Trolls

by Stefan Spjut

  ‘That was … a mistake. I got it wrong.’

  Anders phoned Johanna and paced up and down next to the snow bank while they were talking. He told her he thought they would reach the release site around six and be home by nine. When she asked him how it was going, he heard himself say it was going well. He didn’t have the energy to tell her the animal was likely in hypothermic shock. Not now. Not when the poor reception broke their words into fragments and the cold was gnawing his fingers to the bone.

  Before long, they were back in the car, encapsulated in darkness, silent and dazed. Judging by how Geir stared fixedly at the road and the snow grains crashing into the windscreen like asteroids, he was deep in thought; Anders assumed he was casting about for a medical explanation for what had happened. For his part, Anders was struggling with an anxiety that was suddenly raging inside him.

  He had experienced mishaps before. Drugged animals that staggered into rapids and were swept away. Vomit and swallowed tongues. These things happened. But this was different. All eyes were on them this time. If this wolf didn’t make it, they would be in for it. From every direction. Even the hunters who wanted zero wolves in the country, preferably not even in zoos, would lay into them. Most of their ire would be directed at the Environmental Protection Agency, naturally, at Åsa, to be precise, if it was true that she had lobbied for the relocation, but internally, the spotlight would be turned on him and Geir. On Geir in particular. He, of course, had the option of retreating into the haven known as his native Norway. Anders had nowhere to hide. He would be told he was nothing but a lowly field technician with a dart gun he was not fit to operate. There were many within the veterinary field who felt a veterinary degree should be a requirement for tranquillising animals and this would provide one more argument for them to point to. It would be insinuated that he had messed up. This would reach him in the form of jokes and barbed comments, which was actually worse, because you couldn’t defend yourself against that.

  ‘The car behind us,’ Geir said. ‘Hasn’t it been there for an awfully long time?’

  Anders’ eyes shifted to the headlights in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘You’re being paranoid, Geir.’

  He said it quietly, to underline that he did not want any tension in the car. His own anxiety was simmering just below the surface. Against his will, he was now picturing an armed mob. Merciless men, maybe masked. Like a bloody western. It was not entirely unlikely. He knew that. Wolf-hatred was fierce and ran deep. At times, he wondered if it was genetic, if there were men who hated wolves. Besides, he couldn’t deny that there were rational reasons for stopping them. An intervention of this kind would draw no end of attention, and would once again highlight the absurdity of transporting wolves halfway across the country at enormous expense to the taxpayer.

  ‘Listen to me, Anders. They want us dead.’

  It was such a weird thing to say Anders pretended not to have heard at first. But the words hung in the air and after a while he had to ask what Geir had meant by them.

  Geir didn’t reply and seemed so paranoid Anders realised he had to calm him down. They were not being followed. The roads were practically empty, so it made good sense to keep a constant distance to the car in front, wouldn’t he agree? But the Norwegian was not persuaded; he didn’t even seem to be listening; he just stared into the wing mirror and the headlights that were burnt into it.

  Anders eased off the gas pedal. The dial on the glowing plate of the speedometer dipped from sixty to fifty-five and then down toward fifty and the car, a big Volvo with a thick crust of frozen snow on the roof, overtook them.

  But that did nothing to help matters. Because now its tail lights morphed into a pair of red eyes that hypnotised Geir.

  ‘They want us to die,’ he said quietly.

  ‘No one wants us dead!’

  ‘This is dangerous,’ he whimpered. ‘It’s dangerous.’

  Anders was getting seriously worried now. Geir was acting very strange. Should he call someone? Åsa maybe? He pulled out his phone but ended up just holding it in his hand.

  What had he meant to do again?

  Had he meant to call Micke Moilanen? Or Johanna? Fragments of what he had just thought whirled around, but there was nothing to tie them down. His eyes darted between the road and the screen of his phone. The clock showed 6.68 p.m. He knew that was wrong and waited for the digits to correct themselves.

  But they didn’t.

  He swallowed hard. Tried to focus his eyes.

