by Stefan Spjut
She did not know what to make of him. He seemed embarrassed, only partially present. But she did not want to ask him if he had met anyone else. If he was forced to say it, there was a risk he would hear his own words. And that could sway him. Make him clam up.
It had been fairly okay between them, but he had left anyway. Although it was probably like Gudrun said: if his feelings were stronger, he would not have minded. That scared her. Because she did not mind. She thought the situation was pretty difficult, naturally, but not insurmountable.
About six months after he had moved to Luleå he had turned up at Ferrum, out of nowhere, wearing a new shirt and with his hair spiky and a beer in his hand. She had screamed at him and had enjoyed seeing his face flatten in a grimace. She could not remember what he had said in his defence. Probably nothing. Later that evening he had got involved in a fight, rolling around on the ground outside, standing there afterwards with his jumper caked with snow, pestering the doormen who resolutely pushed him away. And he had lost the cloakroom ticket for his jacket and had to spend the night at her place. The cold was ferocious and naturally he had no taxi money—he had shown her his wallet. In bed he had indifferently stroked her hip with limp fingers, but had then given up and fallen asleep with the snus still in his mouth. After that they had not been in touch until he came back home and started working for Wassara.
After she had pulled off the sheet and thrown it in the laundry basket she picked up the pizza boxes and pushed them into the bin. They stuck out at the top and the cupboard door would not close.
She sat with her back against the cold stone wall and watched television, holding the remote. She clicked on teletext. There was a film on at nine, but it was not even six thirty, so she walked to the bookshelf and stared at her DVDs for a long time. There were about twenty. She ran through some of the scenes in her head but nothing really appealed.
Her mobile began to buzz on the coffee table. Susso stretched forwards and saw that it was Edit. For a moment she hesitated, trying to decide whether to answer or not. Eventually she picked up the phone.
She could hear immediately that something was wrong. Edit apologised for calling like this on a Saturday, and when Susso assured her it was not a problem she said in voice almost like a whisper:
‘Mattias is missing.’
The boy was dressed in his outdoor clothes and holding the mouseshifter he had named Jim close to his chest. The little creature sat stock still, with its rounded cheek against the boy’s snowsuit. It looked as if it was listening to the boy’s heartbeat. Below the worried creases on its forehead the eyes showed like black peppercorns.
Signe asked the boy if he wanted his hat, and when there was no answer she pushed it down on his head and then straightened it so that he could see properly.
‘It’s cold in there,’ she said in a low voice.
Lennart had opened the door to Hybblet and was standing on the porch steps waiting for them. He had opened a couple of windows as well, to get rid of the worst of the smell.
They walked across the yard, Signe first, then the boy and lastly Seved. Börje was not with them. He had gone to lie down again. He had told Seved that Lennart had taken care of Ejvor’s body, and when Seved had asked what he had done with it, he had mumbled that it did not matter. Did this mean he did not know or that he did not want to say? Seved was unsure. Börje had looked so grey and fragile he had not wanted to question him any further.
The door to the kitchen was closed and Seved was careful not to breathe in through his nose. The stench in Hybblet had always been hideous but he did not want to know if there was a different kind of smell. Like something new had been added to it.
The room known as the jumping room was empty apart from a green-painted metal bed frame standing in the middle of the floor. A dirty yellow foam mattress was lying on it.
‘Here,’ Lennart said, pointing to the bed. ‘This is where you can jump if you want to. That’s what this bed is for.’
Through the open window where net curtains were flapping a parched light fell onto the floor tiles dotted with mouse droppings.
The boy looked at the bed.
He did not understand a thing.
He pressed the little object hard to his chest and ran his eyes over the walls.
Seved remembered standing there himself.
How Ejvor had forced him to jump.
How she had held onto his hands and jumped with him.
How he had hated it.
‘You have a go,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Lennart. ‘You have a go, little fellow.’
Susso told me to put on teletext, and when I didn’t do as she said immediately, because I thought she only wanted to see what was on the other channels, she told me again, this time almost shouting. At first I thought she was annoyed because my boyfriend Roland was over and we weren’t properly dressed, which made me annoyed because I thought we had the right to be completely naked if we chose. Her habit of walking straight into the flat often got on my nerves.
I grabbed the remote and changed to teletext:
FOUR-YEAR-OLD BOY ABDUCTED IN JOKKMOKK
At first I didn’t understand at all: which four-year-old boy? My thoughts were still grinding slowly, or unwillingly, after the hour we had spent in the sauna earlier, so Susso had to explain that the missing boy was Edit’s grandchild.
‘The one who was with her when she saw!’ she said.
‘It’s two minutes to,’ said Roland. ‘Switch the news on.’
Dazed, I changed to a different channel. My left hand picked nervously at the collar of my silk dressing gown. It was not so much the news as Susso’s peculiar behaviour that worried me. I had never known her to be so solemn.
The television wouldn’t obey the remote, so I stood up to get as close to it as possible.
Flying above the snow-topped fir trees was a police helicopter, chasing its powerful light over the ice of Lake Vaikijaur. And there was a voice saying:
‘Four-year-old Mattias was visiting his grandmother on Friday. At five o’clock his mother realised that he had not come home and alerted the police.’
