Here to Stay (18 page)

Elsa Fiskare, 22, is the daughter of Emil and Marta Fiskare, proprietors of The Fisher Hotel in Clayton. Andrew Fiskare, 23, is the adopted son of Kennet Fiskare.

Andrew and Elsa were reported missing Thursday morning. Andrew’s wrecked speedboat was located yesterday on the treacherous shoals by Brush Island. Pieces of clothing believed to belong to the two were also recovered.

A dredge of the river is not possible at this time due to the strong currents and dangerous riptides which plague the St. Lawrence after the ice melts.

“Marta.” Daisy touched the screen. “It matches what Vivian said. Kennet’s mother was Marta and Elsa was Kennet’s sister.”

“I’m confused.” Erik squinted, doing some mental math. “She was my grandfather’s sister, but she was twenty-two in nineteen sixty-eight? She’d be born in forty-six. She was my father’s age.”

Puzzled, he backed out of the article and clicked on the next one from May 14, 1968.

“‘Search ceases’,” Daisy said. “‘Fiskares presumed dead.’”

…the victims are presumed to have perished in the St. Lawrence River.

Elsa Fiskare was born in Clayton in 1946, the daughter of Emil Fiskare and his second wife Marta Toivonen. She graduated Clayton High School in 1964 and attended Cazenovia College for two years. In addition to her parents, she is survived by her half-sister Gertrude Fiskare Pettitte, and her half-brothers Kennet, Erik and Emil Fiskare. She was pre-deceased by another half-brother, Bjorn Fiskare.

“Second wife, Marta,” Erik said. “
Half-
brothers.”

“So Emil was married twice,” Daisy said, erasing and re-drawing lines on the family tree. “Kennet’s mother was someone else. He and three brothers and Gertrude had the same mother. Then Emil married Marta and Elsa was their daughter.”

Andrew Fiskare—Xandro to his family and close friends—was born Alexandre Felipe Reyes Corrente in 1945, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was the son of Jose Alexandre Reyes and Astrid Virtanen.

“Well, Vivian said she spoke Spanish,” Erik said, laughing a little.

“They speak Portuguese in Brazil,” Daisy said, opening and closing drawers in her desk.

“But why would Astrid have been living in Brazil? That makes no sense...”

Fiskare’s biological father fought with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in the Italian Campaign and died at Monte Cassino in 1945. Mrs. Reyes immigrated to America after the war and married Kennet Fiskare of Clayton, who legally adopted Andrew in 1947.

Fiskare graduated from Clayton High School in 1963 and from the Eastman School of Music in 1967. An accomplished violinist, he was pursuing his master’s degree at the State University of New York at Fredonia. In addition to his parents, he is survived by his half-brother, Byron Fiskare.

Daisy had found some graph paper and was drawing out the tree from scratch. Erik had his hands laced behind his head like a hostage waiting to be shot. “What the fuck,” he muttered to the screen. He reached for his cell phone. “This is crazy.”

“Who are you calling?”

“My mother.”

“Don’t you yell at her.”

“I won’t yell at her, I’m just going to ask why she never told me my father had a half-brother. Who was from Brazil.”

“Hey,” Dais said sharply. She swung one leg over his knees and sat down in his lap, holding his hand with the phone up high. “It’s possible she didn’t know. You probably don’t even know how she met your dad.”

Erik’s mouth fell open in protest, then shut.

“She may know nothing,” Daisy said. “Or she may know everything but she chose not to answer questions you never asked. Both of you wanted to protect the other. If you’re going to start asking things now then you can’t just…”

“I know,” he said, closing his eyes. “I know. I’ll be nice, I promise.”

She kissed his forehead. “It’s not about being nice, it’s about being tactful.” She slid off him and back into her chair. “And speaking of tact, it’s practically midnight in the States, so don’t call her now. Stew on it and call her tomorrow.”

He nodded, chewing the inside of his lip. He pointed to the screen again. “He was getting his master’s at Fredonia. That’s where my mother went to college. I wonder if she knew him.”

“IT’S ME,” HE SAID the next night.

“Hello, me,” Christine said. “Did you talk to your cousin?”

“I did.”

“Is there lost Fiskare treasure in her vault? Are you the heir to a fortune? Please say yes.”

“No,” he said, laughing. “You’ll still be working until you’re eighty.”

“Crap,” she said. “Well, what did she tell you about the fish?”

Erik told her the story of the watch and its charms. “She said she remembered us. From one visit to Clayton. It was just after Pete lost his hearing.”

“I don’t remember her. Honestly, Erik, at that time, I could’ve been introduced to Liberace and it wouldn’t have made an impression.”

“She remembers it being grim. And she told me a couple other things that have me curious. I’m wondering if…”

The rattle of ice in a glass. “If what?”

“Listen, I know I’ve never asked you much about him, but if I ask you now, will you tell me?”

“I’ll tell you what I can.”

“If anything is too painful for you to talk about, I get it—“

“Erik. I won two hundred bucks at bingo tonight. I’m on my second G and T and Fred is grilling me a steak. I’ll probably get laid later.”

