The Unexpected Find

by Toby Ibbotson

  “And you, what do you think?”

  “My Farmor came from Finland in a row-boat, six year old. Her grandfather the Russians took away. Her father died in the war. Her uncle died in the boat.”

  “So why would you call a person like Karl your friend? He tried to beat you up.”

  “You don’t understand. We go fishing. I fix engines with him. We play hockey and sit in the sauna after. But sometimes friends fight. This is where we live.”

  Judy sort of understood. It wasn’t like living in a big city. It was hard to imagine walking down the street and knowing every face, and being known, but she guessed it wasn’t all bad. It had probably saved them from dying in that frozen ditch.

  Stefan went on: “There is a place for them, for the new people, not far from here, where they stay. The government puts them there; Karl said…”

  Judy gasped and stared at Stefan. “An asylum centre! Stefan, the letter must have come from there, it must have! Rashid was there, it’s obvious. He might still be there.”

  “It is possible. When a person is in there it is not so easy for them to get back out again. Sometimes a year, sometimes even two, waiting to hear if they will stay, or be sent back. But your father… I don’t understand.”

  “Nor do I. But I bet he went there. And even if he got Rashid out and went off somewhere, somebody will know something. We must go there.”

  “Yes, we will go there.”

  “Can’t we go now?”

  “No, I am sorry.”

  “But you said it wasn’t far from here.”

  “Yes, not far. About a hundred kilometres.”

  Judy sighed. “Not far” meant something very different in Scandinavia.

  15

  Now that Judy had something to hope for, something that might really lead somewhere, it was even harder just waiting around – waiting for the camper to be fixed, waiting to see if Mr Balderson would show up, if he ever did. And with Mr Balderson out of action, who would drive her to the asylum centre even when Stefan did finish working on the van?

  “I cannot drive you there in the truck,” Stefan had said. “There is another policeman who is not Sven. Farmor does not sew clothes with the wife of the policeman who is there.”

  Judy knew she didn’t want to get Stefan into trouble, so she started planning how to get to the asylum centre on her own. There must be a bus from the village. Or maybe she could just get a lift. The evening after their return from the village, she pulled on a jacket and stuffed her feet into a pair of clogs – there were always some in the hallway – and went over to the workshop to ask Stefan about it. There he was, with William at his side as usual. This time they didn’t look like aliens, more like figures from an old war film in gasmasks and boiler suits. A compressor was hammering away, and Stefan was busy spraying an undercoat on one of the side panels of the camper. He caught sight of her, turned the compressor off, and took off his mask.

  “You should not—”

  “I know, I know, if I don’t go blind I will be poisoned and get fumes in the head.”

  “Yes, not good for someone who has a big head like yours.”

  Judy picked up a work glove that was lying on the bench and threw it at him. He ducked.

  “And has a temper also.”

  Now William piped up from under his mask.

  “It’s not nice to call Judy a big-head.”

  “Why is it not nice?” wondered Stefan. “She has a big head full of brains.”

  “In English it means stuck up,” said Judy helpfully. “You know, too proud.”

  “Oh. No, Judy, you are not stuck. But perhaps you have a swollen brain. It might burst out.”

  Stefan reached into the pocket of his overall, and slapped five Swedish crowns on to the workbench.

  “You were right. I had to reshape the side-rail. Why are you always right? Not just sometimes, but always. It is not good for you.”

  Judy took a deep breath and looked Stefan in the eye.

  “Look, Stefan, I really need to get to that asylum centre and ask around. I just have to. I thought maybe a bus or something—”

  Stefan interrupted her.

  “—William, could you please go and fill the wood box for Farmor? It was almost empty.” Happily William did as he was told. When they were alone, Stefan walked over to the stove and poked wood into it. Judy waited. He had something on his mind, that was clear enough.

  “What’s up, Stefan?”

  “I want to say something to you.” He fanned out a set of feeler gauges and started carefully wiping them off one by one.

  “Well, say it then.”

  Once Stefan had started it all came out in a rush.

  “I will drive you to the asylum centre tomorrow but you must please not tell Farmor because she will be unhappy and if they stop me and she does not know anything about it, and Sven will not say to Margareta that Farmor let me go there but it was only me being bad and Sven will be angry with me because he knows that I drive in the village and does not stop me and I will have broken his … his … trust but he won’t be angry with Farmor.”

  Judy knew Stefan a lot better now than she had a few weeks ago. So she knew that this thing he was offering her meant more than even the fishing tackle. She desperately wanted to get to the asylum centre, and if anyone else had made the offer then she would have jumped at it. But she couldn’t do that to Stefan.

  “Stefan, have you ever lied to Farmor before?” she asked him

  Stefan looked up at last. “Of course.”

  “When?”

  He frowned, then his brow cleared and he said proudly,

  “There is a place on the river where the water is very fast. I was not allowed to fish there, but I did, and I almost fell in, but I didn’t tell her.”

  “How old were you, Stefan?”

  “Six.”

  “Sorry, that doesn’t count. Thanks a lot, Stefan, really, thanks. But not everybody’s cut out for serious lying; some are, some aren’t. You aren’t.”

