A Blessed Child Read Free

did not want to go.
    “It’s not that difficult,” said Laura on the telephone. “It’s signposted all the way to Stockholm. All you have to do is follow.”
    For Laura, this sort of thing was easy. But Erika had, for reasons she failed to understand, always done the exact opposite of what the signs said. If the arrow pointed right, she turned left. In her nine years behind the wheel, she had caused many near accidents and received several fines, just like her mother, who was possibly an even worse driver.
    Sometimes people would wrench open Erika’s car door in the middle of a road junction just to shout at her. The difference between Erika and her mother was that Erika apologized whereas her mother shouted back.
    Laura said once that Erika’s nature behind the wheel, so totally contrary to her nature in all other areas of life, grew out of a profound split, an unspoken rage. Erika did not agree. She attributed this lack of confidence to some kind of dyslexia, an inability to read and process simple signs and codes or calculate distances.
    Before Erika got into the car and drove off, she rang Laura and said: “Can’t you take some time off, too? Can’t you come with me?”
    “Actually, I’ve got the day off today,” Laura answered.
    Erika could hear her gulping coffee and visualized her sitting in front of her computer, surfing the Internet, still in her pajamas though it was nearly eleven. Erika said: “I mean, can’t you take the week off and come with me to Hammarsö? You could drive,” she added.
    “No!” retorted Laura. “It’s not that easy to get a substitute teacher. And anyway, none of them want to take my class.”
    “Can’t you come down at the weekend, at least? I’m sure Isak wants to see both of us.”
    “No!” said Laura.
    “It would be an adventure,” said Erika.
    “No,” repeated Laura. “I can’t. Jesper’s got a cold. We’re all exhausted. Everything’s falling apart. The last thing I have the energy to think of right now is going down to Hammarsö to see Isak, who, besides everything else, I am sure doesn’t want to see us.”
    Erika would try again. Erika wouldn’t give up. It was perfectly feasible to get a substitute teacher. Laura always moaned about her students, but in fact she didn’t like entrusting them to other people; she didn’t like other people doing her job. Nobody did it well enough, in her view.
    Erika said: “What if Isak dies while I’m there?”
    Laura laughed out loud and said: “Don’t count on it, Erika! The old man will outlive us all.”

Chapter 6
    Every summer from
1972
to
1979
, Erika had flown by herself from Oslo to Stockholm, and then taken a smaller plane down to the port on the Baltic coast that was the last stop on her journey. She had a big blue plastic wallet around her neck; inside the wallet were her plane tickets and an official-looking piece of documentation on which her mother had written who was escorting her to the airport in Oslo and who would meet her at the airport in Sweden, as well as her name, age, and other such information.
    “In case the stewardess loses you when you’re changing flights in Stockholm,” Erika’s mother told her, putting a large, flowery handkerchief to Erika’s nose and telling her to blow. Hard.
    “Blow it all out before you get on the plane. Isak doesn’t want children with colds coming to visit.”
    Elisabet had long auburn hair, strong, well-turned legs, and high-heeled, snot-green pumps. Erika was her only child.
    “And if the stewardess happens to lose you, then find another stewardess and show her this sheet of paper,” she said. “Are you listening, Erika? Can you manage that? All you have to do is show her the paper.”
    At the airport in the town on the shores of the Baltic, Rosa and Laura would be waiting for her. The drive to Hammarsö took an hour and a half, but sometimes they had to wait in a queue of cars to get onto one of the two ferries that transported residents and