The Boy at the Door

by Alex Dahl

  It was strange being back in Poland. I could barely get my head around everything that had happened since I last left – I had the baby in my belly when I arrived in Karlstad, and I had you waiting for me, though I didn’t know it. For Tobias, it must have been very hard. In Poland, there weren’t any forests or any outdoor space where he could go, so he just watched television every day. We went to live in the house where Krysz had lived with his mother in his teens, after his father died. He’d inherited it a few years before when his mother had a heart attack and went into a care home. It was a dirty, over-furnished, freezing house, but Krysz said we’d be unlikely to be found there.

  Gorzów Wielkopolski seemed like an all right enough place in itself, though I didn’t see much of it in the few months we spent there; I mostly stayed inside the house with Tobias, sorting through loot Krysz and Pawel brought back, or smoking pot, or crack if I could get it. I hadn’t touched heroin since the summer before on the farm. On the few occasions I left the house, which was a squat bungalow in an anonymous neighborhood on the north side of the town, it was in the car. Once, Krysz brought me to a big warehouse where they sold paint and building material and told me to choose some paint for the house. He said it would be nicer for everybody if we at least tried to make the house look okay. It made me happy, because I didn’t think Krysz cared about that kind of thing anymore, but I did remember the vegan, straight-laced Krysz with the pristine apartment in Gothenburg, and there must be a part of me that believed he could one day be that guy again. Don’t we all try to believe that things will turn out good okay, Ellen?

  It took me about a week to paint the house. It did make a difference, when the walls stopped being stained yellow and brown, and were nice and white again. Tobias had, until then, slept on a shaggy rug in a small single bedroom that was stacked high with boxes, but after I’d done all the painting I felt quite inspired and decided I’d make it nicer for him. Just because I didn’t want him there didn’t mean I couldn’t try to make some parts of it easier for him. I dragged the boxes into the entrance area and then pushed them one by one into another room which had just been used as storage. We didn’t have a hoover, but I swept all the huge clusters of dust out from his room and all the way out of the house. I told Krysz he had to get a bed for the kid, because he could catch a chill sleeping on that filthy rug on the floor, and get pneumonia and die, and then where would our money come from? He came back with a baby’s travel cot a few days later, the kind you can fold down to a rectangle and take on holiday.

  I placed it beneath the window and put the rug over the hard plastic mattress at the bottom, then brought a couple of old, embroidered cushions from the sofa. Tobias liked the bed, and started spending a few hours in the morning in it, after he’d had his biscuit for breakfast. He’d sit at the bottom of the bed, shielded from view by the high mesh sides, and draw for hours. Fucking weirdo, Krysz would mutter, but left him to it. He still does it sometimes, in this new house, which has a tiny loft space filled with insulation material, but for some reason, he likes to sit up there, doing God knows what.

  He didn’t cry much, even those early days in Poland, or ask for stuff. He just skulked around like a little ghost. I constantly had to ask him to stay away from the windows, because the last thing we needed was some neighbor seeing a kid standing there staring out, and alerting the authorities. Once, a few weeks into our stay in the house, a man who buys loot off us for his second-hand shop stopped by the house. With him he had a small terrier in a hand-knitted pink frock. It sat in the crook of his arm, delicately licking its little nose every now and again. I’d told Tobias to stay in his room to draw while the man was at the house, but suddenly he stood there, in the middle of the room, reaching for the dog. Krysz laughed nervously and explained that Tobias was my nephew visiting from Sweden. From Pakistan, more like it, said the man and guffawed, blowing blue smoke towards my new white ceiling. The man let the kid hold the dog, and it seemed to enjoy the company of a child, jumping about on the sofa, slithering underneath Tobias’s knees, yapping and play-biting. The boy laughed for the first time since we took him from the farm.

  I tried to give the kid some experiences that were okay, I really did.

  One weekend, Krysz went to Trelleborg. The kid and I were alone and played around with the idea of doing something other than just sitting around in front of the TV. I actually asked myself – What would Ellen do? It was early spring but quite warm outside, and I’d seen a TV program about Poland that said there was a kind of national park near where we were, with lakes and fields – it looked quite a bit like southern Sweden. Krysz and Pawel had taken Pawel’s car to Sweden, so Krysz’s old red Skoda was parked outside, though I hadn’t driven a car since Josef taught me years ago back at the torp. Remember how he insisted on giving me driving lessons? At one point, I was pretty proficient. Would it be so bad if we went?

