The Lily Pond (16 page)

“Well,” Aunt Märta begins, “I imagine you know what I want to talk to you about.”

That sounds more like a statement than a question, so Stephie doesn’t reply.

“Three weeks ago Miss Holm went to visit her sister in
Göteborg. The two of them went to the cinema. After the film, Miss Holm saw you outside with two other girls. Is that correct?”

Stephie nods.

“So, Stephie, I must ask you: had you been to the cinema?”

It would be very easy to answer, “No!”

“No,” she could say, “I had not been to the cinema. I was out for a walk with my girlfriends and we stopped to look at the posters outside. Miss Holm came by right then and she thought we had seen the film, too. You know how she is, Aunt Märta. She just talks and talks and you can’t get a word in edgewise.”

Aunt Märta’s given her a chance to avoid her wrath by telling a lie. But Stephie doesn’t take it.

“Yes,” she says. “I’d seen the movie. I’ve been to a concert as well.”

“Good,” Aunt Märta says. “It is to your credit that you are telling the truth. But, Stephie, you’ve been a member of the Pentecostal congregation for over a year now, and you know very well that worldly pleasures are prohibited. You have committed a sin, and I hope you regret it.”

Now she could say, “I apologize. I am very sorry and I will never do it again.” But deep down inside, she feels that Aunt Märta is wrong.

“I don’t understand why,” Stephie says. “I’ve been going to the movies with my mamma and papa since I was little, several times every year. We went to all the films that were
suitable for children. Aunt Märta, do you really think my parents would have taken me to something sinful? Do you really believe they are evil?”

Aunt Märta gazes silently at Stephie for a long time. Then she nods slowly and thoughtfully.

“I see,” she says. “No, I do not think your parents are evil. You know I don’t. Now that I understand how you see it, I shall seek counsel, and we’ll talk more about the matter tomorrow. You may go up to your room now.”

When Aunt Märta talks about seeking counsel, she means she’s going to think the matter over in consultation with God. Apparently he answers her somehow.

The next day Aunt Märta and Stephie go to the Pentecostal church together. Aunt Märta has said nothing more about Stephie’s outing to the cinema, and Stephie is worried about what’s going to happen next.

The Sunday school class is just coming out, and Nellie runs over to Stephie.

“Are they going to expel you from the congregation now?” she asks. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

“I don’t know,” says Stephie. “I really don’t know.”

Stephie has to stand outside a closed door while Aunt Märta talks with the elders, who make the decisions. Finally they open the door.

“You may come in now,” a woman says.

There are five people sitting together around a table, four men and the woman who let Stephie in. Aunt Märta is sitting at the far end, apart from the others.

“So, Stephie, you have been to the cinema,” one of the men says. He must be the new parson.

“Yes.”

“Do you not know, Stephie, that it is a sin against the Lord God?”

Aunt Märta turns quickly toward Stephie. From her expression, Stephie understands what she has to say.

“Yes, I do.”
According to your faith
, she thinks, pursing her lips tightly so the words don’t sneak out.

“If you were a few years older, Stephie, we would have no choice but to expel you from the congregation,” the pastor says. “But because you are so young and have not been a member of the congregation for very long, we have decided to overlook your trangression this time. Your foster mother has spoken very warmly in your defense, Stephie, and we do not wish to be overly harsh in our judgment. But if anything of the kind should happen again, we will not be able to be indulgent. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“In that case you may go.”

When they are out on the road again, Aunt Märta speaks first.

“I’ve never thought so before, but now I see that even God has to be a little flexible now and then,” she says.

They go to Auntie Alma’s for coffee.

little while before Stephie has to leave to catch the boat, Aunt Märta slips her a white envelope.

“Here’s some money from me and Evert, for your Christmas presents,” she says. “Don’t forget to get Mrs. Söderberg some Christmas flowers. And I’m sure you’ll want to give a little something to your friends in Göteborg. And Nellie and Vera, of course.”

It’s a light, flat envelope, so there must be paper money in it. Five kronor, maybe. Stephie wants to open it right away, but Aunt Märta puts it into her bag, saying, “Don’t take the money out now. You’ll just lose it during your trip back. Wait until you get home.”

Once she’s on the boat, however, Stephie pulls out the
envelope and uses her index finger to slit it open. Carefully, she pulls out the money: it’s a ten-kronor bill!

