by Stefan Spjut
They carried their chairs down to the jetty. Susso fetched a bag of beer that she tied to a rope and lowered into the water.
‘I didn’t mean what I said,’ Diana slurred. ‘That you living here is tragic and that you’ve been brainwashed. But you know how I feel about all that. The trolls and stuff. Cryptozoology. You know what I think.’
Susso used Diana’s snus tin to open another bottle of beer. Took off her baseball cap and put it down on the jetty and tossed the beer cap into it. When she realised the wind was threatening to carry the hat off, she anchored it with the bottle of mosquito repellent. She leaned back. Her eyes were fixed on the opposite bank of the river. There were no houses in sight.
‘Do you know how many kids the Simonssons have?’ Diana held up six fingers. ‘The latest, though probably not the last, is called Arwen.’
‘Have they become Laestadians or something?’
‘Söderberg has four.’
Susso took a sip of beer.
‘It’s like that game,’ she said, ‘with the pebbles. When you predict how many children you’ll have. Hey, look, I had zero children when I grew up.’
She had time to think: no, but you got a squirrel. But this time she managed to keep her mouth shut and she was grateful for it.
‘They all have diagnoses. They’re a pain in the neck. I think Ida probably wishes she’d got zero children as well. At least she looks like she does whenever they come into the clinic and run riot.’
‘Ida Söderberg,’ Susso said slowly. ‘I’d forgotten about her.’
‘They fade,’ Diana said and pulled a bottle out of the bag. ‘But they’re there. They never go away.’ She flicked off the cap and when she managed to get it in the hat, she gave herself a silent round of applause and Susso smiled at her.
*
When she exited the bathroom, it was like she got stuck in something; she kind of froze mid-step. She stood staring at the door to the kitchen. The grain of the wood in the mirrors. The rusty holes left by an old rim lock. The polished trim plate of the handle. The keyhole that was a shape that always made her think of that classic Swedish picture book about the red yarn that in mysterious ways leads all the way through a house to a kitten hidden in a vase inside a cupboard in the attic. Susso had reminded her not to open the kitchen door and she hadn’t had any intention to. But now, standing here, it was hard to resist the temptation. Maybe simply because she wasn’t allowed. Like in Bluebeard’s castle. But there was something else too. She found the squirrel disturbing. Not the squirrel so much, perhaps, as the act of keeping it indoors. In the kitchen. It shouldn’t be in there; not letting it out would be unnatural. She felt that very strongly. That it needed to get out. She even put her fingers on the handle. But she didn’t open it. Instead she went outside and fetched her charger from the car, singing as she walked. She found an outlet in the hallway and plugged the charger in.
When she passed the kitchen window, she couldn’t help but look. And there it was. Staring at her.
She walked up to the glass and bent down to get level with the tiny face. Tapped with the nail of her index finger and watched the funny faces her mirrored self pulled.
‘You can’t keep a squirrel in the kitchen,’ she said and sat down. ‘Pooping everywhere and stuff. Super unhygienic. Bloody impractical too, because it probably hides things, and you have to keep a kitchen neat.’
She pulled the plastic carrier bag out of the water and took out the last couple of bottles. Their labels had peeled off. Then she threw the bag back in the river.
‘Now you have to tell me. Why do you have a squirrel?’
Susso didn’t respond; she stood up, so quickly she wobbled. Diana grabbed her to keep her from falling. Then she noticed Susso was staring at something.
A little man was standing between the house and the jetty, watching them. No taller than a child. But his back was bent and he was wearing some kind of mask. Diana figured it was a local urchin who had put on a costume to scare them and asked Susso who it was, but got no reply.
Now he was walking toward them with a slow, shuffling gait. As though some kind of geriatric zombie had caught their scent in the summer night.
Diana tumbled off her chair. Sat on the jetty, barely able to breathe. When she realised the horrifying figure was not going to be explained through any concepts at her disposal or stop coming toward them, she slipped into a state she had never been in before. It was as if an unknown room had opened up inside her consciousness. Everything was so weirdly quiet. She could even hear the mosquitoes swarming around her. Susso had sunk into a deep squat; it looked like she was peeing.
Now the little figure reached out with one hand.
The monster grabbed Susso’s hair and pulled it and she crawled after him without resisting, as though they were engaging in some sort of perverted domination game.
Diana clapped both hands to her mouth.
‘Let her go,’ she said. She wanted to scream, but all she could manage was a whimper. ‘Let her go.’
Rune was hobbling around the lawn with quick, hopping steps. He threw his arms out in every direction in jerky, incomprehensible gestures. It looked like some kind of deranged dance. Fanny sat on the front porch with her hood up and her arms around her pulled-up legs, watching him. Her jeans were rolled up on her calves and she was scratching at her ankles.
One of the women stood looking stupidly at the ground with eyes that didn’t blink. She had a small goatee of blood. She was being held upright by her friend, who wore glasses and didn’t seem too out of it; she was even swatting at the mosquitoes.
Abraham was clutching a wad of tissues that he pressed to one nostril from time to time. Rune was intrigued and followed him when he walked off.
‘What’s that in your pocket?’ Fanny said.
