On the cover of the black notebook, Katri pasted a label on which she wrote “For Mats”. This serious game of challenging and recovering became a utilitarian game of hazard that occupied her thoughts continuously. Katri was in the grip of the collector’s peculiar mania. Every time she wrote a captured sum of money into her notebook, she felt the collector’s deep satisfaction at finally owning a rare and expensive specimen. Scrupulously, Katri figured out what should rightfully belong to Anna and what could belong to Mats. Into Anna’s pot she put whatever Anna herself would have accepted. Of what Katri managed to recover or repair, Anna got two-thirds. But when it came to people who wanted something without offering anything in return, the whole profit went to Mats. There were borderline cases where Anna’s pliancy could have meant additional sales over the long run, and these Katri divided evenly.
* * *
“So the plastics company is all set,” Katri said. “It went better than I expected. And their option won’t collide with United Rubber.”
“Really,” Anna said.
“There’s another letter from your publisher.”
Anna read it and remarked that it wasn’t as friendly as usual.
“Of course not. They know they can’t cheat you any more. We want a royalty next time instead of a flat fee. I hope you haven’t given them an option for future books.”
“Maybe. I don’t remember exactly…”
“There’s nothing about it in your papers. For that matter, you should think about changing publishers if they won’t give you better terms.”
Anna straightened up, but before she could say anything, Katri continued. “Here’s an amateur theatre that wants to use flowery rabbits. They paint the flowers themselves. They don’t have any money, but they charge for the tickets. I’ve suggested a very small royalty.”
“No,” said Anna flatly. “Nothing at all.”
“They’ve agreed to two percent. We can’t change our position. Here’s a textile company, three percent, I’ve raised it to five. Probably wind up at three-and-a-half, four tops. No, don’t say it. They just lose respect if we don’t try. And this is United Rubber again. They want to reduce the royalty so they can put a speaker in the rabbits. It will be expensive, but they’ll raise the price. What can we accept?”
“What do they say?”
“Three percent.”
“No, I mean the rabbits.”
“The letter doesn’t tell.”
“Rabbits don’t make sounds. Though I think they squeal if they’re scared. Or when they die.”
“Please, Anna. This is work we have to do. A job.”
“Yes and no,” Anna burst out. “I don’t want a squealing rabbit, it’s ridiculous.”
“But you don’t ever have to see it. It’s going to squeal somewhere in Central Europe. And nobody there knows you, and you don’t know them.”
“What do they want to give us?”
“Three percent.”
“Two!” Anna shouted and leaned across the table, her neck turning bright red. “Two percent! One percent for me, and one for you.”
Katri was silent. When her silence continued, Anna understood that she’d said something important. She repeated it. “One for me and one for you. We’ll share. We’ll share Central Europe.” It sounded adventurous. She said it again. Katri drew a deep breath and said, with a certain chill, that it was out of the question. But if Anna had no objection, they could assign half the royalty from United Rubber to Mats.
“Do so,” said Anna. “That’s fine. And not another word about United Rubber, ever.”
Katri opened the black notebook and, in her own sweeping hand, wrote, “Mats 1%”.
“Is there anything else of importance?”
“No, Anna,” Katri said. “We’ve done what matters most.”
Chapter Twenty-One
AT TWILIGHT, just as work in the boat shed stopped for the day, Katri walked down to the fish piers. The wind was blowing hard again. The Liljeberg brothers were walking home, and Katri met them. She stopped in front of Edvard Liljeberg. The others walked on.
“It’s blowing so hard,” Katri said. “Could we get out of the wind for a moment?”
“I don’t know,” Liljeberg answered. “What’s it about?” He recalled their last conversation quite clearly, and he was a little wary of her.
“It’s about a boat. I want to order a boat.”
Liljeberg just looked at her. So Katri shouted into the wind, “A boat! I want you to build a boat for Mats!”
He didn’t answer but turned back to the shed and unlocked the door. Katri had never been inside. The wind was making a racket against the metal roof, but the vast room seemed hugely calm and peaceful. The hull of a boat under construction was visible in the half-light, its giant ribcage in silhouette against the far wall of windows. Broad boards that would soon be planking hung in bundles from the ceiling, and there was a smell of shavings and tar and turpentine. Katri understood why her brother always wanted to come back here to this protected world where everything was correct and clean. She turned to Liljeberg and asked if he had time for a large boat with a cabin.
“How large?”
“Nine and a half metres. Carvel-built.”
“We may very well have time. But it’s likely to be expensive. What about the motor?”
“A four-cylinder paraffin engine,” Katri answered. “A forty- or fifty-horsepower Volvo Penta. Mats has done the boat designs. I think they look good. Though I know nothing about boats.”
“It sounds like you know quite a bit,” said Liljeberg.
“I’ve gone through his notes.”
“Well, well, yes, he ought to know a thing or two by now. Maybe I could have a look at those drawings.”
“There’s just one small difficulty,” Katri said. “I don’t want Mats to know about this until I’m sure.”
“You mean sure you can pay for it.”
Katri nodded.
“And can you?”
