six

Stephie senses something is wrong even before her brain is awake enough to remember what. She presses her eyes tight shut, trying to stay asleep. But she can’t.

Sunlight trickles through the crack between the curtains. She can hear footsteps and clatter from the kitchen. It’s morning, her first morning on the island. The first of how many?

“Six months at the very most,” her father had said on the platform at the Vienna railway station. “In just a few months, no more than six, we’ll have our entry visas. Then we’ll meet up in Amsterdam and travel to America together.”

Stephie turns her head to look at the photos on the dresser. Her mother is smiling, her father is looking gravely at her from behind his glasses. She sits up in bed, pulling her knees to her chest.

“No need to worry, Mamma and Papa,” she says aloud. “I’m a big girl now. I’m taking good care of Nellie.”

Stephie gets dressed, washes her face and hands, and combs her hair in front of the mirror over the little washbasin. Her hair is very tangled and takes time to comb through; she hasn’t combed it properly since the morning they left for the station in Vienna two full days ago.

When Stephie or Nellie complained about the difficulty of having long hair, their mother always used to tell them it was worth the trouble.

“When a person has such lovely, thick hair, it’s a shame to cut it short.”

Stephanie stares at her reflection, and the girl in the mirror stares back. The face she sees is thin, with brown eyes and wide lips. Her dark hair hangs almost all the way to her waist. She parts it down the middle and plaits it into neat braids.

“Good morning,” she greets Aunt Märta in German as she enters the kitchen. Aunt Märta’s Swedish reply sounds almost the same.

For breakfast there’s oatmeal and milk. The oatmeal is thick and gluey, but Stephie’s hungry enough to gobble it all down. Aunt Märta, looking pleased, dishes up a second helping.

While Stephie is eating, the telephone rings. Aunt Märta answers and has quite a long conversation. After she hangs up, she turns to Stephie.

“Nellie,” she says, pointing out the kitchen window. “You… Nellie.”

Stephie’s spoon clatters into her bowl. Has something happened to Nellie? Is she sick? Has she had an accident? Stammering, she tries to ask what’s wrong. But Aunt Märta doesn’t understand. She follows Stephie out the door and points to her bicycle.

Maybe it isn’t so hard to ride a bike after all. Stephie wheels the bike out to the road and puts a foot down on one of the pedals. But as soon as she lifts her other foot, she loses her balance and has to put it right back onto the ground. She tries several times. On the fourth try she manages to push the pedals around once before falling over. The bicycle comes down on top of her and one of her knees is scraped so badly it’s bleeding. She gives up and leans the bicycle back against the house.

She runs up the hill, along the rocky path, and through the little thicket. It’s much farther than it seemed yesterday, when she was sitting on Aunt Märta’s carrier. Breathless, a pain piercing her side, she reaches the yellow frame house and pounds on the door.

Auntie Alma opens, takes her by the hand, and draws her inside. Nellie, still in her nightgown, eyes red from crying, is at the kitchen table. The moment she catches sight of Stephie she throws herself into her arms.

“Stephie, Stephie,” she sobs, “I want to go home! I want my mamma!”

“What on earth is wrong?” Stephie asks sharply.

Nellie just cries harder.

“Take care of Nellie,” her mother had said when they were leaving. “Comfort her when she is unhappy and frightened. You’re the big one.”

“Did something happen?” Stephie asks her, forcing a kindly tone into her voice.

Nellie nods mutely.

“What?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Nellie whispers.

“Tell me.”

“I wet my bed.”

“What?” Stephie says again in alarm. Nellie stopped wetting her bed five years back.

“I just couldn’t hold it. I tried but I had to pee so badly.”

“In your sleep?”

Nellie shakes her head.

“You were awake? So why didn’t you go to the toilet?”

“There is no toilet,” Nellie explains. “You have to go outside, to a special place in the backyard. A smelly little building.”

“Was that what stopped you from going?”

Nellie shakes her head again. “No, it wasn’t that,” she mumbles.

“What was it, then?”

“I didn’t dare. It was so dark out, and I was scared they would come and take me away.”

“Who?” Stephie asks, although she already knows.

“The police,” Nellie whispers even more softly. “The Nazis.”

“Nellie, we’re in Sweden now,” Stephie assures her. “There are no Nazis here. The police in this country don’t come and take people away during the night. Don’t you understand? That’s why Mamma and Papa sent us here.”

“I know that,” says Nellie. “But in the dark, I forgot.”

It takes a long time for Stephie to make it clear to Auntie Alma that Nellie is afraid to go to the outhouse in the dark. Eventually, though, she succeeds, and Auntie Alma puts a china chamber pot under Nellie’s bed. Then she cleans Stephie’s scraped knee with something that stings, and puts a bandage on it.

In the meantime Nellie has put her clothes on and clasped the coral necklace around her neck. Auntie Alma shakes her head, unclasps the necklace, and puts it in Nellie’s dresser drawer. Nellie looks as if she’s going to burst into tears again, until Auntie Alma pulls out her nicest dress, showing her that the necklace and the dress go together. Nellie should wear her necklace only when she’s dressed up.

The sky is blue now, the weather pleasant. Stephie and Nellie go out into the yard with Auntie Alma’s children. Elsa and Nellie start playing with a baby doll at a table. They bathe her and dress and undress her, over and over again. John has a ball, and he motions to Stephie to throw it to him. He never manages to catch it on the fly.

A group of girls Stephie’s age bike past, bathing suits flapping from their handlebars, towels clamped under their carriers.

They stop outside the fence, staring at Stephie and Nellie. One of them, tall and blond, says something to the others. They all laugh.

As if we were monkeys in the zoo, Stephie thinks.

“What do they want, Stephie?” Nellie asks uneasily. “Are they going to hurt us?”

“Oh, no,” Stephie says in her firmest voice. “They’re silly but they mean no harm.”

A girl with bright red hair speaks to Stephie, who shakes her head to show she doesn’t understand. The girl giggles. There’s no ill will in her laugh.

The blond girl pedals off; the others follow. They bike in a group down the hill, bathing suits blowing in the wind.

“They must be on their way to the beach,” says Nellie. “To swim. I want to go swimming, too.”

“We can’t,” Stephie says in her sensible, big-sister voice. “We haven’t got bathing suits.”

For a long time they hadn’t been allowed to go to the beach in Vienna. Not since signs prohibited them, signs that read JEWS FORBIDDEN. When Mamma was helping them pack, she had pulled out their old bathing suits, but it was clear they had outgrown them.

Aunt Märta arrives on her bicycle, a big bag dangling from her handlebars. Holding Stephie’s letter, she points toward the village.

The post office, Stephie thinks, and decides to go along. She needs to see with her own eyes when her letter is mailed, to feel confident it is on its way.

“Wait here for me,” she says to Nellie. “I’m going to the post office. I’ll be right back.”