The Philologist 2

Chapter 21 Northern Lights

12:36 AM

Lena was sitting with her mother on the terrace of her house during a home town visit, which wasn’t very frequent on her part. The summer was approaching and she had only a week of classes before her. Her half-siblings were playing in the garden, all blond and naughty, her step-father was away on a business trip.

Her mother was looking at the children. Lena started in as a matter-of-fact way.

‘You know why I moved away when I was sixteen? Do you know why I moved to Warsaw?’

The mother’s face didn’t reveal any emotions.

‘He touched me. Your husband touched me. When you were pregnant, he came to me, watched me. Once he walked into the bathroom when I was taking a shower...’

Lena realized that she was saying it for the first time in her life.

The mother exhaled the air.

‘He’s such a good father. He’s taking us all to Tunisia this summer. The best hotels, kids will have fun. I wouldn’t have such a great big family if it wasn’t for him. He wasn’t like your father, who came by, broke my heart, and left me with a child.’

Lena knew that whatever she said at that moment, wouldn’t make an impact. She gave up and felt comforted by the fact that she didn’t live with her mother and her step-father anymore. Her side of the story was insignificant. Some girls suffered more than her. Some didn’t have a chance to leave.

When she was leaving school, she noticed Karol with his wife. Somehow she felt the same as with her mother. Children still had no voice. Lovers had no voice. What would it change if she told his wife? She was pregnant and she seemed to feel happy. Maybe Lena was just a crisis in a long-lasting relationship? Maybe they were both vulnerable? Maybe it wasn't meant to be?

Lena knew that her feelings for him were slowly deteriorating. It was just a moment. This affair would have bigger consequences for him than for her. It would destroy his marriage. She had nothing to lose, she decided to stay quiet and move on. She didn’t tell anything to anyone just the same as over ten years ago when she moved to Warsaw. The majority of affairs happened behind the closed doors, the majority of wives suspected something, but calculating the pros and cons of divorce, didn’t say anything. The majority of abused children waited until adulthood to spill the beans. Lena was no better than that. She weighed pros and cons and didn’t want to complicate other people’s lives at her benefit. She lost the battle with personal justice.

But Lena was optimistic, she was invited to Sweden by Olaf de Palma to admire Swedish summer at his cost. He also paid her for solving the mystery (who knew where he got his money from?) and for the first time she appreciated the difference of earnings between Swedes and Poles. She had time to think about her career. She also sensed that he liked her and she really needed someone who liked her at that time.

When she was leaving school, the last day of her life as a teacher, she passed little Marianne, who was being told off by her mother, an attractive businesswoman in high-heeled shoes. She couldn’t help but overhear the conversation.

‘We do everything for you. I work 70 hours a week and fly business to buy you the best clothes and the best toys, and the best holidays. And your behavior at school is not even acceptable?! You should be grateful for everything you have. I didn’t have half as much as you have when I was your age, you ungrateful brat!’

Lena passed Marianne and smiled at her.

‘You have very good marks from English, Marianne.’ she said, ignoring her mother.

Marianne smiled back. And even though Lena was almost driven to a nervous breakdown by her behavior during classes, she sensed some mutual understanding. Marianne behaved as she behaved for some reason. There were always two sides of the truth.

A few days ago she was traveling by ferry between Świnoujście and Ystaad, enjoying the limitless spectacle of the open sea on the sundeck of a luxury and modern ship. Sipping drinks and buying duty-free candies and chocolates. Now she and Olaf were looking at the green flashes that crossed the sky in a magical way, reminding Lena of Star Wars. Everything was quiet and peaceful. Olaf was sitting by her side holding for her a bottle of beer. Their tents were set up behind them and Lena was enjoying her holidays. He was extremely grateful for discovering what happened to the missing children as this secret had been bugging him for a long time. A week ago, he expressed some feelings for her, which Lena took calmly. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she wasn’t about to jump into anything serious. She still had Karol in mind, but the last thing she wanted now was another complicated relationship. However, when they were sitting together watching Northern Lights up there in the Swedish North, it seemed to be blissfully easy.

End of Part 2

Chapter 20 The Other Side of the Coin

7:10 AM

When Lasse looked at his father, mother, and two older brothers, he felt as if he belonged to a different planet. What made them laugh, he didn’t find funny at all. What they enjoyed doing, he took part in with a burden of being forced to. Sometimes he looked at his family members, looked at himself and couldn’t find any resemblance. But, even though a family, they treated him in a way that made him feel uncomfortable. When the father noticed that he was watching a violent film on TV, he immediately grabbed the remote control and turned it off. Older boys were allowed to play computer games, Lasse wasn’t even allowed to touch the joystick. When something went missing, be it money, wallet, jewelry, he was immediately the one to be blamed. As if he was responsible for all evil in the world. As if he had been born evil. And it turned him evil at times. These looks of his parents made him believe that he was a monster capable of everything. Sometimes he had a wish to burn the house down. With all of them inside. Sometimes he wished that he was dead himself among these examples of the good that surrounded him. He started hating them only for the fact that they considered themselves better. His thoughts started terrifying him. His future in this place felt like a lump in the throat, growing bigger each day.

