The Best Intentions (39 page)

Henrik:
But we've been . . .

Anna:
. . . so careful. Though I don't know what you
really
mean by careful.

Henrik:
You said you
wanted
children.

Anna:
That's the sort of thing one says.

Henrik:
When Mama . . .

Anna:
Oh!

Henrik:
Some veins have appeared there.

Anna:
. . . it's become huge overnight. I'm going to be sick again.

Henrik:
Kneel down. I'll hold your forehead.

Anna:
Nothing comes.

Henrik
(
sits on the floor
): Come on, I'll hold you.

Anna:
I'm cold. Why is it so cold all the time?

Henrik
(
wrapping a blanket around her
): Now you'll be warm.

Anna:
You're getting shaving soap all over me.

Henrik:
Darling heart. Go on whining and complaining!

Anna:
I'm so unhappy, Henrik.

Henrik:
Are you
so
unhappy?

Anna:
Why does it have to be so hideously cold and so hideously dark? Can you answer that?

Henrik:
We chose this life.

Anna:
And so quiet. And so lonely. Can't we
go away
somewhere? Just for a few weeks. Just for a week.

Henrik:
How can we afford that?

Anna:
I
can afford it. I'll pay.

Henrik:
I can't go away when old Gransjö is in bed with the flu. You know that.

Anna:
Oh, God, I do feel sick.

Henrik:
Do you want to crawl back into bed?

Anna:
No, it's better like this with you. (
They embrace
.)

Henrik:
Complain some more!

Anna:
I miss Mama! I know it's crazy, but I miss Mama.

Henrik:
Then I'll write a polite letter and ask your mother to come and see us: “It would be a great delight to us, dear Karin, if you would at last take the trouble to come and see us up here in the wilderness.”

Anna:
That'd be dreadful.

Henrik:
Then I don't know what to suggest.

Anna:
I miss Trädgårdsgatan. Mama and Lisen and Trädgårdsgatan. And
Ernst!
(
Cries a little
.) I miss my brother terribly!

Henrik:
My poor little darling.

Anna:
Do you
want
another child? Answer me honestly now. Do you want another child?

Henrik:
I want to have ten. You know that.

Anna:
Preferably girls.

Henrik:
Since you're asking, I'd like to have a girl this time. You'd also prefer a girl, wouldn't you?

Anna:
I have absolutely no desire to be with child.

Henrik:
I'll be extra nice.

Anna:
You are what you are.

Henrik:
What kind of tone was that?

Anna:
You're so childish, Henrik. I want to have a fully grown, mature man at last.

Henrik:
So that you can be little and childish.

Anna
(
kindly
): That was both silly and banal.

Henrik:
If you want to go back home to your mother for a few weeks . . .

Anna:
And give her that triumph? Never!

Henrik:
Well, then I don't know what.

They sit on the floor and hold each other, wrapped in the big quilt from their bed. It grows lighter; the snow rages and swirls, soundlessly and mercilessly.

Thursday evening at the beginning of December. The sewing bee at the parsonage. Everything is as usual, but the guests are fewer than usual — only five — which cannot be blamed entirely on the cold, the state of the road, or the shortage of paraffin, candles, coffee, and other necessities.

To introduce those present: Gertrud Tallrot is seventy and has been a widow for many years. Her husband had worked at the Forge. Nowadays, she assists at the Post Office when extra help is needed. She is tall, thin, and bent, her eyes clear behind the pince-nez, her hair thin,
chin large and slightly whiskery She is good-humored and has a deep voice. Big cardigan and boots. She scratches in her ear with her knitting needle, an alarming sight.

Alva Nykvist is in her fifties and has been employed for many years in the Works office. She is plump, pasty-faced, and good company, her eyes black and inquisitive. She likes passing on news of local disasters and interesting rumors. She is unmarried and looks after a simpleminded cousin without tenderness. She is well-read, Christian, and takes journeys abroad. She belongs to the upper class of the Works, so to speak, for she lives off an inheritance from her father, who had been a successful wholesaler in Gävle.

Over the years, Mrs. Magna Flink has become a friend of the parsonage family. Her husband spends most of the year traveling as a representative for a machine tool firm with its head office in Enköping. Magna is a dark, handsome beauty, determined, and well aware of her importance. She organizes the community's lotteries. Her children are grown and studying in Upsala. If there is anything unfavorable to say about her, it is that she is both jealous and possessive, a fact she hides with some skill.

Märta Werkelin is thirty and the new teacher at the village school. She is convincingly kind, quiet, and has blue, rather protruding eyes. She looks permanently surprised, has thick ash-blonde hair, and is feminine without knowing it. Because she is a newcomer to the district, she is not particularly well informed.

Tekla Kronström is married to a worker at the Sawmill and is mother to five children. Sharp gray eyes, broad forehead, high cheekbones, large mouth (still has all her own teeth), large breasts, and big backside. She has a turned-up nose, her hair is short, and she is small.

These five women are participating in the evening's sewing bee, drinking dandelion coffee, and listening to the pastor reading aloud.

Henrik
(
reads aloud
): “Far from discouraging him, Lucien's rage over this defeat of his ambitions gave him new strength. Like all people who are borne by instinct into a higher sphere and arrive there before they are able to manage it, Lucien continued to sacrifice everything to remain in high society. During his journey, he pulled out, one by one, the poisoned arrows he had received. He talked aloud to himself. He snubbed the blockheads he came across. He found witty answers to the stupid questions asked of him, and grew vexed over his wit becoming as it were
post festum
like that . . .”

Henrik falls silent, turns the page, new chapter, closes the book with a little bang, and puts it down on the round table by the paraffin
lamp. Anna gets up and gives him some coffee. They all seem to be absorbed in whatever their hands are doing. Henrik takes a sip of the bitter drink and puts down the cup.