‘Nothing,’ he mumbled.
‘You’re sad about your face.’
Abraham made no reply.
‘You’re ever so, ever so sad.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Rune wants to give you a gift.’
‘I don’t want any gifts.’
Her eyebrows shot up.
‘Are you refusing his gift?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course not.’
‘Would you like to know what it is? He’s going to let you have a taste. Of them.’
She nodded toward the women.
‘We’re going to gut them and then you will get to eat some of the things we pull out. The little friend you keep in your pocket will get its share too. It’s enough for everyone.’
‘What kind of nonsense is that?’ Lennart said.
Rune was standing stock-still on his bow legs. His back was slightly arched. The bulge of his tail moved underneath his trousers.
Fanny pointed.
‘They’re for someone else. Aren’t they?’
Instead of replying, Lennart walked off, up toward the road Ingvill was driving down with Grete, who had the little boy on her lap.
The women were sitting next to each other on the ground. They looked like they were waiting for help to arrive after being in a car crash. The woman with glasses was taking small, shallow breaths. It was as though the automation of her lungs had stopped working and she now had to focus all her attention on breathing. Abraham gave her a kick.
‘It’s this one.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘The other one, should we leave her here?’
Grete shook her head.
‘We’re bringing her.’
‘Is she coming in the motorhome?’
‘No, you’re going to have to take her in one of those.’
She pointed to the cars parked under the birch trees. That was when they noticed the door on the driver’s side of the van was open. There was no sign of Elias.
‘What’s his name again?’ Abraham said.
‘Elias,’ Lennart told him.
‘Elias!’
Grete waved her hand dismissively.
‘Let h
im go.’
She got out of the wheelchair, leaning on Ingvill’s arm.
‘Lennart. You’ll drive the van. It’s an automatic.’
‘What about the boy?’
‘The boy will go with you; he’ll keep you company.’
Abraham took the boy and buckled him into the car seat; when he was done, he dug his fingers into the child’s puffy stomach and made a sound that was supposed to amuse the boy, but he neither laughed nor smiled, just looked at him. When Abraham shut the door, the child turned its eyes to Lennart. His bottom lip was wet with saliva and white splinters were poking through his pink gums. The little boy raised his sock-clad hand and rubbed it against the plaster on his cheek.
‘Don’t do that. It’s not a good idea,’ Lennart said and turned on the engine.
When Diana opened her eyes in the dark, she had been dozing for what felt like hours, thinking she should open her eyes any moment now. For some reason, she had put it off, again and again. She had been busy with other things. Entangled in something that had seemed so important she hadn’t been able to tear herself away from it.
But now she lay there, blinking. It wasn’t completely pitch black and she knew she was in a car. The sound of the engine had penetrated her sleep. Though it hadn’t been proper sleep. More like some kind of numbed stupor. Which she was still under the sway of. Because she didn’t panic. Not even when she realised her hands were tied, and her feet too.
Susso, she thought to herself. Did I go to Susso’s house?
She tried to rip the tape around her hands apart but was unable to, and the tape around her feet was every bit as tight. When she wiggled around, she spotted something she recognised. She blinked and tried to focus.
Kiruna’s denim skirt.
She was in her own car.
The boot cover prevented her from getting up, so she rolled over on her back, bent her knees to her chest and pushed her feet upward. The cloth yielded and let in light that blinded her. She kept kicking with flaring nostrils; the effort was helping clear her head.
‘Diana! Stop that.’
She lay still. A Norwegian man. Who knew her name. And was driving her car? She started kicking again, and this time she screamed too, filled with terror and rage: she roared so loud her ears popped.
The car slowed down. Stopped.
She lay still, waiting.
A door slammed shut. Footsteps against the asphalt. The boot opened. The man stared down at her. He had curly black hair and a furrowed face, with stubble like a shadow across his cheeks.
‘I’m going to have to ask you to stop that,’ he said pleasantly.
To get some idea of where she was and what was going on, she tried to catch a glimpse of what it looked like behind him. A dead straight road with sparse forest on either side. No houses, no signs.
‘We don’t really need you, so if you make trouble, I’m going to leave you here.’
It was only then she realised there was something wrong with him. Half his face contorted with spastic tension and he was staring at her with one eye like an old sea captain.
He motioned with his head toward the gravelly side of the road.
‘Do you understand what I’m telling you, Diana? I’m going to dump you here like a bag of rubbish.’
He sounded so friendly she didn’t know how to take his threat. A car was approaching; as it drove past, she started kicking again. That made the man grab the boot cover and pull it off. She immediately calmed down. He was going to free her now.
He looked at her with his lopsided face. In her panicked state, she had to admit he was good-looking, despite his defect. A tall man in jeans and a red shell jacket with a standing collar. It was a Tierra jacket, she could tell from the tiny ice axe on his chest, and her dazed mind told her that Håkan had a jacket of that same brand, so he couldn’t very well harm her.
He leaned in over her and put a hand on her shoulder. The fear that he would hurt her slipped into her awareness but had no time to trigger a reaction. Because her field of vision was split by lightning and after the lightning, there was nothing.
