A Faraway Island (18 page)

“For once you could try to keep track of the time,” she says. “Didn’t I tell you to be back for dinner?”

“I didn’t have any way of knowing what time it was,” Stephie replies.

“Were you at the sledding hill all this time?”

Stephie shakes her head. “No, we had a bit of a walk on the ice as well.”

“What a thing to do,” Aunt Märta says. “I hope you’re careful. There are places where the ice is very thin, you know.”

Stephie
never tells anyone about her adventure on the ice. It’s a secret she intends to keep to herself. She picks up the sled on her way home from Sunday school, and explains to Aunt Märta that she left it at Britta’s overnight.

When Uncle Evert comes home Stephie fills him in about her father’s letter and what the woman from the relief committee said to Aunt Märta on the phone. To her surprise she hears Aunt Märta say:

“It’s not fair. There must be some solution.”

Uncle Evert sits thinking for a few minutes. “I could write to our member of parliament,” he says. “Maybe he can help.”

“Member of parliament? What’s that?” Stephie asks.

“Parliament,” Uncle Evert explains, “is where our decision makers work. There’s a member of parliament from
these islands. He’s just a regular person you can talk to if you’re having a problem.”

Uncle Evert asks Stephie some questions about her parents before he drafts the letter. On the envelope he writes the man’s name and, on the line below, “Parliament of Sweden.” Stephie walks with him to the post office, where he mails it to Stockholm. The woman behind the counter looks impressed.

“So, you’re getting involved in politics, are you?” she asks.

“Sure am,” Uncle Evert answers.

When they’ve left the post office, Stephie and Uncle Evert have a good laugh about the curious look the woman gave him.

“She’d give anything to know what’s in that letter,” Uncle Evert says, chuckling.

Now Stephie waits eagerly not only for letters from her parents but also for an answer from Stockholm. She imagines it arriving in a long, narrow envelope with gold edging and the blue-and-yellow Swedish coat of arms. Inside there will be a letter saying that her parents are welcome to come live in Sweden.

The weeks pass and no answer arrives. The cold weather persists. At school the children keep their coats on. One Saturday in early March Miss Bergström tells the class the school is going to close for a few weeks as there isn’t enough fuel to keep the schoolhouse heated.

“We have to economize, what with the war,” she tells them. “So we’ll have a ‘fuel break’ until after Easter, when the weather should have warmed up.”

She gives them assignments to do at home, arithmetic problems to solve and spelling to work on.

Stephie misses school. The days pass so slowly. She’s in suspense, waiting for an answer from Stockholm, for school to start again, for spring to arrive.

Easter is early that year. The ocean is still frozen over; the island’s still covered with snow. The children and young people devote a lot of time during the week leading up to Easter to gathering wood and other things to burn, and carrying it all up to the highest point on the island, where the Easter bonfire will be.

“You have to be able to see the fire from a long way off,” Nellie explains to Stephie as they trudge up to the top of the hill with some scraps of wood. “So everyone will see our bonfire as the biggest one on any of the islands.”

The bonfire will be on Easter Eve, after sunset. At midday Stephie makes her usual trip to the post office. On the way, she sees some little old ladies, but they are not dressed in black as the old ladies on the island always are. These ladies are wearing brightly patterned skirts, aprons, and head scarves.

When she gets closer, she sees that they are children. Their long skirts are dragging on the ground. One of them is carrying a broomstick, the other a copper kettle. Their cheeks are rouged and their noses blackened with soot.

Not until she is almost on top of them does Stephie recognize Nellie and Sonja. What on earth are they doing?

“Give a coin to the Easter witches,” Sonja says, holding out her kettle.

Stephie’s furious. Her little sister, walking around the village begging, dressed in rags! Imagine if Mamma and Papa knew! She tears the flowery kerchief off Nellie’s head.

“Are you out of your mind?” she shouts. “Making a laughingstock of us for the whole island to see!”

“Stop it!” Nellie cries, pulling at the scarf. “Careful of that, it’s Auntie Alma’s.”

“Get out of those rags at once!” Stephie roars. “Go home and wash your face! You look like a beggar. What will people think?”

“You’re the one who’s out of her mind,” Nellie shouts back. “You’re dumb! We’re dressed up as Easter witches. But I don’t suppose you know what an Easter witch is. You think everything always has to be just like back home.”

“Sonja, Nellie?” other children’s voices shout. Three more little girls come running up. They’re dressed up, too, like Nellie and Sonja.

