A Faraway Island (5 page)

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.”

“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.

Stephie
and Nellie’s first week on the island is sunny.

Every day, Stephie goes on a long walk from the white frame house at the end of the world to the yellow house with the enclosed veranda.

Every day, Auntie Alma takes the girls along with her own children to the beach.

Every day, Stephie sits on the blanket, fully dressed, watching Nellie and the little ones splashing at the shore, and the older children diving from the cliffs out on the headland.

Auntie Alma probably thinks Stephie doesn’t know how to swim and is ashamed to show it. In any case, she doesn’t make any further attempts to persuade her to go into the water.

One morning Stephie wakes up and doesn’t see the sun
shining in; she’s relieved. It’s a cloudy, gray day, and windy, too. She puts on a sweater before walking to Auntie Alma’s. Aunt Märta points to the suit and towel on the line, shaking her head and saying something. Stephie catches the Swedish words for “swim” and “cold.”

“Not swim,” Stephie says. “Nellie …” That exhausts her Swedish vocabulary.

Aunt Märta nods, ushering Stephie into the room with the wall clock. She points to the three.

“Come home. Three o’clock,” she says.

Stephie nods. “Three o’clock.”

“Evert,” Aunt Märta says. “Uncle Evert’s coming home.”

Stephie pretends to understand. It’s easier that way.