The Glassblower's Children Page 4

  They drove along moonwhite roads, between fields, with clumps of moss and anthills, where will-o’-the-wisps danced with their lights. They rode until the moon paled away and the air began to murmur with small blusters of wind. Morning came, and still they drove. White butterflies fluttered over the road.

  They drove through the night and the day, and the whole time the children slept quietly on within the coach. . . .

  Part

  Two

  “Those who know nothing

  never know

  that many are lulled by success,

  one man is rich,

  another poor,

  but that never counts in the reckoning.”

  HAVAMAL

  7

  THE HOUSE STOOD in a most remarkable town. All Wishes Town it was called—but it doesn’t exist any more.

  It was encircled by a high wall, with battlements, turrets, and towers, and was also surrounded by water, for it lay on an island in the River of Forgotten Memories. It was said to be unapproachable.

  The deserted streets stretched out their grey cobblestones and black rows of street lamps. They met at intersections, crisscrossed, went on, but where houses should be there was nothing. There were no other houses, only the one.

  Every evening the street lamps were lit, but no one walked about, for those who lived in the House seldom went out, and if they did, they drove off in a coach.

  It was a dark stone house, high, and mighty in its loneliness, a gloomy sight to see.

  Now, the man who founded All Wishes Town had been full of grand fancies. He wanted to do so much that it took him his whole lifetime just to mull over his dreams. He gave the town its name, and nothing more. His son built the House and laid out the streets, but then that was the end of him, too. He had to leave the rest of it to his descendants.

  One of them was the Lord who lived there now, and the street lamps were his contribution. At that time few cities had street lighting, so it was very special.

  But he had something else to think about.

  For it so happened that his wife, the Lady, was very, very unhappy.

  She had everything: beauty, wealth, power. Her husband fulfilled her slightest wish. She need never be alone, because, even if there weren’t any people in the town, many lived in the countryside nearby. But she didn’t want to see anyone; she kept to herself.

  Those who didn’t like her said she acted this way only to make herself seem interesting. But that was not true, for she was actually in deep despair.

  Everyone pitied the Lord, who was so nice and devoted and self-sacrificing. He was always rushing over to her and asking her anxiously what she would like. And what did he get as an answer?

  Well, something like this:

  “What good does it do to wish when all your wishes come true?”

  Or:

  “Don’t you see that you’re stealing my wishes, when you bring all your gifts?”

  No, that was something the Lord could not understand. And no one else did, either. People hastily made the sign of the cross and felt they had reason to doubt her sanity.

  The Lord of All Wishes Town was a young and handsome man, and he knew that. He had been born rich and powerful. He had no one to be grateful to for anything in the world, because everything had been his from the beginning.

  He loved to make people happy, to give presents and fulfill wishes. He’d always done just that, for he also had been born good and kind.

  What a great pleasure he had experienced when he first met the poor young girl dressed in rags who owned nothing in the world. What joy was his to be able to make her the Lady of the House in All Wishes Town.

  This was a joy that would never end.

  She who had owned nothing and had been nothing from the first—through her he would experience this joy again and again and again.

  He only asked of her that she always have a wish in readiness for him. A wish he could fulfill.

  A simple enough request, as you can see; she could certainly oblige him.

  But instead she acted strangely; she retired into herself, announcing that she had no further wishes. They had all been stolen from her, she said.

  Now, there was one word the Lord loved above all others.

  It was the little word “thanks.”

  An unusual word. For though in his ears it had a lovely, soothing sound, in his mouth it had an unpleasant taste. He had tried it out, so he knew.

  Once the Lady had embroidered a pair of slippers as a present for him, and when she gave them to him, she said, “How would it be for you to say thank you?”

  At first he didn’t understand what she meant, and laughed at her. Should he be the one. . .? Surely she was joking?

  But she wasn’t. She was determined. She said he really ought to try it, so he’d know how it felt.

  And of course he’d do it, if it would make her happy.

  But the word lay there like a lump in his mouth, and he didn’t think he’d ever be able to get it out. In the end there was nothing for him to do but spit it out.

  The Lady insisted that it hit her right in the face. But why, after all, should she force him? She could clearly see that it was hard for him, because he’d never had any reason to use the word. Naturally it was easier for others.

  He didn’t stop loving to hear that little word because of this. On the contrary, he noticed his craving for it increased more rapidly after that.

  But he was on his guard in the future in case he might have to receive gifts or services from the Lady.

  He was such a calm and reliable and prudent man. He never forgot himself. If only she would express a wish, then everything would be fine.

  But she refused.

  One single wish was all she had expressed.

  “I would like children,” she said once. “I would like to present you with a son.” That was what she said. Present you, she said, and then he understood that she wanted to get him to have to say thank you again.

  He didn’t let himself be trapped; he was too smart for that. But the matter worried him greatly nevertheless. She had expressed a wish and he was obliged to fulfill it.