  Six sixty-eight.

  ‘Anders. You’re bleeding.’

  It took him a moment to understand what Geir was saying. Bleeding? He pressed his thumb against his nostril and when he felt it getting wet, he reached up to the ceiling and groped around for the light switch.

  His thumb was red. Why did he have a damn nosebleed? He never had nosebleeds. He sniffed and wiped his nose on his hand. A red streak along his index finger. He placed both hands on the steering wheel, raised his chin higher and swallowed.

  ‘Who hit me?’ he said.

  When there was no reply, he glanced at Geir, who was sitting with his head at an odd angle. Blood had trickled out of his nose. A thin rivulet across his lips and down his chin.

  ‘You’re bleeding too.’

  Geir nodded.

  ‘I know.’

  The car pulls over and comes to a stop, tyres skidding. Anders gets his door open and staggers out, one hand pressed against his nose. His throat emits short, rumbling noises when he sucks the cold air into his lungs and he realises he has had a headache for quite a while without being aware of it. The pain is a sound, a torturous squeaking that is drilling further and further into him. He squeezes his head with his hands and pleads for mercy.

  ‘Go away,’ he says. ‘Please, go away.’

  He falls to his knees and spits and spits. Coins of blood that are absorbed by the snow while his thoughts flap around. A lorry with a shining halo thunders past; he shuts his eyes tight. Why won’t it stop? Why won’t it stop?

  Someone is speaking to him. It is Geir, who is staggering about in the dark, saying they have to release the wolf.

  Anders’ mouth is open. Everything has started dissolving inside him; the only permanent thing left is the sharp sound inside his temples.

  A shout is heard from the car but it is so far away it doesn’t concern him. I should call Johanna, he thinks to himself and pats his jacket; I need to tell her there’s something wrong with me. That my nose is bleeding and I can’t stand up. So she can call an ambulance. Because I think I’ve bloody pissed myself too. He looks for his phone by patting his jacket and trousers. When he has felt all his pockets, he starts over again, mindlessly.

  After a while, he notices that there is someone standing behind the car, watching him. A hunched-over and emaciated little old man. Who is stark naked. He gets it into his head that he is an elderly person lost in the night and remembers his father, the way he looked toward the end of his life. How small he became. A shrivelled child with anxious eyes. His legs won’t carry him, so he crawls; his only thought is that he needs to help this poor sod immediately.

  Geir is lying in the snow, curled up like a foetus. He has pulled his hat down over his face and is holding it with both hands as though trying to stop someone from pulling it back up.

  Anders is on all fours now, watching him blankly. Then he looks up at the monstrous creature standing on misshapen wolf’s legs in the red light of the tail lights. Wrinkled and cross-eyed like a witch of old, with the transmitter like some kind of extravagant, futuristic piece of jewellery around its neck.

  He turns and crawls away, whimpering in horror. Eventually, he gets to his feet and runs as fast as he can down the snow-streaked road that leads into the distant darkness.

  SATURDAY TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE TWO THOUSAND AND FOURTEEN

  Seated in a plastic chair in the exercise yard, Lennart studied his severed arm. Blood filled the grotesque creases of the scar tissue and was drippin
g down into the grass, where a small puddle had collected.

  He wiped his mouth with his fingers and glanced over at Dennis, who was standing by the door, head bowed, mesmerised by his mobile phone. Then he sank his teeth into the mangled stump. The bits that came loose he gathered up with his tongue and spat out.

  He was not entirely steady on his feet; he stood swaying for a short while before setting off toward the door. He shuffled across the lawn in his plastic slippers; a thin rope of blood dangled from the arm he was holding out in front of him. He was breathing heavily, wheezing with deep, rattling undertones. Dennis tore his eyes away from the screen and stiffened. Took a step back. Slipped his phone into his pocket and cursed.

  *

  They put him on a gurney. Wrapped his arm in towels; Dennis stood next to him, keeping the bundle elevated. A rose of blood bloomed on the white terrycloth, growing bigger and bigger. He stared at the fluorescent ceiling lights while Dennis jabbered in his ear, pouring sour coffee breath over him.

