Thin Ice

by Mikael Engström

  ‘Do they fly far?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Have the brothers peed?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mik.

  ‘You see, everything here is just the same.’

  ‘Konsum,’ said Mik, taking another sandwich.

  ‘Well, yes. I do my shopping at ICA now.’

  ‘Cheese,’ said Mik. ‘Cheese is nice. The Tormentors didn’t give me any cheese.’

  There were no sandwiches left. Mik wriggled down under the duvet and pulled it up until it just covered his nose. Lena stood up and took the tray. She looked at him, shook her head and laughed.

  ‘In time they’ll realise you are here. But until then …’

  ‘I don’t want to go back.’

  GETTING THE RAFT READY

  Lena had found clothes for him. Second-hand, faded and completely impossible. But here no one cared what they looked like. The summer days were hot, the sky blue and the night light. The water in Lake Selet was horribly cold and there were masses of mosquitoes, gnats and ants. Lena rubbed a cooling ointment into his skin every evening.

  Pi was extremely stubborn about the swimming lessons. Mik swallowed water, vomited and suffered from the cold. But she didn’t give up. It was as if she was on a mission from God to teach him to swim. But he sank.

  ‘Perhaps he’s too thin,’ said Oskar. ‘Unable to float. He kind of falls through.’

  Filip had brought along his little sister’s swimming ring, a ridiculous thing that went around his waist and had two yellow floats on the back so that only your legs and head sank. Oskar thought it was a step forward, and when Pi was out of earshot he wanted to hear about spying on the naked girl.

  ‘Did you really see her bush?’

  ‘Yes, I saw everything.’

  The raft turned out well. All four of them could stand on it without it sinking even a little bit.

  Filip ordered planks from his dad. They made a flat floor so that Pi’s tent could be put up on the raft. They nailed the tent ropes and the eyelets that held the canvas in place. It was perfect.

  Bengt and Bertil gave them worn-out old oars as paddles. Finally they hoisted a mast with a flag that Oskar had made.

  ‘Skull and crossbones,’ he said.

  But it looked more like a grinning clown.

  One night they slept in the tent on the raft after paddling over to the other side of the lake. It took several hours, and night fell before they got there. The raft floated heavily through the water. Filip became tired and whiny, but that might have been because he had a cold and a runny nose.

  ‘Where else are we going to go on this thing?’ he said, sniffing. ‘Backwards and forwards over the lake or what? How cool is that?’

  ‘We can travel out into the world,’ said Oskar. ‘Run away.’

  ‘How? This raft weighs a ton. It can’t fly.’

  The sun set, but it didn’t get dark; it was only like coming into the shade. The air was coloured blue, and far in the distance were the mountain tops, still in sunlight. Mik thought the mountains looked as if they were made of solid gold.

  ‘The river,’ said Pi. ‘It runs into the sea. And from the sea you can travel out into the world.’

  ‘To China,’ said Oskar.

  ‘Well, yes, actually.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Filip. ‘The raft will be crushed going over the Älg rapids.’

  They crawled into the tent and rolled around among airbeds, blankets, covers and pillows. Mik borrowed one of Pi’s pillows.

  Filip’s mobile rang. It was his mum, wondering if everything was going well. She said, ‘Big kiss and sleep tight,’ and everyone heard. Oskar and Pi switched off their phones, not wanting to run the risk of getting phone calls like that.

  ‘This raft won’t have any problem with the Älg rapids,’ said Pi. ‘I’m sure about that. As long as no one falls off.’

  ‘What about the Borg rapids, then?’ said Filip.

  ‘No problem,’ said Pi. ‘But everyone must be able to swim. For Mik it could be dangerous.’

  ‘Then what?’ said Oskar.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen after that,’ said Pi.

  Mik listened to their conversation, not word for word but more as a noise going on in the background. Lovely voices. He liked Pi’s best; it was a bit hoarse. Filip’s was squeaky. Oskar’s voice was slurred somehow, as if his tongue was a bit too big for his mouth.

  They argued about what the raft could and couldn’t handle. It felt secure to lie there and listen. He wasn’t alone and he would never have to be alone again. Mik fell asleep on Pi’s pillow to the sound of the voices.

  The next morning it was Mik’s swimming practice. He swam beside the raft with a rope and the ridiculous float around his waist.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Pi. ‘Long, slow strokes. And keep your fingers together so you get a grip in the water.’

