Missing (14 page)

T
hey had supported her in the shower afterwards and then wheeled her across to the maternity ward. In four of the five beds in the room sat recently delivered mothers with their babies. They all greeted her pleasantly when she was placed in a bed next to the window, but she immediately rolled over on her side. The window had blue-and-white striped curtains. A small border had come off the bottom of one of them. Looking out meant that she didn't have to see them, but she couldn't keep out the sounds.

Initially, no one asked her anything. They were all preoccupied with minding their own new-born babies.

She had been longing to sleep on her front, but it was still impossible. Her belly was still really big, even though it was empty. She could sense its sudden emptiness. Her breasts were aching.

They came to see her after about an hour. First, they got her to sit up, then stand and walk. Walking hurt. She could feel the tense pain from
the stitches they'd used to sew her up with. Or at least, that's what they said it was.

Next, she was to speak with the doctor. She decided to stand instead of accepting his offer of a chair. He nodded at her and started leafing through her notes.

‘Now Sibylla, this seems to have gone very well.'

She said nothing and he looked up at her quickly, before returning to the brown folder.

‘Tell me, how are feeling?'

Empty, hollow. Used up and abandoned.

‘What was it?'

He looked up again.

‘Was what?'

‘The baby, what kind was it?'

This bothered him, maybe because he was the one meant to ask the questions.

‘A male.'

He bent over the notes.

A little boy. She had given birth to a little boy with dark hair.

‘Please, can't I see him?'

He cleared his throat, apparently displeased with her unexpected line of talk.

‘No, I'm afraid not. It's routine here, nothing personal. In cases such as yours, it has proved to be the best policy. For the mother's own sake, you see.'

Ah yes, for her sake. Why didn't it ever occur to anyone that she should be asked about what
was best for her? How come they all knew already what was best?

He quickly finished their talk. When she returned to her room, the women were smiling in welcome. A nurse helped her into bed and she turned her back on all of them.

During the afternoon visiting-hour, fathers and relations and friends poured into the room to admire the babies. The visitors pretended not to see her back.

In the evening, only the mother in the next bed had an unbroken night's sleep. Maternal duties kept the rest of them awake. She heard them chatting quietly about their babies. He cries such a lot, I think it's his slow bowels. She always prefers the left breast – knows what she wants already, little madam. Look, he almost smiled, isn't he lovely!

She slowly got out of bed. If she hauled herself up sideways, it only hurt just before her feet took her weight.

The corridor outside was empty. She walked past the window to the nurses' station without anybody noticing her. The babies slept next door. She looked into the babies' room and it was empty apart from one plastic box on wheels in the middle of the floor. It was a baby-carrier of the kind that was wheeled along to the other
mothers in the ward. Her heart was pounding as she cautiously closed the door behind her and tiptoed into the room.

A little head.

A tiny head, covered in dark hair. This was her child. Now she was trembling all over. Looking intently into the cot, she saw her baby's ID number on the note behind his head.

Her son.

She slapped her hands over her mouth to stop herself from moaning aloud. He had been part of her and had grown inside her. Now he was lying there, all alone. She had abandoned her baby boy.

He was so very tiny, lying there on his side sleeping. She could have made a pillow for his head with the palm of her hand. Gently, with one finger, she stroked the dark hair. He twitched and drew a deep breath, making a little noise like a sob. She bent over him, putting her nose to his ear.

This was intolerable. The emotion was welling up suddenly inside her.

They shouldn't have been allowed to do this, not for any reason. He was her child. They would have to kill her before she let him go. She knew with her whole being that she could never betray him, never abandon him. Never leave him alone in a plastic box crying himself to sleep.

Now she had become more courageous. She
slid her hands carefully underneath his small body and lifted him. She held him close, very close, feeling that this was how it should be.

He stayed asleep. She inhaled his baby smell with the tears running down her cheeks. She was cradling her little boy in her arms. Now she was no longer alone.

The door opened.

‘What are you doing?'

She stayed where she was. She recognised the nurse, who had helped her into the doctor's room earlier that day.

‘Sibylla, you must put the baby down. Come on. Let's go back to the ward now.'

‘He's my son.'

The nurse seemed uncertain about what to do, but reached out her arms in order to take the baby away. Sibylla turned her back.

‘I'm not letting go of him.'

Now she felt the other woman's hand on her shoulder. She shrugged to get free and the movement woke the child in her arms. He whined a little, but stopped when she gently stroked his head.

‘Hush, hush my darling. Mummy's here.'

