The Farm (12 page)

The Truth about the Summer of 1963

I was fifteen years old. School had finished. Long summer holidays lay ahead of me. I had no plans beyond the usual entertainments and chores, helping on the farm, cycling to the lake, swimming, picking fruit, and exploring. Everything changed one day when my father told me that a new family had moved into the area. They’d taken possession of a nearby farm. It was an unusual family because it was made up of a father and a daughter but no mother. They’d left Stockholm to start a life in the country. The girl was my age. After hearing the news I was too excited to sleep and lay awake contemplating the prospect of a friend close by. I was nervous because she might not want to be my friend.

The Truth about Freja

In pursuit of her friendship I spent as much time as possible in the vicinity of the new girl’s farm. Too shy to knock on their door, I resorted to indirect methods that might seem odd, but I’d led a sheltered life and was socially inexperienced. In between our two farms was a clump of trees too small to be called a forest. It was an area of wild land impossible to sow or harvest because of several large boulders. I went there every day. I’d sit at the top of a tree, facing the new girl’s farm. Each day I waited many hours, scratching shapes into the trunk. After a week or so I began to doubt that this new girl wanted to be my friend.

One day I saw the father walking through the fields. He stopped at the bottom of my tree and called up:

‘Hello up there.’

I replied:

‘Hello down there.’

They were our first words:

‘Hej där uppa!’

‘Hej där nerra!’

‘Why don’t you come down and meet Freja?’

That was the first time I heard her name.

I climbed down the tree and walked with him to their farm. Freja was waiting. The father introduced us. He explained how much he hoped we could become friends because Freja was new to the area. Though Freja was the same age as me she was much prettier. Her breasts were already large and she styled her hair fashionably. She was the kind of girl every boy paid attention to. She was less of a child and more of an adult whereas I was still a child. I suggested building a shelter in the woods, unsure whether she’d scrunch up her face in disgust at the idea, because she was from the city and I didn’t know any grown-up girls from the city. Maybe they didn’t like building tree shelters. She said okay. So we ran to the clump of trees. I showed her how to create a roof by bending saplings and tying them together. If this sounds like a tomboy task for two fifteen-year-old girls, then maybe it was. But physical activity was natural to me. It was all I knew by way of diversions. Freja was more sophisticated. She knew about sex.

By midsummer Freja had become the friend I’d always desired. I imagined saying to her by the end of the holidays that she was the sister I’d never had and that we would be best friends for the rest of our lives.

The Truth about the Troll

I arrived in the forest one morning and found Freja sitting on the ground. Her arms were clasped around her knees. She looked up at me and said:

‘I’ve seen a troll.’

I was unsure if this was a scary story or if she was being serious. We’d often tell each other scary stories. I’d tell her stories about trolls. So I asked her:

‘Did you see the troll in the forest?’

She said:

‘I saw it on my farm.’

It was my duty to believe my friend when she told me something was true. I took hold of her hand. She was shaking.

‘When did you see it?’

‘Yesterday, after we’d been playing in the fields. I went home but I was too dirty to come inside the house, so I used the outside hose to wash the mud from my legs. That’s when I saw the troll, at the back of the garden, behind the red-currant bushes.’

‘What did the troll look like?’

‘It had pale skin rough like leather. Its head was huge. And instead of two eyes it had one enormous black eye that didn’t blink. The troll just stared at me and wouldn’t look away. I wanted to call out to my dad but I was afraid he wouldn’t believe me. So I dropped the hose and ran inside.’

Freja didn’t play that day. We sat together, holding hands, until she stopped shaking. After hugging Freja goodbye that evening I watched her return home through the fields.

The next day Freja was so happy she kissed and hugged me and said that the troll hadn’t come back, and she apologised for alarming me, it must have been her imagination playing tricks.

But the troll did come back and Freja was never the same again. She never felt safe. She was always afraid. She became another person. She was sadder and quieter. Often she didn’t want to play. She was scared of returning home each evening. She was scared of her farm.

The Truth about Mirrors

Some weeks after she’d first seen the troll I found Freja in the forest holding a mirror. She was certain that the one-eyed troll was using mirrors to spy on her. That morning she’d woken up and turned all the mirrors around so they faced against the wall, every single mirror in the house, except for the one in her bedroom. She suggested we smash it and bury the shards in the soil. I agreed. She hit it with a heavy stick and when it smashed she started crying. Freja returned home that evening to find all the mirrors turned the correct way round. Her father wouldn’t tolerate such peculiar behaviour.

The Truth about the Lake

My plan was simple. Freja had only ever seen the troll on her farm. What if the two of us ran off to the forests far away? We could easily survive for a few days if we saved up enough food. If we didn’t see the troll then we could be sure that the solution would be to leave her farm. Freja agreed to my plan and we met on the road at six in the morning and started cycling. We couldn’t stay in the nearby clump of trees because we’d quickly be discovered. We needed to reach the forests that surrounded the great lake. These were forests so big you could disappear and never be found again. My parents were accustomed to me being outside for the entire day. They’d only start to worry when I didn’t show up for dinner.

A rainstorm started at midday. The downpour was heavy. You had to shout to be heard. Quickly Freja was too exhausted to go any further. Dripping wet, we dragged our bikes off the road. Once in the forest we camouflaged them under leaves and twigs. I created a shelter under the trunk of a fallen tree. We ate sugar-iced cinnamon buns and drank redcurrant juice. The food I’d calculated would last for three days was almost finished after a single meal. Every couple of minutes I asked Freja:

‘Can you see the troll?’

