A Treacherous Paradise, Page 3

  Is this what it means to be an adult? she thought, her face turned away because she had the feeling that her mother could read her thoughts. Exchanging the insecurity of a child for a different unknown – the knowledge that the only possible answers are the ones you can provide yourself?

  They returned to the house, which was hidden away in a copse comprising a few birch trees and a single mountain ash. Her brother and sisters were indoors, despite the fact that this autumn day was not particularly cold. But they played less and tended to be quiet when they were hungry. Their life was a never-ending wait for food, and not much else.

  They stopped outside the door, as if Elin had decided never to allow her daughter inside again.

  ‘My uncle Axel lives in Sundsvall,’ she said. ‘Axel Andreas Wallén. He works in the docks. He’s a nice man, and he and his wife Dora don’t have any children. They had two boys, but both of them died, and after that they didn’t have any more. Axel and Dora will help you. They won’t turn you away.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to them as a beggar,’ said Hanna.

  The slap came without warning. Afterwards, Hanna thought the blow was reminiscent of the impact from a bird of prey diving down at her cheek.

  Elin might possibly have slapped her before, but in that case it would have been triggered mainly by fear. If Hanna had wandered off alone to the river in the spring when it was a raging torrent, and risked falling in and being drowned. But now Elin hit her as a result of irritation. It was the first time.

  It was a slap given by a grown-up person to another grown-up. Who would understand why.

  ‘I don’t abandon my daughter in order to make her a beggar,’ said Elin angrily. ‘I only have your best interests at heart. There’s nothing for you here.’

  Hanna had tears in her eyes. Not because of the pain – she had experienced much worse pain than that in her life.

  The slap she had received confirmed what she had just been thinking: now she was alone in the world. She would have to leave and travel eastward, towards the coast, and she would never be able to return. What she left behind would sink deeper into oblivion for every metre a sleigh’s runners whisked her away.

  It was early autumn, 1903. Hanna Renström was seventeen years old, and would be eighteen on 12 December.

  A few months later she would leave her home for ever.

  7

  HANNA THOUGHT TO herself: the time of sagas and make-believe is over. Now it’s time for real-life stories.

  She realized that when Elin told her what was in store for her. It sometimes happened that businessmen from the coast who travelled over the mountains in winter to Norway for the Røros market didn’t take the usual and shortest route back home, along the River Ljusnan and down to Karböle. Some of them headed northwards after crossing the Sweden–Norway border and then, if the weather permitted it, turned off via Flatruet and along the River Ljungan so that they could do business in the villages on the riverbanks.

  There was one businessman in particular, Jonathan Forsman, who usually travelled home via the villages north of Flatruet.

  ‘He has a big sleigh,’ said Elin. ‘On the way home it’s never as heavily laden as it is when he’s on his way to Røros. He’s bound to be able to make room for you. And he’ll leave you in peace. He won’t try to make advances to you.’

  Hanna looked doubtfully at her. How could Elin be so sure? Hanna was well aware what life had in store for her, she had never been totally devoid of other young girls to talk to. Not least the girls who used to act as maids in the shacks up in the mountains when the farmers’ and shepherds’ flocks were grazing in their summer pastures: they had all kinds of strange tales to tell with a mixture of giggles and badly concealed discomfort. Hanna knew what it was like to blush, and what could happen inside her body, especially in the evenings, just before she fell asleep.

  But that was all. How could Elin know what might or might not happen on a long sleigh-ride to the distant coast?

  She asked her straight out.

  ‘He’s seen the light,’ said Elin promptly. ‘He used to be an awful man, just like most of those old devils with their sleighs. But since he became a Christian he’s a sort of good Samaritan. He’ll let you travel with him and won’t even ask for payment. And he’ll lend you one of his fur coats so that you won’t freeze.’

  But Elin couldn’t be absolutely sure if he would come, or when. The usual time was shortly before Christmas, but there had been occasions when he didn’t turn up until into the New Year. And he had been known not to come at all.

  ‘He might also be dead, of course,’ said Elin.

  When a sleigh set off and was swallowed up by flurries of snow, you never knew whether that might be the last you ever saw of a person, no matter how young or old he was.

  Hanna would be ready to travel at any time after her birthday on 12 December. Jonathan Forsman was always in a hurry, never stayed anywhere longer than necessary. Unlike people who always had no end of time to spare, he was an important person and hence was always in a hurry.

  ‘He generally comes in the afternoon,’ said Elin. ‘He comes out of the forest to the north, heading southwards along the sleigh-tracks that skirt the edge of the bog and lead down to the river and the valleys.’

  Every afternoon Hanna would go out and gaze in the direction of the forest as darkness began to fall. She sometimes thought she could hear the bells of a horse-drawn sleigh in the distance, but one never appeared. The forest door remained closed.

  She slept badly all the time she was worrying and waiting, kept waking up and had incoherent dreams that frightened her, although she didn’t really understand why. But often her dreams were as white as snow: empty and silent.

