A Faraway Island Read online

  “Good night,” she says, going upstairs.

  She changes into her long flannel nightgown, washes, and brushes her teeth. She folds the bedspread very carefully, then hangs it over the foot of the bed. Her clothes are neatly folded on the chair.

  It feels wonderful to slide under the covers, in spite of their unfamiliar smell. She buries her nose in her old teddy bear, feeling safe in the familiar scent of his fur. It smells like home.

  Although she is exhausted, Stephie cannot fall asleep. She lies awake for ages, listening to the patter of the rain on the roof. She’s never heard the rain so clearly from indoors before. A while later she tiptoes from the bed to look out the window. It’s pitch black outside. Not so much as a streetlight.

  “When you’re twelve you’ll have a bedroom of your own,” her parents used to tell her when they were still living in their apartment. In those days she looked forward to not having to share the nursery with Nellie. Now she is twelve and has a room of her own. But in the wrong house. In the wrong country.

  Finally her body begins to feel heavy. Stephie climbs back into bed and begins drifting off. She’s nearly asleep when the door opens just a crack. Eyes closed, she hears footsteps approaching her bed. Lightly, as if in a dream, a hand brushes her cheek. A moment later, the door shuts again.

  Stephie senses something is wrong even before her brain is awake enough to remember what. She presses her eyes tight shut, trying to stay asleep. But she can’t.

  Sunlight trickles through the crack between the curtains. She can hear footsteps and clatter from the kitchen. It’s morning, her first morning on the island. The first of how many?

  “Six months at the very most,” her father had said on the platform at the Vienna railway station. “In just a few months, no more than six, we’ll have our entry visas. Then we’ll meet up in Amsterdam and travel to America together.”

  Stephie turns her head to look at the photos on the dresser. Her mother is smiling, her father is looking gravely at her from behind his glasses. She sits up in bed, pulling her knees to her chest.

  “No need to worry, Mamma and Papa,” she says aloud. “I’m a big girl now. I’m taking good care of Nellie.”

  Stephie gets dressed, washes her face and hands, and combs her hair in front of the mirror over the little washbasin. Her hair is very tangled and takes time to comb through; she hasn’t combed it properly since the morning they left for the station in Vienna two full days ago.

  When Stephie or Nellie complained about the difficulty of having long hair, their mother always used to tell them it was worth the trouble.

  “When a person has such lovely, thick hair, it’s a shame to cut it short.”

  Stephanie stares at her reflection, and the girl in the mirror stares back. The face she sees is thin, with brown eyes and wide lips. Her dark hair hangs almost all the way to her waist. She parts it down the middle and plaits it into neat braids.

  “Good morning,” she greets Aunt Märta in German as she enters the kitchen. Aunt Märta’s Swedish reply sounds almost the same.

  For breakfast there’s oatmeal and milk. The oatmeal is thick and gluey, but Stephie’s hungry enough to gobble it all down. Aunt Märta, looking pleased, dishes up a second helping.

  While Stephie is eating, the telephone rings. Aunt Märta answers and has quite a long conversation. After she hangs up, she turns to Stephie.

  “Nellie,” she says, pointing out the kitchen window. “You … Nellie.”

  Stephie’s spoon clatters into her bowl. Has something happened to Nellie? Is she sick? Has she had an accident? Stammering, she tries to ask what’s wrong. But Aunt Märta doesn’t understand. She follows Stephie out the door and points to her bicycle.

  Maybe it isn’t so hard to ride a bike after all. Stephie wheels the bike out to the road and puts a foot down on one of the pedals. But as soon as she lifts her other foot, she loses her balance and has to put it right back onto the ground. She tries several times. On the fourth try she manages to push the pedals around once before falling over. The bicycle comes down on top of her and one of her knees is scraped so badly it’s bleeding. She gives up and leans the bicycle back against the house.

  She runs up the hill, along the rocky path, and through the little thicket. It’s much farther than it seemed yesterday, when she was sitting on Aunt Märta’s carrier. Breathless, a pain piercing her side, she reaches the yellow frame house and pounds on the door.