She’d look around, then shake her head. Even though we were wet and tired we were also happy, wrapped up in our rain jackets. I waited until Freja fell asleep before I allowed myself to shut my eyes.

When I woke up Freja was gone and the forests were dark. I shouted her name. There was no response. The troll had come for Freja. I began to cry. Then I became scared because the troll might come for me. I ran as fast as I could until I reached the great lake and could go no further. I was trapped against the water’s edge, certain the troll was only a few metres behind. I took off my jacket and swam. I’d never read a story where a troll enjoyed swimming. They were dense, heavy creatures and I was a strong swimmer for my age.

That night I swam too far. When I eventually stopped swimming I was the furthest I’ve ever been from the shore. The giant pine trees on the sides of the lake were so far away they were just specks. At least I was alone. At first this thought gave me comfort. The troll wasn’t after me. I was safe. Then the thought made me sad. I remembered I’d lost my friend. Freja was gone and when I returned to the shore I’d be alone again. My legs felt heavy. I was so tired. My chin dipped below the water, then my nose, then my eyes, and finally my whole head. I was drowning. I didn’t make the decision to die. But I didn’t have the energy to swim.

I sank below the surface. I should have died that night. I was lucky. Even though I was many hundreds of metres away from the shore, by chance that area of water was shallow. I rested for a moment underwater on the silt bottom of the lake, then pushed up and broke the surface. I gasped, took a deep breath before sinking back down to the bank. I rested for a little while then pushed up, breaking the surface, taking a breath. I repeated this process over and over, moving closer to the shore. With this strange method I managed to return to dry land, where I lay flat on my back for some time looking up at the stars.

When my strength returned I walked through the forests. Eventually I found the road but couldn’t find the hidden bicycles. Dripping wet, I began the walk home. Up ahead were the bright lights of a car. It was a local farmer. He was looking for me. My parents were looking for me. Everyone was looking for me, including the police.

The Lie

When I arrived back at the farm I kept saying the same thing:

‘Freja’s dead!’

I explained about the troll. I didn’t care if they found these stories fanciful. She was gone. That was all the proof they needed. I wouldn’t stop talking about the troll until they drove me to Freja’s farm. Finally my father agreed to investigate. He didn’t know how else to calm me down. He took me to their farm. Freja was at home. She was wearing pyjamas. Her hair was brushed. She was clean. She was beautiful. It was as if she’d never run away. I said to Freja:

‘Tell them about the troll.’

Freja told them:

‘There is no troll. I never ran away. And I’m not this girl’s friend.’

• • •

Dear Doctors,

I’ve been writing all night, the process has not been easy and I’m exhausted. We’re due to meet again soon. I’m running out of time and would like to sleep before we discuss these pages, so I’m going to reduce the following events to a series of quick points.

After Freja’s lie I was sick for many weeks. I spent the remainder of that summer in bed. When I eventually recovered, my parents no longer allowed me to leave the farm by myself. My mum said prayers for me every night. She’d kneel by my bed and pray, sometimes for a whole hour. At school, children kept their distance from me.

The next summer, on one of the first hot days of the year, Freja drowned in the lake, not far from the place where we’d sheltered together under the trunk of a tree. The fact that I’d also been swimming in the lake that same day meant that there were rumours I’d been involved. Children at school claimed I’d killed her. They thought it was suspicious that I didn’t have an alibi. These stories spread from farm to farm.

To this day I’m not sure if my parents believed I was innocent. They too wondered if maybe I’d chanced across Freja in the lake that hot summer’s day, maybe we’d argued, and in the middle of that argument she’d called me a freak and maybe I’d been so angry I’d pushed her head underwater and held her there, held her and held her and held her until she couldn’t lie about me any more.

The days that followed were the worst days of my life. I sat at the top of the tall tree, staring at Freja’s farm, and considered whether to jump. I counted all the branches I’d crash through. I imagined myself broken at the bottom of the tree. I stared at the ground and kept saying:

Hello down there.

Hello down there.

Hello down there.

But if I killed myself everyone would be sure that I’d murdered Freja.

When I turned sixteen, on the day of my birthday, at five in the morning, I left the farm. I left my parents. I left that area of Sweden forever. I couldn’t live in a place where no one believed me. I couldn’t live in a place where everyone thought I was guilty of a crime. I took with me the small amount of money I’d saved up and cycled as fast as I could to the bus stop. I tossed the bike into the fields and caught a bus to the city and never went back.

Yours sincerely,

Tilde

• • •

E
VEN THOUGH I’D FINISHED
, I held on to the pages, pretending to read, needing more time to collect my thoughts. At no stage in my life had I caught a glimpse of my mum as the lonely young girl depicted in this account, seeking the love of just a single friend. My failure of curiosity was so complete, a question presented itself to me:

Do I even know my parents?

My fondness for them had drifted into a form of neglect. An excuse might be that Mum and Dad had never volunteered any difficult information. They’d wanted to move on from the past and carve out happier identities. Maybe I’d justified my actions by arguing that it wasn’t my place to rake over painful memories. But I was their son, their only child – the only person who could’ve asked. I’d mistaken familiarity for insight and equated hours spent together as a measure of understanding. Worse still, I’d accepted comfort without query, wallowed in contentedness without ever investigating what lay beneath my parents’ desire to create such a different home life from their own.

My mum was smart to my tricks, aware that I’d finished reading. She placed a hand on my chin, slowly raising my eyes to meet hers. I saw determination. This wasn’t the lost young girl I’d just read about.

You have a question for me, a hard question for a son to ask his mother. But I won’t answer it unless you ask it yourself. You must say the words. You must have the courage to look me in the eyes and ask if I murdered Freja.