Deep Sea (9 page)

“Where are you living?” asks Judith.

Stephie tells her. “And you?”

“I’m at the Jewish Children’s Home,” Judith says. “This is Susie. She lives there, too.”

Stephie didn’t even know there
was
a Jewish Children’s Home in Göteborg. Judith tells her about it. It is girls only, mostly teenagers, a few younger.

“I started out with a Jewish family,” says Judith. “Since my parents are orthodox, Papa absolutely insisted I live with other Jews. It hardly mattered, though, as the family wasn’t at all religious. They never went to synagogue. They found me difficult, and after six months, they didn’t want me anymore. I was sent to a farm in Dalsland, where they made me eat pork and tend to the pigs in the barn. In the end, I cried day and night, so they didn’t want me, either. Then I was with a Swedish family in Borås, where I was more or less their housemaid. Still, they were the best family because they let me be. But last fall, they moved to Stockholm, and I ended up at the Children’s Home.”

“What a lot of bad luck you’ve had,” Stephie says sympathetically.

“Oh, I don’t know about that! Susie here was at five
different places before she ended up at the Children’s Home last winter,” Judith tells her.

Stephie looks at Susie, a girl with a sturdy build, frowning face, and sad eyes.

“This is our stop,” says Judith. She gets up and touches Stephie’s arm. “Come with us for a while. Unless you’re in a hurry?”

Stephie thinks for a second. It will soon be dinnertime at May’s, but she’s still full from Miss Björk’s English sandwiches. Besides, with ten people at the Karlssons’ table, one more body or less doesn’t really make any difference.

“No,” she says. “I’m not in a hurry.”

They get off the tram.

“Are they stingy?” Susie asks. “The family you live with.”

“What do you mean?”

Susie points to Stephie’s feet. “You’ve got your boots on still, and it’s May.”

Though she doesn’t want to explain what happened to her shoes, Stephie doesn’t want Susie and Judith to get the wrong idea about Aunt Märta and Uncle Evert.

“My spring shoes are at the shoemaker’s, being resoled,” she fibs.

They walk up a little hill with ornamented wooden houses on both sides of the street. One of them is the Children’s Home.

Judith shows her around the home and introduces
her to the girls who are there. Several of them are from Vienna, and Stephie recognizes a few. One girl even arrived in Göteborg on the same train as Stephie and Nellie.

“I had no idea there were so many of us,” she says to Judith.

“I think there are about five hundred,” Judith tells her, “all over Sweden.”

“Five hundred!”

Judith looks at her coolly. “That’s not so many,” she says. “Just remember how many got left behind! And Sweden’s happy to receive Finnish children as refugees. Tens of thousands of them. They’re blond and blue-eyed and fit right in with the Swedes.”

“You’re blond and blue-eyed yourself,” Stephie reminds her.

“Yes, but I’m Jewish. You know what I mean.”

They’re sitting in the girls’ dayroom. The house is full of noisy voices, footsteps on the stairs, kitchen clatter.

“How about your family?” Judith asks. “Do you know where they are?”

“My parents are in Theresienstadt. My little sister’s here.”

Judith doesn’t say anything for a while.

“You’re lucky to have someone in your family here,” she finally goes on. “And there are worse places than Theresienstadt.”

“Where’s your family?”

“Two of my brothers are in Palestine,” Judith tells her. “They left before me, in 1938. My sister wanted to go along, but Papa thought she was too young. By the time I got sent here, she was too old to come with me.”

“Too old?”

“You have to be under sixteen to be considered a child refugee,” Judith explains. “Edith had turned seventeen. You don’t seem to know much about all this.”

“Where are they now?”

“My oldest brother was shot,” says Judith. “Three years ago. Mamma, Papa, and Edith were deported to Poland in 1941. At first I got a few letters, but I haven’t heard from them for a year and a half now.”

“Do you think they’re …” Stephie hesitates.

“I don’t know. You hear terrible things about Poland. Death camps … and gas.”

