The Number 7 Page 17

  “I’m a turtle. Quiet. Steady. Unimposing.”

  I smiled and a clap of thunder boomed above us; lightning illuminated the sky. How did the storm come upon us so quickly? I started to get up, prepared to race back before the storm worsened, but Chris pulled me back onto the bridge. Here, we were covered from the rain. We could sit, listen to the light symphony playing on the roof above us, and wait out the worst of it.

  “You’re a turtle,” I smiled again, my heart skipping a beat as the rain began to fall in buckets: like God had opened the sky and turned on the faucet right above us.

  Chris leaned in and kissed me. My stomach slowly untangled itself inside my body, and I silently wondered if my pot of mums would survive the storm.

  XXIII.

  After the Vasaloppet, the wind in Trelleborg shifted. It took Gerhard by surprise. He’d begun noticing the small changes—tiny nuances of which most people seemed unaware—but it was only after the family returned from the race that he allowed himself to believe his observations were substantive. People lagged behind the hours of the day, and time began to feel expendable and meaningless. He watched as men walked the streets unshaven and saw how women shuffled slowly, their hosiery rolling down at the knees. The heavy, muslin panels in every window made houses feel like prisons. And in the mornings, people came out gasping for air as if on the brink of asphyxiation.

  Gerhard watched his mother labor tirelessly. She still had her sharp tongue and was as obstinate with Pontus as ever, but her movements were more purposeful, as if she had to decide which of her actions were absolutely necessary.

  Though they didn’t discuss the war—Leif continued to forbid anyone mentioning Der Führer in his house—Gerhard kept up with the news at the station. The Third Reich was now an inkblot, seamlessly seeping over and under country borders. Still, Gerhard and Lasse discussed the war in hushed whispers late at night.

  “Did you read the headline today?” Lasse whispered to the dark ceiling.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve denied England and France access to Finland.”

  “I said I read it, didn’t I?” Gerhard turned on his side to face the wall. He didn’t really want to talk.

  “Well?” Lasse was persistent.

  “Well, what?” Gerhard was tired and confused. He didn’t know what to think or what to believe.

  “They want to help, so what are we doing refusing them? Pontus says we’ll remain neutral. He says we haven’t been in a war since 1814 and we’re not going to enter one now. What do you think, Gerhard?”

  “I think you shouldn’t let Father hear you talking politics with Pontus.”

  On April 9, 1940, Germany invaded Norway and Denmark simultaneously. In one fell swoop, the Nazis enclosed Sweden to the north, west, and south. Swedish trade with the Western world instantly halted and rationing began. First meat, then eggs, and when coffee became unavailable, people became despondent.

  Åsa kept her ration tickets in a locked drawer in the kitchen. Wartime brought out the worst of suspicions, and Åsa didn’t need another excuse to be wary of Pontus. She watched how he stared longingly when she’d thumb through her snus supply. Wisely, she kept the small tobacco tin in her skirt, the safest place she knew.

  “Svinet luktar illa. The pig smells bad,” she’d hiss to her husband each night. “Can’t you tell him to bathe?”

  “I’m not my brother’s keeper,” Leif would answer stoically.

  “Oh, but Leif, aren’t we?”

  When Anna came home one evening with news that her school was starting a collection of relief supplies to send to Norwegian and Danish households, their mother felt compelled to help. Åsa got that familiar, spirited look in her eye that made the family question what she had up her sleeve.

  “I know just who to ask for help,” Åsa chuckled, smugly enjoying a private joke with herself. Her smile concealed a secret plan, and no one dared to ask her to reveal it.

  Åsa commissioned the help of the neighbor’s girl, a cunning five-year-old with blond braids. She had an impish face, a devilish grin, and she never said a word to anyone. The townspeople called her “Nilsa” after the naughty little boy in Selma Lagerlöf’s famous tale, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. She was Åsa’s perfect accomplice.

  “Nilsa, I have something for you,” Åsa informed the little girl the next day when she’d come to play tricks on Åsa’s hens.