One day, on a school trip to the Vasa Museum, he found a leaflet. Then, following his gut, he found a web page. He sensed that moving away would be a good solution. He didn’t like books. But he also didn’t like spending all this time with relatives who acted as if he was a black sheep for no apparent reason, a potential serial killer, while he didn’t feel so himself.

He didn’t know why, but he wasn’t supposed to steal, rape, and end up in prison as a grown-up man. Lasse wasn’t supposed to be bad, he was inherently good. He didn’t deserve the treatment he was given. He didn’t feel that for generations there was something in his blood, some particle which made him commit crimes with a boastful satisfaction. He wasn’t supposed to be like his ancestors, whom he was never supposed to meet. He also paid his debts. Having been helped to gain independence, Lasse worked as a psychologist to help women deal with rape and its consequences. He had a gut feeling that he would suit the job. He wasn’t entirely sure why.

Lisa hated dresses. She also hated the pink color. Hairspray. Ponytails. Beauty contests. Princesses. She despised all of it. Lisa wanted to play martial arts. Jump with a parachute. Travel on the camel’s back across Sahara. She wanted to be a lady Jane from Tarzan with the outfit of Tarzan, instead of Jane’s. She wanted to be another Lara Croft. The problem was that she was born pretty. She took after her mother, that’s for sure. But all her wishes for individuality were ignored. Her suggestions for extracurricular activities were continually dismissed. She ended up as a dressed-up monkey in a circus of girls’ comparisons and crazy overprotective mothers, who switched their own vanity into the vanity of their daughters.

It was more than pleasant to take part in this orientation game. Finally, she had the strength to run away from it all.

Sometimes, she looked at these women, these stylized attractive sexual creatures, wearing high-heels, flashing hybrid nails, beautifully painted faces, clothes chosen according to the trends of the latest fashion blogs. She wondered how her life would have unfolded if she had become such a woman. Instead, she took her backpack to climb another mountain, visit another country, rinse her make-up free face in the stream and welcome the world on her terms. Lisa, a woman, who switched dresses for trekking boots, marriage to a wealthy businessman for a different man in every city.

What was wrong with the fact that Bosse liked food? Not every man was born skinny and not everyone should fit the pattern of organic, fit, and healthy. Maybe for some, lettuce with lemon was the right choice, but for Bosse it was depressing. Even if he lost weight, he had bigger bones than his peers, he still wore bigger clothes, but all this time, in his mind and his body, he was starving. He was hungry and sad, and he never stopped thinking about food. This regime at home started getting on his nerves. Food was taken away from him, he was made to exercise, which he hated more than anything in the world. This orientation run was the last straw. But he decided that he would bear it only for this reason. For the life of food, for the life devoid of diets.

As an adult, he worked as a chef. He was overweight. Not morbidly obese, but he sweated abundantly during summer days and never ran even to catch the bus. Maybe he switched something. He sold his family for food. But it was easier for him to eat a burger on his own than a salad in the presence of his overweight family members, who always called him fat, whether in his face or behind his back.

She was a stupid woman. A lot of women were stupid, but his mother was incomparably silly. Olle wanted to talk about climate change and Chinese politics, she knew only what happened in the latest soap opera, who killed whom, who had an affair with whom. Their conversations at the table reminded him more of an exchange of gossip than anything else. He couldn’t say why, but she was getting on his nerves every time he saw her. Maybe it wasn’t a solution. Maybe he did her some harm. But now, looking back, he wouldn’t have achieved so much if he hadn’t left her one day. He wouldn’t have accomplished all his academic degrees if it hadn’t been for the peace and quiet of his solitude. He came back from time to time. He watched her from the distance to check whether she was healthy and well. He didn’t want to talk to her. He knew that they would have nothing to talk about. That gap was never to be filled.

For some girls, adulthood began when they had their first boyfriend. For others, when they had their first child and had a lot of responsibilities often more difficult than the duties of school. For others, it was taking care of their parents, who were incapable of caring for themselves. For some, it was a divorce, for others death or some traumatic accident that could happen at any time at any stage of life.

For Britta, it was the moment when she was asleep in her bed and she heard someone entering her room. Her mother was sleeping in another room. From the shape of his body, Britta knew that it was Kaj.

He and her mother had been together for almost two years. Britta liked Kaj. He played with her. They laughed at the same things. He didn’t make fun of her when she started developing her breasts and having her first period. Mother, on the contrary, always perceived her as a threat. Britta was young and blossoming, her mother noticed first signs of growing old: grey hair, wrinkles, deteriorating teeth. Britta was somehow proud when Kaj complimented her in front of her mother, putting the jealous woman in an awkward situation.

But she wasn’t happy when Kaj lied on her and started kissing her breasts. It was all unplanned, shocking, and uncomfortable. It was all too soon. When he spread her legs and pushed his big erected penis hard inside her body, she was numb from pain and shock. When he finished with a strange moan, put on his pajama pants and returned to her mother’s bedroom, Britta thought that the world came to an end.

