Take me away from here, she prays silently. She doesn’t know to whom this prayer is addressed. God? Jesus? Papa? Mamma?
“Amen,” says the thin man.
“Amen,” the congregation responds in unison.
Aunt Marta gets up. Stephie totters to her feet, too. It’s over.
Now everyone is singing. They go back to their seats. Auntie Alma gives Nellie a hug. Then she reaches over and pats Stephie on the cheek.
After the revival meeting they go back to Auntie Alma’s.
“My, my,” says Aunt Marta. “I never imagined the girls would embrace Jesus so quickly. Who would have thought it?”
“They’re only girls,” Auntie Alma replies. “There’s not a drop of evil in them. They can’t be blamed for being born outside the true faith.”
“So something good has come of it,” Aunt Marta puffs. “Their souls have found a home.”
“What did you do it for, Stephie?” Nellie asks. “What made you cry?”
“The music,” Stephie answers. “It was so beautiful. And what made you cry?”
“Your tears,” Nellie replies.
Auntie Alma turns to the girls. “How gratified you must be,” she says, “to have found Jesus and been redeemed. I’m very happy for you!”
Found Jesus? Been redeemed? Slowly Stephie begins to understand that Aunt Marta and Auntie Alma imagine it was Jesus who made her weep.
“Well,” she begins hesitantly, “the music was so beautiful…”
But Auntie Alma’s not listening. She’s still talking to Aunt Marta, the two of them discussing the thin pastor.
“He has the gift,” Aunt Marta says. “Yes, he truly has the gift.”
Stephie stays quiet.
A few weeks later she and Nellie are baptized. They don’t protest. And now that they’re members of the Pentecostal Church, they go to Sunday school every week.
Stephie has a feeling she ought to be different now that she’s been redeemed. Maybe nicer, more obedient. Surely that’s what Aunt Marta expects. But Stephie feels exactly the same as before. Sometimes she sits looking at the picture of Jesus above her dresser, trying to feel the love for him about which they speak at Sunday school, but she feels nothing in particular.
“Forgive me, Jesus,” she mumbles softly. “Forgive me if I’m not really and truly redeemed.”
Stephie doesn’t write to her mother and father about being redeemed or baptized. She doesn’t know how she could ever explain it. It might upset them. She wonders if a person can get un-redeemed later. Otherwise she’ll have to keep it secret forever, after the family is reunited.
At least Sunday school offers a break from their everyday routines. The Sunday school teacher is the girl who played the guitar. They often sing. A younger girl named Britta gives Stephie a bookmark angel with dark hair and a pink dress. She has another one, too, a blond one in a blue dress, but she doesn’t want to give that one away. Britta and Stephie are the same age, but Britta’s shorter. She has dull, straggly brown hair. Sometimes she walks Stephie partway home after Sunday school.
Vera doesn’t attend Sunday school. Stephie sees her now and then, but she’s always with the same group of girls, including the blonde whose father is the shopkeeper, plus another who’s much bigger and heavier.
The only one who ever says hello when Stephie sees them is Vera. The others just stare. Once, the blonde shouts something after her, but Stephie doesn’t catch the words.
thirteen
Sometimes Stephie and Nellie pass the school buildings on their ramblings. If it’s recess and the children are out in the schoolyard the sisters walk slowly, peeking at the noisy boys and girls at play.
“When will
“As soon as our Swedish is good enough,” Stephie answers.
“I’m good at Swedish,” Nellie says with pride. “Auntie Alma says I’m a real chatterbox.”
It’s true that Nellie already speaks very good Swedish, better than Stephie. That’s because she can talk to both Auntie Alma and Elsa whenever she pleases. Aunt Marta isn’t exactly generous with words, and Uncle Evert is seldom home.
“We’ll be fluent enough to start school soon,” Stephie says. She gazes longingly over the fence, glimpsing a head of red hair that has to be Vera’s. If only Stephie were allowed to go to school, she’d see Vera every day and surely they’d become friends.
At dinner she tries extra hard to pronounce the Swedish words correctly. Hasn’t Aunt Marta noticed how much Swedish she has learned? As if she has been reading Stephie’s thoughts, Aunt Marta speaks up before she leaves the table.
“I was talking with Auntie Alma this afternoon. We think the time has come for you and Nellie to start school. You can’t just wander around all day long. I’m going to speak with the head teacher tomorrow, and I hope you’ll be able to start on Monday.”
The next morning Aunt Marta bikes over to the school. In the afternoon she tells Stephie she’ll be entering sixth grade.
“But I’ve already completed sixth grade,” Stephie protests. “Last year in Vienna.”
“You’re twelve, aren’t you?” Aunt Marta snaps. “So you will be in sixth grade with the other children your age. Where would you go if you weren’t? To the grammar school in Goteborg?”
After some time Stephie realizes that Swedish children start school at age seven, not at six as she did back home. So the children her age are in sixth grade, the final year of compulsory school.
Thinking about it, she sees it’s probably just as well to repeat sixth grade. She’s already missed nearly two months of the fall semester.
Besides, last year in Vienna she didn’t really learn very much. First her family had to move to the cramped room, and Stephie had to walk twice as far to school as before. In the crowded quarters, and with the noise of the other tenants, it wasn’t easy to concentrate on homework, either. Later in the year she had to change schools, when the Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend regular school.
The classrooms in the Jewish school were overcrowded, the teachers pale from exhaustion and worry. There were no gold stars for their exercise books.
The next day Aunt Marta goes to see someone and returns with a pile of schoolbooks. There’s a math book, a history book, a science book, an atlas, and a songbook. All are dirty and dog-eared, with the name Per-Erik penned in round, childish letters on the front page of each.
The books belonged to the same Per-Erik who is the youngest member of Uncle Evert’s fishing crew. He finished school two years ago. Now Stephie will have to use his old books. Aunt Marta even has a math exercise book with her, less than half full. Stephie stares at the books, blinking back her tears.
“Couldn’t I have a new exercise book of my own?” she asks softly.
“Hardly any of this one’s been used,” Aunt Marta tells her. “Finish it first, then you can have a new one.”
Stephie leafs through the roughly treated books. The spine of the science book is ragged. When she opens the book there is no resistance; it opens out like a broken fan. Some of the pages are loose. She remembers the feeling of opening a brand-new book: the way the spine won’t give when you try to open it wide, the smell of new paper.
