Before Fylgia
by
Birgitta Hjalmarson
When I saw the cover for the second edition of Fylgia, I was struck by a feeling of déjà vu. The image is taken from a painting by Carl Holsøe, a Danish artist. It shows a young woman, possibly his wife, sitting by a window. Something about her sent me back to my notes and the vintage photographs I collected years ago when I researched the background story for Fylgia.
What I found was a photograph of the actual Anna, sitting in front of her sister. She looks eerily like the woman in the painting. There’s the same wistfulness, and she’s in the same white dress. In both, the hair is pulled back and gathered in a bun. If only for a moment, I thought I was looking at the same woman. Going through my old research notes, much of which I had used as basis for the novel, I marked what I had kept and what I had left out. Here, under “Before Fylgia,” I’ll post installments of another version, one I’ll call nonfiction. Some of it you’ll recognize, some you won’t. Perhaps it’s true that all stories have already been told. That it’s only in the telling that they differ.
Chapter 1
A VILLAGE CAUGHT IN CHANGE In the mid-fifties, in the evenings, I used to walk with Hjalmar to the lake. I was a child of ten or so, sent to the country for the summer. Hjalmar was my great-uncle; he and his brother Gustav owned Torp, a farm in Kungsäter, a small village in southwest Sweden. The path led through a forest of spruce and pine mixed with birch. Down its middle ran a string of grass, scarred by horses' hooves, the ruts dug deep by cart wheels. In marshy areas, deer tracks crisscrossed as if the animals, momentarily, had...
Chapter 2
HOW THE NEW CHURCH WAS BUILT They say when God created Sweden he began with the south, and so it became fertile and good in every way. The Devil, meanwhile, ran farther north, where he created the district of Mark. On the surface it was deceptively beautiful: rounded mountains in a bluish distance, dark forests with caves for the wild animals, deep valleys with shimmering rivers and lakes. But underneath the land was harsh and stony, designed to break the backs of those who tried to farm...
Chapter 3
FINA’S CHURCHING Carl was not the first in line to inherit Torp. His brother August was two years older and thus the rightful heir. August, however, left for America. Thus Carl took over Torp. His sisters Mina and Augusta, as compensation, each received one of the smaller farms that had been part of BrittaLena's dowry. Inga, the third sister, had died in 1874, a year before Börje. When Carl married in 1880 he must have done so for love alone. Anna Josefina Anderson — called Fina by...
Chapter 4
HOUSE EXAMINATION You could recognize him from afar as he came up the hill towards Torp -- his wide-brimmed hat, his erect posture, his landau pulled by his gray mare, the rod of his whip swaying in its stand. As he approached, did he reflect on the fact that Torp was situated at a higher elevation than the church? If so, did it bother him? Surely it was unusual. In most villages, the churches overlooked the farms, not the other way around. He was the new vicar of Kungsäter. In 1897,...
Chapter 5
THE GREAT BRÄNNVIN BRAWL Ever since the inn closed a long time ago, travelers wishing to put up in Kungsäter have been out of luck. In my case the problem with accommodations is solved when my uncle Bengt offers me the use of the cabin in which Anders and Lotta once lived. Bengt has bought it as a summer house for his family, but much of the time it stands empty. Besides, Bengt adds, the geraniums in the window boxes need watering. As for the old inn, I walk past it almost daily, peering through the keyhole...
Chapter 6
AN INSPIRED MOVE For centuries weaving had been an important part of life in Mark. In almost every cottage women worked at their looms, often assisted by husbands and children. In the early 1800s, local middlemen began supplying these hand weavers with machine-made yarn, paying them for the finished cloth, which they then warehoused and sold. Progress in weaving technology soon left the hand weavers far behind, and in the latter part of the 1800s textile mills sprang up all over Mark. The industrial age had...
Chapter 7
THE LESS THEY KNEW THE BETTER In 1896, when Anna was seven years old, she started school. Paulina was her teacher in the early years. A sparrow of a woman, Paulina had a thin, wrinkled neck, set off by a starched, oversized collar pinched together with a large silver brooch. Paulina lived in the schoolhouse attic. On dark winter mornings she scraped the snow off the children's clogs, put the clogs and the wet socks around the iron stove in the corner, and ordered the children to take their seats. Slates...