A Faraway Island

by Annika Thor

  She thinks her parents would be happier in the city than out on the island. Papa could take the boat to collect Nellie, and they could all rent an apartment in Göteborg. It wouldn’t have to be a big one, if only they could all be together again.

  Stephie tests the ice with one foot. It doesn’t crack. She takes a few cautious steps. The snow-covered ice feels just as firm as the ground.

  She checks her direction using the compass, as Uncle Evert taught her. Her plan is to walk straight east. Surely that will take her to the mainland.

  For a short while she is protected from the wind by the island, but once the shore is far behind her a cold wind sweeps in off the ocean. It’s lucky she’s warmly dressed.

  She turns around to look back. This may be the last time she ever sees the island. It’s strange to see the harbor, the docks, and the boathouses from out here, to be walking on what is usually open water.

  The wind has swept the ice free of snow. She runs a little way to pick up speed, then slides on the smooth ice.

  In front of her she sees a little islet with three houses and a couple of sheds. Margit, who’s in her class, lives there. She and her brother row to school every day, except now, when they can walk across the ice.

  Stephie hurries past the area where she might be seen from the houses, and passes a point. Out of sight, she sits down on a rock at the shore, opens her knapsack, and removes the sandwiches. She can have one now, but will have to save the other. She has a long way left to go; she doesn’t know exactly how far it is to the mainland.

  Swallowing the last bite of the sausage sandwich, she rinses it down with a swallow of milk from her bottle. Then she gets up, checks her direction again, and walks on.

  When she has put the islet behind her, there is nothing but a huge sheet of open ice ahead, endless whiteness as far as the eye can see. The only things sticking up out of the ice are other occasional rocky islets.

  The chill penetrates the soles of her boots, making first her feet and then her legs feel very cold. She ought to have stuffed her boots with straw as she remembered reading about people doing in the Alps. Though there wouldn’t have been room for much straw in her already too-tight boots.

  Stephie stops to check her direction again. Feeling around in her knapsack for the compass, she can’t find it. She takes everything out—her sandwiches and schoolbooks—shaking the sack upside down. The compass just isn’t there. She must have forgotten it when she stopped to eat.

  She turns around and sees the islet far behind her. Should she go back? That would take at least half an hour, and then another half hour to return to this spot. If she just continues straight ahead, she can probably manage without the compass.

  The expanse of ice seems never-ending. Now Stephie is cold through and through, in spite of her heavy sweater and double stockings. She eats the last sandwich as she walks. The milk in her bottle has frozen to a white slush.

  The worst part is that it’s already getting dark. The dusky air is blue, and her shadow on the ice is eerily long and thin. It looks like she’s on stilts.

  Night falls quickly. Soon she won’t be able to see at all. If she stops where she is, she will freeze to death during the night. The snow creaks, and the ice makes clicking sounds. In the far distance she sees the flashing red light of a lighthouse.

  When it is nearly pitch black, she sees the contours of land ahead. She begins to hurry. Exhausted and freezing cold, she steps back onto land. She’s standing on a stony beach. To the right there’s a dock and a boathouse….

  Stephie raises her gaze. Straight ahead she sees a white house with high stone steps. It’s a house she recognizes.

  She must have walked in a circle instead of straight ahead, turning back out to sea instead of toward the mainland as she thought. She walked right around the island in such a wide arc she couldn’t see it until she swung around again and struck land on the west side. The lighthouse she saw must have been the same one she usually sees from the top of the hill.

  Her whole long trek was completely in vain. She’s back where she started. She hasn’t been able to do a thing to help her mother and father, not a single thing.

  The kitchen window is bright. When she opens the front door she smells fried pork.

  “Stephie,” Aunt Märta calls from the kitchen, “is that you?”

  Aunt Märta heats up the baked beans for her, scolding her for being late.

  “For once you could try to keep track of the time,” she says. “Didn’t I tell you to be back for dinner?”

