Stallo

by Stefan Spjut

  It was Cecilia who came up with the idea of setting up a website for the troll. It was Easter, and Susso had come up from Kiruna. We were sitting on the terrace, all three of us, and Cecilia’s daughter Ella was sleeping in her pushchair. The sun was floating on the lake and we were drinking coffee and eating biscuits we had baked using Dad’s recipe. The wind rustled playfully among the willows down the slope. The mountain tops were sharp against the sky. There was a constant dripping from the roof, and from time to time huge sheets of snow came sliding down the roof tiles. I enjoyed every minute of it. Until Susso started talking about the troll, that is.

  She wanted to know what we really thought about it.

  I didn’t say I didn’t believe it, but that’s the not the same thing as believing. It’s something more evasive and perhaps cowardly, and she latched onto that. You could say she had my back against the wall.

  ‘But do you think he forged the picture?’

  The look I gave her made her understand that obviously I didn’t think that.

  ‘So what do you think then?’

  ‘I don’t know, Susso.’

  ‘You don’t know what you believe?’

  ‘No. Actually I don’t. Sometimes it’s like that.’

  Cecilia had been sitting quietly but now she moved, making the recliner creak.

  ‘If there’s one,’ she said, ‘there’s got to be more.’

  ‘More trolls?’

  She shrugged under the fleece blanket she had wrapped around herself.

  ‘Granddad can’t be the only one to have seen something. That means there are more people out there thinking about it. Really thinking.’

  ‘So why haven’t they written about it on the internet then?’

  ‘Well, you haven’t.’

  The answer silenced Susso.

  ‘You can search, Susso. And you also can make people search for you.’

  Susso was sitting in a ray of sunshine. She screwed up one eye and looked at Cecilia with the other.

  ‘A website, Susso. That’s what you ought to have.’

  Once Susso had made up her mind things happened quickly. She has always been like that. She probably got it from Dad. When something interests her she puts all her energy into it, and her energy is considerable. It took no more than a couple of weeks for her to learn the programming language, buy a domain name and create a website.

  I was worried at first, I have to admit. How would it affect our business if it became common knowledge that Dad had believed in trolls? It could only be positive, according to Cecilia, but I didn’t like the idea of everyone knowing. I thought that a website could attract a lot of critical attention, which would be bad for business.

  As it was, nothing much happened. The website came up and you could read about Dad’s photo and trolls and wraiths and everything Susso had unearthed through the year, but the business was not affected in any way, as far as I could see.

  Not many people visited it. Susso could see that on a web counter.

  There was a bloke from Gunnarsbyn who sent an email about a wraith that had saved his life in the forest, and then there were some people in Östersund who said they had ‘excavated’ an authentic wraith burrow in their garden. Susso actually went there but she was convinced they were hoaxers, so she didn’t write anything about it.

  Nothing much happened after that.

  She went out and set up wildlife cameras a couple of times, but that didn’t result in anything.

  Not until Edit Mickelsson from Vaikijaur got in touch.

  The icy wind whipped in grainy blasts along Adolf Hedingsvägen. It tugged at the tassel of Susso’s hat and made her eyes water. The moon was dissolving like an ice floe in a black ocean and her footsteps were heavy as she trudged along Gruvvägen. She really should have stayed at home because the walk had exhausted her. She was not completely better and there was a risk she would pass it on to the old folk. Turn up like an angel of death. But she could not afford to be ill, and anyway she had brought ginger biscuits for Lars Nilsson.

  She took off her hat in the lift, straightened her hair and pulled a strip of tinsel out of her jacket. She wound it a couple of times around her head and after ringing the doorbell she opened the door, singing the traditional Lucia Day song:

  ‘Outside it’s dark and cold …’

  Lars Nilsson was sitting in an armchair watching the Channel Four morning news. He was dressed in a tobacco-brown leather waistcoat and a green and black checked shirt. The light from the TV fell on his lined face like a mask. When Susso strode into the room he picked up the remote and lowered the volume, greeting her with a smile which spread into the grid of wrinkles surrounding his eyes.