“Gas?”

“Theresienstadt’s better,” says Judith. “You should be glad your parents are there.”

They sit quietly. The house is full of sounds that seem both close and yet far away. Outside an open window, the fresh spring leaves of a large chestnut tree rustle in the wind.

“Susie has two younger brothers,” Judith says suddenly. “She was nine when she came from Berlin. Her brothers were two and five, and Susie’s mother thought they were too small to make the trip.”

“Where are they now?”

“Susie doesn’t know. She stopped getting letters six months ago.”

“How awful!”

Stephie feels ashamed. Because she knows so much less than Judith, because she gets cards from her parents, and because she isn’t actually all alone.

“When the war’s over, I’ll go to Palestine and join my brothers,” Judith tells her. “I want to take part in building up a country of our own. A country for all the Jews, where no one can persecute us.”

Stephie doesn’t know much about Palestine. She has a vague picture of a desert, the ocean, and burning sunshine. Somewhere far away.

“Yes,” she says slowly. “That sounds good.”

“I’m saving up for the journey,” Judith tells her. “I save every bit of money that’s left after my expenses here. That’s why I stay on at the Children’s Home. It’s cheaper than renting a room.”

“Where do you work?”

“At the chocolate factory. I never thought I could hate the smell of chocolate.”

Stephie bites her lip. She feels spoiled asking for even more money for her studies, while Judith slaves away at a factory.

“Come see us again,” Judith says when Stephie leaves. “You must be lonely, surrounded by nothing but Swedes. Though you do have your sister. But we’re
your own people. We’re of a kind. Come whenever you like.”

Of a kind. Those words echo in Stephie’s head along with the rhythm of the tram on the tracks taking her home to Sandarna.

Of a kind.

S
tephie feels a strange discomfort in her body, a throbbing heat she doesn’t recognize. She doesn’t want to think about Bengt and that porch, but she can’t get it out of her mind. What happened between the two of them was wrong and she wished she could undo it. But what if it had been a different boy? What if it had been Sven?

Sven. She doesn’t think about him very often anymore. But now and then, the memory of him gives her a twinge, like an old wound that has healed but left a scar that pulls.

They saw each other a few times the spring after Stephie moved out of his parents’ apartment. They would go to a café and talk about school, about books and
music. But they didn’t talk about what had happened between them. Sven avoided mentioning Irja, but Stephie knew they were still seeing each other.

She didn’t attend the party his family held to celebrate his graduation, in spite of his invitation, and in spite of the fact that she knew Irja wasn’t coming. When autumn came, Sven went off to the university in Lund to study literature. Now he is doing his military service somewhere near the Norwegian border. She hasn’t heard from him since last winter when he sent her a New Year’s card. She doesn’t have his address.

Stephie doesn’t decide to get off the tram at Kaptensgatan. She just does. She doesn’t know why she’s there, but her feet know where they’re going as they lead her out the tram door.

She stops in front of the tavern where Irja works, and where Sven used to pay her sneak visits.

Through the window, she sees the drab brown interior and the old men sitting there with their beers. Girls like her don’t go to such places. What if the old men are rude to her?

A girl comes out from the kitchen, carrying a tray of bottles and glasses. She’s not Irja.

Stephie is about to leave. But then she realizes that even if Irja doesn’t work there anymore, the new girl may know where she’s gone.

Gathering her courage, she opens the door. Everyone seems to be staring at her.

“Hello, sweetie,” says one of the old men. “Can I buy you a beer? Or are you lost?”

Stephie looks at him in horror. But the eyes in his unshaven face are kind and heavy. He’s only teasing.

“Excuse me,” she says to the waitress. “I’m looking for Irja. Does she still work here?”

“Sure she does,” the waitress answers.

She turns toward the curtain separating the tavern from the kitchen.

“Irja, you’ve got a visitor!” she shouts.

Stephie wants to turn and run. Take off out the door, rush back down Kaptensgatan to the tram stop. What did she come in here for, anyway? What is she going to say to Irja?

