“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve looked, but I couldn’t find that information anywhere.”
“There was almost nothing about her in the packs you gave us,” says Emmy.
I shake my head.
“Not much was written about her,” I say. “Most of the information we have comes from my grandmother’s letters, and that’s hard to fact-check. I’ve checked the local records, and I found a Birgitta Lidman who was born to Kristina Lidman in 1921. But that’s it. No medical transcripts, no school records, nothing.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t expect her to have gone to school,” says Max. “Not if it was as bad as the letters suggest.”
“From the letters it sounds like she had some kind of autism,” comes Robert’s deep voice.
“Maybe,” I say. I’ve spent hours googling Birgitta’s symptoms. “Or some sort of chromosome abnormality.”
“You can’t just diagnose people like that,” says Tone. The firelight casts deep shadows under her eyebrows and nose, making her face look full of holes.
“No, of course not,” I say. “We’re not going to try to.”
The music has stopped; the only sound to be heard is the crackle of the fire. Most of the logs are already embers, seemingly glowing from within. It’s almost hypnotic.
“Did you try to find out what happened to the baby?” Emmy asks me.
“She was taken into care,” I say, hoping I sound just as matter-of-fact as when I was talking about Birgitta. “She was probably sent to an orphanage or foster home. That sort of information isn’t made public.”
“Did they ever test her to find out who her parents were?” Emmy asks.
“How, exactly?” I ask, only thinly veiling my sarcasm. “The sixties weren’t exactly CSI. It’s not like they had DNA kits lying around.” I shrug. “Besides, who would they have tested her against? Everyone had disappeared.”
“Well, your grandmother didn’t, did she?” Emmy retorts. “There must have been others like her. People who had relatives here. Next of kin.”
I do my best not to roll my eyes, and confine myself to saying:
“It’s not that simple.”
Emmy looks up at the school’s gaping window frames, ignoring my tone.
“Did they find her in one of the classrooms?”
“In the nurse’s office,” I say. “But she wasn’t there, of course. Just the baby.”
I can’t resist looking up, too. Searchingly, though I know it’s pointless. It’s not like the windows are going to speak.
“Pity you couldn’t find her,” says Emmy, her eyes back on me. “Would have been fucking cool to put her in the documentary. Made it more personal, you know.”
“You’re assuming she’d want to be in it,” I say. “She’d be almost sixty by now. She could be anywhere. Or dead, even.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I guess.”
“Plus it’s already personal,” I say. “It’s not like we don’t already have a connection to the village. Grandma’s whole family disappeared.”
My throat is dry, and the words catch as I speak. It makes them sound a little desperate.
I’m about to go on—that’s why we’re here, it’s all thanks to her and what she told me about Silvertjärn—when Robert interrupts.
“Who was it that wrote those letters to your grandmother, again?”
I’m about to answer when Emmy jumps in, her green eyes locked on me:
“Her grandmother’s little sister. Aina.”
November 13, 1958
Dearest Margareta,
How’s life down in the big city? And the new apartment? How I wish I could see it! Perhaps now that you and Nils have moved, I might finally be able to pay you a visit? I can sleep on your sofa! You know what a shrimp I am, and sadly it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting any taller. I know what you’re going to say when you read this—the same thing you always do: “Don’t be silly, Aina, I was hardly taller than a boot at your age, and then I shot up!” Which might have been true if I were twelve, but I doubt it now that I’m sixteen. (I’m sure you think I haven’t aged a day since you left!) I haven’t grown a single inch since I last saw you, and seeing as that was almost fourteen months ago now, I think it’s time for me to give up hope.
I miss you terribly, Margareta.
Couldn’t you just …
I wish you could come and visit us a little more. It’s been so boring here since the mine shut down. At first it was almost exciting, as though every day were a Sunday: there were so many people out and about during the day, and Father was always at home. He said that something was sure to come up. But now it all feels rather odd. So many people have gone. The Janssons on the corner left last week, and just yesterday your old classmate Vera told Mother that she and her family are also going to try their luck elsewhere.
