The Ice Child

FJÄLLBACKA 1975

It was a day like all the others, just as dark and filled with hopelessness. Laila had spent another sleepless night, with the minutes slowly plodding towards morning.

The Girl had spent the night in the cellar. Laila no longer felt sad about putting her down there. She had abandoned all thought of trying to protect her. She had given up any notion that it was a mother’s duty to do everything for her child. Instead, she felt only relief that she no longer had to be afraid. Peter was the one that Laila needed to protect.

She had stopped worrying about her own injuries. The Girl could do whatever she liked to her. But the darkness in her daughter’s eyes when she succeeded in causing pain was far too frightening to ignore, and several times the Girl had injured Peter when she unexpectedly exploded in rage. He hadn’t known how to defend himself, and on one occasion she had pulled his arm out of the socket. Whimpering and terrified, he had hugged his arm to his body, and they’d been forced to take him to the hospital. On the following day Laila had found knives under his bed.

It was then that Vladek had finally crossed the boundary. Suddenly the chain and shackles appeared in the cellar. She hadn’t heard him working down there, hadn’t realized that he’d found a way for them to sleep securely at night and have some peace during the day. He said it was the only solution. It wasn’t good enough to lock the Girl in her bedroom, and she needed to understand that what she did was wrong. They couldn’t handle her fury, those unpredictable outbursts, and the bigger and stronger she got, the worse the injuries she’d be able to inflict. Even though Laila knew it was madness, she hadn’t felt able to object.

The Girl had protested at first. She screamed and hit her father, scratching his face as he stoically carried her down to the cellar and put on the shackles fastened to the chain. Vladek had treated his wounds with antiseptic cream and bandaged them as best he could. To his customers he’d said that the cat had scratched him. No one questioned his explanation.

Finally the Girl had resigned herself to the situation and stopped resisting. Listlessly she submitted to being chained. If they had to leave her there for a long time, they would put food and water in bowls, as if feeding an animal. And that was how they had to treat her as long as she continued to enjoy causing pain and was fascinated by blood and screams. When she wasn’t in the cellar or in her bedroom, she had to be constantly watched. And most often it was Vladek who did that. Even though the Girl was small, she was already very strong and quick, and he didn’t trust that Laila would be able to control her. Nor did she. So Vladek would watch the Girl while she took care of Peter.

On that morning everything went wrong. Vladek had also found it hard to sleep in the night. The moon had been full, and hour after hour he had lain awake beside Laila, staring up at the ceiling. When they finally got up, he was feeling cross and exhausted. It turned out there was no milk left, and since Peter refused to eat anything but oatmeal and milk for breakfast, Laila put him in the car and drove over to the Konsum supermarket.

Half an hour later they were back home. Carrying Peter in her arms, Laila got out of the car and hurried to the house. He was hungry, and he’d already had to wait too long for his breakfast.

As soon as she stepped into the front hall, she knew that something was wrong. There was an eerie silence in the house, and Vladek didn’t answer when she called his name. She put Peter down and held her finger to her lips to tell him to keep quiet. He gave her a worried look but obeyed.

Cautiously Laila went into the kitchen. It was empty, but she saw the remains of breakfast on the table. One cup for Vladek and one for the Girl.

Then she heard a voice in the living room. A shrill girl’s voice monotonously rattling off one sentence after another. Laila tried to decipher the words. Horses, lions, fire – words from all the enchanting stories about the circus that Vladek had told them.

Slowly Laila moved towards the sound. She had a bad feeling inside, and she was reluctant to take the last few steps. She didn’t want to see what she suspected she would find, but there was no turning back.

‘Vladek?’ she whispered, but she knew it was in vain.

She went over to the sofa, and then she couldn’t hold back the scream. It rose up from her stomach, from her heart and her lungs, and it filled the whole room.

The Girl was smiling, looking almost proud. She didn’t react to the sound except to tilt her head to look at Laila, seeming to savour her mother’s pain. She was happy. For the first time Laila saw happiness in her daughter’s eyes.

‘What have you done?’ She could hardly form the words as she staggered forward and tenderly pressed her hands to Vladek’s cheeks. His eyes were open wide, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. And she remembered that day at the circus when their eyes met and they both knew that from then on, their lives were about to change. If they had known what would happen later, they probably would have gone separate ways and continued to live the lives that were expected of them. That would have been best. Then the two of them would not have created this monster.

‘This is what I’ve done,’ said the Girl.

Laila raised her eyes to look at her daughter as she perched on the arm of the sofa. Her nightgown was covered in blood, and her long dark hair was tangled, hanging loose down her back. She looked like a troll child. The anger she must have felt when she repeatedly stabbed her father had already faded, and she seemed calm and amenable. Even content.

Laila turned back to look at Vladek, the man she loved. She saw stab wounds in his chest and a deep gash in his throat, as if he were wearing a red scarf.

‘He fell asleep.’ The Girl drew her legs up to her body and rested her head on her knees.

‘Why did you do that?’ asked Laila, but the Girl merely shrugged.

A sound behind them made Laila turn around. Peter had come into the living room. His eyes were filled with terror as he stared at Vladek and then at the Girl.

His sister looked at him. Then she said, ‘You have to save me.’

Laila felt a chill race down her spine. The Girl was speaking to her, not to Peter. She looked at the slender girl and tried to remind herself that she was only a child. But she knew what the Girl was capable of doing. In truth, she had always known. That was why she understood the menace behind the words. She would have to do exactly that: save her.

Laila stood up. ‘Come with me. Let’s wash off the blood. Then I’m going to have to chain you up, like Pappa used to do.’

The Girl smiled. Then she nodded and followed after her mother.