Almost Autumn Read online

  “They had no idea where Hermann was either. He hadn’t been home all day.”

  Her mother stands where she is for a few moments and looks at Ilse, pryingly, fishing for answers, nosier than ever. She finishes unrolling her curls; her hair is filled with soft brown clumps, like slugs forced to line up in formation, one after the next.

  “I wasn’t with Hermann,” Ilse mumbles. Unfortunately, she wants to add.

  Her mother pulls a comb from her apron pocket and begins to tackle the small slugs, unpicking each of them until her hair eventually resembles a soft, dark cloud around her head. She starts at the top once again, combing with regular swipes until her hair sits properly in place, the waves framing her slim face.

  “Promise me that you won’t ever come home that late again,” she says.

  “I won’t, Mum. I promise.”

  Her mother lingers for a moment longer, casting her eyes around the room as if looking for something. The polka dot dress that Ilse had been wearing yesterday lies in a crumpled heap on the floor at the end of the bed. If her mother spots it now she’ll ask questions.

  “We’re going out now,” Mum says. “It’s a beautiful day and we thought we’d take a walk. It’s up to you if you want to come with us, but if you don’t you can stay here for the next few hours and tidy your room. It’s a mess in here, and most of that mess is yours.”

  She glances in the direction of the dress once again but obviously doesn’t see it, because she leaves the room.

  Ilse sits in her bed, taking a moment to think. What she really wants is some time to herself. She is never alone, the others are always there, never far from her presence, Mum and Dad, Sonja and Miriam, constantly around. She thinks back to her dream, how afraid she had been that they had left her, how alone she had felt, but it was just a dream, that’s all, she’ll stay at home and have some time to herself, do a little tidying. She has a lot to think about today, and a lot to clear up. She feels a sense of unease creeping through her; she’s almost nauseous. It feels as if there’s something lodged beneath her diaphragm and it aches.

  Ilse glances at the clock on her bedside table. It’s almost ten. She can’t ever remember her family simply leaving her to sleep like that. They must have eaten breakfast without her, made their plans for the day, Mum might already even have prepared their dinner, and for a moment it feels as if they’ve lived a whole life during those quiet morning hours, no place for Ilse to join them.

  She can hear her father in the living room, still sitting in his armchair by the window. He’s started to sing now, the words to the same tune he was whistling before. “I was only eighteen when you first met me, the moon laughed and we danced to the most elegant melody.” Ilse has a sudden urge to run and embrace him, to be three years old again and to clamber onto his lap, to sing along with him or simply sit quietly, imploring him to lift her high up in the air where she can kick her legs while safely held in his strong arms.

  She makes her way into the living room.

  “I’m not coming out today.”

  “Are you sure?” her father says. “We can wait for you. We’re only going out to feel the autumn air.”

  Goodness, he really must be in a good mood; it is rare to hear him say such things, “out to feel the autumn air.” Perhaps she should tag along, if only just to experience this side of her father, so different from the side of his character that they’ve seen of late. But she’s made up her mind, there’s far too much buzzing around inside her head, too much gnawing away at her, aching. Too many thoughts crisscross in her mind and she longs to sit quietly and work through each of them, one by one.

  “I’m staying here.”

  She sits in the armchair after the others leave. The window is open just a crack and the light autumn breeze drifts in through the narrow gap, fresh and cool. A ripple of sound is carried in from the outside world: the tram trundling up Vogts gate, the shrill brrring brrring of a bicycle bell, then the sounds of another tram, this time making its way down the street, the bristling of someone sweeping the pavement, a plaintive cry for a mother’s attention.

  The view from the window is beautiful. Ekeberg Hill is red and yellow with autumn; in the bay at Bjørvika there are several boats drifting, large vessels too; and she can see the tenement buildings down in Grünerløkka, tiles and chimneys, the dusty square where all the brewery wagons line up one after the other, resting in the Sunday sunshine. If she could paint like Hermann, she would paint a picture of exactly what she can see today. Ugh, she’s not supposed to be thinking about Hermann.