  Auntie Alma opens, takes her by the hand, and draws her inside. Nellie, still in her nightgown, eyes red from crying, is at the kitchen table. The moment she catches sight of Stephie she throws herself into her arms.

  “Stephie, Stephie,” she sobs, “I want to go home! I want my mamma!”

  “What on earth is wrong?” Stephie asks sharply.

  Nellie just cries harder.

  “Take care of Nellie,” her mother had said when they were leaving. “Comfort her when she is unhappy and frightened. You’re the big one.”

  “Did something happen?” Stephie asks her, forcing a kindly tone into her voice.

  Nellie nods mutely.

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t help it,” Nellie whispers.

  “Tell me.”

  “I wet my bed.”

  “What?” Stephie says again in alarm. Nellie stopped wetting her bed five years back.

  “I just couldn’t hold it. I tried but I had to pee so badly.”

  “In your sleep?”

  Nellie shakes her head.

  “You were awake? So why didn’t you go to the toilet?”

  “There is no toilet,” Nellie explains. “You have to go outside, to a special place in the backyard. A smelly little building.”

  “Was that what stopped you from going?”

  Nellie shakes her head again. “No, it wasn’t that,” she mumbles.

  “What was it, then?”

  “I didn’t dare. It was so dark out, and I was scared they would come and take me away.”

  “Who?” Stephie asks, although she already knows.

  “The police,” Nellie whispers even more softly. “The Nazis.”

  “Nellie, we’re in Sweden now,” Stephie assures her. “There are no Nazis here. The police in this country don’t come and take people away during the night. Don’t you understand? That’s why Mamma and Papa sent us here.”

  “I know that,” says Nellie. “But in the dark, I forgot.”

  It takes a long time for Stephie to make it clear to Auntie Alma that Nellie is afraid to go to the outhouse in the dark. Eventually, though, she succeeds, and Auntie Alma puts a china chamber pot under Nellie’s bed. Then she cleans Stephie’s scraped knee with something that stings, and puts a bandage on it.

  In the meantime Nellie has put her clothes on and clasped the coral necklace around her neck. Auntie Alma shakes her head, unclasps the necklace, and puts it in Nellie’s dresser drawer. Nellie looks as if she’s going to burst into tears again, until Auntie Alma pulls out her nicest dress, showing her that the necklace and the dress go together. Nellie should wear her necklace only when she’s dressed up.

  The sky is blue now, the weather pleasant. Stephie and Nellie go out into the yard with Auntie Alma’s children. Elsa and Nellie start playing with a baby doll at a table. They bathe her and dress and undress her, over and over again. John has a ball, and he motions to Stephie to throw it to him. He never manages to catch it on the fly.

  A group of girls Stephie’s age bike past, bathing suits flapping from their handlebars, towels clamped under their carriers.

  They stop outside the fence, staring at Stephie and Nellie. One of them, tall and blond, says something to the others. They all laugh.

  As if we were monkeys in the zoo, Stephie thinks.

  “What do they want, Stephie?” Nellie asks uneasily. “Are they going to hurt us?”

  “Oh, no,” Stephie says in her firmest voice. “They’re silly but they mean no harm.”

  A girl with bright red hair
speaks to Stephie, who shakes her head to show she doesn’t understand. The girl giggles. There’s no ill will in her laugh.

  The blond girl pedals off; the others follow. They bike in a group down the hill, bathing suits blowing in the wind.

  “They must be on their way to the beach,” says Nellie. “To swim. I want to go swimming, too.”

  “We can’t,” Stephie says in her sensible, big-sister voice. “We haven’t got bathing suits.”

  For a long time they hadn’t been allowed to go to the beach in Vienna. Not since signs prohibited them, signs that read JEWS FORBIDDEN. When Mamma was helping them pack, she had pulled out their old bathing suits, but it was clear they had outgrown them.

  Aunt Märta arrives on her bicycle, a big bag dangling from her handlebars. Holding Stephie’s letter, she points toward the village.

  The post office, Stephie thinks, and decides to go along. She needs to see with her own eyes when her letter is mailed, to feel confident it is on its way.

  “Wait here for me,” she says to Nellie. “I’m going to the post office. I’ll be right back.”

