by Stefan Spjut
‘And you put up with it for ten years.’
‘Well, I was in prison in Haparanda first. Then, when I cut my arm with the bandsaw in the workshop, the second time, they transferred me. And started giving me drugs.’
‘When I visited you, and told you we’d found him, that we’d found Skabram, you didn’t believe me. Remember?’
He shook his head.
‘You said you knew they were all dead. That you could feel it. I can feel they’re gone the same way I can feel my hand’s gone. That’s how you put it.’
‘I still feel that way.’
She grabbed hold of her wheels and drew closer.
‘But you were wrong.’
‘Yes.’
She watched him.
‘Eventually, we’ll find the others.’
‘They’re dead.’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘Well, then how are you going to find them? More Goldilocks stories in the paper?’
‘Exactly!’
He looked at the hare, which hopped across the floor and settled down under the table. From where it stared at him, its nose twitching violently.
‘If Luttak were dead, we’d know.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because her fur’s so grey. If anyone came across such an unusual bear, dead or alive, it would be in the paper. Don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Trust me.’
‘I think you should try to get hold of that girl Fanny instead.’
‘I don’t know if I dare to. There’s a considerable danger that the next time you come to visit, it won’t be me sitting in this chair, but rather someone who just calls themselves Grete, if you know what I mean.’
‘Have you heard anything from Stava?’
Grete shook her head. She shifted in her wheelchair and straightened the blanket wrapped around her legs.
‘You know who her mother is, don’t you?’
‘I guess I’ve had my suspicions,’ he mumbled into his plate.
Grete looked down at her hands.
‘But you never said anything.’
‘Does she know?’
‘I think I assumed she had pieced it together. Or that someone had told her. Maybe not in so many words, but that she’d figured it out. We had no contact at all for at least fifty years; I figured that was why. That she knew. But then she came here last spring. Lennart. Look at me.’
‘I am.’
‘Take off your glasses. Who am I supposed to talk to about all this, if I can’t talk to you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Me neither.’
*
He walked up the stairs and into the room she had assigned him. In it was a desk and a chair and a bed. He sat down on the bed and after gazing out the window for a while, he lay down. There was a lamp with a pressed glass base on the desk. It was on; he looked at the matte light inside the shade.
Minutes later, he heard the patter of soft little feet outside his door. He lay stock-still, listening. Then he stood up and opened the door. The hare was sitting outside, pointed back the way it had come. Its nose was working frantically. Lennart stood with his hand on the handle, watching it.
‘There’s no getting rid of you, is there?’
Diana tapped her nails against the doorpost before stepping into the room.
‘Hello?’
Susso had looked asleep, but now she opened her eye.
‘I see you brought the whole town.’
The little girl hung back at first, but then marched over to a chair and took a seat. She kicked her legs and studied the walls, a framed painting of mountains in pastel colours, the ceiling-mounted TV, the intricate system of steel pipes and springs under the bed, the trapeze on its chain. She studiously, however, avoided looking at the patient.
‘How are you feeling?’
Susso reached for the handle and pulled herself upright.
‘I feel like there’s something in my eye.’
‘You’re going to need surgery to get it out. But not here. They’ll send you to Sunderbyn. Then they’ll fit you with a prosthetic.’
‘Really? That’s great.’
‘But not for another few weeks.’
‘I’ll have to be patient.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Did you know that when you have only one eye, you can see your own nose all the time? It’s super annoying.’
‘Are you wearing contacts now? I mean a contact. No.’
Susso shook her head.
‘I haven’t worn contacts in a hundred years.’
‘Then we’ll have to get you some. Do you know what strength you need?’
‘It was my good eye they gouged out. Bastards. This one’s minus three.’
‘I’ll sort you out. We can’t have you lying around here blind as a bat.’
‘I can in fact see well enough to know you don’t exactly look radiant yourself.’
‘My nose is broken. They’re fixing it tomorrow. What?’
Kiruna was pointing to the plastic cup with the bent straw sitting on the bedside table.
‘It’s squash. I’m sure Susso doesn’t mind sharing.’
‘Go ahead,’ Susso said.
The little girl went over to the bed, picked up the cup with both hands and put the straw in her mouth.
‘You do seem better, though.’
‘People generally do when you give them morphine. It’s kind of inevitable.’
Diana reached out and gave the plastic strip around Susso’s wrist a tug.
‘Your voice is different. You sound like yourself now. You didn’t when I came to your house.’
‘I didn’t?’
Diana shook her head.
‘You were someone else. At least that’s how it seemed to me. And your mum. And we’re the people who know you best.’
Susso pulled her hand away, slowly.
‘Where is he?’
‘Let’s talk about that later. You need to rest.’
‘Why can’t you just tell me where he is?’
‘It.’ She had lowered her voice so Kiruna wouldn’t hear. ‘I can tell you where it is.’
Susso watched her.
