Never Stop Walking_A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World

by Christina Rickardsson

  He was barefoot like me, and he was wearing jean shorts that came down to his knees and no shirt. I was seven years old, and I’d guess he was eight or nine. He was a little lighter skinned than I was. He had brown eyes, not black like mine. He had short, straight, medium-brown hair and ears that stuck out. He was cute. I remember how he looked at me and how his eyes showed first surprise, then shock, and then pain. The whole time, I kept a firm hold on the piece of glass. At first, I felt nothing. Then I felt my hand getting warm, and at that instant I let go of the shard. The whole thing happened in just a couple of seconds, but my brain remembers it as taking much, much longer. I wish I could say that some bit of reason popped into my head, but all I felt then was fear, fear that I had done something wrong. Then that fear turned into the realization that I truly had done something gravely wrong. I took the bread out of his hand, and he didn’t resist. I took it and started to run away. I looked back once as I ran and saw him sitting on the ground, saw how he was screaming and crying. But I didn’t hear anything. I ran and ran, putting distance between us.

  After I’d run a fair way, I sat down and started eating. The food was completely wasted, though, because as soon as I swallowed the last bite, I started vomiting. I looked at my bloody hand and just vomited and vomited . . . The realization of what I’d done hit me, and I remember thinking, Forgive me, Camile. Forgive me, God.

  Later, when I heard the other children in the neighborhood talking about the boy who’d been found dead in the alley, I realized what I had done. I didn’t say anything to anyone, not even to my mother. If Camile had been alive, maybe I would have talked to her. I heard the children speculating about what had happened to him, and there I was, walking among them, knowing the answer. I decided then that I would never talk about it, never mention it to anyone, because who could love a murderer?

  I have never understood violence. What I actually mean is that I’ve never understood bad people. Violence, on the other hand, is something I can understand. To me, it goes without saying that using violence in self-defense is justified. Using violence to protect someone who’s in danger also makes sense to me. I think violence should always be the last resort, but if my or someone else’s life is in danger and violence is the last option, that’s exactly what I’m going to resort to. Based on my experience, it’s hard to reach any other conclusion. I’ll never forget a discussion we had in high school in Sweden. The teacher asked us students to discuss and reflect on the death penalty. We had watched a documentary about a man on death row in the US who was waiting for his injection. Discussing the death penalty was not something I wanted to do. Some of my classmates were for it, others against it, and a few thought you couldn’t really say for sure. The question was whether it was OK to take another human being’s life under certain circumstances.

  I had seen enough as a child to be able to say that there are people who should never be allowed to exist among other people. There are people capable of downright evil. You can discuss whether they deserve the death penalty, but what I know most of all is that existence is not black and white. I remember watching my classmates and thinking: If they only knew what the life of a child on the streets was like—they, who are so sure of what they would do—if only they knew. If they knew what it was like to live with blood on your hands, would they really answer so quickly? How could they know that taking a life can break you down, and that some things once done can never be undone?

  It’s hard to say, I forgive you, to yourself. It’s hard for me to say, “I took someone’s life” out loud to myself. The only person who can forgive me is the boy, and he isn’t around anymore. Just like me, he wanted to live. How do I carry on? How can I forgive myself? I actually don’t know! I try to be a better person, but I’m only human. The greatest comfort I can find is that in my heart, I know that it was never my intention to harm him. I remind myself that I was a child, and the conditions I was living under played a big role in how I acted. At the place I am now in my life, I can look at myself in the mirror, let myself see what’s inside me, and still like what I see. I have made my way through all the darkness, and I can like what I see in me, because there’s so much good in there, too. If that boy could somehow see me and know how I feel, I believe and hope that he would be able to forgive me.

  It’s taken me more than twenty years to start talking about what happened, to even be able to mention this to anyone else. The first time I ever talked about it was so liberating, but at the same time, I was incredibly disappointed. I’d read in books and heard people say that the truth will set you free, but it doesn’t feel like that to me. On the other hand, I’ve accepted that it happened. I have forgiven myself in a purely rational sense, although not in an emotional one. That boy has followed me through my life, and I have not allowed myself to forget, for his sake, but also for my own, in order to remind myself of what a human being is capable of under certain circumstances. I don’t know if he has a family, someone who misses him, someone who can say something about him, about his life. I feel like I have an obligation to remember him, to bear witness. Had our circumstances been different, his and mine, our biggest problem at that age might have been our parents’ getting a divorce or our not getting the Christmas present we wanted. But our reality differed from that of most other children. We were just happy to get one more day.

  The only reason I’ve been able to forgive myself at all is that I know I never meant for that boy to die; I just wanted my food back.

