The Best Intentions (45 page)

Magda:
And then she's to come back?

Henrik:
Don't sound so distrustful, Magda dear. Why shouldn't she come back? Why shouldn't two young people have the right to be on their own for a few months and try separately to test out their feelings?

Magda:
A moment ago, you sounded quite convinced.

Henrik:
Convinced?

Magda:
Convinced of your solitude. “I've always been alone. I always will be. My life with Anna confused me.” And so on.

Henrik:
That is what I feel like
at this moment
. In a few months or perhaps tomorrow, I may have changed my mind.

Magda:
You like contradicting, didn't you?

Henrik
(laughs):
At the risk of contradicting you, I say, no, no, not at all. Ordinarily, I am just vague, nice, and rather cowardly. I mostly think everyone else is right, and I am wrong.

Magda:
Your beard suits you.

Henrik:
An expression of my true personality? Or perhaps just idleness. I don't have to heat water every morning. I don't have to shave.

Magda:
Don't you think it'd be nice if you moved into the wing of the parsonage?

Henrik:
Do
you?

Magda
(smiling):
Playing chess, playing cards, making music, reading aloud, eating well. Being together? Henrik?

Henrik:
Yes, of course. Of course.

Magda:
What are you thinking about?

Henrik:
I was thinking about what I was going to say when you confused me by talking about my beard.

Magda:
I'm sorry.
(Smiles.)
What were you going to say?

Henrik:
I think that I'm best at living on the Extreme Edge of the World. Both metaphorically and literally. Then I attain that hardness, that sharpness . . . I can only find banal words for something important. Magda, try to understand me. I have to live in privation. Then, and
only then
, can I possibly be a good priest. As I
want
to be, but have terribly bright, no, I say that with no false modesty. But I know that I'd be a good worker in the vineyards if I could live without sidelong glances.

Magda:
Now you're being very convincing. I shall retreat.

Henrik:
You sound ironic?

Magda
(gently):
I'm not being ironic. I feel like crying.

Henrik:
Yes, so many tears will have to be shed.

Magda
(stroking his face):
I must go now before it's too late. I mean, it's already getting dark. Good luck with your sermon.

Henrik:
The sermon is about the fig tree that refused to bear fruit. And its owner said, cut down that tree. It stands there year after year and sucks good out of my soil.

Magda:
Yes, I know, I know. And the worker in the vineyard said, let me look after the fig tree especially well, then we can see if it doesn't bear fruit . . .

Henrik embraces her, and they stand there swaying together for a few moments, speechless. Then she frees herself and pushes her hair back from her forehead with her big hand.

Henrik:
Things
are
all right here, Magda. It's not particularly nice, but good. I have to face myself every day. That's fairly dismal, but an invaluable experience.

Magda:
But you can come to dinner on New Year's Day nevertheless, can't you?

Henrik
(
smiles
): I don't think so.

Magda:
Good-bye, then.

Henrik:
Thanks for coming to see me.

Magda has started putting on her outdoor clothes. Boots. Shawl around her head. The heavy coat, gloves. Jack has got up, pleased their guest is leaving.

Magda:
Nordenson's funeral is going to be in Sundsvall, where there's a crematorium. Uncle Samuel insists. We have to go. They were friends in some peculiar way. I saw them leaning over the chess board, a rare sight, I assure you. Uncle Samuel so gentle and angelic. And then Nordenson, a lost soul from hell, a demon. Your beard really is delightful. I hope Anna will enjoy it.

Henrik:
Anna doesn't like me having a beard.

Magda:
Oh, dear me, how unfortunate!

Henrik:
You're sure to be home before it gets dark.

The kitchen door closes. The outer door resists, the snowdrift has grown. The door shuts again with a dull thump. Magda walks briskly toward the gate, shoves the sled in front of her, and scoots off. She has left the basket behind on the draining board.

Does he scream? No.

Does he begin to cry, leaning over the bench? Unlikely.

Does he walk up and down in the cruelly cold dining room?

He might have, but he doesn't.

What does he do?

He sits down at the kitchen table and bends over his half-finished sermon.

He lights his pipe. He lights the paraffin lamp.

He looks out the window for a moment.

The roving light of dusk, the snow.

The cold.

The game could come to an end here. Every ending and every beginning has to be arbitrary, for I am relating a piece of life, not an invention. Nevertheless, I have decided to add an
epilogue
, which is entirely invented. There is no documentation from the first six months of 1918.

So now it's spring, early summer, the month of June. The students
have taken their exams, celebrated, feasted, sung, and vanished, the professors and lecturers have pulled down their blinds and gone out to the country. The streets are silent and the parks full of blossoms and their scents. The shadows of the trees deepen. The Fyris River trickles gently along. The trams reduce their timetables by half, and the little black-clad old ladies who have stayed indoors all winter now suddenly appear. They tend their graves, peer into their hidden window-mirrors behind the curtains, sit on the benches in the botanical gardens or the city park, and let the warmth of the sun flow into their joints and bones.