  The apartment is so empty without the others. The door to the hallway is ajar; over in the corner in front of the window is the deep brown wooden dining table, surrounded by five chairs, and decked out in a yellow tablecloth adorned with her mother’s neat embroidery and the brass candlestick with seven arms. Two coffee cups have been left sitting on the table from breakfast. The divan is on the other side of the living room, pushed up against the wall that divides the living room with the room she shares with her sisters. It’s light brown, almost gray, and several patches have worn so thin that the stuffing has become visible. Mum and Dad pull it out every evening and push it back together again each morning.

  Ilse observes the way that the sunlight creates strips of light throughout the room; she sees the dust particles that float in the air, hovering to create two dense pillars. She sees Miriam’s clothing draped over a chair in the bedroom, a pair of tights rolled up by the wardrobe. Everything around her looks so peaceful, as if it’s all meant to be exactly where it is at this moment in time.

  There is a sheet of paper on the floor under the table. Ilse picks it up and turns it over to find one of Miriam’s drawings. Five skinny stick people are depicted in cheerful colors, a large, childish sun above them, sunbeams so long that they cover the entire page. Dad is wearing a black hat, Mum is wearing a green skirt. In the bottom corner is a small figure with yellow hair; it must be Bella, Miriam’s doll. In the opposite corner Miriam has written her name in lopsided letters, followed by the date, the fourth of October 1942, written in Sonja’s handwriting. Miriam must have drawn it earlier that day. It looks so idyllic, one happy family under a large yellow sun, everyone smiling. Yet everything is so very different.

  Her own situation, for example. Does she have any reason to smile? Not today. Yesterday, perhaps. It’s like that at your age, her mother would say, you’ll grow out of it. But Ilse has a feeling that Mum is wrong about that, and that this won’t be the kind of thing that she will grow out of. There is always more of everything with Ilse: more tears, more laughter, more commotion of all kinds. Had Mum been like that when she was fifteen? Ilse can’t picture it, as hard as she may try.

  Since the school term had ended, Ilse had been working for her father. Just until I figure out what I want to do, she had told him when she asked to work in the shop for a few months. The premises on Osterhaus’ gate were small and cramped, a third-generation family business. Her father had worked there forever, it seemed, having become a trained tailor just like his own father and his father before him, and no doubt numerous other fathers before them. A few years ago things had been going well, with several employees and lots to keep him busy, but now, what with the war, everything had changed. These were quiet days. Dad would sit and lightly drum his fingers against the countertop, the hands on the clock above the door crawling around the face at a snail’s pace. She and Sonja and their father would eat lunch together without ever saying very much. The long, quiet hours suited Ilse perfectly. She was able to sit and read or chat with Sonja; it wasn’t exactly the hardest job in the world. Mum and Dad wanted her to continue at school, they never stopped nagging her about it, and up until her final year she had been doing well. They had reluctantly agreed to let her take a year out to think about things; perhaps a year would give her time to mature, perhaps things would get back to normal again. It’s this war, they would always say, exchanging grave expressions. It’s all down to this war.
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  Sagene School was taken over by German soldiers, the schoolyard crammed with military equipment. Teaching had taken place here and there, in local buildings, in a church where they’d often sat freezing with no firewood; they’d even been taught in each other’s homes on occasion. It was said that several of the teachers had been arrested and sent to work camps in the north, but it was impossible to keep track, one day they might hear one thing and the next day something else altogether; eventually Ilse had lost interest. She could just as well sit in the back room of the shop, sleepily daydreaming and secretly reading romantic novels.

  She glances at the stick person with the black hat meant to represent her father. He’s said so little lately, and though he smiles he doesn’t look happy. The worry line on his forehead has expanded and deepened; now it looks like a straight line that divides his forehead in two. The choice of stock available to them is miserable, everything is rationed, and several of their regular customers have stopped coming to the shop.

  “Is it because we’re Jewish?” she had asked him one evening as the family was sitting around the dining table.