‘It bit me. Here. Look. I’ve had a tetanus shot. No, I haven’t. But I should.’
‘Where is he?’
‘At our house.’
Susso’s thin fingers nervously slid up and down the side rail.
‘I need him with me.’
‘No, you don’t. Kirri. Go out in the hallway and ask someone if you can have some more squash.’
‘I don’t want any more.’
‘No, but Susso does. You drank all of hers.’
After the little girl left with the cup in her hands, they sat in silence for a minute. Susso turned away.
‘They’re going to take me again.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘I don’t understand what they want with you. If they were looking for revenge for you shooting that bear, wouldn’t they have taken care of that already? But you were just lying there and you can’t have done much else because you have bedsores like an old peach. Maybe the eye was enough.’
‘They were going to give me to someone. Because I know they took me to a cave somewhere. But I never went inside.’
‘A cave?’
She nodded.
‘Where, in Rumajärvi?’
‘No, it was further north. In Norway.’
‘By the sea? On a mountain with a bunch of bunkers and whatnot?’
Susso nodded.
‘I was there too. They were going to throw me off a cliff. But then that old man who appeared in your garden came and rescued me. Don’t ask me why.’
‘What old man?’
‘You don’t remember?’
Susso shook her head.
‘This little old man appeared when we were sitting on the jetty. This tall. And he was wearing a ma
sk made of a man’s face.’
Susso’s mouth was thin and pressed shut and from her wide-open eye it was clear she was desperately searching her memory. Diana quickly glanced over her shoulder before leaning in and whispering.
‘And he had a tail.’
Susso turned her face away. Then she heaved a deep sigh and after exhaling fully, she coughed.
‘How did you get hold of him?’
‘The squirrel? I drove out to your house and fetched it.’
‘You went to my house?’
‘Gudrun told me to.’
At that point, Kiruna returned, accompanied by a nurse who knew Diana. She was carrying a pitcher of red squash that she put down on the table.
‘You can just push the button,’ she said. ‘If there’s anything you need.’
‘And here I thought you usually worked with pot-lids,’ Diana said.
‘They’re discharging me tomorrow. I need him when I leave.’
‘I don’t think your mum’s going to appreciate it.’
‘No?’
Diana shook her head.
‘Or is it that you don’t want to give him up?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It was a question.’
‘That I’m not going to dignify with an answer.’
Susso snorted derisively and turned her eye to the ceiling.
To keep the little girl from overhearing, Diana leaned in over the bed.
‘They threatened me. They said they were going to take Kiruna if I didn’t get out of there and leave you with them.’
Susso said nothing.
‘What if they come for her?’
‘It’s me they’re after. You have nothing to worry about.’
Stava stepped through the door, did a quick scan of the living room and continued into the kitchen. She threw her keys down on the counter and looked out the window. Anders lingered in the hallway. There was a mirror there and a small chest of drawers and on the chest of drawers a grey corded phone. No shoes and no clothes. He carried the cardboard box by the bottom because he didn’t like sticking his fingers through the handles. Not because he thought they would bite him, he just didn’t want them to see his fingers and get ideas.
‘You can bring them in here.’
He went into the kitchen and after putting the box down on the floor, he sat down on a chair, the only one in the room.
Stava sank into a squat. She drummed her fingers against the box. The blinds were closed, with sharp triangles where the slats had ended up askew. There was a pair of binoculars on the table. Black field binoculars with rubber eyecups.
‘Who lives here?’
‘Here? No one.’
‘It said Flatmo on the door.’
She shot him a crooked smile.
‘There’s no Flatmo here.’
She was on all fours, whispering at the box.
‘Should we let you out? Hm? Should we let you out?’
When she opened the lid, he turned away. He peered out through the blinds at the street below. The cars parked there. Puddles wreathed with blackened asphalt.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the little ones fan out across the floor. Some darted away and disappeared, others strolled around, sniffing the air with their trembling snouts. One stood dead still; Anders sensed it was looking at him, but he didn’t dare check.
Stava was digging around for one that preferred to stay in the darkness of the box.
‘I don’t understand why we have to do this,’ he said.
‘You were pretty close to killing me, or did you forget?’
He sat in silence, staring at the binoculars.
‘He needs to know he can trust us,’ she continued. ‘This is our chance to prove ourselves.’
Stava opened the refrigerator. It was empty apart from four cans of beer at the very back.
‘What I did to that child,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t me doing it. I wasn’t myself. And now that Ransu doesn’t exist any more, I don’t think I’m capable of kidnapping someone.’
‘We’re not kidnapping her. We’re just fetching her.’
‘Fetching?’
‘We’re fetching her. It’s our child now.’
‘Do you realise how many police officers are going to be looking for her? And her mum, she’s been to the village. It’s the first place they’re going to look, can’t you see that?’
‘No one’s going to look for her.’
‘Children going missing, that’s a big deal.’