  The small girl stepped warily into Åsa’s kitchen and, sensing a trap, cautiously inspected her surroundings. From wax paper, Åsa slowly unwrapped a large loaf of freshly baked cardamom bread for the little girl to see.

  “Smell it!” Åsa encouraged.

  The girl leaned in and hungrily inhaled. In a blink of an eye, the little girl reached out to snatch the bread away, but Åsa was too quick. She wrapped it up before the girl could protest.

  “You may have it, but you must do something for me.”

  Nilsa nodded, licking her lips and keeping her eyes on the waxy parcel.

  “Do you see those boots on the table?”

  Nilsa turned and spied a brand new pair of leather boots in her size sitting on the kitchen table. Åsa had recently purchased them with coffee money she wasn’t spending.

  “Take those boots and wear them all day. Run through town. Bring them back tonight and I will give you this bread.”

  Trying to find the trick, the little girl cast a doubtful glance at Åsa.

  “No tricks today, Nilsa. Wear those boots and you will get the bread. Will you help or won’t you?”

  At six o’clock there was a small knock at the door. Åsa opened it to see little Nilsa holding up the new pair of boots that now looked worn, scratched, and soaked in melted snow.

  “Very good, Nilsa.”

  The two exchanged payment and off the little girl ran, her sum under her arm, to see what other tomfoolery she could accomplish before bedtime.

  Åsa joined Anna in the living room as Leif and Lasse walked in the door. Back from another tiring day on the water. They retreated to their bedrooms to change clothes.

  “Did you get them?” Anna asked, looking up hopefully from her stitching. Åsa held up the dirty boots.

  “Wonderful!”

  “Are you sure it will be all right?” Åsa asked as she plugged her upper lip with snus.

  “Just fine. The school specifically said no new articles. The Nazi soldiers won’t allow anything new over the border. Once I’m done patching this blanket, the package will be ready.” Anna sat threading her needle, her eyes wide with hope.

  “How do we know it won’t be intercepted?”

  “We don’t.”

  “How do you know what they need?”

  “I told you. Nothing new. No money. They sent the school a list of addresses and requests. Boots. Dresses. Pants. All loppis, all secondhand. Momma, I swear, the world is coming down to lists. I see them every day. Lists of displaced children, lists of supplies, lists of rules, addresses, names, cities. They scare me.”

  Åsa looked over the care package Anna had put together. An empty journal. A jar of salt. Three used candles. Muddy boots. A patched blanket. All bound for Norway.

  How soon before they’d begin receiving packages themselves?

  “I received a letter from Kristina in Narvik,” Anna’s voice trembled as she recalled her best friend from childhood. They’d been separated when Kristina’s family moved to Norway, but their friendship survived in letters filled with happy memories and promises of future meetings. “She heard the Nazis were coming, so she buried her family’s silver in the backyard. The ground was so frozen she twisted her ankle trying to shovel a hole deep enough. When they arrived in the middle of the night, the Nazis ordered her family to abandon their home.”

  Lasse joined the women and watched as their hands moved meticulously, bundling the gifts in brown paper and twine. He sat quietly, eagerly listening to Anna’s tale. He, too, knew Kristina. At eight, he’d fallen in love with her, but by ten, she’d moved away.r />
  “They only had time to collect their coats,” Anna continued. “Kristina took her father’s Norwegian flag from his bureau and unfolded the red-and-blue cloth, laying it out on her bedroom floor as the Germans waited downstairs with their guns. Her family ran from the house, Kristina and her mother on horseback and her father on foot. They’re hiding with relatives now. She couldn’t even tell me where she was. There was no return address.

  “Momma, I’m hearing stories like this at school, too. The children come to me with horrifying accounts of what they’re hearing at home. I see the fear in their faces. I don’t know what to do; I don’t know what to tell them.”

  “You tell your students . . .” Åsa began, placing the last gift, the grimy shoes, in a wooden box with the other wrapped provisions. “You tell them to send boots.”

  XXIV.