  I made Tobias crouch down, hiding under a jacket, to creep to the car. I said he had to lie down on the back seat and then I covered him with the tarpaulin, just like on the way from Sweden. His eyes were wide open and fearful, like maybe he was afraid I’d take him somewhere to kill him. I smiled at him, but that might have been even more frightening because of the state of me, and he turned away from me, covering his eyes with his hands. It was not yet six in the morning, and the town was quiet and dark as I drove the Skoda quietly through the streets. Tobias lay completely still in the back, and after a while, I began to relax even though driving a car was unfamiliar and nerve-racking. After less than an hour of driving along an empty dual carriageway, I took off onto a smaller road, following signs towards Barlinek, until we reached our destination, a large lake with a beach and a campsite. On the opposite side of the lake from where we’d parked was Barlinek, and it looked like a sweet little spa town. I peeled the tarpaulin back and found Tobias fast asleep underneath. I stood watching him a long while – he seemed older, suddenly, after I’d cut his hair close to his scalp just a few days earlier. I’d had to – he’d gotten head lice, most likely from sleeping on the disgusting old cushions with no pillowcases.

  Hey, I said after watching him awhile, wake up. He did, and looked around. At the sight of me standing over him, his mouth dragged down in a sad line. Then he sat up, suddenly realizing we’d left Gorzów Wielkopolski and were somewhere entirely new. It’s a national park, I said, before he had a chance to speak. Shall we try to have some fun? He looked around, and I could tell he was wondering whether I’d taken him back to Värmland – the landscape was very similar. I held my hand out to him and he took it, and moments later, he dashed off into the woods, which were dripping with intense orange morning sunlight – it felt like summer though it was only March. I sat and watched him from a bench by the lake, and every now and again his little face came peeking out from between tall trunks, making sure I was still there, or maybe hoping I wasn’t. I so wished you could have been there, in those moments, Ellen, and in a way it felt like you were.

  He stayed in the little wood for hours. I watched him stand completely still, his head thrown back, his hands pressed to the trunk of a tree. Later, he sat on the forest floor with his legs crossed, moving something back and forth in his hands as though he was about to toss dice. I sat gazing out at the wide, silvery lake, which had a couple of wooded islands in the middle. It was a good place to be. In my mind, I played with thoughts such as – what if I just got up and drove off, leaving the boy in the woods? He might be found by somebody who’d offer him a home and a normal life. I could drive due south as fast as the Skoda would go until I ran out of money. Maybe I’d end up somewhere nice, and I could just do what I’ve done before – pull tricks, make enough money for drugs and a roof over my head. Who’s to say it would be any worse? Krysz might never find me.

  After a while, Tobias came and sat next to me on the bench. I handed him a Snickers bar and a Coke I’d found in the car; I hadn’t thought to plan this trip very well and hadn’t brought any other food. When he’d finished,
he stood up and unselfconsciously peeled off his dirty old sweatpants and Mickey Mouse T-shirt. He ran into the lake, splashing about in the shallows, throwing water in the air, running in and out of a field of tall reeds swaying on a warm breeze.

  We drove home when the sun hung low on the sky and we were so hungry we couldn’t have stayed any longer. On the way back to Gorzów Wielkopolski, I stopped at a gas station and bought us huge, greasy bacon burgers. When we’d finished, Tobias settled back onto the seat, lying flat with the tarpaulin covering most of him, in case anybody should happen to peer into the car if we stopped at a red light. I gave him a smile before gently shutting the door and he smiled back, his face glowing from a day in the sun.

  When I turned the corner onto Wiejska Street, I realized something was wrong. In the bungalow’s driveway stood a white van – Pawel’s car. I should have turned. Perhaps I’d have gotten lucky and they’d never know we’d come back at all, but I didn’t. Krysz had said he’d be back in two days. I suppose I must have known he’d be angry I’d taken the car, but in those moments, it didn’t fully occur to me to be afraid.

