Chapter 7
Midsummer Memories
"Well, we knew it might rain, huh?" Oskar declared as he felt the first, light spatters strike his face.
Eli stopped walking, craned her head up, and looked at the dark, cloudy sky. She, too, felt the raindrops, and she paused to enjoy the sensation. A gust of wind blew the warm, June air across the trail.
She opened her mouth and extended her tongue, trying to catch some drops. Oskar looked at her, grinned, and did the same.
A burst of lightning ripped across the sky, and for a second Oskar could clearly see the trail ahead of them, winding upwards through the dense pines. Then thunder boomed ominously almost directly overhead, and the intensity of the rain increased.
Oskar stopped catching raindrops and nervously squeezed Eli's hand. "I think we'd better find someplace out of the rain."
"We passed a shelter a little ways back," Eli replied. "Want to go back to that?"
"Sounds good. Let's go!" They turned and began trotting back the way they'd come.
They had gone only a little way before the cloudburst. The wind increased, the temperature dropped, and there were more rolls of thunder. Oskar ran faster and faster through the drenching rain, Eli by his side.
Soon they returned to the place in the narrow trail where a short, smaller path led to a shelter. It was a three-sided structure made of rough-hewn logs, about three by six meters in size, with a sloped roof and an modest overhang over the open side. Inside it offered a raised platform for campers to sleep off the ground. They climbed in, sat down, and looked out as another bolt of lightning lit up the rain whipping through the swaying pines across the trail.
"I'm soaked," said Oskar, gasping to catch his breath. He ran his fingers though his hair, pushing it back off his forehead and squeezing the water out. He took off his backpack, then stripped off his T-shirt and wrung it out.
Eli shook her head, spraying Oskar with water from her hair. "Hey!" He turned his face away, then glared at her in mock anger once she stopped shaking. She gave him a teasing grin, and he smiled back. How could he not smile when she looked at him that way? He flapped out his shirt and put it back on.
He took her hand and returned his attention to the driving rain. "Listen to the wind! It's really coming down now. Sure am glad we were able to get back here." Then he slid over so that his back was against the nearest shelter wall, put his backpack behind him, and motioned to Eli to come over. She crawled over and sat between his outstretched legs, then leaned back against his chest. He encircled her in his arms and kissed the wet hair at the top of her head. She smiled and closed her eyes to listen to the rain; pressed herself closer to him as her hands warmed under his.
"I've always loved to listen to the rain," she remarked. "Ever since I was little, I can remember being in bed with my brother and sister—sometimes we'd just lie there, listening to that sound on the roof, just like now—well, usually the rain wasn't so hard, I guess. But it always made me feel . . . safe. That I was inside and warm, while the rain was coming down outside. I'd fall asleep, listening to the rain."
"Yeah," Oskar replied. "Like the feeling you get when there's a winter storm outside your window at night." Then he asked, "You slept with your brother and sister?"
"Mmm-hmm. That's the way it always was. All in one bed, in the same room, growing up. Our house wasn't very big, Oskar. We were poor."
"Your dad was a farmer?"
"Yes."
"What was his name?"
"Johan."
"And your mother's?"
"Anna."
"So . . . do you have a last name?"
"Johansson."
"Elias Johansson."
Eli did not respond immediately. She seemed to think about it for a moment; then nodded yes. Another thunderclap boomed not too far away as the storm continued its path to the southeast.
Oskar gave Eli's hands a little squeeze. "Is this upsetting you? That I'm asking these questions?"
"No. I just haven't heard anyone say my full name in a long, long time. And it seemed strange to hear it. That's all."
With bemused wonderment Oskar murmured, "I love Elias Johannson. Hmm. Who would've guessed."
Eli turned her head to the side and up to look at him. Her dark eyes searched out and found his, and she smiled. "Yes. That's me. And I love Oskar Eriksson. More than anything in the whole world." She kissed him lightly on the cheek, then turned back and snuggled into him.
"Did you ever see your brother and sis—well, what were their names?"
"Jacob and Asa. Jacob was the oldest. I was the youngest."
"Did you ever see any of your family after . . . what happened to you?"
The rain continued to sweep across the roof in sheets. Then Oskar heard a harder, tapping sound over the rain, and realized that hail was coming down. He suddenly appreciated how cool it had become, and he shivered; then hugged Eli more tightly to himself.
