South of Forgiveness Read online

  Scribe Publications

  18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3065, Australia

  2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

  First published by Scribe 2017

  Copyright © Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger 2017

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

  The moral rights of the authors have been asserted.

  9781925321951 (Australian edition)

  9781911344056 (UK edition)

  9781925307979 (e-book)

  CiP records for this title are available from the National Library of Australia and the British Library

  scribepublications.com.au

  scribepublications.co.uk

  From : Thomas Stranger

  [email protected]

  Sent : Saturday, 21 May, 2005 5:38 AM

  To : [email protected]

  Subject : words for you

  Thordis, I don’t know where to start. When I saw your name in my inbox, my spine went cold. My memories are still as clear as day. Please believe me when I say I have not forgotten what I did, and how wary I have to be of myself.

  I don’t know how to reply. I want to call myself sick (but I know I am not), I want to say that you are so strong, so strong to be able to write to me and recall the events and my actions. I want to thank you for not hating me, although I’d like you to. It would make it easier for me.

  Without looking for a scratch of sympathy, I want to tell you that the events and emotions I was party to in Iceland have replayed in my head many times, usually when I am by myself for any length of time. They flash past me, vividly accurate, and then, shortly after the denial and positive character reinforcement, comes the question: ‘Who am I?’ It is a dark part of my memory. I’ve tried to suppress it.

  But this is not about me. Whatever I can do or offer you, I am more than willing. The question is where to go from here. You tell me.

  Tom.

  SEVEN YEARS AND FIVE MONTHS LATER

  21 October 2012

  My heart beats fast, in sync with the blinking cursor on the computer screen. My fingers tremble slightly as I type the name of my hometown into the empty field. Place radius by location name: Reykjavík, Iceland.

  Radius: 11,000 km.

  Enter.

  Without delay, the United States, Europe, and nearly all of Asia are covered in a green layer, along with most of South America and Africa apart from their southernmost peninsulas.

  Inhaling deeply, I delete Reykjavík from the field. After a moment of hesitation, I write the name of his hometown: Sydney, Australia.

  Radius: 11,000 km.

  Enter.

  Another green layer covers the opposite part of the world: the southernmost peninsula of Africa and South America, along with Southeast Asia. Fear gives way to curiosity, and I lean closer to the computer screen, fascinated. I knew we lived worlds apart, but it’s still remarkable to have it confirmed this graphically.

  Between the green layers is a thin strip on the world map, right in the middle between him and me. It nudges the toe of South Africa before arching across the Atlantic and South America where it embraces parts of Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. Zooming in, I read the names of the cities in question.

  With clammy hands, I click back to the window with the half-written email. I suggest we meet up in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Santiago … After pausing to hold my breath for a second, I add: … or Cape Town.

  The following day, a reply awaits in my inbox. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to South Africa,’ it reads.

  OK.

  Time to take fear by the horns.

  DAY ONE

  27 March 2013

  The taxi picks me up at a quarter to five and takes me to the bus station, where I’m booked on the fly-bus. The grizzled taxi driver, hoisting my suitcase into the trunk with a smooth manoeuvre, asks me where I’m going.

  ‘To South Africa.’

  ‘Oh, really? To Johannesburg?’

  ‘No, to Cape Town,’ I reply, still in disbelief at my own words despite the time I’ve had to adjust to the idea. It would be an understatement to say that the proposed meeting has been on my mind. It’s reverberated in every step when I’ve gone out for a run; it’s been in every breath of cold winter air that scraped the insides of my lungs; it’s soaked the wet washcloth I used to clean my son’s sticky fingers. And I’ve tried my best to push it out of my mind when making love to my fiancé, enjoying his warm skin against mine.

  After all, that would be a highly inappropriate time to be thinking about it.

  From the moment the destination was set, I adapted to a new calendar — ‘before or after Cape Town’. The last time I bought deodorant I automatically deduced that I wouldn’t have to buy another one until ‘after Cape Town’. Yesterday, when snuggling down with my three-year-old son to do some painting together, spending quality time with him ‘BC’ momentarily appeased my guilt for leaving him for ten days to travel halfway across the globe to face a man from the past — without any guarantee of the outcome.

