It was uplifting for Lena to discover that all Swedes actually spoke great English and her efforts to learn Swedish were not needed but welcomed with an encouraging nod and appreciation. It was finally great for her to forget Poland for a while and keep at bay her own struggles, both at her undisciplined school life and her troubled personal life, which she wasn’t able to come to terms yet. Olaf de Palma gave her the addresses of children and all information that through the years he was able to find himself. When he made sure that Lena felt quite independent in Stockholm, he suddenly announced that he was not going to stop his journeys and Lena could have his Stockholm’s flat for herself, while he could enjoy his life of a traveler. It took her some time to get acquainted with the city’s public transport and the incoming and outgoing trains and buses from the city to nearby towns, which were spread around Sweden’s capital, but soon she felt confident and safe on her own. She remained cautious, especially taking into account stories about group rapes, which Robert was so kind to tell her every time they met each other in the corridor of their mutually shared flat.
‘You are so stereotypical. I know that there are a lot of immigrants but the majority have better intentions than you do. You can be raped everywhere, Robert. You can be raped in your own home by your own family members.’
‘Any personal experience?’, Robert seemed seriously curious.
Lena ignored the question.
But somehow this year they saw each other rarely, he being busy with his French case of a missing woman: Alicia, her being one foot in Stockholm, the other in her messy school affair. Their lives took separate courses. They had no other choice but put their friendships to the trial of distance and accept it.
Lena didn’t have time to either pop in Stockholm’s Vasa Museum, run around Sergels Torg, or enjoy the natural beauty of Skansen, but she appreciated Sweden’s capital from the distance, listening to Avicii, Veronica Maggio, Molly Sanden, Laleh, Norlie & KKV, and Albin. She decided to take matters into her own hands pretty quickly. Staying for too long in Stockholm was expensive, even though Olaf left her money for food and paid for the month of her work in advance.
She decided to start from what was nearby. She located the first of the missing children and managed to find the flat in which he lived over twenty years ago with his siblings and parents. Mrs. Erikson was suspicious, but Lena showed her photographs of other missing children and said that she was writing an article on the case: an attempt to refresh people’s memory on the matter, a hopeful wish that maybe these children could be found despite the passing of time.
‘I still think that he is alive,’ the mother said, ‘Mothers feel these things, they have intuition. They know that something is wrong with the child. I don’t feel anything of the kind.’
‘Was he an only child?’
‘No, Lasse had two older brothers. I can show you their photographs if you want.’
Lena nodded in agreement and looked at the photos.
‘Lasse was smaller than the other boys. He also had darker hair.’
‘Lasse had a different father, I’m afraid. My two first sons are the children of my husband. Lasse was an accident.’
‘Accident?’
‘I would like to keep it confidential. Just between both of us. I didn’t tell that to Lasse and I didn’t tell it to my other sons. Only my husband knows about it. I was group-raped one evening over thirty years ago. Soon after that, I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t go to the police. I made necessary tests, I contracted no disease. But I didn’t remember these men. I couldn’t pinpoint one of them who could be the father. I didn’t want to get rid of the child. I loved children. My husband had similar views on the matter. We loved him. It was our child.’
‘Could he get to know about it? Could he overhear it one day? Maybe that was the reason he ran away? Possibly, he couldn’t deal with his background.’
‘We didn’t talk about it at all. My sons didn’t know. I only told my husband, but we agreed we would never talk about it again. I tried to treat him as equally as possible. I treated all of my boys the same. But he had been behaving strangely for some time, he started isolating himself from us. He was reading a lot, he got interested in running, got involved in this orientation run. And then, one day, he simply disappeared. We never lost hope. I have never lost hope that he is okay.’
‘Did you have any more children after Lasse?’
‘No, now I have grandchildren and I try to help with those. If you want, I can give you Lasse’s belongings. I keep them in the attic. Maybe he will read this article of yours, remember something from his childhood. Maybe he will come back.’
Lena was given a box of boys’ toys, books, folded planes, school notebooks, and cardboard games cut from some kids’ magazine. She took it all to her temporary Stockholm’s flat and played for a while, reminding herself her own set of toys, her own childhood, and hobbies of her past days.
The house of Lisa Larsson was situated on the outskirts of Stockholm. It was a beautiful district with big villa houses, great views, and lakes, which could be used for entertainment if you owned a private boat or had friends with one. Lena’s story about writing an article on missing children was bought without any doubt, and soon she was welcomed into a big house, full or designer furniture, paintings, and lovely carpets spread on white wooden floors. In the house, there wasn’t anyone apart from the grandmother.
‘My daughter moved to the United States,’ she explained, welcoming Lena with cookies and coffee ‘After Lisa disappeared, she didn’t want to stay here for long. I’m the only one who takes care of the house. It’s too big for me, but there’s a woman who cleans it from time to time, and there’s another one who comes here every day to do the shopping for me and help me with basic chores. She’s actually from Poland.’
Lena smiled. She wasn’t surprised that many Poles worked in Sweden.
‘Lisa was a beauty, I can show you her room. We left it the way it was when she disappeared.’
Lena was lead to a room which reminded her of a princess chamber. Everything was pink, purple, white and blue. There was a beautiful dressing table standing in the corner, an arched bookshelf with children books, a fluffy carpet, and numerous Disney Princesses spread all over the room in the forms of posters, Barbie dolls, and motifs on bags, pencil cases and clothes. Lena took the pictures of the room, using her small digital camera, which she took with her just in case there was something she wouldn’t be able to take with herself.
Lisa’s grandmother offered to show Lena pictures of Lisa and told her stories about her granddaughter.
‘She was such a beautiful child. You have to admit it, she was the prettiest girl in the class. She won every beauty pageant, every singing competition. Her mother was obsessed with buying her dresses, toys, and dolls. We were sure that she was going to be an actress or a dancer. We were raising her to become someone special. And this silly idea of running in this orientation game. This isn’t a sport for little girls. I knew nothing good would come of it. But she was stubborn, weirdly stubborn. I’m sure someone was behind it, someone for sure wanted to separate her from family and kidnap her. I don’t want to know what he would use her for, what might have happened to her, I don’t want to think about it...’
Lena noted every single important fact that Mrs. Larsson was willing to share. She took some photos of the pictures from the album, she also documented the house.
In the evening, she boarded the plane and after an hour and a half, she was back in Warsaw ready for another week at school and another week of heartache.
He made the first move. Karol Markowski asked Lena to his office and announced that he made some plans in the timetable just to make her life easier. She no longer needed to have classes with Marianne and her dominant and undisciplined fellows. She was given another class, consisting mostly of obedient and bright students. It was a weight of the shoulders, as little devil boys have recently decided to go one by one to the toilet during classes and took a collective shit without flushing it, later on smearing it all over the walls and throwing rolls of toilet paper over the cabins, as if it had been American Halloween. The teachers were surprised at how they could coordinate their biological functions to be able to do this within forty-five minutes. Lena wasn’t that surprised. She believed that eight-year-old Marianne was able to do much worse things.
Lena was looking at her director, he just smiled at her, knowing that he did her a favor. The sparks of attraction were irresistible. He stopped at that. Casually he opened the door and wished her a nice day. Her heart was pounding that day stronger than ever.
