by Stefan Spjut
The girl sat down on the sofa next to the old man. She had set the child down on the floor.
‘He knows you,’ she said. ‘You’re the bear man. Why is there a thread around your hand?’
‘It’s a bandage.’
‘He doesn’t like it. That you’re wearing that bandage.’
‘It bleeds. If I remove it.’
‘Rune,’ Grete said. ‘We’ve come to ask a favour.’
When she spoke Rune’s name, the old man tilted his head to the side like a heeding dog.
‘If you come into the kitchen,’ the girl said, ‘we get out those little cups from the cabinet and you could have sweets from the box that’s a rattle. I mean sweeteners. Would you like some sweeteners?’
‘Yes, please,’ Grete said, inclining her head, ‘we would love that.’
They went into the kitchen and sat down. The girl got cups from the cabinet and set them out on the table, opened a small jar and poured tablets into their cups. Then she picked the boy up and rocked him in her arms.
‘How are things up at Torsten’s?’ she said.
Lennart glanced at Grete.
‘At Torsten’s?’ he said. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t been there in a long time.’
‘It’s bad,’ Grete said and shook her head sadly. ‘It’s all bad. Very, very bad.’ She wet her index finger, fished a tablet from her cup and put it in her mouth. ‘As I was saying before. We’ve come to ask a favour of you.’
‘Why do you talk so funny?’
‘Funny? I’m Norwegian.’
She took off her sunglasses and put them on the table, then she leaned forward so Rune could see the unhuman sheen in her eyes.
‘There is a human in Vittangi who scares me so much I can barely talk about her. She wants to do very bad things to me. Which means she wants to do very bad things to you. Because you and I are siblings. You and Lennart are also siblings. He is your brother. And I am your sister. And surely you want to help your sister?’
The figure on the other side of the table sat stock-still.
‘But there’s a problem. A small problem. Because she has a little one helping her.’ She showed with her hand how small the little one was. ‘A squirrel. He is old and knows much, and we can’t quite handle him, and we’re afraid of him. I’ll admit as much. But I’m certain you aren’t. Which is why we’re here. We have travelled far to see you, Rune.’
Lennart studied the girl, who was leaning back against the kitchen counter, rocking the little boy in her arms. The arm with the sock on moved up toward her mouth; she turned her head away as if to escape a fly.
‘He doesn’t understand,’ she said. ‘And he doesn’t like that you talk funny.’
‘Maybe we should do this in Swedish?’
‘He thinks you’re trying to trick him,’ she said.
‘We’re not,’ Grete said. ‘We just want you to come with us to Vittangi. And help us with this squirrel. Before it’s too late. For your own sake. Rune. For your own sake.’
‘Who’s Vittangi?’
‘It’s the place where she lives,’ Lennart said. ‘The girl with the squirrel.’
‘He doesn’t want to go there.’
‘We really do need your help,’ Grete said.
‘He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t like Vittangi and he doesn’t like you and he doesn’t like the bandage on his hand. You’re just trying to trick him. You’re thieves.’
‘Thieves? We’re not thieves.’
Silence fell in the kitchen. The only sounds were the music from the living room and the little grunts coming from the child as it tried to twist out of its mother’s grasp.
‘I think you’d better leave,’ the girl said.
Grete stayed in her seat. But when the young man appeared in the doorway, she nodded, stuck her sunglasses into her hair, grabbed her crutch and got to her feet.
Lennart held the front door for her but she was in no hurry. She had pulled out her phone and was tapping it with her thumb. Then she aimed the glowing screen at the young man.
They didn’t have to wait long before the door slammed shut and he came outside. Grete asked his name and he said Elias. For fear of being overheard, he wanted them to move further away from the house, but Grete said that wasn’t necessary. He looked terrified. His eyes darted this way and that and he was unable to stand still.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Fanny.’
‘Is she your girlfriend?’
‘Yes. Or. I don’t know. She used to be, anyway.’
‘And the boy? What’s the boy’s name?’
‘Malte.’
‘If you want us to help you, Elias, you have to help us first. If you help us, we can look after Malte. I promise we’ll look after him if you do.’
‘She’ll never hand him over. She won’t even take him to see a doctor.’
‘And I can see why.’
‘But there should be something they can do …’
‘There’s nothing a doctor can do for him. She’s right about that. He will be better off with me. And Fanny will understand that, in time. He will be better off with me.’
‘What do I need to do?’
‘You have to make Fanny see that you’re not safe here. That you will never be safe here, and that Rune has to come with us.’
Elias nodded.
‘Would you like me to talk to her?’
He nodded.
‘When does he sleep?’
‘Rune? During the day, mostly. It depends.’
‘Take my phone number. And give me a ring when he’s asleep.’
‘Okay,’ he said and pulled a phone out of his pocket.
‘When he’s asleep. Not until then.’
*
An hour later, Grete’s phone rang and Lennart went over to fetch Fanny. She was waiting for him out by the road. She had put on a hoodie and pulled the hood up.