  Something tells me that parents of young children are not meant to take such foolhardy decisions. That’s the reason I gave up my dreams of parachuting when I fell pregnant with my son. Then again, throwing myself out of an airplane at seven thousand feet carries less emotional risk than taking a trip down memory lane with the man who turned my existence upside down. Because it wasn’t an unknown lunatic who tore my life apart all those years ago. Who turned down the offer of medical help for me, even though I was barely conscious and vomiting convulsively. Who decided instead to rape me for two endless hours.

  It was my first love.

  Check in goes smoothly, but I don’t trust my suitcase to follow through to my final destination. In the past, it’s proven to be an adventurous traveler that jets off to Bali instead of accompanying me to respectable conferences in Finland, for example. Don’t even think about it, I mutter, and give my suitcase a stern look as it disappears behind the check-in assistant.

  On the other side of the window, an airplane takes off and fills the dreary morning with a thundering rumble. Ever since my son was a baby, he’s had a fascination with airplanes, peering up at them through his long eyelashes, and drawing contrails in the sky with white finger paint. Unsurprisingly, it was the only thing he wanted me to paint for him yesterday. I produced something that looked more like a disfigured penguin than a plane, but my son was pleased. He pointed at the painting and stated proudly: ‘Uncle is in an airplane.’

  A pang of guilt shot through me. My brother is, in fact, studying overseas, but since my son doesn’t understand the concept ‘abroad’, it was easier to tell him that his uncle is ‘in an airplane’. And that’s the explanation he’ll be fed while I’m on the other side of the globe seeking closure instead of being in the bosom of my family, organizing the Easter-egg hunt, and wiping chocolate dribbles from my son’s and stepdaughters’ chins.

  Oblivious to my inner turmoil, my son, who has recently begun to confess his love to me, grabbed my face with paint-smeared hands. Tenderness welled up in his eyes as he uttered in a silky-soft voice: ‘Dearest Mommy.’

  My heart ballooned inside my chest. ‘Yes, love?’

  Gazing at me through his blonde eyelashes, like butterfly wings, he said: ‘Never lose Halifra.’


  Although he’s reached the age of three and a half, he’s still prone to talking about himself in the third person, using the mispronunciation he invented when he was still too young to say his name — Haflidi Freyr — properly.

  Swallowing hard, I wrapped my arms around him, buried my face in the crook of his neck, and whispered that I’ll never lose Haflidi Freyr, never ever. It was the most honest love confession to ever escape my lips.

  Loosening my grip reluctantly, I forced myself to look him straight in the eye. ‘You know, Mommy will be getting on an airplane soon.’

  His big eyes grew even wider, the dimples bouncing on his cheeks. ‘CAN I COME WITH?’

  For a moment, the cat had my tongue. I’d anticipated a tantrum or even tears, but not the genuine hope that lit up my son’s face like a beacon on a winter’s night.

  ‘No honey, not this time. Maybe later, huh? You can come with Mommy on a plane later.’ I hugged him tightly. He pouted, his little arms dangling moodily from my grasp.

  He’ll get over it, I thought to myself.

  I was wrong. My son was unnerved and fussy for the rest of the evening and broke down crying when his father, Vidir, had the nerve to gaze lovingly at him and call him ‘munchkin’.

  ‘I AM NO MUNCHKIN!’ he screamed, tears of wrath spurting from his eyes. ‘I’M JUST HAFLIDI FREYR!’

  Last night, as Vidir helped me finish packing my suitcase, the wailing from our son’s bedroom was so relentless that we decided to let him sleep in our bed, between us.

  That is how I fell asleep on the eve of my trip to Cape Town: with my nose buried in the hair of a little boy who clutched my finger tightly and sobbed through restless dreams. I could barely make out Vidir’s silhouette in the dark, lying on the other side of our sleeping child. The last thought that went through my mind was how I had to be careful out there in the great, big world so I could return home to these two gems.