  One of her dreams kept recurring and haunting her; she was lying in the sofa bed with two of her siblings: the youngest of the family’s children, Olaus, and the sister closest to her in age, Vera, twelve years old. She could feel the warm bodies of her brother and sister up against her own; but she knew that if she were to open her eyes they would turn out to be different children lying there, unknown to her. And the moment she set eyes on them they would die.

  Then she would wake up, and realize to her great relief that it had all been a dream. She would often lie there awake, watching the blue moonlight shining in through the low windows covered in ice crystals. Then stretch out her hand and feel the wooden wall and the newspaper covering it. Right next to her was the cold, writhing and twisting away in the ancient timber.

  The cold is like an animal, she thought. An animal tethered in its stall. An animal wanting to break out.

  The dream had a meaning that she didn’t understand. But it must have something to do with the journey she would have to make. What would be in store for her? What would be demanded of her? She felt awkward in both body and soul when she tried to imagine people living in a town. If only her father had still been alive: he would have been able to explain it to her, and prepare her for it. He had once been to Stockholm, and he’d also been to another big and remarkable town called Arboga. He could have told her that she didn’t need to be afraid.

  Elin came from remote Funäsdalen and had never been anywhere else, apart from the short journey northwards with the man who became her husband.

  Nevertheless, she was the one who had to answer when Hanna asked her questions. There simply wasn’t anybody else.

  But Elin’s answers? Vague, taciturn. She knew so little.

  8

  ONE DAY AT the beginning of November, when they were at the edge of the forest with an axe and a saw, collecting firewood for the winter, Hanna asked her mother about the sea. What did it look like? Did it run along a sort of giant furrow, like the river? Was it the same colour? Was it always so deep that you couldn’t reach the bottom?

  Elin paused, held her aching back, and looked at her long and hard before answering.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The sea is like a big lake, I think. I suppose there are waves. Bu
t I just don’t know if the sea has currents.’

  ‘But surely Renström must have told you? He said he’d been to sea, didn’t he?’

  ‘It might not have been completely true. Everything he said might have only happened inside his head. But all he ever said about the sea is that it was big.’

  Elin bent down to pick up the twigs and branches they had sawed and chopped off. But Hanna didn’t want to give up just yet. A child stopped asking questions when it had the feeling that enough was enough: but she was grown up now, she had the right to go on asking.

  ‘I have no idea what is in store for me,’ she said. ‘Will I be living in a house with other people? Will I be sharing a bed with somebody else?’

  Elin scowled and dropped a bundle of sawn-off branches into their birch-bark basket.

  ‘You are asking too many questions,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you what you can expect to find. But there is no future for you here. At least there are people who can help you there.’

  ‘I only want to know,’ said Hanna.

  ‘Stop asking now,’ said Elin. ‘I’m getting a headache from all your questions. I don’t have any answers.’

  They returned in silence to the house from whose chimney a thin column of smoke was rising vertically into the pale sky. Olaus and Vera were looking after the fire. But both Elin and Hanna made sure that they were never any further away from the house than would prevent them from climbing up on to a high rock, taking a look at the chimney and establishing that the fire had not gone out. Or that nothing even worse had happened: that it hadn’t crept out of the open hearth and begun jumping around the room like a madman.

  It was snowing at night now, and there was frost every morning. But the really heavy snowfalls that never lasted for less than three days had still not come creeping over the western mountains. And Hanna knew that if there wasn’t sufficient snow, no sleigh would be able to approach through the forests from the main routes further south.

  But a few days later the snow finally arrived. As almost always happened, it crept up silently during the night. When Hanna got up to light the fire, Elin was standing by the door which she had opened slightly.

  She stood there motionless, staring out. The ground outside was white. There were low drifts against the walls of the house. Hanna could see the tracks of crows in the snow, perhaps also of a mouse and a hare.

  It was still snowing.

  ‘This snow’s going to lay,’ said Elin. ‘It’s winter now. There’ll be no bare ground again until the spring, at the end of May or the beginning of June.’

  It continued snowing the whole of the following week. At first the cold wasn’t too severe, only a few degrees below zero. But once the snow had stopped falling the sky became clear and the temperature dropped significantly.

  They had a thermometer that Renström had bought at some market or other a long time ago. Or perhaps he had won it in an arm-wrestling competition, since he was so strong? The thermometer had an attachment enabling it to be fixed to an outside wall, but it was treated with great care: there was always a risk that somebody might be careless and break the little tube containing the dangerous mercury.

  Extremely carefully Elin placed it out in the snow, at the side of the house that was always in shade. Now that the seriously cold weather had arrived, it was more than thirty degrees below zero for three days in succession.

  During the coldest days they did nothing but tend the fire, make sure the cow and the two goats had something to chew at, and eat something of the little food they had for themselves. They used up all their strength in efforts to keep the cold at bay. Every extra degree below zero was like yet another enemy army added to those already besieging them.

  Hanna could see that Elin was scared. What would happen if something broke? A window, or a wall? They had nowhere to flee to, apart from the little cattle shed where the animals were kept. But they were also freezing cold, and it was not possible to make a fire there.

