by Stefan Spjut
She wanted to discuss everything that had come up during the day but there had been no suitable moment. They had only had time to glance briefly and enquiringly at each other when Barbro went to make the coffee. She could no longer judge what was realistic and what wasn’t, and it was making her giddy.
‘Hello,’ said Barbro, in a soft sing-song tone. ‘Is anyone home?’
Shards of nutshell were crushed under the heels of the old woman’s flat shoes as she slowly walked towards the window, looking around falteringly. Bending her stiff legs she leaned down and checked under the bed, and also glanced up at the wardrobe.
‘He stays out most of the day,’ she said, loosening the latch that held the window in place. ‘Luckily he sees to his bodily functions in the park. The smell in here is due to some kind of territorial behaviour, I think. I’ve found it is especially strong at this time of year. As if he becomes anxious or something, but I scarcely think about it now. At the beginning I put down newspaper, but he only tore it to shreds. He also went for the curtains, so I had to take them down. But otherwise you wouldn’t know he was here. I hardly notice him.’
She opened the window wide.
‘Hello!’ she called out.
Susso walked up to the window and looked at the chestnut tree outside before scanning the park.
A car was driving slowly along the road below, and from the other direction a cyclist came down the pavement, which was dotted with partially melted patches of ice. The pedals squeaked.
‘He sleeps in here every night, at least at this time of year. He lies here on the bed with his tail round his body looking like a small fur hat.’
‘So you’ve had him in here ever since Sven died?’ Susso said, looking at the messy floor.
Barbro nodded.
‘But why haven’t you shown him to anyone? Surely you must have? To someone who could examine him, I mean. A vet or someone.’
‘What is there to show?’ said Barbro, straightening up. ‘That I have a squirrel, a tame squirrel? If the landlord found out, he would have me evicted, Sven Jerring’s widow or not. You can’t see from the outside how old he is. You can’t see what … he is.’
‘And what is he then?’
‘A troll, I would think.’
‘That looks like a squirrel?’
Barbro brushed her hair back with her hand and patted it down before answering.
‘He has another side to him too. It’s as if his fur covering shrinks back and you can see a tiny face. He looks like a sad old man. The first time I saw that side of him I screamed, and I think that upset him because it was several years before I saw his face again.’
‘You mean he can change shape?’ asked Gudrun, who had walked up to the window.
‘“Shapeshifting” is the correct term. I have managed to find out that much at least. When he gets frightened or does not want to be seen he takes refuge in the form of a squirrel. It happens in a second. It takes considerably longer the other way round. I think he feels better as a squirrel. He seems so unhappy when he isn’t one. But of course, he might always be unhappy. It’s just that I can’t see it.’
‘But how often is he like that?’ asked Susso. ‘Not a squirrel, I mean?’
‘In recent years it has happened less frequently. It’s as if he hasn’t got the strength. I’ve wondered if it is to do with his age. He is over a hundred, you know.’
‘But are you sure this is the same squirrel? The one John Bauer brought back from his Lapland journey? Humpe?’
‘He has lived in this room for twenty-five years. And if he can live to twenty-five, then he could just as easily live to a hundred, don’t you think?’
Susso nodded. In some weird kind of way it seemed perfectly logical.
‘If only you knew how many times I have come into this room and thought he had finally left,’ Barbro said, ‘and that it was all an awful dream. But he is never far away. All of a sudden there he is, sitting on the balcony railing, looking at me through the window. And so of course I have to let him in.’
‘That’s what I can’t quite understand,’ said Gudrun. ‘If you don’t open the window, well, he can’t come in, can he?’
Smiling, Barbro brushed the windowsill with her fingertips, as if to feel whether the smooth surface had any uneven patches.
‘I used to reason like that too,’ she said. ‘Many times I thought I let him live here because I promised Sven that he could, but that isn’t what I cared about really. It was only an excuse. It’s more that I don’t dare to shut him out, because if I do he sits out there staring at me. From morning to night. Either on the balcony rail or in one of the chestnut trees. It is extremely stressful, I can tell you. Having those eyes following me the whole time. I can’t bear it. He … he gets to you.’
‘Why haven’t you moved then?’ Susso asked her.
‘Move?’ said Barbro, wearily. ‘Where should I move to?’
‘I don’t know. Anywhere.’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’s … I can’t.’
‘Why?’
The old woman’s eyes narrowed and it looked as if she was going back in her mind, recalling all those times she had asked herself the same question.
‘Because I can’t. Because I have … responsibilities.’
‘But you said just now that you didn’t. That really you don’t care about your promise.’
‘Not to Sven. I mean to him.’
‘To the squirrel?’ Susso said.
‘You haven’t met him,’ Barbro said, and looked down at her hands, which were clasped together and resting on her stomach. ‘You don’t understand.’
*
Torbjörn had left the room; Susso could hear his voice mumbling in the apartment, and when she went into the sitting room she found him sitting on the sofa with his mobile pressed to his ear, holding the tin of snus in his other hand and tapping it against his thigh. He was embarrassed and looked at her questioningly, and when he had ended the conversation he sat for a long time looking at Susso, who had seated herself in the wicker chair opposite him. His upper lip bulged from the snus pouch and there were dark circles under his eyes.
