“What do you want?” I asked, as she appeared in front of us.
“I thought you both might need a little help.”
“In this getup?”
Edith raised her chin. “Have you forgotten how I used to look when I made mulch? As if I couldn’t do it in a fur coat.”
“But you need gloves,” Meisis said.
Edith smiled. “Is there a pair left?”
Meisis nodded. “Skalde got mine from the dresser in the hall. There were more, I think.”
“Would you go and get them for me?”
“Sure.” Meisis pressed the knife into my hand and went into the house.
Without looking at Edith, I asked, “What are you up to?”
“My God, do I have to justify offering my help?”
“Yesterday you were talking about handing Meisis over to Pesolt, and today you suddenly want to help us in the garden, when you haven’t lifted a finger in years?”
My voice was louder than I had intended.
Edith buried her hands in the pockets of the fur coat. “I’m anxious about our safety. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“What did you mean then?”
“Don’t keep going on about it, I just don’t want you to think that because Gösta put in a good word for you that you don’t have to worry anymore.”
I took off my gloves and wiped the sweat from my face. “What do you mean by that?”
“With the child. The situation. You have to have a plan.”
“Gösta vouched for her. Nothing will happen. And with time people will get used to Meisis. In a couple of years they won’t know anymore that she’s not one of them.”
Edith laughed. “They never got used to me, and I’ve been here for twenty-five years.”
“But that’s your own fault.”
Edith didn’t say anything, then she said, “And how do you propose to do it? Are you going to drag her to all of the farms and introduce her to everyone or something?”
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked. “Better than locking her in the house and acting like she doesn’t exist.”
“Do you really think they’ll be convinced that easily? Have you learned nothing in all these years?”
“They’re not bad people,” I said.
“They are, but you never wanted to believe me.”
“You want to give me advice? You? Who do you think you are?”
Edith flinched as if I had slapped her in the face. She almost stumbled. “Then give it a try,” she said, wiping her mouth, smearing the lipstick, trying to smile.
“That’s what I’m planning to do,” I said, putting the gloves back on, grabbing the stinging nettles, and carrying them into the shed.
When I came back, Edith was gone. Meisis returned with another pair of gloves. She looked around searchingly.
“She changed her mind,” I said.
Disappointed, Meisis laid the gloves on the ground. I passed her the knife. “We’ll do it alone.”
While we were cutting the rest of the stinging nettles, we were silent. Meisis lifted her head and looked at the house many times, but Edith didn’t reappear.
It didn’t occur to me at the time that Edith wanted to get along with me in the garden. That she regretted what she had said the day before, that she was trying to climb over the rifts between us that had become deeper and deeper over the years.
THERE ARE DAYS I WISH THAT THE BODY OF MY MOTHER WAS LYING BURIED BENEATH THE WEEDS.
31.
Edith was gone for three days. Only her sheet lay on the sofa in the living room. I looked in the bathroom, but that was empty too. She’d even drained the water from the tub. It was as if she had evaporated into thin air, and I believed that my long-held wish had been fulfilled.
Meisis was aware of Edith’s absence too. She didn’t ask after her, but she spent a remarkable amount of time on the lower floor, where she kept building new towers out of Edith’s books. It wasn’t until the fourth night that I found out where Edith was hiding. I walked past her room and saw that, under her closet doors, light was coming through.
She stayed there a whole week.
TO NEVER LEAVE A CLOSET AGAIN.
TWO SQUARE METERS OF LIVING SPACE WITH DAYLIGHT LOCKED OUT, WHO WOULD MISS YOU?
32.
When I came into the kitchen, Edith was standing motionless in the darkness.
“Don’t you want to turn on the light?” I asked.
Edith didn’t react. I went and stood next to her.
In the twilight I saw multiple figures with dogs walking across the meadow and disappearing into the forest. There was more barking coming from off in the distance.
“A search party,” Edith said. “There was another group before. All going in the direction of the river.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? They want to find out how a child managed to make it into the territory,” Edith said.
I was surprised by the harshness in her voice. “And if they find something?”
“It would be for the best.”
We stared silently out the window. It had become so dark, we could only make out their silhouettes.
“I saw them moving exactly like this before they brought me Nuuel’s body. I happened to be standing at the window and I watched it. I didn’t think anything of it,” Edith said.
There was a pause. I held my breath and hoped that she would keep talking.
“What are you doing?” asked Meisis. I flew around, startled. She was standing in the brightly lit rectangle of the door. Her face lay in darkness.
“You should have been asleep ages ago.” I walked over to her. She didn’t move. It was only when I held out my hand to her that she stepped toward me.
“I heard your voices. And dogs barking outside.”
“Nothing’s happened that you should be scared of,” I said.
Edith laughed. “I wouldn’t put it like that.”
I didn’t go into it. “Come on, I’ll take you to bed.”