‘We want to talk to you,’ he said.
She walked about fifty feet behind him to the motorhome. He opened the door for her, but she stopped outside with her hands like lumps in her jacket pockets. Her mouth pressed shut, her lips pale.
‘She’s in there,’ he said.
‘Why can’t she come out?’
‘She’s resting.’
Her eyes darted away. She was thinking. Then she walked up to the door and climbed the little steps. Grete’s voice croaked from inside.
‘Hi there, Fanny. But where’s your little boy?’
Håkan took off his watch and put it on the shelf where they kept the spices. He always did when he was about to do something in the kitchen. Diana sat on a chair, watching him. The hairs on his wrist were curly with sweat under the metal links of his wristband. He wore his jeans, which were the perfect length, with a leather belt, and his shirt was tucked in. It was always tucked in. How he managed that was beyond her. He was filling the frying pan with pinches of mince from the packet. The pan hissed when he dropped the red dollops into the butter and the fan was humming so loudly she almost had to shout to make herself heard.
‘His blood pressure won’t budge even though I’ve given him the whole shebang; I even have him on spironolactone!’
‘Have you done any tests?’
‘Of course I have. The screen lit up like a Christmas tree when I opened the module. MCV was high and his triglycerides and transes. He had a CDT of nine!’
‘Because he drinks. You know that, right?’
‘I’ve asked, I ask every time. But he denies it. Snaps at Christmas and a glass of wine or two on the weekend with his wife.’
‘Speaking of which, I bought wine,’ he said and chopped at the mince with the spatula.
She opened the door to the laundry room. The bag was on the floor, next to the box of detergent. Håkan always put alcohol in the laundry room. Maybe because he was ashamed of the bags, maybe it was the closest they had to a wine cellar. She pulled out a bottle of red, set it down on the kitchen counter and rummaged through the drawer for th
e bottle opener.
‘I ran into Susso’s mum the other day, in the park. Last Tuesday.’
She turned the roar of the fan down a little, sniffed the bottle and then filled two glasses she had placed on the table.
‘And I realised something I hadn’t understood before. Which is that she’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic. No wonder Susso turned out the way she did with a mother like her. All of it comes from her. From Gudrun.’
‘Like a kind of heritage, you mean?’
‘What’s it called, a delusion shared with another person, something in French.’
‘Folie à deux.’
‘Oui. Folie à deux.’
‘Though that’s exceptionally unusual, just so you know.’
‘More unusual than trolls?’
‘Pretty much on a par, I reckon.’
‘She’s worried Lennart Brösth is out for revenge.’
‘On her?’
‘On Susso.’
‘Why? Cheers.’
‘Cheers. Because she helped catch him. Do you want me to cut the vegetables?’
‘It’s done.’
With her wine glass in her hand, she sat down on the floor with her back against the fridge.
‘Wasn’t it the other way around,’ he said, ‘that the picture she took had nothing to do with the kidnapping? Shouldn’t he be thanking her for pointing the police in the wrong direction? If there’s logic to the madness? Or am I wrong?’
‘She says they’re not like other people. They’re dangerous. A hundred years is not to him what it is to us.’
‘The old man certainly does seem spry.’
‘See what I mean? She says things like that while at the same time claiming Susso’s been acting weird.’
‘Though you have to wonder what acting weird entails, given that we’re talking about a person who actively and openly is searching for actual trolls. Minus plus minus. Maybe it means Susso has come to her senses?’
‘She’s moved to Vittangi.’
‘That’s actually how folies à deux work,’ he said. ‘It’s always one person sucking another into their delusions. And if the other person creates distance, like by moving away, the spell is broken, so to speak. And that seems to be the case here.’
‘I think she’s doing drugs.’
‘Drugs? How come?’
‘Gudrun says she’s a different person. That she’s skinny and no one seems to recognise her. On the other hand, maybe that’s to be expected if Susso’s doing her best to reject her. If it’s true that she’s realised she’s kind of been brainwashed.’
‘Who are her friends?’
‘She doesn’t have any. According to Gudrun she doesn’t see anyone.’
‘Addicts are not usually loners. Or does she grow her own? Was she good at chemistry in school?’
A clay fridge magnet was digging into the back of her head; she took it down. A flattened ladybird with big, rigid eyes. She held it in her hand; it was amazingly smooth to the touch. She counted the dots on its back. Couldn’t remember if she had made it or Håkan. Which one of them had laboured over placing the dots on it. She didn’t answer his question and he seemed to assume he’d gone too far because he used a different voice when he then asked if they had been classmates in upper secondary or before that.
‘Secondary school,’ she said. ‘But we were close after too. Until I moved to Umeå. Since then, we basically haven’t talked at all. We ran into each other once or twice just after we moved here. Swapped numbers and all that. But then it just didn’t happen.’
‘And this thing with the trolls, how did she get into that?’
‘Her grandfather was Gunnar Myrén. The photographer. Surely I’ve told you this before?’
