The Lily Pond (23 page)

Her name feels like a stone in Stephie’s mouth.

She bends back down and gives the little dog a hug, closing her eyes and burying her face in his fur. Then she stands up, takes the suitcase and her shoes, and opens the hall door.

Before she goes out the front door, she has to set the suitcase down to put on her shoes. As she is bending down to tie them, she hears the sound of a key in the lock. It must be Mrs. Söderberg.

I’ll tell her Aunt Märta’s been taken suddenly ill
, she thinks quickly,
and that I’m going home for a few days to help out. Then Aunt Märta can phone to say I’m not coming back
.

But it’s Sven standing in the doorway.

“Stephanie?” he says. “Where are you going? What’s happened?”

“Home,” she says. “I’m going home.”

“Home?”

“Let me out,” she says. “I’m in a hurry.”

But Sven is still blocking the doorway. She can’t get past.

“Wait a moment,” he says. “You can’t just leave.”

“Why not?”

“At least explain why. And why you ran away from Irja and me.”

“You said we would always tell each other everything,” says Stephie. “You told me I understood you best of all. Then
you went behind my back. Met her in secret. Snuck around out in Mayhill. Didn’t you know I’d seen you there in the tavern?”

Sven looks shamefaced, like Putte when he’s been reprimanded.

“I should have told you …,” he says. “I’ve been a coward. Irja thinks so, too.”

“I don’t care what she thinks! I hate you! How could you … and with a girl like that? A barmaid!”

She regrets those words as soon as she says them. She regrets them even before she sees the expression on Sven’s face: first astonished and offended, then angry. He opens his mouth to say something, but she speaks first.

“Don’t you get it?” she cries, not caring if all the other tenants and Elna in the kitchen hear her. “Don’t you know I love you?”

They stand silently for a few seconds, looking at each other. She sees the astonishment in Sven’s eyes, sees him trying to take in the impact of her words.

“Love …?” he asks.

Against all the odds, her heart fills with hope. Perhaps this is the very moment when he will realize that he loves her after all, that Irja means nothing to him.

But all she has to do is look at him to know she’s wrong. Arms akimbo, mouth gaping, he stands in front of her, unable to utter a word. Sven, who always knows what to say.

“This … this is so strange,” he says. “You … I … You’re just a kid! Like, well, like a little sister to me.”

“You said I seemed older,” she says, her voice sticking in her throat.

“I don’t know what you’ve gone around imagining,” Sven says, “but you’ve got to realize it was nothing but a fantasy. I’ve never thought of you that way. And you can’t claim I have ever given you any reason to believe otherwise.”

The look in his gray eyes is firm and cold. The gaze of a stranger.

Stephie can’t hold back her tears. They flood her eyes and run slowly down her cheeks. Sven sees them and his voice grows milder.

“Stephanie,” he says. “I love Irja. We love each other.”

His face looks happy when he says those words. His eyes are bright, and he swishes his hair out of his eyes with that gesture Stephie is so fond of. It’s painful for her to see it and to hear his words—terribly painful.

“I’m going out to the island. I can’t stay here,” says Stephie. “Tell your parents that Aunt Märta is sick. Or tell them whatever you want. I won’t be coming back in any case.”

“What about school?”

She can’t get herself to tell him about the German test and the note. All that seems very long ago, anyway, as if it happened in another life.

“Stephanie,” says Sven. “I didn’t mean … I am so sorry.”

His voice cracks as he says those last words, as if he is close to tears. That gives her strength.

“Let me past now,” she says, “or I’ll miss the boat.”

He hesitates.

“You’re not in charge of me,” says Stephie. “You’re not my big brother. Let me out.”

At that, he steps aside, opening the door for her. She’s about to leave when she realizes she will probably never see him again.

“Kiss me,” she says.

“What?”

“Kiss me. Just this once.”

He bends over her, grazing her cheek with his lips.

“Not like that. On my mouth.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, yes, you can.”

She doesn’t know where she is getting her strength. She feels as if she has more willpower and decisiveness than she has ever had in her life. She almost feels she could hypnotize him with her will. When his lips touch her mouth, she opens it slightly, inhaling his breath.

Now we will always be part of each other
, she thinks.
Even if we never meet again
.

It lasts only an instant, but at that very second, the elevator stops at the fourth floor. From behind the gate, Mrs. Söderberg, openmouthed, is staring at them. She looks like a fish gasping for air.

