The Ice Child

UDDEVALLA 1972

The girl watched her wherever she went, making Laila feel like a prisoner in her own home. Vladek was as bewildered as she was, but the difference was that he physically vented his frustration.

Her finger still hurt. It had begun to heal, but the bone ached where it had grown back together. She’d gone to the doctor so many times over the past six months, and lately he’d started to get suspicious and ask her questions. Inwardly she had cried with longing to lay her head down on the doctor’s desk and tearfully tell him everything. But the thought of Vladek made her hold back. The problem had to be solved within the family – that was how he saw it. And he would never forgive her if she didn’t keep quiet.

She had drawn away from her own family. She knew that both her sister and her mother wondered why. In the beginning they had come to Uddevalla to visit her once in a while, but not any more. They merely phoned occasionally, asking her discreetly how things were going. They had given up, and she wished she could too. But that wasn’t possible, so she kept them at arm’s length, giving only brief answers to their questions and trying to keep her tone light, her comments unremarkable. She couldn’t tell them anything.

Vladek’s family was in touch even less often, but that was how it had been from the start. They were always travelling and had no permanent address, so how could they stay in contact? And it didn’t really matter. It would have been just as impossible to explain things to them as to her own family. She and Vladek couldn’t even explain the situation to themselves.

This was a burden the two of them had to bear alone.