A Darker Shade of Sweden (28 page)

Magnus, the Santa, has stopped asking about presents, turned his chair over to Emma's mother and rid himself of both cap and beard. Nobody stands in line in front of his stage; they've all switched to the Social Insurance Office grab-bag stand. Dark has fallen, the streetlamps are lit. The lanterns outside the Red Cross stand flutter forlornly.

Magnus is staying with Petra. They are waiting for the police. A couple of adults have left their stands to help search. Magnus paces, feels worried. The boy, Emma's brother, has fallen asleep in his stroller and Emma's mother sits frozen in her chair.

They don't talk of the things that can happen to a lost little girl. There is no need. Those thoughts live their own lives. That statistics and probability and experience all say that Emma will soon be found means nothing.

Petra just sits there. Is it shock that makes her immobile, Magnus wonders. He clenches his hands, opens them. His joints feel swollen. He thinks of his own mother. She was always worried. Always.

Is it her thoughts that make her like this? The stories she's read and heard and can't fend off, of what really does sometimes happen? Is she thinking about the children who never return home? Or who are found but harmed for life, with invisible scars that never heal? The children abducted, away from cars and precipices but into hidden recesses, locked up by someone they should never have met. Human monsters with strong arms, heavy bodies, cellars, incomprehensible desires, and strangling hands.

Why isn't she searching, Magnus wonders. He feels an urge to shake her, slap her. She is just sitting there, staring. He clears his throat. Leans towards Petra, crouches down, puts a hand on her knee. Tries to sound authoritative. Decisive. His voice quavers as if it were breaking. Petra doesn't even raise her eyes when he says that Emma won't return on her own. He knows how important it is to act quickly, the first hour has already passed and they are approaching the steepest part of the slope to disaster. Yet here she sits, the child's mother, letting the minutes pass.

“I have to charge my cell phone,” is all Petra says.

And Magnus takes out his own, puts in her SIM card instead of his own. They watch the phone while it searches for a provider. But there are no missed calls for Petra, no texts. Instead the police arrive.

There's a routine way to do this. It tells you which questions to ask and which observations to make. Police officer Helena Svensson even has a checklist in her pocket. She could pull it out and mark it off, but instead she squats down beside the chair where the mother, Petra, is sitting. She speaks in a low voice. Unless she manages to keep the mother calm, she won't get any answers. And right now nothing is more important than for her to get reliable information.

Helena Svensson takes this seriously. She asks about Emma's length and weight and what she wore. Petra doesn't have a photo of her.

“It doesn't matter,” Helena soothes her. “I'm sure we won't need one.”

Then she takes Petra's arm, stands with her and asks her to show her exactly where they were when Emma disappeared. Six of Helena's colleagues are already searching the area. The dog patrol is busy elsewhere but has promised to come as soon as possible. The square is badly lit, but the flashlights of the police are sweeping the ground, their swaying beams of light dissolving the December dusk. When Petra tells her that she doesn't know where Emma's father is, that she hasn't heard from him since he left four months ago and that she doesn't even know if he still has the same phone number, Helena excuses herself to step aside. A phone call later, her colleagues at the precinct have been informed.

Helena knows the statistics. Statistics are held in high esteem at the police academy. Around seventeen hundred children are reported missing each year. Helena knows that most of them turn up. Even before the police arrive at the scene most return by themselves, without any drama at all. Occasionally it takes longer, and that makes it important to act before the cold gets too severe, the darkness too impenetrable. Children can get lost in the night, fall asleep and freeze to death. And Helena also knows that if a child is in fact abducted, it is almost always by one of its parents.

Helena wants to know more about Emma's father. She can hardly contain her excitement. What happened when they separated, does his family live in Sweden, what's his profession, what does he do or not do. At that Petra gets angry. Almost screams at Helena not to be such a fucking idiot, does she really believe Petra doesn't get what she's after?