“Nice, Mother,” he said.

“Suffice it to say, I am in an outstanding mood. Ask away.”

“Did you know Dad had a half-brother?”

A short pause. “I’m sorry, you can’t ask me that. Whoops, dinner time. Talk to you later.”

“Go home, Mom, you’re drunk.
”

She laughed. “And you are such easy bait.”

“You’re killing me here.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re trying to have a serious conversation with me, I’ll cooperate. Dad’s half-brother. Yes. Xandro.”

“You knew him?”

“I met him when I was at Fredonia.”

“You met him before Dad?”

“Yes, he was the TA for my music theory class and then I became his rehearsal accompanist. We went on a couple of dates. Romantically it wasn’t anything terribly serious, but we worked well together. He was an incredibly talented musician. And then he died.”

“In a boating accident. I found articles about it online. He was with another Fiskare, someone named Elsa.”

“Their pocket aunt.”

“What’s a pocket aunt?”

“She was your grandfather’s half-sister. Old Emil remarried to a much younger woman and she had this daughter, Elsa. So technically she was Byron and Xandro’s aunt, but she was their age. The three of them grew up together like siblings. The accident was just a horrible tragedy. They never found the bodies.”

“That’s what I read.”

“I went to Clayton for the funeral service and I met your father.”

“I see,” Erik said. “The newspaper says Andrew—or Xandro? He was called Xandro?”

“Yes.”

“It says he was Farmor’s son. And he was born in Brazil.”

“That’s right.”

“How did I not know this?”

“About Xandro or about Brazil?”

“Both.”

“Honey…” Her voice was gentle and patient. “I’m sure you knew something about it. In the way little boys are generally aware of the details of their life. The details are present, but they’re not vital. Plus you weren’t a terribly curious child when it came to people. Pete was the nosy one. He liked to ask personal questions. You were a watcher and listener. And I think when your brain tried to do a selective memory erase, it probably wiped out all kinds of things it didn’t think were important.”

“I guess…”

Another rattle of ice cubes against glass. “Anyway, Astrid was the queen of shut mouths so even I don’t know much of her story. It was hell getting that woman to talk about herself, but I know Astrid lived a good many years in Brazil and met her first husband there. In fact, I brought a friend up to Clayton with me once, when I was dating your father. My friend Carmen, who could speak fluent Portuguese, and I nearly dropped dead when Astrid started talking with her. I remember she blushed when she saw me staring with my mouth open. Like it was something she was embarrassed about.”

“Huh,” Erik said. “This is crazy shit. I mean, from a genealogy perspective.”

“I just remembered something else: Astrid’s father owned hotels. She grew up in the business, so to speak, and I think she helped the family hotel start turning a profit when she married Kennet. I’m recalling a story to that effect. How she saved the proverbial bacon.”

“I have one more question.”

“One more, then I want my steak.”

“Wasn’t Dad also in a boating accident once?”

“Yes.” A pause. “It was long before I met him, honey.”

“But you knew about it?” he asked.

“Of course I knew about it.”

Erik’s eyes narrowed. Christine’s voice had drawn in, gone just the slightest bit tight. An awkward silence wound between them, broken by Fred’s voice calling in the background.

“Go eat,” Erik said. “Enjoy. Love you.”

“Love you, honey,” she said, and hung up.

“She got weird,” he said to Daisy.

Daisy turned from where she was paying the bills and put out her hands helplessly. It was weird to her. This was another language, these family secrets and mysteries and taboo subjects.

“I’ve gotten so used to not talking about him,” Erik said. “Now I don’t even know how to bring him up gracefully.”

“You bring him up to me.”

“Um, because you’re the exception to every rule in my life.”

Daisy smiled and turned back to her desk. He already knew paying bills made her fuse short and her patience tight. He let her be and sat at his own desk. Stared at the computer a few moments before he hitched forward and began to type in the internet search box,
Swedes in Brazil.

He found several interesting articles about the Scandinavian settlement in South America, which began in the late 19th century. The largest Scandinavian population in Latin America was indeed Brazil, a fact he read out loud to Daisy.

“Learn something new every day,” she said around the pencil held in her teeth. “I guess one bad winter too many and you’ll head for the other side of the equator.”

He hummed. He’d been hoping for more of a smoking gun. More grandiose evidence of
Your grandmother was here.

He checked his scribbled notes, and for kicks he Googled
Virtanen surname.

“Ah-hah,” he said, rubbing the beard growth on his chin. “It says ‘Virtanen is a surname originating in Finland—in Finnish, meaning
river
—where it is the second most common surname.’”

“Everyone knows that,” Daisy said.

“Smartass,” he said. He typed
Finns in Brazil.

He felt his eyes light up as he clicked on the first search hit.

“‘How the Finnish Utopian Colony of Peñedo, Brazil, became a tourist attraction.’”

“Finnish utopian colony,” Daisy said. “That’s a thing?”

Erik didn’t answer. He was reading.