41. Else-Maj
ELSE-MAJ
1986
Else-Maj saw Marge walking along with Stella. It was clear they enjoyed a different sort of closeness now than they had last fall; they were holding hands and laughing and pressing up against each other. She slipped away from the kitchen window. Music was streaming from her daughter’s room; Style on constant repeat. She’d let Ella buy their album when they were at Domus last week.
“One of their songs is number one on Tracks!”
Once Else-Maj had paid, Ella didn’t even want to put the record in her bag—she insisted on carrying it under her arm. She thanked Else-Maj over and over, and for once Else-Maj hoped she might get a hug. But no—and it was her own fault. When had she stopped embracing her children? She’d been relieved the moment they began to show signs of independence. Gustu was no better about hugging them, but of course it was worse to have an enná who was bad at physical contact.
She moved to the other kitchen window and watched as Marge wound her arm around her daughter, saw them grappling each other until they both ended up in the snow. Parents who had time to play with their kids like that must simply not have enough to do.
Even so, the sight made her wander around the house restlessly, and she ended up next to the school pictures, a whole wall of them, year by year. Ella laughing, Nils Johan looking serious, and Per Duommá in the same short haircut he’d always had.
Ella’s laugh could ease sorrows, as Else-Maj’s enná liked to say. And Else-Maj clung to that thought, because it must mean she’d done something right. She scoffed at herself—where were these thoughts coming from? Maybe she was the one who had too much time on her hands today, if she was brooding like this. She reminded herself that her children were strong and self-sufficient, and that was the most important thing. Ella already knew how to do everything she would ever need to, and the boys were fully competent with the reindeer. Gustu was proud of them, and clapped the boys hard on their shoulders. An enná couldn’t clap a shoulder the same way. An enná was supposed to be gentle and offer her embrace. But Else-Maj was small and bony, nothing soft to lean into here. Her own enná was round and the presence of her warm body, at least, could sometimes be counted as closeness, although she seldom hugged her children or grandchildren. Ella often liked to sit close to áhkku, sinking into her softness. Else-Maj sometimes watched them from the corner of her eye, looking for any sign that Enná might be uncomfortable.
They were never allowed to talk about Sara. Ella had asked one time, she couldn’t have been more than six, and áhkku had stood up so swiftly that Ella’s little body tumbled sideways and she hit her head on the carved wooden back of the kitchen bench. There were tears, but did áhkku come back to comfort her granddaughter? Of course not. She escaped into some chore, lifting the rug and the hatch and vanishing into the root cellar. She was down there so long that the smell of earth took over the kitchen. Else-Maj had to sit and take her daughter in her arms. Ella clung tight to her neck and snotted all over her hair. She was fine after a minute or so and wanted to go down to the root cellar after áhkku. So Else-Maj had to keep holding on to her, closing her arms tight around the kid.
“No children on the floor when the hatch is open,” she had called down sharply to Enná, who climbed back up at last and pretended that nothing was wrong. No apology to Ella, no checking her head for a goose egg.
Now there was an enná who always put her own troubles first. You might think she would offer hugs and comfort to her children when their oabbá died, but no. Enná had been paralyzed with grief. They simply had to manage on their own.
Marge and Stella had stopped by at Christmas with a box of Aladdin chocolates to thank them for their help when Stella fell out of the tree. Gustu accepted it with a certain amount of displeasure; he didn’t really like being thanked. Else-Maj nudged him in the back, he had to know that the poor girl was just trying to do her best. So he accepted the chocolates and said that he wouldn’t be sharing with anyone. He was good at joking around with kids, that one. But Marge should have known better than to bring a gift.
Else-Maj remembered Marge’s shocked, nonsensical chatter in the car. She’d noticed the difficulty Marge had in getting close to her daughter that day. Was that why Else-Maj was jealous? Now that Marge and Stella were holding hands and rolling around in the snow? She scoffed again. Jealous? Not her.
The phone rang in the front hall and she hurried over to answer it. “310 45.”
“Is this Else-Maj?”
The voice was familiar, and she imagined there was about to be good reason to sit down, so she did. They didn’t buy furniture often, but the telephone bench with its handy seat and table, along with drawers for gloves, hats, safety reflectors, and all sorts of other items, had been a real find. She looked in the mirror on the other side of the wall and saw herself stiffen as the voice continued.
“This is Anna.” The woman cleared her throat. “From A ? evuopmi.”
Else-Maj looked down.