A squinting police officer from the Luleå police force was standing in front of a furry grey microphone from Nordnytt TV.
‘The charge,’ he said, and then he paused. ‘Is kidnapping.’
‘Oh God,’ I said, and sat down on the coffee table, carefully so it would not tip. ‘Oh my God.’
‘A witness saw Mattias in an unknown car, a brown Volvo 240, in central Jokkmokk at four fifteen on Friday afternoon. The police are appealing to the public.
‘If anyone has seen anything in the vicinity or has any other information, please contact us,’ the police officer said. ‘However small, it could help.’
Susso stood immobile, concentrating, her arms folded. She had lowered her forehead as if to confront the news head on. The item was over, and I searched the channels looking for other news bulletins.
‘But what does she say?’ I asked, pumping the arrow-shaped button with my thumb. ‘What does Edit say?’
Susso went into the kitchen. She returned with a wine bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. She poured the wine and drank deeply.
Roland had crossed his arms and was leaning back in the sofa.
A feeling of uneasiness came over me. My stomach was in knots.
‘His parents,’ I went on. ‘What do his parents say?’
Susso shook her head, not in answer but more to indicate that she hadn’t the energy to answer. She sat in the armchair, holding the wine glass in both hands. Her eyes were directed at the wooden floor. The bottle stood on the glass-topped table, shining a deep red.
‘What if he’s the one who’s taken the boy?’
‘Who?’ I asked. ‘The troll?’
Susso nodded.
‘What troll?’ Roland asked, sitting with his hands on his kneecaps, his eyes wandering between me and Susso.
I kept quiet for a moment, fiddling wit
h the small clip of my watch strap, which rubbed against the veins where the skin is so thin.
‘It’s like this: Susso has taken a picture of a troll,’ I said finally, slowly placing the remote on the table. ‘Or maybe a gnome. At least, we think that’s what it could be. And it was there at that little boy’s granny’s house.’
I told him the whole story and how the picture had been taken with a wildlife camera outside Edit’s house.
A deep exhalation of breath came from the sofa. Roland was staring grimly out of the window. He’s not going to put up with us, I thought. He’s not letting on what he really thinks. He’s going to give up now. It’s making him cocky. Any minute now he’ll snort and maybe come out with a sarcastic remark. Oh God, what if he does? Susso will be furious. We had spoken about the troll several times before, me and Roland, so it couldn’t just be avoided, but even though he had never mocked me I got round it by pretending I didn’t believe it. From habit, because I was afraid of scaring him off.
‘Can I have a look?’ he said.
Roland sat wordlessly looking at the laptop on the kitchen table. He had pushed his glasses down the bridge of his nose. After a while he grabbed the screen and angled it a fraction as he leaned closer.
‘So this is supposed to be a troll . . .’
‘We don’t know,’ I said. ‘But it certainly could be, couldn’t it?’
He gave a laugh.
‘Could be? Well, yes, perhaps.’
He craned his neck and shouted in the direction of the sitting room:
‘Have you shown this picture to the police?’
‘I haven’t,’ Susso answered. ‘But I think Edit has. At least, that’s what she said she’d do. Tell them it’s on the website.’
Roland nodded.
I went back to Susso. She was lounging in the armchair, her hand against her chest, tapping on her mobile. In the gap between her trousers and her jumper there was a roll of fat with her navel in the centre. It was snowing and I stood looking out. Mainly because I didn’t know what to say.
‘Did you ever meet him?’ I said eventually.
She didn’t answer, so I turned round.
‘Susso. Did you meet the boy?’
She shook her head, texting with both thumbs.
‘What about his mum and dad?’ I said. ‘Do they live together?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve already told you.’
‘Because it’s usually a parent who steals a child. If it’s a custody issue or something. Or another relative.’
‘Yes, but in this case it isn’t.’
She had stopped texting and was staring at me.
‘Someone has taken him. Don’t you get it?’
‘He’ll come back, you’ll see,’ I said. ‘Children aren’t kidnapped just like that.’
The squeaking from the metal springs hurt Seved’s ears but it was more than the noise that made him want to get out of Hybblet. Not only did he know what was going on inside the boy, he felt it. And he felt it with an intensity that took him by surprise.
He saw him standing there in his red snowsuit but he could not believe it was real. That they had actually taken him. It had all happened in a flash. Before Börje wound down the window and called the boy over, the thought of kidnapping him had been nothing more than a thought—it had not even been a plan. He never believed it would happen. That it really would happen.
The boy looked down at the little thing he was holding tightly to his chest. He had comfort from that, at least. Or perhaps it was the boy who was comforting the little shapeshifter. Seved knew how they could nestle their way in. Unobtrusive and eager. So it was not easy to say who was comforting who.
Signe had brought a thermos with her and he heard her unscrewing the stopper. When she gave him a cup he squatted down with his back against the wall. Normally it was about ten degrees in the house, but now, with the window open, it was colder. A white mist hung in front of Signe’s mouth and it changed shape every time she breathed out, so Seved could clearly see how nervous she was.
