by Stefan Spjut
Pressing on seemed as good as turning back.
After a few miles, she spotted a rest stop with a picnic bench and an information board. She slowed down and turned around. The board itself was long gone; in its place a hyper-realist landscape painting of a few utility poles wandering in a straight line in the distance had been installed. At the top of its frame was written ‘VARDØ – ULTIMA THULE’. She opened the glove compartment and snatched out the manual and papers and found the road map, a spiral-bound book. But Norway was nothing but a grey appendix to Sweden. She sat there with the map on her lap, thinking, trying to remember what the Scandinavian peninsula looked like in detail. Then she rolled back out on the road and drove back and when she reached the coast, she felt like she was on the right path.
*
She just wanted to drive. Put mile after mile behind her. Accelerate away from the terror. The thoughts racing around in her head hurt her. Flocks of screeching birds. Harpies. She had turned the radio on to drown out the mayhem inside her, but it didn’t help. She was only able to find two channels. Nothing about missing women in Kiruna. Of course not. Why would they care about something like that up here? And were they even officially missing? She had told Håkan she’d be back for lunch on Saturday. That was less than twenty-four hours ago. It felt like a week, but it hadn’t even been a day. Didn’t a full twenty-four hours have to pass before the police would actually start looking for missing people, at least missing adults? She thought about Missing People, an organisation Håkan loathed. People in windbreakers who tried to show off with their silly police jargon and who conducted searches, not primarily to find missing people but rather for the thrill that was missing in their own meaningless lives. Had he had time to change his mind about them in the past twenty-four hours? Had he called the police? He would talk to her mum and dad first, she was pretty sure of that. And they would probably go to Gudrun. What would she say?
Regardless, they probably hadn’t told Kiruna anything yet. They would shield her. For as long as possible. That thought had a calming effect.
Driving in her state was foolish. Nothing short of utter foolishness. She was reaching the end of her strength and ability. What she should do was call Håkan and then try to sleep for a few hours before pressing on. It would just be priceless if she ran off the road, after everything she’d been through. Though she would probably be fine. If I crash, I probably won’t die. The airbag will catch me, embrace me gently; I’ve seen how gentle it looks in the movies. Her train of thought was alarming and when she spotted a motorhome parked some way from the road, she slowed down. She was going to have to ruin this morning for some poor soul. Bang on their door and stand there with her battered face, like an emissary from the valley of the shadow of death.
It was a Norwegian vehicle, parked by the water’s edge. The loungers in which its occupants had enjoyed the midnight sun were sitting outside.
She rapped her knuckles against the door four times, waited a while and then knocked again. Then she spat on the back of her hand and rubbed off the blood dried into her skin. The vehicle rocked. Someone had got out of bed. She assumed they were having a look at her and her car, because it took a while before the lock clicked.
A pale man in nothing but his underwear appeared in the doorway.
She told him she had been in an accident and asked if she could borrow a phone. A round-eyed woman in a knee-length nightgown was moving about in the background. She thought they were going to hand her a phone, but they invited her in. Then they sat in silence, watching her, while she tried to remember Håkan’s phone number. It took a while for it to come back to her.
He answered with his full name and when he heard her voice, he broke off. Then he said hi. No joy whatsoever. Just a quiet hi, followed by static. No questions, nothing. At first, she was confused, didn’t he understand it was her calling? Was he in shock? The thought made her angry. He had no right to be shocked, that right was reserved for her. But she didn’t want to yell and she wasn’t sure what kind of insane accusations might slip out if she did. The only thing she could think of to say was: What’s the matter? An absurd question given what she had just been through. As though their roles had been reversed.
‘Nothing. Where are you?’
‘I’m in Norway. I think.’
The man and the woman nodded confirmation.
‘But I’m on my way home.’
‘Why are you in Norway?’
There was a stabbing pain in her jaw when she chuckled.
‘I don’t know.’
Strangely enough, that reply seemed to satisfy him. Because he asked no further questions.
‘When will you be home?’ he said.
‘As soon as I can.’
‘Good.’
She gave the phone back to the man. Call ended, it said. She tried to collect her thoughts and after a while, she had to sit down. They wanted to know what had happened to her and if they should call the police. Had someone attacked her, did she want something to drink?
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much.’
Smiling was painful, but she did it anyway. She felt they may not have let her go otherwise. She staggered out of the motorhome, climbed into her car and drove away.
She hadn’t gone far before she pulled over. She was in the middle of nowhere. Moorland, infinite in its emptiness. As though the sky were projecting a green image of itself on Earth.
She stepped out of the car, opened the back door, crawled in and lay down on the seat. Then she sat back up and lay down the other way, with the battered side of her face up. She wiggled around until she found the least uncomfortable position.
When her body started to relax, it was as if all her energy was redirected to her face. She could feel it growing, rising like proving dough. The moment she drifted off, she slipped into a dream, which she woke from immediately. Then she fell asleep once more.
Ipa was more or less constantly on the phone. Usually in rural Finnish. On one occasion, she spoke Sami, Northern Sami; that was the one time she used the white phone. Shimmering like mother-of-pearl, with a fine crack branching out across the back.