  ‘Good morning, Lars!’

  She broke open the lid and held out the box.

  ‘Ginger biscuits.’

  The old man took a star-shaped biscuit from the tin, and half of it disappeared immediately between his teeth.

  ‘So you’re out spreading festive cheer …’

  ‘Why haven’t you lit the candles?’ she asked, walking over to the window where the electric Advent candleholder stood, with a yellowing geranium on one side and an amaryllis on the other. It had seven carved arms and an impressive base of unvarnished wood. Around each candle was a small ring of fake lingonberry leaves. Susso twisted the top of the bulb furthest to the right. The reflection in the window made two candleholders light up the dark room.

  ‘Have you eaten breakfast?’ she asked, pinching off a geranium leaf.

  After thinking for a moment Lars held up the ginger biscuit. Only one corner of the star remained.

  ‘What would you like?’ Susso asked, walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge. When there was no reply she called:

  ‘Shall I fry a couple of eggs?’

  While she stood by the stove under an extractor fan roaring away at storm force, the old man sat at the kitchen table with the palms of his hands resting flat on the Norrländskan newspaper, waiting. When the silence had gone on for too long Susso had to bring it to an end.

  ‘Well, Lars?’ she said, knocking the spatula against the frying pan.

  ‘Why not?’ came the reply.

  *

  Susso put salt and pepper on the eggs, slid the two glistening eyes onto a plate and, after moving the newspaper out of the way, placed them in front of him on the table.

  After the coffee had been brewed and poured into the cups she read the newspaper out loud to Lars. Slumped at the table, the old man studied his fingers. They were well worn, gnarled and the colour of bronze, with cracks around the nails. He had owned reindeer once and also worked as a reindeer herder for many years.

  Susso soon tired of her voice, which was nasal from her blocked nose, and put down the paper. What about doing the crossword? Lars nodded and Susso turned the newspaper so that they could both see the puzzle. They sat for a while, thinking, Susso wiping her nose repeatedly on sheets of kitchen roll. Eventually she sat up straight. This was not a good idea. She could pass on her cold to him if they sat like this, almost cheek to cheek. They would have to do the sudoku instead because numbers were not as hard to read upside down, or so she thought, and they could sit opposite each other. Lars had the paper the right way up, but to compensate it was closer to Susso. It was a compromise.

  From time to time the old man’s hand came inching over the paper and his index finger scraped against a square where he thought a number might fit, but he never said which number he was thinking of, so it wasn’t much help. It confused her even more.

  After a while she said:

  ‘Have you ever been to Vaikijaur, Lars?’

  She had to repeat her question, and he slowly shook his head and whispered something she couldn’t hear. Perhaps it wasn’t even in Swedish.

  ‘I was there yesterday,’ she said.

  ‘Yesterday?’ he said. ‘No …’

  ‘I was there,’ she said, raising her voice. ‘Yesterday. I met someone who had seen a little old man in h
er garden. Really little, I mean. About one metre tall. She thought he might be a gnome.’

  Lars nodded.

  ‘I set up a wildlife camera. So with a bit of luck I’ll get a picture of him and then I can show you what a real gnome looks like. If he comes back, that is.’

  ‘Oh, he will.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  She reached out for the coffee pot and filled the cups.

  Horizontal lines filled the old man’s forehead.

  ‘You’ll get to the bottom of it,’ he said, adding: ‘Ossus.’

  Susso raised her eyebrows, met his gaze and saw the twinkle in his eyes.

  Then she looked down at her jumper and the swell of her left breast. She gave a lopsided smile. The flesh under her chin fell in folds as she undid the small safety pin on the yellow woollen jumper and turned her name badge the right way round.

  ‘So you can read from that angle after all,’ she said. ‘Well then, we don’t have to carry on with this boring sudoku.’

  She leafed through the newspaper, folded it and flattened down the page containing the crossword.