She hasn’t had this much money at once since she came to Sweden, except for the scholarship money, which was reserved for buying schoolbooks. When it comes to pocket money, she’s had only small change, or very occasionally one whole krona.

Her mind is suddenly full of plans for spending the money. For Nellie she’ll buy some pretty stationery to write to Mamma and Papa on. Stephie also plans to give her one of her own German books, an illustrated story. She’ll buy Uncle Evert a thermos, because he’s always complaining that the coffee on their fishing boat is never hot enough. She’s embroidering an eyeglass case for Aunt Märta at school. It’s coming out beautifully, and now she can afford a piece of velvet for the lining.

She’ll buy something really nice for May so May will see that they’re still friends. Maybe a book. Yes, she’ll ask Sven to help her pick one out. She’ll get Vera a headband, or a lacy collar to attach to a dress.

But Sven. What will she give Sven? It will have to be something no one but she can give him. Something that shows she knows exactly what he’s been wanting.

She is so preoccupied she doesn’t even notice they have arrived until the boat is docking at the city pier. With the ten-kronor bill clasped tightly in her pocket, she takes the tram back to the doctor’s family’s apartment.

With only three weeks left before the Christmas holidays,
the atmosphere at school has changed. They still have tests and quizzes, but the teachers are less strict than usual, and in phys ed they get to do folk dancing. Hedvig Björk has a potted hyacinth on her desk, and although she can’t resist writing its Latin name on the blackboard, there’s no question of why she put it there: it smells so nice.

Only Miss Krantz is precisely as usual, assigning a great deal of homework and giving surprise quizzes.

“Don’t you go thinking the semester is over already,” she tells them. “Anyone who stops working will find that her grade suffers accordingly.”

May and Stephie spend their school days together, but May hasn’t asked Stephie if she wants to come home with her after school for ages now. The afternoons are long and dull. Sven is very seldom at home. He comes in after school, takes Putte for a quick walk, and goes back out, not to reappear until dinnertime. Sometimes in the evenings he goes out again.

One day Stephie heads to the lily pond after school. But it’s too cold now to sit on the bench, and there’s a layer of ice covering the pond. She walks once around, staring at the frozen lily pads in the ice. The swans are nowhere to be seen.

When she gets home, Sven is in the hall, leafing through the pile of mail on the table. He passes a letter to Stephie. “For you,” he tells her.

She goes into her room before opening it.

At the very bottom there is a short note from Mamma.

Stephie’s heart is turning somersaults in her chest. They are going to be able to leave! For America, as they have long been hoping. A country where they’ll be safe, and where no one will persecute them for being Jewish.

But she has to stay in Sweden. She won’t be seeing her mamma and papa; she may not see them again until the war is over.

Still, if she were going to America, she wouldn’t be seeing May or Vera again, and not Aunt Märta and Uncle Evert, either. And not Sven, especially not Sven.

Stephie wants to laugh and cry and shout out loud, all at the same time. She wrenches open the door to Sven’s room.

“What on earth is it?” he asks, startled.

She tries to tell him, but it all comes out as a mishmash of incoherent words, a big muddle of Swedish mixed with German. So she just passes him the letter.

Sven reads it.

“Stephanie, this is fantastic! I had a feeling that letter contained good news at last.”

He turns up the volume on his Victrola, lifts her up, and twirls her around to the beat of the swing tune.

Then he sets her down. “But what do you say?” he asks. “Do you wish you could be joining them right away?”

“Kind of.”

“I’d miss you if you left,” says Sven.

“You would?”

“You know I would. I like you, Stephanie.”

He doesn’t say “I love you.” But “I like you” is nearly the same thing.

She’s about to respond, “And I love you.”

But at that very instant, there is a knock on the door from the hall. It’s Sven’s mother.

“What’s going on in here?” she asks as she opens the door. “What’s all the noise about?”

“Stephanie’s parents have their entry visas to the United States,” Sven announces.

“Ah, well, how nice,” says Mrs. Söderberg. “Does that mean you’ll be leaving us soon?”

“No, my parents want me to wait a while longer here.”

“I see,” says Mrs. Söderberg. “Naturally you are welcome to stay as long as you need to. A promise is a promise.”

That night Stephie falls asleep with the letter under her pillow and dreams that she and Sven are walking among the skyscrapers in America.