Amatka

by Karin Tidbeck

  “Just out for an evening stroll,” Ulla replied. “Did you notice the pipes? No one else seems to have.”

  Vanja paused. “I had forgotten about them somehow. What with Ivar…”

  “Of course.”

  “Ulla, what’s going on?”

  Ulla finished tying her boots. “What do you think?”

  “I think you know exactly what’s happening,” Vanja said.

  Ulla stood up. She seemed younger somehow, more sprightly. “You want freedom,” she said. “Don’t you?”

  “I do,” Vanja whispered.

  “So do I,” Ulla replied. She squeezed Vanja’s arm gently. “Go to bed.”

  —

  Nina had fallen asleep in Ivar’s bed with her face buried in his pillow. She was wearing one of his sweaters. Vanja went into her own room. She hadn’t been in there for days except to sleep and fetch new clothes. She took a turn around the room, touching furniture and objects. Then she curled up on the bed with her clothes on.

  THE FOURTH WEEK

  * * *

  FIRSTDAY

  When the thunder of breaking ice died down, it was as though it left a buzz in the air. Not quite audible, it was more a sensation than a sound. Nina was still in Ivar’s bed. When Vanja sat down on the edge of the bed, Nina turned her face to the wall and pulled the blanket over her head. Vanja went down to the kitchen. It was chilly, somehow bigger and emptier than before. She made coffee and porridge, too much porridge—since Ivar wasn’t going to have any. She filled two bowls and left the rest on the counter to cool.

  Nina didn’t react when Vanja put a bowl and a cup of coffee down on her desk. Vanja ate her own porridge in the kitchen, washed the dishes, and sat back down at the table. The silence was compact, except for that low drone she couldn’t quite hear. Eventually it was time to put the leftovers in the fridge and go to work.

  —

  A janitor arrived midmorning, carrying a bucket and a stack of good paper. She greeted Vanja curtly and came in behind the counter uninvited. Then she picked a paintbrush out of the bucket and slathered some of its contents on the wall. She dropped the brush back into the bucket, leafed through the papers, and slapped one of them in the middle of the sticky mess on the wall. She walked around the counter to the front of the reception, repeated the procedure, and left without another word.

  THIS NOTE DESCRIBES:

  THE COMMUNE OFFICE RECEPTION AND ARCHIVE

  The reception occupies a total area of 366 square feet. The space is furnished with one (1) reception counter with drawers, two (2) writing desks, six (6) storage shelves, and three (3) office chairs. The storage shelves contain assorted office supplies (see separate list of contents), two (2) typewriters, one (1) duplicating machine, and manuals, log books etc. (see separate list of contents). The staircase to the reception archive is furnished with doors at both ends and has eighteen (18) steps of standard height. The archive contains twenty (20) filing cabinets with drawers containing archive material (see separate list of contents). From the archive, one (1) security door leads to the Secure Archive (see separate list of contents).

  The paper had been hastily de-inked and reprinted. Here and there, Vanja could make out the faint remains of words that had previously filled the page: “beloved,” “waiting,” “mine.” A love poem. Vanja walked around the counter to inspect the other note. Part of a verse from a nursery rhyme was vaguely visible between the new letters. These were pages from the confiscated library books. This was apparently one of the things the committee needed all the good paper for: description.

  Brisk steps approached from the stairs that led to the offices. A courier in gray overalls and tightly braided hair shot around the corner and snapped to attention in front of Vanja.

  “Good morning!” she blurted. “I am here to announce that the committee has instituted an additional leisure night! Every Thirday night at eighteen o’clock all citizens will attend their respective leisure center to partake in delightful games, quizzes, and group conversations! Hooray for Amatka’s commune!”

  “Hooray!” Vanja replied.

  The courier turned on her heel and marched into the colony streets. In her wake, a swarm of vigorous boys and girls in identical overalls trooped down the hallway toward the exit.

