She had come to the house to help Agnes with the preparations for dinner. It was obviously at Bertram’s initiative, because when she showed up Agnes acted completely uncomprehending and unusually brusque, refusing all assistance in the kitchen.
Agnes’s reaction was perhaps understandable but nonetheless Birgitta became lost in a gloomy state that corresponded well with the weather. The usually pleasant feeling of being indoors and able to observe the storm from a warm, sheltered position would not appear. On the contrary, she had an impulse to leave the house, expose herself to the foul weather, and let the rain and wind take hold of her.
Her father was in his study; according to Agnes he was spending several hours there every day, and did not want to be disturbed. God knows what he was occupied with. She had asked but didn’t get an actual answer, other than that he was tidying up old papers and notes.
At times she feared that he would not manage the onslaught of callers and journalists and then the ceremony itself in Stockholm on the tenth of December. She could see him wobbling up to receive the prize from the hands of the king, but stumble and fall headlong. Or, in the usual conversation on TV with the other prize winners, lose the thread and start rambling on about inconsequential things, something he was doing more and more often.
Birgitta had carefully hinted something about her apprehensions to Agnes, but she seemed completely oblivious, or perhaps she was pretending not to understand. She had just looked disinclined, with her slightly protruding eyes surrounded by a blackness that suggested a poor night’s sleep.
The fatigue that afflicted Bertram von Ohler seemed increasingly to spill over onto the housekeeper. But she’s no longer a youth, thought Birgitta. Last Christmas, when the whole family had gathered for once, she had discussed the issue with her brothers. Perhaps she should see about hiring a younger person? Agnes could obviously continue living there. Throwing her out after half a century would be heartless, on that they all agreed.
No decision was made, perhaps partly because it felt unreasonable to hire someone outside the circle of Anderssons from Gräsö, who had served the family for almost seventy years. But there were no more sisters and no younger generation.
She decided to bring up the question again, now when Abraham and Carl would be coming to Uppsala. Agnes would surely protest indignantly but perhaps think it would be nice anyway to only work a couple of hours a day and let someone take over the main responsibilities. She had recently expressed a kind of cynical indifference about the condition of things, an attitude that would have been unthinkable before. Birgitta had looked for signs of whether this new attitude had left its marks in the house, but could not discover any. Everything was sparkling clean as before, the food preparation seemed to work irreproachably, and her father had not expressed even a word of dissatisfaction.
If Agnes had changed, then this also applied to her father to a large degree. The initial euphoria, the almost boyish delight about the prize, had been replaced by irritability. He was holding something inside, she was convinced of that, something that worried him. She had tried in vain to narrow down what it might be but had also been rejected by him, grumpily to start with but later, when she brought up the issue again, angrily and with an emphasis that made her mute with astonishment.
Her father was not in the habit of raising his voice, even if he sometimes sputtered a little. Often he was content to evade her questions. Then when he unexpectedly used that old harsh voice she relived for a moment her childhood and youth and remembered the occasions when her parents clashed.
Afterward he had seemed regretful, said something to the effect that he was stressed, but nothing else, no hint about what worried him. She knew him well and realized that he was withholding something.
Now he was rooting through his old papers, whatever use that could be, and barely answered when spoken to. He had even canceled playing bridge, an almost inconceivable measure. But he could not avoid dinner. In a weak moment, he had told Agnes that he regretted it immediately, he had invited Professor Ahl and a few other colleagues for a “simple meal.”
Perhaps it was simply the excitement and a general worry about standing in the limelight that created this irritation and desire for isolation? She wanted to believe that, but the nagging sensation that there was something else refused to go away.
She had forgotten to ask if Gregor was invited. He had seemed strange when they met on the street. The associate professor was perhaps not a cheerful fellow, but she had always gotten along well with him. Now he had stared at her as if she were a ghost, and then rushed off like a frightened animal.
She breathed on the window and in the mist that was formed she wrote her name. A scraping sound from the top floor brought her back to reality and she decided to call home and say that she would be staying a few more hours. Regardless of what Agnes maintained, two persons surely would be needed to wait on a number of professors.
Liisa would not be happy, she had always had difficulties with Bertram and between them there was a kind of childish competition for Birgitta’s favor. It could take on quite silly expressions, primarily from her father’s side.
“I meant to ask you, is Gregor, Associate Professor Johansson, invited to the dinner?”
“No,” Agnes answered, standing by the kitchen door. In one hand she had a basket and in the other an umbrella.
“I see you’ve made coffee. I’ll have a cup.”
Agnes nodded toward the coffeemaker and opened the door. A gust of rain-soaked autumn wind came into the kitchen. Agnes opened the umbrella and went out into the garden. A stab of melancholy and fear made Birgitta immediately rush over to the window.
It’s like forty years ago, it struck Birgitta, I’m a child who is standing in the kitchen and sees Agnes go out to pick fruit or berries in the garden. I have become a middle-aged women while she is unchanging.
She observed how Agnes carefully selected the apples. Sometimes she used the umbrella to knock down fruit. Birgitta made an attempt to leave her spectator’s position, perhaps to help out, but it was too late: Agnes already had the basket full, and was immediately back in the kitchen.
She had a pleased look, an expression that Birgitta knew well. In her way of resolutely shaking off the umbrella, closing the door after her, and placing the basket of fruit on the little table under the window-surprisingly exact and nimble movements coming from an elderly woman-she demonstrated an efficiency and sovereignty that Birgitta had always admired. No one performed their tasks as energy-efficiently.
“The rain doesn’t want to give up,” Agnes noted.
Gone was the harshness in her voice.
“Shall I peel the apples?”
Agnes stopped for a moment, then filled a plastic tub with water which she placed on the table, took out a peeler, and pulled out the kitchen chair.
“Not too small pieces,” she said.
“What kind is this?”
“Cox Pomona.”
They worked in silence. Birgitta sat at the table and peeled and cut up the fruit while Agnes cut up onions and root vegetables at the counter.
“You know, Agnes, when I was little I thought you would disappear every time you left the house, even if you were just going to pick a few currants or go down to the store and buy a liter of milk.”
Agnes gave her a quick look, but did not say anything.
“That was a horrible time, wasn’t it? That I put up with all those quarrels”-Birgitta took another apple out of the basket-“but I had to, I was only a child.”