‘I just can’t stand the stink in there,’ he said.
Susso held out her palm and caught the snus tin as it came flying through the air. She inserted a pouch under her lip, pressed the lid back on and threw the tin back to him.
‘You get used to it,’ she said. ‘Our sense of smell is adaptable.’
‘Not mine,’ he answered, tapping the keys on his mobile. ‘Obviously.’
‘So, what do you think then?’ Susso continued. ‘About the squirrel?’
Torbjörn grinned and imperceptibly shook his head.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, rolling the snus tin up and down his leg. ‘I mean, I was there when we saw the film at that guy Mats’s place, and I’ve seen the photo from your wildlife camera, but this, this is like … I just want to get out. That’s how it feels.’
‘We’ve got to stay a bit longer, until it comes back. If it comes back.’
He nodded.
‘Then we’ll see,’ Susso added.
Torbjörn continued:
‘I’m okay with the fact that the dwarf snatched Mattias, or that he’s mixed up in it. I accept that. And I’ve never suggested your granddad’s picture is a fake. But a squirrel that isn’t a squirrel?’
He shook his head.
Susso did not answer. In speechless confusion she had asked herself the same question, but she could not take it in and was probably too scared to follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion. She waited for Torbjörn to say something else but he had picked up his mobile, so she walked off.
*
Barbro and Gudrun stayed where they were by the window when Susso walked in.
The chestnut tree swayed and from time to time the wind took hold of the open window so that Barbro had to hold onto it. Susso crossed her arms and was about to sit on the edge of the bed when she ch
anged her mind, twisted her body and ran her hand over the bedspread. There was a thin carpet of hair covering the rough weave, bunches of soft greyish-brown strands between three and four centimetres long. Susso picked up a tuft and rubbed it between her finger and thumb.
‘How long is he usually gone for?’ she asked, flicking the hair away and rubbing the palms of her hands together.
‘Not long,’ replied Barbro, stretching to look at the top of the tree outside the window. ‘He’ll be back soon.’
‘Can’t you entice him in somehow?’
‘There’s no need. He knows you are here.’
‘Does he?’ Susso said.
‘He’s never gone for long,’ Barbro repeated. ‘He usually stays in one of the trees outside here. Or somewhere in the park where there happens to be a lot of people. People interest him tremendously. Especially children. There is a little pond and a playground with swings over there,’ she said, pointing. ‘He usually hops around and lets the children chase him. He finds that funny. But of course now, in the winter, when the park is practically deserted, I suppose you could say he gets depressed, because he sits in the chestnut tree staring at nothing all day. He can sit motionless for hours, waiting.’
‘So he knows we’re here?’ Susso said, walking up to the window and looking out over the park, away to the playground that could be seen through the trees.
‘I’m convinced of it,’ Barbro said.
‘Perhaps that’s why he’s not coming, because he knows who we are?’
‘There is no point in trying to trick him,’ Barbro said, giving Susso a stern look. ‘If that is what you’re thinking.’
‘No, I only …’
Barbro stood up straight and said:
‘He’ll be here when he gets here.’
*
Torbjörn was out on the balcony, leaning over the railing. His shoulders were hunched and angular. There was the occasional clang as his knee or foot struck the metal. He had gone out to talk on his mobile. His tight-fitting jeans were creased in the crook of the knees and a corner of his T-shirt was visible below his black hooded sweatshirt.
In the sitting room Susso was looking at sturdy bookcases, varnished brown, that filled the walls all the way to the ceiling. She walked with her head tilted to one side, reading the spines.
She pulled out a book in German that had glossy prints folded between the pages, including a large map of Sweden. She had begun to open it out when there was a creak from the balcony door. She spun around and held up the book.
‘Look, it’s Nils Holgersson,’ she said. ‘In German.’
Torbjörn was standing stock still, and Susso looked from his transfixed expression to his arm, which he was holding out in front of him.
On it was a small bundle of grey fur with a pair of pointed ears.
Susso put the book back on the shelf behind her and stared.
The squirrel had wrapped its sinewy arms and legs around Torbjörn’s trembling lower arm and it was clinging on tightly, as if it feared someone would try to force it off. Its gleaming brown curved claws were digging into Torbjörn’s sweatshirt. Its eyes shone like small black beads and whiskers ten centimetres long sprouted from its nose. The teeth in the half-open mouth were like dark-yellow spokes.
‘Mum!’ she shouted. ‘Barbro!’
The two women came into the room.
Susso pointed.
‘It’s here!’ she called. ‘Over here!’
*
Without so much as a glance at the squirrel Barbro walked over to the balcony door and pulled it shut. Gudrun stood with her mouth open in amazement. One of her hands plucked at her scarf.
‘What’s it doing?’ she asked. ‘Why is it sitting there?’
