The Stockholm Octavo (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-One
Pilgrim's Progress

Sources: E. L., denizens of The Pig

THE NOVEMBER LIGHT WAS
just a gray wash and the air damp, so I lit a candle to make it morning and lend some visual warmth to the Sunday. I woke with a splitting headache from one glass of strange rum at The Pig. No one there knew the whereabouts of the Grey girl, although the innkeeper cursed her like she was Satan's daughter and said he would give me his half-cask of rum if I brought her back to be thrashed.

The Superior had become impatient again and waited to collar me after Sunday services, a knobby spinster or two in tow. My lack of progress was becoming uncomfortable and the continual dodging a chore. The Superior's determination to follow through on his threat to replace me now had a date: January 5—the Epiphany. So I had made it known at Saturday coffee I was off to meet a prospective girl and her family and would not be seen in my usual pew. I wanted to work on my Octavo instead. The sound of Mrs. Murbeck verbally trouncing her son downstairs as they headed off to church was a happy sign: I would be left in peace for at least three hours.

A stack of foolscap I had “rescued” from the office was ready for pen and ink on the table. I took a single sheet and drew the eight rectangles of the Octavo around a central square. The Uzanne was writ bold as my Companion, our connections growing. Her treasured fan was in my room, a high stakes chip to toss in the game when the cards were right. The upcoming lecture at Gullenborg promised possibilities if not outright answers.

The Prisoner. Anna Maria was trapped by her mother and looking for release. Nothing would please me more than to free her, or hold her fast myself. That we had met outside the fan shop, Cassiopeia about to come into my hands, was connection enough to The Uzanne. Her name was underlined with a curling flourish and several long dashes.

Teacher—the instructive Master Fredrik.

I pondered the Murbeck boy as Courier, but decided to leave it blank.

The Trickster? Even without a link to The Uzanne, she was all too clear from the image on the card. I could not bear to write it out, so put simply Mrs. M. But how might I use her to further my aims?

Studying the trio in the Magpie card, I suddenly saw Margot with the brothers Nordén! Surely there was a straight line to The Uzanne from such a shop. Margot would know every lady in the Town, their ripening daughters and nieces—only women of substantial means gave them custom. And Margot would certainly speak on my behalf. I wrote her full name on my chart, followed by an exclamation mark. She would know where the Plomgrens lived!

The Prize was an irritation still; the men at the lodge seemed leery of my questions regarding their unmarried daughters. And none of them seemed remotely artistic. I would inquire of Master Fredrik; that was his job, after all, as Teacher.

The Key. Mrs. Sparrow was opening a new world for me with the Octavo. With her ties to the king, and my Companion's aristocratic lines, I might pull myself higher than I ever dreamed. Just as the Grey girl had said: small keys open large doors. She had already crossed the threshold and was on a golden path. I will be soon as well, I thought.

Chapter Twenty-Two
A Step up the Ladder

Sources: Various, including, L. Nordén, Mr. and Mrs. Plomgren, G. Tavlan, Red Brita, two tailors, one unidentified soldier, neighbors from Ferken's Alley

MOTHER PLOMGREN CLAPPED
her hands. “Look lively, my plum, lively. The premier is next week, and we have a very handsome trio to be fitted. A corporal, a man from the Justice department, and one singer who works the lamp-lighting brigade in South Borough.” She pinched her daughter's cheek. “Apply a bit of rouge, dear. The lamplighter you can forget, but the other two—who knows whether they might like a wife with their fitting, who knows?”

“I know, and the answer is most definitely not,” Anna Maria said, rolling her sleeves up and repinning her hair. The Opera House was no place for bridegrooms. At this very moment, she could see the crumpled trousers and bare legs of head scene painter Gösta Tavlan behind the large hanging drop of an enchanted lake, the painted water shivering with each thrust of his bottom.

Marriage. She had done it once, and it had not gone well. Mother Plomgren seemed to think that the next one would be different.

Anna Maria worked with her mother and father in the Opera atelier, making costumes and small props. She had acquired the skills of an actress, too, studying the manners and speech of the patrons, players, and the wealthy members of the audience that sat in the box seats. She desired nothing less than to sit in Opera Box 3 on the grand tier and knew these skills would be key to that ascension. When she had the exclusive use of Opera Box 3, and sat in a gilt chair covered in white brocade, high above the sweaty mob of the parquet that was crushed against the stage by the end of Act 1, she would know exactly how to smile serenely down upon them and make a comment that implied both camaraderie and condescension. She would have a wardrobe that was not theatrical bric-a-brac glued onto a dyed and altered gown bought from a dead woman's estate. She would be but a few steps from the king, and she would return his gracious attention with a well-practiced smile and humble curtsy that contained the flavor of her hatred.

