The Freedom

This is a text that was originally available on the official Kosmopolska website, under a link with the name “Friheten” (“The Freedom”). I haven’t been able to find out who the author is. It’s a short story, and its connection to the game is not obvious if you haven’t played it. But if you have reached the end of the game, it gives an interesting perspective on the plot, from a different point of view. Here is the text, translated into English by me:

APRIL - Ten years later

Early this morning: On our way to the daycare, Julia suddenly ran ahead and disappeared. For a moment I was gripped by a sudden fear that something had happened to her. Outside the daycare gate she was waiting for me. She held up a kitten. Did she see her mother’s anxiety? Will she ever understand it?

As usual, I took the way through the park to work. When I crossed the old stone bridge across the stream, I inexplicably thought of Gobin. That it was ten years since I last saw him. It’s a long time. The memories are misty, blurry, unclear and dark, as if they originated from another time, another life. Maybe it’s always like that with unpleasant memories? I think of who I was then and who I have become. Gobin’s mother never liked me. She said that I thought about myself too much. Now, in any case, I think: It was ten years since I last saw Gobin.

My desk stands next to a large window with a view of the street. I can see polished cars silently glide forward and past me. Furthest in, in the second desk drawer, I keep a dark green box with a brass lock. The lock has never worked, but maybe it deters a curious guest. My husband has never asked about the box. Does he know what it contains? I’m not going to find out. This afternoon I took out the box and opened it. Yes, Marisja, I thought without looking at its contents. Here lies that which you wished to forget – bundles of filled in forms, long unreadable typewritten inquiries on state papers, signatures, stamps.

There are times when I think about how my life has turned out. If I have acted right or wrong. This beautiful desk, the expensive chair I’m sitting in, our big house (that I sometimes even call my house), our new car down in the garage – was this how I wished it would be? I look through the contents of the box. At first hesitantly. No memories, no pictures. The phone rings. It’s Julia who asks if she can stay and eat dinner at a friend’s house. When I sit down at the desk again, the tears start coming. They can’t be stopped. Then I see Gobin and myself, for the first time in ten years.

We are dancing in our ugly, old kitchen. I think Gobin has bought vodka, the cheap kind that he always liked so much. He has a worn-out jacket on. (How did his jackets get so worn out?) He wants us to celebrate now. We have plans for the future. Dreams. For all three of us – because there were three of us then. -I turn the papers over. Sort them in some manner. Put them in different piles. Maybe I hope that a photograph will lay hidden somewhere? I don’t find anything.

Then suddenly my husband’s dark blue Mercedes comes into view beneath my window. He honks and I wave to him. I think that he can’t see anything through the window glass. I put the box back in the desk drawer. What is it that I feel in my neck, around my throat, across my shoulders? Is it guilt?