  Krysz went insane. The kind of insane where he might have killed somebody, and he nearly did. Before I even realized what was happening, he came out the door and grabbed Tobias from the back seat, tarpaulin and all. I ran into the house after them and watched Krysz fling the bundle with the boy inside incredibly hard at the wall. Pawel was nowhere to be seen. I screamed, grabbed at his arm and his clothes, but he was wild, swearing at the child. Then he turned to me and said, The old fuck hasn’t left the money in Trelleborg. Then: Let’s see how he likes this. He pulled out a phone I’d never seen before, opened the camera, and pressed ‘record.’ Then he squatted down next to Tobias, pushing his face right next to the boy’s, who was whimpering and shaking. He held the camera out at arm’s length and said calmly: It is nine o’clock in the evening on Thursday, March twenty-first. If the money isn’t in Trelleborg on Monday morning I will drown this kid. Do you understand? Tobias stared straight ahead apathetically, as though he’d been struck dumb.

  Krysz got up, and walking past where I stood in the doorway, frozen with fear and crying silently, punched me incredibly hard in the stomach. When I was able to straighten back up, I half crawled, half walked over to where Tobias lay on the floor, his lower body still wrapped in the tarpaulin. I pulled him close to me and he neither resisted nor responded in any way. I stroked his short, spiky hair and my hand came upon two large bumps at the back of his head. Why hadn’t I just left him there, in Barlinek’s peaceful woods? He might have been tucked up in a clean bed somewhere by now, his stomach full of food, and I’d be on the road, driving fast away from Krysz and everything else through the night. Or I could have even taken him with me. We could have gone north, to Norway, and I could have dropped him at his real family’s door. I even thought about coming to you – ringing the doorbell and standing in the shadows on the porch listening to your soft footsteps approaching. But I’d never do that to you. Never.

  Sometimes, in Poland, I’d stand at the window and look out at the empty street. There were other houses like the one we were in; modest bungalows with a patch of neglected front garden, a couple of low-rise apartment buildings, and beyond the busier road that crossed our road, a fringe of pine trees. It all looked so normal; the kind of life any person would want to live. A home on a safe street in a country where most people have food. A home you lived in with the man you loved. A little boy, tucked up and asleep in his bed. How those images lied. That house, that man, and the little boy – oh God, it was the very definition of hell. My life truly is hell.

  *

  We had to flee from the house in Gorzów Wielkopolski. One day, a week or so after Tobias and I went to the lake, the doorbell rang. Krysz opened it, and I watched from the hallway. The unseasonably warm weather had completely disappeared and fresh snow had fallen in the past few days, and because we hadn’t left the house at all, Krysz had to shove hard at the door to get it to open, and a flurry of snow whirled into the house. On the doorstep stood a pale little boy, perhaps eight or nine years old. He had wild blond curls which haloed his face, barely held down by an old-fashioned knitted cap. Krysz stared at him, his lips curled back in a disgusted grimace. Who are you? he asked. I’m Gregorz, said the boy. I live next door. Can the boy come and play with me in the snow? I could tell from Krysz’s hunched shoulders and white knuckles gripping the doorframe that he was trying to think fast. What boy? There is no boy, he said finally, and began to close the door. But I’ve seen him, said Gregorz, every day, in the window, his voice silenced by the thud as Krysz pressed the front door shut and turned to me.

  I braced myself, waiting for him to scream and shout at me, and glanced at Tobias in the living room, perched on the armrest of a chair, watching a game show. Krysz ran a hand several times through his hair, which by now had thinned to thin, greasy strips on the top of his head. Let’s go, he said, and I saw then how very tired he was, too. People do crazy things when they are our kind of tired.