  Birthday in Brazil

  2015

  Rivia and I wake up in our hotel room in São Paulo, and it’s my birthday. I’m turning thirty-two. I know that as they get older, many people feel that birthdays aren’t such a big deal. And, sure, maybe they’re not, but I love having a birthday. I wake up early and contemplate throwing on my workout clothes and sneakers and going for a run in the city. But with my poor sense of direction, I would probably get lost. Instead, Rivia and I decide to take an early-morning walk. As we step out of the hotel, I realize how cold it is. I’m surprised that it’s not warmer and hope the sun will start giving off some heat soon. Not only did I pack way too much stuff; I packed the wrong stuff. I didn’t bring any warm clothes. It amazes me how differently I behaved before this trip compared to the other foreign travel I’ve done. I’ve traveled a fair amount internationally and should have known better, but I was distracted before this trip. I have the world’s biggest suitcase—at least it feels that way when I try to lift it. It’s full of clothes, but I have nothing to wear. Rivia made the same mistake, minus the gigantic suitcase, which means that I can’t borrow clothing from her, either.

  We find a little café where we sit down and order baguette sandwiches. We chat, laugh, and also shed a few tears together. This is the first time since I was eight years old that I’m celebrating my birthday on my “home turf.” And later today, we’re going to visit the orphanage where my brother and I lived for a year before we were adopted.

  We found the orphanage online before we came to Brazil. In the days leading up to the trip, I would go to Rivia’s house and we would look for clues. I had gone through all the adoption papers, called the Swedish court, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, the Swedish Intercountry Adoptions Authority, the Family Association for Intercountry Adoption, the Brazilian embassy, and the Brazilian consulate.

  When I’d almost given up hope, back home at my dad’s house in Ramsele, I found an envelope with a logo on it among some old photo albums and stacks of old papers. My Swedish mother Lili-ann was so good about saving everything, like the receipt from Brazil for sandals and baby formula. But she hadn’t managed to save the address of the orphanage. This time, though, I felt I might have found it. Rivia looked at the logo on the envelope and told me that it said something about “home for children” on it. She immediately typed the name and address from the envelope into her computer’s search program. Suddenly, we found ourselves on the homepage for an orphanage. It was mostly text, and Rivia asked
me if we’d found the right one. “I don’t know,” I replied. However fervently I hoped it would be my orphanage, I wasn’t going to allow myself any false hope. I wanted to know for sure. We debated how we could find out if it was my orphanage before we tried contacting them. Rivia’s boyfriend, Jens, who was sitting across the kitchen table from us, suggested Google Maps. Rivia typed the address into Google Maps, and a picture of the orphanage filled the screen. I dug back into my memories. I’ve always been proud at how much I’ve managed to remember from Brazil, even though I’ve also been so afraid of my memories. And there I sat, staring at a picture of what could be my old orphanage, and I wasn’t sure. I recognized the building, but the colors were different. The little gate into the orphanage wasn’t black, as I recalled, but yellow. It seemed smaller in the picture than I remembered it. I asked Rivia if she could navigate us around the building. After a few attempts, we succeeded in making our way around the whole building. All of a sudden, I recognized the hill, the door, and the wall—and I heard myself saying that I was positive this was the orphanage Patrick and I had lived in. I looked at Rivia, tears of relief streaming down my cheeks. This was my orphanage, and I had found a piece of my history on Google Maps.

  Now, when Rivia asks me how I feel about going to the orphanage later today, I reply that I’m extremely happy about it. I’m aware of all the emotions churning inside me, but I can’t really identify them all. But something tells me that this will be one of my best birthdays ever, that I’ll receive the most amazing gift anyone could give me.

  The Orphanage

  SÃO PAULO, 1990

  My mother, my brother, and I had found a small alley where we decided to spread out some cardboard to sleep on. Mamãe and I sat leaning against the gray concrete wall, and she was holding my brother. He was so cute, lying there asleep. He looked really cozy. I wondered if I had been cozy like that, sleeping in her arms when I was little. I must have been, because Mamãe was so nice. Patrique had chubby baby cheeks and short black curls. His arms and legs were plump, and his head was huge compared to the rest of his small body. I wondered if he knew how the world worked, that we didn’t have any money or a home. I wondered if he knew who I was and who Mamãe was. There was so much we had to teach him, so much we had to protect him from. The list was long. Mamãe would protect him just as she had protected me, and I would help her.

  We sat there quietly. It was a hot night, and the sky was dark. I couldn’t see any stars, but I knew they were there. It was so weird that things could exist without being seen. How was it that I could see them one night, but the next night they were gone? Why couldn’t I see them during the day? Mamãe said that when daylight came, the sun shone so brightly that the stars couldn’t be seen because they were so pale. That sounded logical, but I still couldn’t really understand how things could be there but you couldn’t see them. She explained to me that love was there, but we couldn’t see it; we could only feel it. I sat there in silence for a long time. One of my legs fell asleep. It was unusual for me to be so quiet. She used to say that every day I had a thousand questions and that every day she had to give me a thousand answers.

  I looked at my mother, who was just sitting there, staring straight ahead into nothingness. I tried to see what she was looking at, but couldn’t figure it out. My eyes returned to my mother, and I realized she was sad. I wanted to make her happy, so I tried to think of something I could do to cheer her up. I always grew worried when she looked sad, so I said the only thing I could think of.

  “Mamãe?”

  “Yes?”

