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.