The River of No Return

and launched herself into the room.
    “Solvig!” A woman’s surprised voice floated out to them through the mist, followed by more coughing. “What are you doing here?” The steam was dissipating, revealing a tall woman in a homespun dress, her hair tucked up under a starched white cap, except for one white-blonde strand that had escaped and was curling down her neck. Her hands were stained bright pink halfway up to the elbows. “Oh, hello! I’m sorry about the smell. I put the vinegar in when the pan was too hot.” She spoke with a light accent.
    “Hello, Miss Blomgren,” Bella said, holding her hand out. “We met in the square a week and more ago. Do you remember me? I am Bella.”
    Julia thought she saw a flash of annoyance cross Miss Blomgren’s face, but it was quickly hidden behind a lovely smile. “Bella, of course! Isn’t this a surprise. And you have Solvig with you. . . . How did you come to have her?”
    “You know Solvig? My brother brought her home with him earlier this week.”
    “Your brother? Ah, and so you are a lady, Bella. I did not know.”
    “Yes, I should have told you, I suppose, when we met, but I found our conversation so interesting, and then we said good-bye so precipitously when we reached your house. . . .” Bella looked up at the older woman with the light of hero worship in her eyes. But if Miss Blomgren noticed, or felt that it was irregular to be accosted in her basement kitchen by a young lady she had met accidentally, she did not say so. Instead she turned to Julia. “And what is your name?”
    Julia found herself looking into the largest, most beautiful pair of violet eyes she had ever seen. The fine eyebrows slowly rose as Julia stared. She said her name stammeringly, like a ninny.
    “What a pretty name. We have it in Sweden, also, but we pronounce it differently: Yulia, so. It means ‘youth,’ did you know that?” Miss Blomgren reached out and touched Julia’s cheek with her scarlet finger. “You are young and lovely. Such beautiful brown eyes. Oh, dear. I have stained your cheek. These beets. I am pickling them. I thought to make enough for everyone. What a fool I am. It has consumed my life.” Then, just like a mother, she spat on a corner of her apron and used it to scrub at Julia’s cheek. “There. It is gone, as if it had never been.” Her smile deepened and became real. “Those eyes. They remind me of someone else’s brown eyes, someone I loved very much.” She gazed into Julia’s face, her own dreamy and sad. Then she shook her head. “It is good to be young, Julia. Enjoy it. I am forty-three. You look surprised. I know. I am lucky.” She waved her hand as if her looks were nothing. “The beauty of youth is a gift, but it will go. The memories, though, they pile up, and they never go. Or at least, they do not go for a long, long time.” She sighed and seemed to collect herself. “Well.” She turned to Bella. “I am in the midst of my pickling and I cannot leave it. But you may sit and take tea here in the kitchen while I work. Would you like some lemon cake? It is very good.”
    “I don’t know if we should. . . .” Julia looked hopelessly at Bella, but Bella was smiling as if nothing were wrong. Did she not realize that this Miss Blomgren must be Nick’s mistress? The woman knew him. She even knew the dreadful dog. “I . . . I need to go home.”
    “Why?” Bella looked at her in all innocence. “Do you not want lemon cake? You love cake.”
    Miss Blomgren began untying her apron. “Just tea and a small slice of cake, and then I’ll have Edvard drive you home in the carriage.” She hung her apron on a hook by the kitchen door, then reached up and pulled her starched cap off her head. Her glorious white-blond hair tumbled like water, falling all the way down her back. Julia gasped. Miss Blomgren looked at her. “Yes, my hair. It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
    Julia was able to recognize, dimly, that under normal circumstances she would probably have liked this no-nonsense woman very much. Instead, she was shriveling with every new proof of Miss Blomgren’s perfections. It felt like she was being eaten from the inside out by a gnawing animal. Probably a rat. So this was jealousy. “It is very beautiful,” she said, and her voice sounded strange to her own ears.
    Miss Blomgren looked at her in surprise. “You look so tragic, my dear. Are you feeling ill? Is it the smell of the beets? I assure you, cake and tea