Midsummer Revelry

Midsummer Revelry

Midsummer’s Eve is a time of great jubilation in Sweden, a time to celebrate the long bright days and short light nights, or if far enough north, the wonder of the never-setting sun. Anyone who has lived through the long winter gloom will know what the fuss is about.

Every year on this day Jonas and Ingalill invited thirty or more guests to celebrate with them in the grounds of their large summer cottage on an island in the Stockholm archipelago. Most of the visitors were summer and weekend neighbours, but some, like Mikael and Greta, were not and came out on the small, white passenger boats from town.

“If there’s something in this world I cannot abide, it’s one of their Midsummer parties!” Mikael exclaimed to his wife as she put the phone down. Ingalill had just called to give them their annual invitation.

“You’ve being saying that for the past twenty years,” Greta replied wearily. “But you’ve survived perfectly well.”

“Nonsense! I was scarred for life long ago!” Mikael retorted. “One more time and it’ll be the end of me.”

Greta laughed. “Don’t be so silly,” she said. “Anyway, we’ve got to go and that’s all there is to it.” Her voice was gentle, but firm. “We can’t afford to offend them. Or aren’t you interested in the work you get from his company? After all, there are plenty of other people for them to choose from.”

Mikael was silent, but strong feelings were mounting within him. “You know what will happen!” he suddenly burst out. “Mats will be mangling and strangling that accordion of his, making sounds that would cause panic and confusion among the birds and the beasts if they hadn’t already been scattered to the four winds by the screeching and scraping from the contraption Anders has the cheek to call a violin.”

“Everyone thinks they play very well.”

“Don’t you believe it. They only say that because Anders is Jonas’s son and Mats his son-in-law. And then Jonas and Ingalill, with every kind of garden weed tangled together and wrapped round their heads, will bully people into prancing round that ridiculous so-called maypole of theirs. Everyone except Kerstin and Britta, that is, because they only have to sniff a glass of anything stronger than well-water at a distance of fifty metres and they can’t stand up.”

Greta laughed again. “How you love to exaggerate,” she said.

But Mikael hadn’t finished. “Then after we’ve suffered an interminable series of the most inane games, or ‘competitions’ as he calls them — trials by ordeal would be a better term — Jonas, aided and abetted by Anders, will put out lumps of boot leather to blacken on the barbecue and fully expect me, and everyone else, to ruin our health and digestion by trying to devour them. Why do you think my stomach is like it is? Eh? I ask you.”

“Because of your eating — and drinking — habits during the rest of the year,” Greta said with a patient smile. “You could try losing a little weight.”

Mikael shook his head. “Haven’t got so much to lose...” He patted his paunch, pulling it in at the same time. “To cap it all,” he went on, “Jonas will get up and deliver a speech so long and nauseous that only he could possible make it. A reading from the telephone directory would be exciting by comparison. But, and believe me it’s a big but, just in case anyone has not been completely gutted by then, at the end of it all we’ll be expected to stand to attention while he lowers the flag from that stupid, white-painted, overgrown beanpole that he’s bolted to the ground and sing the national anthem. I tell you it’s more than human flesh and blood can stand.”

“You know what these ex-military men are like,” said Greta quietly. “And anyway, what’s wrong with a little patriotism? Would you rather have us sing a hymn to bureaucracy and corruption in Brussels?”

Mikael was not listening. “Worse than the family gathering at Christmas,” he muttered. “And that is saying something!” he added in a louder voice.

Greta laughed once more. She never got upset when Mikael had one of his outbursts. “It’s good for him,” she told her friends. “Better to get it off his chest I say, than go on brooding over things like so many of them do.”

When the day came they duly boarded one of the white ferries lined up along the quayside in front of the Grand Hotel. The vessels regularly plied their way between the countless rocky islets that separate this part of the mainland from the open sea. Some of the skerries are no more than tiny outcrops just breaking the surface of the brackish water. Others stretch in irregular shapes for several kilometres, often having joined up with their neighbours in fairly recent times, for it is not so long since the last Ice Age ended in these parts and the land is still very slowly rising.

All the boats were bedecked with birch branches to mark the occasion. And they were crowded to the railings with Midsummer revellers.

Three times Mikael threatened to go ashore prematurely and get the next boat back, but he and his wife eventually arrived at the island where Jonas and Ingalill had their summer home. There was a steep climb from the landing stage to the broad, gravel pathway they had to follow for a few hundred metres.

“Gets steeper every year,” Mikael commented breathlessly to some fellow guests who had been on the same boat. They agreed good naturedly. “Need a cable-car,” he said. They laughed and went on ahead. To Greta, Mikael mumbled, “They did it deliberately, of course. Found a place where half the guests would never survive the combat course they have to go through to reach them. They only invite people from town who they want to kill off.”

