The Lily Pond (10 page)

Stephie sits on her bed, her mamma’s letter in her hand. There is something peculiar about this letter, something ominous between the lines.

Although the words in the letter are loving and reassuring, Stephie is worried.

Her mother’s handwriting has changed, too. It sprawls, as if her hand is no longer able to move the pen along the paper as gently and elegantly as it used to.

When Mamma and Papa told the girls they were sending them to Sweden, it upset Stephie, but she never doubted that it was the best thing to do. Back then they all believed that they would have to be apart for only a short time, that in a few months the whole family would have entry visas to the United States. “Six months at the very most,” she remembers her father saying in a reassuring tone when she asked him how long it was going to be.

Now that Stephie knows they will probably not see each
other again until the war is over, she sometimes wonders if it might not have been better for her and Nellie to stay in Vienna. She knows that her parents are now living in a crowded dwelling, and that there is not enough to eat. She knows that Papa is hardly paid anything for the work he does at the Jewish hospital, and that Mamma is away from home from early morning until late in the evenings. She knows that they, like all the other Jews in Vienna, are living in constant fear of what the Germans will do next.

And yet she sometimes wishes she were there. She misses the scent of her mother and her soft cheeks, her father’s warm hands and kind voice.

Even worse than missing them is feeling guilty. What right does she have to be sitting here well fed and content in a large brightly lit room on one of the finest streets in Göteborg when not only Mamma and Papa, but also Evi and other friends of hers, are freezing and starving? She ought to be in Vienna with them. She would be able to help Mamma clean houses. She would be able to make the long walk to the other side of the city to shop for food instead of Mamma, and to light the fire so it was warm when her parents came home in the evenings.

She would also, she knows, be another mouth to feed, and her parents would be sick with worry about her and Nellie if they were there. It’s better for all of them that the girls are in Sweden, where the only signs of the war are that more and more products are being rationed and that cars run on
smelly wood gas instead of gasoline. She knows this is true, yet it still seems unfair that she is here and they are there.

There’s a knock on the door, to the rhythm of one of Sven’s swing melodies.

“Come in.”

Sven stands in the doorway, looking at her. “Am I disturbing you?”

“No.”

He looks down at the letter in her hand. “From your parents?”

“Mamma.”

“Any news?”

Stephie shakes her head. She can’t explain the sense of dread that has come over her, not even to Sven.

“I really hope the Americans join the war,” says Sven. “Then the Germans won’t have a chance.”

“Please, could you talk about something else?” Stephie asks hotly. “I’m tired of talking about the war.”

Sven looks at her thoughtfully. Then he glances at his watch.

“Come on,” he says. “You need cheering up.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

As they put their coats on in the hall, Putte comes running, barking eagerly.

“Sorry, Putte pal,” says Sven. “You’ve had your walk. This time you have to stay inside.”

Stephie and Sven head toward Götaplatsen. Sven stops outside the concert hall.

“Here we are,” he tells Stephie. “There’s a concert starting in ten minutes.”

Stephie feels pleasure warm her. It’s been years since she listened to live music. Once the Nazis took over in Austria, Jews were prohibited from going to the cinema, the theater, and concerts. And on the island she isn’t allowed even to listen to music on the radio. According to Aunt Märta’s rules, and those of the Pentecostal church, music is sinful.

She feels a prick of guilt when she thinks of what Aunt Märta would say, but decides to ignore the feeling. Music has been part of her life since she was a little girl: her mother’s piano playing and singing, her own piano lessons, the concerts and opera performances her parents used to take her to, especially the outdoor concerts in the Prater Park on summer evenings. There can’t be anything wrong with that.

“What are you so deep in thought about?” Sven asks her.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, then.”

They find their seats at the back of the hall and settle in. The conductor raises his baton. The beautiful tones wash over her.

It’s Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor. She remembers
having heard it with Mamma and Papa ages back. That’s the last thought she has before being completely swallowed up by the music.

The final notes echo and fade. Slowly Stephie comes back to the concert hall, to the applause from the audience, to Sven at her side. But she still feels completely at peace, and she has no desire to disrupt those feelings by talking.

“You’re so quiet,” Sven finally says when they’re out on the square again. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes, of course,” Stephie replies. “Thank you for taking me.”

“Good,” says Sven. “Now to the pastry shop.”

They walk along the avenue and into one of the pastry shops, a lovely place with red plush seats and gold-framed mirrors.

“Have whatever you want,” Sven tells her. “My treat.”

