed.
Mejan: But maybe I have to go out to the privy.
Anna: You’ll have to use the bucket. That can’t be helped.
Mejan: Oh, this is terrible.
Anna: It could be worse. We can keep warm, and we have food, and the paraffin hasn’t run out yet. Now, let’s look at your temperature. Exactly thirty-nine, so it’s gone down a bit. You’ll see, we’ll have you up again in a few days.
Mejan (coughs): I’ve probably got consumption.
Anna: You have not got consumption, Mejan. I promise you that.
Mejan: You’ve been a nurse, so you ought to know.
Anna: Exactly. Now lie down again. I’ll bring the cough mixture.
Anna goes out into the kitchen and closes the door of the girls’ room. Mejan coughs. Mia has put on her outdoor clothes and boots.
Anna: Where are you off to?
Mia: To the Post Office. The pastor is waiting for the newspaper.
Anna: Are you going to go out in this weather with that cold of yours?
Mia: I’ll take the sled. The road’s been plowed.
Anna: I’ll go and make the beds. We’ll be eating in an hour. Will you be back by then?
Mia: I’m sure I will.
Mia trudges out and disappears toward the gate, scooting along on the sled. Anna picks out a storybook with illustrations and gives it to Petrus: “Sit down here and read to Dag while I go up and make the beds. You and Jack look after Dag and each other.” Jack, who had been dozing by the warm stove, at once gets up and attends to his responsibilities.
Anna pulls her big winter cardigan around her and hurries through the living room and dining room, both now really cold. She runs up the stairs to the upper landing, where the wooden box of toys is still on the rag rug. She lifts it up and carries it into the boys’ room. She at once starts making the beds with swift and irritable movements. Henrik is standing in the doorway.
Anna: Come in and shut the door so that you don’t let the warmth out.
Henrik (obeys): I’ve been thinking about our conversation.
Anna: Which conversation?
Henrik: Which conversation? We were talking about Petrus.
Anna: Oh, Petrus. There’s no hurry, is there?
Henrik: Last night he was to be sent away immediately.
Anna: Really.
Henrik: I can’t sit in there writing my Sunday sermon, knowing I am to send Petrus away. I can’t.
Anna (friendly): Do as you please.
Henrik: Can’t we decide together?
Anna: Yes, of course. We decide together, and then you do as you please. Your Sunday sermon is actually important. (Without irony.) We have to think about that.
Henrik: Petrus is a fellow human being.
(Anna stops making the bed, looks at him.)
Henrik: What is it?
Anna: Nothing.
Henrik (takes hold of her): Anna, don’t be so difficult.
Anna: I am also a fellow human being, although I happen to be your wife.
Henrik: Can’t we help each other?
Anna: Help each other?
Henrik: Anna!
Anna (friendly): Yes, of course! We must help each other. You go on in there and write your sermon, then we’ll let the subject rest for the time being. Is that all right?
Henrik stays where he is, sucking on his cold pipe, which squeaks faintly. He is wearing a spacious jersey and a shawl over his shoulders, crumpled trousers baggy at the knees, slippers, thick socks, his trouser legs tucked into his socks. He presumably wants to say something more, but Anna is making beds and has turned her back on him. So he slopes off to his sermon and evangelical text, which he has paid for in order to stand in the pulpit and interpret: “The signs should appear in the sun and the moon and the stars, and on the earth anguish will descend on the people. They will find themselves helpless in the thunder of the sea and the waves, now that the people give up the ghost in terror and anguish when faced with what transcends the world.” I shall stand turned toward a handful of people, see into their faces, and speak of the Unfathomable, thinks Henrik. He bites a ragged nail; he has started biting his nails again, as he had in childhood. And then Anna being so awkward and pregnant!
Anna has gone into the bedroom to finish straightening, the rough movements doing her good: Poor Henrik, how nasty I am, behaving like a real harridan. She laughs to herself, straightens up, and looks out the window.
At first she doesn’t understand what she sees, but then she understands and screams. It’s like in a dream. She sees Petrus running in his stocking feet, bareheaded and with no coat on. In his arms he has Dag, whose arms are clasped around Petrus’s neck. Jack is running after them in great circular movements. Petrus is slithering and running and sliding down the cleared path toward the jetty where they do the washing. Petrus fleeing with Dag in his arms. Toward the river.
Anna rushes downstairs and tries to cut off Petrus by crossing the slope, but sinks to her knees in the snow and sees Petrus getting farther and farther away, the last bit of the road dropping quite steeply toward the water. She plunges and struggles up and down through the snow, apparently never getting any farther, as if in a dream. She screams at Petrus to stop. He turns his head, but goes on. Then he slips and falls on the slippery slope. She sees Henrik coming racing down, choosing the plowed stretch of road, then falling headlong, getting up, slipping and falling again. Petrus has disappeared down the hill, holding Dag in front of him very carefully, and Dag is screaming. Jack is leaping around in circles, uncertain of the content of the situation.
At last Anna extricates herself from the deep snow, tumbles through the drift of plowed snow, and slides down the slippery slope. Henrik is standing on the riverbank with his son in his arms. Petrus is sitting on the ground. His nose is bleeding and his lip split, blood dripping onto the snow. He is sitting with his head down, leaning forward without complaining, the palms of his hands pressed to the snow. Anna takes Dag, who is
still screaming, and tries to calm him, tears and snot pouring out of him, snow in his hair. Beyond the jetty, the current keeps the water open, rushing along and frighteningly black against the white edge of ice. Henrik pulls Petrus up by the collar, and they stand there, panting. Anna is on her way back to the house, followed by Jack. She turns her head and looks around. Henrik is hitting the boy in the face, hitting hard, and Petrus falls. Henrik pulls him up again and strikes again and again; the boy falls to one side and lies there.
Henrik jerks the boy up by the collar so that he is on his feet and drags him along the road. He’ll kill him, thinks Anna indifferently. Petrus is not crying. His face is swollen and bloody, his hands too.
The next morning, Mrs. Johansson is sitting at the kitchen table at the parsonage. Henrik is standing in the kitchen doorway. He has pulled on his boots and the short coat, the knitted cap in his hand. Horse and sled are waiting out in the yard. Anna comes into the kitchen, pushing Petrus ahead of her. They stop in the middle of the floor. Jack is uneasily wagging his tail and padding around.
Anna: Good morning, Mrs. Johansson.
Mrs. Johansson: Good morning, Mrs. Bergman.
Anna: I’m sorry everything is in such a mess here. Both the girls are ill.
Mrs. Johansson: It’s the same everywhere. Only half the men are at work at the Sawmill and the teacher at the school is ill, so the old teacher has corne in her place.
Anna: I think Petrus has all his belongings with him. I have packed a few books too. Petrus likes reading.
Petrus is standing in the middle of the floor, not looking at anyone. His blind gaze is expressionless. There is a swelling by one eye, and his lip is split.
Mrs. Johansson: The pastor has told me everything. There’s nothing much to add.
Anna: I hope you understand, Mrs. Johansson, that under the present circumstances we dare not . . .
Mrs. Johansson: No, no, of course. There’s no question of it.
Anna: Good-bye, then, Petrus.
Anna pats his cheek. He turns his head away.
The Best Intentions Page 30