  “I’ve been asked to submit a paper on Poe’s ‘The Bells’ to The American Poetry Journal,” Dad announced proudly the following afternoon to Greta, Rosemary, and me. He’d been published before, more times than was standard for community college professors, but I knew Dad’s intellect begot boredom if he didn’t keep busy.

  I usually knew when Dad was working on a scholarly submission. He’d go days without shaving and disappear into his study for hours. In North Carolina, I’d take him trays of coffee and cookies to which he’d say “thanks” with a heavy sigh, signaling me to leave. But I knew he was grateful for my encouragement of caffeine and sugar, even if he never said so.

  I was saddened that I hadn’t noticed the usual symptoms of a forthcoming submission. Was I so wrapped up in my new life that I was blind to the goings-on in my own house? Was Greta right? Were we all invisible to each other?

  And then I saw it. Yes, that familiar five o’clock shadow that accompanied Dad’s sleepless nights of writing at the computer. There, too, was the silent sparkle of excitement behind his eyes when he was close to finishing. How long had Dad been this way? How long had I been too distracted to notice?

  “I didn’t know you were working on a submission, Dad.” I could hear the hurt in my voice.

  “Oh, right. Sorry, kiddo,” he scratched the back of his head. “I figured you didn’t know when I had to make my own coffee.” He chuckled.

  “Oh, oh, oh! Do your thing, Christian!” Rosemary suddenly became animated. She shifted her weight on the couch, pulling her legs under her and pointing excitedly at my dad, sitting in his armchair.

  Greta perked up her ears. Dad rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  “What thing?” Greta asked trying to understand.

  “It’s nothing,” Dad propped his elbows up and folded his hands under his chin. He looked slightly embarrassed.

  “Please? You’re so good,” Rosemary implored.

  I wondered if she knew, as both Greta and I knew, Dad could always be won over with flattery.

  “Okay, just once.” He paused. “Consider this my curtain call,” Dad sighed as he pulled himself from his armchair dramatically. He cleared his throat, furrowed his brow, and stroked his thumb and forefinger mischievously over an invisible mustache. He arched his left eyebrow and stared at us intently, one eye twice the size of the other. He was channeling Poe.

  I glanced at Rosemary, beaming toward my father. Her eyes shone with adoration. And then Dad introduced the poem, his voice an octave deeper than normal. He spoke low and slow like a bass drum. The attention of the living room was his.

  “I now recite for you three ladies ‘The Bells,’ composed by the misunderstood genius, the madman, the grotesquely Gothic Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.”

  As Dad began, his voice was high and light.

  Hear the sledges with the bells—

  Silver bells!

  What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

  He started happy and cool, but as he recited, his tone became more menacing. His tempo slowed and hastened, erratically, hauntingly. He alternated his rhythm and speech, keeping all of us entranced with the words.

  On the human heart a stone—

  They are neither man nor woman—

  They are neither brute nor human—

  They are Ghouls:

  And their king it is who tolls;

  The sky outside the window was black. Thin slivers of frozen rain beat against the window glass. Dad’s charade was eerie as the fire sent shadows like pitchforks on the walls. As he got deeper in the poem, as it grew darker and more sinister, as Rosemary and Greta laughed, delighted with fright, my mind traveled to that heavy block of black metal sitting in the attic. I visualized the phone’s smooth base, its shiny gold cradle, and, under Dad’s booming recitation, I heard its shrilling. And in it, I heard the ill-boding, bewitched hopelessness of its screaming bell. As Dad neared the end of the poem, I felt the sorrow—and the telephone’s weight—in my chest.

  My mind went to Lasse. He seemed tortured. It was obvious he felt inferior to Gerhard; at least the way Grandma told it. Lasse was the boy who couldn’t be tamed, whereas Gerhard was the son who did everything right. Lasse thought with his heart; Gerhard with his head. I wanted to champion for Lasse. Whatever his endeavor, I wanted him to succeed.

  Dad’s performance lingered with me for days after the last lines were spoken. The show elicited a slow panic within me. No one else seemed to be affected in the same way, and no one seemed to notice my distress.