“Yes. But not now. Later in the spring.”
“I have to say”, Liljeberg said, “that, everything considered, this is a pretty strange order. What am I going to tell the others? There has to be a purchaser. Is it Miss Aemelin?”
“No. No, it’s not.”
“And you don’t want to figure in this?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Listen here,” said Liljeberg, looking her straight in the eye. “What is it you want me to do? Am I supposed to tell stories on your behalf because you can’t do it yourself?”
Katri didn’t answer. She walked over to the wall where the tools hung, gleaming, each in its own rack, in perfect order. Tentatively, she touched one tool after the other. Just like her brother, Liljeberg thought. They take things in their hands the same way. I can’t give her away. With this kind of dubious order in the works, they’ll be all over her again, the little witch. And if she can’t pay for it, I’m sure I can sell it to someone else. He said, quite brusquely, “Let’s go. I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
Later that evening, Liljeberg came to the rabbit house and asked for Mats. He’d heard something about plans for a boat, and he wanted to have a look at them. They went through the drawings together. “That’s very good, right in here,” he said. “But there’s room for improvement. Bring these with you in the morning. But don’t tell anyone.”
At home, he said they’d received an order for a carvel-built, nine-and-a-half metre, and the purchaser wanted to remain anonymous.
“And when did you hear about this?”
“A while ago,” Liljeberg said, and the lie came easily, like a gift to someone you value.
Chapter Twenty-Two
ANNA HAD GROWN QUIET AND SULLEN. A nasty suspicion had taken hold of her, namely, that she, a kind and friendly person, had been thoroughly cheated. For the first time in her life, Anna became distrustful, and the feeling did not agree with her or with those around her. She went around brooding about all of them ??
? neighbours, publishers, innocent little children, everyone. Absolutely everyone had cheated her.
She dug back in time and stopped only when she got to Papa and Mama. And, of course, Sylvia. Everything outside the rabbit house became an uncertain world of pettiness and secret ridicule. No one respects gullible people, Katri had said. And now Katri sat there again with her papers and her patient, insistent voice urging Anna to listen, to stop working against her own interests by simply saying no before she even knew what it was all about, because this time there was a large sum of money involved, and think what you could do with so much money if only you could see how much more it might become if the party of the second part could be made to deal honourably, and so forth, and so on.
“Katri,” Anna said, “now listen to what I’m going to tell you. It’s this: that I would much rather be cheated than to go around distrusting everyone.”
Then Katri made a mistake. “But it’s too late for that, isn’t it?” she said. “You can’t make that choice, because you already don’t trust them any more. Isn’t that right?”
Anna stood up from the table and left the room. In the hall, she opened wide the door to the yard and then walked right over to Katri’s dog and whispered, “Get out of here!” Her hands could feel the big animal’s powerful muscles under his rough coat, but Anna was not afraid. She gave the dog a substantial shove and got him out in the snow. She grabbed a stick from the woodpile and threw it as far as she could, shouting, “Fetch! Retrieve!” The dog just looked at her without moving. Anna threw another stick. “Fetch! Play! Do as I tell you!” She was sobbing with rage. It was very cold. When she went back inside, she left the door wide open.
* * *
Anna persisted. Every time she knew the house was empty, she chased the dog outdoors. Stubbornly, teeth clenched, she threw sticks into the woods, time after time, day after day. Finally the dog retrieved one, very slowly, then drew aside with his ears laid back and stood motionless in the snow and stared at her.
“What are you doing?” asked Mats, who had come up the hill and stopped at the corner of the house.
“Teddy’s playing,” Anna said, startled. “All dogs like to retrieve…”
“Not this one,” Mats said. “He’s not allowed to take orders from anyone but Katri. Come inside.” Mats had never before spoken to Anna sternly. He held the door open and she walked quickly past him into the hall.
New books had arrived. “Take whatever you like,” Anna said. “But I don’t want to read this evening.”
Mats picked up the books one after another and put them down again. Finally he said anxiously that trained dogs were different, you couldn’t upset them and confuse them. You had to be careful with them. Katri had never made the dog retrieve.
“But that dog is unhappy.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mats said. “He’s got a pretty good life in a way. And anyhow I think it’s too late to change him at this stage.”
“Well, which book do you want?” said Anna impatiently. “Let me see what they’ve sent… Little Erik’s Sea Voyage. Outrageous. Looks like they’re just sending junk they want to get rid of. I might have known… Have you read Joseph Conrad? Typhoon?”
“No.”
Anna went to get it. “Here you are. For once, read something that’s true to life. Typhoon is the best thing ever written about a ship in a storm. It’s much more than an adventure. More than a storm… Believe me, even your literary sister may have read Joseph Conrad.” After a moment or two she added, “If she understood it.”
Mats avoided looking at Anna. He opened the book, turning the pages with the same care he took with everything he touched, and mentioned cautiously that Katri understood most things, she was very smart. “Much smarter than us,” he said.
“That’s possible,” Anna said. “But speak for yourself. One thing I do know, my young friend, she’s not gifted. That’s another thing entirely.”