“Emma's dad hasn't kidnapped his daughter,” Petra spits. “If he'd wanted to see her I sure wouldn't have stopped him.” She breathes. “I do it all on my own, it's all on me. He doesn't contribute a dime, never changes a diaper, it sure isn't him wiping vomit or cooking, picking them up or dropping them off, dressing them and undressing them. If he wants her he can have her for as long as he wants.” Petra is getting breathless. She is falling to pieces. “Take her, I'd say if he ever asked, just take her and keep her.”

Helena nods to calm Petra. She's worried; there's nothing odd in her screaming, anyone this scared would scream. But Petra refuses to calm down, she's losing control. And her loud voice wakes her son.

“I have to get home,” Petra says when the boy tenses against his harness and tries to rise. “You have to call me when you find Emma, but I've got to get home. I can't stay all night. He has to have a new diaper and I have to feed him and I can't stay any longer to answer your stupid questions.”

Helena is surprised. It's true that you can very seldom predict how anyone will react to extreme stress. She learned that at the academy, but nobody has prepared her for this. Nobody has told her how to cajole a mother to help look for her missing child.

But Helena finds a new diaper in the stroller and offers to change the boy. That calms Petra down a bit. Someone gives the boy a banana to eat and when that's finished a female Salvation Army soldier gives him a sweet bun. Petra sits down in Santa's chair again, sipping hot coffee, and Helena walks off to call in. She wants to know if they've got hold of Emma's father.

But Helena never makes the call. People start calling to each other and though she can't hear what they're saying she knows it from their voices and their bodies. Then her colleague Stefan is walking towards her, holding a child in his arms; he is smiling and she returns his smile. Now they're all smiling, all gathering around Stefan. Applauding. The darkness seems to recede. Maybe they weren't truly worried as yet, but now they feel happy in a way they had hardly expected.

He found her less than thirty-five feet from her mother, deep under the improvised stage. He had to crawl in with his flashlight and backing out was even harder, but he managed and got Emma out. She had fallen asleep and her snowsuit smelled of pee. When he started pulling her out she woke up but didn't cry.

Helena feels a lump in her throat. She laughs again, calls out to Petra.

“Let's go to Mommy,” she whispers to Emma. “Mommy is waiting for you.”

When Stefan steps up on the stage with his smile and his precious burden, Petra rises from the chair. But she takes no step towards him, just puts her arms around herself. She can see that he has her daughter. But she asks nothing, not is she fine, is she hurt, is she alive. Nothing.

“She was asleep,” Stefan says. “But she's fine. I guess she was just hiding.”

Emma has turned her face and sees her mother. But she doesn't hold out her arms to her. Instead she turns back, pressing her nose to Stefan's chest. He tries coaxing her, doesn't she want to go to Mommy? She doesn't. Her thin arms are tight around the strange man's neck and Helena's smile stiffens.

But it's not really strange, she thinks. The girl must be frightened; she just woke up, everything is scary, she's so small. Not strange at all.

Petra is no help.

“Damn kid,” she growls. Her eyes are black. Then at last she lets go of herself and tears the child from Stefan. Emma starts to cry. She fists her little hand and puts it in her mouth and there is no sound, but tears trickle down her cheeks. “Have you peed?” Petra says when her fingers feel the wet snowsuit.

“I didn't mean to, Mommy,” her daughter whispers. “I didn't mean to.”

“Let's leave,” Stefan says, taking Petra's arm. Helena Svensson agrees. It's perfectly natural that the girl is afraid, with the high-powered flashlight shining into her hiding place and all the strange adults looking at her; it must be overwhelming. And Petra is in shock, of course she is numb. People react differently to extreme stress. Helena learned that at the academy. None of this is really out of the ordinary. Nothing is strange, everything is quite normal. Petra will soon calm down.

Now the boy too has started to yell. He screams very loudly but it's good that they're crying; children who cry and scream are seldom badly hurt. When they're silent is when there's cause for alarm.

“Have you peed?” Petra says again and this time she almost screams and Emma starts crying harder and now they have to get away from here, have to get into a warm apartment, and the children must get some food and dry clothes because now it is raining again, hard. Helena feels her pulse racing, her hands sweating. How could anyone calm down in this chaos? And if she gets this upset, is it strange that their mother can hardly contain hersel
f
? It must be a thousand times harder on her.