But nothing happened the next day. They ate breakfast together, her mother was nicer to her than usual. No one said one word. Her mother made sure that Britta took a pill with her breakfast meal and that she did that every single day. She said that these were vitamins, but Britta wasn’t entirely sure. From that day, Kaj came to Britta every day. When he had a good day, he would penetrate her for forty minutes, when a bad one, for two. Britta was lying in the same position, motionless, her hands holding onto the duvet. She learned to be silent.

She was sure that her mother knew and she allowed for it. She maybe even encouraged Kaj to visit Britta as if she was afraid that he would leave her if she didn’t give him what he wanted. This year of reading Astrid Lindgren’s books was difficult for Britta. When Kaj was lying on her and moving inside her, she was trying to recall the plot of these adventurous books and counted her days to the end of this nightmare.

She ran with all the contestants. She found the hut and she began her new life. She was given work, protection, and help with her future undertakings. Even as an adult, a mother of three, Britta always checked whether her children were sleeping with their bedroom doors key locked at all times. Her husband told her that it was stupid, that in the case of a fire, they wouldn’t have enough time to save them. But Britta made up her mind and even though she loved her husband, she didn’t trust him that much.

You cannot really explain to a growing boy that he’s imagining things. Some people know from birth that they are supposed to perform a certain job: be an artist, a doctor, a priest, build their own company. They follow their instinct, a gut feeling which no one understands, none of the family members accepts or encourages. But, against all odds, they become what they were supposed to become, proving others wrong. Lars knew from day one that Gunter was the love of his life. It wasn’t much about the fact that he knew he was gay. He didn’t have time to consider it properly, as more than in dating he was interested in football and Marvel comic books. He knew, however, that Gunter was supposed to be his best friend, partner, his life and his death. He was sure of it at the age of eleven, so when Gunter was relocated, Lars knew that he had to do what he could to be close to him. Astrid Lindgren’s subscription was helpful to give him freedom, and later on the possibility to follow priest Gunter wherever he went.

‘Understand me, boy, you’re just a child,’ Gunter was fighting with his feelings, ‘I don’t want to be such a man. I despise men who make use of children. I don’t want to be one of them. I like you, that’s it. Go home and leave me alone.’

But Lars knew and he decided to put Gunter in a peaceful state of mind and wait. He waited until he was sixteen to appear in front of Gunter’s flat with a broad smile. Gunter fought with himself for some time. He was stressed, Lars could tell for sure. But love was love, and Lars knew something, which Gunter didn’t know or was afraid to accept. Lars was optimistic and knew one more thing, they were supposed to spend their whole lives with each other, he knew this since he was eleven, which made all this waiting a bit easier on the soul.

Chapter 19 Leon

2:38 AM

Robert packed his things, with a set of tools he found in the kitchen cupboard he repaired the wobbly doorknob and replaced the glass in the window. Finally, he gave the keys back to Adam Fabjan and returned to him all documents and pictures which were connected to Alicia. He returned to Warsaw and went back into his fixed routine. He knew that he would be thinking about her for some time, he hated unsolved cases which dragged for long, but that was the character of his profession. Not all ended in success and sometimes he had to accept defeat.

One day, when he was emptying his bag, a few pictures fell on the floor, pictures from Paris, including one photo of Alicia from her high school times, when she, her brother and their mother were posing in front of a Christmas tree, all squeezed in a small sofa, apparently surprised by the photographer. Alicia was smiling, Leon was moody and was looking at the floor, their mother was waving to the photographer. Robert, again, looked at the picture and this time there was one detail which brought his attention. He even took a magnifying glass to be sure that he saw what he thought he saw.

He called Alicia’s mother and asked for Paulina’s phone number.

‘Does Leon have a flat?’

‘Yes, he has a small studio flat twenty minutes from the center, why do you ask?’

‘A studio flat? And do you know how much did he pay for it?’

‘When he bought it, it was quite inexpensive. About one hundred thousand zlotych.’

‘Ok, thanks. Can you give me his address? I’m going to pay him a visit.’

Paulina gave him the exact address and Robert ran to his car and placed himself a few meters away from the entrance to observe the flat. But for a couple of days, there was no trace of Leon coming back to his official place of habitation. Robert called Paulina again, this time to ask about Leon’s place of work.

At 5 p.m. Leon left the office and got into his car. Robert followed him for some time, but soon he realized that they were driving to the exact opposite district of Warsaw than the one he was supposed to live in. Leon had time to do the shopping and after some twenty minutes he headed towards the block of flats. It was a nice, new area. Modern blocks were surrounded by trees, bushes and nicely trimmed lawns. Leon disappeared behind the door, Robert followed his footsteps. Inside, he found the number of apartments with Leon’s full name and the floor on which he was living. It went pretty smooth. Robert pressed the ring and waited for an answer. Leon opened the door and looked at him with a mix of surprise and defeat.

‘How did you find out?’, he asked.

Robert showed him the picture.

Leon nodded and opened the door wider to let Robert inside.

‘Be quiet, she’s asleep.’

It was this one summer when they were left alone again because mother went to Germany for work. Usually, there was someone supervising them, an aunt or a grandmother, or even a neighbor. But this time there was no one. Alicia was eighteen, Leon was seventeen years old. One day, unattended, when they didn’t have much to do at home, they went through documents and birth certificates.