When Anna had gone, Mats made himself a cup of tea, sat down at the kitchen table and began to read. The house became silent in the storm.
* * *
Anna had lost her desire to read. The heroes of sea, jungle and wilderness were suddenly just lifeless images. They no longer afforded her entry to an honourable world of just deserts, eternal friendship and rightful retribution. Anna did not understand how this had happened, and she felt herself shut out.
One day Anna declared, quite casually, that in future she wanted to have nothing whatsoever to do with business; she didn’t want to talk about it or know about it. Katri, who knew so much about percentages, could allocate them however she wished.
“But Anna, I can’t do that. I can’t take responsibility for your most important letters. This is serious. We’re not playing at this, like a game.”
“No, you’re incapable of playing,” said Anna a bit cruelly. “You don’t know how to play – that’s precisely the problem.”
* * *
It was about this time that Katri worked out her game of playing for percentages, which she called the Mats Game. It was very simple. Cardboard squares, each with a clearly lettered percentage – ‘5%’, ‘4½%’, ‘7%’, ‘10%’, etcetera – which she dealt out like playing cards. The game was played quickly and without a lot of rules.
Katri: “These people bid four percent. What do we bid?”
Anna, throwing a card on the table: “Five percent. Don’t let them cheat us!”
“And how much for Mats?”
“Two and a half.”
Katri: “No, I’ll trump that. Four for you and two for Mats. But you picked up one percent by raising to five. We’ll put that in the kitty.”
“And what do we do with the kitty?”
“You decide.”
Anna, laughing: “A coverlet for Teddy. Okay. Next bid?”
“They’re proposing seven and a half.”
Anna: “Ten! But only four for Mats.”
“Anna, you’re cheating. You don’t have the ten.”
“Okay, eight then. But Mats still gets four, like I said. No, five. Five percent.”
And Katri wrote it down.
Her opponent leaned back in her chair and said, “Okay, next?”
“There isn’t anything else this time. We’ve answered everything I found in the cabinet.”
“But we could pretend,” Anna said. “I want to go on.”
They started playing for fictitious amounts, usually when it started getting dark. They would build a fire, light two candles on the table, set out pen and paper, deal, bid and throw down cards, each representing huge sums that could gradually grow to millions. Katri kept score. She humoured Anna by playing this new millions game, and she usually let Anna win, but its make-believe quality tormented her. It seemed to infringe on the dignity of real numbers. When the game had been about Anna’s business affairs, or, rather, about Anna’s way of talking about her business affairs, Katri had had a sense of unreality that often made it hard for her to reestablish the proper balance and significance of the numbers. Nevertheless, she would take the sums fairly won in this game and add them to previously recaptured sums, which by her reckoning already belonged to Mats. Then, with even more meticulous care, she would note down the percentages that fell to Anna.
But playing for pretend money upset her much more. Anna’s way of juggling zeros was confusing, and for the first time in her life Katri lost track and sat in her room for long periods with her hands pressed on her eyes, trying to separate what was real from what was arbitrary play. The numbers pursued her relentlessly, but they were no longer her allies. And Katri felt that Anna’s game was a kind of punishment. The long-forgotten letters had been answered, and new ones arrived very rarely. Anna seemed disappointed. “Is there no one we can cheat today? Then let’s play the millions game.” The game allowed you to cow your opponent with percentages, and it didn’t matter in the least whether you were bidding higher or lower.
They tried switching to auction piquet, but it was a mistake
. Anna was a bad loser; it made her angry and snappish. They went back to the millions game.
* * *
On days when she was alone, Anna took the dog out in the back yard and had him retrieve. The dog had changed. When you passed him in the back hall, he could stand up and bare his teeth.
“Down,” said Katri. And the dog would lie down.
Chapter Twenty-Three
A WHITE WROUGHT-IRON FLOWER TABLE ran beneath the window in Anna’s bedroom. It had stood empty for a very long time. Katri wanted to use it to line up the folders containing Anna’s private letters and the correspondence of Anna’s parents. These folders were of white cloth to go with the furniture.
“Oh, yes,” Anna said. “Papa’s and Mama’s letters. I thought you’d put them out on the ice long ago. Did you read them too?”
Katri stiffened. Suddenly she saw how much Anna’s face had changed. It had shrunk and acquired a touch of cunning that was not attractive. “No, I didn’t read them,” she said.
“Just think,” said Anna. “Every year specified on the spine. Now I can look up anything I want, whenever I want, for example, a letter someone wrote to Papa in 1908.”
Katri studied her face for a moment and then went her way without a word.
* * *
Anna wandered about the room, moving one piece of furniture after another, then moving them back again, and her ill humour pursued her until the need for comfort became overwhelming. Finally she took the white folder with Sylvia’s letters and sat down on the edge of the bed.
The letters were in chronological order. She skipped the school years and Sylvia’s marriage and all the postcards from Sylvia’s Italian trip. Here were the condolence letters when Anna’s parents died in rapid succession. Anna searched on impatiently; they had to come soon, the first watercolours. Here it was. “Dear Anna, how nice you have something to keep you busy. A little hobby always makes things easier.”