Chapter 89
“He had to be running away from home, I figured. He couldn’t produce identification either.
When I asked what he was good at, he said he could do most anything.
We’ll see, I said. When can you start? Well, he said.
Now? Or tomorrow? We happened to be in quite a pickle that day, because the ripsaw in the workshop was on the fritz and we needed it in the morning, for the firewood.
So I told him, okay, the saw out there is broken.
If you can fix it, get it to work, you can stay and work on trial starting tomorrow.
” The farmer laughed, astonished. “And wouldn’t you know, that bastard fixed up the saw in under an hour?
Anything else I can do? he asked, standing there in the doorway.
So he started the next day, Johan did, although of course I realized that wasn’t his real name.
Lived in one of the farmhands’ cottages. ”
Even though the farmer didn’t know who he was. Or, more accurately: even though the farmer knew he wasn’t who he said he was.
“He was with us for almost two years. Never complained, never sick, always a hard worker. I don’t know what he was running away from, but I knew he must not have had it easy.
So I made sure he had a good life here, and I figured he had it better at my farm than wherever it was he’d come from.
He wasn’t much of a talker, that boy, but with a work ethic like that there’s no need to be. I told him what to do, and he did it.”
“So he never mentioned anything about who he was or where he came from?”
“There’s not much time for small talk out here. So, no, he never said, and I didn’t ask. In any case, what happened later on had nothing to do with him.”
The farm was struck by hard times. It failed to recover, and the layer of “surplus fat,” as the farmer put it, had already been eaten up.
“He contributed a lot, Johan did. But I needed to rent out his quarters. That rendered him homeless, because I had nowhere else on the farm where he could stay. I couldn’t exactly pay him a wage, either, aside from some small change here or there.
So he didn’t have any savings to rent a place of his own.
” The farmer looked despondent. “I told him he was welcome to keep working, but he would have to find his own place, and I told him I certainly understood if he wanted to find another job. But there was a farmer not far to the east, up toward Djuparp, who I thought could use some help. He took off that same day. I offered to drive him, but he said no, no, I ought to use these feet of mine for something. That was Johan for you. It was the last I saw of him.”
But he never arrived in Djuparp.
“Anyway, listen,” he said, “that was all a long time ago, over a year ago now. But I called the farmer up there and told him a good worker was heading his way. He said he looked forward to meeting him and then I suppose a week or so passed. When no one showed up, he called me back and asked if I had been messing with him.”
No point in getting your hopes up, as Siri knew better than many.
Hope made you stop thinking clearly, kept you from separating the facts from the wishes, made you see what you wanted to see.
Even so, she felt a flutter inside her, a sudden warmth spreading to her stomach and up through her shoulders.
She took out a picture of Hampus Olsson, the most recent of his school portraits, from the autumn of 1999.
So many hands had held it by now that the edges were getting worn.
“Do you recognize this person?”
Standing in the hall, the farmer from Mj?la raised two bushy eyebrows, took the photograph between his thumb and index finger, and studied it closely.
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Are you sure? This isn’t the boy who stayed at your place? Johan.”
“Johan was blond, too, but he was a lot huskier, you know? Quite a bit bigger.”
—
Siri stepped out onto the stoop and felt the cold nip her cheeks; she began to trudge toward the others. Then she heard the farmer’s voice calling out behind her.
“Hey. Hold up.”
She turned around. The farmer was on the steps, something in his hand.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know if this will help, but this is Johan, during harvest time in 2000.
We always try to take a picture on the last day, before we celebrate the harvest. I just thought, maybe you know what happened to him, or you could find out.
Best farmhand I ever had. I hope everything worked out for that boy. ”
It was a framed group picture taken in front of the barn.
They were lined up like a motley soccer team, all of them: the farmer and his wife, their kids, the workers.
Siri counted fourteen people in all. The farmer pointed to a young man crouching down and glancing at something off to the side, as if he hadn’t expected to have his picture taken and couldn’t think of an excuse to avoid it.
Siri stared at it.
“Are you sure this was taken in the year 2000?”
“Yes, of course. First harvest of the new millennium. Although it was a bad year, as I recall.”
“Could you remove it from the frame?”
The farmer freed the flimsy photograph with surprisingly nimble fingers.
“You can borrow it if you like. Does this mean you recognize him?”
“No, but I can pass the photo and your information along to my colleagues, and maybe they can track down Johan.”
—
Siri shrank into herself as she walked alongside Vidar through Norre Katt Park.
“I’m so ashamed,” she said. “I don’t know what to say, especially now, with Filip. It feels like it’s all my fault. If only I’d said something, if I’d dared to speak up, maybe he’d be…”
“What?” Vidar said. “Alive? Probably not.”
“But maybe he would.”
Siri stopped and took her hand from her back pocket. In her palm was a photograph, folded double.