What were her memories of this room?
He had no idea because they had never talked about it, but he assumed that she disliked being in here as much as he did. Perhaps it was worse for her because it had only been five or six years since she was that child jumping on the bed.
Heavy footsteps could be heard on the cellar stairs and both Seved and Signe stood up, afraid. They stared at the door, which was opening.
It was Lennart.
He came in and joined them, standing for a long time looking at the boy, who had stopped jumping and was now sitting, prodding the little mouseshifter. The boy was letting it run free on the mattress and then crawl back into his hands to be picked up again.
‘I’ve just spoken to your mother,’ said Lennart. ‘She says you’re to stay here another night.’
Instantly the boy looked up. He didn’t want to.
‘Your mum said so,’ Lennart grunted.
‘Phone her,’ said the boy. ‘She’ll come and get me.’
Lennart strode to the bed and sat down, making it creak.
‘I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but your mum is angry with you, little fellow. I don’t know why.’
Lennart rubbed his cheek with the hand that was inside the bag.
‘Do you know why?’
The boy shook his head.
‘Don’t lie.’
‘Perhaps because I went to Granny’s house?’
‘Exactly,’ said Lennart, nodding. ‘That’s what she said. She is angry because you went to your granny’s. Even though you weren’t allowed to. So she thinks you ought to stay here for a while.’
‘But I want to phone her. I want to say sorry.’
‘You can’t. There’s no telephone here.’
‘But you’ve just talked to her.’
‘That was over at the neighbour’s house,’ Lennart said, standing up. ‘And I can only use their phone once a day.’
‘But why can’t I go home?’
‘You can go home. Just not today.’
I had been sitting so long at the laptop that I had given myself a stiff neck reading everything the newspapers had written about Mattias’s disappearance. Pictures from Vaikijaur were rolled out on the evening news: helicopters circling, a deserted Kvikkjokk Road. But no progress had been made by the police in their search. Susso had been down in her own flat all day but came back up in the evening. She sank to the floor with her back resting against the fridge.
‘Have you heard any more?’ I asked.
Susso shook her head and picked up the dog.
‘They were talking to the police on the radio an hour or so ago,’ she said. ‘They’re not looking for him any longer. Out of doors, that is. So now they’re looking . . . in different ways, I suppose. I don’t know.’
I took a mouthful of wine and sat there with the glass in my hand.
‘And the police have phoned me,’ Susso said.
‘They’ve phoned you?’
‘It’s the photo,’ she said, rubbing the back of her head against the fridge door. ‘They want to talk about it. I don’t know any more than that. I’ll drive down to Jokkmokk tomorrow.’
‘But what do they want to ask about it? And why do you have to go there? Surely they can come here? There has to be someone you can talk to here, at the police station.’
‘Well, how do I know?’ Susso snapped.
Susso losing her patience like that made me shut my mouth. It was clumsy of me to go on about it. Naturally, this was tough for her.
‘They’ve set up some kind of base there,’ she continued. ‘Or whatever they call it. And I said I could go, it was no problem.’
She put the dog down on the floor and brushed off her trousers.
‘Do they think you’re involved in some way?’
‘Of course they don’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘All they want to do is ask a few questions. I expect they want to f
ind out what kind of person I am, spending my time photographing trolls. That’s not surprising.’
‘No,’ I said, sighing. ‘I suppose not.’
‘Are you making a grotto?’
Seved peered at the boy from below, at the sliver of his withdrawn little face that could be seen between his jacket collar and fur hat.
He had climbed up onto the heap of ploughed snow that was piled up in the middle of the yard, and was standing there wearing the winter clothes that had been stored in a cardboard box ever since Seved was a boy: the black padded trousers with braces; the blue down jacket with a red and white border across the shoulders, the one Börje insisted was a snowmobile jacket. Even the hat had belonged to Seved. It was made of chocolate-brown leather lined with fur, which was tinged yellow on the ear flaps and the folded-back section above the forehead. But the boots were modern. They had Velcro fastenings at the front, and reflective strips. They were the boy’s own boots.
Seved walked up the veranda steps and fetched a snow shovel. The greying wooden handle was furry with frost.
‘Here,’ he said, climbing up the heap of snow and hacking at it with the steel blade.
The boy took a step back, watching him with a wary but not uninterested look. His cheeks were red raw. He stuck out his tongue to lick at the clear mucus running from his nose.
‘You’ve got to have a plan for building it,’ Seved said eagerly, digging away at the snow. ‘So it doesn’t go wrong. Otherwise it will collapse. If you’re in the cave when it collapses, you’ll get trapped.’ He straightened up to rest his back for a few seconds. ‘That’s why you have to think about it before you start. The walls have to be straight. That’s very important. And you have to dig like this. Scrape away the snow to make it nice and even.’
The boy knelt on one knee, looking at the growing hole.
‘And you can have windows in it,’ said Seved. ‘Do you want it to have windows?’
The boy nodded.
‘Then we’ll make some. But first we’ve got to dig it out properly.’
