her fingers coarsened and cracked. She hated dirt and especially its smell. She would sneak away from the weeding and go to the beach to swim. She ought to have learned what would happen when she returned. It was as if she forgot from one time to the next.
Flora could still remember her crying when her father took Rosa into the tool shed. Afterwards she was striped and swollen over her entire back. The sisters had to fan her with rhubarb leaves and clean her with water.
Life had since gone well for all four girls. Rosa had married a ship owner and moved to Goteborg. Viola had gotten a job at NK, and Reseda became the principal of a school for girls.
None of them were living any more. Only Flora herself.
Creamed wheat. What else was she ever going to have? Who would have time to sit and wait until she had swallowed something that she would have had to chew. The slimy, salty taste triggered her gag reflex. She started gagging, but took hold of herself and swallowed.
The white uniform was talking to an older one. “Think if we could get them into snowsuits and put them on snow boards out there. Or sleds. We could pull them all around Racksta. They’d like that, don’t you think?”
“We wouldn’t like it.”
“Oh, Ing-Marie, don’t be such a spoilsport. You have to keep the child in you alive.”
“You keep your child and don’t show it to us!”
The younger one was drying Flora’s chin.
“Flora, wouldn’t that be a lot of fun? Of course you went sledding when you were a child? Wasn’t that a lot of fun? You remember, don’t you? Oh, Ing-Marie, you can enliven them by helping them remember the good things from their youth. I’ve read up on it, and it’s true.”
Flora wanted to cough, so that the creamed wheat would fall into her airway and force her to cough up both the creamed wheat and all the slime, too, and make an end to this ridiculous breakfast. But she didn’t. She had always been such a good and dutiful girl.
The day before Midsummer, Sven asked her if she would consider moving back to Hasselby to his house, and to be a mother to his daughter as well as his wife. He had said it in that order. Mother to my daughter and my wife.
The evening was beautiful and mild. They had eaten dinner at a restaurant and were wandering down Saint Eriksgatan with the breeze brushing softly against her neck and arms. She was so happy. She stopped in the middle of the street and embraced him.
She thought about the child.
“She’ll get used to it,” said Sven. “Finally there will be some stability in her life. Give her a little time. She’ll come to love you, just as much as I do.”
They got married a short time later. Flora had always dreamed about a big church wedding, but it was so soon after the French wife’s death that she thought it would be too scandalous. Everything had to be kept simple. On the other hand, she was able to convince Sven that they take a honeymoon in London. She had always wanted to go there.
The hotel was close to Oxford Street, but she had forgotten its name. He took her to the theater. He had been in London many times before. One of the Sandy business’s daughter’s concerns was located here. They visited it together and were guided around the most modern plant. Flora was able to try out her English. Everything was still there, just waiting to be used. She noticed that he was impressed.
She was getting dressed, as they were going to Albert Hall. She wanted to experience everything, everything that she had only read about.
It was late afternoon of their third day. A knock on the door.
A man stood there with a telegram from Sweden. It was urgent. The girl was ill.
They traveled home early the next morning. Sven wanted to travel that very night, but there were no seats on the plane. During the whole trip, he was silent and thoughtful. She saw that he was suffering, that he blamed himself for leaving the girl behind, that he was reliving the death of the girl’s mother.
Of course there was nothing really wrong with Justine. She had just had a bit of fever. The temperature had been over one hundred and four, so Sven’s mother had thought it best to send for him.
Don’t children often get high fevers? Wasn’t that part of being a child?
She quit working for the company. During the night, she lay beside Sven. She lay there and listened to his light snoring and tried to forget that the child was on the other side of the wall. She wanted her own child, so that she could become a real mother.
He would never regret that he had taken her to be his wife. She would be his beautiful representative, who made fine dinners for all his business acquaintances. She would converse in English and they would be impressed: What a beautiful and talented young wife you have there, Mr. Dalvik.
She and the girl. They were alone in the house. Sven had gone to work. Justine had left the breakfast table without eating as much as a bread crumb.
“She has to eat,” she whispered to Sven. “You see how thin and undernourished she is. Children need food in order to grow.”
“It’ll come. Give her some time; have a little patience.” She stood at the kitchen window and saw him get into the car. She waved and he threw her a kiss. The classical tableau.
She was taken by the desire to call him back, take me with you. I want to be with
She was in the house. She cleaned up after breakfast and went upstairs to make the beds. The girl was in Sven’s bed. She had rolled herself into the blanket with her head in the pillow.
Flora sat next to her.
“Justine,” she said softly. “We ought to be friends, you and me. I want to be your friend. Don’t you want to be mine?”
The child did not answer. Flora then realized that the child hardly ever spoke.
She laid her hand on the blanket. The tense body jerked away.
“I’ve come here to be your mother,” said Flora, and she raised her voice a bit. “You must stop ignoring me. I am asking you nicely to be friends, you and me. You are to look at me and answer.”
The girl leapt out of the bed, slid past Flora down to the floor like a hurt, furious animal. She stood in the doorway and her face was direct.
“You are not my mother. You’re a fucking whore.”
She had not gotten angry. She had gone to the bathroom and locked herself in. She stood in front of the mirror and cried. That child had made her cry. Sven’s child. But he was never going to know.
“Wake up, it’s daytime. We can’t have you sleeping. Why don’t we get you into a chair instead? Won’t that be nice?”
The white uniforms. While sitting in the orange-yellowish chair, she saw how they made her bed and mopped under it. The dust tended to collect there, making dust bunnies.
Then she looked at the other bed and saw that it was empty. Yes. The woman had died. Was it last night or a different night? Anyway, people always died at night.
They had dressed her in a pink housecoat with big white buttons. She used to look good in pink. She had colored her long eyelashes, and the pink evening dress rustled when she would slip it over her ears. Sound of spray, sound of music, he dances like a god, my husband. And she flowed through mirrored ballrooms, down stairs as wide as avenues.
“This is Marta. She will be your new roommate.”
A winkled old-lady face, suspicious.
“We hope that you will be comfortable together.”
“If only one person can speak, at least we’ll never have arguments.”
Now they sat across the table from each other.
How many roommates had they introduced? Was she supposed to outlive them all? That was just not right!
She bought the girl a doll. It was a very nice doll, one that she herself would have wanted when she was a girl. It had real hair, a bow, and eyes that could open and shut. She had it wrapped up nicely.
The next day, when Sven had left, she went to the girl’s room and laid the package on the bed. Justine sat all curled up on the window sill, her hair unwashed and her mouth in a grimace.
