I found them in an oldfashioned desk with drawers and a hinged shelf for writing on. They were piled up inside a painted wooden box with the inscription annotwothousand in fancy lettering. The lock had been broken. It dangled on one thin screw.

Here at the desk was where the village postie katarinakarlsson had been sitting in the evenings opening letters. Read them and replaced them into their envelopes. The addresses were all to people in smalånger. I knew most of them.

152

TWENTYNINE

We were taken to sit in the back of the police car. A policeman was with us.

You do look alike he said. How old are you. Fourteen almost fifteen we said simultaneously.

His face looked sad. I wondered why. Today was full of joy. A day to celebrate. A day for lighting candles and eating sundaydinner. A day of freedom.

Your mother mrskippo he said. We contacted the minister and he should be with her soon.

Good for her I said. She likes priests.

We had prayed. In the byre we had put our hands together and prayed. Thank you dear god I prayed because you heard us.

Thank you dear god bror prayed because you heard us.

Thank you dear god mother prayed because you heard us. But so quietly only the lord could pick up what she said.

Mother had told us not to hide things. I had no intention to. I wanted everyone to know.

The words came easily. They poured out of my mind like the squitters. I told them about the byre and father and the horse and the puppy and bror and mother and jesus and the booze and the neighbours and all the bits and pieces that fitted into the jigsaw I called my life.

They took turns with breaks in between. One policeman left in tears. Another one took his place. 153

They kept prodding bror into saying something. Instead I told them about my failed attempt to kill father with a hayfork.

Whenever I remembered limerick griefstricken knots formed in my stomach.

In the end they asked me to describe father’s last day alive. How do you mean I asked.

From his perspective the policeman said. What happened to him that day.

So he died I said. And it wasn’t by chance. It was him or us.

But what if you were to describe your father’s last day as you think it went the policeman said.

I told him what I knew in the present tense.