Father’s so quiet nowadays. And Mother’s so busy she hardly seems to have time for us. She asks me to do everything instead. It’s driving me mad! As though nothing I might have to do could possibly be important. And if I tell her I’m busy, she just gives me that stare—you know the one I mean—and tells me that nothing is more important than helping our neighbors and fellow citizens. I hate it when she says that!
Today she asked me to take food over to Gitta. When I asked why she couldn’t do it herself, she said that she and the school nurse were going to pay a visit to some sick old lady to hold her hand. I told her that the nurse was probably capable of doing that by herself, and that I actually had my own things to do. She asked what they were, and when I said that Lena and I had made plans to go to the river, she said that both Lena and the river would still be there after I’d been to Gitta’s. I didn’t know how to explain to her that Lena might not wait for me if I wasn’t there when I said I would be. Obviously we weren’t only going down to look at the water; it’s where Vera’s brother Emil and his friends go to smoke, and Lena’s taken a bit of a fancy to him. But I could never say that to Mother! So instead I said that I had promised Lena, and Mother’s always telling us how important it is to keep our promises, but clearly that wasn’t the right thing to say, either, because then Mother puffed herself up and asked if I thought my promise to Lena trumped the promise she had made to Birgitta’s dying mother to always look after her daughter, and then I felt so rotten and small that I didn’t dare say anything. But I was seething all the way out to Birgitta’s hut, thinking of all of the things I should have said.
It would be better if you were here, Margareta. I even used to enjoy going out to Birgitta’s when we did it together. I think she liked you more than she likes me. Remember that humming noise she’d make whenever she opened the door to find you there on the doorstep? She never does that with me.
I know you and Mother have said she won’t get angry as long as I follow her rules, but I have to say, I don’t like being there alone. As soon as I see her hut, my heart starts to patter like a bird’s, and my mouth goes dry. Mother says the only reason Birgitta got so angry at me that time is because I opened the door and stepped in without knocking—Birgitta’s more afraid of me than I am of her, she says. But Birgitta’s tall as a man and built like a bear! It took weeks for my scratch marks to heal that time. Part of me thought I’d be stuck with them forever.
Oh, now I’m sounding like I don’t feel sorry for Birgitta, and you know that I do! I’m happy to report that she was looking well today. She had trailed some mud inside from her walk in the forest, and I wondered if I should clean it up, but I was afraid of getting her back up. Besides, Mother hadn’t told me to clean—she probably thinks I’m too careless and would rather do it herself. Anyway, that’s besides the point: Birgitta had some color in her cheeks, and she really devoured her chicken and gingerbread. She even did those funny hand movements that you say mean she’s happy.
It’s just … oh, Margareta, it’s not just the scratch marks. I was afraid of Gitta even before then. She’s just so big, and she moves so strangely, and the way her hair dangles down ove
r her face makes her look like a forest troll from those fairy tales Grandmother used to tell us. Perhaps that’s a terrible thing to say, but it’s the truth. She even smells of the forest. I’ve told Mother we should cut her hair and get her some new clothes—anything but those threadbare rags she goes around in every day. Perhaps then the other villagers wouldn’t find her so strange. And then she could live in a real house, and we wouldn’t have to look after her all the time.
But Mother says it’s not as simple as that. Sometimes I think she likes having Birgitta to take care of. It’s not like Birgitta can ever answer back or get on Mother’s nerves like I do, seeing as she can’t talk.
Oh well. It did go okay today, and Lena wasn’t too angry with me when I eventually got home. She even let me borrow some lipstick before we went to the river. I felt very stylish. Perhaps I can buy one just like it when I come down to visit you and Nils? What do you think?
Write soon!
Your sister, Aina
NOW
My sleeping bag rustles as I twist and roll over onto my other side. The tent is big and fairly spacious, but it’s hardly a hotel room: it’s cold and basic, and smells of a mix of plastic and something slightly nauseating that I can’t put my finger on.
