by Stefan Spjut
‘It sounds like maybe you should go talk to someone,’ Diana said. ‘Would you like me to set something up?’
‘Talking. According to Roland, that’s all I ever do.’
‘I meant to a psychologist. A therapist. Being cut off from your child, like you are from Susso, from both of your children in a way, because Cilla’s not quite herself either from what I hear, must be incredibly hard.’
‘There’s nothing I can do. That’s the worst part.’
‘Do you have her address?’
‘I don’t know that I do, but I can give you directions.’
‘Give me directions,’ Diana said and pulled out her phone.
‘When you reach Vittangi, you turn left, no, right, why am I saying left? You go toward Pajala. Past the lake with that fountain or whatever it is. Then you carry on for a mile or two until you see a big, red barn with three green doors on your left; that’s why I said left. Before you pass that barn, you turn off on a smaller road that takes you down to the river. That’s where she lives. In a red house. By the river.’
‘Right, then left before a barn with three green doors.’
Gudrun nodded.
‘I’m not sure how soon I’ll be able to go.’
‘And there’s one other thing.’
She sat there for a while with her hands pressed between her knees, looking down at the gravel before continuing.
‘Lennart Brösth has escaped.’
‘Yes, I heard.’
‘And don’t think the police bothered to inform us.’
‘Are you afraid he might do something?’
Kiruna came bounding across the lawn. Diana picked her up and pulled out the juice box and with her arms around the little girl’s body, she pried off the straw and pushed it into the hole.
‘You don’t need to worry about him,’ she said. ‘He’s a hundred years old. A hundred.’
‘Is there really such a big difference between ninety and a hundred? And besides, a hundred years is not the same for Lennart Brösth as it is for the rest of us.’
Diana didn’t understand that last part, but she didn’t have time to ask Gudrun what she meant. Kiruna had grabbed hold of the juice box before she could stop her. The little girl stiffened and looked at the juice that had squirted out of the straw, forming droplets on her jacket. Gudrun quickly pulled a stack of napkins from her pocket and wiped.
‘These characters,’ she said quietly. ‘They’re dangerous.’
‘What characters?’
Her sceptical tone made Gudrun press her lips shut. The little girl sat quietly, drinking; Diana seized the opportunity to sort out her insulated trousers. The foot straps had come off; she slipped them back under Kiruna’s boots. One of the straps was about to break so she tore it in two and tied the pieces back together. Gudrun studied the napkin as she carefully folded it.
‘I just wanted you to know he’s on the run,’ she said quietly and stood up. ‘In case you do go out there. It’s not a hundred per cent risk-free.’
‘Of course I’ll go out there. No question.’
‘Be careful. Promise me.’
‘Pinky swear,’ she said and held her little finger out in the hope of eliciting a smile, but Gudrun didn’t smile, just turned around and walked away.
After exiting the mess, Anders stopped in the middle of the lawn, suddenly unsure of where he was going. Then his memory returned, smacking him in the back of the head. He couldn’t remember what he had said, but he remembered how they had looked away when he had spoken to them. He had thrown down his food tray with a crash that sent the cutlery clattering away across the floor; the whole canteen had fallen dead silent and he had wanted to scream at them, but he hadn’t. Or had he?
Now he could hear footsteps on the gravel. Micke and that French scientist were walking his way. Close together and silent like two fucking monks in a monastery, they passed him. He followed them. The Frenchman whispered something to Micke but Micke didn’t turn around. They didn’t hold the front door open for him and were probably hoping he wouldn’t follow them into the laboratory building. But he did. When he entered, they had made it into the post room. He watched them through the open door and at length, the Frenchman looked up.
‘Hello,’ he said timidly.
The post was sorted into pigeonholes with names above each one, and this was the honeycomb wall Micke was staring at. As though he had forgotten which pigeonhole was his. The charade was so ridiculous Anders had to chuckle.
In the middle of the day, like now, the hallway was quiet and where doors had been left open, broad swaths of sunlight swept across the floor. The door to his room was open too; he didn’t like that. He had a clear memory of locking it.
The map, the big picture of Bergslagen with all its wolf territories drawn in, with which he had covered the wall by fitting together four topographical maps to the scale of 1:50,000, was gone and the sight of the bare wall, dotted by drawing pins, under which torn paper fragments were still stuck, made his eyes well up.
He leaned against the desk and tried to collect himself. He was aware he had rubbed people at the institute the wrong way since he came back from sick leave, but that things would escalate to the point where someone broke into his room to destroy his things, that was unexpected. This was proper harassment. Bullying.
He collapsed into his chair and looked out the window. Smooth, freshly mowed lawns. A sliver of Lake Bysjön glittering between the birch trees in the cow pasture. The view had a calming effect on him.
How many times had Johanna told him that he had gone back to work much too soon after the accident? This was proof she was right. He was crying in his office, and it wasn’t the first time either. But he remained firm in his conviction that work was the best cure. Work and routines.