  “I didn’t have any way of knowing what time it was,” Stephie replies.

  “Were you at the sledding hill all this time?”

  Stephie shakes her head. “No, we had a bit of a walk on the ice as well.”

  “What a thing to do,” Aunt Märta says. “I hope you’re careful. There are places where the ice is very thin, you know.”

  Stephie never tells anyone about her adventure on the ice. It’s a secret she intends to keep to herself. She picks up the sled on her way home from Sunday school, and explains to Aunt Märta that she left it at Britta’s overnight.

  When Uncle Evert comes home Stephie fills him in about her father’s letter and what the woman from the relief committee said to Aunt Märta on the phone. To her surprise she hears Aunt Märta say:

  “It’s not fair. There must be some solution.”

  Uncle Evert sits thinking for a few minutes. “I could write to our member of parliament,” he says. “Maybe he can help.”

  “Member of parliament? What’s that?” Stephie asks.

  “Parliament,” Uncle Evert explains, “is where our decision makers work. There’s a member of parliament from these islands. He’s just a regular person you can talk to if you’re having a problem.”

  Uncle Evert asks Stephie some questions about her parents before he drafts the letter. On the envelope he writes the man’s name and, on the line below, “Parliament of Sweden.” Stephie walks with him to the post office, where he mails it to Stockholm. The woman behind the counter looks impressed.

  “So, you’re getting involved in politics, are you?” she asks.

  “Sure am,” Uncle Evert answers.

  When they’ve left the post office, Stephie and Uncle Evert have a good laugh about the curious look the woman gave him.

  “She’d give anything to know what’s in that letter,” Uncle Evert says, chuckling.

  Now Stephie waits eagerly not only for letters from her parents but also for an answer from Stockholm. She imagines it arriving in a long, narrow envelope with gold edging and the blue-and-yellow Swedish coat of arms. Inside there will be a letter saying that her parents are welcome to come live in Sweden.

  The weeks pass and no answer arrives. The cold weather persists. At school the children keep their coats on. One Saturday in early March Miss Bergström tells the class the school is going to close for a few weeks as there isn’t enough fuel to keep the schoolhouse heated.

  “We have to economize, what with the war,” she tells them. “So we’ll have a ‘fuel break’ until after Easter, when the weather should have warmed up.”

  She gives them assignments to do at home, arithmetic problems to solve and spelling to work on.

  Stephie misses school. The days pass so slowly. She’s in suspense, waiting for an answer from Stockholm, for school to start again, for spring to arrive.

  Easter is early that year. The ocean is still frozen over; the island’s still covered with snow. The children and young people devote a lot of time during the week leading up to Easter to gathering wood and other things to burn, and carrying it all up to the highest point on the island, where the Easter bonfire will be.

  “You have to be able to see the fire from a long way off,” Nellie explains to Stephie as they trudge up to the top of the hill with some scraps of wood. “So everyone will see our bonfire as the biggest one on any of the islands.”

  The bonfire will be on Easter Eve, after sunset. At midday Step
hie makes her usual trip to the post office. On the way, she sees some little old ladies, but they are not dressed in black as the old ladies on the island always are. These ladies are wearing brightly patterned skirts, aprons, and head scarves.

  When she gets closer, she sees that they are children. Their long skirts are dragging on the ground. One of them is carrying a broomstick, the other a copper kettle. Their cheeks are rouged and their noses blackened with soot.

  Not until she is almost on top of them does Stephie recognize Nellie and Sonja. What on earth are they doing?

  “Give a coin to the Easter witches,” Sonja says, holding out her kettle.

  Stephie’s furious. Her little sister, walking around the village begging, dressed in rags! Imagine if Mamma and Papa knew! She tears the flowery kerchief off Nellie’s head.

  “Are you out of your mind?” she shouts. “Making a laughingstock of us for the whole island to see!”