  The post office and the village shop are in the same building, a big, rectangular, flat-roofed structure. Stephie stands next to Aunt Märta, watching her buy a stamp from the lady at the window.

  “It’s for Vienna,” Aunt Märta says. “Vienna, Austria.”

  “The German Reich,” the lady corrects her. “Here you are, Mrs. Jansson. I didn’t know you had friends abroad.”

  “The letter’s from this girl,” Aunt Märta explains. “She’s sending it to her parents.”

  “And who is she, precisely?” the lady asks.

  “A young Jewess,” Aunt Märta tells her. “There’s trouble in that part of the world, so Evert and I agreed to take her in. Until her parents can leave the country. I understand they’re hoping to emigrate to America.”

  The post office lady sighs. “Poor little thing. All alone in the world.”

  “She’s better off here than there,” Aunt Märta says brusquely. “Her sister’s here, too, you know.”

  “Oh me, oh my,” the lady responds. “What terrible times we’re living in. Do you think there’ll be a war, Mrs. Jansson?”

  “Man proposes and God disposes,” Aunt Märta concludes, paying for the stamp with a coin from her wallet. “Thank you very much.”

  Stephie goes into the store with her, too, waiting while she shops. She recognizes the man behind the counter. He’s the red-faced man who was shouting and scolding the boy down at the dock the day before. As he helps Aunt Märta, he keeps shooting curious glances in Stephie’s direction. Something about the look in his eyes makes Stephie very uncomfortable.

  When they’re about to leave, a young girl walks through the door. It’s the same blond girl who made her friends laugh outside Auntie Alma’s yard. Her hair is wet and there’s a towel flung over her shoulders. She steps confidently behind the counter and fills a bag with toffees. Just helps herself, not asking anyone, and apparently not needing to pay.

  The shopkeeper smiles, patting her cheek. The girl pops a toffee in her mouth, chewing and making smacking noises. She stares at Stephie the whole time, until she makes her way to the door and closes it behind her. When Stephie and Aunt Märta get out onto the shop steps, Stephie sees the girl vanish around a bend in the road on her bright blue bicycle.

  When Stephie and Aunt Märta return to Auntie Alma’s, Nellie is waiting by the gate. Her eyes are bright and she shouts as soon as she sees them:

  “Stephie, Stephie, we’re going swimming!”

  “But we don’t have bathing suits.”

  “Oh, don’t we?” Nellie cries triumphantly, swinging a bathing suit out from behind her back. “I do!”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Auntie Alma had it waiting for me,” Nellie tells her. “I’m sure Aunt Märta has one for you, too. Auntie Alma says we’re just going to eat and go.”

  “How do you know? You don’t understand Swedish!”

  “Oh, yes I do. I understand everything Auntie Alma says to me.”

  Their new “aunts” are standing talking by the fence. When Aunt Märta bikes off, Auntie Alma points to Nellie’s bathing suit.

  “What did I tell you?” Nellie says delightedly. “You’ll get one, too.”

  Nellie’s bathing suit is made of shiny yellow fabric. Stephie hopes hers will be the same, or maybe red.

  They eat cheese sandwiches and drink milk at Auntie Alma’s kitchen table. The little ones are excited; John spills his milk all over the table. Auntie Alma doesn’t get angry. She just wipes it up and pours him a new mug.

  Soon Aunt Märta is back, a towel in one hand and something black in the other. She gives them to Stephie. The black thing is a bathing suit. A real old-fashioned lady’s bathing suit made of thick wool.

  Stephie stares at it. The woolen fabric is so ancient it’s going green in spots. Auntie Alma smiles encouragingly. Aunt Märta looks expectant.

  “Danke schön,” Stephie whispers through stiff lips. Thank you very much.

  “Stephie,” Nellie whispers, “is that supposed to be a bathing suit? Are you going to wear it?”

  “Hush up,” Stephie hisses. “One more word and I’ll pinch you black and blue.”

  Nellie goes silent. Auntie Alma has all the other suits and towels in a bag and is waiting by the door. There’s no choice for Stephie but to join everyone. She’s relieved, at least, to see Aunt Märta head home on her bike.