Stava closed the box and pushed it against the wall with her foot.
‘We’re going to make sure she knows how it’s going to be. If she lets the girl go, she will have a long and not too miserable life. If she doesn’t let her go, it won’t be very long at all. It’s that simple. A no-brainer.’
Anders said nothing. Then he got up and left the kitchen. There was a sofa in the living room; he sat down on it.
The sun was on the TV, reflecting a cold, dark version of the sparsely furnished room where he was sitting like the morose subject of an achromatic painting.
After a while, the front door slammed again.
Näcken stepped into the hallway. He shot Anders a disapproving look before walking out into the kitchen with heavy steps.
He had brought food. Tin-foil containers with greasy paper lids that he took out of a paper bag and lined up on the kitchen counter. Anders stood watching him like a hungry dog.
Näcken sat down at the table and dug in. The new smells piqued the interest of the little ones, who slunk into the kitchen, one after the other. One of the smallest ones was completely hairless and one of the shrews had ugly bald patches on its back. By kicking his boot gently and stamping his feet on the floor, Näcken kept the mice gathering around the table legs at bay.
‘Be careful,’ said Stava, who was standing with her back against the fridge.
Näcken glanced in under the table and when he spotted the deathly pale munchkin moving with a peculiarly hobbled gait, he stopped chewing instantly and just sat there with his mouth open. Then he bent down and offered the palm of his hand as a lift.
He let the little one down on the table top. Its face was wrinkled like a mummified mouse foetus.
‘Have any more …’ he said, making a circling motion with his index finger.
‘Not that I know.’
‘We’ll give it a few more hours.’
‘Are they home?’
‘There’s a car outside,’ he said, chewing. ‘With a car seat.’
Anders went back to the living room. Sat on the sofa staring at nothing. The only thing he could think about was the food in those tin-foil containers. After a while, Stava joined him. It was as though she’d read his mind. She handed him a container of rice and he enjoyed it so much he grunted. Which is why he barely noticed when a mouse started crawling up his leg. When he finally did notice, he froze.
‘He wants to be your friend,’ Stava whispered. ‘Don’t reject him. You’ll feel better if you don’t reject him.’
Diana had planned to tell Håkan what she’d been through but when she saw him sitting on the sofa with eyes that didn’t seem to see as far as the floor, she realised it wouldn’t just be pointless, it would be inappropriate. Like pouring petrol on a fire. He seemed stuck in the helpless state of anxiety her kidnapping had plunged him into. Sometimes, he didn’t even seem fully aware she was back.
‘Would you please call Irene.’
She was waiting for him to answer or at least acknowledge that he’d heard her when there was a knock on the door. He didn’t like that. He flinched. Diana went into the hallway and looked out through the kitchen window. Then she opened the door.
Susso didn’t say anything, just stood there. She was wearing the clothes Diana had left in a bag in her room that morning: a thin purple cotton shirt with a row of tiny buttons at the neck and a pair of dark jeans she could no longer button but that fitted Susso perfectly. Her hair was slicked back and so wet
it looked black.
‘I thought you were being discharged tomorrow?’
‘I can’t bear that place.’
‘Were the contacts the right strength?’
They went into the garage. After a few moments, they heard a noise from the car roof box suspended from the ceiling like a cocoon. Little claws pattering back and forth on the hard plastic. Diana didn’t see how it got there, but suddenly the squirrel was on the workbench, with its tail like an inverse sketch of its body. Susso whispered something inaudible as she approached the animal.
‘Do you have to take him?’
She went over to the workbench and fiddled with a screwdriver. She tried to catch Susso’s eye, but Susso was standing with her blind side toward her.
‘I’m not entirely sure what I’ve got myself into,’ she continued. ‘What I got myself into when I went to your house. And even less so when I went to get you back. So it would make me feel better if he could stay here. Just for a few days.’
‘Just for a few days. You think that’ll make a difference?’
‘I don’t know, but it would make me feel better.’
Susso had put the squirrel on her shoulder.
‘They’re not going to come here,’ she said and then she left.
*
She drove to the hospital and walked through the hallways with her sunglasses on. The doctor inspecting her nose had a Polish accent and she had never seen him before, and that was a blessing. He didn’t ask what had happened to her, so he had probably drawn his own conclusions. Like everyone who saw her sitting outside the treatment room with tampons shoved up her nose did. She rested the back of her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Her top lip went numb, then her bottom lip, and it felt good.
The doctor rolled across the floor on his chair and worked quickly with an air of unconcern. When he rammed his freezing instrument into her nose and set the bone, it crunched as though she’d taken a big bite of crispbread.
He inserted a temporary splint, to be removed after five days, and told her that if she was unhappy with the appearance of her nose, she would have to come back.
*
The first thing she did when she came home was to show Kiruna her taped nose. The little girl was sitting on the floor in her room, drawing with crayons. She gave her an indifferent look before resuming her drawing.