At seven in the morning, one sunny Thursday at the beginning of June, a freight train from Norrland stops at Upsala Central Station's freight platform. At the end of the train are (that's what it was like in those days) two ancient passenger cars with wooden seats, spittoons, and iron stoves, but no trace of comfort. One lone passenger gets out. The station restaurant has just opened, and he orders a simple breakfast (there isn't much available because times are bad). Then he goes to the cloakroom and washes, shaves, and changes his shirt. He is wearing a neat dark suit with a waistcoat, stiff collar, and black tie. He is carrying the barest necessities in a shabby black briefcase, which he deposits in the luggage room together with his hat and raincoat.

Then he sets off at a slow pace up Drottninggatan and turns off onto TrädgÅrdsgatan. There he takes up a post directly opposite building 12, well concealed behind the gates of the school yard. There is no one in sight. The little tram screeches and disappears down the hill. The ducks quack in Svandammen. The sun shines, the shadows shortening. The cathedral clock strikes ten.

The entrance door opens, and Karin Åkerblom steps out into the strong white light. She is pushing a baby stroller, Dag walking beside her with one hand holding firmly onto its arm. Then the person who has been holding the entrance door open appears. It is Anna. She is heavily pregnant and is wearing a light-colored dress and white boots. She is bareheaded. Her summer coat is on the stroller. The little company turns to the right and at a slow pace sets off toward Svandammen. They don't see Henrik, who slowly follows them along the opposite pavement, hidden in the deep shadows of the trees and buildings. The two women stop, and Mrs. Karin lifts the boy onto the stroller. He kneels facing forward and surveys his surroundings with a satisfied expression. They set off once again. Mrs. Karin says something to her daughter, and Anna slants her head to the left and smiles. She answers. Both of them smile. They have presumably said something to the boy.

They walk around Svandammen and stop in front of the Flustret, which has just opened its outdoor service. The wind is blowing through the big trees, and Henrik is standing on the other side of the pond. Dag is feeding the ducks, Anna giving him small pieces of bread out of a paper bag. Mrs. Karin says something, and Anna laughs. He can hear her laughter, although he is quite a long way away. It is windy, and the laughter is carried on the wind.

Anna takes her summer coat off the stroller, and a book, then leans down and ties up a bootlace, turns to her son and says something, and kisses him. Then she gets up, nods to Mrs. Karin, and slowly strolls over toward the leafy quiet of the town park. Henrik follows her.

She sits down on a bench in the shade of the lime trees. On the other side of the gravel path is a fountain surrounded by resplendent flower beds. She sits down heavily, then bends backward, pushing her hair off her forehead and opening the book.

Henrik hides nearby. Perhaps he is invisible, perhaps he is here only in his mind, perhaps this is a dream. He looks at her: the bowed neck, the dark eyelashes, the soft mouth, the braid down her back, the hands holding the book, the huge stomach — what a huge stomach — the boot below her hem. She turns the pages, stops reading, raises her eyes, the fountain splashes, the wind blows in the limes, there's a buzzing in the flowers in the flower beds, a song thrush obstinately repeats the same set of notes, and far away a steam whistle blows.
I'm here, quite close, can't you see me?
She lowers the book, lets it lie on the bench, rests her hands flat on the bench.
Can't you see me?
No. Yes. She turns her gaze in his direction. She sees him, hides her face in her hand, sitting quite still.

Anna:
What do you want?

Henrik:
Just an impulse. I heard there was a night train running.

Anna:
What do you want?

Henrik:
I don't know. That is, I . . . (
Falls silent
.)
  (
Anna says nothing
.)

Henrik:
I think about you and the boy all the time. I yearn too much.

Anna:
I'm never coming back.

Henrik:
I know.

Anna:
Never. Whatever you say.

Henrik:
I know.

Anna:
I have been filled with terrible anguish. I have felt like a traitor. Things are better now. Don't come and tear it all up again. I couldn't face it.

Henrik:
You'll never have to go back again, Anna. I promise you. I have written to Pastor Primarius and accepted his offer. We're moving to Stockholm in the autumn.

He falls silent and looks over at the fountain. Anna waits. They are agitated and trembling, but speak calmly, their voices calm. She is sitting here, and he is sitting there. Each on a separate bench.

Anna:
What did you want to say?

Henrik
(smiles):
I'm not a talented martyr. Good intentions are not enough.

Anna:
Perhaps we'll never be able to forgive each other.

Henrik:
So you want us to go on?

Anna:
You know perfectly well I do. I don't want anything else. That's all I want.

Then they don't know what ought to be said or can be said. So they sit in silence for a long while, each on a separate bench, sunk in their own thoughts.

Anna is surely occupied with practical considerations about the coming move. Henrik is doubtless wondering about how he will ever be able to look his parishioners in the eye during his remaining time in Forsboda.

Fårö, Sweden