  ‘Bloody hell. This was pretty unnecessary, don’t you think? Seriously.’

  Johan came out with his phone in his hand, informing them that the prison transport service was currently in Härnösand and that it would be at least a couple of hours before they would deign to show up. Dennis suggested they drive him to the hospital themselves and after a while, Johan acquiesced.

  The injured giant showed no signs of being aware of what was going on around him. He lay completely still, studying the ceiling through his dark glasses. But he was listening the whole time, listening closely.

  *

  The A&E was a hangar. Ventilation pipes wriggled across the ceiling like metal entrails. The light streaming in through the windows of the roll-up door drew a pattern of rectangles on the concrete floor. An ambulance was parked under a basketball hoop; Lennart looked at it as though he had discovered some kind of mystery. A woman in a white smock placed a disinfected little hand on his arm and asked, needlessly loudly, if he wanted to lie down.

  They helped him onto a gurney; once he was on his back, he started rocking his head from side to side as though he was in the grip of despair; the woman asked him if he was in pain and then said he would be given pain relief in a little while.

  ‘So the hand is gone, obviously,’ Johan explained, ‘but that didn’t happen now. What he did today was bite himself. The stump, so to speak. And it’s not the first time. It’s something he does, more or less regularly. It’s bleeding, but I don’t think it’s particularly deep.’

  That Lennart had bitten himself didn’t seem to faze the woman; she asked about his medications and then wheeled him off. He was pushed through a din of voices. Man, born 1914, he heard someone say, then the din subsided. The lamps in the ceiling slid by like train cars made of bright light. The gurney made a sharp turn, a sliding door was opened and now he was in a small room with bare, green walls. The nurse told him the doctor would be with him shortly; then she left, pulling the door shut behind her.

  He lay there, still, like a corpse. The only sound was the gentle rush of wind from a vent. A surgical light loomed over him and he could see himself in its dome, his dark glasses and the bloody smear around his mouth.

  The pillow sighed when he lifted his head up. A mirror and a sink. An empty polished steel table on casters.

  He climbed off the gurney and went over to the sink. Turned the water on and put his hand under the tap. Hit the pumping lever of the soap dispenser and scraped the suds from the edge of the sink, cleaning himself up as best he could. The water eddying down the drain was pink. He grabbed a paper towel, wet it and rubbed at his mouth. Grabbed another one and rubbed hard. The blood had dried into his stubble, so he smeared soap between his fingers and lathered up his lips and chin. Scooped up hot water and splashed his face.

  There was a folded sheet on the gurney, a white square against the red mattress cover. He took it and draped it over his injured arm, which he held against his chest to hide the bloodstains on his shirt. He opened the sliding door a crack, then stepped out.

  With the sheet folded over his bent arm, he hurried down the corridor like some kind of shabby waiter. He exited through the front doors, walked around the hospital building and angled across a lawn. A footpath skirted the hospital grounds; he followed it until he glimpsed the car park. At that point, he turned off into the woods.

  Old planters had been scattered across a gravel patch. Decorative shrubberies of various kinds were growing into one another; their clustered blooms shone with remarkably vivid colours and behind them a pallet stood on end like a mysterious portal to a different forest space. He sat down on the edge of one of the planters to catch his breath.

  ‘Lennart?’

  His name pronounced in Norwegian. The rise of the final syllable. He looked up to see a man striding up the hill.

  Abraham stopped and studied him. One of his eyelids drooped like a crooked blind.

  ‘We should get going.’

  *

  It was stuffy and dark inside the motorhome. Drawn curtains covered its small windows, another blocked out all but the faintest trace of light from the driver’s cab. He raised his chin slightly and sniffed the air without making a sound. Then he removed his glasses and waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

  The old lady was lying under a blanket, watching him.

  ‘Come sit down, Lennart.’