 

IN HER YOUTH
, Anna Maria thought she might achieve her ends in the conventional way, via a strategic liaison; she carefully studied Sophie Hagman, a lovely dancer who gracefully tripped into the arms of the king's youngest brother, Fredrik Adolf. Miss Hagman had the perfect life: a luxurious apartment, more than adequate means, and she was free to be a coryphée, to socialize with all manner of people—from royalty to artists. Sophie Hagman was respected, even at court, without having to marry anyone. As a bonus, it seemed that the handsome Duke Fredrik actually loved her; an ideal arrangement, by any measure. Unfortunately for Anna Maria, though the parade of possible amours that came and went through the ornate doors of the Opera House was dizzying, no one seemed interested in more than some intermission refreshment and physical relief. Instead, she married a soldier and learned about the drama of war.

When Anna Maria was seventeen, Mother Plomgren's nephew had come to call with a handsome comrade from his regiment in tow—Magnus Wallander. Anna Maria recognized a man who could absorb her heat, and they became inseparable; no one could say which flame burned brighter. A hasty wedding was made, and they took a small set of rooms just around the corner on Ferken's Alley. The neighbors laughed at their lusty games, but then the games became less merry.
They use no words of any Christian tongue
, Red Brita, a neighbor, said to Mother Plomgren,
only screeches and howls as would bring Sir Cloven Hoof to the house. I fear for your girl, Mother P., she has the temper of a heat-crazed Bedouin. Someone will be sore injured, as was my own niece in Norrköping, who lies now under and her three young girls in the poorhouse
.

When Magnus Wallander was called to the king's war in Finland in 1789, the couple and their infant girl moved into her parents' rooms on East Long Street. Anna Maria was happy with the prospect of Magnus leaving, happy for the safety and closeness of her parents' house. It would save money, and there would be help and protection. Magnus was less enthralled with the arrangement. It cramped his style and his fighting and his fucking, and his temper was even more likely to cause damage here. Anna Maria, nursing a two-month-old, could hardly be expected to control her husband. She tried, heaven and earth she tried, but when he began to use the baby as a pawn in their games, it was only the king's orders to battle that kept her from murder. “Let some Russian do the job, or a wayward shot from an angry comrade,” she said to her mother. “Drowning, rat bite, cholera—any way it happens will be a good way. I pray it will come soon and far away, so I need never see him again.”

A year later, she sat in the unnatural stillness of her parents' home, the windows, the mirror, and all the furniture swathed in thick black cloth, and the place seemed too small for even a family of maggots—airless and dark, with only the gleam of white candles to light the way to the sitting room. There were none of the sounds that had filled the house before—the cries, the slaps, the soft expulsion of air from a punched stomach.

Anna Maria's father, remembering the traditions of his youth in the countryside, insisted that fir trees be brought to decorate the doorposts. And so they stood, chopped off at the top, the clipped boughs strewn across the walkway and all the way into the house, making a fragrant carpet that kept evil away, and dampened the clack and scuffle of shoes. “This way the neighborhood makes no mistake as to the occasion and cannot whisper. They will know for certain that it has finally happened,” he said to his daughter. They already knew. Anna Maria dreaded the halt of conversation at the market, the blush at the baker's stall, the dropped eyes at the butchers where a slaughtered calf hung behind the maple counter. But they would all come, the neighbors and friends and strangers, too, into the house with the fir trees, climbing the three flights to the darkened rooms that smelled of corpse, pine, and saffron
kringlor
—the huge pretzel-shaped breads that were always served at wakes. People seldom passed on an invitation that was drenched in the macabre and free food and drink, although the heat and smell might shorten their stay.

Anna Maria watched as Mother Plomgren set out cups and plates borrowed from friends, as Anna Maria had broken most of the family crockery casting them at her husband. This, too, was a game they had once enjoyed. His eyes would blaze with pleasure at the bombardment, furious and ineffective, until she reached for more dangerous ammunition. He was a military man, and knew to strike when the enemy was tiring but before they became desperate. He would overcome her, and fuck her ruthlessly, an ending to the conflict that was in fact its whole purpose. They only engaged in battle, and their hostility set off an irresistible explosion.

A plate slipped to the floor and shattered and Mother Plomgren cursed softly under her breath. Anna Maria sat motionless on the wide kitchen bench that served as her bed, a high color in her cheeks, and lips too red for such an occasion. It would not be right to appear so unaltered by this event, but she could never help her prettiness. “Work is a cure, my plum, honest work.” Mother Plomgren touched her arm gently. “Go and buy some fresh water from the wagon on the square. The house girl is away at the baker's and there will be a crowd of parched throats.”

Anna Maria nodded and rose to fetch the buckets from the back garden. Out in the brilliant day, her eyes squeezed shut from the hours in the dark rooms. The hens were squawking over a cat, and she could see one or two neighbors spying at her from behind their curtains. She stared defiantly up at them, fists clenched, as if she would pummel them in a word.

She took up the yoke and buckets and made the short walk to Merchant's Square, where life went on all the same. A group of military men were drinking beer at outdoor tables. They laughed and sang, glad to be home, until one of them caught sight of her. “Mrs. Wallander?” he called in her direction. She shuffled on, head down, and filled her buckets at the water wagon. “Mrs. Wallander?” Louder this time.

