He asks Elvira Wallin. Over and over again.
‘What are you doing up at night?’
‘I really don’t know.’
‘This morning your mother found you in the kitchen. And yesterday on the floor in your room. You were very scared when Fru Wallin woke you. What were you scared of?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘The same snakes we talked about before?’
‘I don’t know. I was just very tense.’
‘Do you know why you were lying on the floor?’
‘I had fallen out of bed?’ Elvira Wallin giggles. It strikes Dr. Lohrman how impudent she’s gotten the past few days. Pert. Disrespectful. It might be the laudanum talking. ‘Maybe I dreamt I was in a shipwreck?’
He asks little Signe if she has seen Elvira Wallin in the yard. Or in the rear house.
‘Never,’ she answers in the Värmland dialect. ‘I’ve never seen the young miss in the yard. Or in the house. What would she go there for?’
‘And in the kitchen?’
‘Almost never. Sometimes when the young children are there, maybe. The mistress and miss leave us to ourselves in here.’ She gives Lohrman a look that says he should do the same. The household is full of stiff-necked women.
‘And the backstairs?’
‘What would she be doing there?’
‘You see the staircase windows from your room, right?’
‘Yes. But they’re narrow windows.’
‘Can you keep an eye on them tonight? For the young lady’s sake. And if you don’t say anything to your mistress, there’s a copper for you as a reward.’
‘Why shouldn’t my mistress know?’
‘Because she might unconsciously want to protect her daughter.’ Signe nods. Pretends to understand, illiterate maid that she is.
‘One wonders,’ writes Dr. Lohrman, ‘if the laudanum really has any effect other than to keep the girl’s dreams and reality separate from one another? Can it be that the horrors that were previously played out in the theater of her dreams are now raging hidden behind the opium’s curtain? And what kind of unforeseen effects can that have on the poor girl? Or can one safely ignore the little she perceives of the dreams? If the girl were still lying quietly in her bed and only her unconscious fantasies were running all over the place then it might be all right, but now she is walking in her sleep. The girl could hurt herself. Worse than the scratches she’s already gotten. Realized today that Fru Wallin’s shame over her daughter’s sickness may be making her unconsciously hinder me in my work. Perhaps she is afraid she will be blamed for her daughter’s condition.’
Next evening. Dr. Lohrman sits by Elvira Wallin’s bed. Silent. Thoughtful. Andersson found her in the kitchen this morning. And she can’t remember anything. She scratches her thighs. Begs for massage. And laudanum. They bargain.
‘You get massage if you talk.’
‘Massage first.’
‘Oh, no. I know what you’re up to. Now tell me what you were doing in the kitchen.’
‘I really don’t know what I was doing in the kitchen.’ She imitates Signe’s dialect. Teases him. Dr. Lohrman realizes how much he dislikes her. ‘What would I be doing there? Among the servants?’
‘Maybe you were hungry?’
‘Not really. I eat in the daytime. I don’t have to run around stealing things from the cupboard at night. Can I have massage now?’
Dr. Lohrman takes off his frock coat. Finds the machine. He’s growing more and more doubtful that the machine is of any use. He hardly dares to look at Elvira Wallin during the treatment. Her reactions are getting stronger and stronger. Rhythmic spasms in her thighs and back. Shortness of breath. The girl blushes and moans. Presses herself against the apparatus. But maybe it’s just that the nearer the tension comes to the surface, the more powerfully it reacts to one’s efforts to get rid of it.
Elvira Wallin bites her blanket when the paroxysm comes. All grows quiet. Far off a piano is heard. Fru Wallin is teaching little Margareta to play. Preferably when her sister is being most noisy. Dr. Lohrman wipes his sweat from the machine. Slackens the spring. Dries his forehead and adjusts his cravat. And begins to ask again.
‘Your mother says that she’s found you in the kitchen several times. And in the servants’ passage. You never go another way? Out in the rest of the residence? To the parlor or dining room or the other children’s rooms. How come?’
‘I really don’t know. Sorry, doctor.’
‘And the backstairs? What do you do there?’
‘What would I be doing there?’
‘I know you go there.’
‘I dreamed about them before. We’ve talked about that.’ Elvira Wallin rolls her eyes. ‘Before I got the laudanum. And massage.’