Red in the face, he stopped to rest for a moment. “Never go this way themselves, of course. Always come out in their own boat and tie up on the other side of the island where there’s hardly any slope at all.”

“What you need is more exercise,” Greta told him. “You should be thankful you get a little at least once a year.”

“I’ve a good mind to stop right here and wait for the next boat home,” Mikael stated between clenched teeth. But he was soon on the move again and it was not so long before they were standing in line behind other guests waiting to be greeted by their hosts.

“Nice to see you,” said Jonas, shaking Mikael’s hand warmly, then giving Greta a polite hug, while Mikael did the same to Ingalill. Greta meanwhile had handed an attractively wrapped package to the hostess. “Come and look after two of our most faithful guests,” Jonas called to Anders’s wife standing nearby. “I don’t think they’ve missed once in all the time we’ve been out here.”

“How could we?” Greta said with a smile. “It’s one of the highlights of the year. Isn’t it Mikael?”

“Every bit as enjoyable each time,” Mikael stated.

And indeed, much was the same as usual. People were dressed in white or light summery colours, a few even in folk costume brought out for the annual occasion. They stood in small groups in the area behind the house. To call it a lawn would be misleading, for though it had been approximately levelled and recently cut, Jonas would only let meadow grasses, wild flowers and other natural greenery grow there. In the middle, the maypole with its cross-pole and rings had already been dressed with birch leaves and flowers and hauled upright.

Unfortunately, the elements had little respect for the occasion. Indeed, no one can guarantee that the Swedish weather gods will smile favourably on such proceedings just because it happens to be Midsummer’s Eve and there had certainly been times when the thermometer had fallen to unreasonable, unseasonable levels and the general revelry dampened if not drenched. But never like this.

The sun was shining brightly enough when Mikael and Greta left home, was still putting on a brave show when they arrived, but was totally extinguished by the blackest of clouds not very long afterwards. The wind first freshened, then flexed its muscles and huffed its hardest, while the rain lashed down with sudden, surprising force and the temperature fell almost as fast.

Anders and Mats, who were just getting into their stride, stopped playing abruptly. Their first unselfish thoughts were for their instruments. This meant making an immediate dash for cover and the damage would certainly have been limited had they not collided with each other almost straight away, whereupon the slightly built Anders ricocheted off his older and much bulkier brother-in-law into the maypole, which shuddered and shook before losing its balance and toppling over.

“Fore!” shouted one of the golfers with great presence of mind. Most of the guests were already taking flight, but Kerstin and Britta, too slow to heed the warning, were bowled over by the flower-twined cross-pole and lay floundering on the ground ensnared by one of the rings until rescued and hauled to safety by their husbands and other gallant helping hands. Given a stiff dose of the standard house medicament, brandy, they were dragged into the hosts’ bedroom, there to remain until their spouses deemed it time to sound the retreat.

The ‘competitions’, so-called because points and eventually also prizes were awarded, were first postponed then finally abandoned. Anders, shaken by his encounter with the maypole and fretting over the fate of his fiddle, put too much fuel on the barbecue, with the result that flames leapt high into the air, engulfing any comestibles in their path and causing a great commotion among the assembly.

The guests, otherwise cowed and well-chilled, as few had brought any warm clothing and the hosts could offer but a very limited supply of sweaters and shawls, sat under the broad canvas-covered veranda that skirted one-and-a-half sides of the house, while the raindrops thudded into it. Mats did his best to liven them up by getting them to sing from the sodden song sheets he had so carefully prepared the night before, but so unwisely left in the open when all was still bright and calm. As first the wind and then the rain had performed the deepest treachery, copies were dispersed over a wide area before becoming too heavy to continue on their capricious way. Once reaching comparative safety with his accordion and making sure it was not mortally afflicted, Mats had recklessly dashed into the squall to rescue what he could.

Jonas tried to raise dampened spirits, or at least glasses, by proposing countless toasts, sometimes to persons few felt inclined to drink to though they did so without hesitation, then made an exceptionally long and meandering speech that soon had even the most respectful twisting in their seats, while the youngest members of the throng, restless enough already, repeatedly had to be hushed. Jonas continued undeterred.

Finally, the rain relented — in time for the flag-lowering ceremony, and all the able-bodied rose to gather around the pole to listen respectfully to more well-worn words from their host before the final ritual began.

Greta and Mikael said little on the boat back to town, either to each other or the few fellow guests returning with them. It was not until they were safely inside their own home that Greta laid her hand on her husband’s shoulder and reluctantly conceded the whole affair had been a disaster. “If I’d known how it was going to turn out, I could have forgiven you for not going,” she said in a low voice.

Mikael thought for a moment before replying. “Well, you’re right about one thing,” he said. It was a disaster. And not just any old disaster but a fiasco to end all fiascos! And because of you I had to live through it... Thank you my dear. I’d never have forgiven myself if I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes.”