  The lessons went so well they decided to practise without the float. Mik jumped in, sank and bobbed about with puffed cheeks.

  ‘Fish him out,’ said Pi pointing down into the water.

  Oskar and Filip dived in and dragged him up onto the raft.

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ said Pi and made a wavy, irritated gesture with her arms.

  ‘Uuuugghhh,’ spluttered Mik.

  He tried again. For some reason he panicked and went too fast and sank again.

  ‘Self-confidence,’ said Pi. ‘Where’s your self-confidence? You little Peeping Tom, you. Well?’

  They paddled the raft back over the lake. A light headwind meant that it took them the rest of the day. Filip thought they ought to get hold of an outboard motor.

  Synchro-Bertil came rowing up with an odd-looking hat on his head.

  ‘Fine vessel you have there,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a raft,’ said Oskar.

  Synchro-Bertil rested on his oars.

  ‘Things don’t have to be the way they appear. Your raft might not be a raft. It might be the Silver Ark, come to carry people up into heaven. And you are angels.’

  Synchro-Bertil heaved up his oars, bent down and lifted up a pike.

  ‘Here is a pike. But I ask you, is it really a pike? How can you be certain? Reality is built on deeper, more profound coincidences, unknown to us. You see a raft, I see the Silver Ark.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Filip. ‘And your boat is perhaps a banana.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Synchro-Bertil and rowed on.

  The raft worked. Now it had to be made ready, said Pi.

  ‘For what?’ said Filip.

  ‘The Great Escape,’ said Pi.

  ‘Yes,’ said Oskar. ‘Let’s run away.’

  Mik said nothing.

  They were all going to help to get everything that was needed. Pi made a list. Saucepans, tins of food, fishing rod, compass. It turned out to be a long list. They lugged things and stowed them in boxes on the raft, and Pi crossed them off the list.

  ‘Tin opener and box of plasters,’ said Mik.

  ‘Good,’ said Pi. ‘Here’s a fishing rod, line and hooks.’

  Filip had binoculars and Oskar a bow and arrows. He was going to hunt if they ran short of food.

  ‘With a bow and arrow?’ said Filip.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you going to shoot frogs then or what?’

  ‘Elk, maybe,’ said Oskar.

  ‘The arrow would bounce back and hit you in the forehead.’

  ‘No, not if I hit the elk in the eye.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be able to shoot an elk if it was three metres away.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Pi. ‘The most important thing is the food we take with us.’

  She went through all the tins they had brought from home: meatballs, peas, beans, tomato soup, sweetcorn, stew and pineapple. They even had a whole packet of macaroni and some boxes of raisins. The raft was full of supplies and ready to go. They would run away as soon as Mik learned to swim.

  THE PARAGRAPH

  Bengt and Mik sat at the kitchen table doing a cr
ossword. The words were difficult and they were stuck on one clue: herb among rose plants, eight letters. Bengt looked at Mik over the top of his glasses.

  ‘Doris Day.’

  ‘Doris who?’ said Mik.

  ‘We were going to watch a film with Doris Day.’

  Bengt stood up, went into the sitting room and started rooting through his videos. Finally he found the right tape and inserted it into the video player. Mik was given a cushion and lay down on the floor. The film began on the big Trinitron screen.

  April in Paris.

  Mik didn’t understand a thing. Well, he understood the story, but not what was so good about it. It was a blurry old film in weird colours and everyone behaved stupidly. As for Doris herself, she burst into song in the most ridiculous places in the story. It was unrealistic, and where was the music coming from? Pianos and violins and trumpets. Who was playing? And there were no special effects whatsoever.

  ‘What a woman,’ said Bengt.

  She was really old, but Mik didn’t say that.

  The film came to an end, Bengt switched off the video player and the News leapt onto the TV screen. That was when Mik saw the most incredible thing he had ever seen. If Doris Day was unrealistic, bursting into song with an invisible piano and trumpets, she was nothing compared with this. The big thirty-two inch Trinitron showed a picture of Mik himself. The picture was a school photo and a voice was droning from the loudspeaker. He heard what it said. He heard his name mentioned and that he had disappeared. But he didn’t understand.

  Bengt had frozen, bent over with his finger still on the video on/off button. Then it was gone and the news continued, with starving children, desert war, floods and burning embassies.

