When my strength returned I walked through the forests. Eventually I found the road but couldn’t find the hidden bicycles. Dripping wet, I began the walk home. Up ahead were the bright lights of a car. It was a local farmer. He was looking for me. My parents were looking for me. Everyone was looking for me, including the police.
The Lie
When I arrived back at the farm I kept saying the same thing:
‘Freja’s dead!’
I explained about the troll. I didn’t care if they found these stories fanciful. She was gone. That was all the proof they needed. I wouldn’t stop talking about the troll until they drove me to Freja’s farm. Finally my father agreed to investigate. He didn’t know how else to calm me down. He took me to their farm. Freja was at home. She was wearing pyjamas. Her hair was brushed. She was clean. She was beautiful. It was as if she’d never run away. I said to Freja:
‘Tell them about the troll.’
Freja told them:
‘There is no troll. I never ran away. And I’m not this girl’s friend.’
• • •
Dear Doctors,
I’ve been writing all night, the process has not been easy and I’m exhausted. We’re due to meet again soon. I’m running out of time and would like to sleep before we discuss these pages, so I’m going to reduce the following events to a series of quick points.
After Freja’s lie I was sick for many weeks. I spent the remainder of that summer in bed. When I eventually recovered, my parents no longer allowed me to leave the farm by myself. My mum said prayers for me every night. She’d kneel by my bed and pray, sometimes for a whole hour. At school, children kept their distance from me.
The next summer, on one of the first hot days of the year, Freja drowned in the lake, not far from the place where we’d sheltered together under the trunk of a tree. The fact that I’d also been swimming in the lake that same day meant that there were rumours I’d been involved. Children at school claimed I’d killed her. They thought it was suspicious that I didn’t have an alibi. These stories spread from farm to farm.
To this day I’m not sure if my parents believed I was innocent. They too wondered if maybe I’d chanced across Freja in the lake that hot summer’s day, maybe we’d argued, and in the middle of that argument she’d called me a freak and maybe I’d been so angry I’d pushed her head underwater and held her there, held her and held her and held her until she couldn’t lie about me any more.
The days that followed were the worst days of my life. I sat at the top of the tall tree, staring at Freja’s farm, and considered whether to jump. I counted all the branches I’d crash through. I imagined myself broken at the bottom of the tree. I stared at the ground and kept saying:
Hello down there.
Hello down there.
Hello down there.
But if I killed myself everyone would be sure that I’d murdered Freja.
When I turned sixteen, on the day of my birthday, at five in the morning, I left the farm. I left my parents. I left that area of Sweden forever. I couldn’t live in a place where no one believed me. I couldn’t live in a place where everyone thought I was guilty of a crime. I took with me the small amount of money I’d saved up and cycled as fast as I could to the bus stop. I tossed the bike into the fields and caught a bus to the city and never went back.
Yours sincerely,
Tilde
• • •
EVEN THOUGH I’D FINISHED, I held on to the pages, pretending to read, needing more time to collect my thoughts. At no stage in my life had I caught a glimpse of my mum as the lonely young girl depicted in this account, seeking the love of just a single friend. My failure of curiosity was so complete, a question presented itself to me:
Do I even know my parents?
My fondness for them had drifted into a form of neglect. An excuse might be that Mum and Dad had never volunteered any difficult information. They’d wanted to move on from the past and carve out happier identities. Maybe I’d justified my actions by arguing that it wasn’t my place to rake over painful memories. But I was their son, their only child – the only person who could’ve asked. I’d mistaken familiarity for insight and equated hours spent together as a measure of understanding. Worse still, I’d accepted comfort without query, wallowed in contentedness without ever investigating what lay beneath my parents’ desire to create such a different home life from their own.
My mum was smart to my tricks, aware that I’d finished reading. She placed a hand on my chin, slowly raising my eyes to meet hers. I saw determination. This wasn’t the lost young girl I’d just read about.
You have a question for me, a hard question for a son to ask his mother. But I won’t answer it unless you ask it yourself. You must say the words. You must have the courage to look me in the eyes and ask if I murdered Freja.
• • •
MY MUM WAS RIGHT. I wanted to ask the question. Reading the pages, I’d wondered about the events of that day in the lake. It wasn’t difficult to picture an accidental confrontation – my mum physically powerful from years of working on the farm, city-born Freja beautiful and weaker. Their paths had crossed. My mum had lost her temper, furious after months of isolation and misery, shaking her former friend, holding her head underwater, overcome with the humiliation of her disgrace. Gaining control of her emotions, ashamed of her actions, my mum would’ve retreated to the shore, only to glance back and see that Freja hadn’t surfaced – unconscious underwater. Frantic, my mum would’ve returned, trying to save her, but to no avail. Then she’d panicked, fleeing the scene, leaving the body of her friend adrift in the lake:
‘Did you have anything to do with Freja’s death?’
My mum shook her head:
‘Ask the question. Did I murder Freja? Ask it!’
She began repeating over and over:
‘Did I murder Freja? Did I murder Freja? Did I murder Freja?’
