The True Deceiver

  When Katri had gone, Anna went cold. All of a sudden the whole house seemed full of people. She had an irrational desire to phone someone, anyone at all, but what was there to say? Maybe not much more than that; she’d said way too much… In any case, Anna thought, there’s one thing I didn’t reveal. I didn’t show her my work.

  Although that had nothing whatever to do with Mama and Papa.

  * * *

  On cleaning Wednesday, as Fru Sundblom was on her way home from the rabbit house, she met Katri and her dog on the hill and stopped and said, “Not that it matters in the least, but Miss Aemelin hasn’t had any fresh food for weeks, and I was the one who used to fetch it for her.”

  “Miss Aemelin doesn’t like organ meats,” Katri answered.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “She said so.”

  “And why have you rearranged the refrigerator?”

  “It was dirty.”

  Fru Sundblom went slowly red in the face, and she seemed to swell and fill the road as she replied. “Miss Kling, cleaning is my area, and I clean the way I’ve always cleaned, and I don’t like other people sticking their noses in my business.”

  Katri smiled without answering, the wolf smile that could put anyone off balance, and Fru Sundblom shouted, “Well! I see! I guess I know when certain people are trying to curry favour with the old lady just because she’s losing her grip.” And the big woman stalked off down the hill.

  When Katri came into the rabbit house, she put down her bag in the hall and announced that she couldn’t stay.

  “Don’t you have time? Not even a little while?”

  “Yes, I do have time. But I can’t stay.”

  “Miss Kling, wouldn’t you like to stay?”

  “No,” Katri answered.

  Then Anna smiled, and without a trace of her usual confusion, she said, “Do you know, Miss Kling, you’re a very unusual person. I’ve never met anyone so terribly – and I use the word in the sense of frightening – so terribly honest. I want you to listen, now, because I think what I have to say is important. You’re young, and perhaps you don’t yet know so much about life, but believe me, almost everyone tries to play a part, to be what they’re not.” Anna thought for a moment. “Not Madame Nygård, but that’s another matter… You know, I notice much more than people realize. Don’t misunderstand me – of course they mean well. I’ve met nothing but kindness my whole life. Nevertheless… you, Miss Kling, are always yourself, and that feels somehow…” she hesitated, “…different. I trust you.”

  Katri looked at Anna, who, entirely in passing, in friendly earnest, had given the go-ahead for an authorized conquest of the rabbit house.

  Anna continued. “Now don’t take this the wrong way, Miss Kling, but I find your way of never saying what a person expects you to say, I find it somehow appealing. In you there’s no, if you’ll pardon my saying so, no trace of what people call politeness… And politeness can sometimes be almost a kind of deceit, can it not? Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” said Katri. “I do.”

  * * *

  Katri walked on out towards the point with the dog. The snow had a crust hard enough to walk on. Spring was coming, a spring that belonged to Katri Kling, Katri Kling who in open and honourable play had finally won a round, who had everything she wanted to achieve within reach. A new strength coursed through her. She ran straight out on the snowdrifts at the beach, broke through the crust, stopped, up to her knees in snow, raised her arms and laughed. The dog, back on the lighthouse road, growled, a low, warning growl deep in his throat. “Quiet,” said Katri. “Heel.” She was giving orders to herself. Now it was only a question of self-control and concentration. The game could continue, and now she could fight with her own weapons. Which she believed were pure.

  Chapter Eight

  “HERE ARE SOME POSTAL ORDERS I’ve signed and witnessed, but you should have a look at them, Miss Aemelin. And here’s the money Liljeberg picked up last time.”

  “How kind of you,” Anna said, shoving the envelope full of money into her desk.

  “But aren’t you going to count it?”

  “Why?”

  “To make sure it’s right.”

  “My dear Miss Kling,” said Anna, “I am certain that it’s right. Is he still skiing into town?”

  “Yes, he is.” Katri paused for a moment. “Miss Aemelin, there is something I want to speak to you about. Liljeberg overcharged you for shovelling and fixing the drain – both labour and materials. I mentioned it to him and he returned the difference. Here it is.”

