Punished

52. Anne-Risten

ANNE-RISTEN

1986

Everyone agreed it was an unusual obituary. At the very bottom it said that those who had been pupils at the nomad school were especially welcome to come say a final farewell to Anna. There had been chatter about it in the villages, how it was extremely peculiar to put a call out for particular guests.

Today was the day; it was time for Anna to be buried. Anne-Risten pulled her gákti over her head and let her hands run over the bright blue fabric from her waist to her hips. She’d had to spend an hour ironing to get the pleats just right, even though she’d pressed the gákti overnight. The fringes of the shawl were a little worse for wear after being stored in a drawer; the fine threads wanted to tangle and she spent a lot of time smoothing them, getting them to lie neatly. She had been up far past midnight polishing the brooches.

She swept the shawl over her shoulders and the fringe flew around her. She tucked the ends into the opening of the gákti in front, lifted the skirt and caught the ends from beneath, tugging until the shawl sat straight and smooth over her chest and shoulders. Then she pinned on the brooches and her hands knew just how to do it, even though it had been so long. She fastened the belt around her waist, bending forward slightly to keep the fringe from getting caught. It took effort to secure the snaps; she’d have to hold her breath a bit. Better ask Enná to move the snaps to make the belt longer.

The shafts of her beak boots drooped, but it wouldn’t be noticeable under the yellow-and-red woven shoe bands. She wound them tightly up her calves and the red pom-poms settled perfectly at her ankles.

Cecilia walked by the first time with an apple in her hand and didn’t say a word. Soon thereafter she came back to throw away the core and get a glass of water before vanishing into her room again.

Anne-Risten watched her go. It felt like just the other day that her little girl was sitting in the living room, asking for apple slices, and Anne-Risten had peeled an apple and made a juicy pile of wedges on a napkin. Served it to her in front of the TV. She missed those days.

Loud music came from her daughter’s room and the phone rang; it was almost always for Cecilia. Anne-Risten went to the bedroom and searched her drawers for the leather purse with red fabric and pewter embroidery. The little antler button was so smooth against her fingers as she twisted the twined leather loop to open the purse. She filled it with tissues, a blister pack of Tylenol, and two Treos she’d wound in plastic wrap.

She dug deeper in a different drawer and took out her wedding picture in its silver frame. They had made a striking couple. No gákti, Anne-Risten had said to Enná as soon as she told them she was engaged. Roger had paid for a gleaming white gown and even bought a small tiara. She sat there at the coffee hour at home in her apartment after the ceremony, her back straight and a crown on her head, and had never been farther away from her family, but she didn’t care. No one, neither parents nor siblings, had been allowed to wear a gákti, and Isá had stood there in his sock feet, his thick gray socks lumpy over his black slacks, looking lost. Enná hadn’t said much, but she’d worn her nicest skirt. Roger’s mother, though, who was dressed to the nines and had gotten her hair done at the salon, said over and over that Anne was the most beautiful bride she’d ever seen. The only guests were their immediate families, both at church for the ceremony and back home. Anne-Risten was disappointed not to have been seen by more people, but Roger had insisted on keeping the celebration small. When the wedding photo ran in the paper a few days later, though, her disappointment was forgotten. She knew that all of Kiruna and everyone in the villages would gape at the picture. Theirs was the biggest one, and Roger had declared that this was because she was the prettiest bride. In church the priest had called her Ann-Kristin, but in the paper it read Anne Nilsson. Enná probably hadn’t even saved the announcement.

Anne-Risten sighed and set the photo back in the drawer. She went to the mirror to see if the purse matched her gákti. She thought about Anna and the obituary. On the day it appeared in the paper she had pushed NSD across to Cecilia’s side of the table, saying that Anna had been a very special person for many children at the nomad school. Cecilia had almost surely ignored it, but Anne-Risten had cut out the obituary and saved it in her giisa, the red chest in her bedroom. When the time was right, that was where she would begin, use it as a point of reference, something to lean on when she said what she needed to say. But the right time hadn’t yet arrived. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if she told the whole tale and received only a shrug in return.

Cecilia hadn’t dared protest when Anne-Risten sat at the kitchen table wearing her reading glasses and polishing the brooches. And she had done no more than take a sharp breath when she saw the gákti hanging from the kitchen door the next morning. Death wasn’t something you messed around with, at least she’d taught the kid that much.

Anne-Risten fastened a barette just above her left ear. She smiled into the mirror and decided that she was still quite pretty, no matter what Roger said. Perhaps her bottom and breasts had lost a bit of their pep, but she didn’t have any wrinkles and her hair was thick and sleek, although she had curled it in honor of the day. Today she would hold her head high in the courtyards of Bromsgatan. For Anna.

She felt a surge of emotion. The brooches jingled softly as she spun around. She had missed that sound. Missed herself.

The kitchen still smelled like freshly baked cinnamon buns; she had gotten up early and thrown together a dough, planned to offer them to Vivianne tomorrow. She had done a deep clean this week and taken out the fancy white tablecloth with red roses Gun-Britt had never gotten to see. She would spread it over the kitchen table when she prepared for Vivianne’s visit. A taxi would pick up the elderly woman and bring her over.

“That’s going to too much trouble, it’s too expensive,” Vivianne had said, but the cheer in her voice shone through.

Anne-Risten had told her about the funeral, said she would be wearing a gákti for the first time in a long time. That Anna’s obituary had given her the courage to do it.

“You know, folks in Kiruna sometimes glare at you when you have a gákti on.”

“Don’t you worry yourself about that, Anne-Risten. You are who you are.”

She didn’t want to say that the worst glares came from those at home.

“I’m leaving now, my ride is coming,” she called to the apartment.

She wouldn’t let herself feel hurt that Cecilia didn’t come out to say goodbye. She closed the door behind her with care and walked slowly down the stairs. How she had missed the weight of the gákti around her legs. She emerged into the courtyard. Today she wouldn’t slink around the corner and wait behind the buildings. No, she stood calmly just outside the front door, watching the children in the sandbox and others on the swings. Surely the mothers were staring at her, but what did it matter? Maybe people were twitching their curtains, too. Let them look.

She heard the car honk from the parking lot. The fringes flew in the breeze as she went.