A Faraway Island (7 page)

Uncle
Evert stays home for two days. When he leaves again Stephie goes along to the harbor to wave goodbye. The fishing boat has a crew of six. The youngest member, Per-Erik, isn’t much older than Stephie, and when the two are introduced, Per-Erik shyly looks away. Auntie Alma’s husband, Sigurd, is also a member of the crew.

Uncle Evert has told Stephie that the boat is named the
Diana
. Stephie likes that name, but all it says on the bow of the boat is
GG
143, to show that it is vessel 143 of the Göteborg fishing fleet.

After Uncle Evert leaves, things return to normal. Stephie has breakfast with Aunt Märta every morning, after which she puts things away and washes the dishes. Then she spends the rest of the day with Nellie, until it’s time to go home for dinner. After dinner she washes the dishes again,
and helps Aunt Märta with other chores. In the evenings she either sits in her room or in the window nook writing letters or entries in her diary.

Inside the back cover of her diary she makes a short line for every day she’s been on the island. There are 182 days in six months. Every evening she counts the lines.
Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six …

In her letters to her parents, she tells them everything is fine. She does the same when she writes to Evi, except that she conjures a particularly lovely picture of life on the island. She hopes that if she makes Sweden sound tempting enough, Evi will want to come, too. But she knows that since Evi’s mother is Catholic, Evi may not have to leave Austria at all.

When Stephie isn’t writing, she’s reading. Soon she’s read every single book she brought from home. The only book in Aunt Märta’s white frame house is the Bible on the table in the front room.

“When are we going home, Stephie?” Nellie asks. “Can we leave soon?”

“We’re not going home,” Stephie explains patiently, “and you know it. We’re going to America. As soon as Mamma and Papa get their entry visas, we’ll meet them in Amsterdam.”

“When will that be?” Nellie asks for the hundredth time.

“I don’t know. Soon.”

They’re huddled close together on a big rock at the beach. The water glistens a beautiful shade of blue in the sun, but the wind is chilly and no one swims anymore. It’s September and all the other children have started school.
Stephie and Nellie have the beach to themselves now; it’s the place where they can be alone with their homesickness.

“Tell me about America,” Nellie begs.

“In America,” Stephie tells her, “things aren’t at all like here. They have big cities with tall buildings and streets full of cars.”

“Like in Vienna?”

“The buildings are much taller. Everything in America is huge. We’ll live in a house with lots and lots of rooms and a big garden. A real garden with tall trees, lindens and chestnuts. Almost a park. Not at all like here.”

“Will we have a dog there?” Nellie asks.

Stephie remembers Mimi, the china dog wrapped in a handkerchief in the bottom of her dresser drawer. Auntie Alma must have noticed the dog is missing. With every passing day it becomes increasingly difficult to put Mimi back.

“Yes, of course we will,” Stephie answers simply.

“And a piano,” Nellie adds. “We
will
have a piano in America, won’t we?”

When they have had enough of sitting and talking they wander the narrow streets of the village. Not that there’s much to see. Houses and yards, mounds of rock. The post office, the shop, the schoolhouse. A little chapel on a rise hovers above the other buildings. At the edge of the village, not far from Auntie Alma’s, is a big red building people call the Pentecostal Church, though it doesn’t look much like a church at all. And near the harbor there’s another, the Mission Covenant Church.

Down at the harbor there’s always something happening.
Boats coming and going. Fishermen cleaning out their nets and repairing their boats. Above each boathouse is a name. Stephie reads them:
JUNO, INEZ, SWEDEN, MATILDA, NORTH SEA
… Now she knows that the hanging triangular shapes she once thought were bats are splayed fish drying on long wooden racks.

There are always some older men on the benches of the boathouses, talking and smoking their pipes. One of them offers the girls a piece of candy from his bag whenever they pass by. These are hard candies, dark red, sweet and pungent.

One day a freighter has pulled in. Two of the crew members are working on deck.

“I’ll bet they’re headed for Hamburg,” Stephie says. “Or Amsterdam.”

