The Best Intentions (25 page)

A horse and buggy are waiting beside the wall of the station building, the hood down. Alongside the trap is a man in a long coat with gold braid on his collar and a peaked cap pulled down over his forehead. “Is it the pastor?” says peaked cap, without moving. “That's right,” says Henrik. “Then you're to come with me. The squire says I'm to drive the pastor to the parsonage. But he didn't say anything about
anyone being with him.” “This is my fiancee,” says Henrik. “Oh, yes, then your fiancee'll have to come, too, though the squire didn't say anything about any fiancee,” says peaked cap, still without moving. Anna and Henrik pick up their suitcases and carry them to the buggy. Peaked cap heaves them in under the seat, and the couple climb up. The driver sits on a board behind the passengers. “Lucky I didn't take the small buggy because it's got only two seats,” says peaked cap, smacking his lips at the horse, which sets off at a spanking pace. “You'd have had to stay behind at the station, Miss,” peaked cap adds, smiling toothlessly, but not in an unfriendly way.

Henrik realizes this is a joke inviting him to converse, so he asks whether it has been raining all day “It's been raining all day and there'll be more this evening, so it's just as well I didn't take the small carriage, because it's got no hood. I let the hood down just before the train came in.”

Then nothing is said for a long while. “There's the church,” says peaked cap, pointing at a huge, unwieldy nineteenth-century cathedral flung down on a slope and surrounded by sparse autumn-red trees. “The pastor won't be preaching much in the big church, I suppose, but more in the estate chapel.” His tone of voice is not free of classification. “The pastor's probably mostly for the estate chapel. Gabriel de Geer, the one who started up the Iron Works, and arranged for the Sawmill and built the Manor, that was a hundred years ago, or thereabouts, and he promptly wanted a greenhouse or more like a palm house. He wanted palm trees he could put out in the summer and they had to be indoors in the winter, so he built a special house for his palm trees. But Nordenson's father, who took over after de Geer, naturally thought it was crazy to raise those palm trees and to use all that wood to keep the palms warm. He burned up all the palm trees and presented the palm house to the cathedral chapter, so the people living near the Works and the Sawmill should have a House of God and not have to travel the ten kilometers to the big church. And that was a good thought. Nordenson's father was a good man. But then the Pentecostalists came along. So people preferred to go to the prayer house. Though Nordenson's father was a good man.”

After this long speech, peaked cap has drained his resources and is silent for the rest of the journey. They are taken at a brisk pace along a sandy road that runs uphill and downhill between groups of well-built farms and wide strips of darkening forest. There's an icy wind blowing, which may bring snow. The sun is resting on a spiky ridge, the light is raw, yellowish. “You cold, Pastor?” asks the driver. “You needn't worry about us,” says Anna, turning around. The driver nods silently.

The parsonage is a low building with two wings and a garden with a summer house and tall elms in their autumn splendor. Lights are already on in several windows, and dinner is being prepared in the kitchen.

Henrik knocks on the door, but no one seems to hear or see or be expecting visitors, so he and Anna go through the porch into the front hall. They can hear voices from various directions, and someone is walking quickly across the floor upstairs. A grandfather clock, decorated and painted, strikes five loudly, but reads four o'clock.

A strikingly good-looking woman with graying hair and large dark eyes comes to the stairs, and when she sees her guests she smiles kindly and calls out, ‘7U
last!
We've been waiting all day. The minister lost your letter with your arrival time in it, and Frid has been to meet every conceivable train. We couldn't telephone you because the phone in the parish office has been out of order for three weeks. Anyhow, we didn't know how to get hold of you. No one answered at Tradgardsgatan in Upsala. Welcome, both of you! My name's Magda Sail and I'm the housekeeper here, and the reverend's niece. Do come in! May I take your coats? Did you have a good journey? It's a shame we live so far from the station. Did you get cold, Miss Bergman? The wind's flared up terribly, so I suppose we'll get snow after all this rain. I'll tell the reverend you're here. Please, do go into the drawing room for the time being. I'll bring coffee in a jiffy.”

