The Shapeshifters

by Stefan Spjut

  ‘Don’t you know when my name day is?’

  ‘Seventh of January? Eighth?’

  ‘The twenty-fourth of November. One month before Christmas!’

  ‘But who cares?’

  ‘I care.’

  ‘When’s my name day then?’

  ‘You haven’t got one.’

  ‘No, and that’s because I’ve got a Lapp name.’

  ‘It was your dad’s idea. You’re called Maria as well. You can change to that if you’re so keen on having a name day. It’s the twenty-eighth of February.’

  ‘So why was the hurricane called Gudrun?’ asked Torbjörn.

  ‘Firstly,’ said Gudrun, ‘she wasn’t a hurricane, she was a cyclone at best. Or worst. Roland teased me about it, naturally, so I looked into it. The Norwegian Institute of Meteorology decided on the name. Storms are given names so you won’t confuse cyclones and hurricanes that happen at the same time. They alternate between male and female. All in alphabetical order from ready-prepared lists.’

  ‘When’s your name day, Torbjörn?’ asked Susso.

  ‘Ninth of March. I know because it comes after Siv, and that’s why Mum wanted me to be called Torbjörn. If I’d been a girl, I would have been called Edla.’

  ‘Edla?’ snorted Susso.

  He nodded.

  ‘What would I have been called, Mum, if I’d been a boy?’

  ‘I don’t know. I knew you were a girl.’

  ‘Yes, but if!’

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? I knew you were a girl!’

  Seved stood with the red bucket in his hand, looking into the barn. The gaps in the walls were compact streams of radiant light. There were large windows near the ceiling at both ends, but it was black and uncertain below the loft. The space was a mass of shadows that overlapped and became successively darker. From under a tarpaulin poked the shafts of an old sleigh. There were kick sledges in there as well, in a tangle of rust-brown runners and turned wooden handles: he counted five all together. The wood on most of them was old and grey but one was bright-yellow and even had reflectors. He knew it was Ejvor’s.

  Next to the kick sledges was a moped. Was that his old moped? It was so old it was impossible to see the make. Oh yes, SACHS it said at the base of the engine cover. He saw it as he crouched down to examine it. The tyres were as thin as bicycle tyres. With his fingertips he brushed away the dust and wood shavings from the glass cover of the speedometer. The dial went up to seventy but it was doubtful the moped could reach even half that speed. Unless it was souped-up. Of course. Had Börje done that? He actually had no idea. Börje had tried to get him interested in engines, kneeling on the ground and pointing to cylinders and carburettors with black oily fingers, explaining how they worked, but he had not taken it in. He had nodded but not really listened.

  There was left-over macaroni in the bucket, stuck together in a yellowish block at the bottom, clearly frozen solid. It was glittering.

  The foxshifter was eating less these days. He was unsure whether to tell Börje about it. He did not want to worry him unnecessarily. A kind of darkness had settled over his face and he was often snappy, even with the boy. Probably it was easier for him that way. Under the anger he could hide all his other feelings.

  There was a click far back in the gloom of the barn and he knew at once he was being watched. He felt the little man’s eyes on him, even though he could not see them. But was he up in the loft or down below?

  He had taken a step to one side to be able to see better when he heard someone call out. At first he thought it came from outside and he turned to the barn door. Was it Signe?

  He heard it again and realised the cry was inside his head.

  It was a woman calling and she was far, far away. Only a shard of her desperate cry reached him. It was as if her voice was drowning in the sighing of a thousand treetops.

  Seved walked swiftly out of the barn without even closing the door behind him.

  It was him. He had got to him. Reached out and got to him.

  In the yard he met Börje, walking fast. When he caught sight of Seved he turned round immediately and called over his shoulder:

  ‘There’s a phone call for you.’

  ‘For me?’

  Seved walked into the hall and put down the bucket. The receiver was dangling near the floor, and he lifted it up and said hello.

  Lennart’s voice came through over the sound of traffic. He was practically shouting.