Layer upon layer of scars criss-crossed the hand she used to operate the gear stick. Her skin had healed imaginatively, with plant-like patience after being bitten to shreds again and again. The tip of her pinkie was missing and there was no nail.
The woman in the back was completely silent. Her head was leaned against the window and she hadn’t moved in a very long time. He reached back and pushed on her leg. He had to push a few times before she shifted and crossed her arms. Her eyes remained closed. A trickle of bloody ooze had found its way out from under the taped-on skirt and dried on her cheek.
‘A gift,’ Ipa said and when he showed no interest in discussing it, she asked: ‘What kind of gift?’
‘Susso Myrén, if you know who that is.’
She shot him a quick glance.
‘That’s her?’
He nodded.
Ipa said nothing more about it; she didn’t say anything else at all, but later, when they had stopped at a rest spot, he overheard her talking about the gift and she was making an effort to keep her voice down. She was sitting on a picnic table with her legs spread wide and her boots on the bench. A phone in one hand and a phone in the other. Karhuntappaja, she said and then she repeated the word. Karhuntappaja. She was asked a number of questions she couldn’t answer. En tiedä, she said. Ei. Ei.
He walked away. On the other side of the road was a nightblue lake and beyond that loomed the distant hills of a mountain range. Ipa had helped Susso out of and back into the car, probably so she could take a piss, and now she was heading toward him.
‘What happened to her eye?’ she said, squinting at him with one eye as if to illustrate her question.
In Varangerbotn, Diana turned into an Esso petrol station and filled the car up; then she went into the shop and locked herself in the bathroom. She needed to pee, but also to hide in a w
indowless room where no one could watch her. The bathroom was a poorly cleaned cell without any decorative elements whatsoever. The only thing to rest your eyes on was a broken tile; she stared at it. Then her eyes moved on to the square light switch, which had yellowed against the white wall. It felt like her consciousness was fracturing.
She washed her hands and studied herself in the mirror. Her skin was punctured where the blow had struck her nose and the blood that had seeped out had dried like a black tear. She wet a napkin and gently dabbed it against the wound.
She saw a lone mosquito hovering behind her in the mirror and for some reason, the thought of someone other than her having let it into the bathroom revolted her.
The woman at the till was from South East Asia. A small pink flower floated in the black river of her hair. She avoided making eye contact and seemed cross. When Diana asked what kinds of snus they had, she opened the cabinet and turned away and when they waited for the card reader to approve the payment, she stared at the card reader. Then she suddenly slammed her hand down on the counter. Diana was terrified. She didn’t realise the woman had been aiming for a mosquito until she cursed and waved her hand at it.
After a while, a little man appeared behind the till. He gave her directions in sing-song Norwegian and took out a small map that he unfolded and pointed at. Basically, she just had to follow the river. She was supposed to take the E6 motorway all the way down to Karasjok and then head toward Kautokeino and down toward Finland and once she got to Finland, she should drive toward Kilpisjärvi. That would take her to Karesuando. He repeated it like a chant: Karasjok, Kautokeino, Kilpisjärvi. And Karesuando. Four Ks. Five with Kiruna.
She got back in her car and emptied her carrier bag of supplies on the passenger seat. Three chocolate bars by the name of Hobby, two bottles of Coke and a tin of mint-flavoured Skruf snus. She scarfed some chocolate and washed it down with Coke. Every bite hurt so bad she grinned like a malevolent old hag throughout.
*
The road never strayed far from the river, which came and went behind the birch trees. She regretted not asking how far it might be. Three hundred miles, six hundred miles, she had no earthly idea. This was unfamiliar territory. The heart of Sápmi. She had never been north of Abisko before. Yes, she had. No, she hadn’t. Her head, her poor head. One moment, she was thinking about the station manager who had imported a wife – a catalogue hag, or CH, as Håkan liked to put it – a woman who seemed to hate her work and maybe her whole life up here among the mosquitoes and reindeer in the Far North, and she wondered if they had any children and if so what they looked like and what identities they would develop as they grew up.
The next moment, her mind turned to deformities of all kinds. Circus freaks. Victims of nature’s cruel sense of humour. Siamese twins and wolf boys. She wondered what had become of the most severely afflicted throughout history. Severely mentally disabled and misshapen like fantastical beasts. Curious products of incestuous procreation that had continued unabated for generations. In isolated environments. The strange things that could happen to a coccyx.
This could not explain the strange collapse that had occurred in her head. A curious twilight had enveloped her and it still lingered, making it impossible for her to think back. She had not been conscious but had also not been unconscious. She had moved through a shadow world. Without a will of her own. When she thought about it, she noticed a resistance. It was like trying to recall something really embarrassing. There was a strike in the archives.