It's been a tough afternoon, Helena thinks, and everyone is jumpy.

“Let's go to my car,” Helena Svensson says at last. “I'll drive you home.”

But the mother doesn't seem relieved. She wants to fend for herself, take the bus home. “Why do you want to tag along?” she asks. “I can manage on my own. Don't you think I can manage? Anyone could lose a kid for a little while. She's back now. You don't have to check up on me. I'll manage, I always have.”

Helena Svensson has to insist. When they get to her car someone has called an ambulance. It's parked next to Helena's patrol car and Helena asks them to turn off their flashing blue lights. One of the paramedics takes a look at Emma and certifies that she doesn't seem to be harmed, doesn't need any treatment. She has scratches on one knee and a few bruises, one over her ribs and a couple on her arms. But nothing is broken. And she is hardly black and blue. She confirms it herself: it doesn't hurt.

Petra is standing beside the girl while she's examined.

“I guess she must have hit something crawling around in there,” Petra says, glaring at the bruises. Then turns to Helena. “It makes no difference how many times I tell her. She never listens. And she's so clumsy. Always running into things or falling down. If she'd just listen . . .”

The bruise on her ribs is yellowish, not even blue any longer.

And Helena thinks: Those aren't recent bruises, she didn't get them today. She glances at the paramedic. But he just slides his hand across the girl's downy back, pulling her shirt back down. Then he pats Emma's cheek. The examination is done.

Children always hurt themselves, Helena thinks. Always. At day care, for instance. She must have hurt herself at the day care center.

“I'll help you get settled,” Helena says to Petra. “You could use some help.” And for some reason she can hardly understand she goes on, to forestall any protests. “There are some questions I have to ask you for my report, and if we can do it at your place you don't have to come down to the precinct. I'm really sorry I have to; I know you'd prefer to be left alone, but those are the rules.”

Petra just nods. Now she looks tired again, exhausted.

Helena's partner drives. Petra and the children are in the backseat. When they arrive, her partner waits in the street and Helena enters the building with Petra and the children. The apartment is small but tidy. You can see all the rooms from the hallway. A bar of butter is lying on the sink in the kitchen but the beds are made, the living room floor is empty of toys.

Both children run off when their shoes and snowsuits are off.

“I'll shower her after you leave,” Petra says, calmer now, and puts Emma's snowsuit in the laundry basket by the apartment door. “Take your jeans and panties off,” she calls to her daughter.

Helena nods. The apartment is neat. Warm. Ordinary.

Helena shuffles her feet. Mumbles a few questions. Petra replies. She doesn't ask her in. Walks into the living room and Helena hears her turn the TV on. She considers following her, but doesn't.

“I'm hungry, Mommy,” Emma calls from the TV couch and Petra walks into the kitchen. Helena stands on the threshold, watching Petra pour frozen meatballs into a frying pan.

Helena can't think of anything more to say and retreats into the hallway. They agree to talk again next day. Just to follow up.

“Bye, then,” she calls to the children.

“Bye,” they say.

She can hear their mother lock the tumbler and put the door chain in its slot.

Helena Svensson walks down the stairs and out in the street. It isn't relief at having left that makes her turn around and look up at the apartment building, trying to find the windows of the apartment where Petra and her two children live. It's a different feeling. A jarring one.

Her partner waits in the car. He is older than her. At least fifteen years on the force. He wants to get home. As soon as he's let her off he will. Have dinner. Watch TV. Be with his family.

“What did you think of her?” Helena asks carefully. “The mother. Didn't she seem a bit . . . angry?”

“Who the hell wouldn't be angry?” her partner asks. He laughs and Helena feels her cheeks redden. He thinks she is silly, it's unmistakable. “Kids getting lost. Anything could have happened. She might have been stuck down there under the stage. Unable to get out, what do I know? And I guess she was embarrassed, too. Got half the cops in town out just because her kid fell asleep thirty feet away. Of course she felt ashamed.”