  “Tomorrow, I’m going to get so super-much money that we can buy something really good.” I knew that most likely I wouldn’t get the money, but I also knew that I would really try. Many times, I wanted to walk into a shop and just take things and run as hard as I could. She had said I could never do that, that I had to promise her that. And I had promised. A promise I have broken and have had to pay a high price for many times.

  With a sad smile, Mamãe responded that it was already morning. I didn’t understand how it could be the next day, though, because it was still dark. She explained that time was like a circle, that every twenty-four-hour period included both day and night, both light and dark. Then I wondered which came first. How did you know where it started and stopped? She smiled. She looked a little happier, which made me happy.

  “You know that clocks are round?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I borrow your chalk?”

  I had won a piece of chalk in a fight with a boy. I really liked the chalk and often drew on the asphalt with it. I couldn’t spell, not even my own name. I was a little sad about that. Camile had said that only rich people could write, that we rats didn’t need to since we were never going to be rich. The piece of chalk was almost used up, but I took it out and handed it to my mother. She started by drawing a circle on the ground, and then she wrote in the numbers. At the very top in the middle she wrote twelve and then all the numbers going around until she got back to twelve.

  “This is what a clock looks like,” she said. I had stolen some watches, so I knew what they looked like, but I’d never considered how they worked.

  Then she drew in a zero above the number twelve.

  “Mamãe, why are there two numbers at the twelve?”

  “Shush! You be quiet now while I explain. Otherwise I’m not going to tell you anything.” She gave me a playful smile, which told me she wasn’t mad at me, just pretending. I smiled back. “So, my cute, curious, and downright tiresome little monkey, now I’m going to tell you how time works.” She sometimes called me a cute monkey because I loved to climb. “We say that a new day begins with the night.” I was about to ask a question, but she silenced me with a look. “You see that I wrote a zero at the top.”

  “Hmm.”

  “The zero is the start of a new day. Then it’s one o’clock, then two, three, four, five, six, seven, and now it’s just starting to get light, which means day is beginning. Then the clock keeps going for the daytime. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. When the clock strikes twelve, that’s the middle of the day. Then you start counting from the twelve again. When we get to the one again, then it’s one o’clock in the daytime, in the afternoon. Then it’s two, three, four, five, six, seven, and then it starts to get dark again. Then the clock turns eight, nine, ten, and eleven. And then you’re back to zero. When the clock is back to zero, a new day starts. And then you keep going like that. The clock just starts again. Does that make sense?”

  I pondered this for a bit and studied the clock she had drawn for me.

  “Mamãe, is one day two trips around the clock?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “And every number is an hour?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  I started counting from zero to twelve and then counted one more time around. “So, a day is twenty-three hours?”

  “No, a day is twenty-four hours. You forgot to count the zero as an hour.”

  “But, Mamãe, zero isn’t anything. You told me that.”

  “When you’re counting on a clock, the zero is also an hour.”

  “But how can it be when zero is nothing? If I have zero money, then I have no money.”

  She smiled. She showed me the circle again and had me point to each of the numbers with my finger and count out loud. In the end, I saw that to get to the one again, you had to go past zero. I started counting again. And this time when I got to the zero, I had counted to twenty-four.

  “So, what happens to the day once you’ve counted to twenty-four?” my mother asked me.

  I felt a little unsure. Two trips around the clock was one day. So, two new rotations around the clock must be a new day.

  “It’ll be a new day?” I replied very uncertainly.

  “That’s right. You’re a smart little monkey,” she said, smiling. “Now you know how a new day comes into being.”

  We sat in silence, again, and I thought about how clocks work and felt proud of t
his new knowledge I now had, very proud. I glanced at my mother. She looked sad again.

  “Christiana, there’s something I have to tell you, something we need to talk about.”

  “What?”

  “Do you remember how I applied for that job last week? Well, I got the job.”

  “Oh, you did!” I was thrilled. I knew how hard my mother had been trying to find a job and how sad she was each time one didn’t pan out. She’d had to quit her last job because of me, or because of what happened. She had a new job, and I would help her as much as I could.

  “I’m going to start working as a maid for a rich family, but I can’t take you and Patrique to work with me.”

  “But, Mamãe, I can help out!”

  “I know you can, but the family I’m going to work for won’t let me bring my children.”

  I was sad. I didn’t like it when she went away and I had to stay on the streets by myself. I missed Camile. Living alone on the streets left you weak. Who was going to take care of Patrique?

  “Mamãe, I can take care of Patrique.”

  “No, Christiana, I can’t leave you alone with Patrique on the streets. It’s dangerous. I talked to a children’s home that might be willing to take care of him. I’m going there tomorrow, and I’m hoping they’ll take him. I’ll ask if they can take you, too.”

  “Are you going to leave us?”

  “No, I promise I’ll come see you as soon as I can.”

  I didn’t say anything else. She could tell I was sad, and she put her arm around me.

  “Christiana, haven’t I always come back for you?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Then we’ll see each other again. We will always see each other again.”

  That was all we said that night. I fell asleep with an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach, a kind of feeling I didn’t like. It was a feeling of change and not knowing what would happen.