But her feet stay rooted to the ground.

The curtain is swept aside.

Irja is standing there. She looks bewildered.

“Who …?”

Stephie’s throat constricts and she can’t get out a single word.

Irja inspects her closely. “Oh, aren’t you …?” she says slowly. “Aren’t you Stephanie?”

“That’s right,” Stephie whispers.

Irja’s face lights up. “Well, then come on home with me. I’ve just finished for today!”

Irja lives on a street that crosses Kaptensgatan, just two blocks away. The stairwell smells of cabbage and
fried herring. It’s dinnertime. Two flights up, they stop in front of a door bearing a handwritten sign:
Irja Andersson
.

Stephie steps into Irja’s kitchen. There’s a laundry line running straight across the whole room, full of underwear. Flesh-colored underpants, a bra, and a slip.

“Sorry.” Irja gestures at her laundry. “Yesterday was my day off, so I did laundry. Have a seat.”

Stephie sits at the kitchen table. Irja takes the coffeepot and makes and pours two cups.

“I don’t have any sugar,” Irja says. “Do you mind?”

“No,” says Stephie. “That’s all right. Thanks.”

Stephie takes a swallow of the bitter coffee. She’s got to say something. Irja must wonder why she came.

But before Stephie can figure out how to start, Irja smiles kindly at her.

“Nice of you to come by,” she says. “Sven used to talk about you a lot.”

Used to. Apparently he’s forgotten her now.

Irja drinks from her cup. Something gleams on her left-hand ring ringer.

An engagement ring.

They’re engaged. Irja and Sven.

“Congratulations,” Stephie says, a huge lump in her throat.

“Thanks,” says Irja.

“When are you getting married?”

“I don’t know,” says Irja. “With the war on, it’s not
the best time to get married and start a family. I guess we’ll wait a while.” She takes another sip from her cup. “Actually, we haven’t been a couple very long. We need time to get to know each other.”

What does she mean by that? Sven and Irja have known each other for at least two and a half years.

“Oh?” says Stephie.

Irja can clearly hear her confusion, and laughs. “It’s not Sven, if that’s what you thought. We split up ages ago.”

Stephie can’t believe her ears. She remembers Sven saying, “I love Irja. We love each other.”

How can that kind of love—when two people love each other—be over?

“It could never have worked out between the two of us,” Irja goes on. “You know, he didn’t even dare tell his parents about me.”

“He would have,” says Stephie. “He was planning to tell them. I know he was.”

Irja smiles. “There’s no need to stand up for him,” she says. “It’s all over now. We were too different.” Her blue eyes are clear and musing. “I’m surprised you didn’t know. Don’t you two write to each other?”

“No,” Stephie mumbles. “No, we’ve lost touch.”

“My fiancé’s name is Jon,” Irja tells her. “He’s a refugee from Norway.”

They talk about the war for a few minutes.

“They know what side their bread is buttered on, the
Swedish government. As long as it looked as if the Germans were going to win, the whole government bowed down to the Germans. But now that everybody knows the Allies are going to come out on top, they’re singing a different tune. They’ll manage to stay on the right side.”

After some time, Irja looks at the clock and tells Stephie that Jon will be coming any minute. Stephie realizes she ought to leave. Thanking Irja for the coffee, she gets up to go. Irja walks her to the door and extends a hand. They shake solemnly, like two grown-ups.

“Good-bye,” says Irja.

“Good-bye.”

W
ednesday morning, Miss Björk finds Stephie in the hall. She doesn’t have to say a word. Her smiling face tells Stephie everything she needs to know.

“They said yes,” Miss Björk says anyway, giving Stephie a hug. “They said yes! I just wanted to tell you right away. We’ll talk more later.”

In spite of her joy, Stephie can feel some of the other girls in the class giving her unkind looks. She knows some of them think she and Miss Björk are too close. That Stephie’s a teacher’s pet. That Stephie gets better grades than she deserves in Miss Björk’s classes.