Amatka

by Karin Tidbeck

  Nina stroked his arm. “Try not to think about it. I’m sure they’re all right, you were just lucky to get out first. What happened next?”

  “The tunnel. It ran in both directions, I think, but one way was blocked by soil and rocks. So I went the other way. I walked for a long time, and then the tunnel split into two. One of them sloped upward, so I chose that one. And then…then there was like a gust of air from below. And noise. At first I thought it must be rescue workers, so I headed back. I called out so they could find me. I shouted, ‘It’s me, it’s Ivar.’ And then.”

  Ivar had turned pale. He made several false starts before he spoke again. “And then someone answered. But something was off about it. The same words came back: ‘It’s me, it’s Ivar.’ At first I thought it was an echo, but then the words, the words changed places. ‘Ivar me it’s, me Ivar it’s, me me me.’ And then more voices joined in, until it was like a choir, shouting the same words over and over again: ‘It’s Ivar, it’s Ivar.’ It was like when children copy you, like when they do it to be mean.”

  He shuddered. “I didn’t stop to see what it was. I just ran the other way. The tunnel kept branching off. I just picked whichever one, at random. But then I found a ladder, just like that. I ran straight into it and banged my shoulder. I climbed it, it was a very long ladder, but there was an opening at the top. I had to squeeze out. It was a pipe—I’d crawled out of a pipe. Then I saw Amatka’s train station in the distance, straight ahead. I had ended up all the way out there. They found me when I reached the station. And then they examined me, and tomorrow I have to go in for a hearing.” He slumped back in his chair, as if all the talking had spent the last of his remaining strength.

  “A pipe,” Vanja said.

  Ivar sighed through his nose and closed his eyes. “They found me at the edge of town. They said I must have gotten confused and wandered out of the farm without anyone noticing.”

  “What?” Vanja said.

  “If you were hallucinating, that could be indicative of brain injury,” Nina said.

  Ivar raised a hand. “I wasn’t hallucinating. The tunnels are there. The pipes are there. I didn’t wander out of the farm. I came from across the tundra.”

  “Could it be like at Essre?” Vanja asked. “I mean, like what I’ve heard anyway. The remains of people who lived here before us.”

  Nina frowned. “We don’t know that. And I’m certain that I’ve never seen any pipes out on the tundra.”

  “Like you’ve been out on the tundra a lot?” Vanja asked. “What do you know that we don’t?”

  “Let’s just leave it,” Nina said. “Please.”

  Ivar got to his feet. “I need some sleep.” He left his coat hanging on the back of the chair and went up to his room.

  Nina remained at the table, her arms crossed. “What do you think—” Vanja began.

  Nina interrupted her. “No. That’s enough.”

  THIRDAY

  Vanja woke up as Nina got out of bed and went downstairs. She could hear a stranger’s voice in the hallway. More footsteps, and Ivar’s voice on the landing. A short conversation. Footsteps. A door slamming shut. Then silence. When Vanja stuck her head out, the house was empty. She quickly got dressed and checked the time. She was late for work.

  When Vanja arrived at the office, Anders was already stamping the forms that had been delivered that morning. He took a step back, smiled, and handed her the rest of the stack.

  “You’re thirty-two minutes late,” he said. “How is your housemate?”

  “He’s back,” Vanja replied. “He’s all right.”

  “Great,” Anders said. “He’s upstairs.”

  “Here?”

  “For the interview.”

  Vanja stamped the rest of the forms, all the while glancing furtively at the corridor.

  —

  About an hour later, Ivar came downstairs. He looked haggard. He greeted Vanja with a small wave. “Just fine,” he replied when Vanja asked how he was feeling.

  His voice was faint, as if he didn’t really have the strength to speak. “It was an in-depth interview.”

  “Are you hungry? I’ve got my midday break soon.”

  Ivar shook his head. “No. I’m a bit tired.”

  Vanja lowered her voice. “What did you talk about?”

