Municipal Blondes
5
Telling the friends
I KNEW WHAT I HAD TO DO. They were the friends I’d seen dote on Dag as if he were some kind of Ballard hero. But it took all my courage to get in the car and drive over there.
Knäckebröd and risgrynsgröt
On Thanksgiving, Dag took me to the Swedish American Center for the most spectacular day I’d ever had. I saw him talk to people he’d known all his life, even though he didn’t speak Swedish. They knew his parents and some had known Dag since he was a little boy. I also knew that every Saturday afternoon he went to the club to play cards and to eat dinner with those who gathered. It was the only family I knew he had and as far as I knew, no one there knew that he had passed away.
On the way, I stopped at an international deli and picked up knäckebröd, a kind of Swedish cracker. From what I gathered, it was what Dag contributed to the weekly dinners. When I passed the center, looking for a parking space, I could see people inside playing games and sitting in front of a TV. I was sure the Seahawks were playing. Or maybe they were out of season and it was someone else. I should pay more attention.
I parked but couldn’t get out of the car. I was terrified of going into the center by myself. These people had all been so warm and welcoming to me at Thanksgiving, but I was with Dag. I wasn’t one of them. I knew that and even though Mrs. Seafeld arranged to put the almond in my dish of risgrynsgröt, it was all to please Dag.
When I finally managed to pry myself out of the car (It was getting cold!), I didn’t walk toward the club. I walked around the neighborhood, just looking at the little houses on the hills of Ballard. The streets were hardly wide enough to drive down but cars were parked on both sides. At every intersection there was an island in the middle that you had to drive around. Even in the cold air, children were outside playing, sometimes in steep yards and sometimes right out in the middle of the street. I walked about thirty minutes before I realized I wasn’t anywhere near where I thought I was. I retraced my steps, seeing everything again for the first time.
A ball bounced out of a yard in front of me and I instinctively bent to scoop it up and toss it back into the yard to the waiting towhead little kid who was laughing and running toward me. He screeched in laughter as the ball got to him, scooped it up, and threw it to an equally blond friend up the slope.
But something caught my eye in the shoveled sidewalk. I knelt back down for a closer look. My heart caught in my throat when I saw scratched in the cement, “Dag ’03”. No. It wasn’t my Dag. But some little boy had scratched his name into wet cement. I could easily imagine Dag having done the same kind of thing when he was a child. These streets were his home. He probably grew up near this very place. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t making a saint out of him and revering the neighborhood he grew up in. But it really got to me that this was his neighborhood and his neighbors would want to know about him.
I quickened my steps back to the Swedish American Center, took my knäckebröd firmly in hand, and walked in.
Black coffee
It took a few minutes before anyone realized I was there. There was activity everywhere. Guys were playing cards in one corner. Women were playing board games with children in another corner. The TV was blaring. It was getting dark out and inside it was like watching a huge family gathered together on a winter’s evening. I could see a few older people, men and women, in the kitchen preparing who-knew-what delicacy for the table tonight. After spending a few minutes invisibly standing near the door, I decided to start with the men at the card table.
“Excuse me,” I said as I approached.
“Shh, shh,” one said without looking at me. He raised a finger to me while another led a card, each played their last cards and they were scooped off the table by the winner. It could have been pinochle or whist or spades from what I could tell. The man who had hushed me now looked up at me and said, “Yah sure, what’ll you have?”
“I was wondering if you are the gentlemen who usually play with Dag Hamar on Saturday afternoon,” I said.
“Well, when he shows up now, he plays here. Now look here,” he said to his companions and called across the room. “Lena! It’s the young woman Dag brought to Thanksgiving.” People suddenly stopped what they were doing and turned toward me. A few, including Mrs. Seafeld, who I recognized from the dinner, actually came over to where we were standing. “Where’s Dag, Miss?” he continued to me.
I really thought I was going to get through this without crying but my damn leaky eyes took it on themselves to nearly drown my words when I spoke.
“I’m sorry to bring you this news,” I said. “Dag passed away Thursday morning. I thought you should all know.” I was dripping tears out my eyes and my nose was running. I thought they were all going to just stay silent when Mrs. Seafeld wrapped her arms around me and said something in Swedish. I nodded my head and said, “Thank you,” and everybody in the room started laughing and crying all at the same time. I handed Mrs. Seafeld the knäckebröd. “I hope I got the right thing. I didn’t want you to be without since you didn’t know about Dag,” I said.
People milled about as word was passed back to the kitchen to those who hadn’t heard and the TV was turned off. I was led to a chair and made to sit while everyone gathered around and asked questions about what had happened. Someone pressed a cup of black coffee into my hands and I sipped greedily at it, feeling the warmth and stimulation sink into my nervous system. I answered the questions the best I could. I told them how Dag had rescued me Sunday morning and had fought to stay alive for three days to get a new heart but it proved too long a wait.
What a difference! My girlfriends got me senselessly drunk on red wine when they came to comfort me. Inside half an hour I was so wired on black Swedish coffee that I couldn’t stop talking. I told them everything that had happened since I met Dag six months ago and, in turn, they passed around stories of his childhood, military service, business, and card playing. It seems they all remembered a time when he’d hit a baseball into the stands at a Little League game and hit the loathed math teacher in the head, when he’d had a double run in spades with a thousand aces, when he moved away from Ballard to Seattle (as if it had been another country), and who he dated in high school.
“That would be me,” a woman said nearby, raising her hand. “I’m Rhonda Somvar,” she introduced herself to me. “Dag and I dated in high school.”
“You….” I said and hesitated. “You painted the picture.”
“What picture is that, dear?” she asked.
“A seascape at sunset with a man on the beach.”
“You’ve seen that?” she laughed. “A childish effort, I’m afraid.”
“Dag loved that painting,” I said. “He… He died looking at it.”
“Oh, my!” she said. “I knew it was bad but I didn’t think it would kill him!” Everyone laughed, including Rhonda, but I could see there were tears in her eyes, too.
I think I’ve been to a wake. Someplace along the line we ate dinner, including the knäckebröd I brought, spread with thick slices of cheese. The dinner was different than Thanksgiving. For one thing, there was a turkey. They said no one had thought of it on Thanksgiving but they were determined to have one sometime. Still, it had an abundance of butter, gravy, and potatoes, and many little casseroles that I couldn’t identify. We told stories, even while I was helping wash dishes.
I can’t imagine there being another memorial service for him that could be more fitting, though Reverend Olson offered to speak to the funeral home about the arrangements. I didn’t know who was in charge but I told him that Lars Andersen was the executor of the estate and John Allen was his attorney. He said he would take care of everything from there.
I did the right thing. I went to his family and told them. His family happens to be a whole club of people who share a neighborhood and heritage I scarcely knew existed before I met Dag. I was invited to return each week—even though Mrs. Seafeld took me aside and showed me an entire kitchen cabinet full of unopened knäckebröd packages and we had a wonderful laugh about Dag bringing another one every week—but I know it won’t be the same to go back again. I love them but they were Dag’s family. I can’t hang onto that for the rest of my life.
That reminds me. I’ve been hanging onto this letter for a whole day now. I’m afraid of what I’ll read in it. I’m afraid no matter what it says, I won’t be able to take it. Well… I was afraid of the Swedish American Club, too. I guess there’s nothing to do but face it.
Soon.
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