  Safe.

  I’m waiting in line for the airport security screening when the double standard hits me. One failed attempt at a shoe bomb, and we all dutifully take off our shoes to ensure each other’s safety. Meanwhile, the average day greets enough perpetrators of rape to fill thousands of jumbo jets, according to global statistics. Yet there are no official security measures in place to fight that pandemic. To be fair, it’s not as easily solved as screening someone’s boots, I admit to myself.

  My seatmates on the plane to Norway, the first layover on this mammoth trip, are an exceptionally well-behaved five-year-old girl and her mother. The chances that Haflidi would sit nice and still on a three-hour plane ride are non-existent, and I reward the girl with an encouraging smile. She hides under her mother’s arm, shy. It reminds me of my own mother, whose approval I desperately wanted before embarking on this journey.

  Yes, I am aware that I am thirty-two years old.

  It doesn’t change my childish need for my parents to bless my endeavors.

  My mother’s eyes flew wide open when I told her that I was traveling alone to South Africa to meet up with the man who raped me when I was sixteen. She strung together a series of hair-raising worst-case scenarios before letting out a sigh, looking at me with loving reluctance, and adding: ‘But I know it’s pointless to try to talk you out of things you’ve set your mind to, dear.’ Shortly thereafter, my dad interrupted my packing when he dropped by for a coffee. Despite my attempt to break the news to him in the gentlest manner possible, it didn’t prevent him from freaking out. He lectured me in a thundering voice about how I was jeopardizing my life for an utterly ridiculous idea.

  ‘But I have to finish this chapter of my life,’ I said softly. My cheeks were on fire.

  ‘Finish this chapter?’ he repeated, appalled, and jumped out of his chair. ‘You don’t need to travel across the globe to finish anything! This whole idea is a big pretentious drama, that’s what it is!’

  His words hit me right where it hurts.

  ‘You’ll have no control over anything. Nothing but your thoughts! Nothing else!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, confused. ‘I’ll obviously control my actions and whereabouts.’

  ‘No you won’t, dear,’ he hissed. ‘You can’t always. If you could, then that wouldn’t have happened.’

  We both knew what he meant by ‘that’, even though we’ve never talked about the incident that changed everything. In recent years, I’ve spoken widely and publicly about my status as a rape survivor — yet my father and I have never discussed that fateful night. He has never asked, and I’ve always assumed he doesn’t want to know.

  I sat up straight, aware of my glowing cheeks. ‘If you reduce me to victim and him to perpetrator, I can see how this seems incomprehensible to you. But we’re much more than that, Dad.’

  He scoffed loudly before storming out of the kitchen.

  I leant against the wall and let the air out of my lungs slowly. Goddamn it. I knew this would be hard, but bloody hell.

  My father appeared again in the doorway, pacing up and down with frustration I knew was fueled by fatherly love. ‘How can you be sure you’ll finish anything with this nonsense? This may just as easily be the start of something else entirely!’ The distress in his voice made it sound like a threat.

  I sat alone in the silence my father left behind him and watched the dust settle. In a way, I think we’re both right. This trip will surely mark an end to a certain chapter of my life. What sets me apart from my father is my belief that in the next chapter, I won’t be the victim any more.

  The seatbelt lights have been switched off, and I use the chance to unbuckle. While stretching my back, I’m met with my own reflection in the screen on the seatback in front of me. On the outside, I’ve always been fierce. During my college years, the word most commonly used to describe me was ‘intimidating’, something I was told by countless schoolmates in various stages of inebriation during parties. Unbeknownst to them, a part of my survival strategy was to project fearlessness. This was underlined by the safety pins I proudly wore, my willingness to try anything once, and my unwavering motto that ‘if a guy can do it, so can I.’ At the age of twenty-one, I’d moved to a different continent by myself, gotten a tattoo, and dated girls. However, the most effective way to hide my brokenness turned out to be overachievement. As a result, I aced everything, including the college education I completed in the States in English, my second language. I’d long realized that nobody suspects the valedictorian of leading a double life, especially one who also excels in all things extracurricular, represents students on the School Board, and holds a part-time job. Being insanely busy had the added advantage of leaving me with no time to dwell on the past.