It was useless to pretend. She felt the burning anger rise but willed herself as cool as the stones at her feet. “If you call to me, it is Miss Plomgren now. I am no longer Mrs. Wallander. But I knew her. And she says that you should tell the man of that name that he is a squirming spawn of the devil and his pox-covered cock the pestilent staff of Satan. May he rot in hell, with his head bashed in, over and over and over again.” She spat, and waited, for these were men who would defend Lucifer himself if he wore the regiment's colors. The only reply was a breeze that flapped the clothes hanging across the alley and a gull calling overhead. Anna Maria felt sweat on her brow, felt alive for the first time in days.

One man stood, a fleshy captain, his uniform wet with beer. He gave an awkward half-bow. “You would do best not to speak of him so, Mrs., Miss Wall . . . gren. He is gone, Captain Wallander, but as a hero. The king has awarded him the title of major. We drink to him now, and then we meant to come to you with the news and the insignia he won at such great cost.”

“All I care to have is his pension.”

The captain looked at his boots. “When pensions are reinstated, perhaps. Money for those luxuries is gone to the bottom of the Gulf of Finland, where your hero lies.”

“And not a shilling for me? Not even his buttons?” The sun and heat and news and the gull cawing and cawing, the fir trees chopped in two and the saffron
kringlor
, snaking shapes that doubled back on themselves like sideways eights, the porcelain, the brandy that she had drunk at breakfast, all combined to make Anna Maria laugh. The laugh of a nightmare hag or a troll disguised as a beauty, the laugh of those at the world's end. “Hero, you say? Hero? Pus-filled boils on an asshole hero!” Anna Maria dropped the buckets and ran to the drunken captain, grabbing his hands and pulling him after her. “You must all come at once to his house, bearing this great news. We await you with refreshments and welcome, a cool and shady space to rest and tell of his bravery in the war. Then I will tell tales of his exploits here in the bosom of his family.” The men rose and followed, somber and wary. One of them picked up the buckets. Anna Maria rounded the corner at the head of this parade and stopped before the drooping fir trees, the doorway crowded with mourners. “Here is Captain Wallander's handiwork,” she said, gesturing to the upper floor of the house with a flourish. “His four-month-old girl, skull smashed by his raging hand and left with me to nurse into heaven.” She turned to the soldiers at the door. “If he were not dead already, he would be lashed at Iron Square, roasted on a spit in the King's Garden, then thrown into the unmarked pit on Rullbacken with the other scum of the earth. Hero. I spit on the word, and I spit on the demented king who would name him this and leave nothing for the widow. May His Demon Fucking Sodomite Majesty hasten to join his hero, first in the dead black water of the ocean and then in the bottomless choking fiery pits of hell.” She spit at the boots of the captain, then turned and stepped over the threshold to climb the stairs, brushing the spittle from her cheek. “Come in, sirs, and look the heroism of your comrade in the face. She was a pretty baby, my Annika, at least she was before your hero dropped her to the floor because I would not suck his cock.”

The men filed by the white box decorated with gold stars to gaze at the tiny form, face covered with a white linen cloth and surrounded by myrtle and boxwood branches. They took no refreshment, and left in silence.

Anna Maria went and sat on the front stoop, holding her head in her hands and singing to herself until Mrs. Plomgren brought her in for the farewell, for no women went to the churchyard. The baby was to be buried at Jakob's Church, where they bought a quarter plot from a family that had also lost a child, and they were lucky to get it.

Mr. Plomgren nailed the top of the white box shut and placed a myrtle wreath on the lid. Anna Maria rose and stood beside him. “Her legs, they were bound?” Mr. Plomgren nodded; no one wanted the dead to walk again, even one who had never crawled. “And which way was she lying, Father? Where lies her head?” Her father pointed to the end closest to himself, and Anna Maria closed her eyes in relief that he was so certain. “Make sure she leaves feet first from the house, Father, else she'll come back. Feet first.” He nodded, for he knew very well the hauntings that waited a house whose dead left face-first. They would have no rest, and there was trouble enough in this house without the specter of a baby, broken by violence. Enough had been broken already.

Mother Plomgren held her daughter close. “You will mend, my plum. I will see to it that you have happiness again.”

And so Mr. Plomgren and a tailor from the Opera carried the coffin, lighter than dust, white as milk, lifted on their shoulders into the brilliant blue of the day. They walked slowly past the castle, across Holy Spirit Isle, over the bridge and past the Opera to Jakob's Church, where they laid her in the ground. The air was rank with the vapors of the rotting, and the men held small sprays of juniper to their noses as the priest said the burial prayers. That was two years ago. Now there was a future to consider.

 

ON THE SECOND FLOOR
of the Opera atelier, Anna Maria sat at a dressing table with a small mirror, took a round etui from her pocket, extracted the reddened cotton wad, spit on it, and blotted her lips. She practiced several faces in the glass until she saw a gentleman standing in the doorway behind her, holding a midnight blue box, intent on her reflection. She studied Lars for a moment in the mirror. Well-formed body, handsome face. His hair was worn in the newest style, his clothing was elegant and well made: blue wool coat and trousers, cream-colored stockings whole and without a tear, and a fine fur hat under his arm. She rose slowly from her chair and turned. “May I offer you some assistance?” she said, tilting her head with a smile.