Dr. Lohrman feels a kind of joy. Finally. He knows that the cheeky little ragdoll is lying. He looks at her. Without blushing. How she lies on the covers. In just her undergarments. The corset barely laced. Barefoot. Dirty feet. Dr. Lohrman can taste victory. His intellect over the sickness’s lies. He studies Elvira Wallin’s slender ankles. Sees one of those awful sores that run around her left leg. She is delicate, all over. Her throat and wrists. Looks at her straight, almost white hair. She’s going to be a real beauty once he’s freed her. A cool, ethereal beauty. He thinks about details. Mannerisms he has learned by heart. The little things in her way of moving. Of talking. The way she tilts her head to the side when she doesn’t understand a question. Her mother does the same thing.
He plays out his triumph. ‘Signe saw you on the staircase. Last night. You went down the stairs. And went back up again after about an hour. What were you doing in the cellar so long?’
Elvira looks at the ceiling. Her eyes tear up. Slowly. The tears run down her cheeks. She is completely quiet. The doctor smiles. A friendly smile, he hopes. He’s broken through the wall. Reached a turning point in the therapy.
‘I wish so badly that I could explain,’ she says finally. ‘I wish so badly.’ Then she cries. Inconsolably. And Dr. Aaron Lohrman sits at her side. He’s brought down his prey. But he doesn’t know what to do with it. He can only sit there. Perplexed and speechless.
Elvira Wallin cries for a long time. Quietly. Without screaming or kicking up a fuss. She shudders sometimes. Shakes as if she’s freezing. But never tries to dry her tears. They run down over her temples and drip on the pillow under her neck.
She thinks that she would like so much to tell the truth. If she only knew anything about it. Understood anything herself. She wants to make the doctor happy. Make mother happy. And she wants to sleep, she realizes finally. Just sleep. She asks for laudanum. With a feeble voice. The doctor gives her a weak dose. Far too weak. She wants to scream at him not to be such a stingy Jew. But he looks so stern.
Finally Elvira Wallin sinks into a light sleep. Dr. Lohrman stands up. Puts on his frock coat and goes out into the parlor. Fru Wallin is just taking leave of three of her many girlfriends. A Kruse and a Sparre and a Something-hjelm. All equally elegant. Sophisticated and officious. Dr. Lohrman waits off to the side a little. He wonders about these women. How they seem to do nothing but visit each other. Drink coffee. Gossip and debate. Do needlework. Shouldn’t such sensible people have better things to do than run around visiting one another all day?
The ladies go. Fru Wallin has Dr. Lohrman report as if he were an ensign. He’s reached a breakthrough. We must discuss it. She walks slowly in a circle around the parlor. Straightens a tablecloth. Looks at the portrait of Major Wallin. Asks him to wait with Elvira while she talks with Andersson.
Dr. Lohrman sits for a long while watching Elvira Wallin sleep. He thinks about the next step. About his insights and what he should do with them. He has almost dozed off when Fru Wallin comes in the room. With her hair brushed out and wrapped in a large smoking jacket that must have belonged to the major. She looks lik
e an adventuress. An explorer in some distant land. She should have one of those helmets the English wear in the tropics. And a carbine.
‘Would you like anything to eat, Doctor?’
‘Andersson fixed me a bit of ham and bread, thank you.’
Fru Wallin sits. Looks at her daughter. She looks sad.
‘She goes down the stairs,’ he says finally. ‘In real life.’
Fru Wallin says nothing.
‘Yes. She doesn’t have a sweetheart,’ he goes on. ‘And I’m sure that she doesn’t subconsciously want to run away from her family.’
‘What do you think it’s all about, Doctor?’
‘She could be haunted by some kind of spirit.’
Fru Wallin laughs. Almost scornfully. ‘Do you believe in such things?’
‘Let us say that I find many things difficult to explain scientifically.’
‘And you still want to cure my daughter with modern medicine?’
‘The power of suggestion is strong.’
‘Elvira hardly believes in God.’
‘Honestly spoken, Fru Wallin. Does anyone believe more than hardly and out of respect these days?’
‘I think it’s funny that so many abandon God, but go to fortune tellers instead.’
