Mara (5 page)

When the dog gave a short bark, I quickly pulled my hand away from his nose and I stroked him between the ears.

‘Shall we go?’ Auntie asked. I nodded gratefully. The sooner the better, I thought. I knew we would have quite a ride ahead of us yet with the wagon. I walked around to the other side and climbed on. Auntie was seated already and patted the seat beside her invitingly. The dog jumped on the wagon and found a spot with the luggage, and we could depart. The city was crowded and Auntie seemed to need all her attention to drive. My thoughts moved on ahead, towards the farm of my youth and the new life that awaited me.

As we approached the farm I started to wonder what it was exactly that my mother – or the Reverend for that matter - had written in the letter to Auntie. If had been the Reverend, I could well guess what kind of a letter it was: your sister’s daughter has lost her virginity to some bum and is now expecting a bastard. We want her to live with you for now. Period.

I could hardly imagine that Mother had written the letter. She had not written any in all these years because the Reverend did not allow her to have contact with her sister. But if she had written this time, I could not begin to imagine what the letter would be about. What did she know of it after all?

‘Do you think you can tell me what the matter is, or would you rather not talk about it?’

I carefully considered her words. So carefully that, had they been objects I would have taken them in my hands and looked at them from every angle to see where the catches were and what possibilities there were. I was silent for a long time as I considered her question. She allowed me the freedom to not discuss it, an easy way out. I wouldn’t have to talk about my current sad circumstances. On the other hand, if I did answer her, I would find out exactly what she knew about my situation. I realized that this would either make me feel more at ease with her, or the complete opposite. How did Auntie see me? As an innocent child? As a careless young woman? As an innocent virgin?

A deep pothole in the road made me bounce up and I came down hard on the wooden seat. For a moment I wondered to myself if maybe that would solve my problem right there. A miscarriage would suit me fine, but surely the Reverend’s god wouldn’t be
that
gracious. In the end I asked her my question.

‘What did the letter say?’

Auntie did not need to ask me which letter I was talking about, that was obvious. She nodded in acknowledgement and clucked her tongue at the horse before she looked at me.

‘I will give you the letter when we get home, then you can read it for yourself.’

She would give me the letter?

At home this kind of openness would be unthinkable. At home they would never involve me in any adult matters. ‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Of course. I don’t mind telling you, if you would prefer that, but I may forget something or say something the wrong way. If you read the letter, you’ll have your answer. And now,’ she gave me a quick smile, ‘I would like to hear some news from the far southwest. How is my sister?’

I admired her courage to ask me about my mother’s circumstances. As the years had passed it had become clear to me that, because of the Reverend’s meddling, contact between the two sisters had ceased completely. My aunt had lost her sister, Mother might just as well have been dead. I remembered the letters, which at first arrived faithfully every week, but were never answered. And I knew that even now a letter arrived every month. My mother never read them. Mainly because the Reverend would be quick to intercept them, and if he didn’t, she would place the letter unopened on the mantelpiece for the Reverend to find and destroy.

I took a deep breath and, somewhat hoarse, began to tell her about our simple life. I told Auntie about the cutters that fished for mussels, the manse, the church with its modest interior. I expounded on the little garden at the manse, the grocer’s, the baker and the swing at the school. Why I told her about the swing I don’t know, but my aunt listened attentively, smiling and nodding, every now and then wiping away a little tear. I pretended not to notice and kept talking about home and Mother. I did not speak about the Reverend. Some memories were hard to talk about and every time I told Auntie about Mother I pressed the nails of my right hand hard into the palm of my left, without Auntie noticing. The physical pain helped me to keep Mother’s betrayal from her.

As I spoke, more and more memories emerged and I talked and talked, until we turned onto a sandy path and Auntie pointed ahead.

‘There it is, we’re almost home.’

I grew silent and watched as we approached the farm. Only the horse’s clip-clopping, and the creaking and rattling of the wagon disturbed the silence. My eyes traced the familiar bends toward the farm. To the left, beside a small ditch, I suddenly noticed a familiar landmark.