Still, it’s better than sleeping on the back seat of a Volvo, like Max. It was his choice, but I’m sure he’s going to spend our entire trip with a stiff neck and the makings of a bad back. Emmy and Robert didn’t bring a tent, either, but Emmy said they’re used to sleeping in vans. Maybe it is the done thing, but I’m glad I get to pass. Something about cargo compartments makes me claustrophobic. Even if we fixed the equipment securely in place, I wouldn’t be able to shake the feeling that it was all going to collapse on us as we slept.
The sleeping bags we have are good, at least, so well insulated that the cold air actually feels nice against my cheeks. I normally like to sleep in a cold room under a thick duvet—even in winter I leave the windows open for a breeze—but right now I can’t catch a wink, despite my exhaustion. My excitement sits like a vibration under my skin, keeping me awake.
“Can’t sleep?” asks Tone, her voice cutting through the darkness.
I roll back onto my other side to face her, even though I’d need the night vision of a cat to make out anything but shadow.
“Did I wake you up?” I ask.
“No,” comes her muted reply. “You know me.”
Tone has sleep problems. It was one of the first things I ever learned about her, that first time we met, in an anonymous coffee chain by Odenplan just over two years ago. I’d stood waiting outside, unsure if she would show up and not even clear about what to look out for—her Facebook profile picture was four years old at the time and blurry, too (as far as I know, it still hasn’t changed).
“It’s like I can’t wind down,” I say. “My brain won’t switch off.”
“Maybe you should ask Emmy for some of her whisky,” she says dryly. “That might help.”
I roll my eyes, though I know she can’t see me. “Who hits the bottle as soon as they arrive on a job?”
“From what you’ve told me about her, it doesn’t sound like that should come as a surprise.”
I hear a rustle as she changes position.
“No, I guess not.”
I think for a moment.
“You don’t have anything, do you?” I ask. “No sleeping pills or anything?”
“No,” Tone replies, “I can’t take them. Given … well, you know.”
“Oh,” I say. “No, of course. I’m an idiot. Sorry.”
“It’s OK,” she says, sounding mildly amused. Her words seem to swell in the small space, though they’re hardly more than a whisper. “I don’t expect you to keep track of which pills I can and can’t take.”
“No, but still. I should know.”
We go quiet. I prop myself up to rearrange the thick, folded-up sweater I’m using as a pillow, then lie back down to no noticeable difference.
“Does she know?” Tone asks out of the blue, all trace of laughter gone from her voice.
“Who? Emmy?” I ask.
She doesn’t reply.
“I haven’t told her anything,” I say, as the silence starts to expand. “About anything. All she knows is what’s in the information pack.”
“Didn’t sound like it,” says Tone. “When she was talking about DNA-testing the baby, trying to find her…” She trails off, her voice taut as a violin string.
“I haven’t told her anything,” I repeat. “You asked me not to say anything, so I haven’t.” When she doesn’t reply, I go on:
“Max knows, but he did from the start. And he’s promised not to say anything.”
“How much?” Tone asks, an unexpected edge to her voice.
“What do you mean? He knows your mom’s the Silvertjärn baby—I told him I’d found you before we even met. He asked if you or your mom would like to be involved, and I said I didn’t know but that I didn’t think so.”
“Mom would never do it,” says Tone, as she has done so many times.
“I know,” I say. “I never asked.”
I’ve thought about it, of course. Wanted to. But I never have asked. Tone’s made it clear that her mom has no interest in raking up that part of her past. She doesn’t want to be the Silvertjärn baby, the mystery’s sole survivor, the newborn found crying in the abandoned schoolhouse less than thirty yards from where we’re lying right now.
It was Tone’s mother I found first. What I told the others wasn’t technically a lie: all the information on what happened to the Silvertjärn baby really is classified, impossible to access. I’m not even sure if the documents still exist, and if they do, they’re probably buried deep in some archive.