  They walk down a path to the swimming cove. Auntie Alma holds her son by the hand. Nellie and Elsa run loops around the others, racing, pushing one another, laughing.

  Stephie lags behind, the awful bathing suit between her thumb and index finger, touching as little of the fabric as possible. Where the path ends there are a few bikes parked, leaned haphazardly against one another. Stephie rolls the bathing suit into her towel.

  The narrow strip of sandy beach is full of pebbles. No deck chairs, no beach parasols, no ice cream vendors are in sight. One young mother is on a blanket with three toddlers. No one else is on the beach, but on the cliffs in the distance Stephie sees a group of bigger children, some of whom are in the water below. A head of red hair glistens in the sun.

  Auntie Alma spreads a blanket on the sand, sits down on it, and undoes the top two buttons of her blouse. She helps little John into his bathing trunks. Nellie and Elsa undress, pull their suits on, and rush down to the water’s edge. They splash and play, chasing each other in the shallow water. Then they lie on their stomachs, pretending to swim.

  Stephie sits down on the blanket next to Auntie Alma, who looks inquisitively at her and her bundle. Auntie Alma unrolls the towel and holds up the bathing suit.

  “No,” says Stephie in German. “I’m not going to swim.”

  Auntie Alma talks and gesticulates, holding out a hand to Stephie and offering to walk her down to the water. Stephie shakes her head stubbornly, until Auntie Alma gives up. Removing her shoes and stockings, Auntie Alma walks to the water’s edge with little John. He puts his feet into the water tentatively, wriggling his toes.

  Out on the headland, the older children are jumping off the cliff. Stephie hears their voices clearly, watches them shoving and laughing, seeing who dares to jump first. The girls she saw outside Auntie Alma’s house are all there, along with a couple of boys. The blond girl from the shop has a white bathing suit that ties in the back with a red band. The redhead’s suit is green.

  Nellie comes running, shaking herself like a wet puppy. When she swishes her braids, drops of water splash on Stephie.

  “The water’s nice and warm, Stephie,” she shouts. “Aren’t you coming in?”

  “Nope,” Stephie says angrily.

  “Why not?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Oh, come on,” Nellie insists. “I want to swim together.”

  “I wouldn’t put that sickening suit on if you paid me,” Stephie replies. “Not on my life.”
<
br />   “Well, if that’s how you feel, I guess you can’t swim,” says Nellie reasonably. “I’ll be in the water all afternoon, though,” she adds.

  She looks pleased with herself, standing there in her yellow suit. Before Stephie can stop herself, she has grabbed a handful of gravelly sand and tossed it at Nellie. Just at her legs, but Nellie begins to cry and Auntie Alma comes running. She grabs Stephie by one shoulder and gives her a shake. Then she comforts Nellie, leading her back to the water to rinse off.

  Stephie stays on the blanket, perspiring in the sunshine. If she hadn’t been mean to Nellie, she might have taken off her shoes and waded in the shallow water. But now she just stays where she is, watching Nellie and Elsa collect seashells along the shore while Auntie Alma plays with John. The blanket is like her own little island.

  The kids out on the rocks are getting out of the water. Some of the girls giggle as they take turns holding up towels for each other while they change out of their suits. The boys keep trying to get a peek.

  When they pass by Stephie, she looks the other way. She hears a girl say something, but she doesn’t move a muscle. If she pretends they aren’t there, maybe they’ll just disappear. She starts digging in the sand with one hand, staring straight down.

  The youngsters go their way, a laughing, chattering crowd. Stephie watches their backs. The blond girl is at the center of the group. When they get to their bikes the redhead turns around, raising a hand in what might be a wave to Stephie.

  When Stephie gets home, Aunt Märta points to her rolled-up towel and then to the clothesline that runs from the house to a wooden pole in one corner of the yard. Stephie’s first instinct is to show Aunt Märta that neither suit nor towel is wet, but she has second thoughts and just goes over to the line. Seeing a green pump next to the woodshed, she tries it, and it works.

  Stephie holds the bathing suit under the pump, wetting it thoroughly. She rolls it back up into the towel and holds it until she sees a damp spot emerge. Then she hangs the suit and towel on the line. Aunt Märta will never know.