  Her father didn’t say anything. He pushed his chair back from the table, stood up, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  This had happened several times lately, her father leaving the table in the middle of a meal without warning—he had stolen away, closed the door, they could all hear his footsteps going down the stairs. They always remained where they were, she and Sonja, Miriam and Mum, their gazes fixed on the tabletop as if they were ashamed somehow. He has a lot on his mind, Mum would say. Always the same old expressions. Poor Dad. Things aren’t going well these days. Be nice to your father. Don’t bother your father. It was like one long chorus of orders and embargoes, so many subjects that weren’t supposed to be brought up. Dad had been like this for a while now. It had enveloped the family, descending on the apartment like a heavy blanket that was difficult to shake off. But today he had been happy, he was going out to feel the autumn air, he’d even given her a hug before he had left.

  In Miriam’s drawing, Mum has two black dots for eyes and a large red mouth in the shape of a wide smile. Maybe that’s how Miriam sees her. Ilse has a different image of her. She can’t recall the last time that she heard her mother laugh. She might chuckle slightly, or squeeze out a hoarse chortle, but laughter, real, proper, thigh-slapping guffaws that seem to erupt involuntarily, when was the last time that she’d heard that? When she closed her eyes and thought of her mother, she saw her leaning over a saucepan, mending holes in their clothing, scrubbing the floorboards on all fours, standing in long lines wearing a tense expression as she waited to receive their rations of sugar and coffee, flour and herring. And the whispering, that had increased in recent months, the irritating, dry sounds that escaped her lips, muttering, the words almost inaudible, a mumbling with no beginning and no end.

  That was Mum. But there was something else too, something that Ilse had noticed lately. She would catch her mother standing and staring out the windows—she could remain there for so long that she resembled a statue concealed by the curtains, stock still and gazing outward, as if there were a better life out there, a life that could be hers if she could only stare at it for long enough.

  Only one of the two medium-sized stick figures has been given any hair, long, brown lines that extend to the hips; it must be Sonja. The other figure has a few tufts sticking up from a round head. Ilse is afraid that it’s supposed to be her.

  Sonja will soon be nineteen years old, and she is Dad’s right-hand woman in the shop and Mum’s extra pair of hands at home. She learned to sew and is set to inherit the shop when Dad can’t manage anymore. Sometimes Ilse thinks that if Sonja hadn’t been quite so very good, she herself might have turned out better. If Sonja weren’t so smart, perhaps she would have been smarter. Ilse couldn’t be any of the things that Sonja was, so Ilse had taken on another role. She was the impulsive, thoughtless, joyful, irresponsible, childish member of the family. She had always been that way, there was no doubt about it. Occasionally Ilse felt a stab of envy when she saw her mother and Sonja sitting together at the kitchen table with their needlework in the evening, all while she lounged around with her nose stuck in a book. She had never been interested in knitting or sewing, any attempts always turned out lopsided and strange-looking and she was inevitably forced to unravel her yarn and unpick her stitches. Sonja executed everything she did with expert precision. Dad was lucky to have her.

  The sun was large and yellow; why couldn’t it be like it was in Miriam’s drawing? Why couldn’t it just hang from the ceiling in a corner of the apartment—brighten the place up a little? Things always used to be so good at home. On Fridays Mum would lay the table with a white cloth and bless the candles, then they’d eat and laugh together. Now it’s as if they have to permanently monitor their actions to avoid saying anything wrong. Everything had changed so much over the past few months.

  No, it must be herself that Miriam had drawn; she’s the only one in the family who knows how to really, properly smile and laugh nowadays. She spent her days at home with her colored pencils, playing with Karin from the fourth floor, a simple, charmed life. It must be nice to be five and a half years old.

  It’s so quiet without the others around, the only sound Ilse can hear is the alarm clock in the bedroom as the lazy ticking reverberates throughout the apartment. No, there’s something else too, the sound of someone crying. It’s coming from the fourth floor; it must be Karin. Ilse can hear Mrs. Rustad hushing her and the sound of a child’s voice calling “Daddy.”

