Hundred-year-old information can hardly be counted as news

Grandma poured the fruit soda in the glasses and sat down at the table again in her favourite chair where she always sat. ‘Is it really worth listening to?’ asked Grandma sceptically.

Disa nodded.

‘An old lady's story, can it really be something to listen to?’ She smacked her tongue to straighten her dentures and continued a little hesitantly. ‘Well ... When it was potato harvesting time, you were let out from school, because you were needed back home. Everybody had to help. And during the war years, we were very poor. All the school children had to go to the rectory about two kilometres away and help pick pine cones and sticks, for fuel to heat the school.’

‘War? Do you mean the second world war, or which war?’ said Disa wondering. ‘You always hear that Sweden has not been at war for two hundred years.’

‘We were not in the war, but we still felt it even here in Sweden. And it was not the Second World War, I was talking about, but the first!’ said Grandma.

‘First World War?’ Disa raised her quizzical eyebrows. She began to realize how old Grandma actually was. World War I she thought, was only something that’s written about in history books. She hadn’t thought there was anyone still alive who could tell about it as part of their own life.

‘Yes, and the Spanish flu ravaging the farms in the area didn’t help any either,’ added Grandma. ‘The flu caused high fevers, and many died. There were more people who died from the Spanish flu than in the rest of the war. So many died from it that coffins were in short supply. And the church bells rang continuously,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘When was this, do you remember?’

‘It was 1918.’

How she kept such good track of the years, Grandma. Disa never stopped being amazed. ‘Did you have it, the Spanish flu?’

‘Yes. The boy who sat next to my sister May in school fell ill and she caught it as well. She and another girl, Emma, became sick at the same time and were sent home. It was the middle of winter, but they had to sit down several times on the way home in the snow because they were so sick. On the stairs, May was later found by mum and carried in. She infected everyone else at home. My brother Gunnar was the sickest. There was no penicillin then, and the only thing we got was aspirin powder, that got stuck around the mouth as you tried to swallow it. The only one who did not become infected, lucky for all of us, was mum. She kept everything going and she told me later that she had been up at night drinking liquor and eating rye bread to cope. She never drank anything strong otherwise. She coped with everything amazingly.’ Grandma looked thoughtful before she continued. ‘After the war, everything was better.’

Grandma certainly had a knack for telling startling information as though it was just something casual she was saying. ‘You definitely have a way of breaking news, you know,’ said Disa amused.

‘News,’ said Grandma with a quizzical look and a wrinkle on the nose.

‘Hundred-year-old information can hardly be counted as news, can it?’ continued Grandma with a hint of bluntness.

Disa laughed. ‘For me it was news in a way, but maybe history lesson is more appropriate.’

‘Then when I was 13, I was taught to milk the cows and was able to help mum with that. My Grandma and Grandpa, the ones that you have a photo of, there in your cabinet in the place of honour,’ Grandma continued. ‘They went to the poor house every day to get a meal. Their son David took over the Ekhagen farm and built a small house for our parents to live in, but they didn't have much food. There was no pension system at that time. My Grandpa made potato baskets of juniper roots, which he heated in boiling water. He then sold the baskets and earned some extra money...’ Grandma fell silent. ‘That’s what life was like back in the old days!’ she concluded, took a deep breath and sighed heavily. ‘Can’t we talk about something more fun now?’ It was clear she thought she had spoken enough about the past.

How lucky that Disa had not given in, and got Grandma to keep talking about what it was like back in the day, otherwise she would have missed this whole story. Grandma was old. Really old. Disa didn’t know how long she would still have her around, so it was really time to get this story told. Disa took a sip of fruit soda. Grandma had filled the glass up without her noticing. She clearly was a good hostess, better than Disa herself was.

‘Have you read the newspaper today?’ asked Grandma, who brightened up and got new energy now that she was talking about her favourite subject: today’s events.

‘No, I haven’t had the time,’ replied Disa and thought of the pile of newspapers and the entire week’s harvest of letters, laying on the desk at home that she hadn’t managed to read yet. She and Michael gave up trying keep up on week nights, keeping a pile of everything that came during the week, only opening them on Saturdays. They should really cancel the newspaper. They were never able to read it anyway. Disa absently picked a grape and ate it. It was easy when it was right in front of her on the table and looked so good.

The two of them talked about world events for a short while. Then Disa let off some steam about the current difficult period with school induction. Disa sighed with a feeling of helplessness. She would wait for the parent meeting on Tuesday, before she contacted the teacher again and possibly even the headmaster. It was nice to talk about her concerns. Grandma was a good listener. A good speaker too for that matter.

‘It’s as though our daily puzzle is hard to put together. Sometimes it feels like the world is spinning around faster and even though we’re running as hard as we can, we just cannot keep up,’ said Disa resigned.

‘The earth keeps spinning. I remember that my father never believed in ‘new-fangled ideas,’ as he put it. He did not believe that the earth spun any more than that it was round,’ said Grandma. ‘As recently as the 1970s, he said: “No one can come and fool me into thinking that the earth is round, I can see that it is flat.”’