  I was becoming more and more troubled by Grandma’s recent calls. She was building to something; I could hear it in her voice. She sounded reluctant to end her chapters, like she was clinging to the last line, like she was anticipating that I’d visualize the end before she got there. And the connection didn’t go dead immediately anymore. It used to be like Grandma was cut off—barely able to speak the finishing sentences. Now, Grandma held on at the other end of the line, waiting for something. I could hear her breathing, hear dread in her silence. And then she’d be gone.

  Two days later, walking down October Hill Road, the pathway wet from constant rainfall, my head ached from thinking about my other newfound dilemma: Gabriel Weaver and Christopher Harris. In North Carolina, I was a girl devoid of boyfriends. Greta had more than her fair share of male suitors. I was always fine with my one or two girlfriends. And, truthfully, I was always fine on my own, too.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want a boyfriend or that I wasn’t interested in boys. There were plenty of boys at my old school for whom I carried secret crushes, but they never seemed to notice or care about my existence. Now, I was suddenly thrown into a love triangle for which I wasn’t fully prepared. I withheld asking fate why it couldn’t have sent me one of these boys, why it had sent me both at the same time. Instead, I asked Rosemary.

  “Hi, Louisa. Thank you so much for coming to help me. I’ve got all the decorations put away but the ones on the Christmas tree.” She ushered me inside. “Can I get you anything? Hot chocolate? Tea?”

  I hung my jacket on her little rustic three-armed coat rack and looked around the room. She was right—the cottage was practically void of all holiday decorations. Rosemary was much more organized than I’d ever realized. I figured most single women in their early forties had a routine, had boxes of their stuff with their labels, and a way of life they didn’t have to share with anyone. Of course Rosemary was organized. There was no one else in her life to muddle things up.

  “Oh, but you’re a coffee drinker, I remember. Let’s get the tree taken care of, and then we can share a pot of dark roast,” Rosemary winked.

  She remembered I liked coffee. Were we really that close? Were we becoming . . . friends? I smiled in agreement, rolling up the sleeves of my sweater. Sizing the stout tree up and down, I figured it would take us twenty, thirty minutes maximum, to get all the ornaments boxed properly.

  We worked silently for the first five minutes, carefully wrapping each ornament in crepe paper and piling them gently in a plastic bin labeled “Christmas.”

  “So, Rosemary . . . ” I timidly began. “What’s the real reason
you wanted me to come over here?”

  She peeked out from behind the other side of the tree, looking confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I thought you needed to talk to me about something. That’s why you asked me to come over,” I tried to read her puzzlement. Was it a ruse?

  “Oh, honestly, Louisa, I just needed your help,” she shrugged, smiling. We continued wrapping quietly. It was warm in her living room and I felt a little sleepy.

  “I’m going to go put that pot of coffee on,” Rosemary winked as I let out a loud yawn.

  I took a seat on her couch and propped my feet on her coffee table, leaning back. It was nice to feel familiar here. I could vividly remember our first get-together, a pork chop dinner, just two months ago.

  Rosemary joined me on the couch with a pot of coffee in one hand and two speckled ceramic mugs in the other.

  I sighed, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “What do you mean?” Rosemary took a sip, innocently arching one eyebrow with interest.

  “Chris and Gabe. Gabe and Chris,” I motioned with my hands. Chris in my right, Gabe in my left.

  “Hmm, I see,” Rosemary smiled to herself. She was so beautiful with her reddish locks hanging loosely around her face. Her heavy bangs swooped to the left, though they kept falling in her eyes and she kept pulling them back. A constant battle with which I could sympathize.

  “Well,” she opened her eyes widely, staring into her coffee. “What do you like about each one?”

  It was a question I’d asked myself a hundred times. And yet, my answer changed each time I thought about it.

  “Chris and I have a lot in common,” I began. “You know, his mom is out of the picture, too. He’s really a very sensitive person despite the hard exterior. And he loves history. He loves it in a way that he makes me love it, too. And he’s great with taking adventures. And, God, I love his skin. Tan skin in December. He told me he’s part Cherokee and blessed with a darker complexion. Lucky, huh?”