The Cold Song (6 page)

Jon went on standing at the window. But now he wasn’t looking at Alma spinning and falling, or at Liv picking flowers. He was looking at Milla. She had long dark hair and big eyes. A nice body. He had noticed that the evening before. About nineteen or twenty years old. Shy and a little bit awkward. Sweaty palms. Her eyes bright when she shook his hand and said hello. She had held on to his hand a little longer than necessary and something in her eyes told him that, young as she was, she had acknowledged him. And now she was running after Liv with a flower for her bouquet.

Her body full and young, she had held his hand a little longer than necessary. Something inside him quieted down. It was all going to hell anyway.

It was fine to just stand here and look at Milla and not think.

BUT SOMETHING WAS
wrong. Siri held her breath. It had to do with Milla. Or something else. But Milla definitely had something to do with it. Her presence here at Mailund. The slightly lumpish body, the long dark hair (long dark hairs on the kitchen counter, in the bathroom sink, between the sofa and the sofa cushions, on the baseboards and doorframes), her face, sometimes pretty, sometimes not, beseeching eyes.

More and more Siri found herself having to concentrate in order to keep herself in check—was that the expression? Keep oneself in check? Be one. One body, one voice, one mouth, one thread, and not fall apart, dissolve, collapse in a heap.

“Your main responsibility,” Siri said, “will be to look after Liv for five hours or so every day. But we’d be grateful if you’d keep an eye on Alma as well. Alma’s twelve. She’s”—Siri searched for the right word—”a bit of a loner.”

Milla laughed hesitantly, brushed the hair back from her pretty moon face, and said that she thought it all sounded really great.

It was a mild, bright day in May and Siri had invited Milla to the house in Oslo. The idea was for them to get to know each other a little better before the summer. Alma was at school, Liv was at nursery school, and Jon had gone for a long
walk with Leopold. Something about a chapter he was having trouble writing.

Milla had replied to the ad on the Internet for a summer job and Siri had been taken with her application. In her e-mail she came across as a happy, friendly, reliable girl.
It would be fantastic to get to know all of you and be able to be part of your family this summer.
If I get the job I’ll do my best to be a good “big sister” to your daughters so that you and your husband won’t have to worry when you’re at work
.

Maybe Milla could spread a little happiness? Maybe, Siri had thought, maybe, just maybe there were such things as happiness-spreaders? Siri may also have been influenced, or impressed, or intrigued, by the fact that Milla’s mother, Amanda Browne, was a famous, or relatively famous, American photographer living in Norway. Siri remembered browsing in a bookstore and stumbling upon a book of photography by Amanda Browne—this was nine years ago, maybe even ten—and being struck by the stark beauty of the black-and-white images. Amanda Browne had, according to the book’s introduction, photographed everything that was precious to her. Most of the photographs were of her young daughter, lovingly observed, intimately portrayed—playing, sleeping, eating breakfast and getting chocolate milk all over her face, running through tall, sun-scorched grass. The girl’s name was Mildred. There were photographs of other people too. Amanda Browne’s husband, her aging parents, an old aunt with illness written all over her face. And there were several photographs of the flat, blistering summer landscape surrounding Amanda Browne’s house on the outskirts of Oslo.
But it was the photographs of the child that moved Siri. She remembered standing in the bookstore, looking at the pictures, and thinking of her own child, of Alma, just a toddler then. She remembered placing the book back on its shelf, jumping on a tram, and going directly to the day-care center where Alma spent a few hours every day. Looking at those photographs, Siri urgently felt the need to find her daughter, to hold her in her arms, touch her face, inhale the warmth of her skin.

And so here she was. Mildred. Or Milla, as she was called now. Nothing like the strong-willed, suntanned child in the book. Siri had offered her the job. And now she was regretting everything.

She smiled.

“My husband is a writer,” she said. “He has a book to finish. I have a small seafood restaurant five minutes from Mailund, as well as a restaurant in Oslo. The seafood restaurant, Gloucester it’s called, after a little fishing port outside of Boston, is only open during the summer months and I’ll be spending most of my time there. It’s a lot of work. I—”

Siri broke off. There was no point in trying to explain to Milla the amount of work involved in running two restaurants.

“Also, we like the house to be kept neat and tidy,” she continued. “So it would be good if you could lend a hand with that too. It’s best if everybody in the family helps out, that way it’s easily done and takes little time. And while you’re staying with us you’ll be sort of like one of the family.”

“Oh, yes,” Milla said, looking bewildered. “It’ll be great. I’m really looking forward to it.”

She put a hand to her face, stroked her cheek. Her bracelets jingled. She had a whole lot of them on her wrist. (Fine. Silver.) And every time Milla moved her hand, as when she stroked her own cheek—why did she do that?—they jingled.

“And I’m throwing a party for my mother this summer,” Siri said. “For her seventy-fifth birthday. I’m probably going to need some help with that too.”

Milla nodded uncertainly.

Siri never wore jewelry. No bracelets, no earrings, nothing around her neck, only her wedding ring, which she removed every night.

The sound of Milla’s bracelets reminded her of when she was a little girl, sitting opposite her mother at the kitchen table. There was always complete silence when they sat together like that, except when Jenny turned a page of the book she was reading and her bracelets jingled.

“We spend all our summers at Mailund,” Siri said, again regretting everything. Surely she and Jon could have split the days between them? They’d done it before. She could have taken Liv in the mornings and he could have taken her in the afternoons when Siri was at the restaurant. Yes, that’s how they had done it in the past. But that hadn’t really worked out, had it? They always ended up fighting about who did what and who didn’t.