‘Jopie is still there!’ I exclaimed in amazement. Grandpa had named the old, crooked willow tree Jopie, after an old, bent man from church who looked just as worn out as the tree but who approached each new year with renewed vigor.

‘Jopie is still there.’ I repeated softly to myself and I suddenly realized that it was also possible that the old man was still alive. I looked sideways at Auntie who cheerfully nodded as she clucked her tongue.

We entered the yard and I leaned forward and stretched my neck so I could have a good look around. Auntie held my arm, but I impatiently shook it off.

‘Be careful, Maria, or you’ll fall.’

‘I won’t fall.’ Just let me savor and feel for a moment, it has been so long.

I inhaled deeply and my lips tasted the familiar smell of days gone by. No sea air, no blowing sand dust. I smelled mud and greenery and animals. I smelled the earth after a good rainstorm. No seagulls here, but sparrows and larks, finches and chickadees. No screeching, but twittering. Here were flowers, bushes and trees, instead of sand and dune grass. Even now in the fall with winter fast approaching, the surrounding growth reminded me of fields full of poppies and wild chervil, daisies and chamomile. One more time I inhaled deeply and smelled the familiar smells of home. My home. For now.

We both grabbed a handful of straw and rubbed down the horse. It was odd how natural it was for me to join in this task after so many years of absence. When we were done I looked on while Auntie brought the horse to the stable. Ever since I met Auntie at the train station I had wanted to know what she thought of me, how her opinion of me was colored by the words in that letter. The letter was waiting for me in the house.

I looked forward to entering the house. It held so many fond memories for me. It may sound odd, but to me it seemed that the house breathed compassion, as if it had a human personality. But I could of course not go in by myself, I had to wait for Auntie Be. She smiled at me as she walked toward me.

‘You’ll be surprised!’ she said, as if she had been reading my mind.

‘Why? Have there been a lot of changes?’ I couldn’t bear the thought that there might have been. Together we went to the door, which led to the entrance hall. I couldn’t wait to go in, into the open kitchen.

‘You’ll see for yourself. I hope you’ll appreciate it.’ Auntie opened the door to let me in. The delicious aroma of a stew that had been on the stove for hours welcomed me and I remembered that I was hungry. At the entrance to the open kitchen I stopped and I absorbed my surroundings with excitement. Everything was just as it had been: Grandpa’s chair with its green seat covering, the kitchen table with seven chairs around it, two large cabinets against the wall, and the red tiled floor. I noticed that Auntie had acquired a new stove, it was beautiful and decorated with colorful painted flowers, but that was the only change I could discover at first glance. Relieved, I clapped my hands together and turned to Auntie.

‘Nothing’s changed at all!’

She stood behind me, smiling, but now she also entered the kitchen, walked past me to lead me to the front room. She went straight towards the box bed and opened up the doors. To my amazement I did not find a mattress and blankets, but tidy rows of shelves filled with empty canning jars. She opened the other box bed and there also I found a spacious storage cupboard, filled with linens and a few boxes as to which contents I could only guess, instead of the bed I had expected to find.

‘But where do you sleep?’ I asked after I had recovered from my amazement. For this had always been the adults’ sleeping area.

‘Follow me.’ Auntie Be hurried ahead of me excitedly, and I followed her through the kitchen to the attached barn. It was chilly there and I wrapped my arms about me as I continued to follow Auntie Be. She headed straight for the stairs and climbed up.

At the top of the stairs was a small landing with three doors, two to the right and one to the left. Auntie led me toward the doors to the right and proudly opened the first door. Again she let me enter ahead of her and this time I found myself in a comfortable bedroom, which clearly was my aunt’s. There was a beautiful bed in the center, but it was the large dressing table against the wall that drew all my attention. It was a table with attached to it a large mirror, consisting of three sections. It was pure extravagance. It would be unimaginable to find something like this in the manse. There we had all of one small mirror, and that was used by the Reverend while shaving. I saw my own reflection and looked at it for a moment. It was hardly noticeable. Nothing to worry about. Almost nothing.

