ten

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?”