Grandma’s voice echoes in my head.
Her name was Birgitta, but she was of meagre gifts, as we used to say in those days. At some point they started calling her names. Her mother had died a few years before, and on her deathbed she had asked my mother to look after Birgitta. My mother, being the sort of person who always wanted to help, agreed.
Birgitta was a tall, ungainly woman, with straggly hair and small dark eyes that never looked straight at you. Sometimes, before her mother died, you would see the two of them in the village together, but after her mother left her alone in this world, Birgitta stopped leaving her hut. Before I moved away, my mother and I would take it in turns to take a basket of food up to Birgitta each day. The basket always contained exactly the same things, for it was very important to Birgitta that nothing ever change.
Between her grunts, her evasive eyes, and her habits, Birgitta could be quite unnerving. At times she could fly into a rage, when she would get so frenzied that she would even do herself harm. I remember one instance, when Mother and I brought her a table and two chairs that Mother had managed to convince one of the village boys to make for her. They were a little crooked and uneven, but we thought them better than nothing (at the time the only furniture Birgitta had in her hut was a bed and chamber pot). But Birgitta was quite beside herself; she started shaking her head and rocking back and forth on the spot, and then her grumbling grew to a bellow, and she started flailing around wildly. She gave Mother a real wallop, but the one who came out of it worst was her: she smacked her head against the wall, giving herself a great big gash in the forehead.
Was her hut where Pastor Mattias believed that evil lurked?
Was it on these pages that it began, the process that would end with Birgitta Lidman being bound to a pole in the village square and stoned to death?
It’s inconceivable to me that people would listen to that turgid, flowery language about supernatural and evil. But someone did listen.
Aina listened.
I make to turn the page, but lightning flashes across the sky, followed by a crack of thunder after only two counts. I flinch and then laugh, embarrassed, despite there being no one there to see it.
I put those sheets down beside me and reach for the folders that are wedged in at the top of my rucksack. I have to coax them out, and they’re so heavy that they almost slip from between my fingertips.
Grandma’s own research covered hundreds of pages. I’ve selected the most important information for the summaries I’ve given the others, but I had to leave most of it out: she had saved every single article ever written about Silvertjärn and the disappearance. Much of it is worthless: speculation, false leads, articles that just rehash what others had already written.
But some of it did surprise me.
NOW
I put the folders down on the floor next to me and thumb through them to find the one I want: MATTIAS ÅKERMAN. It lies beneath SKANDIJÄRN REPORT, ’92.
I have no idea how Grandma managed to get hold of a copy of the mining company’s report. The group that bought the company in the early 2000s rejected my request for a copy right off the bat, so when I found a yellowed but fully legible copy in Grandma’s files, it felt like I had stumbled across a goldmine.
But that wasn’t all I found in Grandma’s archive.
The folder labeled MATTIAS ÅKERMAN is so old that the cardboard is almost fraying. I’ve copied and replaced most of the other folder labels, but Grandma hand-wrote this one, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to throw it away. Her handwriting is neat and pragmatic. I run my fingers over the faded pencil text before opening it.
The first press clipping is short and almost illegible. It’s the copy of a brief notice in a local newspaper.
Nils and Edda Åkerman are pleased to announce the birth of their son, MATTIAS ÅKERMAN, born September 12, 1928. The christening will take place in Forshälla Church on Sunday, September 23.
I don’t know how Grandma tracked him down. I have no idea where she picked up his trail, or if she was even sure that she had found the right person. I only found her archive after her first stroke, and by then it was already too late.
I thought we would have more time. I guess that’s always the way.
The next clipping isn’t from the press. It’s the copies of some hospital records for a Mattias Åkerman, then eleven years of age. According to these, a Mattias with the same date of birth was admitted to hospital three times in the years 1939 and 1940: once for a broken rib, once for stomach pains, and once for a broken arm. The cause of his complaints is never explained, simply that he was treated and then sent home.
In the first two records, Nils Åkerman is listed as the guardian present. In the third—the one relating to the broken arm—that field is left empty. I don’t know if it’s down to laziness, or if it means something. Grandma has written “Living with uncle?” in the margin beside it.
The next clipping is a death notice. It looks like it comes from the same local paper, from late May 1940.
EDDA ÅKERMAN has passed away after a short illness. She is mourned by her husband, NILS ÅKERMAN.
Her funeral will take place in Forshälla Church this coming Saturday, June 5.
The notice features a dark, blurry image of a washed-out face. The features are difficult to make out, and the eyes are simply two darker spots in a white oval. She doesn’t appear to be smiling.
In the margin Grandma has written: “Already moved? No son mentioned.” And then, underneath:
“Cause of death?”
That
