Read Online A Blessed Child by Linn Ullmann - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Linn Ullmann
Tags: Fiction
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the wind at his back and was running faster than usual; his feet barely touched the ground, and from a distance he looked like some woodland creature, an elf or an ogre. Laura could run faster than anybody Erika knew, but not as fast as Ragnar, and it was Laura who whispered to Erika that Ragnar looked a bit like an ogre. Erika didn’t like that. He wasn’t good-looking, with his matchstick legs and thin wrists, it was true. And the worst thing was the little lump or growth between his eyebrows that made him look like a boy with three eyes or two noses. But as time went by and Erika got to know him, she and Laura didn’t talk so much about his looking like an ogre. Erika told herself that if she squeezed her eyes almost shut and squinted at him, he was actually okay, even good-looking; but she didn’t say that to Laura, who was too young to know if a boy was good-looking or not, anyway.
Erika and Laura got up from their sheltered spot in the grass and ran after him. They knew his name was Ragnar. They knew he lived alone with his mother in a summer cottage of brown-stained wood, ten minutes’ walk from Isak’s house. They knew he was in year five of a school in Stockholm. They knew his favorite shirt was the one that said MY DAD WENT TO NEW YORK CITY AND ALL HE GOT ME WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT. Or at any rate, that was the one he nearly always had on as he raced past them through the long grass behind Isak’s house, along the stony beach, along the gravel track and past the shop. That one or NIAGARA FALLS . They even knew he had a hut somewhere in the woods, a hut he had built himself. But they didn’t know where it was. It was secret.
Many summers later, when Erika and Ragnar were thirteen and were lying in the long grass eating wild strawberries and drinking Coca-Cola they’d stolen from the shop, she told him about when she was little, about the first years on Hammarsö, before she knew him, when she had only one new sister, Laura, before suddenly, one summer, there was a carriage outside Isak’s house with a baby in it who screamed and screamed and screamed; she told him how Isak and Rosa had teased her, saying she was so small and thin that she could get blown out to sea any minute and die a horrible death on the other side of the horizon. Ragnar listened, stroked her hair, and said: “It’s the big trees that fall over in the storm, not the little ones.”
He bent over her and kissed her on the mouth. His mouth felt rough, not like a girl’s—she had kissed a number of girls in her class, so she would know how to do it properly when it really mattered—and he tasted of salt and Coca-Cola.
“What do you mean?” asked Erika.
“It’s a well-known saying that your father, Isak, obviously never heard—I mean, when he said that about you being blown away in the storm.”
Erika looked up at the sky: not a cloud anywhere, not the slightest mackerel streak.
Your father, Isak,
Ragnar had said, and he meant something by it, but she didn’t know what. At any rate, it was a strange way of putting it. Erika wouldn’t have said
Your mother, Ann-Kristin.
On Hammarsö, the trees were small and crooked, so perhaps it was true that the big ones fell first.
“But we’re not trees,” said Erika out loud, nudging him in the side.
He looked at her and smiled.
“We’re not trees,” she repeated.
And she really didn’t know if she wanted to kiss him some more, or tip the rest of the Coca-Cola over him and run.
Chapter 22
One evening, Tomas took her hands and loosened her embrace, finger by finger, and left her. They had lived together in the flat by Sofienberg Park for nine years.
For nine years, Erika and the children ate food that Tomas had cooked. Hearty, fragrant meat stews, extravagantly spiced, with big chunks of beef or pork. And long after Erika and Ane had gone to bed, Tomas played computer games with Magnus. Erika said: He’s a child; he’s got to go to school. The pair of you can’t
Erika and Laura got up from their sheltered spot in the grass and ran after him. They knew his name was Ragnar. They knew he lived alone with his mother in a summer cottage of brown-stained wood, ten minutes’ walk from Isak’s house. They knew he was in year five of a school in Stockholm. They knew his favorite shirt was the one that said MY DAD WENT TO NEW YORK CITY AND ALL HE GOT ME WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT. Or at any rate, that was the one he nearly always had on as he raced past them through the long grass behind Isak’s house, along the stony beach, along the gravel track and past the shop. That one or NIAGARA FALLS . They even knew he had a hut somewhere in the woods, a hut he had built himself. But they didn’t know where it was. It was secret.
Many summers later, when Erika and Ragnar were thirteen and were lying in the long grass eating wild strawberries and drinking Coca-Cola they’d stolen from the shop, she told him about when she was little, about the first years on Hammarsö, before she knew him, when she had only one new sister, Laura, before suddenly, one summer, there was a carriage outside Isak’s house with a baby in it who screamed and screamed and screamed; she told him how Isak and Rosa had teased her, saying she was so small and thin that she could get blown out to sea any minute and die a horrible death on the other side of the horizon. Ragnar listened, stroked her hair, and said: “It’s the big trees that fall over in the storm, not the little ones.”
He bent over her and kissed her on the mouth. His mouth felt rough, not like a girl’s—she had kissed a number of girls in her class, so she would know how to do it properly when it really mattered—and he tasted of salt and Coca-Cola.
“What do you mean?” asked Erika.
“It’s a well-known saying that your father, Isak, obviously never heard—I mean, when he said that about you being blown away in the storm.”
Erika looked up at the sky: not a cloud anywhere, not the slightest mackerel streak.
Your father, Isak,
Ragnar had said, and he meant something by it, but she didn’t know what. At any rate, it was a strange way of putting it. Erika wouldn’t have said
Your mother, Ann-Kristin.
On Hammarsö, the trees were small and crooked, so perhaps it was true that the big ones fell first.
“But we’re not trees,” said Erika out loud, nudging him in the side.
He looked at her and smiled.
“We’re not trees,” she repeated.
And she really didn’t know if she wanted to kiss him some more, or tip the rest of the Coca-Cola over him and run.
Chapter 22
One evening, Tomas took her hands and loosened her embrace, finger by finger, and left her. They had lived together in the flat by Sofienberg Park for nine years.
For nine years, Erika and the children ate food that Tomas had cooked. Hearty, fragrant meat stews, extravagantly spiced, with big chunks of beef or pork. And long after Erika and Ane had gone to bed, Tomas played computer games with Magnus. Erika said: He’s a child; he’s got to go to school. The pair of you can’t
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