  “Stop it!” Nellie cries, pulling at the scarf. “Careful of that, it’s Auntie Alma’s.”

  “Get out of those rags at once!” Stephie roars. “Go home and wash your face! You look like a beggar. What will people think?”

  “You’re the one who’s out of her mind,” Nellie shouts back. “You’re dumb! We’re dressed up as Easter witches. But I don’t suppose you know what an Easter witch is. You think everything always has to be just like back home.”

  “Sonja, Nellie?” other children’s voices shout. Three more little girls come running up. They’re dressed up, too, like Nellie and Sonja.

  “Have you got much?” one asks.

  Sonja holds out her kettle for the others to see. She shakes it and the coins rattle.

  Stephie looks from one red-and-black-painted child to the next. Easter witches!

  “Can I have my headscarf back, please?” Nellie says. “Everybody dresses up as an Easter witch here. Ask anyone at all, and you’ll find out.”

  Stephie passes Nellie the scarf and turns away. When she gets to the post office, it’s closed.

  That evening, just before dark, she, Aunt Märta, and Uncle Evert go up to see the bonfire. The sky is a beautiful, deep blue.

  All the islanders have gathered, young and old, boys and girls, men and women alike. Nellie is there with her friends. They’re still in their Easter witch getups.

  Per-Erik and a few of the other young men are in charge of the fire. They’ve got a bucket of kerosene to ignite it with.

  “When will it be lit?” Stephie asks.

  “Soon,” Uncle Evert replies. “But our island’s not first. We have to wait for the others.”

  The deep blue sky shifts toward black.

  “Now watch,” Uncle Evert tells her. “It’s time.”

  Far, far off to the north, a distant flame flares up. And then another, a little closer by, and another on the island nearest them. Per-Erik pours the kerosene over the pile of brushwood and scrap, and then touches a match to it. A huge flame rises. The dry wood crackles and sparks.

  “It’s catching well,” says Uncle Evert with satisfaction. “The boys have done a fine job.”

  The relay continues on to the farther islands, the ones to the south. The bonfires burn on the highest hill of each island, making a chain of flame.

  The fire is so hot, Stephie has to back away. Her face and front feel as if they’re being warmed by the summer sun. At her back, though, it still feels like winter.

  Uncle Evert puts an arm around her shoulders. “Are you cold?” he asks.

  Stephie shakes her head. The fire is roaring. The flames are drawn high up into the now very dark sky.

  On all the islands, Stephie thinks. On all the islands people are standing around bonfires, getting warm. On every island there’s someone asking a child if she’s cold. On all the islands, people can see the fires from the other islands.

  Stephie likes that thought.

  “Which of you will be going on to secondary school next fall?”

  Miss Bergström is behind her desk on the first day of school after Easter. The children haven’t really settled back in yet. They seem to have forgotten how to sit still during their several weeks’ break.

  Sylvia and Ingrid raise their hands right away. Three boys raise theirs, too.

  “No one else?”

  Stephie raises her hand.

  “Stephanie?” Miss Bergström asks.

  “Yes,” she answers. “I want to go on to grammar school, too.”

  Miss Bergström nods.

  “Fine,” she says. “Six, that’s more than usual. I plan to give you some extra tutoring for the rest of the semester. You’ll be staying an hour longer than the others every day from now on. Here are the titles of two books I want you to get by next week.”

  She writes the names of two books on the blackboard. Stephie copies them carefully into her exercise book. One is a math book, the other is called The Tales of Ensign Stål.

  When the school day is over, Miss Bergström asks Stephie to stay behind for a few minutes.

  “You’re a good pupil,” she says. “I’m pleased that you are going to be able to continue your schooling. And there will be German lessons at grammar school, too. You’ll like that.”

  “Yes,” says Stephie, wondering what Miss Bergström is really getting at.

  “Those books I asked you to get,” she goes on, “the ones we’ll be working with this spring. Don’t worry about them. I have extras you can borrow. I’ll bring them tomorrow, and you can cover them at home.”