  She must have her child. Either a son or one of each, for that matter. Naturally it wasn’t impossible, but still it was a problem. He had to mull it over for a long while.

  Then, gradually, an image began to grow and take shape in his mind.

  At the Blekeryd fair he’d seen two small children who had won his heart. That was a couple of years ago. But then he had caught sight of them again last spring when he and the Lady had driven through Nöoda village. They had been standing by the roadside selling anemones, and he had bought their flowers. Just that once the Lady had allowed herself a faint smile, and she had said they were sweet. She had definitely liked them.

  So there they were, the children he was looking for. A boy and a girl!

  The Lord was not an evil man; on the contrary, everyone could vouch for his goodness. But he was blinded. He only saw what he wanted to see.

  He pictured before him the glassblower and his children. He didn’t see the glassblower’s wife at all.

  He imagined for himself how poor a glassblower must be. And what a burden it must be to care for two small children.

  It would be such a relief to the poor father if the Lord would just take in his starving little ones. He would give them a bright future.

  And then some day the father would thank him, even though perhaps he wouldn’t understand right from the start that it was for their own good. Unfortunately you have to expect that kind of misunderstanding.

  Therefore the father shouldn’t know anything about it, at least not right away. It would be better to get hold of the children first so that he could get used to the idea of their being gone.

  Then, slowly, one could tell him. Or one might send him a sum of money as consolation. But there was no hurry about that. First the man would have to calm down and appreciate how good the new arrangement was.
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br />   Yes indeed, it was a superb plan.

  The more the Lord thought about it, the better it seemed to him. And the children were absolutely delightful. They were obviously not spoiled. Wasn’t that a wonderful advantage to start with?

  The Lady wouldn’t be plagued by the children screaming and shouting, she who suffered headaches so easily.

  Personally, he thought older children were much more fun, because they could actually understand what he was doing for them. They’d be old enough to say thank you.

  The thought made him very cheerful, and so, content with his plans, he went out and gave his coachman the order to drive to Blekeryd.

  And that was what lay behind the disappearance of Klas and Klara.

  8

  TIME PASSED.

  Klas and Klara lived in All Wishes Town now, and the House was their home.

  They weren’t the same children they had been the day they disappeared from the Blekeryd fairground. Their lives had been changed. They were rich and noble children now.

  They belonged to the Lord and Lady.

  They belonged to the House.

  They didn’t remember anything about their former lives.

  They remembered neither Albert nor Sofia; they felt no loss, no longing, because they had forgotten everything that came before this time.

  Without their knowing it, the coachman had given them a sleeping potion at the fair so they would sleep throughout the journey.

  When they awoke they were lying, each in his own bed, in a big green room. They didn’t know where they had come from or where they were. They didn’t recognize anything except each other. But they got up and began a new life without asking any questions. You have to know something to be able to ask. And they knew nothing. What was past returned to them only sometimes, briefly, as a bewildering dream, and disappeared equally swiftly.

  Klas and Klara were well-brought-up children. Klara always wore silk clothes and her small, stubby blond pigtails had grown into long, beautiful corkscrew curls. Klas was dressed in satin.

  They looked exactly as Sofia had once wished they would at the Blekeryd fair long ago, when the shooting stars fell across the sky.

  They also had the most wonderful toys in all the world. Klara no longer had to content herself combing out lengths of flax. She had her own dolls with real hair. And Klas owned a very realistic rocking horse.

  They got to eat their favorite food until they grew tired of it and had to think up something new. The cook came in every morning to ask what they wanted to eat. It wasn’t always easy to tell her.

  Finally they were unable to think up any new treats and sat with sorrowful faces eating their old favorites. Soon they had lost all their appetite. Then they started to get thinner. They ate and ate, for they did what they were told, but they grew thinner and thinner, nevertheless. It was a mystery.

  The Lord and the Lady were always nice, but didn’t bother with them very much. They liked having them, for such a big house could do with a couple of children to decorate it. And besides, children can be very pleasant to look at when they’re neat and well brought up. But naturally they shouldn’t take up too much space or attention, especially if they’re not your own, thought the Lady.

  Though they didn’t cheer her up as much as the Lord had expected, at least she accepted them. But she always called them the Lord’s children, not hers; they were his “find,” she used to say.

  In the beginning she devoted more time to them. She enjoyed changing the way they wore their hair and choosing new clothes for them. That amused her for a little while. And after she had turned them out the way she liked, she got them to follow after her when she took walks down the long mirror-lined galleries in the House. Sometimes, if the weather was good, they got to walk in the little garden that was laid out like another room right in the middle of the House.

  But most of the time they walked in the mirror rooms. There they would go along hand-in-hand, scarcely daring to look right or left, for they were told to be on their best behavior. They kept their eyes anxiously on the Lady, so as not to make a mistake.

