‘The Borchmann girl’ had been reading books from the age of four, if my parents were to be believed. She was eight when she read her first Ibsen play. At the age of ten, she appeared on the front page of one of the national newspapers, without wishing to do so, under the headline ‘Super-Intelligent Director’s Daughter Challenges Single-Stream Comprehensive Schools’. The problem was that the school principal, with backing from the Ministry of Education, would only agree to move her up one year, whereas her parents and the teachers believed that jumping three would be more valuable. The following year, Patricia Louise I. E. Borchmann appeared in the newspapers again, but this time on the sports pages, under headlines that ventured ‘The New Sonja Henie?’ The reports also mentioned that she was one of the nation’s rising stars in shooting, having achieved several high scores in the national youth championships.
One winter day in 1963, my mother and I met Patricia Louise and her parents on our way home from the skating rink. Professor Borchmann dominated the conversation, as always. However, in the course of his analysis of the day’s news – the future of the new Gerhardsen government following the Kings Bay Affair – the impossible occurred. Not only was he corrected in his review of the facts, he was also challenged in his analysis. And what was even more astonishing was that he took it with good humour, admitted his mistakes and even patted his critic happily on the head several times. This made a deep impression on my mother and me. ‘We’ll be hearing more about that girl,’ my mother said, as we watched them continue on their way.
Unfortunately, I only remember the episode and my mother’s words in light of the tragedy that would colour it forever. That was the last time that we saw Mrs Borchmann alive, and Patricia was never to skate again. A few days later, one of the Borchmann cars skidded on the black winter ice at a crossroads, resulting in a full-frontal collision with a spinning articulated lorry. The driver and Mrs Borchmann, who was in the front, were killed instantly, and the passenger in the back seat, Patricia Louise, was still in a coma five days later, fighting for her life. I have been told that two nights in a row the doctors declared that she was not likely to live to see the morning. Ten days after the accident, the newspapers carried a small notice that her condition was no longer critical, but the damage would probably be permanent. That was the last thing that anyone wrote about Patricia Louise I. E. Borchmann.