“Have you got much?” one asks.

Sonja holds out her kettle for the others to see. She shakes it and the coins rattle.

Stephie looks from one red-and-black-painted child to the next. Easter witches!

“Can I have my headscarf back, please?” Nellie says. “Everybody dresses up as an Easter witch here. Ask anyone at all, and you’ll find out.”

Stephie passes Nellie the scarf and turns away. When she gets to the post office, it’s closed.

That evening, just before dark, she, Aunt Märta, and Uncle Evert go up to see the bonfire. The sky is a beautiful, deep blue.

All the islanders have gathered, young and old, boys and girls, men and women alike. Nellie is there with her friends. They’re still in their Easter witch getups.

Per-Erik and a few of the other young men are in charge of the fire. They’ve got a bucket of kerosene to ignite it with.

“When will it be lit?” Stephie asks.

“Soon,” Uncle Evert replies. “But our island’s not first. We have to wait for the others.”

The deep blue sky shifts toward black.

“Now watch,” Uncle Evert tells her. “It’s time.”

Far, far off to the north, a distant flame flares up. And then another, a little closer by, and another on the island nearest them. Per-Erik pours the kerosene over the pile of brushwood and scrap, and then touches a match to it. A huge flame rises. The dry wood crackles and sparks.

“It’s catching well,” says Uncle Evert with satisfaction. “The boys have done a fine job.”

The relay continues on to the farther islands, the ones to the south. The bonfires burn on the highest hill of each island, making a chain of flame.

The fire is so hot, Stephie has to back away. Her face and front feel as if they’re being warmed by the summer sun. At her back, though, it still feels like winter.

Uncle Evert puts an arm around her shoulders. “Are you cold?” he asks.

Stephie shakes her head. The fire is roaring. The flames are drawn high up into the now very dark sky.

On all the islands
, Stephie thinks.
On all the islands people are standing around bonfires, getting warm. On every island there’s someone asking a child if she’s cold. On all the islands, people can see the fires from the other islands
.

Stephie likes that thought.

“Which
of you will be going on to secondary school next fall?”

Miss Bergström is behind her desk on the first day of school after Easter. The children haven’t really settled back in yet. They seem to have forgotten how to sit still during their several weeks’ break.

Sylvia and Ingrid raise their hands right away. Three boys raise theirs, too.

“No one else?”

Stephie raises her hand.

“Stephanie?” Miss Bergström asks.

“Yes,” she answers. “I want to go on to grammar school, too.”

Miss Bergström nods.

“Fine,” she says. “Six, that’s more than usual. I plan to
give you some extra tutoring for the rest of the semester. You’ll be staying an hour longer than the others every day from now on. Here are the titles of two books I want you to get by next week.”

She writes the names of two books on the blackboard. Stephie copies them carefully into her exercise book. One is a math book, the other is called
The Tales of Ensign Stål
.

When the school day is over, Miss Bergström asks Stephie to stay behind for a few minutes.

“You’re a good pupil,” she says. “I’m pleased that you are going to be able to continue your schooling. And there will be German lessons at grammar school, too. You’ll like that.”

“Yes,” says Stephie, wondering what Miss Bergström is really getting at.

“Those books I asked you to get,” she goes on, “the ones we’ll be working with this spring. Don’t worry about them. I have extras you can borrow. I’ll bring them tomorrow, and you can cover them at home.”

When Stephie leaves school, the schoolyard is empty. The piles of dirty snow even in the darkest corner are melting, and little rivulets have formed in the gravel.

Now that the snow is finally disappearing, all her classmates have got their bikes out again. After school they rush in a flock to the bicycle stands and pedal off.

There’s just one bike left. Vera’s squatting down beside it, pumping the back tire.

Stephie approaches her cautiously. This is the opportunity she’s been waiting for, a chance to talk to Vera alone.

It should be simple just to ask: “Are you heading home? Want to walk together?” But sometimes the simplest things
are hardest. So Stephie decides to open the conversation by talking about something else. If she can just strike up a conversation, surely she and Vera can walk out through the gate together, Vera leading her bike, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the two of them to be walking home side by side.

Stephie walks over to the bike stand. “Aren’t you going on to grammar school?”

Vera looks up. “No,” she answers. “My mother can’t afford it. And I’m not good enough at school, either.”

“You could be, though,” Stephie replies. “If you wanted to. You could be … an actress, for instance. You’re such a good mimic.”