Overtocht naar Zweden
(A Passage to Sweden)

Tonia Malibovic cannot seem to cope any longer in her parental home in Avamaa, Estonia. Her relationschip with her mother is bad after a tragic event two years earlier and shortly after her father’s death she leaves home for Tallinn, where she starts working as a waitress in the Rasastra Hotel. It is the early seventies and fleeing to the West is nearly impossible in the Soviet era. She devotes her time to her work and studies English. Her boss benefits from her diligence and rewards her and her friend Alise by offering them a three-day trip to Stockholm in December 1973. Elated and happy the two young women set out for their first taste of Western life. On the ferry Tonia meets a young Swede who spontaneously offers her a red rose, saying: ‘Just don’t say a thing. I know you deserve it’. They agree to meet in Stockholm the very next day.

In the Swedish capital Tonia and Alise are fascinated by all the luxury. Carl Hansson, the Swede Tonia met on the ferry, does not show up, however, on their date in the Söderberg Café. Tonia is disappointed, a feeling that lingers for months.

Back in Tallinn she is promoted to head of the reception. Her desire to one day live a new life away from her country still haunts her. Carl Hansson has made an even bigger impression on her than she could have imagined. All she knows about him is that he is a teacher at Helmerson College in Stockholm. Tonia cannot seem to make up her mind, but when her boss, Peeter Stolkaslev, wrongfully accuses her of theft, she impulsively graps her belongings and runs to the nearby harbour. She is offered a ride by a truck driver and leaves her country as a stowaway.

On her first day in Stockholm she leafs through a telephone directory looking for the address of the Helmerson College.

Carl Hansson feels he is at the turning-point of his life. He has a good job and a comfortable social life. During a short trip to Tallinn, where his principal and his wife celebrate their marital jubilee, he meets an intriguing woman. She is pretty and speaks fluent English. He falls in love with her and arranges for her to meet him the next day in Stockholm. On his arrival home, however, there is a message that his mother has been hospitalised, thus preventing him from meeting Tonia at the proposed time. For months he tries to find her whereabouts in Tallinn by writing numerous institutions. Finally he gives up.
One sunny afternoon he attends a meeting with his colleagues at school when a young woman enters the room. Carl cannot believe his eyes. He is excused by his colleagues and embraces Tonia.
The two lovers await a time of careless happiness. They decide to get married as soon as possible for Tonia’s status.

The years pass by and Carl and Tonia have three children, Per, Miriam and Elsbeth. Tonia never even considered going back to her native Estonia, not even after the independence of the country. She cannot forgive her mother’s part in all the suffering she underwent as a 15-year-old. But she cannot predict her reaction to an unforeseen letter either.

Carl is confronted with a letter from Estonia at school. It worries him. He and Tonia have never talked about their past very much. From the letter Tonia concludes that her mother is seriously ill (the letter is from her former friend Alise). Her past again preys on her, as do feelings of guilt since she never confided in Carl about the fact that she had a baby in Estonia when she was 15. It is the circumstances that made her put it all behind her. And even though she managed not to think about it for many years (she has her own happy family now), it comes back to her now like a tidal wave.

Together with her two daughters she embarks a ferry for Tallinn, where Alise tends to her children while Tonia visits her mother. It is hard for her, but there are feelings of reconciliation on either side.
The circumstances leading to her pregnancy are still confronting to Tonia, however. Because even though nobody believed her at the time, she was raped by the mayor of Avamaa, when Tonia worked there as a maid. Neither her father, nor her mother believed her and charges against the mayor were never filed.

Tonia was brought to a home for young unmarried mothers in Tallinn by her parents. Away from everybody’s sight, like a crippled child in the Middle Ages. The place where she was to have her baby was called Merivälja. There her child is taken away from her right after birth, much to the distress of Tonia. (she would later give the girl the name of Iris in her imagination).

Back in her own country as a grown-up, Tonia finds she can stand up to her past, even has some good, tender moments with her mother and decides to leave for home after her mother dies and is buried.
She feels comforted by the idea that she has regained an old friend (Alise) and has finally put all her troubled feelings about her past behind her.

It is with feelings of satisfaction that she and her children embark MS Estonia for the passage back to Stockholm.

