Excerpt from The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

By necessity, the rules of stalemate and cease-fire evolved over time, and I grew to love the horrible little urchins. Their strange, unjaundiced observations often took me aback, and they had a joy in the ridiculous inanities of daily life that rejuvenated me. I think fondly of the occasion when Wilmer, age five, noting an absence of lard in the pantry and wishing to fry some herring—a favorite of Olga's—attempted to render his sister. We smelled it before the shrieking began. When Helga stumbled from the kitchen, her arm crimson and dotted with angry white blisters, Wilmer followed, explaining blithely, "Mother always says how Helga still has the plump rolls of a baby seal," at which Helga looked up from her wounds and began to laugh and laugh.

It sounds absurd, I suppose—and certainly trite—to suggest that two such unempathetic tyrants could have given me something to live for, but that is indeed how it seemed. Perhaps I was just too busy to wallow.

5

When Wilmer went off to school, I stayed and formed a particular bond with Helga. Whereas Wilmer had begun to display some decidedly Arvid-like tendencies, growing weak-willed, even obsequious in certain situations, Helga was a powerful storm that only became stronger with every passing year. She could be alternately jaded and sincere, obtuse and clever, sharp-tongued and forgiving.

I knew I would be adrift when she went to school at last, but failed, characteristically, to devise an alternate plan. I had no intention of returning to factory life in Stockholm or, worse yet, choosing between Arvid's charity and homelessness.

It was Olga, of course, who found my way out.

"Sven," she said to me one day as she, Helga and I were eating breakfast together. I could tell from the musical way she said my name that she was not at all certain how she'd be received.

"Yes, sister?"

"Have you considered what you might do after Helga goes off to school?"

"I'm not going to school," Helga said. "I'm going to cross Antarctica with Uncle Sven."

"Yes, dear. Now let me speak to your uncle."

This was greeted with a look of astonishing insolence, which amused me. Otherwise, perhaps, I might have been less inclined to entertain the query.

"Yes, sister. I have considered it. Thought I might try my luck in the cod fisheries. Or buy a tin hat and join the war in France."

"Be serious, Sven. Do you know what you'll do?"

"Of course I don't, Olga. The question is near to me always, and bringing me rather close to despair."

Excerpted from The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian MIller. Copyright © 2021 by Nathaniel Ian MIller. Excerpted by permission of Little Brown & Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.