He nudged the mouse and his computer screen sprang to life. Without turning away from the window, he reached out and typed in his password with his index finger. But he wasn’t logged on. Instead a notice popped up. He rolled closer to the computer and pushed each key with myopic meticulousness. The same notice. A red cross of rejection. And it was only then he noticed what had happened to his screen. The Post-it notes usually stuck to it like a wreath were gone.
He pushed his chair back and left the room. Curses came bubbling out of his mouth, but he had no one to heap them on. At the other end of the hallway, he spotted a figure. A PhD student whose name he didn’t know. She quickly retreated; when he passed her room, the door was closed.
He went outside and got in his car. He sat there for a long time.
The rage wouldn’t subside. He was so upset the key shook when he inserted it into the ignition. He shifted into reverse and pulled out. When he spotted Micke’s Peugeot, he had a sudden urge to ram it, and in the next moment, he had. He heard the crunch. It just happened; these things can be honest mistakes. He had a hard time imagining that Micke had been the one to break into his office. But it made no difference. He thought about the way he had stood in front of the pigeonholes. Micke, who he had thought of as a friend. Or something along those lines anyway. A pleasant colleague. Who had now become an unpleasant colleague. Joining the rest of them.
*
He went home. William was sitting in his blacked-out bedroom with his earphones on, staring at his computer screen, where a little man was running down a corridor with a rifle in his hands. He was completely focused. Next to the mouse mat was a plate and tall glass. The dark-brown ring at the bottom indicated that he had been drinking chocolate milk. Like a little kid. Anders stared at his scrawny neck and wondered what it would feel like to snap it.
The kitchen looked much as he had expected. The milk and butter were sitting out, the bread was on the cutting board, halfway out of its plastic bag. Every single cupboard was open and several drawers were pulled out. Like a fucking poltergeist had torn through the room. Even the microwave was open. When he picked up the butter knife, yellow globs dripped from it.
He threw the door open and
turned the overhead light on. William whipped around and stared at him, eyes wide. Then he took his earphones off and put them on the keyboard.
‘You’re going to clean up the mess in the kitchen.’
The boy got up immediately and almost ran to the kitchen. He smacked the lid onto the butter, yanked the fridge door open and put the milk and butter in. Shook the bread into its bag and closed it. Pulled out the cutting board and raked the crumbs into the sink. All with a haste that surprised Anders. He stared at his son. His fine, ash-blonde hair was stiff after a day of being flattened under a hat. A widespread growth of angry red spots fanned across one of his cheeks while the other was largely untouched. As though his face were divided into different growing zones. Or was maturing unevenly. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. The boy avoided his eyes and seemed frightened.
‘What’s with you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I know you worry about me, William. But you shouldn’t. I’ll be better soon. It’s just been a difficult few months. But since I started working, I feel much better already.’
‘You’re working?’
‘Of course.’
‘Where?’
‘What do you mean, where? In the same place I’ve worked the last thirty years, of course.’
The boy scowled at the floor.
‘Hey. What’s with you?’
‘Nothing.’
The front door slammed shut and moments later Johanna entered the kitchen. She was carrying two paper bags bursting with groceries. She had on a puff-sleeve blouse; her upper arms were red. She put the bags down on the floor and looked from the boy to Anders and back to the boy.
She brought William back out with her to fetch the rest of the bags; when they came back, Anders was standing by the sink, eating pepper salami straight out of the packet.
‘Sit down,’ she said.
She sat down at the kitchen table and studied him while rubbing her forehead, which was shiny with perspiration.
‘Anders. You don’t work at Grimsö any more.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The research station. You don’t work there any more.’
The salami slices were stuck together; he pulled them apart and crumpled them into his mouth one after the other with trembling fingers.
‘You don’t work there and you can’t go there. Are you listening to me? They’re going to report you to the police if you go there again.’
Anders stared ravenously at the packet while he chewed.
‘I haven’t had anything to eat all day.’
Lennart opened the door and thudded down the steps of the motorhome. They were parked on a mountain plateau covered in rocks and gravel. Grete was gazing out across the water from her wheelchair, toward the sun hiding behind a thin frieze of clouds by the horizon. A scarf covered her head and she had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Abraham and Ingvill were sitting on camping chairs on either side of her and the hare was on the ground, its front legs stretched out and its head raised like some kind of sphinx. The eyes that turned to Lennart were completely blind. Like two white pupae. Its nose moved up and down without cease.
He walked to the other side of the motorhome, untied his trousers, took out his rock-hard member and peed while studying the treeless landscape. There was a village by the edge of the bay at the foot of the mountain. A hodge-podge of houses of various hues. Fishing boats along the breakwater. No people. The road that had led them there disappeared like a ribbon into the distance.
*
‘You went to sleep Saturday evening,’ Abraham said, ‘and now it’s Monday night. Or Tuesday morning, to be exact.’
He had his hands in his pockets and slurred his words a little. He was squinting with one eye, but not on account of the sun.
‘What time is it?’
He pulled his hands out of his pockets, pushed back the sleeve of his jacket and checked his wristwatch.
‘Quarter past four. Are you hungry?’
‘Bloody thirsty.’
Abraham stepped into the motorhome; when he came back out, he was carrying a plastic bottle. He twisted off the cap and handed the bottle to Lennart.
