I Thought Sweden Was a Vacation

I was about six and a half when I left Poland with my sister, my brother and the couple who had adopted us. It was 1992. We travelled overnight by ferry from Świnoujście to Ystad, in Sweden.

I did not understand adoption. I did not understand that moving to another country could mean that my life would continue there. I thought I was going somewhere with these adults for a while, and that afterwards I would go back to Poland.

A vacation is the closest word I have for what I believed was happening.

That did not mean I wanted to return. I was afraid of going back to the orphanage in Stargard, or of having nowhere to live. I could be frightened of returning to Poland and still expect that I would. Those two things existed together long before I could explain them.

Before the crossing

The couple came to see us at the orphanage. We stayed with them in a hotel beside it: the two adults, my sister, my brother and me. It was the first time we had all stayed together overnight.

I remember taking cookies in the hotel room and eating them in the bathroom. When I was asked about them, I denied taking them. I said I had not seen them.

By then, hiding the truth was something I did when I was afraid of what might happen to me. I did not think about it in those terms. I wanted to get out of trouble.

The couple became angry. They told me they could not have a child who lied, that we could not live as a family like that, and that they might not take me to Sweden. I remember being scared that my sister and brother would go with them and I would be left behind.

There were also people in Stargard I cared about. A girl I spent time with, whom I hoped would soon find a family. A woman who worked there and was kind to me. I remember hugging her before leaving. She told me to be good with the family in Sweden and that I would have a good life.

I took no toys from the orphanage. But at the hotel, the couple had given me a grey stuffed rabbit. My sister received a pink one and my brother a blue one. I named mine Stampe. He came with me to Sweden.

On the ferry, I was excited and curious, and a little scared. I had not understood what a ferry was. Now I was travelling on one. I remember us standing on deck in the evening, taking photographs. I wore a white jacket the family had bought me, with two horizontal stripes across the chest.

I can remember the jacket and being on deck more clearly than I can explain what I thought the journey meant. There was so much to discover before I could begin to understand where we were going.

The light in the garden

From Ystad, we travelled to the house in Svedala in a red Mazda. The house was large and beautiful, with a big garden. Compared with what I had known, everything seemed almost perfect.

One of the first things my adoptive father showed me was a switch on the wall in the hallway. It controlled a lamp farther away in the garden.

He let me press it. I could stand inside the house and make a light come on outside, across the grass. I did not understand how that could happen. I tried the switch several times. The adults were amused by how fascinated I was.

That is one of my clearest memories of arriving. Before I understood much about the house or the people in it, there was this small thing I could try. I could press something here and see something happen over there.

Upstairs, I shared a room with my brother. I remember that being nice too. People came to visit us: neighbours, friends and colleagues of the couple. They brought presents. I was excited by the visits, although I understood very little of what was happening around me.

I did not understand Swedish. My adoptive mother was Polish, so we could speak Polish with her. There were words I could understand, but so much of this new life was still unfamiliar.

Among the visitors was my adoptive father's mother. She was wonderful to me. Her kindness continued for as long as she lived. When I remember that family, I want to leave room for her as the person she was to me.

And there was Stampe. On my first night in Sweden, I held him tightly in bed. I talked to him. I made sure he was comfortable, that he was not frightened or cold. He stayed beside me at night, and I took him with me to places. I kept him for years.

I told the adults I did not want to go back to Poland. They promised me I would never have to. I wanted that promise to be true, even while I still understood Sweden as somewhere I was visiting.

Going back to Ystad

I was about seven when the nighttime trips began.

I remember being woken and told to get dressed. I was told not to bring anything, because the things were not mine. Then we drove to Ystad, to the ferry port.

This happened more than once. When I recall those trips, I remember sitting in the car and being told that they did not want me, that I should get out and go to the ferry myself. I was to tell someone that I belonged in Poland, and they would take me back.

I believed this could happen. I remember crying and screaming that I did not want to go. I was told I had to be good and do as they said, or next time I would be sent back.

I had first arrived in Ystad on a journey full of things I did not understand. Now the same place was part of something I feared. The possibility of returning to Poland had become a threat the adults could bring into my life at night.

Looking back, I wonder how I could have learned that Sweden was permanent while being told that my place there could be taken away. I had not understood adoption at the beginning. What came afterwards gave me reasons to keep believing I might have to leave.

When I write now about adapting and belonging, I often return to the question of whether there is room for a person who gets something wrong. Here, that question has a child's particular fear inside it: whether doing something wrong could mean losing the place where I lived.

Beside me in bed

I can see more of those years now than I could while living them. But I want to be careful about giving the child an adult's explanations. I did not have a theory about belonging. I remember places, things people told me, things I was frightened of, and things I enjoyed.

The light in the garden still belongs to that story. So does the grandmother who was kind to me. I can remember them alongside the trips to Ystad without making one memory explain away another.

Today, I think of emotional safety partly as being able to live with other people without wondering whether a mistake will cost me my place with them. I could not have put that into words then.

What I could do was hold Stampe close and talk to him. I remember taking care that he was warm and unafraid.

I remember wanting him to be all right.

I did not understand whether Sweden was somewhere I could stay. But beside me in bed was a grey rabbit I had brought from Poland, and I was making sure he felt safe.