“Will you stay until I fall asleep?”
I nodded, lifted her up, and carried her upstairs to her room. Once there I laid her on the sofa bed and covered her.
“Too warm,” she said, and ran her hand over her face.
“I can open the window, but it won’t make any difference.”
“Still,” Meisis said, reaching her hand out toward me. “Why are they going into the forest?” she wanted to know.
She noticed my hesitation and sat up.
“You have to tell me.”
“They’re trying to find out which route you took to reach the territory.”
“That’s why they’re going into the forest?”
“They’re heading toward the river.”
“So they’re starting their search at the river?”
I nodded.
My answer seemed to relieve Meisis. I dozed off, but the dogs were still barking in my dreams.
33.
I wanted to prove to Edith that she was wrong and resolved to take the child with me to Eggert’s. I thought that Eggert would be a good place to start.
I parked the pickup in front of his yard on the stone slab path, and Meisis and I climbed out. We walked through the gate together.
Eggert was standing in the lush flowerbeds he had planted around the lime tree in the middle of the triangular yard and was doggedly tidying them. The heat intensified the heavy scent of the blossoms.
I looked around for the sheepdogs that usually patrolled the farm, but I couldn’t see them anywhere; their chains lay loose in the gravel.
Eggert was crouched over pulling dried-up stalks from the shrubbery and throwing them in the wheelbarrow. When he saw us coming over, he stopped moving.
“That child needs to leave my yard right now,” he said.
“That child is called Meisis,” I said.
“I couldn’t care less what its name is. Pesolt told us all about it. She can’t just walk around in my yard l
ike that in any case.”
I bent over to Meisis and told her to go back to the truck and wait for me there. “It won’t take long,” I whispered.
With her head bowed, Meisis walked back to the pickup. I could see her disappointment.
I walked back over to Eggert.
“Does she look like she could be of any danger?” I asked.
“The hair seems very ominous to me.”
“You’ll all get used to it sooner or later.”
“She doesn’t belong here.”
I didn’t push it any further, pointed to the pickup truck’s bed and said, “I’ve brought you the two canisters I promised you.”
Eggert looked at me blankly, his forehead rumpled.
“The mulch for your flowers and the garden, I was supposed to bring them over today.”
“I said that before you found the child.”
“Gösta vouched for Meisis.”
Eggert took a handkerchief from his trousers and wiped the sweat from his bald head. “Oh yes, Gösta.” He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Listen, Skalde, you’ve brought all this on yourself. Imagine if all of us just did whatever we felt like doing without thinking even for a second how it would affect the others, what consequences it would bring. Here in the territory, we follow each other’s lead. This is why things are going relatively well for us. Here, we don’t think of ourselves first, we think of the community, of the territory. Your mother’s never wanted to understand that either.”
“Even though it’s nothing more than a child or—”
Eggert raised his hand. “It’s not about that,” he said.
I swallowed.
“I’ll take your canisters, but as soon as there’s even the smallest nonsense here you can forget all about me trading anything with you.” He threw down his gloves onto the wheelbarrow. “Come inside and bring the mulch with you.”
I nodded. On the way to the pickup I tried to kick a stone, but I just missed it. Meisis rolled down the window and leaned out toward me.
“I can help you, I can carry one too,” she said. I shook my head.
“Stay in the car.”
I took the canisters from the truck bed and followed Eggert into the house. Piled up in the entranceway were sneakers belonging to Eggert’s daughters.
“Put them down anywhere, I’ll be right back,” Eggert said, disappearing into the hallway.
I was in the process of sliding the canisters under the stairs when Levaii, Eggert’s youngest daughter, came downstairs. She leaned over the rail and eyed me up. Her irises were so pale her stare was unsettling.
“What are you doing here?” she asked suspiciously.
“I brought over some mulch.”
Without letting me out of her sight, Levaii unraveled the end of her braid and dropped it onto her shoulder.
“Where are your sisters?” I asked.
“Outside, they’re digging in the garden,” Levaii said.
She was still staring at me. She didn’t blink once.
“This child that’s living with you …” She faltered.
“Yes?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.
“Aren’t you a bit scared of it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know, don’t you think it’s a bit weird that it suddenly showed up even though it’s been so closed off here for so many years? And then there’s its hair.”
She paused meaningfully. “Well, I’d be scared if it was sleeping in the same house as me.”
I was glad Eggert came back from the kitchen.
When he saw Levaii he snapped at her: “What are you still doing inside? Your sisters have been working in the garden for two hours already. Go on, get out there.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” She reluctantly took the last few steps, nodded at me, and walked out the house. She left the door open. In the bright sunlight that fell in, I noticed for the first time how filthy the room was. Even the sneakers were covered in a fine layer of dust.
“I’m really hoping that it’s just a phase,” Eggert said, looking after his youngest daughter.
“I’m sure it is,” I said.