‘Where are we?’
‘Varangerhalvøya.’
Abraham nodded toward the sea.
‘See that line way, way out there? That’s Fiskerhalvøya. Or Poluostrov Rybachy as it’s also called. That’s Russia.’
Some way off, a concrete flight of stairs led down into the ground. Lennart pointed to it, but Abraham shook his head.
‘It’s a bit further.’
‘How far?’
‘A few hundred yards that way.’
‘What are we waiting for?’
‘We’ve been waiting for you. For you to wake up.’
‘Sleep well?’ Grete said when he walked over to her.
He made no reply.
‘Aren’t you happy? Now that you’re going to see him?’
He gingerly squeezed his bandage. Then he looked around. Contours of bunkers and demolished sangars. A radio mast.
‘How did you find him anyway?’
‘The paper!’ she said. ‘It said a bear had broken into a cabin. In Jarfjord. Inside, it had trashed the furniture and eaten all the food and guzzled down all the beer. Like Goldilocks! Except in reverse. So Abraham went up there, tracked him down and drove him here.’
‘You drove him here?’
‘We felt it might be good for him,’ he said. ‘An environment he could feel at home in, right? This entire mountain is like a fucking rabbit warren with holes and tunnels everywhere.’
‘Erasmus claims he’ll never turn again,’ Grete said. ‘That he misses the other bears too much and that it would be better for everyone if he, well, if someone put him out of his misery, to speak plainly.’
‘Erasmus said that? That he’ll never turn?’
‘Erasmus,’ she said and fixed him levelly, ‘has lost his mind.’ She tapped her index finger against her temple. ‘Insane.’
‘It’s the wolves’ doing, you know that, don’t you? They’ve realised the bears are gone. This is what happens. They come out to play. Who knows what feelings Erasmus has been pushing down all these years, roaming about with the wolves like a tinker in that wagon. Now it’s bubbling up to the surface.’
‘He’s taken over a whole place. A village.’
‘A village?’
‘Yes.’
‘What village?’
‘It’s called Rumajärvi.’
‘In Finland?’
‘No, Sweden. Mikko’s there and that tall bloke, what’s his name. Tony. And several others.’
‘Näckstam? Tony Näckstam?’
‘Yes. And there he sits. Like a ridiculous little king. With all the wolves. Stewing on old injustices. That we know nothing about.’
‘What happened at Stava and Mauri’s then?’
‘They came to take Ransu, a week or two after they took Sakka from me. Two weeks. And when Mauri tried to stop them, they killed him. Stava stayed with me for a while, but then she moved on to look for Ransu. I’ve called a few times, but she’s turned her phone off.’
‘So he got away? Ransu got away?’
Grete nodded and pushed back a strand of her hair that was dancing wildly across her forehead, egged on by the wind from the sea.
‘There was an accident a few months ago; a veterinarian who was killed by a wolf they were relocating, maybe you heard? Stava thinks the wolf was Ransu, and that the other person involved in the move knows a lot more than the newspapers reported. So she wanted to find him. That man. But I don’t know. She’s desperate. Just like me.’ She sighed, attempted a smile. ‘These are desperate times, old friend.’
‘There’s no guarantee Skabram can do anything about it. Now that they’ve learnt not to fear the bears. Besides, I can’t force him to turn.’
‘He will turn, I’m sure of it.’
‘We can’t imagine what this is like for him. There
were always four thurses, we’re talking hundreds of years. And now he’s suddenly alone. All alone.’
‘So imagine then,’ she said, leaning forward, ‘how he’ll feel seeing you, Lennart. He probably thinks you’re gone as well.’
‘He may not even remember me.’
‘Of course he’ll remember you! You’re his offspring.’
‘You reckon?’
‘You belong together. You’re miserable, Lennart, and it’s because the two of you belong together. Who are you without him? An aberration. A freak! Just like me, without Uksakka.’
‘It’s going to take time. It could take months.’
‘Then there’s no time to lose.’
Every time Anders tried to explain to her how he remembered things, or rather, how he didn’t remember them, how they were like white spots in his head, she just nodded at him. Almost imperceptibly, but like she knew what he meant, even though she couldn’t possibly; it really irked him. She just wanted to get rid of him. That much he had gathered. She wanted him to admit himself to the psych ward in Örebro.
A word she kept circling back to in these conversations was shock. She talked about shock as though it had taken over his body, consequently absolving him of any moral responsibility. It was the shock that had scared him into the car and made him drive all the way home after the wolf killed Geir. The police had calculated that it would have taken him approximately ten hours and that he had stopped for petrol in Örnsköldsvik; listening to their description of his journey was like listening to an account of what he had got up to during a monumental bender.
According to Johanna, there was nothing to be ashamed about. He had been through a horrific ordeal. The reason she underscored this was that a lot of people felt he should have intervened. A kick in the arse would probably have scared the wolf off. And the wound the beast had torn in Geir’s throat was probably shallow enough his life could have been saved. If he had tried. Instead of jumping in his car and hightailing it out of there. What thoughts had run through his mind during those ten hours?
