This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2013 Helena von Zweigbergk
Translation copyright © 2017 Tiina Nunnally
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Previously published as Än klappar hjärtan by Norstedts in 2013. Translated from Swedish by Tiina Nunnally. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2017.
Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle
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“Triumph of Existing” by Edith Södergran, translated by Stina Katchadourian, in Love & Solitude, Selected Poems 1916-1923 (Seattle: Fjord Press, 1992)
ISBN-13: 9781477848692
ISBN-10: 147784869X
Cover design by Emily Mahon
For John
Hope is our friend.
CONTENTS
ASTRID
Two days later. . .
It’s over. Astrid. . .
Astrid has a. . .
The next day. . .
SANDRA
Sandra looks at. . .
Sandra opens the. . .
She has to. . .
LENA
The next morning. . .
Lena knows what. . .
ASTRID
Henrik is the. . .
It’s Sunday morning. . .
SANDRA
Should she have. . .
LENA
Astrid knows. Sandra. . .
The following week. . .
Should I write. . .
ASTRID
SANDRA
We’re back, Sandra. . .
LENA
It’s raining for. . .
ASTRID
LENA
SANDRA
ASTRID
LENA
EPILOGUE
ASTRID
SANDRA
ASTRID
SANDRA
ASTRID
KERSTIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
ASTRID
It’s hard to take in all the varieties of cheese in a display case. Astrid studies them with a growing sense of despair. Each cheese has a name and a different fat content. All have been aged for varying lengths of time, and that’s supposed to mean something to the customer.
The cheesemonger behind the counter is watching her as she dejectedly surveys the various types. As soon as she gives him a quick glance, he’ll be more than willing to offer assistance. But she can’t seem to make any progress. Everything has come to a halt.
Right here.
After avoiding the man’s gaze several times, Astrid looks directly at him. “I don’t know what I want.”
How is anyone supposed to know?
Her son, Viktor, is graduating from high school tomorrow, and Astrid is going to serve cheese on the buffet table, which up until now she’s easily planned down to the smallest detail. If every last dollop of tomato sauce is centered on the crostini with its accompanying bay leaf placed perfectly and the pumpkin seeds sprinkled just so over the avocado mousse, then surely all will go well.
Astrid twists her wedding ring and asks the higher powers for some semblance of control. None comes.
Henrik, her husband and Viktor’s adoptive father, was supposed to buy fresh thyme yesterday, but he came home with oregano instead. At that point Astrid was already about to fall apart and she’d refused any more help. She alone would be able to get everything to fall into place.
Now she’s on her own, and yet Astrid can’t seem to make any decisions. She had thought, What about some nice cheese? A perfectly ordinary suggestion, yet here she is, unable to choose.
The cheesemonger offers her slices to sample. As she accepts them, she gives a detailed rundown of all her plans. She points out that you only graduate from high school once in your life, and it’s important to acknowledge such milestones when they occur.
The man behind the counter nods in patient agreement. “So what about this one?” he says. “Would you like to taste it?”
As Astrid accepts the sample, she admits to herself there’s one crucial fact she’s omitted—and, if she takes a deep breath and tries to be as honest as possible, it’s the main cause of her nervous confusion. Michael, her American ex-lover and Viktor’s biological father, is coming to the party. And that’s stranger and more upsetting than it might sound.
Michael and Astrid haven’t seen each other in years—not since the day he abandoned her and their one-year-old son, conveniently forgetting the promise they’d made that their love would be greater than most had ever known. He left them behind, abruptly and brutally. A total about-face.
Astrid never really understood why. She was simply forced to go on.
Michael said he was overcome with panic. At the age of twenty-four, he was too young to settle down with her and Viktor. And there was the possibility of lingering feelings for a girl back home.
Even so.
Nothing made sense to Astrid. She’d been wrapped in a cocoon of love she assumed Michael shared, and what happened was, and still remains, incomprehensible.
The summer was winding down when Michael decided to go his own way. They were staying in the family’s summer house on the island of Fårö, and her father had died two days earlier. Astrid was traumatized and in a state of shock. So much so, that later in the fall she found herself staring at the wall of a psychiatric ward for several days. It was only when her sister Sandra leaned over her as she was sitting in a hospital armchair and shouted that she needed to pull herself together that Astrid listened. Viktor needed her.
Three years later, Henrik put his arms around Astrid with sweet tenderness, and she has rested within his healing embrace ever since. Their two daughters, Sara and Josefin, are now twelve and fourteen. Henrik wanted to adopt Viktor, and Michael agreed. At that moment Astrid finally let Michael go. When Viktor got a little older, he saw Michael occasionally, whenever some friend or family member was able to accompany him across the Atlantic to New York City, where Michael now lives.
When Michael learned he was going to spend a year working for an architecture firm in Copenhagen, he sent an e-mail asking to see Viktor more often. The graduation celebration will be the first opportunity of many, and as a graduation present, he intended to invite Viktor to visit him in Copenhagen. Astrid and Henrik agreed it would be good for their son to know Michael better. Henrik, in particular, felt it was time.
