The interviews seem to have been taped and then transcribed. In a couple of places whoever did the transcription has added brief notes in brackets.
Present in the room were the children and their fathers. All the men are listed in an old-fashioned way, with their professions: bank manager Bertil Nordin, headmaster Staffan Hellman, engineer Pawel Malinowski, machinist Eskil Leander.
David answered most of the questions. Sometimes he was prompted by Nettan, less often by Sebastian. Jan-Olof, on the other hand, says nothing unless he is asked directly, and then he answers in monosyllables.
INTERVIEWER: What were you doing in the stone circle?
DAVID NORDIN: We . . . We were pretending to act out a ceremony.
JEANETTE HELLMAN: Carry out a ceremony.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of ceremony?
DAVID NORDIN: A spring sacrifice. Like they used to do in the old days.
JEANETTE HELLMAN: They pretended to sacrifice a virgin so that spring would come.
INTERVIEWER: I see. And whose idea was that?
DAVID NORDIN: Elita’s. She’d read about it. Seen old photographs. She’d sorted out animal masks for us so that it would look exactly the same.
INTERVIEWER: And what did this ceremony consist of?
JEANETTE HELLMAN: We were going to sacrifice Elita to him. Pretend to, I mean.
INTERVIEWER: To him?
(SILENCE)
INTERVIEWER: Who were you going to sacrifice Elita to?
SEBASTIAN MALINOWSKI: (clears his throat) To the Green Man.
INTERVIEWER: The Green Man? The figure that people burn on the Walpurgis Night bonfires?
DAVID NORDIN: Yes . . .
INTERVIEWER: OK . . . So you were at the circle because you were going to play at sacrificing Elita to the Green Man.
JEANETTE HELLMAN: It wasn’t a game.
INTERVIEWER: No? What was it, then?
DAVID NORDIN: Well, maybe it was a kind of game. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt kind of . . .
JEANETTE HELLMAN: Real.
DAVID NORDIN: Yes. Real.
INTERVIEWER: What do the rest of you have to say?
(INAUDIBLE MURMURING)
INTERVIEWER: Can you repeat that, Leander?
JAN-OLOF LEANDER: Too fucking real . . .
39
Walpurgis Night 1986
Walpurgis Night is here at last. Nature is hungry, and the Green Man is riding through the forests. He is coming to fetch Elita Svart. His spring sacrifice. And nothing will ever be the same again.
The boy was frightened. The eye-holes in his mask were tiny, and he had difficulty seeing what was going on around him.
Elita had just switched on the ghetto blaster. The sound of drums reverberated around the glade, bouncing off the stones and tree trunks. His breath inside the mask smelled sweet and cloying. For a moment the boy thought he was going to throw up.
The girl in the owl mask turned towards him. He could only just glimpse her eyes, but he could tell that she was just as scared as him. So were the other two boys. It had all sounded so exciting when Elita first talked to them. The full moon, the ritual, the spring sacrifice. The Green Man coming to fetch her. Although of course none of them believed that bit.
They’d recorded the drums the other night, all four of them sitting around and banging on plastic buckets while Elita directed them. They had to repeat the rhyme she’d taught them over and over again; she’d said that druids and priests used it thousands of years ago.
‘Hoof and horn, hoof and horn. All that dies shall be reborn.
‘Corn and grain, corn and grain. All that falls shall rise again.’
They’d carried on for so long that they’d almost lost track of time, and now their words were pouring out of the ghetto blaster’s loudspeaker. Strangely enough, the voices didn’t sound like theirs; they were much deeper. More unpleasant.
The boy swallowed. His mouth felt dry, the ground was moving beneath his feet. He mustn’t be sick, not now, not here.
Elita had brought a bottle with her. Said it contained a magic potion made according to an ancient recipe, which of course was more of her nonsense, just like the rhyme. They’d all drunk it though. Swallowed the sweet, slippery contents because none of them dared to say no.
He felt the others’ eyes on him as they stood in silence around Elita in their horrible masks. She was wearing a white dress, and holding two sets of antlers in her hands.
She looked in his direction, and as always there was something about her that made him want to do whatever she asked. She nodded to him, indicating that he should pick up the end of one of the silk ribbons attached to her wrists. The others did the same.
‘What do we do now?’ said the girl in the owl mask. Her voice mingled with the drums and the chanting, but there was no mistaking the fear.
Elita closed her eyes and crossed the antlers over her chest.
‘Now we dance.’
The drumming began to speed up. Elita started to move, slowly at first, then faster and faster. She pulled on the ribbons, whirling around and forcing all four of them to follow her.
‘Sing!’ she yelled. ‘Sing, my little tadpoles!’
The rhyme echoed out across the glade, accompanied by their trembling voices.
‘Louder! Faster! Extend the ribbons!’
They obeyed, moving further away so that the ribbons drew Elita’s arms outwards. She spun faster and faster; they had to run to keep up. The moonlight turned the grass to silver, the shadows cast by the fire flickered over the hawthorn trees.
‘Faster! Faster, louder! The Green Man is riding through the forests. Soon he will be here!’
The boy tripped over a branch and almost fell. His heart was pounding, sweat was pouring down his back.
The drumming and the chanting continued, but suddenly the boy became aware of another sound, increasing in volume and making his stomach contract. The sound of approaching hooves.
The others seemed to have heard it too. Their movements slowed as they glanced anxiously towards the forest.
Elita was beside herself. ‘The Green Man is coming! The Green Man is coming! He’s coming!’
The trees in front of them parted, revealing a sight that could have come straight out of their nightmares.
A huge black horse, foaming at the mouth. On its back a tall, faceless rider with a shapeless body made up of leaves and branches. On top of his head was an enormous crown made of antlers.
The boy stood there as if he had been turned to stone. Every muscle was tensed, and the silk ribbon was cutting into his palms.
The horse stopped no more than a metre away, then it reared up and made a noise that sounded like a scream. Or was someone else screaming? Was it his own scream he could hear?
Or Elita’s?
40
Thea continues to read the transcript with rising excitement. There is something strange yet deeply fascinating about reading twelve-year-old David’s words, while the forty-five-year-old version lies sleeping on the other side of the bedroom wall. She feels as if she is getting much closer to him with every sentence.
INTERVIEWER: So you played music on a tape recorder and danced. Then a man arrived on a horse. What happened next?
DAVID NORDIN: Someone screamed. We ran away as fast as we could. Tore off our masks and dropped them in the forest. We were terrified.
INTERVIEWER: All of you?
ALL FOUR CHILDREN: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Did you see who was riding the horse?
DAVID NORDIN: It was Leo. Elita’s stepbrother.
INTERVIEWER: Leo Rasmussen?
DAVID NORDIN: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: And you’re sure of this, even though the rider was dressed up as the Green Man? Even though you were wearing masks, and Elita had given you alcohol?