Embarrassed, I placed my hand on my stomach, made a fist, then turned away from the mirror to have a good look at the rest of the room. I admired the wallpaper that decorated the walls with cheerful flowers. Pink and white colors were a recurring theme in the room, and the view from the window was breathtaking.

‘What a lovely room!’ It was so different from what I was used to at home. What we had was dark green curtains, brown furniture, small beds and bedspreads in muted colors. No flowers. Especially no flowers. When was the last time that Mother and I had danced through the meadows, both carrying a basket that we filled with all the wildflowers we could find? Daisies, dandelions, buttercups, wild chervil and the lovely scented chamomile. I closed my eyes and could see us skipping, hand in hand with big smiles. I shivered and quickly opened my eyes. Where did these memories come from?

‘Come along, I’ll show you your room.’ Obediently I followed Auntie and she opened the second door for me. I hesitantly followed her into the room. I squealed with delight when I saw, on the bed, my old teddy bear. Auntie had made it for me when I was young. I had not been able to bring it with me when we moved, and I had been devastated over it for weeks. I searched her eyes and gave her a grateful nod. In silence I walked through the room, my hand tracing the washstand, which held a beautiful wash basin and a jug. I recognized it, Grandma had always been very proud of it. There was no dressing table, but above the washstand was a mirror, and on the small night table stood a vase of chrysanthemums. The curtains were of the same material as those in Auntie’s room and the bedspread was a colorful quilt made of bits of left over material, probably sewn by Auntie herself.

‘What a lovely room,’ I whispered.

‘So you like it?’

I nodded. ‘It was a very good idea of you to use part of the attic and turn it into bedrooms. Absolutely beautiful, Auntie. What is behind the third door?’

Auntie Be went ahead of me and opened the door. I looked over her shoulder and saw the hayloft as I remembered it. There was plenty of room left I saw.

‘Fairly soon after you and your mother left, Grandma decided to renovate. She always hoped that you would come and stay for a visit as a family and she wanted to have rooms prepared for that occasion.’

I silently nodded and thought of Grandma and Mother and Auntie. Poor Grandma, she never could have imagined that her granddaughter would end up staying in this room as a pregnant outcast.

‘Of course we did not need the rooms for ourselves, but when Grandma passed away and Anna still had not come, I decided to alter the box beds. I prefer sleeping in a spacious room over sleeping in a cramped box bed.’

She closed the door again and we went back downstairs.

‘I am very impressed, Auntie, Mother would absolutely love it.’ The words left my mouth before I realized it and I quickly fell silent. Mother wasn’t interested in the least. Didn’t I know that? She would, most likely, never get to see these renovations to her old home.

‘You know, we asked her for permission to do this,’ Auntie said while she led the way downstairs. ‘Unfortunately Anna never sent a reply, so in the end Grandma and I decided to wait no longer for a response.’

I thought of al the letters that arrived monthly and were destroyed unread, and it weighed on me, but what should I do? Should I tell Auntie Be that all these years she had been writing letters that went unread, or should I just watch every month as she posted a letter, which I knew was written in vain?

How had Auntie reacted the day that finally this one letter arrived, the letter that spoke of her niece, the letter she would let me read? Would she have smiled expectantly, or would she have opened the letter with trepidation, anticipating bad news?

‘Would you like some tea, dear?’

Again we stood in the kitchen, and I nodded. The letter. What was in the letter?

‘Go on and sit down, you must be tired,’ Auntie said and she pointed to Grandpa’s chair.

‘I can’t sit there! That’s Grandpa’s chair.’

‘Grandpa is no longer here and you are exhausted. Go on, sit down. It’s the best chair I have.’

Cautiously I lowered myself onto the green fabric of the chair. It stood close to the stove and the warmth radiating from it enveloped me like a warm blanket.

‘Here is your tea.’ I must have dozed off for a little while, for the words startled me.

‘Would you like to read the letter right now?’

I nodded. My body was exhausted, but my mind would have no rest until I knew what I wanted to know. I was so grateful for Auntie’s consideration. She seemed to know exactly what to say and what not.