  When Stephie leaves school, the schoolyard is empty. The piles of dirty snow even in the darkest corner are melting, and little rivulets have formed in the gravel.

  Now that the snow is finally disappearing, all her classmates have got their bikes out again. After school they rush in a flock to the bicycle stands and pedal off.

  There’s just one bike left. Vera’s squatting down beside it, pumping the back tire.

  Stephie approaches her cautiously. This is the opportunity she’s been waiting for, a chance to talk to Vera alone.

  It should be simple just to ask: “Are you heading home? Want to walk together?” But sometimes the simplest things are hardest. So Stephie decides to open the conversation by talking about something else. If she can just strike up a conversation, surely she and Vera can walk out through the gate together, Vera leading her bike, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the two of them to be walking home side by side.

  Stephie walks over to the bike stand. “Aren’t you going on to grammar school?”

  Vera looks up. “No,” she answers. “My mother can’t afford it. And I’m not good enough at school, either.”

  “You could be, though,” Stephie replies. “If you wanted to. You could be … an actress, for instance. You’re such a good mimic.”

  “Oh, well,” Vera says. “I’ll be getting married. Maybe to a rich man, one of the summer visitors. I’ll live in the city and have a cook and a housemaid.”

  She stands up and looks in the direction of the gate. Now Stephie notices Sylvia and Barbro, standing on the road with their bikes. They’re waiting for somebody. Vera.

  “It’s different for you,” Vera tells her. “You’re the grammar school type.”

  “Hurry up, Vera,” Sylvia shouts. “We’re leaving!”

  “You don’t have a bike, do you?” Vera asks.

  “No.”

  Stephie would rather the other children think she isn’t allowed to bike than have them find out that she doesn’t know how.

  “Too bad,” Vera says. “We could ride home together if you did. Bye.”

  She mounts her bike and pedals over to Sylvia and Barbro. Stephie watches them disappear down the road.

  Stephie doesn’t mention grammar school to Aunt Märta that day. The next day Miss Bergström brings her the books. The math book is much more difficult than the one they use in class. It has problems with x and y instead of numbers.

  Stephie takes the books home and asks Aunt Märta for
paper to cover them with.

  “Isn’t it late in the semester to be getting new books?” she asks. “And who gave those to you, anyway?”

  “Miss Bergström lent them to me,” Stephie replies. “They’re for the extra tutoring I’ll be taking to prepare for grammar school.”

  “Really! It’s no use your thinking about going on,” Aunt Märta snaps. “There’ll be no grammar school for you.”

  Stephie just stares at her.

  “But I’m going to be a doctor!” she cries. “I have to go to grammar school.”

  Aunt Märta barks a short little laugh that sounds more like a cough.

  “It’s about time you became more realistic and dropped those fine-lady thoughts of yours,” she says. “Where do you think you are, after all? Do you think we’re made of money? We can’t afford room and board in town for you; surely you understand that. And what good would it do? We don’t even know how long you’re going to be here.”

  “But what will I do, then, after the school year’s over?”

  “Help me in the house,” Aunt Märta tells her. “And when autumn comes you can take the home economics course here on the island. Like most of the other girls do.”

  “I don’t want to take some old home economics course!” Stephie protests. “I want to stay in school, real school!”

  “That’s the last I want to hear about it. You’re too stubborn for your own good. Now you go up to your room and stay there until you’re ready to apologize.”

  The following day Stephie takes the math book and Ensign Stål back to school without paper covers. She asks to speak with Miss Bergström at recess.

  “I’m not allowed to go on to grammar school,” she tells her.

  Miss Bergström frowns. “Hadn’t you asked permission before you raised your hand?”

  “No.”

  “I see,” Miss Bergström says. “Do you know what? I’m going to come and have a word with the Janssons.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Stephie gasps. “Miss Bergström?”