6
1945
The village was still shrouded in darkness as Nils Eklund cycled to the bakery in the morning. Was it even morning yet? It was more like the middle of the night since it was only three thirty. But he liked to get there before the bakers and other employees arrived, so that he could plan the day.
Nils was the foreman in the family bakery. There were six bakers, two packers, and two drivers who delivered the bread in the company vans. Another packer was due to start today.
Nils was also responsible for the café in the village, and the smaller bakery in Sala, a few miles away. The family bakery was known for its cinnamon buns, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to meet the demand, because the raw materials were scarce due to the war. At the moment they were mainly producing bread and rolls, because sugar was in short supply.
He unlocked the heavy wooden door and pushed it open, knowing that as soon as the ovens got going, it would become unbearably hot. He switched on the lights, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the brightness, then went through the bakery and into the office next door. He picked up his black notebook and pen and returned to the bakery to go through the stock on the shelves. They would need more sugar to fill this week’s orders; he would check with his father. He made his plans for the day, then wrote up a list of what was to be baked on the chalkboard on the wall. He went back into his office and checked the following week’s orders, making a note of what to buy. When the bakers arrived a few minutes later, they called out hello and went to change. Before long, he heard the sound of sacks of flour thudding onto the baking table and the clatter of rolling pins. The workday had begun.
An hour later, when the smell of freshly baked bread reached the office, the packers arrived. Aino was first as usual, and she had brought the new employee with her. Nils could see only the back of her head through the window. Aino had assured him that Tuula was conscientious and spoke Swedish, which had made the decision to take her on very simple. Aino was one of the most dedicated workers Nils had ever met, and if she said someone was good, then he had every reason to believe it to be true.
He got up and went to welcome the newest member of the staff, but stopped dead when he saw her. It was as if all his senses had short-circuited. Everything within him was flashing and pulsating. Jesus, was it really possible to feel like this? With one look? Just from looking at someone? She was the most beautiful woman he had ever set eyes on. Her thick blonde hair fell to her shoulders in soft curls, and the morning sunshine flooding in made her hair appear golden. And her clear blue eyes radiated warmth, but also something else—melancholy.
She looked up at him and held out her hand. “Tuula Anttila.”
“Nils Eklund.” When he shook her hand, he got the strangest feeling; he didn’t want to let go. He cleared his throat in an attempt to pull himself together. “Welcome. I’m the bakery foreman. Aino has told me how hardworking you are, so I’m very pleased to have you here.” He cleared his throat again; he didn’t want to go back to the office yet. “Shall I show you around?”
Aino raised her eyebrows. Nils usually left that kind of thing to one of the other packers, or maybe one of the bakers.
“I think Aino has her hands full today,” he explained. “There are a lot of orders going out, so I’m happy to give you the guided tour.”
“Thank you, that would be very kind.” Tuula spoke slowly, articulating every syllable with care in her lilting accent. He had never heard anyone speak Swedish so beautifully.
“Shall I take Tuula to the changing room first?” Aino suggested.
“Oh—yes, good idea.” He couldn’t really show her the ladies’ changing room. He slipped into the office; the changing room was next door, and it would look weird if he hung around outside.
The two women reappeared a few minutes later, wearing their white overalls and caps.
“The uniform is a perfect fit!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. Tuula smiled, while Aino looked as if she was about to burst out laughing. He smiled nervously. What was he doing? He cleared his throat yet again; at this rate she would assume he was suffering from some kind of lung disease. “Shall we start with the bakery?”
“Sure.” Tuula nodded and he led the way.
Did she like it? Was she as impressed as he had been the first time he saw the place? The walls were covered in small, square tiles; wooden baking tables ran the length of one wall, and a large brick oven that had been made to order and transported all the way from Roslagen was installed at one end of the room. “We bake bread and other products. Our cinnamon buns have become very popular. The red-hot surface of the brick oven makes the underside of the buns crispy.”
Tuula walked toward the oven and inspected it. “Wonderful.”
Nils nodded. It was his pride and joy, presiding over the room like a gigantic trophy.