  “But you can’t do that,” Anna exclaimed. “That just isn’t done… And how can you be sure?”

  “I checked the going price and asked him how much he’d charged. It was simple.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Anna said. “Absolutely not. All the Liljebergs like me, I know they do…”

  “Believe me, Miss Aemelin, people like you a little less when they can cheat you.”

  Anna shook her head. “How awkward,” she said. “And just when it’s snowing in through the attic window…”

  “Believe me,” Katri said again. “It’s not awkward. Liljeberg will come and fix the window whenever you say, and he’ll do it with new respect and at a good price.”

  But Anna couldn’t let it go. She insisted that the whole business was tedious and unnecessary, and that she and Liljeberg could never again treat each other naturally. Moreover, money didn’t always matter as much as people seemed to think.

  “It may well be that the marks and the pennies are not so important,” Katri answered. “What is important is being honest and not cheating, not even on the pennies. The only justification for taking another person’s money is if you can make it grow and then give them a fair return.”

  “My dear, you suddenly have a great deal to say,” said Anna, her thoughts elsewhere.

  Katri grew careless. Irritated by the conversation, she said, “While we’re on the subject, how much do you pay Fru Sundblom?”

  Anna drew herself up and said, very stiffly, in the same tone of voice her father had used when he occasionally spoke to a domestic, “My dear Miss Kling, that is a detail that I really cannot recall.”

  Chapter Nine

  MATS KLING AND LILJEBERG MET on the village street.

  “So you’re out walking the dog,” said Liljeberg.

  “Yes. I’m going up to visit old Miss Aemelin and talk about her attic window.”

  “I heard you were going to fix it. It’s snowing in, they say.”

  “And the sink is blocked.”

  “Right. Your sister is in charge, but it’s just as well. Now we’ve got a thaw, we were thinking we’d get back to work in the boat shed. We’ve got some little jobs for you. By the way, I’ve noticed you let yourself in from the water side.”

  “But you didn’t tell the others.”

  “No, why should I? I see the township’s finally ploughed the roads.”

  Mats nodded.

  “And Fru Sundblom is going to stop cleaning for Miss Aemelin,” Liljeberg went on. “They say the hill is too steep for her old legs, but some people have other ideas.”

  Mats nodded again without listening.

  They said goodbye and continued their separate ways.

  The fir trees stood so close to the rabbit house that the back yard was always in shadow. It’s lonely here, Mats thought. It’s a very lonely house, maybe because it’s so big. The dog lay down in his usual place by the kitchen steps with his nose between his paws.

  “So this is Mats,” said Anna Aemelin. “It was nice of you to come. And you brought your tools, I see. But the window isn’t so urgent… Take off your boots and come in for a bit.” She looked at the dog. “Why can’t he come in and get warm? Your sister never lets him come in.”

  Mats answered that the dog was probably better off outdoors.

  “But maybe he’s thirsty. Or does he eat snow?”

  “I don’t think so.” r />
  “Nice dog,” Anna called to him. “What’s his name?”

  “Please don’t worry about him. He’s fine.” Mats took off his boots.

  They had coffee in the parlour. Mats did not try to talk to his hostess, but he smiled at her occasionally and looked around with an appreciation that pleased her.

  “It’s the snowlight,” she said. “Everything’s pretty in snowlight.” Anna liked Mats Kling. The moment he came in, she felt comfortable with him. What different temperaments siblings can have. Though neither of them was very talkative.

  “You know,” said Anna, “in the beginning I was almost a little frightened of your sister. So silly of me.”

  “Very silly,” Mats agreed and smiled again.

  “Yes. The same way you can be anxious about a big strange dog, although it just stands perfectly still. Now I’m so glad that Katri has promised to come and help me with the cleaning.”

  Fru Sundblom’s formidable shade glided past for one angry moment. Anna shook her off and sighed and the room was silent again.