  It was during these bitterly cold days that Hanna felt for the first time that the imminent change in her life might not be so bad after all. An opening in a dark forest where sunlight suddenly shone down into an unexpected glade. A life that might possibly be better than the one she was living now, besieged by the armies of cold and famine? Her fear of the unknown suddenly became a longing for what might be in store for her. Away from the forests, in the fertile plains to the south-east.

  But she said nothing about this to Elin. She remained silent about her vague longing.

  9

  ON 17 DECEMBER, shortly after half past two in the afternoon, they heard the sound of sleigh-bells coming from the forest. It was Vera who heard the horse. She had gone out to see if the hens had laid any eggs, despite the onset of winter. As she returned empty-handed along the narrow passage that had been dug between the metre-high drifts, she heard the bells. Elin and Hanna came running out when she shouted. The worst of the cold had receded, and it had been thawing during the day: but now there was a covering of new powdery snow over the frozen crust after a snowfall during the night.

  The sound of the bells came closer, then they caught sight of the black horse looking like a troll or a bear at the edge of the forest. The driver, wrapped in furs, tightened the reins and came to a halt just outside the cottage, which was surrounded by deep snow and misery.

  By then Elin had already told Hanna what she had expected to hear.

  ‘It’s Jonathan Forsman.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Nobody else has a black horse like his. And nobody else wears so many furs.’

  Hanna could see that was true when the man in the sleigh had stood up and they all entered the cottage. He was wearing furs from both bears and wolves, had been sitting on a reindeer skin in his sleigh, and had a red fox fur wrapped round his neck. When he wormed his way out of all the furs, which were dripping with snow and sweat, it was like watching a man who had been sitting for too long in front of a fire. His face was red and unshaven, his sweaty hair was stuck to his forehead: but Hanna could see that Elin was right – the man who was going to take her away was neither malicious nor threatening. He was friendly, sat down on a stool beside the fire and gave Elin a present: a hymn book he had bought for her in Røros.

  ‘It’s in Norwegian,’ he said. ‘But the covers are attractive, genuine leather, and the gold embossing sparkles if you keep it clean. Besides, Elin Renström, you can hardly read in any case! Or am I wrong?’

  ‘I can puzzle out the words,’ said Elin. ‘If that amounts to reading, then I can.’

  It was only in the evening, when the younger children were in bed, that Elin broached the subject of Hanna’s journey. They were sitting round the fire. Forsman was resting his enormous hands. Before the youngsters had gone to sleep, he had sung a hymn in his deep, resonant voice. Hanna had never heard a man sing like that before. The vicar who conducted services in Ljungdalen had a soft, squeaky voice. When he sung a hymn it sounded as if somebody was pinching him. But here was a man whose singing even silenced the cold that creaked and groaned in the walls.

  Elin explained the situation. In just a few words, but nothing more was needed.

  ‘Can you take Hanna with you?’ she asked. ‘She has to go to Sundsvall, to relatives who will take care of her.’

  Forsman listened thoughtfully.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be sure? What is there to be doubtful about?’

  ‘That your relatives will look after her? Are they on Renström’s side?’

  ‘No, my side. The Walléns. If it had been Renströms I’d never have dreamt of sending her.’

  Forsman contemplated his hands.

  ‘How long ago was it?’ he asked eventually. ‘That you spoke about it?’

  ‘Four years come this spring.’

  ‘A lot could have happened during that time,’ said Forsman. ‘But I’ll take her with me in any case. So let’s just hope there’s somebody there
who’s prepared to accept her.’

  ‘Surely they can’t all have died over the last four years,’ said Elin firmly. ‘Unless there’s been some kind of plague we haven’t heard about up here in the mountains.’

  Forsman now took a good look at Hanna for the first time.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I celebrated my eighteenth birthday the other day.’

  Forsman nodded. He asked no more questions. The fire continued burning.

  That night Forsman slept on the floor in front of the fire. He lay on his various fur coats spread out on the floorboards, covered only by the reindeer skin. His horse had been squeezed into the cowshed with the cow and the goats.

  Hanna lay awake for ages. No man had slept in their cottage since her father died. Now there was somebody else snoring and snuffling in his sleep.

  Forsman groaned as he breathed in and out, as if he was dragging a heavy burden behind him.

  The next day an occasional snowflake came floating down from the heavens. The mercury indicated minus two degrees. Shortly after eight in the morning Hanna sat down in the sleigh with the two bundles of belongings Elin had prepared for her. She had wrapped herself up in all the warm clothes she possessed, and Forsman wrapped a couple more furs around her – she could barely move.

  Her brother and sisters wept when she hugged them and said goodbye, first one at a time and then all of them in chorus.

  But Elin merely shook her hand. This was the way it had to be. Hanna had decided not to look back once she had sat down in the sleigh. She was weeping deep down inside when Forsman cracked his whip and the black horse started pulling the sleigh. But she didn’t show it. Not for anybody.

  She thought about her father as they set off. It was as if he were also standing there, next to Elin, watching her leave.

  He had returned, just for that moment. He wanted to be present when it happened.

  It was 1903, the year when famine once again afflicted the north of Sweden.