The nurse was on her way out of the room. Sibylla put her hand behind his head to get a better look at his face. His eyes had opened, small dark blue eyes moving about in order to find something to focus on.

A moment later, they were back. Four of
them this time and one of them was a man. He walked straight up to Sibylla and spoke to her authoritatively.

‘Put the baby down now.'

‘He's my baby.'

The man hesitated for a moment, Then he pulled out a chair for her.

‘Why don't you sit down?'

‘No thanks. Sitting still hurts.'

One of the others came up to her.

‘Listen, Sibylla, behaving like this doesn't solve anything. You're just making it worse for yourself.'

‘Worse? How?'

They looked at each other in turn. One of them left the room.

‘Sibylla, everyone has agreed the child is to be adopted. He'll have the best possible opportunities, so you mustn't worry.'

‘I haven't agreed to anything. And I want to keep him.'

‘Sibylla, I know it's hard and I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do about it, you know.'

They were crowding her.

Three against one and the fourth presumably on her way back. She might bring reinforcements. Everyone was against her, they were all playing in the opposing team. She was facing them alone, with only her baby on her side.

The two of them against the rest of the world. So what? She wouldn't abandon him.

The man pushed the chair away.

‘There are two ways to deal with this situation. Either you put him back in his cot yourself and leave quietly. Or else we'll have to force you.'

Her heart was beating hard. They were going to take him away again.

‘Please, can't you see? I'm his mother. You know that. You mustn't take him away, he's all I've got.'

The tears were coming now. Her whole body shook and her head was spinning. She closed her eyes. I shall not fall ill again. Not ill.

When she opened her eyes again, it was too late.

The man was about to leave the room, holding her son in his arms. Two other men in white clothes had arrived. They grabbed her arms.

Her child was crying. She could hear the sound disappearing down the corridor.

She never saw her son again.

‘T
hat's a fucking crime! Were they allowed to do that?'

She didn't reply. She was wondering what had made her tell the story especially since she had never even mentioned it to anyone before. Her loss had been gnawing at her all the time, like a swallowed shard of glass. Its unyielding edge had kept the wound raw, but she had never before expressed her grief in words.

Maybe she had told him because he was about the same age as her son. Or maybe because of everything – the hopelessness of it all. No more point in keeping quiet.

‘But what happened afterwards?'

She hesitated. These were memories she had tried hard to forget.

‘They had to lock me up. I was kept in a mental hospital for almost half a year. By then I just couldn't hack it any more.'

‘Jesus … were you, you know, like … crazy?'

She couldn't be bothered answering. They sat in silence for while.

‘How do you mean, couldn't hack it? Did you go on the run?'

‘Yes, I did. Not that I think they chased me that much. I wasn't exactly a danger to the public.'

Not like now, that is.

‘What about your Mum and Dad? What did they say?'

‘Good question. Well, they said I couldn't stay with them. I was an adult and had made my own bed and could go lie in it and so on.'

‘Fucking sickoes.'

Indeed.

‘Then what did you do?'

She looked at him.

‘Are you always this curious?'

‘I've never talked to a drifter before.'

She sighed, raising her eyes to the ceiling. Well, then. Listen and learn.

‘First, I went to the nearest biggish town – it was Växsjö. I was scared silly that they'd find me and send me back to the hospital. I was moving about for a couple of months or so, sleeping in basements and eating what I could find.'

‘How old were you?'

‘It was just after my eighteenth birthday.'

‘That's three years older than me.'

‘Than I.'

He turned to look at her.

‘Than what?'

‘You should say “older than I”.'

He snorted.

‘Were you a damn prefect at school or what?'

She was smiling into the darkness. No, never a prefect. They didn't pick her.

‘No, but I was rather good at Swedish – at writing essays and things.'

‘Why didn't you ever get a job?'

‘I didn't dare tell people my name. They might recognise it, you see. I thought they were looking for me, that I was wanted by the police.'

The last phrase brought her right back to the present. Where exactly was this chat taking her? Time to cut it short, now.

‘Good night.'

He lifted his head, leaning on one elbow.

‘Hey, you can't stop now.'

He sounded disappointed, but she turned her face towards the wall.

‘It's almost eleven o'clock and I'm tired. So, good night.'

‘Please, just one more thing. How come you ended up in Stockholm? Can't you tell me about that bit, too?'

She sighed and turned again. The lamps illuminating the clock-face were throwing their white light into the attic, but its corners remained pitch dark.