  Mats said, “Miss, I see you’re reading Jimmy’s Adventures in Africa. That’s a good book.”

  “It is good.”

  “Yes. But Jimmy’s Adventures in Australia is even better.”

  “You don’t say. Is Jack still with him?”

  “No. Jack stayed in South America.”

  “Really,” Anna said. “That’s too bad. I mean, if two friends begin an adventure they should go on together, or it’s just not fair.” She stood up. “Come and have a look at my books,” she said. “Have you read Forester’s sea stories?”

  “No.”

  “And Jack London?”

  “Someone had taken it out.”

  “My dear young friend,” Anna cried. “Don’t say another word until you’ve read them. Talk about adventures! You have no idea!”

  Mats laughed. Anna’s bookcase was a tall, white, ornamental object with carved columns at the corners. Together they went through the shelves, thoroughly, with the short questions and comments people devote to things that really matter. Anna’s shelves held nothing but adventure books – on land, at sea, in balloons, down in the bowels of the earth, and on the deepest ocean floor. Most of the books were very old. Anna’s father had collected them in the course of a long life that in every other respect had been entirely free of irrational fantasies. Anna sometimes thought that, of all the things her father had taught her to respect, this book collection was the best. But it was a shy thought, and she did not allow it to overshadow his other opinions.

  When Mats went home with a bundle of books, there had been no discussion of the attic window. He promised to come back the next day with Jimmy’s Adventures in Australia. And Anna had a long phone conversation with the bookshop in town.

  * * *

  Mats fixed the window and the drain. He shovelled snow and chopped wood and lit fires in Anna’s pretty tile stoves. But usually he just came to borrow books. A cautious, almost timid friendship began to grow between Anna and Mats. They talked only about their books. In tales where the same heroes returned in book after book, they could refer familiarly to Jack or Tom or Jane, who had recently done this or that, as if gossiping in a friendly way about acquaintances. They criticized and praised and were horrified, and they discussed in detail the happy ending with its just division of the inheritance and its wedding and its villain getting his just deserts. Anna read her books afresh, and it seemed suddenly as if she had a large circle of friends, all of whom lived more or less adventuresome lives. She was happier. When Mats came in the evenings, they would drink tea in the kitchen while reading their books and talking about them. If Katri came in, they were quiet and waited for her to leave. The back door would close, and Katri would have gone.

  “Does your sister read our books?” Anna wanted to know.

  “No. She reads literature.”

  “A remarkable woman,” Anna observed. “And on top of that she’s got a head for maths.”

  Chapter Ten

  THE FIRST SPRING STORM SWEPT IN FROM THE SEA, a strong warm wind. The snow was already heavy and fragile, and in the stormy forest great clumps of snow fell from the branches, and many branches broke in the moment of their liberation. The whole forest was full of movement. In the evening, Anna walked in under the trees behind the house. She stood for a long time and listened. As always when the landscape readied itself for spring, there was a great unease that Anna recognized and welcomed. As she listened, her rabbit face changed, grew tighter, almost severe. The wind’s assault on the trees produced voices, music, distant cries. Anna nodded to herself. The long spring was just beginning.

  Soon she could approach the ground.

  * * *

  The storm continued the following day. Katri came home and stamped off the snow on the steps. The shop was full of people and smelled sour of sweat and tension. In the sudden silence, Fru Sundblom said, “Well, good afternoon? And how is Miss Aemelin today? No new autographs?”

  The storekeeper laughed. Katri walked past them towards the stairs.

  “Well, like I said,” said Emil from Husholm, “these are wicked times and it pays to keep an eye out. They can come here, too; it’s not that far. Pretty soon we’ll have to start locking our doors at night.”

  “What did the constable say?” Liljeberg wanted to know.

  “What would he say? He goes around and asks questions and then he goes home and writes a report. I heard they even took the damper cord.”

  “Jesus help us!” Fru Sundblom exclaimed. “And Miss Aemelin, who doesn’t have a proper lock on a single door! Well, she’s going to have to take care.”