Stephie picks a mille-feuille with shiny pink icing. Sven chooses the same and orders cocoa with whipped cream for her and coffee for himself.

They sit at a little round table. Stephie hasn’t tasted anything this good in a very long time. She sips her cocoa slowly, trying to make the whipped cream last as long as possible.

“Sven,” she says, “do you think it’s wrong of me to enjoy myself like this when my parents don’t even have enough to eat?”

“No,” Sven replies. “You mustn’t think like that. You’re here because they want you to be well. They’d be pleased to
know you were sitting here having a pastry. You mustn’t let things that aren’t your fault give you a guilty conscience. Do you understand?”

Stephie nods. When Sven says it, it seems perfectly clear that he is right.

went to a concert on Saturday,” Stephie tells Harriet and Lilian. “Afterward he took me to a pastry shop.”

Although her words are true, she feels as if she’s lying. Her big lie about Sven rubs off on everything she says about him. She feels uncomfortable about it. At the same time, it gives her a tingle of excitement.

Sometimes it almost feels as if the things she’s telling them are true.

How they walk hand in hand when they’re out with Putte. What he whispers in her ear when they’re alone. How careful they have to be about keeping it all secret.

“His parents mustn’t suspect anything,” Stephie says. “And certainly not my foster parents. You know, my foster mother’s Pentecostal. And terribly strict.”

Harriet sighs. “You poor thing.”

“You lucky thing,” Lilian counters. “A secret love. It’s so romantic.”

“Has he kissed you?” Harriet asks. “For real, I mean, on the lips?”

Her question makes a warm wave wash over Stephie. She’s been taken off guard.

“Not yet,” she replies.

“Promise you’ll tell when he does?” Lilian insists.

The whole next class, which is biology, Stephie imagines Sven kissing her. She shuts her eyes and fantasizes about his face coming closer and closer to hers until their lips touch. And then? She doesn’t know. Her cheeks are hot and she feels almost sick to her stomach.

“Stephanie?” she hears Hedvig Björk say. “What’s wrong? Are you unwell?”

Stephie opens her eyes at once.

“Yes … well, no.” She hesitates.

“Do you need to go out for a breath of air?” Hedvig Björk asks solicitously.

“Thank you,” says Stephie. “I’m all right, though, really.”

She takes a deep breath and tries to concentrate on the large poster hanging in front of the blackboard. It illustrates different species of trees and their leaves; the girls are supposed to be copying the leaves into their notebooks.

May takes her aside between classes. “What’s up with you today?” she asks in a much less concerned tone than
Hedvig Björk’s. “You’re acting so weird. What kind of secrets are you sharing with Harriet and Lilian?”

“None at all,” Stephie says.

“Don’t you think I have eyes?” May asks her coldly. “Or do you think I’m some kind of idiot? I see very well that you’re always whispering together, and how you stop the minute I come along. I thought you and I were friends. Aren’t we?”

Stephie is ashamed. May is like an open book. She never hides anything.

“Of course we’re friends,” Stephie assures her. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Stephie’s doing well at school. She still makes spelling mistakes sometimes and puts words in the wrong order. But she reads in Swedish just fine now, and she has a very good memory.

Math is her best subject. Alice is the only girl in the class who can give her a run for her money there. When she or Alice goes up to the blackboard to solve an equation, Hedvig Björk always smiles.

“Look, girls, that’s how it ought to be done,” she says. “It’s not really all that difficult.”

When it’s May’s turn at the blackboard, Hedvig Björk always nods encouragingly to start with, but the more May
mixes up her x’s and y’s, erases, and starts over, the more impatient Miss Björk grows.

“Oh, May,” she finally says. “Can’t you see what you’re doing wrong? I can’t understand how an intelligent girl like you can have so much trouble with algebra.”

Stephie can’t understand it, either. What makes this so difficult for May? As long as they’re working just with numbers, she’s fine. Square roots, compound interest, and other hard concepts aren’t beyond her. But the minute there are both numbers and letters in the problems, May loses her grip.

Stephie offers to give May some extra help with her algebra. She thought they could sit in the school library, but May has a different idea.

“Let’s go to my place,” she says. “It’s about time you came over.”

Stephie remembers May telling her that her family lives in crowded conditions and that she has a whole brood of noisy little sisters and brothers. But she doesn’t want to be rude and risk hurting May’s feelings again. She’s afraid May might think Stephie thinks her place isn’t good enough.