He pulled himself from the bed and threw himself on the bomb, trying to use his body to cover the blast. To protect his sleeping wife and his daughter in the next room from the burst of flame.
And then there came light.
By the time he was breathing again he was on the bedroom floor, his back to the dresser, his body covered in sweat, and in his arms my mother’s slipper.
Having heard screaming and banging, I stood in the doorway of their bedroom, and in the silence I watched my mother watch my father and I wondered if they knew, between them, how to fix him.
Lenni and Forgiveness, Part II
MARGOT WAS POISED, ready for my story. In front of her was a loose pencil sketch that she’d been doing while I drew my own design, and thought of the words to tell the story. My story had happened mostly in Swedish, so I had to make sure I had the right words to tell it.
Margot was wearing a plum-coloured jumper. It looked warm and itchy at the same time. I wanted to wear it, but also, to never have to touch it.
My picture wasn’t very convincing, but nevertheless I drew the final plate on the wonky table. The table wasn’t wonky in real life; it was heavy – a dark glossy wood, and neither a rectangle nor an oval but something in between.
When I started talking, Margot paid me her full attention. I liked that. She clasped her hands together, her fingers interlocking, and she fixed me with her bright blue eyes.
Örebro, Sweden, 2002, 2.42 a.m.
Lenni Pettersson is Five Years Old
I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of an almighty crash. All the pots and pans from the messy cupboard in the kitchen had probably fallen on the floor, but in my five-year-old mind, something terrifying had happened. A bomb had gone off. A car had crashed into the house. A stranger had shattered a window and was climbing inside, ready to offer me sweets and tell me to get in his van (we had just learned about strangers at school).
Then there was clanking, and scraping and thuds.
In all the films and all the books, nothing good happened to curious children. But I didn’t even think about staying in my bed. From the top of the stairs, I could see that a light was on, somewhere quite far away. The clanking had stopped, but now I could hear something else. A hiss. And chopping.
I stayed at the top of the stairs, listening, as slowly the salty smell of bacon danced its way up the stairs to meet me. And then something more acidic came too, oranges and onions. I sat at the top of the stairs and listened as the toaster popped and there was scraping. Lots of scraping.
I tried to picture him down there. The man in dark clothing we had learned about in assembly. He would try to get us on our own, they said. He would offer us sweets, or kittens or toys, but tell us there were more in the back of his van. He would try to get us to follow him, and then he would put us in his van and take us away. I wasn’t sure what he would do next, but whatever it was, it seemed like he would do something you wouldn’t want him to do. They said he would try to trick us. But they didn’t say anything about him sneaking into our houses at night to cook us a meal.
I scooted down one step on my bottom. And then another. I heard the knocking of bottles as he opened the fridge and the rustle of a bag. Maybe something with salad in it. I kept going, scooting down one step at a time in the way my father had told me not to do because it was going to pull up the carpet. When I reached the bottom of the stairs the toaster popped again, but this time he pressed the lever and I heard the toast slide back into position.
I padded through the dining room, ready to confront him, and I wasn’t scared.
But it was her. Dressed in a dirty white T-shirt and knickers. My mother. And then I was scared.
There was more clanking as my mother placed a new frying pan on the hob, and then she started cracking eggs straight into it. Her eyes were different. As though her real eyes had gone away on holiday, and what was left behind were some placeholder eyes that weren’t hers but would give the impression of seeing for the time being. A small snake of smoke was rising from the inside of the toaster. The smell of burning was getting stronger.
I heard someone on the stairs and my father, in his faded pyjama bottoms, came and stood beside me. He put his hand on my shoulder and we watched her. He had this expression on his face like he was watching someone far out in the ocean who couldn’t swim. He knew she was drowning.
And then the fire alarm started screaming.
My mother jumped and dropped her wooden spoon. Turning around, searching for a towel to flap at the fire alarm, she saw us and she froze.
The next night, when I heard crashing and chopping and sizzling, I stuffed my blanket under the door so I couldn’t hear or smell anything that was going on in the kitchen, but I lay awake anyway.
And what started as something so strange very quickly became something that the Pettersson family did every day. I would lie in bed at night trying to get to sleep before