Every now and then, Lennart’s eyes slid from the road to the little boy. His head had flopped to one side and his curls billowed sweetly in all directions like on a classic cherub and his domed eyelids were fringed with dark, curved lashes. It made him look like a doll.
He poked his right foot and when there was no reaction, he pinched it. That made the child turn and bury his head into the car seat’s headrest; maybe there was a bit of shade there. It didn’t look comfortable but in any event, he seemed to be sleeping soundly. Despite the nocturnal light, which was slowly intensifying. Soon, the car would be filled with sunlight.
His head started moving and suddenly went rigidly still. Lennart glanced over and was met by a pair of eyes that had opened in wonder.
The boy didn’t seem scared, just sat there looking at him. His dummy lay between his legs. Lennart picked it up and held it out in front of him until he reached for it. It was not long, however, before he started whining. Lennart picked up his phone and thumbed his way to the right number.
‘He’s hungry or something. I can grin and bear it, I guess, but the question is what happens in the back if the kid starts howling. If Rune’s asleep, we don’t want to wake him. We’re going to try to ride it out.’
After ending the call, he handed the phone to the boy, who was entertained by it for a moment or two. Then he started squirming in his seat, emitting displeased puffing sounds. He wasn’t crying yet, but it wasn’t far off. Lennart tapped the phone against the buckle on the child’s tummy.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Look at this.’
*
They stopped at a petrol station and Lennart carried the boy into the motorhome. Fanny had a bag full of clinking glass jars. While the microwave hummed, the boy sat with the old lady. She rocked him on her knee and sang softly in his ear: Hooray for me and you I say, hooray for me and you. Fanny watched them with a weary expression. She didn’t seem able to keep her eyes open properly.
Lennart stepped outside. It wasn’t even five yet. A reindeer with brown, plump horns was standing under the petrol station’s roof, glaring at nothing, and beyond that there was another one and two more on the other side of the car park, grumpy-eyed and bored, speckled like feral cats.
Abraham and Ingvill were waiting next to the Audi. A weasel was skittering up and down and around Abraham’s arm. Its back was brown and its belly white and it moved so quickly it looked like a living tail. With the same good sense as a tail, because there seemed to be no purpose to its windings. Then it suddenly stopped. Perched on his shoulder, looking at Lennart with its black nose like a third eye.
‘Have you checked on them?’ he said.
Abraham made a beckoning sound with his tongue against his teeth and tried to catch the animal, which shied away and slipped over to his other shoulder.
‘Do you think it’ll work?’ he said in his slurred voice. ‘If we give her to him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can’t we send in our friend with the mask instead?’
Abraham smiled. Or did he? It was hard to tell. Either way, he was decidedly unconcerned. He was playing with the weasel, doing his best to persuade it to run over to Ingvill, but it didn’t want to.
‘The main thing, though,’ he said, ‘is that we get him to turn, right?’
Lennart had spotted something in the car. The sole of a shoe bracing against one of the windows. The woman had managed to heave herself out of the boot and was wriggling into the back seat. He drew Abraham’s attention to what was happening with a nod. Then he looked around to make sure no one could see them.
Just as Ingvill managed to get the car door open, the woman hurled herself forward between the seats, trying to get to the start button with her taped-up hands. She managed to reach the button with an extended finger. The engine started. But now Abraham caught hold of her. He grabbed her by the hips and pulled her out of the car
. After slamming her into the asphalt, he lifted her up by the hair.
‘Did you not understand me?’ he said and rammed a fist into her stomach.
She doubled over and collapsed and then sat leaning against the car with terrified, staring eyes, while the weasel dashed about on the ground, hissing at her menacingly.
‘Did you figure I was playing around?’
Abraham was standing over her, trying to catch her eye, but she jerked her head away and averted her eyes. That made him pinch her ear and stretch her earlobe out.
‘You’d better listen to me.’
From out of nowhere, he suddenly conjured a knife. An all-purpose knife with a red plastic handle.
‘If you don’t do as I say, I’m going to cut off your ear and put it in your mouth and tape it shut. So you don’t forget what happens when you don’t listen.’
Ingvill had pulled off a piece of duct tape that she now put over the woman’s eyes. Then she wrapped her whole head until nothing but the top of her nose was visible. Abraham pinched the nose and released it, pinched and released. The woman tossed her head from side to side to escape the torture.
When they wanted her to crawl back into the car, she resisted. Abraham shoved her to the ground and heaved her into the boot, sweating bullets all the while. He slammed the boot shut and then they stood there looking at the broken black boot cover. After no more than a few seconds, the head with the grey swaths around it popped up. Like some kind of futuristic mummy, rising from its grave.
‘She doesn’t seem to be getting it,’ Abraham said.
He went over to the motorhome, opened the boot and pulled out the other woman, who was Susso Myrén. After throwing her to the ground, he opened the Audi, pulled out her unruly friend, led her over to the motorhome, shoved her into the luggage compartment and slammed the door shut. Then he gestured to Susso to get up, but she just stared at him.
That made him fly off the handle. He ran at her and kicked her as hard as he could in the ribs and then he straddled her prone body and shouted at her to stop staring at him. He ripped off her glasses and held the point of the knife to her eye.