‘Listen, I'll only say this much. If I were you, I'd go for a job in television. You wouldn't sleep
too well if I told you about everything I've seen and done and felt on the streets.'

She stopped speaking for a moment, tried to find the right words. How much of herself could she give? Then she sat up.

‘Six of these years are blanks, I hardly remember a single thing. Who I was with. Where I slept. I was drunk out of my mind most of the time. I didn't want to be able to think, because if I did I might lose my grip and sink without trace. You see, living on the streets gets to you. It's really hard to pull yourself out. The main reason is that you become unable to adjust to living in other conditions. You have to be able to conform to regular society and you
don't
want to
conform. It's a vicious circle. Patrik, you must listen to me. I know what it's like and you're just wrong about the freedom thing. It's a load of shit, all that about sleeping rough. You haven't got a fucking clue about what it's like, not really.'

She lay down again. For once Patrik was quiet, presumably silenced by her vehemence. Would he really stay all night? Maybe he was angry now?

Not another word. She could hear him stirring, testing different positions on the thin sleeping mat. Then the attic became totally quiet.

She felt too restless to sleep. Memory snapshots came and went behind her closed eyelids, in fast-changing sequences. His questions had
ripped the lid off stored experiences that she had avoided for years.

The memories of hitchhiking to Stockholm in the hope of merging with the crowds in the capital and so find some way to earn a living. How frightened she had been all the time that they would trace her, catch her and lock her up in hospital again. As if anyone had cared about her absence!

Then came the slow realisation of how difficult it is for someone without money, contacts or even a name to find a safe harbour. She didn't dare use her ID number, which meant that the Job Centres were out of the question. She had taken some illegal jobs as a cleaner or dish-washer, but moved on as soon as anyone at all became curious about her. Safety seemed to be among those who only knew each other by nicknames and never asked any questions except about drink or drugs and only when necessary. In the end, hungry and tired to death, she had faced utter humiliation, swallowed her pride and phoned home to ask for help. Begging for forgiveness, she told them she wanted to come home again.

‘We'll give you an allowance, Sibylla. If you give us your address, we'll send you the money.'

As always when she remembered this, her stomach contracted. If only she hadn't given in! She often thought that phone call was harder to bear than almost anything else she had been
through. It was intolerable that when she spoke to her mother for the last time, she had been reduced to apologising yet again.

The money started arriving. Because she had an income and spoke in dialect, her mates called her the Queen of Småland.

Her lost years began. She spent all her energy on staying intoxicated for as much of the time as possible. Nothing else mattered. With her brain activity permanently set on Low, most things became endurable. There was even a sense of security to be gained from the degradation that meant nothing was questioned and nothing was unacceptable. Slowly but surely she adjusted to the more or less overt contempt of people she encountered. The recognition that she was a loser only sealed her solidarity with the other outcasts.

For six years, this was her life – six years outside time.

Then, a turning point. It happened when she woke up on a bench near the Slussen walkway, heavily drunk, smeared with vomit and lying in a pool of her excrement. Around her stood an entire class of little primary school kids, watching her with wonder.

‘Miss. What's she doing there? Is she sick?'

‘Miss. Why does she smell so?'

A wall of children, all round-eyed with astonishment at this, their first insight into the downside of adulthood. The shocked teacher, who
was about her own age, turned up and protectively herded her charges away.

‘Come now. Don't look!'

Then a terrible thought had struck her. Her own son might have been one of the children and the state she was in was conclusive proof that her mother's decision had been right.

She turned to look at her new-found companion. It seemed that he had managed to sleep in the end. She crawled out of her sleeping bag to put her anorak over the boy. He was lying on his back with his arms crossed over his chest to keep warm.

How young he was.

His whole life ahead, unused. Somewhere her son had reached almost the same age.

She crawled back. Much longer in this attic and she'd go off her head.

Formulating this thought immediately led on to the realisation that something had happened to her – a good thing. She glanced towards her visitor again and thought that he had brought something else, much more important than spare-ribs and Coke. His respect for her as a fellow human being had granted her a new kind of dignity. For some inscrutable reason he was the one who had found her here. She was made stronger by his unreserved interest and admiration for what he felt she stood for. During the last few days some of her normal
instincts had seemed damaged beyond recovery, but now they were reviving. Most of all, her instinct to fight against the odds.

The worst darkness was lifting. Tomorrow she'd pull herself together, do something.

They wouldn't crush her this time either, so there. She wondered if the nationwide search for her was still on. Better get hold of a paper.