But Grandma’s letters aren’t.
I didn’t put all of Grandma’s letters in the packs I gave to the others. I’ve kept a few to myself. Among them her correspondence with Albin Jansson.
Jansson was one of the policemen investigating Birgitta Lidman’s murder—and, by extension, the Silvertjärn case. He and Grandma must have met at some point during the investigation, and for a while I wondered if there might have been something more between them—a secret affair, perhaps—but that’s probably wishful thinking on my part. I found six of his letters among her old papers, all of which are professional and to the point. It seems as though Jansson mostly just felt sorry for Grandma and wanted to keep her informed of their progress on the investigation.
And that happened to include the baby.
Grandma must have asked after her, or else Jansson just assumed she would want to know what happened to her, because he mentions her a lot in his letters: that she seemed hale and hearty, and that several hundred families across the country had offered to take her in, even if his personal opinion was that most of them were out after fame. In his fifth letter, he writes that they had found a family who had agreed to keep her identity a secret and “… raise her as one of their own.”
He goes on to give the family’s name: “… a family by the name of Grimelund…”
And the name they had given the child:
“You will be pleased to learn that they have named the girl Hélène.”
Had their surname been Andersson I might never have found Tone. But Hélène Grimelund was unusual enough for me to track down.
It took me sending an unseemly number of emails to Hélène to realize that she was never going to reply. By that point I was close to giving up. My grief over Grandma had started to catch up with me, and everything felt like a dead end. I was having to do temp work to keep myself afloat after my speculative résumés hadn’t had any takers, and I could hardly face social media anymore. It seemed as though all of my old classmates were racing up the career ladder two steps at a time, winning prizes for their short films and getting jobs in Paris or London, while there I was sitting my days out behind a reception desk, my fantasy project hardly more than a fever dream.
But then, on yet another
late night spent scrolling hopelessly through Facebook, I noticed a photo on Hélène’s timeline. It was right down near the bottom of her page, one that she hadn’t posted—someone else had tagged her in it. It showed a gray-haired woman with a severe ponytail and a stiff, vacant smile, her arm around a girl in her late teens.
“Hélène and her beautiful daughter brighten up my birthday dinner! <3” read the caption.
The girl was tagged as Tone Grimelund.
Two years on, I still haven’t met Tone’s mother. I don’t know how much Tone has told her about this project, and I haven’t asked, either. From what little Tone has said and what I’ve read into Hélène’s radio silence, my guess is she isn’t too keen on the idea of digging up the Silvertjärn story.
My friendship with Tone is one of my life’s more unusual relationships. For the longest time Tone didn’t want anything to do with the project, either, beyond telling me what little she knew. But even from that very first day, when we made awkward small talk over cheap coffee, I could detect a reluctant curiosity there.
Would she have let herself act on it if it hadn’t been for what happened?
That I don’t know.
THEN
When Elsa nears the church doors, she is surprised to find them wide open. It’s a cold day even for late November, less than thirty degrees, and over the course of the day only the odd isolated snowflake has sailed down from the bright sky. From midday onward the sun had started to break through the clouds, and as she walked to Agneta’s house Elsa could even start to see signs of life on the streets. Elisabet Nyman had been out on an afternoon walk with her little girl, looking healthier than she had in a long time. After the birth, Elisabet had been bedbound for so long that Elsa had raised the matter with Elisabet’s mother and the school nurse, Ingrid. Together they had agreed to help her out with the little one.
When Elsa had seen Elisabet earlier today she had looked genuinely happy, with rosy cheeks and a lovely winter hat. The baby was wearing a homemade crocheted hat, cooing through a toothless grin. Elisabet had said that they still didn’t have a name for her, but they ought to get on with it: the girl is almost three months old, and children can’t go on without a name forever. Elsa had offered to talk to Pastor Einar about a christening for the little one, since she would be passing by the church anyway.
The Lost Village Page 4