‘Undeniably. Séances are also said to be very popular, I’ve heard.’
Fru Wallin is silent a moment. Straightens her daughter’s blanket. Stares at a point on the wall over the bed. She’s making up her mind about something. ‘I frequented séances when I was younger. And prayer meetings. And elf dances. The Guards’ daughters danced in Stora Skuggan. You didn’t think that about me?’
‘I don’t know how to answer that.’
‘It was a fun time. Innocent. But some games become very serious with time. There are some things we should have left alone. You mustn’t wake something up if you can’t get it back to sleep again.’
Dr. Lohrman holds his breath. Fru Wallin is having a therapeutic conversation with him. Completely of her own accord.
‘When Oskar died, Anna Lessander took me to a séance. Of the worst sort. The medium. That devil was some kind of ventriloquist. He pretended to be Oskar. And it was all wrong. He said the wrong things. Things that Oskar never would have said. You know how Oskar was, for God’s sake. He was always happy and high-spirited. A boisterous man. He could see the funny side to anything. Even being crushed by falling timber. He would never moan like a ghost in Hamlet. I was furious.’
‘Did you really think you would meet Oskar?’
‘No.’
‘But you went all the same?’
‘Yes. I know that some things are in fact not governed by science. And I thought that man was one of them. Someone with some kind of insight. Stupid, isn’t it?’
‘Perhaps. But very human.’
Dr. Lohrman wonders. Where should he lead the conversation? Should he ask the critical question?
‘I know that you know,’ says Hedda Wallin at last. When she can’t be bothered to wait on Dr. Lohrman any longer. ‘Signe told me this morning. That she told you she saw Elvira and me on the stairs last night. She’s loyal, that girl. Even if not very clever. If she had come to me first, she could have saved herself the trouble of sitting up last night.’
‘Saved herself the trouble?’
‘I could have shown you the door. Or asked her to lie.’ Fru Wallin looks him in the eyes. Sternly. He understands how easy it was for Signe to choose sides. He can’t measure up to this woman. ‘Do you, the new kind of doctor, keep your patients’ confidences? Whatever they may be? Like a confessor?’
‘Of course. An intimate conversation would be impossible otherwise.’
‘I thought I could handle this myself.’
‘This?’
‘What Elvira is going through. But it pains me to see her suffer. She is so weak. Not like me.’ She falls silent. Notices that he doesn’t know what to say.
‘Consider yourself hired. As my family’s doctor.’
‘I’m not a medical doctor. You know that.’
‘I know what an army doctor can do and what he can’t. I know three pharmacists, and if you don’t want to pull one of my teeth, I’ll go to a smith in Kungsholmen. Do you understand? You shall help me to help Elvira get through something that I had to get through alone. And keep quiet about the business. Forever. You understand?’
Dr. Lohrman nods.
‘Out of respect for my spouse. Your company commander.’
Dr. Lohrman nods again. Humbly.
‘The slightest whisper about this to anyone and, well, you understand. I’ll destroy your reputation as a doctor, you can count on it.’ Fru Wallin smiles. Almost maliciously. They have nothing more to talk about. They wait. Dr. Lohrman leans back. Dozes with one eye open. Hedda Wallin knits. Without looking at what she’s doing. When Hedda Wallin knits, it’s always scarves. She doesn’t know how to do anything else. Every Christmas the poorhouse gets a large bundle of scarves from the Wallin household.
It’s midnight when Elvira Wallin gets out of bed. With unseeing eyes and her hands at shoulder height. She looks like someone walking in the dark. As if she’s listening for something. In just her corset, underwear, and petticoat she walks down the hall towards the kitchen. Dr. Lohrman walks carefully behind her. Hedda Wallin walks in front. Fiddles with the key. The key to the door to the backstairs. Sets it in her daughter’s hand.
Elvira Wallin fumbles. Unlocks the door. Goes down the stairs. The long, narrow staircase. Hedda Wallin walks in front of Dr. Lohrman. Holding a kerosene lamp in front of her. That’s what Signe saw the previous night. They go down into the damp and darkness. Catch up with Elvira Wallin. Walk a step behind her. Without her noticing them.
