A pretty young woman from the mainland applied for the position. She was the only applicant, incidentally, because the local young women preferred to travel to the mainland to look for work. Many of them had also started dressing in a way that made Else uncomfortable. She especially disapproved of the many of them who chose not to wear a bra under their blouse. Else didn’t regard herself as old-fashioned, and a pair of wide bell bottoms on the Head wouldn’t upset her, but she drew the line at the lack of a bra. There had to be limits to frivolity.
Maria Svendsen was a gift from heaven: she wore a modest bra and sensible trousers.
Maria normally wore her hair up so it wouldn’t get in the way, but when she didn’t her long blonde hair settled in small, soft waves around her face and neck. Jens happened to see it one day when he glanced through the window of the white room. He quickly looked away but was unable to forget the image of Maria with her hair down, smiling at him through the window.
Every now and then she would visit him in the workshop and they would chat about the weather and the furniture. She skilfully avoided speaking out of turn about his mother, but even so Jens soon surmised that Else was hard to please.
To begin with, however, they hardly spoke because Maria was by nature almost as monosyllabic as Jens had become over time. But in their mutual taciturnity Maria gradually found the courage and confidence to speak up. She started talking about her household chores and the tasks she had yet to do that day, and Jens listened to every single little detail with interest and gratitude.
Soon her stories extended beyond the Head, even beyond the island. She talked about her childhood on the mainland, about her hard-working parents. About school, which she hadn’t liked because everyone was so horrible – and yet she loved reading and writing more than anything on earth.
Then she talked about the books she had read, and the books she wanted to read. And she told him how she would copy pages purely for the pleasure of writing, and sometimes extend the passages she had copied just to write creatively. And how she would write down her thoughts, simply to get them out of her head. And how she would press her nose against the paper in order to smell it.
And when she had her nose pressed against the paper, Jens found something to contribute. ‘Did you know that paper is made from wood?’ he asked.
Jens’s fascination with Maria grew with every day. There was a lightness about her that he had never experienced with any other human being. Possibly because he hadn’t met many people from the mainland. Perhaps they were all lighter over there.
He listened to her bright voice, which said so little and yet so much. When she finally did start to speak, it was completely effortless. And when she breathed, she did it so calmly and so deeply you’d think she was conscious of it each time.
She wasn’t, but Jens was pretty much aware of every single breath Maria inhaled through her small nostrils and deep into her soft body. And although he didn’t dare look at her directly, he would still see her chest heave under her blouse, and hear the sound that accompanied it, and he was reminded of the waves rolling calmly on to the northern shore when you went there late in the afternoon with your father and your big brother. The quiet whoosh, the quiet swell and then the quiet whoosh again. A reassuring continuity.
Yes, that was exactly how it sounded when Maria breathed. At times it would make Jens forget to breathe.
And her mouth was wondrous.
It was as if a smile that could never be driven out by melancholy lived in the soft corners of her mouth. He was convinced that, even when Maria cried, she would still smile a little, in the same way that a horse always hides an inscrutable smile in its dark muzzle.
Jens sensed strength in her softness, a foundation of serenity behind her caution, but also gentleness in her inexplicable strength, which she demonstrated when she went about her chores. He saw her lug around basins and laundry and bedlinen and firewood and pots and sacks without ever stopping to wipe the sweat from her brow. And he saw her tend to the animals as if she had never done anything else. Without fear and without hesitation, with soft, strong hands and a voice they understood. The animals loved her.
Jens was with them in that.
He showed her the forest in September, and she laughed when he got resin in his hair. He showed her the sea in March, and she laughed when his socks got wet. He showed her the common in June, and she kissed him on the Virgin Mary’s bed straw.
Dear Liv
There are choices I should not have made. Perhaps I should never have met your father. Perhaps things would have been much simpler if I had stayed on the mainland and married my politician cousin, as my father begged me to. It would have ensured that the business would continue, he said. And I did love my father’s bookshop.
But I was young, far too young. And my cousin had the most revolting, intrusive eyes, and hands that were big and coarse, although all they ever did was write speeches or issue invoices. I was scared of him and his big hands, despite my father’s assurance that he was a good match – and that his party was a good party, which would look after small-business owners. Especially if you were related to him.
Yes, my cousin was a good match, and he was very keen on the bookseller’s shy daughter. He was a lovesick and enterprising man who stood to inherit an egg-box factory from his invalid father. I think his hands would have crushed any eggs they had gripped. And I felt just as fragile as a newly laid egg then. In those days I was just as slim as you are now, believe it or not.
I obviously shouldn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do, my father said. But I could tell from his eyes that he couldn’t accept a no, and I could tell from my mother’s eyes that she couldn’t bear to see me in the hands of the egg-box manufacturer.
No matter how I chose, one of them would be broken.
I chose to spare my mother. And myself. Or I tried to. The year after I left, I heard that she had died from pneumonia. But at least I didn’t break her heart.
I have since read that the egg-box manufacturer went bankrupt but that the bookshop is still there. Long ago, when I had the chance to make a telephone call, I rang the mainland to find out. I didn’t say anything when my father picked up. He sounded old, but he did say, ‘Svendsen’s Bookshop.’
I like the thought that the books beat the egg boxes in the end.
So anyway, I travelled for a while, working as a shop assistant here and there, but I didn’t really enjoy it. One day someone suggested that I look for work on the island. Down by the ferry I learned that Else Horder and her son Jens were looking for help on the Head.
And that’s how I ended up here. With your father and your granny.
I’m happy to tell you, Liv, that your father was the most handsome young man I’d ever seen. And he was so gentle – with soft, tender hands and warm, dark eyes. There was nothing of my cousin about him. I felt so safe with him, and I didn’t doubt for a second that this was where I wanted to be.
Oh, I don’t know if I should tell you this – you’re just a child. But I so want to tell someone. I so want to tell you.
The first time your father and I made love was out on the common on a sea of yellow flowers. We were both terrified of vipers, and yet we lay down there. Can you imagine? He told me about the butterflies, I remember. And the lark. And the bees. And the birds… it was very important that we lay among the yellow flowers; it was nature’s bed for me, he said. It’s the only time I’ve ever heard him stammer, and the only time I’ve seen his hand shake. And it wasn’t because of the vipers. It was because of what we were about to do.