It is late. I know this from the brightness of the stars in the open doorway, and because the shouting and singing outside ended long ago. Everyone must have gone to sleep by now.
I went through the boxes one by one, sifting through contents and stacking, moving chairs and garden tools and old appliances to clear a path. All the documents and mail here are addressed to the Sjöbergs, which must be Karin’s family.
Finally I reach the staircase and I begin pulling out the boxes. Rusty old socket wrenches, tubes of grout, paintbrushes and scrapers. At the top of the steps there’s a roll of fiberglass insulation and a heavy box full of hardcover books. I move the insulation and step over the box.
Moonlight pours through windows onto the warped floorboards of the hallway. As I walk I have the sensation of leaning sideways. The floorboards groan. My feet make tracks in the thick dust.
I enter the bedroom facing the woods. More boxes everywhere. I push them aside until I reach a short bed of ancient oak, the bedposts decorated with elaborate carvings. Against the opposite wall there is an antique writing desk stacked with old linens and bedspreads. I move the linens to the bed and go through the desk drawers. Paper clips; rolls of undeveloped film; rusted keys on a ring; steel sewing bobbins still wound with thread. In a bureau wedged below the desk there is a heavy case of stained walnut. I flip the brass latches. A butterfly collection under glass, the insects speared with pins and labeled in Latin and Swedish. Danaus plexippus. Monarkfjäril.
— The monarch butterfly, I whisper.
A paper tag is affixed inside the lid of the case. Per Andersson. Svartmangatan 11, Uppsala.
A shiver passes through me. I sit on the floor to take a breath and think. A few minutes later I cross the hall to the opposite bedroom. More boxes, a pair of twin beds covered in hand-knitted throws. No doubt once snow-white, the throws are grayed with decades of dust. Inside the boxes are folded linens and porcelain plates wrapped in brittle newspaper. I move the boxes and sit on one of the beds. Beside me is a red nightstand, its year of manufacture painted in florid numerals: 1663. The nightstand has a large drawer. I pull on the handle, but it is stuck shut. After a few jerks it pulls open.
The drawer is filled with magazines. The Athenaeum, Nouvelle Revue Française, The Egoist, The Burlington Magazine. I check the dates. August 1915. Julliet 1916.
I pace around the two bedrooms, peering under the beds, throwing back curtains. The air is full of dust and it makes me sneeze. In the hall closet there are lapelled jackets, a long fur coat and several pairs of rubber boots. I reach for the tag on the coat and some of the fur comes off on my fingers. Fourrures Weill. 4 Rue Ste Anne Paris. I pull out all of the clothing and make a pile in the hallway. I’m making a lot of noise now and I think I hear footsteps on the staircase. I stop and listen, my breath heavy. No one comes in. I go back to the second bedroom and sit on the bed.
The sisters must have come here in December. I imagine them being rowed across the lake in the cold, a thick cloak wrapped around Imogen’s shoulders as she watched the trees of the town grow smaller, the trees of the island grow larger and larger. There must have been snow everywhere, the ropes at the pier coated in ice. They would have walked up the twisting path to the house, someone carrying their suitcases, Eleanor in front and Imogen following slowly behind, about to see her home for the next six months. She had never seen it in snow before. Finally the red house would come into view through the trees, black smoke rising from the chimney, the caretaker coming out into the icy clearing and taking the bags from their hands.
I go back into the bedroom and look inside the boxes with the porcelain, unwrapping the newspaper to check the date. Tirsdag aften den 6 Mars 1919. I pull everything from the box, the plates and linens, a dark cardboard portfolio with cloth ties. Inside the portfolio are receipts in Swedish and English: railway tickets, hotel receipts, folded grocers’ bills. The dates run from 1916 to 1919. One of the receipts is in French, the top printed MOISSE — Toiles & Tableaux et Couleurs — Encadrements—28, Rue Pigalle. There are columns for the order numbers, the designation des articles and the prices, but the handwriting is in a wild longhand that’s hard to read. I make out ocre jaune among the list of items. Another line says terre de Sienne. It must be a receipt for oil paints. I refold it and put it in my pocket to look at later.
I open the other box on the bed. A small silver pitcher wrapped in cloth, a set of pewter apostle spoons in a wooden case. Beneath these is a parcel wrapped in brown paper, about the size of a shoe box. I shine my light at the address on the front. C.T. Grafton, 58 Cartwright Gardens, London WC1, ENGLAND. There are no stamps and the box isn’t postmarked.
I tear off the paper. There is a tin inside, the lid stamped Green’s of Brighton: The House of Quality. I take off the lid. A blue booklet is at the top, and beneath this two tightly fitted bundles of letters, each secured with twine. The booklet’s cover reads The Geographical Journal, Vol. XLVII No. 5, May 1916. The Astrolabe and Wireless. Notes on the Alto Rio Branco, North Amazonas. The Position of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Expedition. The booklet parts at the center to reveal a white notecard engraved The Langham Hotel, Portland Place, London W. The card is inscribed in brown ink.
24 Aug 1916
To my Darling —
That she will remember that I belong not to Flanders mud, nor to His Majesty’s Army, nor to God, nor yet even to myself, but instead am held as surely & as easily as a loving girl holds a lover’s note. For you shall hold this, and I shall come back to you.
A.
I flip the card over and over. My hands are shaking. I untie one of the bundles of letters. The envelopes are of plain stock or YMCA stationery, the paper brown and brittle. A few green envelopes are marked ACTIVE SERVICE with printed instructions on the front. They are all addressed in blunt pencil.
Miss I. Soames-Andersson
Yarrow Cottage
Selsey
England
All of them have the same return address: A.E. Walsingham, 2/Lt., 1 Batt. Royal Berkshire Regt. I take the sheets from an envelope.
So we marched all night; if I tried to describe the cold or fatigue I should fail. The men hadn’t any consolation but to sing. And so they sang — endlessly, to the tune of ‘Auld Lang Syne’: ‘We’re here because we’re here, because we’re here, because we’re here.’
It was terrible at first, then beautiful, and finally terrible again. I shall not forget it.
I go to the next page and read to the end.
You are the source & measure of all good things; even in a pit so wretched as this I know my happiness comes from you.
When we come back into the dug-out after 18 hours crawling in frozen mud, and we have a cup of steaming tea & a tin of bully beef, I know what pleasure there is comes from you.
When at midnight watch the shelling ceases suddenly, for no more reason than it ever started, and the sky is incandescent with streaming flares — then I see some signature of the divine and, knowing there is no God, I know that signature is yours.