  ‘You’ve got to get up to Kiruna.’

  Seved wanted to protest but all he could say was:

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’ve got to find out where she’s going, that Myrén woman. What she’s doing. Jola has tried but he’s getting nowhere. So you’ve got to go up and talk to her sister.’

  ‘But how am I going to . . .’

  ‘Those lemmings I gave you in Arvidsjaur . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Take them with you. Then she’ll speak, you’ll see.’

  ‘But they’re down in the hide, I think.’

  ‘You can go down there now. There’s no danger.’

  Go down in the hide? He had never even put his hand on the cellar door before.

  ‘But make sure you go carefully!’

  ‘But how can I . . . what if they’ve hidden themselves and don’t want to come . . . ?’

  ‘You’ll have to tell her you work for a newspaper or something. Tell her you’ve got to get hold of her sister as soon as possible. And if she won’t say anything, use the lemmings. It’ll come out then all right. But it’s important she doesn’t get suspicious because then she’ll warn her sister and we’ll never get hold of her. So watch your step! And it’s got to happen now. You’ve got to leave today, Seved.’

  Börje was lying on the sofa in the sitting room, watching the boy with tired eyes. He was sitting on the floor holding a small car made of green metal. There were more cars scattered around his outstretched legs. Seved recognised them all. They had once been his. He had heard the boy run the cars over the wooden floor but had not thought Börje would be anywhere around. That surprised him. He was even holding a car, a red pickup.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Börje lifted up the car.

  ‘We’re playing with the cars. It’s one of those demolition derbies.’

  ‘You having fun?’ Seved asked the boy, who did not answer.

  He stood silently for a while, thinking about what Lennart had said.

  ‘Is it empty down in the hide?’ he asked. ‘Did he take both of them?’

  Börje shook his head and knocked the car against the sofa cushion.

  ‘Who did he take with him then?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  The answer calmed Seved a little. He’d rather deal with Skabram than Karats.

  ‘Lennart wants me to go up to Kiruna, and I’m to take Torsten’s lemmingshifters with me. I’ve got to go down in the hide and fetch them.’

  ‘Are you taking them up to Jola, or what?’

  Seved shook his head.

  ‘I’ve got to talk to the sister. Me and the . . . lemmings.’

  Börje drew in a few deep breaths and Seved saw that he was furious but keeping it under control.

  ‘It’s not a game, you know,’ he said, looking seriously at Seved. ‘Those are nasty creatures, not to be messed with. Did he really say that you’ve got to talk to her? Isn’t Jola going with you?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  Börje stood up.

  ‘I’ll get them for you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He pushed the toy pickup into Seved’s palm.

  ‘You drive carefully.’

  The village where Mats Ingvar lived was about twenty kilometres south of Avesta. They drove along a gravel road through colourless agricultural land. There was no snow apart from patches in the roadside ditches.

  Beside the narrow road lay thick branches, brought down and dragged from the forest by the we
ather. They drove past a farm where a tractor was parked beside a gritty snowdrift, and shortly afterwards caught sight of a leaning building. It looked as if it would topple over onto the road at any moment. A piece of bright yellow cloth was dangling from one of the eaves.

  A man was standing in the driveway in front of a Hyundai with a dirty rear window. He was squinting and it was clear from his red cheeks that he had been out of doors for some time. His jacket was half unzipped and it filled out like a balloon with each gust of wind.

  He pointed at a pile of sand further along the roadside, motioning for them to park there. On each side of the road were paddocks surrounded by electric fences. One of the paddocks stretched back up to the field and surrounded a huge barn built partly of stone, and behind it stood quite a large farmhouse.

  Mats stood on the road waiting for them, with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘This is Gudrun, my mother,’ Susso said, indicating. ‘And this is Torbjörn.’

  They shook hands and exchanged a few words. Susso asked about the paddocks: did they have horses there? Yes, but they were not his. He only owned the paddocks.

