Annika Thor - A Faraway Island

“Oh, yes there are.”

That’s when Stephie notices that Nellie is answering her in Swedish, although Stephie has been speaking German.

“Why are you speaking Swedish with me?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because we speak German, that’s our language.”

“It sounds so stupid,” Nellie says. “If anybody else hears.”

“So do you think you’re Swedish now, or something?”

Nellie doesn’t say anything, just takes a wrapped present out of her pocket and rattles it near her ear.

“Mamma and Papa would be upset if they heard you,” Stephie tells her. “Very upset and angry.”

Nellie thrusts the present back in her pocket. She sticks out her bottom lip and doesn’t say another word the rest of the way to the house.

Auntie Alma has set the table and prepared raspberry juice, saffron buns, and ginger cookies. She asks to see their report cards and praises them for having worked so hard.

“Before you know it you’ll both be best in your class,” she tells them. “As soon as you’ve really mastered Swedish.”

“I think we’ll get our next report cards in American English,” Stephie tells her. “If our English is good enough by then.”

Auntie Alma’s forehead creases. “Oh, my dear,” she tells Stephie, “I don’t think you ought to count on being able to travel to America this spring.”

“But,” Stephie begins, “Father wrote…”

Elsa and John are tired of sitting still. They leave the table and start chasing each other around the kitchen, shouting loudly. Nellie slides off her chair, too, catching John in her arms. She tickles him and he laughs so hard he’s near tears.

“I don’t doubt that your father is doing his very best,” Auntie Alma continues. “But travel is not easy when there’s a war on.”

What is Auntie Alma trying to tell her? Will they be staying on the island all the way to the end of the war? How long is that going to be?

“But America…,” Stephie begins. “ America ’s not involved in the war.”

Auntie Alma is busy with the children and has stopped listening.

“Don’t forget you’ve got your good clothes on,” she scolds them. “We’re going to have our pictures taken today, you know.”

That, too. Stephie had nearly forgotten.

“Do we have to get new pictures?” Stephie asks. “Can’t we send the ones you took last summer, Auntie Alma?”

“No, Nellie’s told me your mamma asked for more recent pictures. And since you’re dressed up today, it’s the perfect opportunity.”

Auntie Alma takes their picture on the steps in front of the house. First Stephie and Nellie alone, then all four children.

“Now you take one with me in it, too,” Auntie Alma tells Stephie.

“I don’t know how.”

“It’s easy,” Auntie Alma replies. “I’ll set the focus and distance, and all you have to do is click the shutter.”

Auntie Alma shows Stephie where to stand and which button to press. She goes over to the steps, holding John in her arms. The little girls stand one on either side of her. Stephie holds the camera as steady as she can. There’s a little metallic click when she presses the shutter release.

“I’ll leave the film in Göteborg to be developed,” Auntie Alma says. “Sigurd can pick it up after Christmas.”

Nellie looks disappointed. “I thought it would be my Christmas present to Mamma,” she whines.

“No, dummy,” Stephie says to her. “Not even a regular letter would get to Vienna before Christmas if you mailed it now.”

Nellie sticks her tongue out at her sister. “Know-it-all,” she says.

Stephie helps Auntie Alma clean up in the kitchen, hoping the whole time that Auntie Alma will invite her to join them on their outing to Göteborg. But Auntie Alma just chatters on, and Stephie can’t get herself to ask if she may come along.

Nellie walks Stephie to the gate when it’s time for her to go.

“Stephie?” she begins.

“What?”

“I’d like to buy Sonja a Christmas present, since she gave me one.”

“Do,” Stephie replies. “Buy her something in Göteborg.”

Nellie shakes her head. “Auntie Alma promised me enough money to buy the frame for Mamma and something for you. There won’t be enough for Sonja, too. Do you have any money?”

Stephie has the coin the sailor tossed her that day so long ago, and another Uncle Evert gave her. But she doesn’t want to give all her money to Nellie to spend on a present for Sonja, who she thinks is a pesky little girl.

“I need the money I have for my own Christmas shopping,” she says.

“What should I do, then?”

Stephie shrugs. “How should I know? Ask Auntie Alma for more money.”

“I can’t do that.”

“So don’t buy anything for Sonja.”

“But Sonja’s my best friend. She’s the nicest girl in my class. And I’m sure she got me a really special present.”

“Give her something of yours,” Stephie suggests. “One of the things you brought from home.”

“Like what?”

Stephie answers without thinking. The words just pop out: “Your coral necklace.”

Nellie blanches. “Oh, I could never give that away. It’s Mamma’s.”

“No, she gave it to you.”

“Do you really think I should?” Nellie’s voice trembles slightly. “Give it away?”

“Yes,” Stephie tells her. “Unless you’ve got something else.”

Nellie shakes her head.

“Do whatever you think best,” Stephie concludes. “Goodbye.”

After walking a short distance, she turns around. Nellie’s still at the gate. She looks so little. Stephie wants to go back and tell her she didn’t mean it about the necklace. But somehow she just keeps walking.

Nellie would never really do it, she thinks. Never.

The week before Christmas, Aunt Märta and Stephie clean the house from top to bottom. They hang handwoven Christmas motifs on the kitchen walls and put an embroidered tablecloth with elves and evergreen boughs on the table in the front room. Aunt Märta bakes bread and prepares a ham.

When it’s time to marinate the herring, Aunt Märta discovers she’s out of vinegar.

“You can go to the shop for me,” she tells Stephie. “Don’t dawdle, I need it right away.”

Stephie leaves, a big canvas bag over her arm, a shopping list and Aunt Märta’s coin purse in the right-hand pocket of her coat. She has her own money, her two coins, in the left-hand pocket. She plans on buying her Christmas presents for Nellie and Uncle Evert.

She’s giving Aunt Märta a pot holder she crocheted in sewing class. It’s a little uneven and has some holes, but after Stephie had undone and redone her work three times, the crafts teacher said it would have to do.

Every time anyone opens or closes the shop door a little bell rings. The shopkeeper is behind the counter, measuring coffee into brown paper bags. The shelves behind him are full of cans, bottles, and boxes. On the floor there’s a wooden barrel of herring, along with huge sacks of flour, sugar, and coffee beans. On the counter stand tempting glass jars full of soft and hard candy.

Stephie’s the only customer.

“Good day,” she greets the shopkeeper politely. He nods curtly and goes on weighing the bags of coffee.

Stephie waits. The shopkeeper pays her no attention until he has filled and closed all the bags in front of him.

“All right. What do you need?”

Stephie pulls out her shopping list and begins to read: “A bottle of vinegar, a pound of coffee, two pounds of oat…”

The shopkeeper takes a bottle of vinegar down from the shelf behind him and sets it on the counter. Next to it he places one of the bags of coffee.