  Ivar looked at the floor. “They took me to a room. They asked me what happened. I told them about how I fell into a small cavity underneath the mushroom farm, fainted, and was pulled out by the rescue workers. My housemates can confirm that I was a little confused last night. That I said some things I didn’t mean.” He looked back up at Vanja. “Right?”

  Chills ran down Vanja’s back. At the edge of her vision she could see that Anders had stopped leafing through the papers on his desk. “Of course,” she said. “That’s what Nina and I said to each other, that you must have had a little concussion or something.”

  Ivar nodded. “I’m going to the clinic now,” he said. “I’m having another checkup.”

  He left. Vanja went back to sorting forms. She did it quickly, to keep her fingers from trembling. As soon as her midday break came, she walked over to the library.

  —

  Evgen was alone at his desk. He locked the door and got out his packed lunch while Vanja told him everything: how Ivar had disappeared, wandered through the tunnels, gone in for an “interview,” and come back with a different story. Evgen ate with his eyes fixed on Vanja, his fork moving mechanically between his lunch box and his mouth.

  When Vanja finally fell silent, he put the fork down and swallowed. “They’ve probably filled the hole in already.”

  “But do you agree with Ivar, that the tunnels were there already?” Vanja asked.

  “Let’s see what the library says,” Evgen replied.

  He got up and walked over to one of the bookcases. He crouched in front of a shelf near the floor and ran his fingers along the spines, then pulled out a book: About Amatka’s Geography.

  Evgen opened the book to the first page. “Layout of the colony, structures, installations. Mushroom farm.” He leafed through the book. “ ‘The mushroom farm is located at a depth of a hundred feet and covers an area the same size as Amatka. It was originally planned to be built in two levels; however, the bedrock below a hundred feet consists of a species of rock so hard that conventional excavation methods have failed. The advantage of this is, naturally, that Amatka rests on an extremely solid foundation.’ ”

  He closed the book. “There you have it. In other words, either the tunnels were dug in secret—or someone else dug them.”

  “What do you believe?” Vanja asked.

  “I believe anything’s possible,” Evgen replied. “And I believe the committee knows.” He ran his tongue between his teeth and cheek. “So, a pipe out on the tundra. I’ve never seen that.”

  —

  Nina met her at the front door of the house. “Ivar isn’t feeling well.”

  “Did something else happen?”

  Vanja looked over Nina’s shoulder. Ivar sat by the kitchen table, his head bowed low. Ulla sat next to him with a hand on his shoulder.

  “The hearing at the commune office, and then the same thing at the clinic. They really worked him over.” Nina crossed the room to the kitchen cabinet and took out a plate for Vanja.

  “I can’t go back down there.” Ivar’s voice was weak and hollow. He muttered a muddled stream of words into his plate. “Nothing I’ve seen exists. They explained that to me. But I know. That they’re there. The tunnels. And people, that there’s people. The doctors say I had a concussion. Maybe the doctors and Nina are right. Maybe I’ve lost my mind. Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? That the tunnels don’t exist? Because I’m the only one who saw them. And the voices. I’ve had a nervous breakdown. Everyone knows I have mental problems. They said as much, my ‘mental health is fragile.’ ” He sniffled.

  Nina sat down across from him and took one of his slender hands in hers. “Having
a concussion isn’t the same as being mentally ill, Ivar.”

  “I heard the doctors talking to one another. They talked about doing a procedure,” Ivar told the plate. “I know what a procedure is.”

  “I know you do, dear,” Ulla said and patted his shoulder.

  Vanja glanced at Nina and hesitated. She knew how Nina would react, but she squared her shoulders and said it, for Ivar. “We could go there. I mean, back to where Ivar said he climbed out. Just go there and look, so he can see that he’s not crazy….”

  Nina’s lips narrowed. “That’s really not a good idea.”