‘We don’t even have the same father,’ Alicia analyzed the papers, ‘She never tells us about them.’

‘Maybe there’s nothing to tell us about. They left. One was worse than the other. We don’t even look alike. Maybe we also had different mothers and she just took us from the hospital to have a family.’

They both laughed. They didn’t really like their mother. They felt that she was too simple for both of them. Most times they couldn’t talk to her about anything they thought was important. But they would never tell her anything along those lines. They knew that she allowed them to be the people they were growing to be and didn’t complain. She worked hard. They were grateful. They didn’t want to cause her any trouble.

That summer they started spending more and more time away from home. Alicia had a boyfriend. Leon physically changed. He started going to the swimming pool and football classes, he gained body mass. They both passed each other on their way to the bathroom, being unable to ignore their changed physique. They looked at each other with a sense of respect and admiration. Even as children, they didn’t fight with each other. They had an unwritten rule not to cause any trouble to their mother and they shared a mutual understanding and support rather than any hidden agenda. Leon always asked if he could borrow Alicia’s toys, he always came to watch her ballet performances. She helped him with classes and not even once shouted at him when he received a bad mark at school.

That night Alicia came back with tears, she fought with her boyfriend, he said some nasty things to her, criticized her dancing and friends she was hanging out with. He was jealous, but instead of fighting with his own demons, he really wanted to hurt her. She was sitting on the sofa and crying quietly like a girl suffering from her first broken heart, and to this sight came Leon. He walked straight from the shower, with a towel wrapped around his hips, his muscles wet from the water. He noticed that she was crying, he sat by her side and smiled in a funny way that always made her laugh. This time she didn’t smile back. She just looked at him. She noticed how different he was from her, how unfamiliar. He had different eye color, different height, different hair. As if he came from a completely different planet. And yet, he had never done anything to make her suffer. He never even told her that her primary school ballet was stupid. He even stuck plasters on her torn toes and massaged her legs when she came exhausted from the training.

She placed her hand on his cheek. He stopped smiling.

‘I...’

‘Hush...’, she said touching his towel.

Leon went red in the face. He felt she knew.

‘I love you,’ he whispered.

Alicia nodded and allowed him to do everything that he wished for. It was stupid. They didn’t even have protection. It was the first time for both of them. Short, awkward, and painful on her side. They didn’t think it through. What if she got pregnant? What would they do with the baby?

‘No one can know,’ she said clinging to his body, ‘They would destroy us. Mother cannot know. No one can know, Leon.’

He nodded in understanding and kissed her. That was the happiest day of his life. He dreamed about her since they were little kids. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Even though she was his sister.

They lived like this for the whole summer. They rarely left home. They just enjoyed each other’s company. When mother came back, they were left with secret handshakes, looks, occasional touches, and hasty love-making when mother was asleep in another room, with their fists in their mouths trying not to make a sound.

Last year of high school was difficult for Alicia. She broke her leg, stopped her modern jazz classes, started studying more and had less time for Leon. He didn’t care. He decided to be there for her. He took her from classes on his old motorcycle and made sure that she came back home safe.

When she was studying, they stopped. They decided that it had no future and they had to do with their lives what needed to be done. Alicia befriended Adam, Leon tried to forget. But when Alicia was tutoring and she got into trouble with one old, nasty student, it was Leon who took her home, not Adam. It was Leon who encouraged her to try her opportunities in Paris. Adam just came along and was surprisingly happy with the chance to develop his career.

Alicia was unhappy with Adam. They tried to make something of it, but there was no romance and no genuine feelings between them. She was hurt when he met the love of his life and then she started this irrational relationship with Marc. A married man. Worse still, Leon got married to Paulina.

‘She’s not even pretty. Are you sure that you are happy?’

‘She’s not as beautiful as you. She has other qualities. I cannot marry you.’

All this time Alicia sent money to Leon for the flat. She wanted him to have a place of his own. He lived in the flat that was provided by Paulina’s parents and felt like an unwelcome guest at the mercy of in-laws. Soon, he was able to buy a small studio flat, but Paulina didn’t want to move in.

‘I’ll send more money,’ Alicia promised, ‘I will earn more. You will be able to buy something bigger.’

‘I love you.’ Leon said with a broken voice, ‘I don’t want to spend my life with her.’

‘But you’re married. And we cannot be together. I will try to get on with my life, it will be fine in the end.’

Within a couple of years, Alicia got married to Victor. She couldn’t suspect that it would be a disaster. One time, he hit her so hard that she had to cover bruises with a thick layer of foundation. One time, he just couldn’t help himself and knocked her unconscious and raped her just because he was her husband. She couldn’t sit for a week. ‘Leon, do you still love me?’ Alicia cried over the phone.

‘I have loved you my whole life, sister.’

‘Then take me out of this hell,’ she begged and he knew that she was serious.

He flew to her the next day. Took her things, silently listened to what happened to her, nodded at her every relationship and silently clenched his fists when he learned about what was done to her by Victor.

At that time Paulina divorced Leon. It was a failed marriage from the very beginning. It wasn’t supposed to work.