  Vanja fingered the note on the wall. Those kids probably had no idea why there were suddenly two leisure nights a week. But the committee must have known for some time.

  —

  Nina was sitting up in bed when Vanja went to check on her. The porridge bowl was still full, but the coffee cup was empty. When she spoke, she sounded lucid but monotonous, her eyes fixed on something in the far distance. Someone from the clinic had been there to check why Nina hadn’t shown up for work. She had been given a week’s leave for personal reasons.

  “I have to go see Ivar,” she said.“They only keep bodies for forty-eight hours before recycling.” Her eyes focused on Vanja for the first time. “Could you come with me? Right now?”

  “Of course.” Vanja picked up the sweater and trousers Nina had dropped on the floor sometime during the night or day. “Shirt, trousers. You need to eat something first.”

  Nina got dressed, followed Vanja into the kitchen, and mechanically ate the reheated porridge Vanja put in front of her. When she’d managed half of it, she got to her feet. “Let’s go.” She put her jacket on without buttoning it and walked outside with long strides.

  —

  Ivar lay on a gurney. They’d wrapped him in a white shroud, leaving only his head uncovered. Nina sat down on a stool next to the gurney and just looked at him. Vanja stayed in the doorway. Britta had once told her there was nothing scary about dead people; they just looked like they were sleeping. When Vanja had pulled Ivar out of the water, she could still tell it was Ivar, but he hadn’t looked like he was sleeping. He had looked like he was dead. Ivar without Ivar inside. The thing on the gurney wasn’t even Ivar, just an object that resembled him a little.

  Nina let out a shaky sigh and caressed the corpse’s cheek. “What am I going to tell the girls, Ivar? What am I supposed to say?”

  When the names of the recently deceased were recited next Sevenday, Ivar’s name wouldn’t be among them. No one would observe a minute’s silence for him. Taking a life, one’s own or someone else’s, was the most disloyal action of all; every lost life put the colony’s survival in peril. Murderers were no longer citizens. Ivar would be sent to recycling, and then he’d be gone, erased.

  “Tell them what happened,” Vanja said from the doorway. “They deserve to know.”

  “Do you think they want to carry that around? That their father was a suicide?”

  Vanja took a few steps closer. “No,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t Ivar, not really. You know whose fault it was.”

  Nina rested her head on the edge of the gurney. “You win. I’ll tell you everything.”

  —

  It was Distillate x 2 this time, a little stronger. They sat in Ivar’s room with the door closed, curled up on his bed. Nina still hadn’t let Vanja touch her. She downed a whole cup before speaking.

  “I’m telling you all this so you’ll understand,” Nina said. “We will never speak of this again.”

  Vanja nodded.

  “And after I’m done,” Nina continued, “there will be no questions, no discussions, nothing. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  Nina poured herself more liquor. “I was nineteen. I’d just received my nursing diploma. A hundred people disappeared overnight. Poof, gone. Someone had left a manifesto at the commune office, signed by Berols’ Anna. I remember she’d just finished her Plant House series. She won an award for it. So, somehow she managed to organize all these people without anyone knowing. I had no idea what was going on. No one I knew had any idea. But everyone knew someone who had disappeared.”

  “What did the manifesto say?”

  “Don’t know the details. It was never made public. Those of us who went on the e
xpedition were told a little, just enough to make sure we’d be prepared. It said something along the lines of they were going to found a new colony, and that it would be more real somehow. That they’d do it right. But people in Amatka didn’t know about the manifesto. At first, all we knew was that people had disappeared, but not why. People panicked. There were all sorts of rumors, like about a suicide pact or some kind of abduction. Then, after a few days, I was called up to join the expedition. That’s when I found out. The committee had decided we couldn’t afford to lose that many citizens, so even if they were disloyal, they had to be brought back home.”