  “But if they’re ruins, then it’s the same as at Essre. Then they’ve always been there. Then it doesn’t matter. Let’s just take a look? For Ivar’s sake. People are going there anyway. They have to investigate.”

  Nina shook her head. “Then that’s what we’ll let them do. We’re not going to run off and do something stupid. Are we, Vanja?”

  Vanja avoided her eyes. “No,” she mumbled. “It was silly of me.”

  “I know what a procedure is,” Ivar said loudly. “They drill into your head and stir your brains around.”

  Nina tried to soothe him. “No one’s going to drill into your head, Ivar.”

  “Technically,” Ulla said, “they don’t actually stir your brains around. They sever the connections to the prefrontal cortex.”

  Ivar burst into tears.

  Nina glared at Ulla. “Thanks for that.”

  “We all know there’s a risk,” Ulla said. “Even if you won’t admit it. Even if these…ruins…have been here since before.”

  “Excuse me,” Nina said, and went upstairs.

  Ulla gave Vanja an amused grin. “I think we both know what’s what,” she said. “I think you should go look.”

  “Do you know something?” Vanja said.

  “What are tunnels for?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What does one use tunnels for?”

  Vanja shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Travel,” Ulla said. “One uses them to travel.”

  —

  Later, when Vanja lay with Nina’s arms around her, her breath in tickling gusts against the back of her head, it was hard to tell which was worse. That she’d lied to Nina when she’d promised her she wouldn’t go out there. Or that Nina might be right, and that by going out there, Vanja would make things worse.

  FOURDAY

  It was still dark outside. The office wouldn’t open for another couple of hours yet. Nina was fast asleep. Vanja stole out of bed and brought her clothes downstairs to the bathroom, where she got dressed. She didn’t bother with food.

  A few workers were out in the streets, pale and drawn from a long shift at work or too little sleep at home, staring blindly at the ground or out into space with bloodshot eyes. Following Ivar’s description, Vanja walked straight west, past the station and across the railway tracks. After that, there was just the grass and the sky.

  The grass rustled in the soft breeze. Vanja’s boots splashed into little puddles that dotted the steppe, invisible in the gloom. She walked on until she came to the foot of a small rise. Something stuck out of the ground on the other side. It was too dark to make it out clearly. For a brief moment it was like standing on the hillock outside Essre, and she was sure of what she’d find on the other side: the silhouettes of asymmetrical buildings, little shapes moving between them. Then she reached the top and looked down the other side.

  It wasn’t just the one pipe but several, visible as dark shadows against the gray sky. Some were straight, some curved at a right angle at the top. A sudden cone of light hit one of the pipes, revealing a yellow surface with riveted joints. Its angled opening was torn, as if something had burst out of it with great force. The light moved on. Someone was walking around among the pipes. More figures joined the first, bringing more light. Vanja flattened herself against the ground. Cones of light swept across green protective suits. The shortest pipe ended at head height; some of the others were twice as tall. All of them looked easily wide enough to crawl into. The people in overalls didn’t make any attempts, though. They took measurements, made notes, and talked among themselves. One of them opened up a canister and started to paint letters on the pipes. Two others began picking their way up the slope. Vanja crawled backward until she reached flat ground, then ran north at a crouch. If those people were going anywhere, it was probably back to Amatka. She looked back to see the beam of a flashlight sweeping across the rise. She lay down on her stomach again and waited. She hadn’t run like that for a long time; it was hard to breathe without making noise. She pressed her mouth into the grass. The scent of wet vegetation and cold filled her nostrils. More silhouettes carrying flashlights arrived at the top of the rise. They were walking very slowly. One of the beams swung her way and then back again. The sky was growing lighter; they would be able spot her any moment now. She rose into a crouch and ran farther north.