With the money Alicia had saved, they decided to buy another flat, bigger and more modern. She left her job and returned to Warsaw, not informing anyone about her move.

It was just like over twenty years before. They were living alone, eating their favorite food, watching films, listening to French music. She even started dancing in her free time, which made him pleased. They aged, they were over forty now, and for the first time sure that this was what they wanted from life, despite it all, either criticism or judgment. They just didn’t have anything to lose.

‘Was it you who broke into the flat and left these dead animals with notes directed at me?’

Leon shrugged.

‘I didn’t have any better idea. I’m not the person who kills police officers. I just wanted you to leave the case. How did you know that she is with me?’

‘I didn’t know where she is. It was just this picture. Brothers and sisters don’t usually hold hands. And one more thing, she sent you over one hundred thousand Euro. For your little studio flat, you paid one-fourth of the amount. You had to do something with the rest, right? Can I see her?’

Leon led him to another room. Alicia was asleep on the sofa. She looked as beautiful as ever, but there was something different about her. She was plumper and a visibly rounder stomach made her blouse tighter.

‘She’s six months pregnant. We were planning to make her return from abroad with the child. And then we would just take care of it like normal parents. For now, she’s hiding here. I’m taking care of her.’

Robert nodded.

‘What are you going to do with us?’

‘Nothing. I’m not planning to give you away. I might just inform Adam Fabjan that she’s alive to make him stop worrying. And if I were you, I would send some letter from her to your mother. She’s worried sick.’

Robert left the flat, called Adam to tell him that Alicia is alive and well but her place of stay for some reason cannot be disclosed, and looked at the picture. He was glad that another case was solved and there were no casualties. He didn’t judge. He was far from it. People would all be judged in the end for their own choices and he wasn’t about to intervene.

Chapter 18 The Hut

6:06 AM

If Lena had known that she would be supposed to go through the woods of Swedish God-forsaken middle of nowhere, with all the equipment she could find with the help of Robert (including a digital compass, a backpack full of food and water, a torch, a sleeping bag, and a folded tent), with training boots on her feet and an anorak on her body, shielding her from the cold of the dark, she would have started preparing earlier and worked on her physical fitness.

It was bizarre to switch from the safe environment of school to a hazardous flora and fauna of Swedish forest where heading into a moose or a bear was far more probable than meeting a human. Robert contacted her every couple of hours, but occasionally she lost reception in her phone and she was sure that this contact would be worthless if she was attacked by a wolf and killed within a couple of seconds to posthumously receive a message from Warsaw:

‘RU OK?’

To which she wouldn’t be able to reply. Maybe that was her destiny, to get lost in the middle of nowhere, having sinned enough in her life, and deal with the punishment provided by her fate. She was glad that she didn’t own anything of value and her room could be easily taken by Anton, Rebeka’s look-alike or even Kit-Kat.

Looking back, she wasn’t sure how she was able to reach her destination point. It took her over a day of walking from the most distant bus stop from the smallest town, which was blessed with a train connection. It was literally the middle of nowhere and in the middle of the night, she reached the house, which she hoped was the X drawn on the map. It was a small wooden hut, the door wasn’t locked, getting inside was as easy as taking candy from a baby. It was equipped with basic utilities. The shelves were full of dry food, tins of fish and cans and bottles of drink. There were some beds by the walls, cupboards filled with towels, a table and two chairs, nothing fancy, just basic necessities of everyday life. Lena took off her backpack and sat on the bed. Her sore feet dangling over the floor, a torn packet of biscuits on her knees, she fell asleep.

She was woken up by steps, she opened her eyes to see a man. She was still there, in the hut, half-sitting on the bed, in the cloud of crushed biscuits around her, her feet numb from the weird position she took when all strength abandoned her.

‘You’re by far the oldest one I was privileged to welcome in my modest abode.’

Lena saw that the man had taken the wallet from her backpack and checked her ID.

‘I was sure that at your age, being independent is easier than when you’re adolescent. What brings you to me?’

Lena didn’t know where to start. The crazy thing was that she wasn’t scared, it was ridiculous: the man could easily kill her and simple ‘RU OK?’ wouldn’t save her for sure. Somehow though, she had a hunch that her fate wasn’t about to end in that hut. She took the pictures of the missing children and the map put together from the pages of Astrid Lindgren’s book and all this she spread in front of the man.

‘I need to know the truth.’

The man smiled. Now she was able to look at him more carefully. He was short and stout, he had light blond hair, which turned white over time. He sat comfortably, spreading his legs in high boots.

‘The truth. Lena, isn’t that so? There are always many truths. The truth is somewhere in between. I can tell you my version of the truth and you decide whether it is also your version, do we have a deal?’

Lena nodded obediently.

‘When I was a little boy my father hit me twice a week. One time, it was a routine beating to keep me disciplined. The other time, it was for something I did. Badly ironed shirt, unwashed dishes, a spot of dust on the floor. He did it to school me, to teach me a lesson. When he got really drunk, mind you, he was an alcoholic, he hit me more often than that. Sometimes I had wounds which healed for days and he didn’t allow doctors to contact me. My mother died of cancer when I was a little boy. When I think about it, I believe that he blamed me for her passing. He wanted to destroy me. Slowly but surely.’