The strong flavor of the last cheese sample pulls Astrid back to the present. “This one is great,” she says, feigning enthusiasm. There’s no point in standing here any longer, trying to make sense of something that happened so long ago. All she has to do is make her selection and continue on with what she’s already started.
No more confusion. She simply wants to get it over with.
Two days later and the big moment has arrived. The flags are flapping in the breeze in the schoolyard. The lilac blossoms droop, heavy with rain from last night. Now the sun is shining again, but there’s a slight chill in the air on this June day. Here and there, big clouds appear, swollen and cold as marble.
Earlier in the morning, Astrid snapped at everyone in her family for different reasons—at Sara because she set a sticky cup of chocolate milk on the freshly cleaned coffee table, at Josefin because she insisted on wearing he
r ragged Converse sneakers, and at Henrik because he kissed her on the forehead and told her everything would be fine.
Of course. Why shouldn’t it be fine? Astrid wonders.
His concern feels like sabotage, undermining her carefully constructed corset of self-control. Does he really think she is capable of relaxing enough to accept any form of comfort and kindness right now?
Has Michael arrived?
Astrid turns her head away from the entrance of the school, where Viktor will soon appear, and casts a glance at the gate to the schoolyard. As is the custom, she’s holding a photograph of him on a congratulatory poster. It feels like a shield, as if to say, Viktor is ours and we are everything he could ever possibly want or need.
Henrik slips his hand under her long hair, and his touch feels surprisingly good. Astrid realizes he reinforces her armor rather than weakening it, and she leans into the loving gesture.
Henrik still has a hard time keeping his eyes off her.
“When is Viktor coming out?” Sara asks.
“Maybe another ten minutes or so.”
Henrik is the one who answers Sara’s question, and Astrid allows his calm voice to ease her nerves. He’s a rock. He’s her rock—the man she can lean on and turn to for warmth. The person who affirms the solid strength of their family life. Why did she allow herself to forget this?
Astrid’s sisters, Sandra and Lena, come into the schoolyard, along with Sandra’s husband, Per—who seems as though he may have had a drink or two already—and their mother, Kerstin. Under her crisp poplin coat, Kerstin is wearing her best suit, made of turquoise silk from Thailand, and a gold brooch shaped like a butterfly with tiny emerald eyes. Her hair flutters in the breeze. Over the years, her determination to increase the volume of her bouffant hairdo by teasing the strands intensified, while her ability to smooth them down afterward diminished. Consequently, her hair often looks like circus-horse plumes, waving in all directions.
Astrid hugs her sisters and mother a bit stiffly, feeling self-conscious about her own appearance. Lena is wearing something chic as usual, presumably one of her own creations. Her dark sunglasses hide her eyes, but her lips are pursed. Lena is the youngest, Astrid thinks, yet she’s already forty-one. And that means only three more years before I turn fifty. When did all of us get so old?
Astrid doesn’t know why Lena looks more disapproving than normal. Is it because, in her sister’s eyes, Astrid lives such a predictable and boring life?
She turns her attention instead to Sandra, who is tossing her hair, dyed red to match her fiery attitude. She carries herself with discipline, displaying the erect posture that she, in her role as a dance instructor, is constantly admonishing her pupils to emulate. “Straighten your back! Step forward and be bold—show a little attitude.” Astrid is familiar with Sandra’s exhortations, which are an expression of her philosophy of life. “Hold your head high.”
Yet, like a curse, Sandra has a husband who sinks lower with every glass of wine he drinks—and he drinks a lot. Per was once the star of a famous ballet company. After he retired at the age of forty-three, he and Sandra put all their efforts into a dance school, which, from what Astrid understands, is barely staying afloat.
Sandra raises one reproving eyebrow when she catches Astrid’s eye.
Normally, Astrid isn’t a big fan of conspiracy theories. But right now, based on her sisters’ silently judgmental behavior, she wonders whether they’ve entered into some sort of pact. Is it because she’s enjoyed a soft landing in life with Henrik, despite everything? Or maybe it’s that her husband, unlike Sandra’s, isn’t a drunk? Because she has had three children, while Sandra has only one, and Lena none at all? It’s hard to know.
When Astrid sees the way Lena is staring vacantly straight ahead, looking as if she’d rather be somewhere else, and Sandra impatiently flips her hair once again, Astrid wonders how close her sisters actually feel to her family, and why they even bothered to come today.
“Is Michael really going to show up?” Sandra asks.
Sara follows up with, “Who’s Michael?”
When Astrid says that he’s Viktor’s father, both Sara and Josefin protest. Henrik is his father, and theirs, too.
“Michael is Viktor’s biological father, girls,” Sandra explains.
“You both know that,” Astrid reminds her daughters, annoyed by Sandra’s interference. “I’ve told you before about Viktor’s biological father. Don’t you remember?”
Josefin and Sara turn to peer at the gate with worried looks.