  If she hadn’t banged her shin on its edge, she would have run right past the low pipe in the semidarkness. She toppled over and for a moment could do nothing but hold her leg and whimper. When the pain had subsided somewhat, she sat up and peered down. The opening was perhaps three feet across. On the inside, right below the edge, she could glimpse the rungs of a ladder. She leaned closer to the opening to listen. At first, there was only the pounding of her pulse in her ears, the wind rushing across the edge of the opening, the echo of her breathing. Then, something like distant music, a snatch of notes forever repeating. She listened for a long moment but couldn’t decide if it really was music or her own head trying to create order from chaos.

  It occurred to her that more rungs in the pipe had become visible. She looked up at the gray expanse of the sky, which was ever so slowly growing brighter. In the old world, the sky had been full of light. Lars had said so: that the sky was blue in the daytime and black at night, and that glowing lights traversed the sky, and one could follow their paths with one’s eyes. That it was sometimes overcast, but that was only vapor; the sky was still there behind it. That there was something beyond the clouds, something that moved. This was always followed by Vanja’s inevitable question: Is there something behind the gray of our sky?

  We don’t know, Lars had said. Maybe, maybe not.

  The inhabitants of Colony Five had thought there was. They missed the skies of the old world. They longed for light. They talked about it so much that something finally appeared: a sun, a white-hot sphere that broke through the sky and burned the colony to a cinder. Such is the world in which we live, Teacher Jonas said. The words need guarding. A citizen who doesn’t guard their words could destroy their commune.

  —

  Vanja arrived at the office just before eight. Today’s first batch of forms was already on the reception desk, together with a handwritten note:

  Anders is off sick today. Kindly tend to his tasks when you have completed your own. —Sec.

  She took the note and walked upstairs to the long corridor of small offices on the first floor. The first office belonged to the head secretary, a graying woman in her fifties dressed in a rumpled green shirt. She was hunched over a ledger but looked up with a benevolent smile when Vanja opened the door. “Anders is off sick,” Vanja said.

  “Yes.” The secretary nodded and continued to write in the ledger, with a dry, scratching noise.

  “I don’t know what Anders’s tasks are.”

  The secretary firmly underlined something. “Oh. You haven’t watched him work?”

  Vanja considered this. “I suppose I haven’t,” she replied. “I’ve been very busy.”

  Moving with deliberate slowness, the secretary put her pen down and looked up at Vanja. There were dark circles under her eyes. She gave Vanja another smile. “Sort incoming reports, write a summary, file or dispose of reports as needed. There’s a marking schedule on the notice board. And a manual under the reception desk.”

  “I see,” Vanja replied. “I’
ll go do that, then.”

  The secretary nodded slowly. “Very good.” She turned back to her ledger.

  —

  Vanja returned to the reception and looked for the manual. The space behind the desk was filled with carefully sorted rubber stamps, blank forms, notepads, sharpened pencils in a small cup, stackable letter trays.

  She found the manual in a drawer under the desk: a small stapled bundle of good paper describing daily routines, marking order, emergency procedures, and instructions for machinery that Vanja didn’t recognize and hadn’t actually seen anywhere in the office. While she browsed through the manual, another courier arrived with more documents.

  She started by separating forms from reports. The reports came in thin folders printed with titles like Patient Statistics: Clinic Department 3, or Report: Results of the New Hygiene Protocol, or Follow-Up: Special Diet Plan for Mushroom Farmers with Dermatological Issues. The receptionist’s task was to record the total number of reports into a log along with titles, a summary of the contents, and date of registration; sign it; and then date the signature. After that, everything had to be filed according to a system that the manual needed three pages to describe. Vanja realized that Anders had actually been going easy on her.

  One of the reports gave her pause. The title was short: Incident Report. Vanja opened the folder. The account of the collapse in the mushroom farm took up only a single page. They called it a solidity incident. Information was scant: the floor had collapsed and exposed a hitherto unknown cavity. Said cavity was now sealed. Three workers had perished. That was all, except for a short sentence at the bottom of the page: further information restricted, committee-level clearance.

  In other words, no reports of what she had seen on the tundra, or what Ivar had seen under the mushroom farm, would cross her desk.