‘Couldn’t you contact some social services? They take away the children from alcoholic parents, there are foster houses. I heard that Sweden has very strict rules when it comes to child violence. You cannot even spank a child. Something, which in Poland is considered an exaggeration.’

‘Now this is true. There are special phone numbers, you can even use them when your parents make you angry, which happens twice as often as the parents would like it to happen. You can make a victim of yourself and make a whole lot of trouble for everybody. But you see, there are always different truths. Two sides of the coin. My father was working for social services. According to him, I was a stubborn, disobedient boy. A poison, which killed his wife, and a brat that couldn’t be disciplined. Who would you believe: a respectable man, who dealt with abused children on an everyday basis, or a twelve-year-old boy, who had his fair share of mistreatment? The battle was lost for me. I was praying for the day I would be able to leave this house and him, and start some peaceful life on my own.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I was helped. Our neighbor was an old childless man. He owned a couple of farms, he sold milk, eggs, cheese, and farm equipment. He must have overheard my father’s outburst of anger, which through the thin walls and Swedish open space silence wasn’t that hard. One day, he came to me. Father was away, I was kicking the ball in the yard.

‘I want you to work for me,’ he said and invited me over to his farm. ‘I will pay you the money, which you will save. You cannot tell anything to your father or anyone at school, either friends or teachers. I want you to come to my place after school and stay here until your father comes home.’

I didn’t say anything about being beaten, but I was almost certain that he knew. I worked for him for a year. I helped with animals, I cleaned the pigsty, I took his produce to the market. It was good for me. It kept me grounded. He was paying me more than he was supposed to, as I later learned. He treated me like his employee, not as a child. By the end of the year, he said that I should pack my things, take all my money and rent something on the other side of the country. He handed me references and advised me to lie about my age. Sixteen sounded better than thirteen. I did what he told me to. And then it was all back to normal. I didn’t start taking drugs, I found a room, worked some odd jobs until I was mature. It was all pretty boring and normal. No one hit me, no one ever said one bad word to me or about me. Since then, I have never seen my father and I have never seen this man. But I was forever grateful and wanted to pay my debts.’

‘So you invented this Astrid Lindgren scheme?’

‘Well, you see, I never wanted to have children. My father spoilt me to the extent that I was afraid of what kind of father I would be for my child. But I was sure that there were some kids out there, trapped by their circumstances, who needed something more than a foster home, orphanage or social services. They needed freedom and some peace of mind. I came up with a web page, a yearly subscription of the children books. I spread some news, left some leaflets here and there, made sure that I would do more good than evil. I paid my debts. I helped a few.’

‘So all of them are still alive?’, Lena pointed at the pictures.

‘My girl, why shouldn’t they be? They had their reasons to come here. There are always two sides of the truth.’

Chapter 17 Victor

4:24 AM

It was at the beginning of April when Robert decided to close the case and for the last time come to Paris to make sure that he didn’t omit anything and that nothing had skipped his attention. This time Anton came with him, and although he had been in Paris before, he enjoyed the city, its food, its people, and its language. Anton could speak some basic French expressions, which was helpful and made Robert feel safe and at home. To be honest, after so many times in the French capital, he started to recognize streets, monuments and achievements of architecture, he got used to some tastes and scents, and felt like a student who had been on a student’s exchange programme, and suddenly felt like an expert of the foreign world.

It was a different experience to spend this time with Anton, as in Warsaw they rarely exchanged kisses and hardly ever held hands, firstly, in fear of some act of homophobia, secondly, they were rather private and didn’t enjoy public displays of affection. But in Paris something happened to them, they didn’t know whether it was the romantic aura usually associated with the city, or the fact that they were alone among millions of French-speaking people, but they touched each other from time to time and smiled as if they had just met and fallen in love.

The purpose of Robert’s last visit was to finally get to know Alicia’s ex-husband, Victor. The only way to do this was to follow him for a couple of days and check whether he went to any suspicious place or met any suspicious people. Victor spent all his time at work, being in charge of his logistic company. He drove all over Paris, and sometimes outside of Paris to meet his business clients’ needs, to make some new contacts, and to fulfill his recent contracts. In the evening, he went to his spacious flat and got drunk in front of the TV. Robert suspected the worst, namely that Alicia’s body was hidden somewhere in the flat, whether in the wardrobe, below the bed or in the fridge. These were suspicions he was prone to due to his years in the police and other brutal criminal cases he had to solve in the past. The only way to check whether his suspicions were true was to enter the flat and check for himself, but how could he do this, when Victor was still in the flat, and Robert couldn’t just break in when he was away?

Observing Victor’s flat from the distance gave Robert another idea. The businessman might not have remarried after Alicia divorced him, but he frequently used the services of prostitutes, especially one, a Russian girl, Svetlana. A blond, big-breasted, cheerful girl, who didn’t look anything like Alicia, which proved that men were more likely to fall for the exact opposite of their previous partners, was a frequent guest at his spacious penthouse. Robert waited for Svetlana to leave the flat and stopped her by the pavement.

‘Excuse me, I would like to use your services. How much do you charge per hour?’