  Nina stared into space for a moment. “It took us a while to find them.” She took a swig from her cup. “We bumped about in a terrain vehicle for days. And, you know, no one had ever been that far from Amatka. We were so scared something would happen to us. We drove around the lake. There was nothing out there, just water on one side and tundra on the other, but it was still terrifying. Because it didn’t end, you know. It just went on and on.” Nina gesticulated with her free hand. “Completely featureless as far as the eye could see.” She topped up her cup again and drank half of it down, shuddered, then patted her chest. “And then we saw it. It was like a hole in the sky. It grew bigger as we drew near. And when we arrived…I thought it was, I don’t know what it was. We’d come to a halt, but we just sat in there, staring like little kids. Then someone said: There are houses there. And there were, right under the hole. It looked sort of like a colony—a ring of little houses and a commune office. We put our protective suits on, the supersafe kind with visors and everything, and we stepped out of the vehicle. It was like, like a bubble. No, not a bubble. But the sky was different there, right above the houses. There were lights in the sky. I have to go to the toilet.”

  Nina abruptly got up and went downstairs. When she came back, her face was flushed and her breath sour. She waved Vanja’s concern away and refilled her cup. “Okay, so we’d left the vehicle, and the expedition leader went first. She walked right up to the edge of the town. The rest of us were standing there, looking in.”

  “You said it looked sort of like a colony?”

  Nina shook her head. “They’d painted murals on the walls. No words, no markings. But paintings of things that don’t exist. Everywhere.”

  “But the people?”

  Nina was quiet for a moment. “The things we saw in there weren’t people. She, Berols’ Anna, she came up to us. That’s what it called itself, anyway. It, she, walked up to that wall. She didn’t come over to our side, but we could hear her fine.”

  “But why would you say they weren’t people?”

  “Because…” Nina shook her head again. “They didn’t look human anymore. They looked…sort of human? But not quite. Something about the way they moved, the way they looked at us. Like we were children.” She took a deep breath. “Berols’ Anna, when she spoke…her voice filled your head. She said three things. She said to leave them alone. And then she said…” Nina frowned.

  Vanja waited.

  “ ‘We’ve given ourselves over to the world,’ ” Nina said. “That’s what she said, word for word. And then the third thing: ‘We’ll come to your aid soon.’ ”

  “What did you do next?” Vanja asked.

  “What could we do? No one wanted to head inside. We returned home. The committee swore us to secrecy. Anyone who talked about what happened would be taken care of and sent away. The committee was afraid that if others got wind of what happened, they’d try the same thing, they’d try to break out. Or that talking about what happened would spread Anna’s ideas. It would destabilize the colony. So when we came home, someone torched a leisure center, and they made the official story that the missing people had died in the fire.”

  Nina cleared her throat. “I’m only telling you this so you’ll get it. Is this what you want, Vanja? You want things to be like Berols’ Anna made them?”

  “But maybe they’re doing well in there,” Vanja mumbled.

  “They’re not human anymore. You want to stop being human, is that it?”

  Vanja looked away. She had an impulse to say yes but stopped herself and instead shook her head.

  Nina emptied her cup. “So, that’s that. And since that happened, it’s been harder to maintain order—just look at the lake. Maybe it’s because there are fewer of us. Or because what Berols’ Anna did changed something. I don’t know. But we can’t afford to be lax like people in Essre apparently are. Of course, there are those who slack off. Fifteen years is enough for people to start to forget. And the children aren’t told about this. They have to believe there was a fire.”

  She filled her cup again. Her speech had taken on the overly precise enunciation of the very drunk. “Maybe Ivar would still have been here.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe Ivar would still have been here. If people had just followed the rules, then nothing would have fallen apart. Maybe that chamber wouldn’t have collapsed.”

  Nina sniffled and wiped her cheeks with her palm. Then she fixed Vanja with bloodshot eyes. “I don’t want to, because I care about you. But I’ll report you if I have to. Promise me I won’t have to.”

  “I promise,” Vanja said.