  Katri stopped on the stairs.

  “Didn’t he see anything, poor man?” Liljeberg asked.

  “Nothing. He heard someone making noise in the house, so he went in, and before he knew it they hit him on the head. That’s how they do it.”

  Mats was lying on his bed reading. “Hi,” he said. “Did you hear about the break-in at the ferry slip?”

  “I heard,” said Katri, hanging up her coat.

  “But isn’t it exciting?”

  “Yes, very,” she said. At the table by the window, with her back to Mats, she opened one of his books at random and let the room go quiet. Katri never realized that the book she hid her thoughts behind was called Karl Outwits the Police, which was just as well. She wouldn’t have seen the humour in it.

  As Katri planned her fictitious break-in at the rabbit house, she did not for one moment have a sense that the enterprise was rather childish. She knew only that she had a chance, an opportunity she must exploit before the wind shifted and the excitement in the village died down.

  It was late at night when Katri motioned for the dog to follow. She took a torch, her gloves, a potato sack, and went out into the blizzard. The wind howled in over the coast the way it would in a really good adventure story, and she had a hard time finding her way. The torch wasn’t much help. Again and again she stumbled into snowdrifts by the side of the road and had to back up. It was slow going. She missed the turnoff road and had to retrace her steps. The dog waited in his usual place outside the kitchen door, but Katri did not take off her boots. On the contrary, she dragged in as much snow as she could across the carpets. Inside, the storm seemed closer, the wind came in gusts, in violent onslaughts like some consciously malignant force. Katri put the torch on the sideboard where the family silver stood in a row – Katri had polished it herself – and in the narrow beam of light she put it all in the potato sack: the coffee pot, the sugar bowl, the cream jug, the samovar, the dessert bowl. Very carefully she pulled out several drawers and emptied them out on the floor. She left the kitchen door open when she left.

  It was a very simple break-in. Katri saw it as a purely practical matter without a trace of drama or questionable ethics. She had simply moved a piece on the board game of money, and Anna was nothing more than an opponent confronting a new move.

  Down on the road, Katr
i tossed the potato sack into a snowdrift and went home. For the first time in ages, she slept in a cradle of gentle dreams free of desolation and anxiety.

  Anna took the break-in with surprising calm, but the villagers were extremely upset. They didn’t know Anna Aemelin, most of them hardly knew what she looked like, since she almost never appeared on the road, but she had become a concept, something of an old landmark that had been in place forever. Laying hands on old Miss Aemelin’s rabbit villa was unseemly, almost like vandalizing a chapel or a shrine. One neighbour after another came to offer sympathy. Those who had never been inside the rabbit villa made up for it now. The sideboard drawers still lay on the floor in disarray, and no one was permitted to touch them, or anything else, until the constable had been there. Anna explained that there could be fingerprints. The potato sack full of silver stood inside the kitchen door and was also not to be touched. Several of the guests had made coffee cakes and the Liljebergs brought a small bottle of cognac.

  Anna got a good deal of pleasure from her meeting with the town constable. She told her story and tried in every way to help him reconstruct the crime. Katri made coffee for everyone, and Anna was given more good advice than she could remember. It was Madame Nygård who summed up the general view: as long as the neighbourhood was unsafe, Anna Aemelin could not live alone. The village simply could not take responsibility for such a thing. Madame Nygård proposed Katri Kling as a temporary protector and added that it would be a good idea to have the dog by the door for a time. Madame Nygård was regarded as very old and experienced; even the constable agreed that she was right. When coffee had been served, he went back to town to write a report and the villagers went about their business and finally only Anna and Katri were left in the parlour.

  “Well, well,” said Anna, “what a circus this turned out to be. But I can’t understand why he didn’t take fingerprints. They usually do. And no one can explain why the burglar threw the bag in the ditch. Who could have frightened him..? There’s not a soul out at night around here. Maybe a dog? Because it couldn’t have been his conscience… Do you think some dog might have been out last night?”