“Amsterdam!” Nellie exclaims. “Isn’t that where we’ll be going, too?”

“Right.”

Nellie walks over to the edge of the dock. “Can we come along?” she asks one of the sailors. “We want to get to Amsterdam.”

The man responds in Swedish, then goes back to what he was doing.

“I don’t think he understood what I meant,” Nellie says to Stephie. “Why don’t you try?”

Stephie knows their parents are still in Vienna. They can’t leave until they have their entry visas for America. Still, she, too, feels they’d be closer to each other if she and Nellie were in Amsterdam.

“Oh, please,” Stephie appeals to the sailor. “Won’t you take us along? We’re going to Amsterdam.”

The sailor looks down at her, shaking his head with a smile.

Boat tickets cost money. That must be why he won’t take the girls.

Stephie turns her dress pockets inside out to show they don’t have any money.

“Gypsy kids,” one man says to the other. “How do you think they ended up here?”

He forages in his own pocket, then throws something to Stephie. She catches it in her hand: it’s a small, shiny coin.

The crew members are done with their work. One of them starts untying the mooring ropes.

“Please!” Stephie shouts. “Please don’t leave without us!”

The boat pulls away from the dock. Slowly it glides out toward the harbor entrance. Stephie begins to run along the dock and out onto the breakwater. Nellie is close on her heels.

“Take us with you! Take us with you!” the two of them cry.

The freighter rounds the breakwater and is on the open sea. The men wave to the girls.

“We’re shipwrecked,” says Stephie. “Alone on a desert island. A ship passed, but it didn’t see our smoke signals. We’ll have to wait for the next one.”

“Will anybody save us?” Nellie asks.

“Oh, yes,” says Stephie. “We’ll be rescued next time around.”

They stand, watching from the breakwater, until the freighter disappears against the horizon. Then, slowly, they make their way toward the village.

On the dock is a big, awkward-looking boy in clothes that are too small for him. Stephie recognizes him. He spends almost every afternoon down at the harbor, helping clean the nets and bail out the dinghies. When the steam-boat from town comes in, he brings deliveries ashore for the shopkeeper.

“Want a boat ride?” he asks them. “I’ve got a boat, too, you know.”

He looks at Stephie expectantly. His mouth gapes, his face is pimply.

“No,” Stephie says, pulling Nellie along. She picks up speed to pass him by.

“Are you sad, Stephie?” Nellie asks her. “Because the sailors wouldn’t take us?”

Stephie doesn’t answer.

“I’m not upset,” Nellie tells her. “I’d rather go home.”

“We’re not ever going to be able to go home,” Stephie sputters. “Don’t you see?”

“You’re mean to me,” Nellie cries. “I’m going to tell Mamma how mean you’re being.”

She starts to run up the street. Stephie runs after her, grabbing her by one braid.

“Ow,” Nellie whines, aiming a kick at Stephie’s leg.

Stephie holds on to Nellie tightly, looking her straight in the eye.

“You’re not going to write a single word about this to Mamma, do you hear? Especially not about wanting to go
home. You mustn’t write anything that will make her unhappy. Understand?”

Nellie stares angrily down at her feet and nods.

“Promise?”

Nellie nods again. Stephie lets her go, and Nellie takes a few steps back to get beyond her sister’s reach.

“But I’m going to tell Auntie Alma,” she shouts over her shoulder as she turns and runs down the street.

There’s
a war on in Europe now. Papa has written and described what happened: Germany invaded Poland, then England and France declared war on Germany. Because Austria is part of the German empire, this means that Stephie’s country is also at war.

We don’t really know what this will mean for us yet
, her father wrote.
It may be more difficult to get out of the country, or just the opposite: perhaps America and other nations that are not involved in the war will now be more willing to take in refugees. Time will tell
.

During her rambles around the island, Stephie spends a lot of time thinking about all the things her father’s letter didn’t say. Will Papa have to join the army? Or be sent back to the labor camp? Will passenger boats be crossing the
Atlantic during the war? Might the war spread all the way to Sweden?