She was goading me, rapping her knuckles against the table each time she said the name. It was disturbing. I couldn’t bear it any more. Before she hit the table again, I caught her fist, the energy of the blow transferring into my arm, and asked:
‘Did you murder her?’
No, I didn’t.
Go to any school, I challenge you, anywhere in the world, and you’ll find an unhappy child. About that unhappy child there will be malicious gossip. This gossip will consist mostly of lies. Though they’re lies it doesn’t matter, because when you live in a community that believes those lies, repeats those lies, the lies become real – real to you, real to others. You can’t escape them, because it’s not a matter of evidence, it’s nastiness, and nastiness doesn’t need any evidence. The only escape is to disappear inside your head, to live among your thoughts and fantasies, but this only works for so long. The world can’t be shut out forever. When it begins to break through, then you must escape for real – you pack your bags and run.
As I look back on it, Freja was troubled. Her mother was dead. Her life had been turned upside down. After she betrayed me as a friend, she became sexually involved with a young man, a hired labourer on one of the larger farms. There were rumours that she was pregnant. She didn’t attend school for a time. The stench of scandal. Don’t ask me what’s true. I don’t know. I didn’t care what people said about her. I wept when Freja died. No one wept more than me. I wept, even though she’d betrayed me, even though she’d turned her back on me, I wept. I could weep again, even today, I loved her so much.
Now that you’ve heard the truth about the summer of 1963 you must accept that those events have nothing to do with the crimes that took place this summer. There’s no connection. We’re talking about different people in a different place at a different time.
• • •
FRUSTRATED WITH THE CRYPTIC REFERENCE to ‘crimes’, and feeling emboldened, I challenged the word directly:
‘Is Mia dead?’
My mum was startled. So far she’d exercised control over the flow of inform
ation. I’d been docile and obliging. No more: I wanted a summary of what we were discussing before we went any further. I’d allowed her to be coy and evasive for too long. My mum said:
‘What did you think this was about?’
‘I don’t know, Mum. You keep talking about crimes and conspiracies but you won’t say what they are.’
‘Chronology is sanity.’
She said this as though it were well-known and widely accepted wisdom.
‘What does that even mean?’
‘When you jump around, backwards and forwards, people begin to question your mind. It happened to me! The safest way is to start at the beginning and move to the end. Follow the chain of events. Chronology is sanity.’
My mum was describing sanity as though it were the same as an old-fashioned police test for a drunk driver, asking the suspect to walk in a straight line.
‘I understand, Mum. You can tell me what happened your way. But first I need to know what we’re talking about. Give it to me in one sentence. Then I’ll listen to the details.’
‘You won’t believe me.’
I was taking a risk being so direct. I wasn’t sure if my mum might leave if I pushed her too hard. With a degree of trepidation, I said:
‘If you tell me, right now, I promise not to make any judgments until I’ve heard the whole story.’
It’s obvious that you still believe nothing really happened in Sweden. I told you at the beginning, this is about a crime. There’s been a victim. There have been many victims. You need more information? Yes, Mia’s dead. A young girl I grew to love is dead. She is dead.
Now ask yourself a few questions. What wild theories have I ever believed in before? Do I search for conspiracies in every news story? Have I ever falsely accused anyone of a crime? I’m running out of time. I must go to the police today. If I go by myself to a police station the officers will contact Chris. He’ll tell them the story of my sickness and he’ll tell it well. These police officers will almost certainly be men, men just like Chris. They’ll believe him. I’ve seen it happen. I need an ally, preferably a member of my family, by my side, someone to support me, and there’s no one left except you. I’m sorry this falls on your shoulders.
You asked me directly. I answered. Now I’m asking you directly. Is this too much for you? Because if you’re stalling for time until your father arrives, if your tactic is to keep me talking while you don’t listen to a word, trapping me here under false pretences so that the two of you can drive me to an asylum, then let me warn you, I’d consider that a betrayal so grave our relationship would never recover. You would no longer be my son.
• • •
THE IMPLICATION HAD ALWAYS BEEN that if I didn’t believe her then our relationship would suffer. My mum saw the situation in starker terms. To be her son I must believe her. Had the situation been less extraordinary the threat would’ve seemed overstated. Except my mum had never said words like this. Their newness made them real. It was a notion I’d never considered – my mum not loving me. I thought upon the way she’d left her farm as a child, running away from her parents with no letter, no phone call, disappearing without a trace. She’d cut close ties before. She could do it again. However, she was flatly contradicting her instructions not to allow emotion to influence me. Our relationship was being pulled into play. I couldn’t promise to believe my mum merely to pacify her.
‘You asked me to be objective.’
I added quickly:
‘I can repeat the promise I’ve already made: to keep an open mind. Right now, sitting here, I don’t know what’s true. I do know, Mum, no matter what happens in the next few hours, no matter what you tell me, I’ll always be your son. And I’ll always love you.’
My mum’s hostility broke apart. I wasn’t sure if she was moved by my petition of love, or by an acknowledgment that she’d made a tactical mistake. Sounding disappointed with herself, she repeated my words:
‘An open mind, that’s all I ask for.’
Not quite, I thought to myself, as her focus returned to the journal.