Henrik:
I think, in contrast with Balzac's hero, I will come straight to the point.

None of his guests appear to react. Anna goes around and fills up cups. Jack yawns.

Henrik:
I'd like to find out why we have become so few recently.

Silence.

Henrik:
At the beginning of the autumn, we were between twenty-one and thirty-five. Now we're (
counts
) five. Plus Anna and myself, and Jack, of course.

Silence.

Henrik:
Let's blame the cold and the state of the roads, but I don't think that's the whole explanation.

Silence.

Henrik:
I would very much like to know if there is any other explanation. If any one of you could find another explanation.

Silence. Everyone is busily occupied.

Henrik:
Then I'll ask you directly. What do you think, Mrs. Tallrot? (
Pause
.) You work at the Post Office and meet lots of people.

Addressed directly, Gertrud Tallrot scratches her big chin and peers over her pince-nez.

Gertrud:
I don't really know what to say. (
Pause
.) To me, it seems people are slightly afraid, or how can I put it? I don't know, but that's what I think.

Henrik
(
astonished
): Afraid?

Tekla:
I'm not one of those real churchgoers, I'm really not. But you can't escape noticing certain things.

Henrik:
No, people aren't coming so often.

Tekla:
The one doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the other.

Magna:
I don't think so, either.

Some of the other women agree: no, there are probably different reasons. Silence.

Henrik:
No.

Märta:
It could be that preacher at the Pentecostalists.

Henrik:
Let's leave out the church and talk about our Thursday evenings. You say people are afraid, Mrs. Tallrot. Why should anyone be afraid?

Alva
(
brightly
): Everyone knows that.

Henrik:
I don't.

Alva:
There's a
list
down at the office of everyone who comes to the sewing bee.

Henrik:
Is that true?

Alva:
I've never seen it, but Torstensson at the office said there was a list and that it was locked in Nordenson's safe.

Henrik:
What would Nordenson want with such a list?

Tekla:
That's not difficult to figure out. If it's true.

Alva:
Why shouldn't it be true?

Tekla
(
angry
): Because that Torstensson is a shit. He invents things to frighten people. Just like his lord and master.

Henrik:
I still don't understand. Does Nordenson . . . ?

Alva:
I've heard talk about a list, too. But has
anyone
been harassed or treated badly?

Gertrud:
Yes, indeed. Johansson and Bergkvist and Frydén have all been fired with no explanation, and Granström has been transferred and been given a worse job at lower pay.

Tekla:
The foreman, I mean Santesson, came and asked my Adolf if I still went to the pastor's Thursday evenings. “Does your old woman still go to that old woman-pastor's old women's Thursdays?” Adolf was angry and said that Santesson was the worst old woman of the lot and he should . . . well . . . what his Tekla did on Thursday evenings was no damned business of his.

Henrik
(
pale
): But this isn't possible!

Märta:
Everyone thinks about when Nordenson was at the chapel last Midsummer.

Gertrud:
Yes, of course. That's probably true.

Märta:
I know Helena, his elder daughter, a little. Helena said several times that her father can't forgive that. Nordenson can't forgive that humiliation in front of the confirmation pupils.

Henrik
(
frightened
): But why hasn't anyone . . .

Tekla:
Why hasn't anyone said anything? That's asking a lot, isn't it, Pastor?

Alva:
Quite a lot has probably been said, but not to you, Pastor. Nor to your wife.

Anna:
Magna, have you known about this? And never said anything to us? That's . . .

Magna:
I've heard a lot of gossip, but I've never paid any attention, because I think . . .

Anna:
But you've seen that our Thursdays . . .

Magna:
Yes, I've noticed all right. But I think there's a better explanation.

Anna:
A better explanation? What do you mean?

Magna:
We can talk about that another time.

Anna:
Why not now?

Magna:
Because that would upset Mrs. Tallrot and Mrs. Kronström, and I don't want to do that.

Henrik:
I'd like . . . I insist. (
Agitated
.) I
insist
that you tell us what you know. Or think you know.

Tekla:
She needn't worry about me. I'm already as angry as I can be.

Gertrud:
If it's that business we
all
know about, then it's just as well we ask the pastor directly.

Alva
(
suddenly
): Though on my part, I think there's a third explanation.

Henrik
(
really frightened
): Magna, you maintain you're a friend of ours. Tell us what you know.

Magna:
The Reverend Gransjö told his housekeeper, Mrs. Säll, that Henrik and Anna went to see Queen Victoria at the palace, in June I think it was. Mrs. Säll passed that on to some members of the Women's Corps. I suppose they were all singing Henrik's praises, and then she probably said that we won't be keeping him for long, because he's been offered the
court chaplaincy.
Well, then summer and autumn went by, and everyone was talking about it, and some people were probably upset, I presume. Some probably thought Henrik was false for not saying anything about leaving us.

Anna:
Why didn't you say anything yourself?

Magna
(
hurt
): If you're both thinking of leaving without saying anything, then I'm not the kind to run after you with a whole bunch of questions about the reasons why.

Anna:
But, Magna!

Magna:
Maybe I heard a word here and there. But that's nothing to go on and on about, is it?

Anna:
But Magna! We've
turned it down!
Henrik was asked in the spring. It wasn't to be court chaplain at all. He was to be the priest for a big hospital of which the queen is chairman of the board. We were tempted, which isn't all that surprising. But Henrik
turned it down.
I was much more uncertain. But Henrik
turned it down
!

Magna:
Oh, did he? (
Still offended
.)

Anna:
Well, now you know everything. Surely there wasn't much to tell you.

Magna:
There could be different opinions about that.