She stiffened in his arms. "I'm not sure I want to talk about that."
"Oh, okay. I'm sorry." Oskar felt badly that he might have upset her. I should've known it'd be painful. Brilliant move, Oskar. He loosened his embrace.
Eli scooted away from him a little, and for a moment he worried that he really had upset her; but then she turned to face him, sitting cross-legged on the rough, wooden floor.
"It's okay, Oskar. I figured someday we'd talk about this. Wasn't sure what I'd tell you, but . . . well, you know so much about me already. I suppose anything more won't matter. At least, I hope it won't."
The hail continued to patter around them, and distant lightning flashed. Oskar felt a growing unease, but did not hesitate in responding. "Eli—you know how much I love you. Nothing you can say will change that. If you don't want to talk any more about this, that's fine. Or if you want to tell me, that's fine, too."
She looked directly at him; then spoke in a flat, toneless voice. "I never saw my father, mother, or sister again. When I went back to my home, they were gone and some man I didn't know was living there. He had taken over our farm."
"Did you talk to him? Find out what'd happened?"
"No." She looked away and her expression darkened. "I killed him. Because I became . . . very angry—even though he hadn't done anything. I went into a rage."
Oskar's face became wooden, masklike, and he slowly nodded. Then he said stiffly, "I guess I can understand how you'd feel."
"I am not sure you can, Oskar. You were upset when we first came to Karlstad because you were away from your family. You missed your mother. And I told you I understood how you felt, about being separated from your parents. Because I was separated from my family and was a prisoner for two years. When I was just a kid. And when I was finally set free, and tried to go back to the only thing I knew, the only kin I had, I discovered that they'd also been taken away from me. And I think that they were taken away because of what happened to me. So that no one would ever know or find out . . . so I'd have no one to tell. And even if I had seen my folks, I don't know what I would've done. Seeing how things were for me."
Oskar's appreciation of Eli's suffering deepened. He tried to imagine what it would be like: to live through what Eli had shown him at the cottage by the lake, and was telling him now. He tried to think of what he would've done, if it had been him instead of her. He thought he would've gone crazy from the fear and the loss. To be 12 years old and have his parents wiped out, taken away without a trace. Set loose in the world with no one; to find a stranger living in his home. He couldn't imagine it—it was just too painful.
He reached out and put a hand on her knee. "That's . . . the most awful thing I've ever heard, Eli. Was there—did you find anything of yours, or that had belonged to your parents, when you went back there?"
He saw the bitterness on Eli's face before she looked down. "There was nothing. Not a trace."
Oskar was at a loss for words. He wanted to hug her, but somehow it just didn't seem right. The painful memories he had stirred within her with his questions felt like an invisible barrier, and he was afraid that if he tried to embrace her, she would perceive it as pity and take his gesture the wrong way. So instead, he tentatively reached over and touched her hand. And when she did not pull away, he carefully clasped it into his. Then he remembered what she had said, and a new, hopeful question rose in his mind.
"How about your brother, Jacob? What happened to him?"
There was a long, long pause. A feeling of dread arose in the pit of Oskar's stomach, and expanded with each passing second.
When he had begun to think that she wasn't going to answer, Eli squeezed his hand without looking up. Her eyes were open, but she was looking down at her lap.
Then her head trembled as she slowly looked up and stared into his eyes. It was the same sort of look that she had given him just before she had started to bleed to death in his apartment. A look that said, I can't believe I'm about to say this—but I'm trusting in you.
"I . . . I killed him."
When she saw the shocked look on his face, Eli's expression broke, then dissolved. Her voice cracked and tears welled up and ran down her face. "I . . . killed him . . . oh my God, oh my God, Oskar, I killed him, oh Jesus, oh Oskar, no, no, no—" She pulled her hand from his and bit her knuckle as she started to rock back and forth, her head dropping lower and lower as she cried in agony.
Oskar watched in stunned silence. Then he reached out, pulled her thin frame into his arms, and held her as she continued to cry with her head on his shoulder. Her arms went around him and she squeezed him tightly as her words spilled out between anguished gasps.