Earlier we spoke about the previous owner, elderly Cecilia, and the mystery of why she sold us the farm. The mystery goes deeper. She left behind a boat moored to the wooden pontoon, an expensive rowboat with an electric motor. Both were new. Ask yourself why frail Cecilia would spend so much money on a boat when she was planning to sell her farm and move into the city?
There are lots of subjects I don’t know anything about. Until my recent time in Sweden I can’t have spent a single second thinking about motorboat engines. As soon as I became aware that the boat was a vital clue I set about educating myself. It was a revelation to me that the shell of a boat was purchased without an engine – the engine is an additional expense. What’s more, the so-called E-Thrust Electric Motor Cecilia selected isn’t the cheapest, not by far. It’s priced at three hundred euros. My research has uncovered that it’s possible to buy cheaper engines that would’ve been compatible with the boat. The next question is, why did she leave us this particular electric motor?
I want you to look at the specifications for the engine. Among the list is the answer – the reason she picked that engine and left it behind. See if you can find it.
• • •
FROM HER JOURNAL MY MUM handed me a printout from the Internet.
E-THRUST 55lb Electrical Engines
First time available in Europe!
Based on superior US design and technology, these engines represent outstanding power and performance – year after year.
• Peak Thrust: 55lb
• Power Input: 12v (Battery not included)
• LCD Monitor 7 settings
• 360 degree steering
• Stainless Steel
• Length 133cm/52"
• Width 12cm/4.7"
• Depth 44cm/17.3"
• Weight: 9.7kg/21lb
• Telescopic Speed Control: 5/2 (forward/reverse)
• Propeller: 3-Blade Montage
• Instruction Manual: Yes. Instruction Language: English/German/French
• Recommended Boat Size: Max. 1750kg/3850lb
• CE approved: Yes
• • •
I RETURNED THE PAGE AND ADMITTED:
‘I don’t know.’
Easy to miss in that list, hardly worthy of a second thought – it’s the third feature, the LCD monitor with seven settings.
Let me explain.
We’d been on the farm for almost two months and Chris hadn’t gone out on the river once. Not even for five minutes. In order to sell holidays we needed evidence that Elk River was good to fish. But Chris’s rods were sitting in the barn. What was I asking him to do? Not some chore he despised. He loved to fish. He’d helped choose the farm based upon the river. He’d inspected it. I’d regularly say to him: please fish the river. He’d shrug, roll a cigarette, and say maybe tomorrow. Then, after weeks of ignoring my requests, Chris declared that he was going out on the river with Håkan. By this stage the two men had become friends, often spending time in each other’s company. I didn’t complain. The friendship was good for him. Chris’s mood had improved since those dark cold April mornings when he wouldn’t get out of bed or budge from in front of the stove. Privately, I was jealous, not of his relationship with Håkan whom I mistrusted and disliked, but of the way in which a group of friends had been opened to him, including the two-faced mayor, prominent businessmen, and members of the town council. Chris had been welcomed into the very heart of the local community. I wondered whether Håkan was being excessively kind to my husband in order to torment me. But I’m not petty. I’m practical and pragmatic. We needed good relations with the community, and if those relations were built around Chris, rather than me, so be it. Of course, it stung that having ignored my frequent requests to fish he responded so eagerly to Håkan’s suggestion. Even so, I made no snide remarks. Instead, I expressed my gratitude that finally he’d bring me a salmon to photograph.
; After breakfast Chris collected the electric motor from the barn. I remember that morning fondly. I wasn’t suspicious. I wasn’t paranoid. I made Chris sandwiches using bread baked in our oven. I prepared a Thermos of tea. I kissed him, wished him luck. Standing on the end of our jetty I waved him goodbye, confident in his abilities and full of hope for our river. I cried out for him to bring me back a magnificent fish. And that’s exactly what he did.
• • •
MY MUM PULLED A PHOTOGRAPH from her journal, the fourth so far.
This was taken shortly after Chris and Håkan returned from their fishing trip, note the time and date stamp in the corner. What’s to protest about? I asked Chris to bring back a magnificent salmon and he succeeded. The photograph is perfect promotional material for our guest lodges – two men proudly holding their catch. But something’s very wrong with this photo.
Look closer.
Examine Chris’s expression.
That’s not pride or excitement. His lips are squeezed as though great pressure were required to hold the smile together.
Now study Håkan’s expression.
Note the direction of his eyes – a sideways glance at Chris. There’s calculation here. The photograph isn’t celebratory. Why not? Where’s the joy? Remember the stakes. Our money was set to run out by the end of the year and this fish should’ve been proof that we could earn more.
I can see you’re thinking that I might have spoiled the evening by being needlessly suspicious and that these men are reacting to something inappropriate done by me. You’re wrong. I congratulated them warmly. I even managed to be nice to Håkan, proposing that he come round when we cooked it. But I quickly became confused. The men were clutching an exceptional fish yet their reaction was muted. I made a motion to take the salmon from Chris and his instinct was to pull away. I explained we needed to wrap it and put it in the fridge. Only then did he allow me to hold the fish. Rebalancing the weighty fish, my finger slipped under the gill. Do you know what I discovered?
The Farm Page 10