Torbjörn shrugged his shoulders and gave a wary smile. He had been holding his arm outstretched as he walked in through the balcony doorway, as if to keep the little squirrel as far away from him as possible, but now his arm was bent to give him a closer look at the animal. At its fur, matted all over, and its long bushy tail, brown and streaked with black.
‘You wouldn’t believe how fast it moved,’ Torbjörn said.
‘What happened?’ asked Susso. ‘Did it come from the tree?’
He shook his head.
‘I don’t think so. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there he was on the balcony railing. He jumped onto me before I had time to react.’
By this time Susso and Gudrun had drawn closer, but Barbro kept her distance. She was gripping her elbows and her head was tilted to one side.
‘I was shit scared at first and tried to shake him off my arm. I thought it was going to bite me or something, but then it was … well, I don’t know how to explain it. It was like my fear disappeared, like I felt he wasn’t dangerous and that he didn’t want to hurt me.’
‘That’s what he does,’ Barbro said.
After bending forwards and listening to the animal’s breathing − a rapid hiss coming from the little triangular mouth − Susso straightened up and looked at her searchingly.
‘He plants thoughts in your head,’ the old woman said, tapping her fingers against her forehead. ‘It’s a kind of telepathy.’
Susso studied her to see if she was being serious. It was clear that she was.
‘You mean he can read people’s thoughts?’
Barbro shook her head.
‘No, I don’t mean that. I don’t really think he can do anything. He just pops up in your head, unexpectedly. And then you know exactly what he wants. It’s not even words, it’s only … thoughts. His thoughts. But you don’t feel they are not your thoughts.’
‘That sounds dangerous,’ Gudrun said.
‘But it isn’t,’ answered Barbro, shaking her head. ‘It’s not as if he can control you. He only wants to make you understand what he needs. He communicates with you. It’s not as if he makes you do what he wants, or anything like that.’
‘Are you completely sure about that?’ Gudrun asked.
Barbro approached Torbjörn. His arm had begun to ache so he was supporting his right elbow in his left hand. The squirrel was crouching down with its tail stretched behind it along the sleeve.
‘At the beginning he pestered me continually to let him out of the room,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t do that because I didn’t want him out here. I used to sit watching television, knowing what he wanted. It was just like having a cat scratching at a door when it wants to go out or come in. It took me a long time to realise that he was in fact trying to communicate with me. Not that he says very much. If he had been able to control me, naturally he would have made me let him out of the room, don’t you think?’
The squirrel had lifted its head a little and appeared to be listening attentively. The tassels on the tips of its ears stood erect and its whiskers were vibrating.
‘Does he understand what we are saying?’ Susso asked.
‘Oh yes,’ replied Barbro. ‘Every word. He understands Swedish.’
She reached out her hand, and the instant her fingers touched the straggly tail the squirrel rolled up into a dark knot.
‘He really is quite fantastic,’ she said. ‘Don’t you agree?’
Torbjörn’s eyes glittered as he nodded. He moved his arm warily to get a closer look at the squirrel from the front, but every time he tried to make eye contact, it twisted its head away.
‘How do you know he understands?’ asked Susso, who had taken a step back and pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.
A smile spread across Barbro’s thin lips.
‘Ask him something,’ she said.
‘I …’ said Susso, then she fell silent and thought for a while before going on: ‘I can’t think of anything I want to ask.’
‘No?’ said Barbro.
Susso shook her head.
‘If I remember correctly, you came here with a particular purpose in mind.’
Susso did not know what to say, and that must have shown on her face because Barbro immediately continued:
‘You are here because of the boy, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
Gudrun wasted no time. She went out to the hall and returned with her handbag, taking out the rolled-up plastic folder with the printouts.
‘Do you know who this is?’ she asked, holding the photograph of the Vaikijaur man in front of the squirrel.
‘Mum,’ Susso said, but when she looked around she noticed Torbjörn and Barbro were not smiling at Gudrun’s question. They were watching the squirrel expectantly.
‘Do you?’ said Gudrun.
Whether the squirrel was looking at the photograph was impossible to say, but it raised itself up slightly and its grip on Torbjörn’s arm weakened. The dark eyes blinked and the upright ears slanted together, making it look as if the animal was wearing a tasselled hat.
‘No,’ Gudrun said, and slid the paper back into the plastic folder, which she then pushed into her bag. ‘Well, at least we asked.’
*
The little animal sat on the dining table, an oval slab of highly polished wood. Its head tested new angles ceaselessly, as if the room was undergoing change and was a constant source of amazement. The squirrel seemed unable to decide whether to stand on all fours with its legs wide apart, or to sit up, with its tail upright behind it. It gave an impression of indecisiveness. Without taking his eyes off the squirrel Torbjörn had lowered himself onto a chair that stood with its back to the wall. There was a worried look in his eyes, but something else as well. A kind of manic concentration. Susso looked at him closely. He was not behaving like himself, and that worried her.
Barbro had gone to the kitchen to make some fresh coffee, and when she returned she had a Swiss roll with her as well. She unwrapped the cellophane wrapping and told them to help themselves. Susso threw herself at the sugary cylinder and Gudrun also took a slice. As she ate she nodded towards the squirrel and said:
