This Land is no Stranger

by Sarah Hollister

  My shoes are wrong? Brand wore flat-soled slouch boots.

  “You need some more like mine.” The man’s footwear featured deep, serious-looking treads. “I should ask now how was your flight? I’m taking a class in American-style small talk,” he explained sheepishly.

  The trunk of the Tesla magically opened without any obvious push of a button on Lukas’s part. Brand hefted in her duffel bag herself. She noticed the car held no passengers. She searched her mind for the names of Lukas’s wife and children. Her memory proved too fogged to function.

  “Isabella and the girls went separately,” he said.

  The two of them experienced an awkward moment as they both approached the driver’s side door of the sedan. “Okay if I drive?” Brand asked.

  The request stopped Lukas Dalgren cold. He halted mid-step, like a cartoon character.

  “You drive? But it is my car.”

  “I get terribly car-sick unless I am behind the wheel,” Brand explained. “Do you mind?”

  Brand could see at once that Lukas did indeed mind. “You are exhausted from the flight,” he said. “You don’t want to fall asleep while driving.”

  “I slept on the plane,” Brand lied. She wondered if she looked as worn out as she felt.

  “I’d rather you do not drive,” Lukas said firmly. “The vehicle is brand new.”

  “Then you probably don’t want me to vomit inside it,” Brand said. They stood facing each other in front of the driver’s side door.

  “I did not expect this,” Lukas said, exasperated.

  “I can go ahead and rent my own car, if you prefer.” Brand wondered if this would be possible. She didn’t have an international driver’s license. Was one necessary in order to get a rental car in Sweden? She didn’t know. Lukas Dalgren looked as though his gleaming, polished head might explode.

  “It’s okay.” Brand spoke softly. The technique was one she had picked up in her former life as a street cop, two simple words uttered confidently and directly but in a quiet, non-confrontational undertone. Pronounced the right way, the phrase brought everyone back to earth. She had employed the strategy often to defuse explosive situations.

  “How will you know where to go?” Lukas asked. His manner resembled that of a petulant child.

  “You’ll tell me,” Brand said.

  Heaving a theatrical sigh, Lukas offered up the expensive vehicle’s key fob.

  2.

  A cold day to sit motionless on a tarmac sidewalk, thought Jonas Nordin. An absent sun, a February sky the color of wet wool.

  Nordin worked as a security guard at the front entrance to Åhléns, the big Stockholm department store. Almost daily, a Romani beggar posted himself across the street from Nordin’s own station. The beggar’s method of eliciting coins from passersby involved planting himself on the pavement, swaddled in a heavy blanket, a dirty paper cup in front of him. He would remain unmoving like that for hours.

  The poor wretch was probably dreaming of the cloudless blue heavens of his childhood in Romania. Now he found himself plopped down on freezing Drottninggatan, a busy shopping street in the heart of the Swedish capital.

  Our modern world, thought Nordin. A marvel and a mess.

  He attempted one of the empathy exercises suggested by the self-improvement programs to which he was addicted. Nordin focused on the unimaginable journey that had led the foreign mendicant across Europe from where his life began. The exercise failed. Other thoughts kept intruding, wicked, narrow-minded opinions.

  Nordin knew he should think as a good sympathetic person would. He believed in an open and welcoming Sweden. His spiritual beliefs centered on the equality of souls. But a deep-seated impulse in his mind wished the beggar would simply vanish. A turd on the sidewalk, whispered his prejudice, which he found impossible to damp down entirely. Sweep it up and throw it in the trash.

  The beggar-person was actually familiar to him. He even knew the unfortunate soul’s name, Luri Kováč. Attempting to behave like an upstanding Swedish citizen toward the less privileged, Nordin had reached out. Several times he brought Luri cups of hot chocolate, or water in the hot summers. But still some part of Nordin wished him away.

  A second Romani beggar posted nearby summoned up a much different response. Nordin knew her name, too. Varzha Luna held a particular fascination for him. The girl embraced a more theatrical approach than the sidewalk lump across the street. She made for an arresting sight. Varzha always wore whiteface makeup, always dressed in the same snow-white wedding gown.

  Normally she stayed as motionless as the other one. Nordin saw her often in her spot on the street, bride of stone, bride of none. The girl might be beautiful if only she would remove her makeup, since otherwise her face remained lost behind an impenetrable disguise. No one would stop for her, Nordin noticed. No one paid the least attention. The pedestrians passed by, eyeless and heartless, unseeing and unfeeling, their shopping bags bouncing alongside beside their well-toned thighs.

  But then, two or three times every hour, the girl roused herself. In a sweet, pure voice, she would sing the popular Romani songs of love and pain. The one Varzha Luna began now was a modern carol left over from the Christmas season.

  Open the door, oh wandering bride of Christ

  Long have I wearied and far have I come

  She always went accompanied by a sidekick. Her feeble-minded twin brother Vago stood beside his sister Varzha. He played a child-size violin that was too small for him, scratching out the song’s melody. Dressed in loose, harlequin-style pajamas, Vago also wore whiteface, a clownboy acolyte of a street-level madonna.

  Nordin couldn’t help but feel for Varzha. For him, the sound of the young girl’s voice was like a knife to the heart, floating as it did over the oblivious buzz and hustle of the street. Here was a pure young woman offering up a priceless gift. A few passersby heard what Nordin heard and stopped in their tracks, delivering gold ten-kronor coins into her paper cup. But many turned their faces away and kept walking, denying the miracle happening right in front of them.

  Thus far, Jonas Nordin’s life had not gone the way he intended. He had just turned thirty. His ambitions could not be contained by his present circumstances. Destiny intended something more for him, he was sure, perhaps a career in music or entertainment. Just because he was tone deaf didn’t mean he couldn’t work behind the scenes as a producer or a talent manager, a role beyond that of snagging teenage shoplifters at a department store.

  Both of the nearby beggars were Romani, zigenare, gypsy immigrants in Sweden. Such people were socially designated as invisible human beings. Look how the stream of busy shoppers reacted now, Nordin thought, skirting Varzha Luna like water flowing around a rock. A stubborn minority of Nordin’s fellow Swedes agreed with that bigoted inner demon of his. They believed such mendicants were bothersome and represented a blot on the city streets. Something really ought to be done about them.

  Now I pass from door to door like the son of sinless Mary

  Hand outstretched I walk, like he that was born the Christ

  One day Nordin would formally reach out to Varzha Luna. He had already spoken to her several times, making up lame excuses for his approach. She would stare at him, silent and cold-eyed. Eventually, he would be able to convince Varzha to leave behind the songs of the Romani and move into something more pop. Nordin himself wrote song lyrics. As the young woman’s manager he would bring the voice of an angel to the Swedish public.

  Listening to her now, Nordin closed his eyes, transported.

  ◆◆◆

  Luri Kováč purposefully always tried to post himself near Varzha Luna. There was no real word for “guardian” in Romani, so in his mind he used beskyddare, a word he picked up in Schwedo. That was how Luri saw himself, a watcher, a sentinel, a protector of his people. Recently young Romani women were vanishing, one after another, as if they were lambs in a barnyard set upon by hungry beasts. Luri vowed to act as the barnyard dog, fending off predators.

 
; He recently came to accept that he was hopelessly in love with Varzha Luna. The exquisite young woman turned his blood to wine. He didn’t know if she even knew of his existence.

  Two men approached Varzha, one taller and bearded, the other younger and harder looking. They halted in front of her.

  Romani? No, they were gadje, non-Roma, gentiles, pale-eyed, and cold.

  Something seemed off or wrong about the pair. They were not shoppers, not casual passersby. They had zeroed in on the teenage Varzha as if she were their specific target.

  After the girl’s song faded to a close, the taller one extracted a leather wallet from his heavy canvas jacket. He flopped it open in front of the pretty gypsy beggar. Even from a distance, Luri could recognize the common red-bordered police ID.

  So, polis. But not in uniform, perhaps undercover, or some plainclothes cowboys from a special unit in the National Operations Department.

  Luri didn’t know what to do. He thought of going over to Varzha and her white-faced brother, Vago. In terror of the polis, the boy was now turning in small, weak circles, whimpering. He would tell the brother to shut the hell up, that he, Luri, would help, that he was the beskyddare.

  Should he do something? Should he intercede? But the polis would only arrest Luri himself, or anyway bother or harass him. So he decided to remain uninvolved for the moment, but he would continue to watch.

  As if the song’s ending had created a bell of silence into which words could flow, Luri now almost made out what one of the cops, the tall bearded one, said to Varzha. Mumble, mumble, mumble, out of which the word “hotel” emerged clearly.

  Varzha bent her head and nodded in a sign of submission and acceptance. She turned and expressed a quick command to her wordless brother. Luri heard Vago give a moan of fear.

  That did it. No more hesitation. Luri rumbled to his feet and crossed Drottninggatan toward Varzha and the others, concealing his interest, pretending the move was merely to restore circulation in his legs after sitting so long on the frozen sidewalk.

  An odd thing happened. His approach earned a quick, knife-sharp glare from Varzha. Afterward, the moment remained etched in Luri’s thoughts. Though they had never exchanged as much as a single word, he fancied that the girl knew him, and understood his role as a protector.

  Her stern expression mystified him. Not pleading, not worried, and definitely not the closed Romani glare that is doled out to gadje like a dose of poison. There was mysterious meaning in her eyes, meaning that froze Luri in his tracks. Stay clear.

  Stunned, preoccupied by his own emotions, Luri stood paralyzed as the two men stole Varzha away. She seemed to accompany them willingly, throwing a curt word over her shoulder, once more ordering her brother to remain behind. The two males and the Romani girl turned down Klarabergsgatan toward the traffic circle at Sergels Torg. Varzha looked back occasionally to make sure that her brother did not follow.

  The idea that Varzha was not being forced disturbed Luri. Why didn’t she struggle, call out? Do sheep go voluntarily to the slaughter?

  He followed along. At first he still had eyes on the girl. Then other pedestrians swirled around her. She became blocked from his view, swallowed by the crowd. The white wedding dress disappeared amid the ocean of black and gray on the busy street. Was that to be his last glimpse of her?

  The watcher had failed to watch. The guardian had dropped his guard.

  He told himself not to be concerned. Varzha had only been removed briefly and would soon return. Perhaps someone from Swedish social services would interview her. He tried to erect a wall of calm within himself, but it was instantly beaten down by a sledgehammer of panic.

  Chai nicabada! A young woman has been taken away!

  Chai nicabada! A stolen maiden! Please help us!

  There had been several teenage girls disappeared in the last year, perhaps a dozen, snatched from the Romani community in Stockholm. The phenomenon had triggered no public outcry. No one cared.

  What would it accomplish now if Luri shouted out the alarm? Chai nicabada! Who apart from the heavenly angels would hear him?

  Suddenly out of the crowd of shoppers the second cop appeared, the smaller, younger-looking one. It happened in an instant. Luri found himself shoved roughly off the sidewalk. The thug cracked him on the temple with a sharp chop of an elbow. Luri fell to his knees, stunned.

  “Fuck off!” the man hissed in accented English, kicking Luri in the face for good measure. A nasty gout of blood spurted from Luri’s nose. He sprawled backward in the gutter slush.

  Left behind, the clown-faced Vago had turned frantic and fell apart. He rushed up to Luri now, emitting unintelligible moans. The boy’s white greasepaint makeup was streaked with tears.

  Luri pulled himself upright with a blood-stained hand. “Where is she?” he demanded in Romani. “Where have they taken her?”

  The brain-damaged boy couldn’t speak, only mewl. His breath came in deep heaving shudders.

  “Tell me!” Luri shouted.

  3.

  During the six-hour drive north from Stockholm to the reunion, Brand was startled to see a sign for a turn-off that read “Oslo.” Could that be Oslo, Norway? She realized she had no real grasp of the geography.

  The seemingly endless journey wore on. The Tesla did not motor—it purred along soundlessly. Brand felt herself losing the battle against sleep. Next to her Lukas leaned his head against the passenger side window. His eyes were closed but she couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep. She quickly slipped a tablet of Adderall into her mouth. She had come to like the bitter taste of the drug.

  The sun hovered no more than a finger’s width above the horizon. The oblique angle beamed its feeble rays directly into Brand’s tired eyes. But by two-thirty dear old Sol appeared ready to give up the ghost. Sunset came with a spectacular slash of orange, set off by a purple belt of cumulus cloud.

  Pretty, yes, but disconcerting. It was still the middle of the day! She had the whole night to look forward to. Her panicked interior clock struggled to adjust. She looked at her watch. Eight-thirty in New York City, time to start the day. Brand had been awake for twenty-two hours. And quite literally, miles to go before she slept.

  Darkness rose to engulf the countryside. The lakes lost the light last. Brand still caught indistinct glimmers of their icy surfaces, dull silver coins scattered over the landscape. The air became black and impenetrable. Everyone spoke of the Land of the Midnight Sun. They failed to mention the other side of the equation, the midnight dark that arrived too early in the afternoon.

  Four hours in, the terrain changed. The highway climbed into a range of foothills. Occasionally they passed through a village. She saw houses but no people.

  “In America we have ghost towns,” Brand commented. “Here you have a ghost district.” Lukas didn’t answer. He was asleep. She had spoken to no one.

  A heavy snow began to fall. Visibility narrowed to the twin tunnels of the Tesla’s headlights. There was no longer traffic. The sense of an all-encompassing stillness made Brand slow the car, pull over, and stop. She powered down the driver’s side window. An out-of-time feel took over the moment. She wondered if the Swedes had a word for the sound that falling snow makes during a blizzard.

  The storm dropped a veil over the whole scene. They seemed to be nowhere. It was peaceful, death-like. Snow-laden branches drooped over the roadway. She switched off the headlights. The white-out of the blizzard instantly turned black. The surrounding darkness was as complete as any Brand had ever experienced. She hurriedly turned the headlights back on.

  Attempting to raise her window again, Brand mistakenly gave a short blip to the one on the passenger side. The glass moved against Lukas’s resting head. He was rocked awake.

  “Sorry,” Brand said.

  Sleepily the man peered out at the blizzard and smiled.

  “Welcome to Härjedalen, Veronika,” he said. “Do you want me to take over the driving?”

  “No,” she replied quickly. />
  “Just keep a watch for any stray moose that might come our way.”

  “Moose…?”

  “The big creatures will be out in this. They look to avoid deep snow with those long wobbly legs. That’s what brings them out of the woods. They look for paths, plowed roads. You don’t want to meet one head on. In Sweden, all vehicle models are road-tested to see if they will withstand a direct collision with a moose.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, it’s true.”

  “They don’t use a real moose in these tests, do they?”

  Lukas looked at her. Brand wondered if he could read drug use in the clench of her jaw. “No, Veronika, no live animals are harmed. This is Sweden, after all. Though rare, such collisions do happen. They say if you don’t die from the impact, then the harsh acids exploding from the stomach of the moose will kill you all the same.”

  Now it was Brand’s turn to stare over at Lukas. She put the Tesla in gear. The car sped up as one ghost moose after another emerged from the surrounding forests.

  Gradually they drove out of the storm. Lukas directed her off the highway onto smaller secondary roads.

  A half hour later he pointed out the driveway to the Dalgren homestead. As she turned into the lane, an unexpected wave of emotion crashed down on Brand. She almost let out a sob.

  The ancestral home of her Swedish grandfather. Brand had never been there before, but somehow the house and its surrounding outbuildings felt disturbingly familiar. Could she be nostalgic for a place she never visited?

  Memory drew her back to her childhood. She knelt on a plush green sofa in the New York farmhouse parlor of her grandparents, gazing at the black and white photograph that hung on the wall above. The scene in the photo, at once homey and foreign, exerted a power on her young self that Brand had wholly forgotten. Eight-year-old Veronika Brand imagined an entire fantasy world around the photograph, a cozy place out of one of her favorite childhood books, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods. She recalled the intensity of the fantasy, how it dominated her youth.