They come to the cellar door. Dr. Lohrman sees. Hedda Wallin has put on gloves. Her daughter opens the door. With the same key. A wind comes up through the dark doorway. It smells of seaweed. Hedda Wallin takes the key from her daughter. Takes her by the hand. Looks at Dr. Lohrman.
‘One last chance,’ she whispered. ‘You can leave here now. And never speak with us again.’
Dr. Lohrman doesn’t answer her. He only meets her gaze. She can’t see his eyes behind the thick glasses, but she supposes he’s trying to look brave. Ready to go down the stairs in the name of science. For its new methods and for his own curiosity’s sake.
Hedda Wallin walks down the stairs with her daughter’s hand in hers. Down into the damp and darkness. To atone for a mistake. To keep a promise. The dance in Stora Skuggan seems like something that happened a century ago. What was adventure and excitement then now just feels banal. Mundane and malevolent. Curiosity always has a price. She’s known that for nearly twenty years. And now the doctor will learn it too.
The cellar at the foot of the stairs smells of peat and moisture. Seaweed and mold. The kerosene lamp shines on the coal and firewood. Empty bedpans. Empty room. Space to burn coal. If it comes to that.
They continue downwards. To the next floor. Blasted in the mountain. The lodge’s room. No hall. No coats of arms. No seats where men sit and drink wine and pretend it’s blood. Just a dirt floor. And an old bed. And an even older presence. The one that welcomes her. And which greedily wants its gift.
Hedda Wallin lets go of her daughter’s hand. Lets the one twisted around Elvira Wallin’s other wrist lead her further. Further towards that which is crawling over the bed. Further towards that which is covering the floor. That which is big and oily like piles of black rope. Black snares that tighten around Elvira Wallin’s white clothing. Ensnare her arms. Tear at her corset. She takes a faltering step forward. Mumbles a protest. Tries to break free. Weak like a kitten. The black snares creep up her legs. Tear her skin. Press her knees apart. Elvira Wallin whimpers.
Hedda Wallin turns her back. Walks out of the room. Dr. Lohrman remains there, hypnotized by the sight
. Sees the girl fall forward among all that black. She screams for her mother. And the tentacles swoop over her. Tearing and pulling and clawing. They twist around Elvira Wallin, force themselves on her, and toss her to and fro.
Dr. Lohrman glimpses the girl’s face. One last time before he flees for the stairs. Her eyes are open but empty. They shine with pain and bliss and madness. Her cries for her mother have turned into a gurgling, half-stifled scream.
Dr. Lohrman darts for the small staircase. Towards the kerosene lamp. Away from the unfathomable. Away from the inexplicable. He sees Hedda Wallin standing there. Calm, with her back against the stone wall. The lamp makes her skin look yellow. The light glints on glassy eyes. He knows she is forcing herself not to cover her ears.
The scream lingers in the air. It dies out. Replaced by a rhythmic panting. Hoarse and full of mumbled words. Dr. Lohrman stares at the woman beside him.
‘What was I to do?’ says Hedda Wallin. She doesn’t sound apologetic. Not angry. ‘It wants to breed. It wants offspring. Nineteen years ago it was me. Now it wants to meet its daughter.’
Translated from the Swedish by James D. Jenkins
Marko Hautala
Pale Toes
Reviewing a Finnish novel for NPR in 2016, a critic noted that ‘Finland . . . has a thriving spec[ulative] fiction scene whose best writers rival those of the English-speaking world’. ‘Finnish Weird’ (or suomikumma in Finnish) is enough of a phenomenon that there’s a whole website devoted to it – finnishweird.net – complete with free stories (in English) from leading Finnish weird fiction authors. Marko Hautala (b. 1973), by contrast, is more properly classified as a horror author than a weird fiction writer. With several volumes of fiction to his credit, and works translated into eight languages, including the novel The Black Tongue, published in English in 2015, Hautala has been deemed the ‘Finnish Stephen King’. ‘Pale Toes’ originally appeared in an anthology of Finnish horror fiction in 2015 and makes its first English appearance here.
They found a place for the night at the last minute. August had been a terrible time to travel, like Petri had said time and time again. Nina hadn’t listened to him, and Petri hadn’t cared to argue. Now, they’d exhausted and sweated themselves into a breakdown way too many times.
The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories Page 25