The lovely and talkative Mrs. Sail disappears into the interior of the house. Anna and Henrik sit down on separate chairs in the spacious drawing room with its pair of crystal chandeliers, Karl-Johan furniture upholstered in silk, and light wooden floor covered with endless patterned rag rugs. Mildly blinking churchmen and bracket lamps are on the walls, and the doors are open into a library of huge bookcases. A dying fire spreading little warmth is burning in the tiled stove, and a heavy imitation baroque wall clock says it is twenty to seven. A pendulum clock under a glass case strikes eight.

The Reverend Gransjö comes in from the library, moving slowly and supported by Mrs. Sail. His face is pale and shapely beneath a large beard, his eyes dark gray behind thick glasses, his hair brushed straight back and in disorder. He is wearing a cassock and slippers. His smile is welcoming but is disfigured by ill-fitting dentures. Anna and Henrik at once get up and go to meet him. Without saying anything or exclaiming, the old gentleman holds out a strong hand and silently greets them, the gray eyes observant. Then he nods as if pleased with what he has seen and signals to the young people to sit down. Mrs. Sail says she will go and get the coffee, and leaves. The Reverend Gransjö sits down on a straight-backed chair by the drawing room table, a hand cupped around his ear to indicate he is hard of hearing. At the same time, he fishes his gold watch out of the waistcoat behind the buttoned-up cassock, looks at the watch, at the wall clock, and at the pendulum clock.

Reverend Gransjö:
A truthful clock should say five past four. All the clocks in this house are wrong. They say it's something to do with an underground magnetic field. My watch, on the other hand, is always right because it seems to be immune to the forces of the underworld.

Henrik fumbles for his own watch. It says ten past four.

Henrik:
Mine says ten past four.

The old man is gazing at a spot to the right of Henrik's feet, apparently absentmindedly. The silence is lengthy but not unpleasant.

Reverend Gransjö
(
suddenly
): My great friend Professor Soderblom came to see me. He had words of praise for you, Henrik Bergman. I set great store by his judgment. We are old friends. Of course, he's much younger than I am. Nevertheless we are old friends.

The reverend laughs silently and attractively, sucking cautiously on his dentures and turning his gray eyes to Anna.

Reverend Gransjö:
He also spoke of you, Miss Åkerblom. I don't know how he knew you, my dear, but he knows everyone. He assured me that Anna Åkerblom would make a good wife to a pastor. I hope you're not offended that I repeat what Soderblom said to me, Henrik?

Henrik
(
smiles
): On the contrary.

Reverend Gransjö:
Yes, yes. Exactly. Wasn't Magda going to bring some coffee? I won't have any coffee. So I'll leave you two young people, if you'll excuse me. We are to go to Nordenson's for dinner this evening, so I must go and change. And I would like to take a nap.

The Reverend Gransjö gets up rather laboriously, one arm flailing about for a moment, but then he catches hold of the back of a chair and at once regains his balance. Henrik and Anna have also risen.

Reverend Gransjö:
Please, do be seated. I can manage perfectly well. It's Magda who insists on propping me up all the time. So I'll leave you now.

The old gentleman waves his big hand and smiles at Anna, who curtsies. Then he disappears through the library, and a door is opened
and closed. A large black dog is standing in the doorway to the hall, his tail drooping. When Anna holds out her hand, he approaches suspiciously and sniffs with some reserve, after which he wags his tail three times and goes out again. Magda Sail comes in briskly with the coffeepot, followed by a tall pallid female carrying the tray.

Magda:
Sorry Fve been so long. Oh, so Uncle Samuel's gone, has he? Well, it's time for his nap, and that's sacred, you see. Thank you, Ottilia, that will do very nicely. Remind Frid that the carriage must be here at quarter past five at the latest and that he is to put in the heating pan, preferably without setting fire to the carriage like last time. Two lumps, Miss Åkerblom? I'm ashamed of calling you Miss Bergman a moment ago. I really do apologize. Cream, Pastor? And one lump? May I offer you a cake? We're going out to dinner with the Nordensons this evening. It won't be exactly fun, I mean, after what's happened, but Mr. Nordenson insists. We would much rather have had a simple
meal here at home. Uncle Samuel said the same. But Nordenson was quite insistent, and I think it may have been Mrs. Nordenson putting pressure on him. She's very . . . how can I put it? . . . she's very much occupied with fundamental matters in life and so dreadfully unhappy after everything that's happened this last year. Perhaps you're
schon im Bilde
, Pastor, as the Germans say.