Svetlana gave him the price, he gave her the money straight away and they both went to Adam Fabjan’s flat. Svetlana was surprised when she saw Anton cooking something in the kitchen, but she was used to many odd behaviors, and, without complaining, started undressing in the living room.

‘No, no,’ Robert opposed, ‘We need another kind of service.’

‘With you both? That will charge you extra.’

Robert laughed.

‘No, we are not going to have sex.’

Svetlana was visibly disappointed. She buttoned up her dress and put her underwear back on.

‘Then what?’

‘How long do you usually spend with Victor?’

‘You mean my last client? An hour. Well, he comes pretty quickly, but he likes games. He’s into these spanking ones.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me, he used to beat his ex-wife.’

Svetlana looked pitiful, but Robert sensed that it was all just a pose. She was used to far worse things, and probably far worse things did many of her clients, probably in front of her or engaging her into the process.

‘Listen, we are carrying out an investigation. I’m from Warsaw police department. Next time Victor will be in need of your services, I need you to call me, make sure that the flat door is open and occupy him for an hour. Blindfold him, make sure that he doesn’t hear what’s going on around him. I need to search his flat.’

‘What will I get for this?’

Robert put a pile of banknotes on the table.

‘But won’t I be in any trouble? Won’t they deport me? I’m not legally here.’

‘Listen, I have nothing against Russian people. Actually, I am in a relationship with one.’

Anton waved form the kitchen and greeted Svetlana in Russian. Svetlana raised her eyebrows and sighed, again, in disappointment, as if she wished that her clients were closer in appearance to Robert and Anton.

She took the money and agreed, having no better things to do, as it was, in fact, an additional income for her precious and hard work. And this time she didn’t have to do anything extra.

They did as they had previously agreed. When Victor called Svetlana, she instantly called Robert and they both approached Victor’s apartment. Robert gave Svetlana a ten-minute go-ahead and, when he was sure that Victor was thoroughly serviced in his bedroom, Robert quietly entered the flat and started his search.

But there was nothing in the kitchen, nothing in the living room, nothing even in the bedroom, occupied by blindfolded Victor and Svetlana jumping on him with screams of ecstasy as if she had been doing this all her life. In the havoc of sexual pleasures, himself quite amused, Robert was able to look under the bed, but, to his relief, there was nothing resembling Alicia’s body. The last thing that he could do, as Svetlana’s screams were getting quieter and quieter, was to look into the corridor cupboard drawer. Inside, among keys, spare change, screwdriver, wine opener, and other practical items was an envelope signed ‘Alicia’. Robert looked inside, but again, there were no pictures of Alicia’s mauled body, but pictures of her and Victor’s rare trips to the mountains and to the seaside. It seemed that Victor treated Alicia with sentiment and he didn’t cut to pieces their mutual moments, even though he himself destroyed them, allowing his aggressive nature to win over his feelings for his beautiful wife.

Robert took a look over the flat, making sure that he checked Victor’s suitcase, but there was nothing of significance except for work documents, so he decided to leave. If Victor was a murderer, he was perfect at hiding his victim, and if there was a shed in which he kept his ex-wife, who somehow escaped his tyranny, he rarely visited her, as more time he spent in the company of his Russian lady of pleasure.

Adrianne Dubois was almost ready to leave her pharmacy office and go home, but before the closing hour the door opened and her favorite handsome, tall, dark man came inside accompanied by another one: this time blond and young. The handsome man smiled at the sight of Adrianne, wrote something on the phone and showed it to her.

I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING THAT YOU DID FOR ME. MERCI

Adrianne smiled and was given a box of Polish candy and a set of Polish alcohols. She thanked and felt a pleasant warmth in her heart.

The two men left the pharmacy and Adrianne approached the window to say her personal and silent farewell. When she was looking through the glass of pharmacy, she saw them kissing and holding hands, which brought to her a cold sensation of a broken heart and made her shed a tear.

Chapter 16 The Map

9:45 AM

Oh, it was a bad week. Everything went wrong. Lena was snowed under with grading and teacher’s meetings. She couldn’t keep up with the paperwork, she had so many tests to check, so many written papers to correct that she developed panic attacks every morning when she was supposed to start her classes. She felt dizzy, wanted to throw up, and felt stomach pain a minute before she entered the school. She didn’t know whether it was the approach of spring and warm temperatures, but children behaved untypically bad, especially those she was taking care of, and bringing order and silence in the class was almost impossible. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Karol also had less time for her, he disappeared somewhere among parents, teachers, and children, leaving her - an abandoned lover, waiting like a sailor’s wife with hope for quick return and comfort.

But comfort didn’t happen. Quite the reverse, she was more and more disillusioned. He ignored her a couple of times in the corridor. He canceled a couple of their planned meetings. Then she saw them both taking a stroll along the school’s courtyard. A blissful married couple. Hand in hand, she - with a visible pregnancy belly, he - the proud father of his future baby. Karol’s wife was completely different from Lena. She was tall and slim, she had typically European features, as opposed to Lena’s slanted eyes. She was blond, with long waves of hair wrapped around her subtle face. Lena understood him, she could easily explain his love for her, his desire for her body. She only couldn’t understand that he wasn’t able to make a choice. Or that the choice was already lost for her.

