“Do that,” Aunt Marta says. “And put on a nice dress. We’re going to pay a visit to the shopkeeper’s summer guests.”
That can only mean one thing: Stephie is going to have to apologize to that freckle-faced boy.
“Do I have to?”
But Aunt Marta’s already gone into the other room to make her bed.
Stephie gets dressed and has some bread and butter. She has no appetite, but she forces herself to finish, eating as slowly as she can. Then she combs her hair, as slowly as she can, in front of the mirror.
Aunt Marta’s getting impatient. “Won’t you be ready soon?”
“Yes,” says Stephie. “But I can’t find my barrette.”
She knows very well where it is: in the pocket of the dress she had on yesterday. Aunt Marta gives her a different one.
“Let’s go,” she says.
Outside, they find Sven crouching down, scratching Putte’s belly. Putte’s on his back, kicking his legs. One of his paws is bandaged.
“How is he?” Stephie asks.
“He’s all right,” Sven tells her. “Nothing’s broken, just some swelling. He’s going to be fine.”
“Come along,” Aunt Marta says brusquely. “You can talk about it later.”
Stephie sits behind her on the carrier, just like the day she arrived. When they get to the last curve before the shop, Vera appears, jumping off a rock where she’s clearly been waiting for them.
Aunt Marta walks the bike the rest of the way.
“Now, Vera,” she says. “Have you considered what I said to you?”
Vera nods.
Instead of going into the shop, Aunt Marta opens the gate to the yard. The shopkeeper comes out onto the steps.
“Good morning,” he says. “Can I help you?”
“Good morning,” Aunt Marta replies. “There’s something we need to speak with your summer guests about.”
“I see,” says the shopkeeper. “Well, I believe they’re up.”
“I should hope so,” Aunt Marta scoffs. “It’s not exactly the crack of dawn.”
She marches into the yard with Stephie and Vera on her heels. The shopkeeper follows close behind.
The summer guests are sitting outside having their morning meal. Both boys are there, as well as a younger girl, just as freckly as her brother. The man of the family is tall and heavyset, and almost bald. His wife looks much younger, with neatly permed fair hair. There’s a young girl in a white apron serving them at the table.
“Excuse me,” says the shopkeeper. “There’s someone to see you.”
“Marta Jansson,” Aunt Marta introduces herself. “This is my foster daughter, Stephanie.”
“Aha,” the bald man says. “And what can we do for you?”
“Can this not wait?” his wife asks, annoyed. “We’re at breakfast.”
The freckle-faced boy avoids looking at Stephie. He keeps his eyes lowered and seems completely preoccupied with his bowl of oatmeal.
“You finish eating,” says Aunt Marta. “We can wait.”
Sylvia appears, coming through the back door of the shop. She stops a short distance from the table in the yard, pretending she’s weeding a flower bed.
“Go right ahead,” says the man. “Speak your piece.”
“It concerns one of your sons,” says Aunt Marta.
“I see,” the man says. “Ragnar, was this the girl?”
“Yes,” the boy mumbles, without looking up. His spoon clatters against the bowl.
“We’re prepared to let the matter go,” says Ragnar’s father. “His trousers are ruined, but we’re not going to demand compensation. An apology will suffice.”
“Perfectly new trousers,” the woman adds angrily. “And bloodstains on his shirt. There must be something wrong with that girl!”
“If anyone should apologize,” says Aunt Marta very slowly and clearly, “it is certainly not Stephanie.”
“I see,” the man repeats. “Who do you think ought to, then?”
“Perhaps your son didn’t explain why Stephanie hit him?”
“No,” his father replies, waving his hand as if Aunt Marta were a bothersome fly he was trying to get rid of.
“Well, let me tell you, then,” Aunt Marta goes on. “She hit him because he called her a ‘filthy Jew-kid’ and said the Germans would soon be here to get her.”
The bald man goes bright red. His palm slaps the table-top so hard the coffee cups rattle and the cutlery clatters.
“Is that true?” he asks his son.
“No,” the boy says. “She’s lying. Isn’t she, Gunnar?”
His brother shrugs. “I didn’t hear,” he replies.
“Is that so?” Aunt Marta asks. “Aren’t fine folks like you brought up to tell the truth?”
“Well, it’s her word against theirs,” the man says. “It may be an excuse your foster daughter invented after the fact.”
“Vera,” Aunt Marta says, “who’s telling the truth? Stephie or that young man?”
Vera almost whispers her answer. “He called her… that name. And he kicked Putte.”
“Vera came to my house yesterday morning,” Aunt Marta tells everyone. “At the time, neither she nor I had yet spoken with Stephie, who was so frightened she was hiding. Vera told me the whole story, and a few other things I didn’t know as well. But that,” she says, looking meaningfully at Sylvia and the shopkeeper, “will have to be a later matter.”
“Ragnar,” the man says, “is what the girls and Mrs. Jansson are saying the truth?”
Ragnar nods. “But
“Not another word!” his father roars.
“No one,” says Aunt Marta, “no one is going to come along and say such things to my little girl. I don’t care how fine a family he comes from. So Stephie won’t be apologizing. But we’ll pay for the trousers. How much did they cost?”
The man shakes his head dismissively. His face is as red as a beet.
“There’s really no need.”
“Nine seventy-five,” his wife interjects.
Aunt Marta takes out her wallet, opens it, removes a ten-kronor bill, and sets it on the table.
“Keep the change,” she says. “Come along, Stephie.”
“My little girl,” Aunt Marta had said. My little girl! As if Stephie were her very own child.
forty
They lie close together, on their backs, arms at their sides. The sun has warmed the cliff, and the hot rock is heating their backs. Fanned out behind them and dripping wet are Stephie’s long black hair and Vera’s bright red hair. Drops of water glisten on their bare skin.
Stephie’s never been so tan in her life. “Brown as a ginger snap,” Aunt Marta says. Vera doesn’t get tan. Early in the summer she was pink; now her fair skin is full of tiny freckles.
“I’ll miss you this fall,” says Vera. “When you’re at grammar school in town. Though I’m happy for you, of course,” she hastens to add.
“I’ll miss you, too,” says Stephie. “I’ll come home for vacations, though, and sometimes even for
