Swedish Tango / the Rhythm of Memory by Alyson Richman Read Free Book Online Page A

back and forth, the lights of the airplanes circling overhead, the sound of sirens, the crush of the boat’s bow breaking through the ice.
    In Stockholm, she was the last of the children to be chosen. A little blond girl in a bright blue dress, holding nothing but a small bear and a red, round valise. Pinned on her jacket was a piece of paper with the name
Kaija
inscribed in neat black letters.
    The childless Swedish families who had arrived with the expectation that there would be a Finnish boy or girl there for them with bright eyes and a wide smile, each came and left with a toddler matching their wish. The throng of children who had arrived off the boat and stood with their names attached to their coats whittled down to one. One little girl by the name of Kaija.
    She stood there alone. Her eyes betraying her confusion. She did not understand the bustle of the administrators and families around her or the strange language they spoke. Men searched for their fountain pens to sign the necessary papers so their wives could bring home the new children, who now dangled from their arms, as quickly as possible and make them their own.
    Only one couple remained. Having arrived late, they had missed the selection. The husband was the first to remark about the sweet little girl who stood all alone, somewhat frightened, clutching her bear.
    “There seems to be one child left, Astrid,” the man hollered out to his wife, who was rushing only a few steps behind. “Aren’t we lucky!”
    The tall man, slender and modestly dressed in his Sunday finest,pushed through the departing crowd to the ropes that had been set up to corral the children. He had already taken off his hat and was wiping the perspiration from his brow when he knelt down to get a closer look at the little girl. “She certainly looks sweet,” he called back to his wife, who was now close enough to see for herself.
    “She looks sad and sickly, Hugo! We arrived too late!” Her annoyance at her husband was obvious and her voice cranky and stale.
    “Look at her, Astrid,” he said pointing to Kaija, “she’s only frightened. She’s all alone.”
    “I thought we agreed we wanted a boy.”
    “I never said that; any child will do.”
    “I wanted a boy. We can come back next week when the next boat arrives. Next time we’ll be on time.”
    But her husband had already made eye contact with the little girl, and he felt that it would be cruel to abandon her.
    “Come on, Astrid,” he pleaded. “I think having a little girl around would do us a world of good.”
    The shiny blue car drove home, the handsome driver smiling triumphantly, the two female passengers lost in dissimilar sadnesses. The little girl in the blue dress holds her bear to her cheek, her two blond braids, like two woven ropes of straw, pushed back behind her ears. She no longer weeps, her tears having dried on the bear’s paws hours before. Yet, now she is gripped with the most terrifying fear. She does not recognize the two faces who are taking her away. She does not know where she is going. She wonders where her mother is.
    In the large rearview mirror, Kaija sees the handsome man who less than an hour before reached out to hold her small, pinkhand, smiling at her. Beside him, his wife stares out the window, her small, veined hands rocking restlessly in her lap.
    The lids of the woman’s blue eyes are heavy and forlorn, her thin lips feathered with fine lines. A bullfinch cloaked in a brown coat, a pinched mouth that in profile resembles a tiny wooden beak. She looks distantly out the window, into the snow-swallowed birches. Her gaze cut in ice, her pupils cast in the blue-gray frost. She fumbles as she buttons her coat up to her chin, her fingers, stiff like icicles, pull at the loops.
    And the little girl stares at the woman’s head from behind, wishing that she could instead see the beautiful and familiar face of her mother. Hoping that when this long and winding car ride finally ends, her