One day Stephie invents a new game.

“Now we’re in Vienna,” she tells Nellie.

Nellie looks around, bewildered. “We are?”

“Don’t you see?” Stephie insists. “We’re walking down Kärntnerstrasse; we’re on the wide sidewalk there. The street is lined with fancy shops on both sides.” She points to the bedrock rising on either side of the path.

“The shop windows are bright,” she continues, “and full of beautiful things. Clothes, shoes, fur coats, perfume. Do you see?”

Nellie nods eagerly.

“Close your eyes,” Stephie tells her. “Listen carefully. Can you hear the clattering of the tramway, and the passing cars?”

She shuts her own eyes, too, listening. When you aren’t looking you can easily imagine that the breaking waves sound like traffic noises.

“Here comes a tram,” Nellie shouts. “And another.”

“Right,” Stephie agrees. “Now we’re passing the opera house. Remember when we got to go see
The Magic Flute
? You were so little you fell asleep in the middle of the second act. Now we’re turning the corner up toward Heldenplatz. Look, there’s the statue of the horseman. And an old lady feeding the pigeons.”

“I’d rather go to the park,” Nellie interrupts her. “To the playground. It’s a lot more fun there.”

“But we’re going in the other direction today,” Stephie
insists. “Tomorrow you get to decide. Come on, let’s cut across Heldenplatz.”

“Where are we headed?” Nellie asks.

“To the Freyung to see what’s for sale at the market.”

“That’s a long way,” Nellie protests. “I want to go home now.”

“No, it’s not so far. Close your eyes and hold my hand. We’ll be there soon.”

Stephie shuts her eyes again, almost feeling as if she really were on the narrow streets of the old town. She has to think about every step so as not to stumble on the rough path. Pretending the bumps are cobblestones rather than rocks and roots, she goes on.

The sound of footsteps disturbs their fantasy game. Stephie’s eyes snap open.

On the path in front of them is the girl with the red hair. She smiles and tosses her hair; it blows in the wind.

“Hello!” she says. “My name’s Vera. What are yours?”

“Stephie.”

Nellie stands silently, eyes lowered. Stephie gives her a nudge.

“Nellie,” she says softly, not looking at Vera.

“Come on,” says Vera, motioning for them to follow her. They scale a low stone wall and cross a slope with dry grass and heather before arriving at a crevice in the bedrock. There’s a tangle of thorny bushes there. Big, black berries shine out among the leaves. Vera picks a few and extends them in the palm of her hand. Stephie hesitates. Is this a nasty joke? Will the berries be bitter, so they’ll have to spit them out? Will Vera laugh at them?

“Stephie, are they poison?” Nellie whispers from behind her.

Stephie takes a berry and puts it in her mouth. It’s sweet and tasty. She takes another.

“So they’re not poison?” Nellie asks, reaching out. Vera gives her a few berries. Nellie puts them all in her mouth at once. “Yum,” she declares. There’s deep purple juice on her lips.

“Blackberries,” Vera explains. “Haven’t you ever tasted them before? Black berries, not black bears!”

She begins imitating a bear: crawling on all fours and growling loudly. When Vera rears up on her back legs, Nellie is doubled over with laughter. But suddenly Nellie becomes serious.

“Stephie, are there any bears here? For real?”

“No,” Stephie reassures her. “Bears live in big forests. There are hardly even any trees on this island.”

Nellie peeks suspiciously into the deep crevice in the bedrock. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Stephie replies. “I promise.”

But as her eyes follow Nellie’s into the rock crevice, she, too, begins to wonder what other wild, dangerous animals could be hiding in there.

They all pick berries, eating them right off the bushes, and soon their fingers are all purple. Vera laughs and prattles. Stephie answers, using the few words of Swedish she knows.

Stephie’s skirt gets caught on a thorny branch. She tries to disentangle it, but the thorns grip like claws and refuse to let go. Stephie pulls harder. The cloth rips with a loud sound.