  Within two hours we were on the road, that’s how little we had to pack. I was so relieved that the episode with the boy at the door hadn’t resulted in a huge argument that I wasn’t even stressed out or sad at the prospect of another move. I didn’t even ask Krysz where we were going, though I noticed that we were heading north. The police would have been next, Krysz kept saying. After a couple of hours, he stopped the car, and though it was dark outside, I could make out lights from boats on the sea and realized we were in Świnoujście. On the ferry, Tobias lay still on the back seat like the last time. Krysz and I went up into the ship to find some food and a coffee. We sat on hard blue plastic chairs and watched as the lights from Poland’s shore became smaller and smaller until they were indistinguishable from the little stars. Then Krysz told me that it was time to put the next part of the plan with Tobias into motion. We’d go to Sandefjord and contact the woman, Cecilia Wilborg, Tobias’s mother. We’d get her to pay us a one-off sum or we’d go to the police. When she’d paid, we’d get the old man to pay as much as possible and then we’d take the boy back to Sweden. What if she wants the kid? I asked. Krysz snorted into his black, watery coffee. Trust me, he said, she won’t.

  *

  Now it’s summer, and we’ve been in this house in Sandefjord for a few months. Every day I think about you. The problem with living our kind of life is that you’re always waiting for the knock on the door to come. Though maybe the police don’t knock at all, I don’t know. The reason I’m dreading this weekend is because the boy has started to become a little difficult sometimes, especially when Krysz isn’t around. He probably senses that it’s a good idea to lay low when Krysz is here.

  He wants to go to the swimming pool. He knows such a thing exists, because before we came to Sandefjord, he watched TV all day and sometimes all night, too, and so he’s seen most things, really. He has wanted this for a long time now, and the last time he asked, a couple of days ago, I must have hesitated a little bit too long because his face lit up in such a wonderful, unguarded way that it seized me right in the heart. I’ve explained to him that it’s too dangerous for us to just prance around this town, that Krysz and I are trying to solve this situation without actually ending up in prison, but I can tell he just doesn’t get it. Often, he starts a sentence by saying, Other children do this or Other children can. But he isn’t other children. Often I wish we could go back to the way things were before Krysz had the brilliant idea of taking the boy. He’s brought us more money than any of our other activities combined, that’s for sure, but I’m just not sure the stress and difficulty of it has been worth it.

  I’m going to stop for a while now. I am actually going to take Tobias to the swimming pool. I’m not sure how much it can hurt for him to go there. A few weeks ago I bought him some swimming shorts from H&M. He hasn’t seen them yet, and I think he’ll be very pleased. I do want to give him some good experiences, because he sure has had some pretty bad ones, and
they’re because of Krysz and me. We told him his grandfather was dead. He still cries about his Moffa at night sometimes, which makes me feel terrible. Krysz tells me to get the little idiot to shut the fuck up, so then I’ll go in there and sit by his mattress and stroke his damp curls down while he cries, but it isn’t enough, is it? He’s annoying sometimes, but it isn’t really his fault because he’s little, so Tobias will go to the pool. Sometimes when I’m with Tobias, I wonder if it’s a little bit like it was for you when we met? Like you feel that you just have to take care of someone even if you might not really want to or know how even. I’m telling you all this because I want you to know that I tried to do some good.

  *

  It’s very late at night now, but it is still light outside, and I can hear Tobias shuffling about upstairs in the smaller bedroom from time to time. He’s probably still on a high from the hours we spent at the swimming pool. Nobody paid us much attention, and I’m not sure why I’d imagined they would. I guess that’s what hiding does to you. I chose Saturday morning to go, because I knew it would be packed, so we were less likely to stand out. Thankfully, it was raining, too, after weeks of hot weather, and it seemed like half of Sandefjord’s population had gone to the pool. I found myself scanning the crowd for Cecilia, but then I remembered they have an outdoor pool at their house, so she wouldn’t be bothered with a dirty public pool, at least not in June. I imagined her, wearing a fancy kind of beach kimono, supervising her children, her other children, that is, tottering about on silly high heels and sipping from a glass of white wine with ice cubes in it. I have never been able to understand why she has done what she’s done. I think I am somebody who has a lot of understanding for how sometimes life can just happen to you as though you played no part in its outcomes whatsoever, but there are some things you just don’t do. Like paying two junkies to keep your own child away from your so-called perfect family. I think it’s disgusting and I don’t think I’d ever really hated someone before Cecilia Wilborg. Not Roy, or even my disgusting uncle, or all the men I’ve met over the years who were happy to be inside my body but didn’t even want to know my name. What Krysz and I have done to Tobias is nothing, nothing, compared to what Cecilia Wilborg has done.