The sea is rough and Tonia and her children retreat to their cabin early in the evening. Tonia cannot sleep as the unrest of the situation graps her by the throat. She fears for her life and that of her children. After midnight the situation gets worse. As they decide to leave their cabin she loses Miriam out of her sight and finds herself and Elsbeth trapped in her cabin. They fall down quite heavily as the ship tilts over and Tonia in her desperation suffocates her dazed daughter Elsbeth. In her final moment she intends to scream out the name of her first born baby, Iris, but – to her horror - finds herself screaming ‘Merivälja’ instead.

When Carl and his son Per drive home from their cottage in Bohuslan that very night, intending to meet Tonia and the two girls at the Estline terminal in Stockholm, they have no idea of what has occurred in the middle of the Baltic Sea.

Only when they listen to the 5 o’clock news on the radio, do they hear about the disaster. Carl collapses in disbelief (how many ferries ply the route between Tallinn and Stockholm in one night?) A passing police-car is their saviour. They are brought back to Stockholm, where Carl is tenderly taken care of by his good friend Ragnar.

The shock is utterly big. Nobody believes it really happened. Everyone seeks confirmation. Carl is traumatised and screams about his father, who was killed during a hunting accident years ago. Carl is hospitalised in a clinic and his son Per moves in with Ragnar, who lives across the road from them.

The day after the disaster an unknown woman stands on their doorstep. She appears to be Carls sister Emily, a person Per has never met before, as contact between her and his family was completely absent. She has come to assist her brother in these difficult times, she says. Per is amazed by her personality. She seems like a warm woman, caring and willing to share the burden that is bestowed upon them all.
While his father is in the clinic Per gets to know more of his aunt Emily and he continues to wonder about the lack of contact between her and his family during all these years. When faced with questions about this, Emily beats about the bush and avoids straight answers. But after spending a weekend with her she reluctantly tells Per about the reasons. There were enormous tensions at her home when she and Carl were young, she says.

Just when she is about to speak more about it, the phone rings. It is Ragnar who tells them that Carl has managed to escape from the clinic, stealing a car and speeding off. Per expects his father to come home now, but Emily thinks differently. She is certain that Carl has run off to their former cottage near a lake in Dalarna (in the middle of Sweden), a cottage that is still in the possession of the family ever since her father lost his life there back in 1966. Ragnar picks them up and the three of them drive to Dalarna in the middle of the night. Emily informs them about Carl’s childhood on the way to the cottage.

Carl’s world has collapsed after the Estonia-disaster, which took away his beloved wife and two of his children. In the clinic he is torn apart by feelings of grief, guilt (because he cannot care about his son Per), and the memories of his past life, when he was still a boy at home with his sister Emily. He finds the life at the clinic unbearable and he does not see the use of the so-called therapy.

In an unguarded moment he manages to steal a car and drive away from the clinic unnoticed. But what to do with his newly-found freedom? Going home is useless. That’s the first place where they will look. And the police will most certainly bring him in. Back to the clinic, where he is a patient. But he does not feel like a patient.

It keeps on haunting him: the fact that he and Tonia never ever exchanged information about their past. He never knew anything about her life in Estonia and likewise Tonia was never told anything about his youth in Stockholm. Not about his tender, loving mother. Not about the tirannical character of his father. The expectations his father had for Carl were as high as a mountain. There was no room to develop his own character, as he was to be a copy of his father, a successful diplomat for the municipality of Stockholm. The atmosphere back home was suffocating, with his mother always trying to settle matters in her son’s favour. Father was away from home a lot and those were the times when they were a happy family. They could enjoy each other’s company and accept one and other as they were.

Father was a hunter, who loved to stay out in the woods all day in Dalarna, where they had a cottage that they used to frequent. Other than that he was often away from home and the rift between him and the rest of his family was widening. After their father’s sudden death they never once went back to this cottage and never even bothered to sell it either.

Now Carl finds himself alone, ready to be arrested for fleeing a mental institution and stealing a car. He makes a dramatic decision. He heads for the nearest motorway heading for the north, straight for Dalarna. He reaches the cottage in the middle of the night and breaks his way into the site. Nobody will look for him here, he gathers. All alone on this stormy, rainy night he is left with his own thoughts about that dreadful day in 1966, when his father died. For one more time he faces the images to try and come to terms with it after all these years.