“And here we have our bakers.” He waved in the direction of the men kneading the dough in the heat. They held out their floury hands one by one and greeted Tuula.
Just then, Lydia, the third packer, came through the door.
“This is Lydia, and this is Tuula, your new colleague.”
Lydia smiled warmly. “Pleased to meet you. And how nice for us to have some help, herr Eklund.”
“I know how hard you work,” Nils assured her.
They continued to the packing section. Daylight flooded in through the tall, arched windows and the open doors. Out here the smell of freshly baked bread was less noticeable, and the cool, dewy morning air made its presence felt.
“This is where you make up the cardboard boxes, then pack the bread and buns.” He saw her gazing out through the doors; for a second she didn’t appear to be listening.
“I’m so sorry,” she said quickly. “My children are on their own, and they’re leaving for their first day of school in a little while. My daughter is seven, so she’s looking after her little brother.” She sounded apologetic, as if she didn’t want to bother him.
She had children. So she must be married. It was obvious really—such a beautiful woman couldn’t possibly be single. He glanced down at her hand and saw a ring.
“There’s only me to look after them,” she added. “My husband died in the war.”
“Oh—I’m so sorry.”
“I’m just a little bit anxious since it’s their first day.”
Nils nodded. “I understand perfectly.”
He was a bachelor, but his father had big plans for him and his future marriage. Until now he had gone along with those plans, despite the fact that he wasn’t entirely convinced about the marriage.
His father had always favored Nils over his brother, Stig, because Nils was more like Father. They understood each other, they thought along the same lines, and they both shared a burning passion for baking. Stig had never been interested in baking or taking over the business and had gone on to become an accountant. Father was proud of Stig, of course, but Nils was the apple of his eye, the son who would one day inherit the bakery. However, that did involve certain sacrifices.
They continued the tour. “Because we’re a large-scale operation, we deliver to other cafés and stores,” Nils explained. “We’ve just opened another bakery a few miles away, and my father is planning to freeze bread and cinnamon buns so that we can deliver to a wider area.”
Tuula nodded, clearly impressed.
Father’s plans were ambitious to say the least, and included a freezer room for which he had commissioned architectural drawings. A company that supplied berries and vegetables had just started building an enormous freezer room. Nils and his father had found a suitable location, but in order to convert the premises they would need permission from the local council. And this was where Nils and his future came into play. The chairman of the council had a daughter, who happened to be an old school friend of Nils’s. She had apparently taken a fancy to Nils, which suited his father perfectly. If Nils married the chairman’s daughter, then they would get the permission they needed in order to expand both the bakeries and the company as a whole.
Nils wasn’t convinced. Birgit was pleasant enough, but they weren’t in love. He had always thought that you ought to feel something more when you got married. He didn’t know what real love felt like, but he had seen the way his mother and father looked at each other ... And it was obvious that Stig and his wife were deeply in love. Nils wanted his children to be raised by parents who felt that way about each other.
“We’ve just sealed an important deal with a store over in Avesta that wants to sell our bread, so we’re going to need to increase our production rate. So there’s plenty of work for packers; the problem at the moment is the raw materials,” Nils went on, pushing thoughts of marriage aside.
They continued out through the arched doors. “This is the loading dock,” he said with a sweep of his hand. “We have two trucks, and the drivers start in an hour, when the first batch of loaves has been baked and packed.” Tuula nodded as he talked, taking it all in. “We also have a café in the village that sells our bread. You ought to try it sometime—our coffee is very good.”
“I walked past it yesterday—it looked nice.”
He’d been there almost all day yesterday, and she’d walked past? From now on he would keep an eye out for her.
He turned back to the packing room, where Aino had started assembling boxes. “It’s probably easier if Aino takes you through what to do.”
Tuula smiled. “Thank you for showing me around.”
“It was a pleasure.”
Such a pleasure. Nils headed for his office.
He got next to nothing done for the rest of the day. He kept finding himself peering into the bakery through the small window in his office, hoping to catch sight of Tuula. What the hell was wrong with him?