Camilla Läckberg - The Hidden Child

‘I promised Elsy to take care of these. She didn’t want you or Anna to see them. But I assume…’ Kristina hesitated, then handed them over. ‘I assume that there comes a time when things should be revealed. And it feels as though this is the time. I think that Elsy would have given her consent.’

Erica took the diaries and ran her hand over the cover of the one on top.

‘Thank you,’ she said, looking at Kristina. ‘Do you know what she wrote in these books?’

Kristina hesitated, not sure what to say.

‘I haven’t read them. But I know a lot about the things that I assume Elsy would have put in those diaries.’

‘I’m going to go into the living room and read them,’ said Erica.

She was trembling as she sat down on the sofa. Slowly she opened to the first page of the top diary, and began to read. Her eyes raced over the lines, over the familiar handwriting, as she read about her mother’s fate, and subsequently her own. With growing surprise and agitation, she read of her mother’s love affair with Hans Olavsen, and how Elsy had discovered that she was pregnant. In the third diary she came to Hans’s departure for Norway. And his promise. Erica’s hands were shaking harder now, as if she were experiencing her mother’s rising panic when days and weeks passed with no word from him. And when Erica came to the last pages, she started to cry and couldn’t stop. Through her tears she read what her mother had written in her elegant script:

Today I took the train to Borlänge. Mother stood at the door and waved, but didn’t come with me. It’s getting harder to hide my condition. And I don’t want my mother to bear the shame. It’s so hard for me to do this. But I have prayed to God to give me the strength to see it through. The strength to give away the child that I’ve never met, but already love so much, so very much…

He never came back. He had kissed her goodbye, told her that he would be back soon, and left. And she had waited. At first feeling confident and secure, then with a slight pang of uneasiness, which over time surged into an overwhelming panic. Because he never did come back. He broke his promise to her. Betrayed her and their child. And she had been so sure of him. She had never even questioned the promise that he’d made to her, taking it for granted that he loved her as much as she loved him. What a stupid, naïve girl she had been. How many girls had been fooled by the same story?

When it was no longer possible to hide her pregnancy, she had turned to her mother. With bowed head, unable to meet Hilma’s eyes, she had told her everything. That she had allowed herself to be duped, that she had believed his promises, and that she was now carrying his child. At first her mother hadn’t said a word. A dead, icy silence settled over the kitchen where they were sitting, and only then had fear truly gripped Elsy’s heart. Because deep inside she had been hoping that her mother would rock her in her arms, and say: ‘Dear child, everything will be all right. We’ll work things out.’ The mother Elsy had had before her father died would have done that. She would have possessed the strength to love her daughter in spite of the shame. But part of Hilma had died with her husand, and the part that remained was not strong enough.

Without saying a word, she had packed a suitcase for Elsy, putting in all the essentials. And then she put her sixteen-year-old daughter on a train to Borlänge, sending her off to stay with Hilma’s sister who had a farm there. Hilma couldn’t even bring herself to go with her to the station; they had said a brief goodbye in the hall, before she turned her back on Elsy and went into the kitchen. The story everyone in town would hear was that Elsy had gone to attend a home economics school.

Five months passed. In spite of the fact that her belly grew with each week that went by, she had worked as hard as anyone else on the farm. From morning to night she had toiled with all the tasks assigned to her, while the aching in her back got worse from the kicking in her womb. Sometimes she wanted to hate the baby. But she couldn’t. It was a part of her and a part of Hans – and even now she couldn’t feel true hatred towards him. So how could she hate a creature who united the two of them? But everything had already been arranged. The child would be taken away from her right after the birth, to be given up for adoption. There was no other way, said Aunt Edith. Her husband, Anton, had taken care of all the practical details, muttering all the while how shameful it was for his wife to have a niece who had slept with the first guy to come sniffing around. Elsy couldn’t bring herself to contradict him. She accepted the reproaches without protest and without being able to offer any explanation. It was hard to argue with the fact that Hans had deserted her. In spite of his promise.

The labour pains started early one morning. At first she thought it was just the usual backache that had woken her. But then the pain got worse, coming and going, but growing stronger. After lying there, tossing and turning, for two hours, she finally realized what was happening and managed to roll out of bed. With her hands pressed to the small of her back, she had gone to Edith and Anton’s bedroom and hesitantly awakened her aunt. That was followed by frantic activity. She was ordered back to bed, and the eldest daughter of the house was sent to fetch the midwife. Water was set to boil on the stove, and towels were taken out of the linen cupboard. Lying in bed, Elsy could feel her terror growing.

After ten hours the pain was unbearable. The midwife had arrived hours ago and rather roughly examined her. She was stern and unfriendly, making it very clear what she thought of unmarried girls who got themselves pregnant. No one had a kind word or a smile for Elsy as she lay in bed, believing she was going to die. Each time a wave of pain washed over her, she would grip the bed frame and clench her teeth so as not to scream. It felt like someone was slicing her down the middle. At first she was able to rest a bit between the contractions, to catch her breath and try to recoup her strength. But as the hours went on the contractions started coming so close together that she never had a chance to rest. The thought came again and again: Now I’m going to die.

She must have said the words out loud, because through the fog of pain she saw the midwife glare at her angrily and say: ‘Stop making such a fuss. You’re the one who got yourself into this mess, so you can just get through it without complaining. Think about that, my girl.’

Elsy had no strength left to protest. She gripped the bed frame so hard that her knuckles turned white, and then a new level of pain raced through her abdomen and into her legs. She had never known that such pain was even possible. It was everywhere, penetrating into every fibre, every cell of her body. And now she was starting to get tired. She had fought the pain for so long that part of her just wanted to give up, to sink down and let the pain take over and do whatever it liked with her. But she knew that she couldn’t allow that to happen. It was her child, and Hans’s, that wanted to come out, and she would give birth to this baby if it was the last thing she ever did.

A new type of pain started merging with the contractions, that were so familiar by now. She felt a great pressure, and the midwife nodded with satisfaction to Elsy’s aunt, who stood nearby.

‘It will be over soon,’ she said, pressing on Elsy’s stomach. ‘You need to bear down with all your might when I tell you to, and that baby will be here very soon.’

Elsy didn’t reply but she heard what the midwife had said and was waiting for what would happen next. The feeling that she needed to bear down increased, and she took a deep breath.