  ‘Let’s get going!’

  Seved stood on the veranda with his hands in the pockets of his down jacket, looking in the direction of Hybblet. It looked the same as usual: unlit windows with closed curtains, the long palisade of fir trees behind and the bulging drift of snow on the porch roof that formed the same shape every year. That was both strange but not strange.

  The fact that Ejvor was sitting inside there, staring at the wall, was impossible for him to grasp, even though the sight of her lifeless body had been etched so deeply into his memory that he would never forget it. She ought to be in the kitchen now, or standing in the bathroom, pulling washing out of the machine and complaining about how badly it rinsed the clothes. Or leaning over the kitchen table with a small cup of coffee, reading the paper. Humming a Christmas song. All those songs she had inside her! Who had taught her? He didn’t know because he knew nothing about her. He realised that now. And it was too late. She would fade away and be nothing more than an imprint inside him. An imprint alongside the one he already had, one that he had never mentioned to anyone.

  He had almost made it across the yard when his legs refused to carry him any further. Later, when Signe and Börje had returned, the headlights of the Isuzu had picked him out slumped in the snow. Signe had hurried to help him up, but he had not wanted her to touch him and had wrenched himself free.

  Afterwards Börje had come up to him, his ski hat pulled down over his ears and his mouth grim. He had left the engine running because he knew he might have to drive off immediately. When he had managed to get enough out of Seved to grasp what had happened he stood for a while, glowering at Hybblet, before cutting across the yard and walking up the steps to the veranda. He did not venture any further.

  He leaned forwards and, after peering in through the doorway, he set off back to the car, opened a door and took out a box, which he carried in both hands to the house. A few seconds later he came out, shutting the door after him, quietly but securely.

  ‘She can stay there,’ he said.

  ‘Aren’t you going to bar the door?’

  ‘No, that’ll make it worse. We’ll sleep in the car tonight.’

  *

  She can stay there.

  Seved knew why. Of course he did. He knew it was a safety measure and nothing else. Börje was no coward. His desire to get Ejvor out of the house was at least as strong as Seved’s.

  But he did not want to take the risk. The risk of being inside there now.

  The only thing they could do was keep out of the way.

  They had driven down the drive and parked on the other side of the barrier. Wrapped in quilts over their jackets they had shivered through the night, Börje in the front with his large hooked nose pointing up at the roof, and Seved and Signe in the back.

  He had heard Börje crying on the other side of the mesh panel, muted and almost silently. Seved had pressed his face hard against the cold plastic of the truck and had held a clenched fist to his ear. He had never heard Börje cry before and he didn’t want to hear it. Not this close. Not now.

  They hadn’t been able to sleep much. As it began to get light he had no memory of being anything other than awake, but he must have slept because there had been dreams. He had seen things, but most of all it was the sound that lingered. The noise. As if someone had been bellowing continuously inside his head.

  *

  By now it was one o’clock, and Börje was in the leather armchair in the sitting room, his eyes closed. His head, with its combed-back greying hair curling at the nape, was lolling slightly to one side and his lips had fallen apart. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, black with silver-grey stripes. It was unbuttoned at the throat and a tuft of long, wiry chest hair poked out. Around his wrist he wore a leather strap with plaited pewter and a reindeer-antler button. He was clasping his left wrist and his sharp elbows stuck out on either side of the armrests.

  Seved stood for a moment, watching him. He did not know whether to let him sleep or not. Leave him in peace. No doubt he was deeply distressed. But he felt they ought to be doing something because soon it would be dark again. One of the hares was lying asleep on the olive-green velour sofa, and Seved shoved it roughly to the floor before he sat down. The animal, afraid, scuttled away across the wooden floor, and the sound made Börje open his eyes.

  His forehead was shiny, with sweat at the hairline.

  ‘What’s the time?’ he mumbled, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand.

  ‘She can’t be left sitting there any longer,’ said Seved.