  I turn on the in-flight entertainment system and browse through the TV programs. One of them is about a police unit that specializes in sex crimes that are, without exception, committed by armed and dangerous lunatics. Uninterested, I continue browsing. I’m done with that myth. When I was sixteen, my idea of sexual assault was of something that took place in dark alleys and was carried out by knife-wielding psychopaths. I’d watched enough TV that I didn’t question the stereotype. When it came crumbling down in my head later, and I realized that I had indeed been raped, my perpetrator was already on the other side of the planet, leaving me with the only option of bottling up my pain. It came at a cost. At the age of twenty-five, after nine years of keeping up appearances and suffering in silence, I hit rock bottom. I’d struggled with eating disorders, alcohol, and self-harm. Despite my shining achievements, I didn’t trust my judgment after having it fail so horribly in my first relationship. This led me to doubt everything: my career choices, my romantic choices, my self-worth. I was at war with the world, never really sure who the enemy was. As my past was still a secret that I didn’t trust anyone with, I found myself increasingly channeling my grievances into writing. Diaries turned into poetry that transformed into plays, and, before long, I was mak
ing a name for myself as a playwright. It was nothing short of liberating to make up characters that were free to speak all the words that I myself choked on. And everybody respected it as art, so I wasn’t bothered with uncomfortable questions, either. Simply put, it was perfect. Or as close to perfect as any profession could be for the deeply divided person that I was at the time.

  Regardless of my inner turmoil (or rather, because of it), my repertoire grew rapidly and my career started to take off. In May 2005, I received an invitation to attend a distinguished conference in Australia for the world’s most promising young playwrights. I went cold. The country of his residence — the man who had violated me when I was sixteen. A wild hope was born. Could this be a chance to step out of my cage and make him own up to his crime? My heart backed into the innermost corner of my chest, scarred from a previous time when I’d tried to word out my past with disastrous results. I collapsed into my office chair and spent days staring at my computer screen, weighing my options. Finally, I mustered the willpower to fire off an email: a short and polite explanation of how I was visiting his homeland in July, followed by the question of whether he’d be available to see me during my stay. Nervously pacing around my apartment, I envisioned everything from his grateful acceptance to his outright rejection, settling for the likeliest possibility of getting no response whatsoever. After all, it’d been almost a decade since he came to Iceland as an exchange student and he could very well have changed his email address. To my relief, his account turned out to be active, but once I clicked on his reply with trembling, nicotine-stained fingers, my relief shifted to sharp disappointment. As he was living on the other side of the country and was stuck with work obligations, he explained he couldn’t see me. The courage and hope came wheezing out of my deflated heart. That was it. I’d have to surrender to the cage.

  Unbeknownst to me, my subconscious started rattling the bars.

  A few weeks later, I wandered into a café on a dreary afternoon, sobbing and reeling after a fight with a loved one. I asked the waitress for a pen while digging a small notebook out of my bag, hoping that doodling in it would calm my nerves. To my surprise, I watched the doodles cohere into letters that in turn became sentences, and shaped themselves into the most pivotal letter I’ve ever written, addressed to my perpetrator. Along with an account of the violence he had subjected me to, the words ‘I want to find forgiveness’ stared back at me. Where on earth did that come from? Forgiveness had been the last thing on my mind. The suggestion to meet up with him had been based on my wish to give him an earful of withering words that would eat their way into his brain, becoming the first and the last thing he’d think about for the rest of his days. That was the reality he had forced on me. But forgiveness? As much as they astonished me when streaming out of my pen, the words were like a healing balm, soothing the sting in their truthfulness. Following my bewilderment came the magnificent discovery that I had found the key to my cage. Just when I’d stopped looking.