Henrik:
I know nothing.

Magda:
Is that so? Then I mustn't pass on gossip. But I'm sure you'll find out all about it sooner or later, Pastor.

Henrik:
What has happened?

Magda:
No one knows for sure. But one thing is quite clear — the Iron Works are in a bad way. And that Nordenson has been involved in some
business
affairs. There has even been talk of prison. All this last year has been a tangle of rumors and stories. But I shouldn't be sitting here chattering. I'll show you your sleeping quarters now. You, Miss Åkerblom, will be in the bishop's room, my goodness. His Grace has that room when he comes on a visitation, and you, Pastor Bergman, are to be in the wing, where we've arranged a very nice room on the top floor. We often have guests. Uncle Samuel is a member of a committee preparing the international ecumenical encyclopedia. He finds traveling difficult these days, so the learned gentlemen come here to us instead.

Henrik finds himself in a square room with a sloping ceiling and floral wallpaper, a starched curtain over a narrow window facing the
rustling autumn darkness of the garden. A white bed with high ends, a paraffin lamp, the smell of newly scrubbed floor, and damp chill despite the wood fire in the tiled stove. He considers all this and at once sits down at the desk, where there is pen and ink. In a drawer, swollen with damp — so opening only reluctantly — he finds lined paper, and at once starts writing in his neat, flowing handwriting.

The minister's residence in Forsboda, twelfth of September, 1912. Dearest beloved Anna, you who are my wife before God. As soon as we are separated from each other, however short a time, however insignificant the geographical distance, I am seized with a grinding anxiety that I will never see you again. Everything becomes a dream dissolving into nothing, and I wake up to a loneliness that is extremely painful, for our communion in the dream was so clear. Your hands, your smile, your good voice, the whole of your little person. I try to recall in my inner vision everything that you are, but my fear is too great — you're suddenly gone.

I would prefer to turn myself into your unborn child. I was carried in an anguished womb. Sometimes I seem to remember a terrible cold, that I was frozen already before my birth. Under your heart, I'm sure it is warm. I am envious of our children who will sleep inside you. Forgive me, dearest Anna, if I sound melodramatic, but at this moment I am so afraid and uncertain about all these new and great things that lie ahead! I know that I shall calm down again as soon as I see you. How shall I ever be able to give you the security you need so much? You, who will be leaving a good and sheltered world, together with me, for a reality that neither of us can scarcely imagine! Sometimes I see quite clearly my weakness and my lack of character, all that is floating and indefinite. Sometimes I want to say: Watch out for me! At the same time I cry out: Don't leave me, no, don't ever leave me; only through you can I grow and matur.

After Henrik has signed and read through his letter, he adds a postscript.

As you know, I can be quite pleasant ordinarily. And also, you sometimes say I am handsome. And also, we actually laugh at the same things. The next time you get married, you can surely marry your old beau Torsten Bohlin. I have just read in the papers that he's become professor of exegetics. That's impressive. He's definitely guaranteed more money than I am. Though I sing better!

Forsboda Manor is a high, three-story building with a mansard roof, columns at the entrance, and a broad balustrade up to the level of the first-floor reception and drawing room. The park slopes down to the Storsjon, and in the west corner is the office for the Iron Works, a long, low, eighteenth-century building.

All this seems rather grand but is marred by treacherous decay and lack of maintenance. However, on an evening like this as the September moon rolls up over the wide surface of the water and illuminates the palacelike structure, the cracks in the walls don't show, nor do the flaking paint on the window frames and the wooden shutters on the top windows, the neglected garden, or the dried-up well. The flares flicker along the drive, a servant in livery and white gloves opens the door, and a housemaid takes coats and overcoats.

In the big drawing room, which is well heated, lighted candles mercifully hide the flaws in the wallpaper, the scratches on the parquet floor, the holes in the rugs, and the wear and tear of the upholstery. The guests from the parsonage are warmly, not to say overwhelmingly, welcomed by Nordenson, engineer and managing director of the Works, and his wife, Elin. The other guests are as would be expected. The provincial medical officer, Dr. Algotson, and his wife, Petra, and the manager of the Works, Hermann Nagel.