  ‘They’re kept on my land,’ he said. ‘That way I don’t have to mow the grass. And it gets fertilised at the same time. So it works out well.’

  Gudrun folded her arms and turned her gaze towards the field. There was not much to see apart from frozen clay and one or two strips of snow. Torbjörn had taken out his mobile and began tapping the buttons.

  Mats zipped up his jacket. He grimaced in the wind, which had turned much colder.

  ‘Shall we look at the film straight away, or would you like to see where he lived first?’

  ‘The film, I think,’ Susso replied.

  They walked towards the red farmhouse that lay directly beside the edge of the field. Torbjörn was left behind with his phone.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Susso asked.

  He nodded but showed no sign of hurrying.

  With their feet crunching on the gravel they walked beside a severely pruned lilac hedge up to the front of the house and stepped in through the door. Below the hall mirror was a large, white-painted chest, and Gudrun put her handbag down on it.

  Mats lumbered ahead of them.

  ‘What about some coffee?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, please,’ Gudrun said, removing her jacket. ‘I could certainly do with some.’

  The house had been extended and the kitchen was in the old part, where the ceiling was low. Torbjörn had to duck as he stepped over the high threshold. It was a little kitchen, clean and shining, with white tongue and groove panelling, stained with resin over the knots in the wood. A curtain with narrow stripes hung like a skirt in front of a humming dishwasher. On the windowsill stood a pile of bird books, with a pair of binoculars on top. At the rear of the house was a small lawn and two towering birches, and beyond them the fields, stretching into infinity in the twilight.

  When the coffee machine started to bubble Mats opened a cupboard and took out a half packet of biscuits, which he placed in the bread basket on the table.

  It was silent for a few moments and then Mats cleared his throat. ‘Well, perhaps we should look at the film?’

  The projector was set up on a solid pine table facing a tripod with a small screen, which Mats pulled down like a roller blind.

  ‘Right, let’s see,’ he said, getting the projector started.

  Susso and Gudrun sat down on chairs, but Torbjörn remained standing. He had brought a biscuit with him and ate it while he waited.

  Soon the film spluttered into action.

  ‘It’s a bit further on from here,’ said Mats. ‘About two and a half minutes into the film.’ They watched children running around on a lawn in a downpour of scratches and flickering on the old cine film.

  ‘That’s my son, Tomas,’ Mats said, as a boy went by in a pedal car on a gravel road. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Keep an eye out now.’

  The children were naked and skinny, splashing about in an inflatable paddling pool on the grass outside the storehouse. It was high summer. The birches were like green foam, the colours very bright. A girl got ready to jump and then landed on her bottom in the pool.

  All of a sudden he appeared in the door furthest away in the leaning storehouse. He was in shadow at first but then stepped out almost into the light.

  ‘There,’ Mats said. ‘Did you see?’

  It was him. There was no doubt it was the Vaikijaur man. A green tracksuit hung like a sack on his crooked little body. Gloves. Beneath a knitted hat pulled down low over his face two yellow eyes were gleaming as he watched the children. He seemed not to notice the camera.

  Gudrun had covered her mouth with one hand.

  ‘His eyes!’ she shrieked. ‘Look at his eyes!’

  When Susso went outside she looked at the leaning building in a completely different way. She felt a strong sense of unease, as if he was still in there. As a result she was careful not to go any closer.

  The old man in the film was stunted and strange, but very real. A freak, she had thought when he had first shown himself in the doorway. Oh my God, a genuine freak! She had to go round the house and stand on the perimeter of the field to get good reception. Kjell-Åke Andersson answered almost at once. He asked her to calm down because he was not at all sure what film she was talking about. He knew nothing about someone called Mats in Avesta.

  ‘Has he phoned us?’

  It was impossible for her to stand still, so she walked up and down in the frozen grass.

  ‘He phoned after he had seen the photo on TV,’ she said. ‘On that true-crime programme, Efterlyst. But nobody seemed to care. And now I’ve seen the film and it is him. It’s the same person as the one in my photo. I’m one hundred per cent sure.’