On a very hot day in the summer of 1966 they spent their holiday at the cottage, called ‘Nederhaven’. Father was in the woods, as usual and Emily, his mother and Carl were left to enjoy the day. Carl was called upon by his mother to go and find their father as they expected visitors that very afternoon. Carl wanders out into the woods and notices his father through some branches. It seems like he is in prayer and then grabs for his riffle and loads it with one bullet.

Carl announces his presence and asks his father to come home. Gustaf Hansson unleashes into a rage and blames Carl’s mother for shutting him out emotionally from his children. The situation is aggravated when Carl comes closer, while his father is sitting on a log, leaning on his gun. Carl slips and falls against his father.
He hears a frightening bang and feels some warm substance falling on his back.

When he is lying on the ground, he sees his father falling backwards, his head nearly blown away.
The young Carl runs for his life, screaming for his mother. Being a high rank diplomat the death of Gustaf Hansson did not lead to any significant police investigation and his death was consequently determined an unfortunate hunting accident.
Carl, however, is left to wonder about that warm afternoon. Did his fall accidentally cause his father’s death? Was he somehow guilty? His mother backed him up immediately after the shooting, protecting him from nasty questioning from the police.
And now, nearly 30 years later, Carl wanders through the woods to the cottage, where he left his childhood behind. It is all coming back to him and one thing in particular: his father loaded his two-barrelled gun with one bullet only. Why would a hunter do this? When the reason dawns on him, he is utterly shocked. Why has he never thought of this before? It just happened to be that he - Carl – saw his father in the woods that afternoon at the very moment that he wanted to commit suicide. Carl was just a witness, someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Carl is thinking all this as he is sitting by the lake in the heavy rainfall. He suddenly hears a familiar voice:
‘You did not kill father, Carl’.
It is his sister Emily, who steps out from the darkness. Here, on the very spot where they shared a troubled childhood is where they meet again. And only because his wife and daughters died in the Estonia-disaster.
They talk and are reunited, Carl having the knowledge that Tonia has gone from him forever, but he has found his sister back again.

2001. It has been seven years since the Estonia disaster and Per is entering Tallinn harbour on board a ferry that sails the same route as the Estonia once did.
It is an emotional visit for him. He is here to find out the truth about his mother’s past. He has found some letters in her desk that suggest that Tonia was still in touch with certain people in her native country. Also, his mother had a secretive mail box in a Stockholm post office.
Per knows he will not have any peace and that he will not come to terms with what happened as long as he does not look into this. He is 23 now, a grown-up man. He has had contact with Alise, his mother’s former friend in Tallinn. She is most likely able to fill in the missing pieces for him. He is touched by everything he sees in Tallinn and he feels the presence of his mother, somehow.
Alise is not able to speak any proper English, but she had anticipated this and had a friend (who is an English teacher) translate her story about Tonia’s life. She hands it to Per in the form of a letter.
Per sits by the plague with all the names of the Estonia-victims on it (at the Estonia monument near the city-centre) and reads the gripping story of his mother’s struggle as a 15-year-old, her alleged rape, the time at Merivälja, about Iris and the time Tonia and Alise were colleagues at the hotel. But also of the fond memories of Tonia meeting Carl on the ferry back in 1973 and Carl handing her a red rose saying: ‘Just don’t say a thing. I know you deserve it’.
He visits Avamaa and accidentally walks into the town hall to see a row of paintings showing the history of mayors of the small town. There he stands face to face with the portrait of the mayor who was responsible for his mother’s plight. A man who has never been brought to justice and now never will as he has appeared to have died.
On the spot where Merivälja used to be, there is now a dumping ground.
It is only by chance that he finds out that his mother has been cheated by someone who sold her false information about the whereabouts of her baby girl. The girl she used to call ‘Iris’.
Here in Tallinn Per finds the resignation that he could not find at home. He knows he cannot bring his mother and sisters back, but he has peace with the situation now. Like so many other people he has to go on with his life now.
Before he embarks for the passage back he buys a bouquet of flowers and a single red rose. He knows that somewhere out there a young woman is living, unaware that her biological mother tried so hard to find her. Per will never meet her either.
On the ferry, after some 5 hours into the voyage, when they approach the spot where MS Estonia is lying under the surface, he tosses the flowers into the Sea. On the card he had written: For Miriam and Elsbeth and all the children of the sea. Then - close to tears – he throws the red rose into the water, saying: ‘Just don’t say a thing, mother. I know you deserve it’.