  He squeezed in behind the table and sat down on the bunk, by her feet. A small, gloved hand rose slowly, not toward him, toward the curtain. In the light that streamed in, blazing a trail across a face crinkled by deep wrinkles, he could see how thin her hair was. How thin it had become. He could almost count the individual hairs above her forehead.

  He lowered his gaze, let it rest on the table. There was a phone on it. A blister pack lying foil-side up. The heavy, black plastic sunglasses with the gold details on the temples.

  ‘How are things with you?’

  Before he could respond, the door to the cab opened. He could hear Abraham climbing in behind the wheel through the curtain. Shortly thereafter, the diesel engine rumbled to life. Grete had to raise her voice to be heard now; it made it shrill.

  ‘You look so sad, Lennart. Why are you sad?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Don’t be sad.’

  Smiling made her cough. She closed her eyes; her chest heaved. At the end, it sounded like a dry laugh. She pushed herself upright with her hands and then sat propped up against the wall, watching him. Her yellow eyes with their piercing pupils were deeply embedded in the swollen folds of her skin.

  There was movement under the blanket. Ripples running this way and that. He let his hand slip in under the edge. All activity ceased instantly. He wiggled his fingers and soon felt the cold touch of a tiny nose. He pulled his hand out, shaped like a bowl; a mouse was sitting in it. A wood mouse, with black seed-pearl eyes. He slowly tilted his hand. The little one stiffened and then poured down his thumb to sit on the back of his hand, poised to keep running. When he turned his hand again, the mouse had had enough and jumped off. It scuttled up the blanket and paused for a second on Grete’s stomach. Then it was gone.

  ‘How many do you have?’

  She made a resigned hand gesture.

  ‘Why are they not with Skabram?’

  ‘It’s no help.’

  ‘You have to give it time.’

  She started coughing again and while she coughed, he sat with his head bowed, studying his arm. The blood had seeped through the terrycloth wrapping, spotting the sheet.

  ‘I think I need to lie down for a minute.’

  ‘We have a lot to talk about, Lennart.’

  ‘Not now. My head. I’m not feeling well.’

  ‘You’ve been asleep for ten years.’

  ‘I feel like I need another ten.’

  ‘Help him. I don’t want him looking like this.’

  Only now did he realise there was a person further in, watching him. It was Ingvill. But she was n
ot a child any more; she was a woman. She was holding an animal in her arms; when she set it down on the floor, he realised it was a very old hare.

  The terrycloth towels were stiff with dried blood and the innermost one didn’t want to come off. After announcing that it was stuck to his wound, she ripped it off with a firm tug.

  ‘Did it hurt?’ she said without looking at him.

  Under the towel was a fleshy crater glazed with coagulated blood. She took out a roll of gauze, wrapped it around the arm and tied it off with a neat bow that she folded in under the bandage.

  The shirt she lay out for him was black and the logo on the chest read ‘MEKONOMEN’ in yellow letters. She cut a four-inch slit in the sleeve. When he had put the shirt on, she grabbed his upper arm and helped him stand up; he then supported himself with one hand on the wall, moving slowly toward the innermost darkness of the camper. A curtain was pulled closed behind him. He couldn’t see much. But the smell was unambiguous. He rummaged around among the blankets until he felt coarse fur against his fingertips. He gently pushed the old animal aside before lowering himself onto the cot.

  He soon noticed that it was not just the hare that had found a bedding spot among the blankets. His presence caused astonishment. The little ones pitter-pattered around him and darted back and forth; it was not long before they were scurrying all over him. Just like children, they soon overcame their shyness and grew affectionate and then intrusive. The scratching of their claws had a relaxing effect on him; he was soon lost in deep sleep.

  It was a Monday. I had just opened the shop and nothing much was happening. Out in the square, on the other hand, things were lively. They were putting together the frame for that gigantic beer tent they have every year during the festival. Any day now a tent was going to appear smack dab in front of my shop window too; one always does. They block me out, plunging my shop into darkness; the tourists can’t see that I exist but what is there to be done about it?