‘I know you had a friend called Susso, and that she took that picture that was in the newspaper. That’s all I know. You never talk about her. You’ve never talked about her.’
‘But you know who Gunnar Myrén is?’
He nodded.
‘What’s with the face?’
‘What face?’
She grimaced.
He had cut the bag of seasoning open and was sprinkling it over the mince.
‘Isn’t he a bit kitschy?’
‘Either way, he took a picture of a troll. An aerial photograph. In Sarek. It’s a bear and there’s someone sitting on it, riding it. But it’s impossible to say what it is.’
‘And this is a photograph we’re talking about, a proper photograph?’
‘Yes, to the extent that a photograph of a troll can be a proper photograph.’
‘Which it can’t be. And I’m fairly convinced I have all of science on my side when I say that.’
‘I’ve seen it.’
‘All right.’
‘It looks very real.’
‘Photoshop?’
‘This was the eighties.’
‘There were obviously ways to doctor images back then too.’
‘Could you stop putting him down! He’s kitsch and the picture’s fake. I’m Håkan and I’m a doctor, I’m scientific and everyone else is stupid.’
‘I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about Susso’s grandfather.’ He pointed the spatula at her. ‘Not your grandfather.’
‘Regardless, it was something she did. For a while.’
‘Trolls.’
‘She wanted to know if they were real. She had a website, a cryptozoological website, where she wrote about these things and posted pictures. That she had taken or people had sent to her. And through this website she got in touch with an old lady in Jokkis who had seen some dodgy creature in her garden. So Susso went down there and installed one of those cameras that take pictures by themselves. A trail camera. And it snapped a picture of a little man.’
‘That was the one in the paper, when that kid had been kidnapped?’
‘Yes, they suspected him of having taken the boy.’
‘But he hadn’t?’
With a mouth full of wine, she shook her head.
‘He was innocent?’
‘Yes,’ she said and put her glass down on the floor.
‘So who was he?’
‘Who was who?’
‘The person in the picture! The little man.’
‘No one knows.’
‘He hasn’t come forward?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Why didn’t he come forward, if he didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping?’
‘How should I know?’
‘That’s weird though, right? You’re going to have to move your belles fesses.’
Without getting up, she scooched sideways so Håkan could open the fridge door.
‘But you think he’s real?’
‘Real?’
‘Yes, you don’t think Susso conjured him digitally, so to speak. Carrying on the Myrén family tradition.’
She pondered that with her eyes on the floor.
‘The thought has crossed your mind?’
‘It might have.’
‘But you know her. Would she, in your opinion, be capable of producing a counterfeit photograph for the purposes of misleading the police and general public?’
‘As I said, I haven’t talked to her in years.’
‘Because of her delusions.’
‘Partly, but there are other reasons.’
‘I see.’
‘I don’t see you being super close with your childhood friends.’
He had cut open a packet of sour cream and threw the tab in the bin.
‘In Kiruna County I have, let’s see, zero childhood friends.’
‘How convenient.’
‘You’ve distanced yourself. On account of the trolls.’
‘Because I knew you would make fun of her.’
‘So it’s my fault?’
‘The two of you are not compatible.’
‘You sound very sure of yourself. Almost like you’ve made your mind up we’re not compatible.’
‘It�
�s like me and your sister. Cat and dog.’
‘Millan tries. But you don’t. You’ve made your mind up it’s not working.’
‘I know you would make fun of her.’
‘Can’t we invite her over then? So I can prove you wrong.’
‘Because you want to meet her or because you want to prove you’re right and I’m wrong?’
‘Because I want to meet her, obviously.’
‘You’re such a liar!’
She laughed so hard she splashed wine on her shirt – a white cotton shirt she was fond of – which made her pull an angry face.
‘Call her.’
‘She doesn’t have a phone.’
‘Then go out there,’ he said and held out the salt packet to her.
She pulled off her shirt, poured salt on the stains and threw the shirt in the hamper.
‘I told Gudrun I would,’ she said as she dug through the pile of clean laundry. ‘But I really don’t feel like it.’
‘What are you afraid of?’
‘What am I afraid of?’ she said and pulled the shirt over her head. ‘I obviously want to preserve her.’
Håkan opened his mouth but didn’t have time to get a word out.
‘The way she was! If it’s true that she’s completely broken. You get that, don’t you?’
‘Can I talk now?’
‘No, you can’t,’ she said and topped up her glass.
‘You’re being really selfish. You know that, right?’
‘You’re selfish.’
‘If she goes off the deep end properly, you’ll never be able to forgive yourself. You are going to want to be able to tell yourself you tried. That you at least did everything you could.’
‘You know what junkies are like, you can’t save them, they have to save themselves.’
‘You can do enough to be able to tell yourself you tried. Go out there. Invite her over for dinner. Let her meet Kiruna. And I’ll meet her too.’
At this point, the little girl entered the kitchen. She looked at them wide-eyed.
