“That was quick,” Edvard noted when he opened the door.
In daylight he looked more worn-out. Keeping watch by Viola’s bed was probably a factor, she thought.
“She’s awake.”
Ann nodded and withstood the impulse to hug him. Like the time before he turned around without ceremony and disappeared into the corridor toward Viola’s bedroom. Ann followed in his wake, steeling herself for what was waiting. In the corner of her eye she glimpsed Greta in the kitchen.
Viola was now, if possible, even thinner. She raised one hand in welcome. Or else it was to shoo Edvard out, because he immediately left the room and closed the door behind him.
“Shaky,” she said in a hoarse voice, as Ann sat down by the edge of the bed.
Ann nodded and took Viola’s hand in hers. All that was heard was the wind that howled around the house and made the thin curtains slowly shake.
“I’m pleased and content,” said Viola suddenly, “and everything will be fine with the house.”
Ann nodded and thought she understood what Viola meant. She had lived a long life and Edvard would stay on in the house. Perhaps one of his two sons would take over after him, something the old woman had mentioned long ago. Ann knew that Viola loathed the thought that the house would be torn down or taken over by summer visitors.
“It was lucky that Edvard showed up,” said Ann.
“He has been a great joy to me. He and Viktor.”
For the first time ever Ann heard how Viola’s voice broke with emotion and she had a hard time holding back the tears.
“I’m the oldest person on the island, I’ve seen people come and go. Had my health. So I can’t complain.”
“But you have complained,” said Ann with a smile. “You’ve complained about the hens, about Stockholmers and the chimney-sweep, the weather, the shopkeeper in Öregrund, the Road Administration, and God knows what else.”
“You have to have a little fun,” said Viola. “Greta has promised to look after Edvard a little. He’s sensitive.”
“He’ll manage,” Ann assured her.
“Of course he’ll manage,” Viola hissed, “but it can be good to talk with someone sometimes.”
Ann understood that Viola had instructed Greta to go over to see Edvard occasionally. What he would think about that was uncertain.
“You can come and visit too. He needs company.”
Ann wondered about Viola’s comment, her words about Edvard’s “sensitivity”-did that mean he wasn’t doing well? Or was it a way to try to put her together with Edvard?
“Maybe I’ll do that,” she said.
“I think a little sea air will do you good.”
Ann simply nodded, disinclined to continue on the present track. And it was as if Viola understood that, because after a few moments of silence she changed subject.
“Another thing,” she said. “About Anna. I heard that Greta and you had talked. Anna Andersson came to me. It was at the end of the war, but I was doing pretty well. Perhaps you don’t know it, but at that time Viktor smuggled quite a bit and I kept the books, you might say. He was never good at numbers. And then he was too nice. So Anna was here, her parents didn’t want to hear about her. Shameful, but that’s the way it was.”
Now it was as if the old Viola had returned. The shaky voice was gone and her eyes shone like before.
“She was bleeding when she came. I wanted to bring Åkerman here, the doctor from the mainland, but that was not to be discussed. She bled for a week.”
Ann sensed where Anna Andersson was bleeding from but asked anyway to be a hundred-percent sure. Viola told that Anna was trying to hide the bloody sanitary napkins but it was futile for her to try to hide her miserable condition.
“The girl was scared to death. She knew nothing about life and her own body. And it’s clear, with those parents who believed in the immaculate conception, she was poorly prepared. I forced her to eat food made from animal blood. Viktor had to butcher. He did not ask but surely understood what the girl needed. That’s how it was then! Now you know how things were in those fine families.”
“What happened?”
“Anna never wanted to tell and when someone doesn’t want to talk of their own free will you shouldn’t force them. What has to come out will come out in time. The main thing then was that she got healthy and strong. Right?”
Ann nodded, but in her mind she could not keep from speculating about what had happened.
“What is so strange-”
“Yes!” exclaimed Viola, as if she had read Ann’s thoughts. “Greta went to town and that riffraff. And then Agnes. Anna was very unhappy when Greta left. Her sister was just a girl-child.”
The “girl-child” was now sitting in the kitchen. She must have turned on the coffeemaker, because it was starting to smell like coffee.
“What happened to Anna?”
Viola did not answer immediately but instead seemed submerged in thoughts about what had happened more than sixty years ago, or else she had simply used up the last of her strength. Ann was getting increasingly worried.
“How are you? Do you want to rest a little?”
“Rest,” the old woman hissed. “No, I don’t want to rest.”
“What happened to Anna?” Ann repeated.
“She went to Stockholm, got work as a housekeeper, and later she started working at a soap factory. She managed well, got married to a Haller, he came from Germany but he was no Nazi because of that.”
Ann laughed and Viola glared furiously at her.
“But she could never have any more children.”
Viola’s words confirmed what Ann had guessed: that Ann had gotten pregnant, had a miscarriage, and then fled to the island.
“But the German had a child from before. A cute little thing, but so skinny, Anna came here and showed him when he was four or five years old. She took on the little guy as if he was her own. She made it through. Now she’s gone. Even so she was younger than me. Where the boy went I don’t know. To Africa, I think.”
Ann sniffled. Viola’s brief, almost brusque account of a woman’s life and fate touched something inside Ann that she did not want to be reminded of. The story had created images that emerged and overlapped each other. There was the picture of Anna and her despair, the skinny little boy, but also Ann and Erik. And then this island. This house, this Edvard.
The sea, she thought, the sea that Edvard always talked about, maybe that’s what I miss? Sea air, as Viola put it. Away with all these idiotic thoughts. My life is working. I don’t need a sea to stare out over like Edvard. I don’t need him. She gasped for breath, filled by a bubbling anxiety but also by determination that she too would “make it through.”
“Now you know,” said Viola, “you who are so curious by nature.”
Ann tried to smile. Once again it struck her with what finesse Viola could manage things. And what strength she showed, even now, when according to Edvard she was at death’s door, which Ann doubted, however. Even if Viola was worn-out she was not exactly tottering on the edge of the grave.
As if to contradict this Viola hiccoughed and for a moment opened her eyes wide as if she had something in her throat.
“Help me up a little,” she said in a cawing voice.
Ann got up, took hold under her arms, and raised Viola up so that she was sitting almost upright in bed.
“Now we’ll say good-bye,” Viola decided.
Ann leaned over, pressing her cheek against Viola’s. The old woman definitely did not smell of sickness and death, but rather soap and perhaps a splash of perfume. Ann felt great warmth for Greta, she was surely the one who provided for Viola, keeping her clean and nice-smelling to the end. Ann felt the skinny arms about her body and could not stop the tears any longer.