“Hello? Are you there? This is Anna here.”
How long had it been since she’d seen her? Years. And it had never been more than a quick hello in passing, Else-Maj always in a rush, on her way somewhere, not about to stop for Anna. They’d hardly spoken at all since the nomad school. She knew Anna lived in Norway, Enná had mentioned it once, thinking that Else-Maj would be interested. And even if Anna had been home in A ? evuopmi at some point, there were still miles between the villages so it was no wonder they hadn’t run into each other.
And now, Anna’s voice right in her ear. A voice that was just the same even though thirty years had passed.
“I see,” Else-Maj managed to say at last. She had no idea what she was feeling, and for that she was grateful. “I’m a little busy here, just about to take some bread out of the oven,” she lied.
“I understand. Perhaps I could drop by?”
“No!” She lowered her voice a notch. “Ella has a cold and I’m worried I might come down with it any minute now.”
“Ella, is that your daughter? I’m not afraid of germs. I’ve worked as a nurse for years, so I’ve already had everything and a little more besides.”
Else-Maj didn’t want to lie, she just wanted to have the strength to say no. Why did she need a reason?
“I’ve been thinking about you for years, Else-Maj. Wondering how everything turned out for you. But I was so young myself, and I kept moving all over the place. Suddenly you were grown, and I guess I just never…” She spoke in a rush, as if she were nervous and had planned out what to say.
“Things turned out fine for me. But listen, I have to go get that bread.”
“Then I’ll stop by.”
“I don’t think I want you to.” Else-Maj looked her mirror self in the eye, stood up, and tried to find the strength inside. “Anna…” Saying her name felt like burning her tongue. Her body was stern and upright, but that was the only part of her that was.
“I’m sick,” Anna interrupted. “I have cancer. Pancreatic. It kills you before you even have time to plan your funeral, decide what hymns you want sung and what your casket should look like. But you do have time to think about the important people in your life.”
Else-Maj sat down again. You didn’t mess around with cancer. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”
“Right, it’s nice that I have the cancer as an excuse. No one dares say no to me now.”
Gallows humor did not appeal to Else-Maj, who didn’t laugh along with Anna.
“So, what do you say? Can I come see you?”
“You know, I’d rather come to you.” She wouldn’t, really. But she couldn’t allow Anna to visit them. The children couldn’t find out who she was, and she certainly couldn’t trust that Anna would keep quiet about that.
Else-Maj and Gustu had agreed, once she persuaded him, that they wouldn’t burden the children with their memories from the nomad school. They wouldn’t lay any pain on their shoulders. Else-Maj brought her hand to her chest. The rock of grief. Gustu didn’t know that she carried it.
“You’re welcome to come here. You know how to get to my parents’ house, right? I recently took it over.”
“The last one, the green one, right before you leave A ? evuopmi. Yes, I know.”
“Come soon. I could die tomorrow, you never know.”
They hung up, but Anna’s laugh lingered inside her. It sounded just the same as always. So many times it had comforted her, so many times Anna had made her giggle. Tickling her gently at first, as if to thaw the laughter in her belly.
The first time Else-Maj saw her after her days at the nomad school, she had been sixteen and on her way to Guorpmit on Midsummer’s Eve. The young people in the village liked to amuse themselves by climbing the mountain, and she had her eye on Gustu even then and knew he was heading up. She’d been surprised to see Anna walking along the side of the road in the village, wearing a flower crown and stopping when she saw the teenagers approach on their bikes. She did a double take, opened her mouth, her eyes widening in that happy sort of recognition from running into a dear old friend. She had even raised her hand to wave, surely expecting Else-Maj to stop—but no. She had pedaled on past and pretended not to recognize Anna, hadn’t even turned around. Take that!
That evening, Gustu put his arm around her waist at the top of Guorpmit and said she was pretty. Then they dashed back down the mountain, hooting wildly as it began to hail. Tiny, hard balls of ice pelting against her coat and hood, almost painful. And Else-Maj, who simply wanted to enjoy the fact that Gustu was holding her hand, couldn’t stop thinking about Anna.
The years passed and she didn’t see much of her; on those rare occasions she did spot her, she kept her distance to ensure they wouldn’t run into each other. Afterward, Anna would occupy her thoughts, and she didn’t like it. It made her grumpy and cross, and Gustu would raise his eyebrows as she slammed pots and pans around or raised her voice at the boys for the smallest things.
No, she’d never liked seeing Anna again. And she really didn’t like this.