Suddenly a buzz of voices sounds behind the front door of the school. The crowd cheers as the students come rushing out, waving their graduation caps high overhead and shouting excitedly.
Astrid stands on tiptoe, trying to catch sight of Viktor as tears sting her eyes. Her son, the graduate. She can still feel his hard little heels inside her womb, pressing against her ribs. She swallows hard and wills herself not to cry, because it’s pointless to feel so sentimental, and Viktor would be the first to tell her so.
At the same moment that Astrid catches sight of Viktor, she notices Michael hurrying into the schoolyard. He is holding a small child by the hand, and a blond woman is running a few feet behind him. This must be his family, Linda and their son, Leonard, that he’d mentioned in his e-mail.
Viktor appears among the sea of his fellow students, all of them surging forward like a great wave. Astrid notices how his face lights up when he sees Michael, who is the first to step forward to greet him. Despite the uproar, Astrid imagines she can hear Henrik sighing with disappointment. This is not how it was supposed to go.
“Viktor! We’re here! Over here!” Astrid shouts as she elbows her way forward. Her stomach clenches as she looks at Michael. She’s out of breath and has to gasp for air as she yells, her voice sounding increasingly desperate to her own ears. “I’m over here!”
Viktor turns toward his mother, giving her that beautiful smile of his. “Mamma!”
As they hug each other, Astrid closes her eyes. Viktor, a graduate! Her little boy, all grown up.
And Michael. That Michael. The person who was once hers, possibly more than anyone else has ever been. He’s probably looking at her now. Who does he see?
Who is she now? How is she different from back then?
She left that woman behind—the one who was whole. Over the years Astrid has been repaired and mended; now she is worn, with frayed edges. Yet she probably functions better than she used to, though she may be a bit subdued.
As she stands close to Viktor, the dark thoughts threaten to make her dizzy. Astrid forces her eyes open and focuses on her son. “Oh, Viktor, I’m so proud of you. I can’t believe you’re a high school graduate.”
Suddenly Michael is standing there, and Astrid can’t put him off any longer. She looks into Michael’s eyes and blinks several times before she’s able to say, “Well, hello.”
Michael says hello and they both mutter a few more words of welcome in English before making the introductions. Astrid fears the English phrases sound stiff and awkward when spoken by her and her family—who seem stiff and awkward in general. Kerstin emits thinly veiled hostility when she shakes hands with Michael and pretends not to understand that he wants to give her a kiss on the cheek. Sandra and Per appear slightly more welcoming, but Lena looks as if she’s about to cry.
Astrid feels something harden inside herself. Again. She chats with everyone and is exceedingly polite, deftly fending off any questions about Michael that arise. After all, she knows so many details about the man. Oh yes, she knows how the nape of his neck would feel under her fingertips. She still knows that. But it’s simply something she has to accept. Everyone collects those sorts of intimate memories throughout life, never to be forgotten, no matter how hard you might try. It is a fact, nothing more, nothing less, so why let it bother her?
Then more old memories of Michael appear in Astrid’s mind, demanding to be explored and startling her until she can push them away
.
Astrid hears Michael laugh when Viktor takes off a plastic bugle he’s wearing on a string and puts it around Leonard’s neck instead. The way Michael laughs . . . Again she recognizes how the sound starts off, like a seductive chord, and then continues in that infectious and familiar tone.
Astrid forces herself to ignore the laugh and looks at Henrik. He’s struggling with Michael’s presence—needing to establish his place, to make clear that he’s the one who actually became the father, and still is. Sara and Josefin stand on either side of him, as if they’re warding off the intruder.
He climbs up on a bench and says hello to everyone in both Swedish and English, smiling bravely at Michael and Linda. “Let’s all go back to our place and celebrate. Viktor and his fellow students are going to ride through the city for a few hours on decorated flatbed trucks, since that’s the tradition here. And he’ll end up soaked with beer, of course. But later, we’ll all eat dinner together.”
Astrid turns to Michael’s wife and comments on the beer, explaining it’s just one of the silly rituals kids do when they graduate.
Linda gives Astrid a brief smile. Her makeup is carefully applied, and she has a thinly disguised air of superiority that Americans are prone to display. She looks to be about thirty, which means a good fifteen years younger than Astrid, who happens to know that Linda is not the one Michael meant years ago when he claimed to have feelings for a girl back home. Linda’s hair is light blond and attractively styled. She’s wearing a dress of sand-colored linen and a spectacular silver bracelet that is artfully etched.
“What an amazing bracelet,” Astrid says to Linda, remembering Michael’s whimsical and playful way of paying attention to colors and shapes. She’s sure the piece is a gift from him and the sight of it is almost too much for her.
“Thanks. Michael bought it for me when I turned thirty. I really love it.”
“I can understand why.”
Each gives a slight nod, aware that they’re both struggling to find the right words, because what more is there to say? How is Astrid supposed to elaborate on the notion that she truly understands the joy such a wonderful present might evoke? How is Linda supposed to continue talking about a present, given with love, that has special meaning to her?
[2013] The Heart Echoes Page 1