He turned to me and handed me five jars of preserved fruit. “Had to look around a bit, they were right at the back of the cupboard.”
“Thank you.”
“You better go,” he said, rushing me back out.
While reversing the pickup, I saw Levaii and her sisters behind the house in the dirt of the vegetable patch. The scarves they tied around their heads as protection from the sun stood out brightly from their surroundings. They worked the dry earth with spades and hoes. The sweat shone on their muscular arms.
Levaii looked furious, but her sisters smiled at us. One of them even raised a hand in farewell.
I hit the gas and we drove away.
The plots that we passed were empty of people. It seemed as if they had all withdrawn into the interiors of their houses. Sometimes I thought I could see someone standing behind the bright curtains, but we were going so fast I was never quite sure.
“Can we just keep going please?” Meisis asked, closing her eyes.
“We can’t. At some point we can’t go any farther.”
“Why not?”
“There’s a river.”
“But isn’t there a bridge?”
I shook my head.
“But couldn’t we just go in the other direction?”
“That’s dead territory. We’d die there.”
34.
Pesolt’s house lay in a dip. In this part of the territory there was no asphalt road, only a gravel path. I parked the truck up on the overhang, took out the bag with the rabbit in it, and got out with Meisis. Voices carried over to us, but I couldn’t locate them. They didn’t seem to be coming from a specific direction, and there was no one in view either.
“Stay close to me,” I instructed Meisis. We walked next to each other over the gravel toward the house.
To the left and right the hollyhocks bloomed a dark purple, almost black. We climbed up the steps to the front door, and I knocked. Nothing happened. I knocked again, but no one opened up.
“Maybe someone’s out back in the garden,” I said, taking Meisis’s hand and going with her around the house. The lawn, scorched by the sun, was cut so short that the earth was visible below it. The flower beds were shrouded with shiny plastic. The meadow orchard started immediately behind them. The squat trees barely made a shadow. I saw that there were not yet ripe apples hanging from some of them. A fence marked the perimeter. There stood Pesolt, painting the wooden slats red. The fresh color glowed unnaturally in the landscape. We approached him hesitantly. When he saw us coming, he laid down his paintbrush on the can and wiped his paint-smeared fingers down his trousers.
“Don’t remember giving an invitation last time we saw each other,” he said grimly.
“A couple of weeks ago you said you’d come take a look at our fruit trees.”
Pesolt laughed. “Did I?”
“Yes.” I looked at him defiantly. “I told you that they only bloom and that the last harvest was a year ago.”
“You’re not the only ones.” Pesolt rubbed his brow.
“When we talked about it, you promised me—”
“That was before you took in the child.”
“Your mother planted those trees,” I said. “A cherry tree and a plum tree.”
No one knew how to deal with fruit trees as well as Pesolt. His mother taught him everything. And she in turn had learned it from her father. Pesolt’s trees still always produced a reasonable yield. How he did it, he had so far revealed to no one.
“I’ve brought you half a rabbit,” I said, and held the plastic bag out toward him.
He threw a glance at Meisis. “Is that all?”
“And a canister of mulch,” I said, “it’s still on the truck bed in the pickup.”
“What do I need fertilizer for? I’m not growing anything else, and I
don’t need it for my fruit trees, they bear fruit no matter what.”
“What do you want then?”
He hesitated before saying, “Edith’s got that knife. The handle’s made of pinewood.”
I knew straightaway what he was talking about. A handy knife, the blade no longer than my index finger. Edith always kept it close to her. When she went to sleep, she shoved it between the cushions of the sofa.
Once she forgot it on the table, and I used it to peel potatoes. When Edith came back into the kitchen and saw me with the knife, she took it away from me so abruptly the blade left a deep cut in the palm of my hand.
I said to Pesolt, “Not that, that belongs to Edith.”
“Yeah, and? Is she not in need of a good fruit yield?”
Meisis was getting restless; I put my hand on her shoulder.
“There must be something else I could give you,” I said.
Pesolt shook his head. “I want the knife.”
Something hardened in my stomach. “You’ll get three rabbits. Three strong ones.”
“I want the knife,” Pesolt said, picking up the brush and continuing to paint the worn slats. I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood.
“We’re going,” I said to Meisis.
Pesolt straightened up. “When you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
He wanted to touch my shoulder, but I took a step back and pulled Meisis with me. Pesolt laughed.
Pesolt’s twins were sitting on the steps leading to the front door of the house. Meisis stood there as if rooted to the ground. The twins started squealing and rushed over to us.
“Hey,” they said, stationing themselves in front of us, their arms at their sides, their stomachs pushed out. They were wearing the same pajamas. The pattern consisted of apples and pears, the trouser legs and sleeves were too short for them, and on their knees the fabric was crusted with blood, as if they had already fallen countless times on the gravel track.
“Leave us alone,” I said.
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