  “But you could help me, you have…”

  “Had a lot of practice? I wish you hadn’t said that, but it is true. Anyway, I’m not going to give you lessons, so forget it.”

  Stefan grinned.

  “But you taught me maths. You are a good teacher, I won’t go pear-shaped.”

  “Pack it in, Stefan.”

  “Pack it? Pack what? Pack what into what, please?”

  Judy was beginning to suspect that his English wasn’t as bad as he liked to pretend.

  The smile left Stefan’s face and he gestured towards the camper.

  “Not so long now. You see we are painting. But the clutch is not quite good. The discs…”

  “But, Stefan, you had the clutch out days ago, I know you did.”

  “Yes, but the alignment, sometimes you must do things again. You will not go alone on a bus. Mr Balderson will come back, I will finish the work, you will go and look for your father.” Stefan put his mask back on and turned on the compressor; its stuttering rattle made all further conversation impossible.

  Judy trudged back to the house. Hurrying was something that Stefan just didn’t do, and she would only make him unhappy if she went on at him. She decided to ask Farmor for help.

  Farmor happily turned her attention to Judy’s problem. She could see that the girl was going mad with impatience, and she knew perfectly well that Stefan was fully capable of doing something stupid to help her. She let him drive around locally in his various vehicles, and Sven kept an eye on him, but she couldn’t have him haring off a hundred kilometres. So she made a call to Stefan’s uncle Jonas. When she spoke to him he said that he would be going to pick up some feed for his livestock later that week, and would pass by the asylum centre. But he could just as well go tomorrow, and anyway he needed to chat with Stefan. So the next morning a beaten-up pickup drove up to the house, and Farmor called Judy out of her room. A bandy-legged man in overalls, with a baseball cap on his head and cheerful blue eyes, sto
od talking to Stefan in the yard. He nodded at Judy, and gestured to the truck. Judy got in, and then to her surprise Stefan jumped in beside her.

  “Are you coming too?”

  “Yes I am. You do not know people or talk good Swedish and Jonas needs to speak with me for a dance in the village.”

  “Are you going dancing with your uncle?”

  “No.” Judy waited but apparently Stefan was finished.

  The drive was a long one, and the truck an old one, with lots of noises from the engine and other bits, and Stefan and his uncle talked fast in the thick dialect of the area that even Swedes from the south had difficulty understanding. Judy watched the forest slide past, absorbed in all the questions that might – just might – soon be answered.

  At last the road led along the bank of a wide frozen river, and Jonas turned off between two ancient knotted pines up what must once have been a fairly stately driveway. The building they came to was stone-built, stuccoed and imposing. It had been the main offices of a water-powered sawmill built at the turn of the previous century. It stood on the bank of the river, and in years gone by the timber had been floated down from many miles inland, gathered behind the booms that stretched from bank to bank, and channelled into the mill itself, where the great frame saws were waiting to deal with it. It had been in use until only a few decades before. Since then the big house had been a hotel, then divided into flats before finally being boarded up. No business could resist the pull of the big cities, so slowly but surely every one had left this quiet place and now there was little work to be had.

  But now, it seemed, people were returning. From the terrorized and war-torn corners of the world, they washed up here, like flotsam after a storm, shivering in the unaccustomed cold and wondering how to make a new life, receiving whatever charity the government was prepared to give them. The old works office had been rented by the local council to make a holding centre, a place where refugees could be kept during the long process of deciding whether their lives had been awful enough for them to be allowed to stay.

  The pickup came to a halt in front of the main door. The original owner of the mill, one of the rich timber barons of the nineteenth century, had wanted to make an impression. There was a pillared portico, with a flight of stone steps leading up to it. But the paint on the tall double doors was peeling, and what had once been a moulded doorframe had been roughly repaired with cement. Judy looked at the doors with a knot in her stomach. If Rashid was here then she might, in a few minutes, know where her father was, what had happened to him. In five minutes – after months of ignorance and uncertainty.

  She opened the cab door and climbed down. Stefan made to follow her.

  “You can stay here; you don’t have to come.”

  “But I am coming.” And Judy realized that she would be glad of some company.

  They walked up the steps. There was no bell but the door was ajar, so they pushed it open and walked into a long entrance hall with a linoleum floor. At the end they could see a stairwell with doors leading off on both sides. They heard a murmur of voices from behind the door on the right, so Judy opened it.

  She entered what had once been a spacious reception room, with tall windows looking out over gardens and the river, and a high ceiling. It was easy to imagine a big mahogany desk, some comfortable leather armchairs, and a cabinet of books. Now the furniture consisted of a few tables and chairs that had probably been thrown out after some office or school renovation, and an old stained sofa against one wall. On the sofa sat a woman in a hijab with two children, one no more than a baby. By the windows a group of young black men stood chatting. At one of the tables, two older men sat opposite each other in quiet conversation.

  Judy stepped in. Faces turned to her, questions were asked in a variety of languages, none of which she understood. One of the men at the table pushed his chair back and came towards her, smiling. Then suddenly all voices were stilled. There was silence. The man who was approaching her with outstretched hand returned to his table, the young men turned to look out of the window, the woman on the sofa bent her head over her youngest child.