From time to time, she heard Håkan’s voice. None of the things she had been through had hit her as hard as the words he had mumbled on the phone. She had considered calling again, but had decided not to. She was afraid. It wasn’t just the fact that his detached voice had intensified the feeling of being outside the fact-based reality he represented. He had sounded different. And what was more likely: that his voice had changed over the past twenty-four hours or that her impression of it had? The mental tribulations she had endured must have interfered with her perception somehow. She zoomed past a sign that read ‘SUOSSJÄRVI’ and when she soon afterwards ended up behind a car with the number plate SU 5025, she thought to herself that she was losing her mind. You’re tired, she said out loud. You’re seeing things that don’t exist. You have to sleep. In your own bed – not in the car you were abducted in. Home, Diana. You have to get home. Home to Kiruna.
Anders was woken up by the sound of birds singing, thousands of them, judging by the volume. The windows were laminated with dripping condensation, but the car door was open onto a wall of shimmering green leaves. Stava was gone, but the blanket she had slept under was still on the folded-down back seat. He opened the door and stepped out with aching joints.
They were on a forest track. Somewhere just north of Sundsvall, if he remembered correctly. Or had they come as far north as Skellefteå? The sun was a burning ball at the top of a pine tree and the day was already warm. He took a few steps before bending over and vomiting. He had had a vision of the holes the bolt gun had made in the smooth, white surface of the coffee table. In a dream sequence, he had filled those holes with putty and evened it out with sandpaper, and an unidentified person had run their hand over the table top and said it turned out really good, no trace of the holes, and he had agreed. But the dream had restarted, with new holes and the same procedure, and his repairs had turned out worse and worse. He had been stuck in that scene all night. Well, not exactly all night. He couldn’t have slept more than a few hours.
He glanced in through the rear window and then walked up to it. The wolf wasn’t in there. He opened the boot. But the rifle still was. He felt his face twist into a grimace. His abdomen tensed up and then he cried silently with a hand over his mouth.
*
They came toward him down the little road, shaded by the trees. First the wolf and about thirty feet behind it Stava, with her hands in her pockets like a dog owner out for a walk.
Anders squatted down and held his head in his hands.
‘What have we done,’ he said, ‘what have we fucking done.’
She opened the boot and waited for the wolf to get in. But the wolf was busy. It had found Anders’ vomit and was gently lapping it up.
‘This is the first day of your new life as a muuurderer,’ she said with a hoarse laugh. ‘We’re like Juha and whatshername. The one with the French lops. What was her name?’
He sobbed.
‘Anders! Listen to me! We haven’t murdered anybody. He did it. That kid. Lukas. We just happened to be there.’
He nodded.
‘We just happened to be there.’
‘We should get going. And as soon as we get to my dad, everything will be all right. Everything will be all right when we’re with my dad.’
‘How far is it?’
‘Get in the car.’
*
Stava drove and he watched the monotonous landscape glide past outside the window. Tightly packed spruce trees in never-ending rows. He did actually feel a bit better. At least physically. His headache had subsided. It still hurt, but it no longer felt like his head was about to explode. It might be because the wolf was asleep. Or at least keeping quiet in the boot. He badly needed to pee, but was afraid to ask her to stop in case that would disturb the balance.
She wore a thin, purple cardigan he hadn’t seen before. It looked high-end and expensive and smelled of sweet perfume. A curly blonde hair clung to the fuzzy sleeve. He leaned forward and opened the glove compartment, but found nothing to throw up in. It was going to have to be his paper coffee cup. He tore off the lid and regurgitated slimy water that stuck to his lips. Afterwards, he sat holding the cup because he didn’t know what to do with it. Then his window suddenly opened and he threw the cup out.
‘It will pass,’ Stava said.
He wiped his mouth with his hand and nodded. A blue sign appeared. They were almost in Örnsköldsvik. The effort of throwing up had filled his eyes with tears that he now wiped away.
>
‘Did you go through this too?’
‘I’ve seen others go through it.’
‘And they were normal afterwards?’
The word made her smile.
‘Remember me telling you about Mauri?’
‘Was he the one who shot himself?’
‘That you remember.’
‘Yes, because I feel a bit like I’ve taken his place.’
She picked something out of her mouth and inspected it before flicking it off her fingers.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘So you think I’m cheap.’
‘No, it’s just how I feel.’
‘You should know, Anders, that you’re special.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Ransu could have bonded with your colleague, that Norwegian man. But he didn’t. He chose you.’
‘Wasn’t that just random?’
‘You belong together, and that bond is forever.’
‘But what about you. You belong together too, don’t you?’
‘That’s different.’
‘Because you’re a woman?’
‘I’m not a woman, Anders.’
‘Of course you’re a woman.’
‘Am I?’
‘Of course you are. What else would you be?’
When I entered the kitchen that morning, Roland was sitting there with the newspaper open in front of him. But he wasn’t looking at the paper, he was looking at me, and he was very clearly trying to get a read on me. My entire body ached, but I didn’t let on because I had no desire to be interrogated. I poured myself coffee and sat down. Glanced at the headlines.
‘Any news?’ he said; I shook my head.
He closed the paper.
‘They must have gone somewhere on a whim,’ he said, ‘over to Narvik or something. Like a fun getaway. After all these years.’