  Nina rested her head on Vanja’s shoulder. Before long, her breathing grew more even and deepened. Vanja caught her cup the moment before it tumbled from Nina’s hand.

  She lay awake for a long time with Nina’s arms wrapped around her. Ivar’s gray face haunted her. Nina couldn’t be right. Ivar was in pain because the committee forced him underground, because they wouldn’t let him live his life the way he wanted. Not because of what he saw when the tunnel caved in.

  When she finally drifted off, she found herself in the cave with the machine. The luminescent lichen festooned the surfaces in white and green. Everything was very still. The dripping noise had stopped. Then the engine shuddered to life with a screeching groan. The wheel tore free of the stalactites with a crash and slowly began to turn. Lichen and minerals scattered in a cloud.

  She couldn’t see what the machine powered.

  SECONDAY

  Anders was back. He stood behind the counter, blowing his nose into a soiled handkerchief. In front of him sat a stack of papers and folders.

  “You’re on time,” he said when Vanja entered. “Good. The research division has given us work to do.” He pushed the stack toward her. “These are requisitions and permission applications. We need them in triplicate, one copy for the archive and two for the office upstairs. They need to be processed and sent back to the research division immediately. So get going.” He looked oddly exhilarated.

  Anders sat down in front of his typewriter and hammered out what looked like reports. Vanja fetched blank forms and copying paper. She spent the morning translating the short messages in the stack on her right into applications. The research division was applying for equipment and workers. Their purpose wasn’t stated very clearly; they made several references to some decision that the committee had reached the day before. It had something to do with object diagnostics and emergency protocols.

  By the time she had finished typing up the forms, it was already time for the midday meal. Vanja delivered the copies to the secretary upstairs and then went straight to the canteen. Today’s dish was bean stew. The atmosphere in the canteen was oddly subdued. People spoke in short, indirect bursts:

  “Did you hear…?”

  “Yes. I got a summons. Hedda, too.”

  “One wonders what’s going on.”

  “It’s probably nothing.”

  “You’re right, it’s probably nothing.”

  The last sentence recurred in all conversations, repeated by everyone within earshot.

  —

  In the early afternoon, a band of couriers came downstairs and filed past the reception. One of them stopped at the desk; it was the same girl with braids who had been there the day before. She waved at Vanja and Anders to get their attention, held up a note,
and recited: “INCREASED MARKING. In a campaign to improve the commune’s well-being, normal activity will be suspended between fifteen and sixteen o’clock for marking of all objects in the area. This will be repeated every day until further notice. Hooray for Amatka’s commune!”

  “Hooray!” Anders hollered.

  “Hooray,” Vanja echoed.

  —

  Ivar’s death certificate was delivered. Date of birth, date of death. He was thirty-two years old. Cause of death: self-inflicted hypothermia and drowning. As Vanja stood in the archive holding Ivar’s file, she realized how easy it would be to just stuff the papers down her shirt or into the box of forms she’d brought downstairs. Nina could have some evidence of Ivar’s existence to keep. The children would be able to remember their father. She pulled the papers out and began folding them so they’d take up less space. “Anything exciting?” Anders was standing right behind her, much too close, eyebrows raised.

  Vanja stiffened and waved the papers around. “Nah.”

  “They’re going to be scrapped, I take it. Given that you’re not filing them.” He took the papers out of her hand. “I’ll do it for you, it’s no bother.” He tucked the thin stack under his arm and gestured at the door with his free hand. “Marking time!”

  —

  Anders tasked Vanja with marking office supplies in the small supply alcove. Every pen, paper clip, measuring stick, folder, envelope, and piece of paper might need to be named and re-marked. She started with the envelopes and went on to notebooks and paper. When she finished, it was already four o’clock. She would have to hurry if she hoped to get through the rest of the supplies in time. Behind her, Anders went downstairs to mark temporary folders.

  Vanja emptied a box of pencils, lined them up on the shelf, and pointed at them one by one. “Pencil, pencil, pencil.”