Disa nodded and smiled. She’d heard about that statement before. He believed more in his own eyes than in science.

‘You are clever, to be so committed to the school. It was different in my day. I would never even have thought of the idea of arguing,’ Grandma said with admiration in her voice.

‘But what if something was wrong, if the child felt unwell,’ said Disa still slightly resigned.

‘It was never discussed. It was what it was. You wouldn’t say anything about it, no, it was not a subject to bring up. You had respect for the authorities,’ said Grandma and cut a big piece of cheese for her cracker.

Disa had heard about many older folks who didn’t have much appetite, but not Grandma. She was still ‘round and jolly’.

‘I think you young folks have a more stressful time today than we had in our time,’ continued Grandma. ‘I was a housewife and grandfather worked. Sure it was hard work, it was. But we all concentrated on doing one thing at a time. I know you young folks don’t want it that way today. Mums want to be able to work and fathers want to be able to be at home with their children. But you have so much to do. Working and caring for children and travel abroad and goodness knows what else you have to do on top of it.’

Disa recognised herself in this description. 

‘Young and young, by the way,’ said Disa laughing. ‘Thanks, but I'm actually forty-three years old, I’m not that young anymore. ‘She took the last of the crackers with brie cheese and poured the last of the fruit soda.

‘Just think, how the years go by,’ said Grandma. ‘My oldest grandchildren are already fifty!’

‘Are they already fifty,’ said Disa amused. If you are over a hundred, it probably felt that way. The first fifty years went pretty slow and the last fifty years just rushed past. If she looked back at her own last ten years, she felt they were just that: the past ten years of her life. The ten years when you were between five and fifteen included all of your childhood. In her own mind she wondered if she would be as lucid and sharp-minded as Grandma was when she got to be that old. If she managed that far at all. With the stressed life she lived now, it felt like she wasn’t going to make it as long as Grandma. But she tried to use the time she had as best as she could. ‘I’ve been here far longer than I planned, but it has been so nice with you. It’s so quiet and peaceful and cosy here, it feels like you can stay forever.’ Disa stood up to go. She took one last grape, pushed the chair in and put the glass and plate in the sink. She felt suddenly how full she was, stuffed with all the good food Grandma had filled her with.

‘Sometimes it gets a bit too quiet,’ replied Grandma. ‘Not a lot happens during the day. It is good that I have my birds in the garden, have you seen all the waxwings?’

She pointed out towards the back and took a few tentative steps into the living room. Inside there was a handmade round rug. Grandma had done a lot of craftwork in her time. Clothes were repaired and resewn. Mittens, socks and scarves with gaping holes were darned. When the garment was so old it was about to fall apart, she cut it into strips and crocheted harmoniously composed rugs, which consisted of loops in light blue, purple, and beige. And Grandma could say that the light blue came from an old summer dress which she was very fond of and which she still liked the colour of. The purple was from one of Grandpa’s old shirts and the beige from a summer coat. Everything was used before, nothing went to waste.

Disa followed her into the living room and cast an eye on all the pictures set in frames sitting on the sideboard. There were wedding pictures and portraits of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even great-great-grandchildren. Another picture of Grandma’s other daughter showed members of as many as five generations. Grandma was the oldest generation on both pictures. But on a third monochrome picture, there were four generations lined up with a much younger Grandma where she was the second youngest and had her eldest daughter in her arms. Grandma had been beautiful in her youth. It was hard to recognise that it was her.

Grandma pulled away the white lace curtain so that Disa could see better. In the small garden, there were almost twenty birds, thronged around the feeding box. For Disa it felt wonderfully tranquil with the loud ticking of the pendulum clock and the muffled chirping outside the window. But how long would it feel peaceful, and not turn into tedium? The best would probably be something in between. Could time not be spread more evenly over life? Grandma had time galore and Disa didn’t have enough to get by.

‘You’ll see that the pansies have taken off and are growing there between the slabs. They should be left alone,’ said Grandma.

‘I’ll take care of the dishes before I go?’ asked Disa.

‘No, don’t. I have the whole evening to sort out those cups and dishes. Then I’ll have something to do anyway, before I turn on the TV,’ said Grandma a bit down and Disa saw sadness cross her face. She felt sad to see Grandma so bored.

Disa walked the few steps to the hat rack in the hall, took her purse from the hook on the hat rack and hung it over her shoulder.

‘Imagine that you wanted to come and visit an old lady, that you like old folks that much,’ said Grandma with a chuckle.

Disa laughed and gave Grandma a farewell hug. The pendulum clock drew a hoarse, slightly rattling breath and issued a resonant half-hour chime, again echoing through the apartment before slowly fading.

‘Be well,’ said Disa before she closed the door behind her and hurried away. Outside Grandma’s door the time had ticked away as usual, at its regular earthly pace.