In the afternoon, she looked at the empty class and made a promise to herself. She counted days in the calendar until the end of the school year, looked at empty desks, crayons lying on the floor waiting for cleaning ladies to pick them up. She glimpsed at the cupboards standing by the walls, at pot plants signed with children’s names. She also looked at herself in the class’s mirror: exhausted, both from stress and a broken heart. She didn’t like what she saw. She made up her mind and decided that she never wanted to come back. Her short career as a teacher was about to be over. It took one year: one year of an unfortunate selection of children, one year of a heartbreaking love affair. It was only a year, which left her a nervous wreck with pangs of guilt, disillusionment, and lack of hope.

Her room was a mess. Students’ tests were lying everywhere on the floor and on the sofa. Teachers’ notebooks were there to be filled with subjects, dates, and grades. Missing children from Sweden were looking at her from the photographs, waiting to be taken care of. Lena’s hair was messy, her make-up was smudged all over her face. She even had some bread crumbs around her mouth, because she didn’t pay attention to how she was eating.

To this sight, came Robert, not bothering to knock at the door.

‘You look fantastic,’ he said, ‘So womanly and charming.’

Lena looked at him as if she was looking at a moron. He laughed. He tried to be nice, he asked her about her job, he inquired about her investigation, being so kind not to mention any of her personal problems. She told him a little about the missing children.

‘That’s funny that they are called exactly like these Bullerbyn children. Sweden, children, so cliche...’

‘What did you say?’

‘Well, Lasse, Bosse, Lisa, Britta, Olle... more or less like the characters of the book. Don’t tell me that you haven’t read any of Astrid Lindgren’s novels as a child?’

‘Maybe so, I don’t remember. I didn’t read much as a child...’

‘I read these books to my girls, Pippi Langstrumpf, The Brothers Lionheart, Karlson on the Roof, The Six Children of Bullerbyn. These are the best books ever! Naughty but smart children, so many adventures, no parents! I was obsessed as a little boy. I can borrow you some. I have the whole collection!’

Robert enthusiastically returned to his room, brought a bit worn volumes of kids’ books and handed all of them to Lena.

Within a week, she read them all, rediscovering her lost childhood, laughing at kids’ adventures and admiring the wit and imagination of the author. But some things soon fell into place and made sense for her. She looked at the pictures of children’s room, which she had taken so carefully over the past few months. She looked through the search history of children’s computers. She carefully searched through one of the boys’ boxes of toys, books, and magazines to confirm her suspicions.

All of these children had a collection of Astrid Lindgren’s books. And it wouldn’t be surprising. So many children in Sweden read stories about Pippi, Lasse, Bosse, Lisa, and other brave representatives of their age. So many children all over the world had newer and older copies of popular books. But all the missing children, who got mysteriously lost in the orientation run, owned a surprisingly identical set of books.

Lena carefully looked through the books which Lasse’s mother had given to her. They were in Swedish so Lena couldn’t decipher whether there was any information hidden between the lines, but she noticed that some of the pages were torn as if someone had needed them. As if they had contained an important piece of information.

While checking Olle’s search engine’s history, she found the website on which these particular books could be bought. She wanted to order all of these books online, but she received a very suspicious message that all volumes couldn’t be bought at once. They could only be ordered one by one each month, after completing a short test on the knowledge of the plot of the previous volume. It was supposed to teach children a systematic attitude and hard work. It was a deal for which they didn’t even have to pay, as after completing the test, the book was supposed to arrive for free.

Taking part in this game would take Lena forever. She didn’t have a year to answer questions and wait for another volume to arrive. Even if she pretended to be a child, it would take too much time. She wasn’t even sure if this was the right trace.

But Lena was a teacher, and having spent hours in the class, looking at her students’ ideas, she knew how to cheat. First, she contacted all the parents of the missing children and asked them to send her the volumes of Astrid Lindgren’s novels, which were left in the children’s rooms. Then, when they finally arrived, she looked at some of them in search of the torn pages. Interestingly enough, all children had torn away the same exact pages spread all over the books with no apparent order. One page in every identical book, whether at the beginning, the end or in the middle was missing. Lena almost lost hope when she looked through all the books. It was impossible to make up a whole from the missing parts. It was impossible to point at the guilty one with no evidence whatsoever.

‘Yes!’, she said to herself opening the last set of books sent to her.

One boy, Olle, himself being an avid reader and a lover of the written word, couldn’t have done such a thing. It was almost a sin to even bend the corner of a book, not to mention to tear it apart. If he needed the page, he could xerox it or make a written copy or a photograph. Other kids were much less merciful. Olle’s respect for books left Lena with a number of pieces of a bigger drawing, which she carefully put together so that all lines matched and found their endings, all squares were orderly numbered, and all doodles built familiar entities. And indeed, in a few minutes she was looking at very meticulously written directions, very carefully drawn meadows, lakes, and houses, and in the middle of it all, there was one house, which was marked as the X. She instantly knew that she found a map, which over the years all the children had found themselves. A map, which directed them to an alternative finish of the orientation run and Lena to a possible answer to her mystery.