  The walls are so thin here. In the evenings, she and Sonja can hear Mr. and Mrs. Rustad in the bedroom above their own, every word they say, every sound they make; it’s as if the two of them have crept in and hidden under the couple’s marital bed. They have the same apartment layout, two rooms and a kitchen, but on the floor above, it is the parents who sleep in the bedroom while their two daughters share a bunk bed in one corner of the living room. Ilse and Sonja are always extra attentive when they hear the sound of creaking from the bed, slow and deliberate to begin with, gradually increasing in pace, faster and faster before silence falls once again.

  She looks out the window, where she can see Ole Rustad parking his taxi outside the front of the building. He removes his cap when he catches sight of her, bowing deeply before smiling and waving up at her.

  For a split second she finds herself wondering whether Hermann has come home, whether he’s sitting in the apartment next door; perhaps he’s thinking of her too. A new thought arises, why hasn’t it occurred to her before? What if he’d taken somebody else with him to the pictures instead? What if he had sat next to another girl in row seven, seats eight and nine? A girl with fair hair and pale eyes, soft curves, large breasts, a slim waist. All of a sudden she can imagine it, the two of them snuggled up close. The girl probably had a nice name too, something like Cordelia or Henriette. She might have leaned in close to him and whispered how happy she was to have been invited to the pictures, and maybe Hermann would have told her that he had actually asked someone else first, just to make himself appear more interesting. But who? the girl might ask him, and what would Hermann have said to that? Just the girl next door. Her name’s Ilse; I know, it’s a strange name, isn’t it? And then the girl might have asked what this Ilse looked like, and Hermann would have shrugged his shoulders and said, well, she’s fine, not that ugly and not that beautiful either.

  She stops herself, then stands before the mirror that hangs between the two living room windows.

  “This is me,” she announces to her reflection. She smiles to herself for a moment, a strained, forced expression that quickly evaporates. “Unfortunately,” she adds.

  It’s no wonder that Hermann didn’t want to go to the pictures with her, not really, she can see that now. She’s just started reading a new book, and a very interesting one at that. She remembers a sentence that had stuck with her: “First and foremost, a woman must b
ecome well-acquainted with her own appearance, and then she must know how she wants to appear to the world.” This has to be exactly the right time and place for such a study, alone in the apartment with a few hours to herself before the others will return home. Ilse enters the bedroom, fetches her notebook from the bedside table, and takes it into the living room.

  “Comments I have received about my appearance,” she writes. On second thought she squeezes in the word “Positive” in smaller handwriting at the start of the swiftly scrawled heading. She sits and ponders, unable to think of anything at all, not a single word. Dad says that she is his beautiful girl, but that doesn’t count. He’s her father, of course he would say that.

  What was it that Hermann had said not so long ago? That she looked like a little squirrel? He had smiled as he had said it, she remembers it so clearly, she even remembers where they had been standing, out in the backyard; it was summertime, the last day of July. It must have been a compliment of sorts. Can she add that one to the list? Squirrels are cute, small, soft, and sweet. She writes “resembles a squirrel,” and in brackets adds “Hermann,” just to make clear from whom the compliment came. She thinks some more. That can’t be the only one. A squirrel. Is that all she has to write? This is stupid.

  Recently she has slipped something new into her evening prayers. First she covers the usual, thank you for everything I have, watch over the people I care about, don’t let anything bad happen to anyone, always recited swiftly and in no particular order, mostly just so that it has been said, just to be on the safe side. But then she gets to the heart of the matter, the important part that is a message exclusively shared between Ilse and God: Dear, good, kind Lord, I don’t mean to bother you but please help me, I need to be beautiful. Ilse Stern needs to be more beautiful!

  She stands up, takes off her clothes, and starts at her feet, studying them for a moment before leaning over the table and writing: “Big toe on left foot is at a strange angle. Everything else fine.” It annoys her that one toe has to be that way, veering to the left, almost witchlike.