  Börje’s nostrils flared as he filled his lungs with air, which he immediately exhaled in a snort. He righted himself in the chair. It was incomprehensible that he had chosen to sleep sitting up after spending all night in a car, although the intention had not been to sleep. He grabbed a half-litre plastic bottle from the floor. It had once been filled with Diet Coke but now it contained something else.

  ‘Börje,’ said Seved, ‘she can’t be left there.’

  Börje unscrewed the cap and held it as he drank. After he had swallowed and cleared his throat he said:

  ‘Go in and get her then.’

  Seved folded his arms.

  ‘It’s light now,’ he said. ‘There’s no danger.’

  Börje snorted. Or it could have been a laugh.

  ‘If only it was that easy,’ he said, digging out his mobile from the pocket of jeans that were too tight on him. He pressed the keypad a few times with his thumb and then sat with his eyes fixed on the dusty television screen. It was almost as if he had fallen sleep again, because his eyelids were closed.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Without opening his eyes Börje said slowly:

  ‘We don’t know why they did it. Hopefully it was an accident, a game that went too far, and they put her there because they didn’t know what else to do with her.’

  Then he sat up and threw the mobile onto the smoke-coloured glass tabletop.

  ‘But it could also mean they want to keep her.’

  ‘Keep …’

  Börje nodded.

  ‘And that would make it dangerous to move her.’

  Seved had to think for a while before he understood what Börje meant.

  Keep her. A corpse to eat as required.

  That made him feel intensely nauseous and he tried to push the idea to the back of his mind.

  ‘What shall we do then?’ he said, sounding defeated.

  ‘Nothing,’ answered Börje. ‘Lennart will be here in an hour or so. Before three, he said. And until then we won’t do a single damn thing. Have you got that?’

  Seved nodded and lowered his eyes.

  ‘What about the little shapeshifters then? Won’t that help?’

  Börje shrugged.

  ‘A little, maybe. But it’s not a long-term solution.’

  ‘I don’t understand it. Why would they do s
uch a thing? To her?’

  ‘It’s what happens,’ said Börje. ‘When they don’t get their own way. When we don’t give them what they need.’

  And he looked at Seved with sleepy, red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘It’s all our fault, this is.’

  It had been dark for a long time when the dogs started barking. Seved stepped out onto the veranda and soon he could see the headlights down on the road, nosing their way through the darkness. He hadn’t thought he could be filled with anything other than apprehension at the sight of Lennart’s car, but now he was. If it wasn’t gratitude he felt, then it was not far from it. He pulled the door shut behind him and called out:

  ‘He’s coming!’

  Börje sat in the kitchen eating spaghetti, a sticky, pale-yellow skein that he was jabbing with a fork. He hadn’t even put any sauce on it and he was drinking strong beer directly from the can.

  They heard the car pull up and the six-cylinder engine fall silent. After a couple of minutes had passed and no heavy footsteps had been heard on the veranda, Seved walked over to the window. The car, a large Mercedes with a snout of additional lights, was parked outside Hybblet. The rear section of the champagne-coloured roof shimmered in the glow from the barn’s lamp. He had gone straight in. Totally unafraid. But then there was no time to lose.

  ‘Did you say where she was sitting?’

  Börje didn’t answer. Without looking up from his plate he said:

  ‘Tell Signe to come down.’

  Seved went into the hall to shout, but Signe was already on her way down the stairs. She had taken a shower and her body exuded the sweet fragrance of aloe vera.

  He had made a clumsy attempt to talk to her during the day but had not got very far. He had only heard the sound of his own voice, the tremulous uncertainty of it, the empty words he had managed to stutter. Afterwards he wondered if she blamed him, if she thought he ought to have stopped Ejvor from going into Hybblet. That was probably what he was fishing for: confirmation that it was not his fault. It might be something of a consolation to hear those words. But she had said nothing. Now she was looking at Börje with a blank expression. The groove in her dry lower lip looked like a cut. She had been crying. Her eyes were swollen.