  The police officer said nothing.

  ‘You have to see this film,’ she pleaded.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should do that.’

  ‘I can film it and email it to you. That will be quicker.’

  He gave her his email address and she hung up.

  Mats was standing with his hands in his pockets, watching her.

  ‘I’ve spoken to the police,’ she said. ‘They want to see the film.’

  ‘Shall I send the reel, or what?’

  ‘No,’ Susso said. ‘I’ll film it. We’ve got a video camera with us. Then I’ll email it to him.’

  ‘I’m glad he listened to you,’ he said.

  ‘It’s totally bloody unbelievable. To think they never showed any interest in any of this! I can’t make out what’s wrong with them.’

  ‘Do you want to have a look?’ asked Mats, pointing. ‘At where he lived?’

  The storehouse had three black creosoted doors, with an opening for a cat in one of them. Stakes entwined with wilted hop vines leaned against the wall, where there was also a wooden plough that had been given a new colour late in its life: turquoise shone against the red wall.

  Mats walked briskly across the lawn and lifted the hasp on the door closest to the forest, where the old man had stood in the film. The hinge creaked as he pulled the plank door wide open.

  Inside were potato-storage boxes full of various tools: rakes, spades, cultivators, fishing rods. On the floor were bags of old newspapers. A staircase made from rough-hewn planks led up to the loft: it was as steep as a ladder and crooked.

  ‘It’s up here,’ Mats said, climbing up.

  Susso motioned for Gudrun to go first. She leaned forwards, grasped one of the steps and began to climb up. Susso went next, followed by Torbjörn.

  Mats had positioned himself by the window. The frame was rotten and some of the wooden wedges holding it in place had worked loose. There was not much left of the curtains. They were tatters hanging from a plastic rail. Someone had hung them up to make the barn look homely from the outside. Through the smeared window they could see the gravel road.

  ‘That’s Tomas,’ said Mats, pointing at a graduation placard leaning against the wall. It was a
n enlarged photograph with the words ‘Congratulations Tompa!’ written underneath. The boy in the photo looked about six years old.

  ‘What happened exactly?’ asked Susso. ‘You know, that incident with the car you told us about?’

  Mats leaned his shoulder against the wall and moved the curtain aside with his index finger.

  ‘We were out picking wild strawberries,’ he said. ‘The whole family. Up by the road over there. When it was time to go home Tomas didn’t want to come with us. He liked wild strawberries. If I remember correctly, there was something I wanted to watch on TV, a football match or something, so I got impatient. When I tried to catch hold of him he ran away. And stupidly I ran after him.’

  He stroked the top of his head.

  ‘It was almost as if I was driving him towards the road by chasing after him. When I realised what was happening I stopped immediately, but he carried on. He probably didn’t realise I had stopped running after him.’

  Mats looked at Susso and then at Gudrun, who was standing a short distance away with her hands in her pockets.

  ‘Do you see?’ he said. ‘He was right at the edge of the road and it was impossible for me to catch up with him. “Stop,” I yelled, and Monika, my wife, she shouted as well, at the top of her voice. I can still hear us shouting, both of us. But it was too late. The car was already there. And it was going fast.’

  He cleared his throat before going on.

  ‘The very second we thought Tomas was going to be run over, a little figure dashed across the road and pulled him down into the ditch.’

  Mats grabbed one hand with the other to show how it had happened.

  ‘He literally appeared out of thin air! A little old man in overalls and a hat,’ he said, smiling, lifting his hand to hip height. ‘It was so unexpected. So amazing. That feeling of powerlessness. First this abyss that opens in front of you and then . . .’

  Mats shook his head.

  ‘We didn’t even think to say thank you. We just lifted the boy up and hugged him and then . . . well, we staggered home, I suppose.’

  There was a creak from the floorboards as Gudrun took a step closer. Her head was tilted and her expression had given way to one of compassion.