Stephie grabs her suitcase and runs down the four flights of steps as fast as she can.

sea is frozen over, covered with a thick layer of ice, just like last year, when it was possible to walk all the way to the mainland. The steamboat plows its way through a thin strip the icebreaker has opened, winding from one island to the next.

In spite of the cold, Stephie stands on the foredeck. By now she recognizes every skerry between town and the island and can predict what’s coming behind the next one. Coves and islets, houses and jetties pass by.

She’s on her way home.

She carries her heavy suitcase all the way from the harbor up through the village. Her breath looks like white smoke coming out of her mouth, but her lips still feel warm.

On the schoolyard of the primary school, the children are out playing. Nellie sees her and rushes up to the fence.

“Stephie! I didn’t know you were coming today. It’s not Saturday!”

“Things have happened,” she says. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Nellie,” one of the other children shouts. “Come on!”

“Go ahead,” says Stephie. “We can talk more later.”

The road across the island seems long, and her suitcase heavy as lead. Time after time she has to put it down and change hands.

At last she makes it to the crest of the hill. Below her the ice spreads toward the horizon, glassy in the sunshine, although the sun is already low in the sky. The light is nearly blinding.

The end of the world
, she thinks, just like the first time she stood here. But it doesn’t frighten her any longer. On the contrary, it’s what she calls the place where she feels safe.

She walks slowly down the icy hill, in through the gate, up the stone steps. She opens the front door.

“Who’s there?” Aunt Märta calls from the kitchen.

“It’s me.”

Aunt Märta comes into the hall, wiping her hands on her blue checkered apron.

“You, Stephie? Are you ill?”

“No.”

“Hang up your coat,” says Aunt Märta, “and come in and tell me what’s going on. I’ll just rinse out this floor rag.”

She vanishes into the kitchen.

Stephie removes her mittens and stuffs them into her coat pockets. She feels something hard in each pocket: the amulet, which she forgot to toss overboard, and the key to the apartment, which is still safety-pinned. She should have left it on the table in the hall as a sign that she never intended to return.

The kitchen smells newly cleaned, and there are still traces of water on the floor.

“Well, now,” says Aunt Märta once they’re seated at the kitchen table. “What exactly happened?”

Stephie tells the whole tale, about the copy of the German test, about Miss Krantz and Alice, about being accused of cheating. She’s able to tell all that to Aunt Märta. But she can’t tell her about Sven.

“Why didn’t you tell the truth?” Aunt Märta asks.

“I’m not sure,” says Stephie. “I just couldn’t. Miss Krantz wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”

“Some people,” Aunt Märta concurs, “don’t recognize the truth when they hear it. But did you say May also saw what happened?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know it until afterward. If we say something now, Miss Krantz will think we cooked up a lie together.”

“Why would she be more inclined to believe that … What’s her name?”

“Alice.”

“Alice, than you?”

“She doesn’t like me.”

Aunt Märta considers.

“I can’t tell you what to do. Your conscience is clear, and the decision is yours,” she says finally. “But there’s one thing I do want to tell you. Whatever happens, you will always have a home with Evert and me.”

“I want to stay here.”

“That’s up to you.”

“Aunt Märta, would you phone Mrs. Söderberg and tell her I won’t be coming back?”

“I suppose so. But let’s wait a couple of days, shall we? In case you have second thoughts.”

“I won’t.”

“Maybe not,” says Aunt Märta. “But I’m still going to wait until Sunday to call, if you don’t mind. Did you tell them you were coming here, so they know where you are?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll wait until Sunday.”

The air in her room under the eaves is cold and smells a bit stale. She hasn’t been to the island since Christmas vacation, and no one was expecting her. They decide to leave her door open for a while and hang her bedclothes to air and warm up on the line over the kitchen stove.

“This cold weather is no good for me,” says Aunt Märta. “It goes straight to my knees.”

In the evening Auntie Alma phones. She’s heard from Nellie that Stephie is back, and wants to know why. Stephie hadn’t really realized that the whole island was going to
want to know why she left grammar school after only a little more than a semester. Some people will believe that she was the one who cheated, and that she was expelled. Others will feel sorry for her, while still others will think it serves her right. Some will believe in her innocence but think she was cowardly not to stand up for herself.

But no one will know the truth.

She never, ever wants to see him again.

you’re not going back to the city?” Vera asks her when Stephie has told her the whole story.