  Stefan had come in.

  He smiled, said hello in rather a loud voice, but there was no response. He said,

  “We are looking for a person…”

  The silence was complete. All faces were closed.

  “Stefan, go back outside.”

  “But I am with you.”

  “Please.”

  Stefan stood stubbornly in the doorway for a moment. Then he went. Judy knew that he was upset, but she thought, “Well, now you know what it is like; walking into a room full of people who don’t see you, who don’t know that you punched your best friend for my sake, who see only the colour of your eyes, your hair, the clothes you wear, the language you speak.”

  The atmosphere relaxed. Judy said,

  “Does anybody here speak English?”

  The other man at the table stood up. Greying hair, droopy moustache, a lot of wrinkles on his forehead. He came forward.

  “I do. Do you need help, have you just arrived? Where are you from?”

  “No, I don’t need help, thank you. I am a British citizen.”

  He looked at her, said something over his shoulder. A murmur went round the room, and all faces turned towards her. Judy, the lucky one, the possessor of pure gold – a European passport.

  “Congratulations. But why are you here?”

  “I am looking for someone.”

  A babble of voices as the information was translated and passed round. Everyone wanted to help. They knew what it was like. These days, it seemed, everybody was looking for someone – an uncle, a husband, a mother, a child.

  “His name is Rashid.”

  Rashid! They are delighted – Rashid is here! In this very place! Judy’s heart skipped a beat, and then started thumping so hard that she was sure they must hear it. A young man from the group at the window was despatched immediately. He left the room at a run crying, “Rashid! Rashid!” and Judy heard him leaping up the stairs, still calling.

  Less than a minute passed, though to Judy it felt much longer. She was surrounded by expectant, happy smiles. Their joy was all for her, and Rashid.

  The youth returned. Holding his hand was a young boy, hardly more than ten years old, with short-cropped dark hair. He was wearing a tracksuit that was too big for him, and dirty trainers. His huge eyes gazed at Judy.

  Judy stared at him as her hopes crumbled. She shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, I should have said. I’m looking for a grown man.”

  The boy Rashid still had not taken his eyes off her. He said in Farsi,

  “Who are you? You are not my sister.”

  Judy replied in the same language.

  “No, I’m not. I’m so sorry.”

  The boy didn’t cry. He didn’t seem to react at all. Perhaps in his eyes a little flame flickered and died, but that might just have been a trick of the light. He took his hand from the older boy’s, turned round and walked out.

  There was nothing to be said. They had all seen hopes raised and dashed, many times.

  “I… Good luck. Thank you,” was all Judy could say before she turned and fled. Stefan was standing at the bottom of the steps kicking irritably at a lump of old grey snow. He looked up when she came out. He didn’t need to ask. They walked over to the camper and climbed in.

  Uncle Jonas put the engine into gear and they drove away.

  Nobody said anything as they drove on to the farm where Jonas was to pick up his feed. When they arrived, Jonas jumped out and went into the farmhouse.

  “Now he will drink coffee,” said Stefan. “It will not be fast. We can fetch the bales.”

  The barn was huge, with sweet-smelling hay stacked almost to the roof. They started grappling bales towards the door of the barn. Judy had still not said a word. When Stefan said they had enough, she sat down on the nearest bale and stared at the floor.

  Stefan placed himself in front
of her.

  “I know you are not happy now,” he began.

  Judy snorted, and bit her tongue, to stop herself making some snide comment. It wasn’t Stefan’s fault.

  “Please listen to me. Your father’s friend could still be in the area. Staying in town, perhaps. If he got his… If he was allowed to stay, he can find a flat, even a job maybe.”

  “If he got his residence permit he could be anywhere in the country, couldn’t he?”

  “Yes, but many stay here, if they have got to know someone, or found a friend.”

  “Low probability.”

  “Judy, this is not maths. You make me…”

  “Pissed off?” She had got used to helping him improve his English.

  “No, I want to shake you, and make all the equations fall out of your ears.”

  “Oh.”

  “You have not to lose the soul of your journey. Why give up now? It is stupid. Only a brainy person like you could be so stupid. There was almost no chance of finding your father when you started, and there is still almost no chance. So what is different? The soul of the journey is the same.”

  Jonas appeared before Judy could reply. They loaded the bales on to the bed of the truck, and headed back.

  16

  Judy spent the next day, and the day after that, on skis, covering miles, moving fast over frozen lakes and slowly through thick forest, getting lost sometimes, and having to follow her own tracks back for hours to find out where she was. Stefan’s words worked their way into her. By the end of the second day, she was beginning to find her way through her disappointment. The journey wasn’t over; they could go on. They could ask around in town, perhaps go to the town hall or something and get some information. Even if she spent the rest of her life wandering around the world with her strange companions, there was no reason to give up on it. Anyway, what else was there to do? Go back to England and get taken into care? She hadn’t wanted that before, and she wanted it even less now. But there was no journey at the moment, that was the main problem. Both the camper and its driver were laid up; she was totally dependent on them, and being totally dependent didn’t suit her one little bit.