“A big old house,” she said, interrupting her own train of thought. “Oh, and we have this small house, an annex, in the garden, that’s where you’ll be staying. With your own bathroom and lots of bookshelves.”

“Okay,” said Milla, and giggled.

Siri forced herself to smile.
Why on earth are you giggling?
Oh, she tried to curb her own impatience. Twenty years of running restaurants—it did something to you. To things like having patience. To things here at home. Jon, the children. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
But what have I done with my life?

“My mother and I lived in that big old house—Mailund, it’s called—until I was fourteen and then we moved to Oslo,” Siri said. She was babbling on. “My mother was a bookseller. She had a bookshop near the old bakery, where I’ve got the restaurant now. But you’ll see all of that when you get there. We’ll take you around and show you everything, the children and I will.”

Siri could tell that Milla’s mind was elsewhere, that she wasn’t particularly interested in accepting Siri’s little flower:
We’ll take you around and show you everything, the children and I will
.

The veranda door was open and Siri could hear the neighbour’s children next door, Emma’s daughters, seven and nine years old (older than Liv but younger than Alma), who had been picked up from school early that day. They were clapping their hands and chanting a rhyme that she remembered from when Alma was younger.

“And after that she worked for years in a big bookshop here in Oslo,” Siri went on. “It’s closed now. She was in charge of the foreign literature section. Now that she’s retired she’s moved back to Mailund for good. She lives with Irma, who helps her around the house. You’ll meet both of them.”

“Don’t you have any brothers or sisters?” Milla asked. And then, as if she had already received a reply: “I don’t either.”

“No,” Siri said. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

She did not say:
But don’t think that means we have anything in common, because believe me, we don’t
.

What she said was: “I had a little brother, but he died when he was four.”

“Oh,” Milla said, lowering her eyes. “That’s so sad.”

Jenny’s skin had been soft back then, so soft that you could snuggle right up close to her, poke your nose between her breasts inside the open neck of her well-worn nightdress. And she smelled nice.

Siri thought it would be a good idea to give Milla’s parents a call and assure them that she was in good hands. Regular working hours. Good pay. The news was full of stories about au pairs and nannies who were treated badly: Filipino girls who were forced to work ten-hour days for next to nothing,
young women who looked after other people’s children so that they could support their own kids back home, Norwegians who liked the idea of having a servant in the house.

“We’ll take good care of her, she’ll be just like one of the family,” Siri said.

“That’s nice,” Amanda Browne said, “but our sweet pea is a grown-up, you know, and does what she likes.”

“Sweet what?”

Amanda laughed softly. “Oh, it’s just a leftover from when she was little … sweet pea. That’s what we used to call her.”

Siri said, “If you and your husband wanted to come to Mailund during the summer to see Milla, we’ve plenty of room. You’d be most welcome. And I’d love to treat you to dinner at Gloucester—that’s my summer restaurant—we’re known for good seafood.”

Siri had no idea what made her say these things. The last thing she wanted was for Milla’s parents to come to Mailund, to have to socialize with them and give them dinner at the restaurant.

“Oh, no,” Amanda replied. “Mikkel and I wouldn’t dream of imposing.”

Siri could tell that Amanda was embarrassed.

“Anyway, we made other plans months ago,” Amanda continued. “Milla’s nineteen, she can’t wait to have a job and earn her own money and it will give her time, we hope, to think about what she wants to do next.”

“Of course,” Siri said, and added impulsively: “Your photographs mean a lot to me. I think they’re beautiful, and true somehow. I just wanted to tell you that.”

Amanda Browne was quiet for a few moments. And then: “Well, thank you very much. That’s very nice of you.”

And now here she was, Siri, with this rather lumpish, breathless teenage girl with one hand nervously fluttering on the tabletop. Siri had to concentrate hard to stop herself from placing her own hand firmly over Milla’s.
Stop that! Pull yourself together. None of that fluttering, please, if you don’t mind
. It wasn’t too late. Siri could still say,
The nanny job’s off. I’m so sorry, but it’s all off
. They weren’t at Mailund yet, they were still in Oslo. But she didn’t have the guts. The girl was counting on this. It was already decided.

Later, Siri told Jon, “Her mother calls her sweet pea.”

“Does she now?” said Jon, who had not yet met Milla and had been very much against bringing a nanny to Mailund. “Will we have to call her sweet pea as well?”

“No, no. It’s just that … there really isn’t anything very sweet pea-ish about her.”

Milla was suffering from a spring cold that she couldn’t shake off. She was pale and red-eyed and kept having to blow her nose. When they met that first time, Siri had tried to talk to her about all sorts of things and hadn’t gotten much out of her, and she soon realized that where Milla was concerned there were two types of answers: a faint, hesitant “we-ell,” which could mean yes, no, or I don’t know; or a giggle, which could also mean yes, no, or I don’t know.

Milla looked at Siri.

Under an apple tree

There was something about Milla’s expression that reminded Siri of herself at that age. She had no wish to go back there. Siri smiled (instead of screaming) and wondered how to get out of this. Jon was right. It was a bad idea. A very, very bad idea.

Sat a boy and he said, said he
,

Next door, Emma called to her girls
Come on in, you two!
and the girls laughed and ran inside.

“Well, that’s agreed then,” Siri said. “You’ll come down on the twenty-fifth of June and I’ll pick you up at the bus stop. So we have a plan then. This is great. This is just great.”

MILLA HAD PROMISED
herself that by the end of this summer she would have transformed herself into an entirely new person. Inside and out. From head to toe. When she got back to Oslo in August everybody would say,
Why, Milla, what’s happened to you? You seem so different
. And she would smile demurely and say,
Nothing’s happened, I’ve had a great summer, that’s all
.