  Sometimes she’d stop, and then they would stop, too. She would stand still a moment and gaze thoughtfully into a mirror. But the children would only stare at her, full of eagerness. For sometimes she would turn to them, smile, and say, “Perhaps I do look better with children than with dogs. . . .”

  Then she would nod at them and smile again. That meant they could follow her some more. The Lady was so beautiful but looked so sorrowful. They were happy when she smiled and was pleased with them.

  Before the children came, she always used to walk around followed by a pair of big black greyhounds, and that looked very mournful. She never smiled at the greyhounds.

  But sometimes she did smile at Klas and Klara, and everything was fine until Klas spilled jam on his lace collar and Klara wrinkled her clothes. Then the Lady suddenly tired of them and told the Lord that, after all, the dogs really complemented her beauty better.

  Then she took walks with her big black grey-hounds again. They looked so grim and sniffed along the floors with their pointed noses.

  Klas and Klara felt unhappy, for they tried so hard to behave perfectly. And the Lord looked so downcast, too, but he said nothing; he never said anything, merely sighed.

  Then, for the most part, the children were left alone, and they missed the Lady. Klara especially longed for her. And once she caught herself calling out, “Mother!” She fell silent, wonderingly, for she didn’t know where the word came from, nor in fact what it meant.

  They had never called the Lady “mother.” They never had a chance to say anything unless they had been spoken to first, and then they were expected to keep their answers short. They answered, “Yes, my Lady,” or “No, my Lady.”

  Sometimes the Lord joked with them, and then they could laugh, but never for too long or too loudly, for that would not have been well-behaved. Otherwise they said “thank you” to him most of the time.

  The House was filled with long corridors and enormous rooms. They could easily lose their way in all the rooms. There was absolute silence throughout; they could hear only the echo of their footsteps. Then, frightened, they’d start running. They ran, more and more terrified, but you can’t run away from your own footsteps.

  Sometimes they stumbled upon someone they didn’t know. Then, too, they were frightened, even though they knew that everyone belonged to the House, because no one else could enter it.

  Everyone always tiptoed silently about, so as not to give the Lady one of her headaches. The children learned to walk silently, too, and then they didn’t make such a loud echo.

  There were many stairs in the House, so softly and deeply carpeted, that you couldn’t hear the faintest footfall. Klas and Klara often walked up and down. On the stairs, they felt a kind of security. They felt they weren’t heard and that they disturbed no one. And they weren’t in the way. They could walk up and down the stairs for hours. And they played a game there, pretending that the House was a mountain.

  Since no other people lived in the town, they had no children to play with, and none were ever invited to the House. But Klas and Klara didn’t mind that, either, for they knew of no other children but each other.

  Moreover, they’d had a remarkable experience—several times.

  They weren’t allowed to walk in the mirror rooms alone. These were locked when the Lady wasn’t passing through them. But a number of other mirrors hung around the House.

  And so it happened that Klas and Klara got to see two small children walking toward them at the end of a corridor. They were overjoyed. They started running, and the children ran, too, until they met. They always met in front of a mirror.

  They’d stand there and remarkable things would happen, for when they leaned their foreheads against the mirror, they pressed against the foreheads of two little children on the other side. They could look into their eyes, which were always bright with excitement. They stood there for a
ges watching each other, and soon Klas and Klara realized that the only children they would ever meet in the House were the Mirrorchildren.

  At first they felt less forlorn and abandoned every time they met, as if they shared their fate with these children who said nothing, whom they could never reach and touch.

  But then one day surprise and joy had gone from the Mirrorchildren’s faces; they saw only sorrow and anxiety, and then Klas and Klara were very much afraid.

  They thought they had everything they wanted. They thought everything was just perfect, but now they felt sorry for the Mirrorchildren. They wanted to do something to help them; they longed to share their sorrows. And soon they felt as if they had done just that, without knowing how it had come about.

  Then they didn’t want to meet them any more, they avoided them. They wanted to forget those sorrowful faces.

  No mirrors hung on the stairs, and so they sought refuge there, where they could play that the House was just a mountain, not a House at all, just an ordinary old mountain on the ground. On the stairs they were always alone. And if they were unhappy, they didn’t know it.

  Because it was the Mirrorchildren’s unknown sorrows that weighed upon them—not their own.

  9

  THE HOUSE WAS full of servants who took turns looking after the children. But since there were new servants all the time, Klas and Klara never got to know any of them. They were always surrounded by strangers.

  New faces always looked in on them in the morning; strange voices woke them up; strange hands dressed them, combed their hair, put down their food before them, and took away their empty plates.

  They were never sure if the next face or voice or hands would be friendly and gentle and tender, or rough and hard and dangerous.

  In the beginning Klas and Klara studied each servant anxiously, but after a while they paid no attention to them. They got used to it. What difference did it make whether they were cheerful or grouchy? Next time, no matter what, there would be someone new.