"Oskar, I've never told anyone that, never ever wanted to tell anyone—I can't, I—he was in there—they put him in there with me and starved me and he didn't know what I was, what I'd become, and . . . and . . . I—oh, I—tore him to shreds, Oskar, my own brother, Jacob, I—" Her voice hitched in her throat; her body was wracked as the living memory seared through her. ". . . I drank my brother's blood, Oskar . . . oh God, I don't, I don't want to be like this any more, no more, please, I can't—"
Oskar began to cry, too, and started rocking her like a baby, whispering Shhh, shhh in her ear. Then in between his sniffles he said, "Eli, Eli, it's all right, it's okay. It's okay to cry. Cry and get it out."
And cry she did, for many, many minutes, as she continued to speak in broken, almost incoherent fragments, until Oskar began to wonder if she would ever stop crying. Finally, she tapered off; then she withdrew from him. Oskar pulled a big, damp handkerchief out of his front pocket and offered it to her. She took it gratefully and blew her nose. Outside the shelter, the rain and hail slackened into a soft drumbeat.
Finally she got herself under sufficient control to look at him again briefly with a trembling, mournful expression. "So that's the story of my family, Oskar. And the story of me, Elias Johansson. Another part of the Bible I forgot to mention: Cain and Abel. Now you know."
Oskar pictured Eli inside the castle she had shown him, locked away with her brother. Imagined the bloodshed; imagined the anguish she must have experienced. How is she still alive?, he wondered. I would've killed myself a long time ago, living with that. Then he felt a hot surge of anger.
"You know it wasn't your fault, right?" Oskar declared, the outrage swelling in his heart. "It's not right to blame yourself for his death. It's all that—that evil man's fault. The guy in the castle. How could you, even for a moment, hold yourself responsible for what happened?"
"He picked me because of how I looked, Oskar. Maybe if I'd looked different, been uglier, he wouldn't have picked me. Then my brother would've lived. It is my fault."
Oskar's jaw dropped in disbelief. "What? How can you say that? You can't control how you look—you're born that . . . you get that from your parents! That's not a fault."
"I know. But it's the only thing I can think of that made him . . . choose me. If only I'd been—"
"Oh come on, Eli. That's crazy. Crazy talk. You're not being rational. Don't blame yourself for this. Like you just said, it was his choice. His evil, not yours."
Eli stared at him again with vast weariness. "Look at me, Oskar. Look at what I am. Do you see anything about me that's rational?"
For a moment, Oskar did not know what to say. He just looked at her, eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. Then he frowned and looked away.
Realizing that she had hurt him, she looked down and sighed. "I know what you mean, Oskar, don't get me wrong. A part of me understands that it wasn't my fault; that I was as much a victim as he was—maybe more so. But another part of me, here"—she pointed to her chest—"feels differently. Has to live every day knowing . . . what I did to my brother. And no amount of rationalizing can ever make that feeling go away. Ever."
Outside the rain slowed into individual patters, dripping down through the leaves. A distant, silent flash of lightning broke, making the hail on the ground look briefly like scattered diamonds. Oskar took both of her hands into his. This time he spoke softly. "I understand that, Eli. Really, I do. But don't you think that it would be better to focus on the things inside of you that are good? That somehow survived all of this?"
"Yes . . . I suppose so," she replied. But she spoke in a dejected tone, without conviction; he could tell her heart was not in it.
"Eli . . . why did you dare to love me?"
She hesitated and looked at him with a puzzled expression, unsure of where he was going. "Because I could tell you were a good person. Because you were kind to me; because . . . you cared about me."
"No—no. Why did you dare to love me?"
Now she appeared exasperated. "I don't understand your question."
"You chose to love me because the good side of you had the courage to hope. To want something better. Have you ever considered how . . . incredibly courageous you are? To even be able to hope like that, after 200 years of . . . of . . . sheer hell? Maybe you need to get a little perspective on yourself, Eli. I mean, I'll never be able to truly understand what it's like to be you, but I can imagine. And I know I'd never have been able to do it, that's for sure. I would've either killed myself, or been completely evil, a long time ago. But you . . . you must be—incredibly strong inside. Somewhere. To be able to do that."
Eli looked at him wonderingly. She was speechless.
Oskar looked directly into her eyes and squeezed her hands. "Eli . . . you are a beautiful, beautiful person. Don't ever forget that."
Again they came together. He pulled her head to his chest, and she wept.
But this time, for once, it felt good to cry . . . in the arms of her friend.