  Bengt stretched upright, resting his hands on his lower back.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned,’ he said. ‘You’re a celebrity. I’ve got a celebrity in the house. On the TV and everything. Now you can bet your life the telephone lines in the village will be red-hot, what with all the old women in the village ringing round. This’ll be enough to keep them going for several years.’

  Mik didn’t understand what it was that would keep them going; he didn’t understand anything. He gulped and gulped. Something was trying to come up out of his stomach. Not food. Not sick. It was something else. His very heart, perhaps.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ said Bengt. ‘Everything will sort itself out. You know, everything blows over and every one of us is dying. So why worry? You coming with me tomorrow to bring up the nets?’

  Mik gulped and gulped. He left without saying goodbye.

  The very same evening Mik had been on television, the police phoned from Umeå and asked Lena if he was with her. Cautiously she asked what made them think that. Well, there had been no less than twelve phone calls from people in Selet to the Umeå police concerning Mik.

  Lena couldn’t lie. That would have just made everything worse. She put down the receiver slowly and calmly and looked at Mik.

  ‘Twelve?’ she said. ‘Well, at least we know how many old blabbermouths we’ve got in the village.’

  Mik was in total shock. He lay in his bed thinking the police would arrive any minute. Lena sat with him.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘They won’t come now, and probably not tomorrow, either. It can take a while. They wanted to know if you were well and if everything was okay.’

  ‘But they will come?’ said Mik from under the duvet.

  ‘Yes, they will come.’

  She sat with him until he fell asleep.

  The next morning Parrot Earrings rang. She didn’t ask anything about Mik, nothing about how he was or what he thought. She was offended and angry that Lena hadn’t got in touch immediately when Mik turned up. That she had hidden him for so long.

  ‘Hidden?’ said Lena. ‘He came here and wanted to live here, and I let him.’

  It was a long conversation. Lena was very cool and calm as she spoke with Parrot Earrings. Of course Lena could apply to be Mik’s guardian, but Parrot Earrings couldn’t promise anything because a new, detailed enquiry had to be carried out.

  Mik listened to the entire conversation. Lena held the phone so he could hear what Parrot Earrings said. A lot of it was hard to understand.

  Lena would be sent all the application forms and papers needed for an enquiry, but while that was happening Mik had to go back to the foster home. As soon as possible.

  ‘Why?’ said Lena.

  ‘It’s been decided. It’s a CiC: a Children in Care order. And you have to follow the law. What would it look like otherwise? We are responsible for him.’

  ‘But he’s happy here.’

  ‘The decision was made by social services. Are you questioning the competence of the authorities?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Lena. She ended the conversation politely and calmly and then put down the phone.

  ‘CiC?’ said Mik.

  ‘Cunning. Incompetent. Clowns,’ said Lena.

  Oskar, Filip and Pi were incredibly impressed. Mik had been on TV as a missing person. This was big, bigger than when the ice melted and swept away the bridge four years ago. It was bigger than when Bengt shot the Nygård wolf and was given six months in prison for illegal hunting. Or when Synchro-Bertil built an enormous landing strip for a UFO on the top of Granberg mountain.

  Twelve people who couldn’t wait to pick up their phones and ring Tengil’s men in Umeå. Of course, Bengt had said, that was obvious. TV had a huge impact and he was dead certain he could make a list of the people who had phoned. But Bengt said that Mik should let it go.

  ‘The blasted old gossips are bored to death in a quiet village like this. You’ve given their lives meaning up until next Christmas at least. We men have got fishing and hunting, but those old women can only peer through the geraniums on their window sills, desperately wishing something would happen. And the only thing that happens is that spring turns to summer and summer to autumn and autumn to winter. And so it goes on.’

  Mik slept badly and woke covered in sweat. At first he thought he had wet himself, or wet himself all over. Totally.

  Lena explained it was the kind of thing that happened when you were worried and afraid. Warm milk with honey helped. She boiled up very hot milk with honey in it.

  Mik went with Bengt out onto Lake Selet to bring up the nets. The oars creaked. Mik said nothing. They rowed past the raft which was tied up on the beach.

  ‘Fine construction,’ said Bengt. ‘Biggest raft that has ever sailed on Lake Selet.’

  Mik didn’t answer. He dangled one hand in the water and was watching the trail it made.

  They reached the marker buoy and Bengt began to heave up the net. Mik took care with the rowing. It didn’t go too well. He made the boat turn left when it should have turned right. They went backwards when they should have gone forwards. The oars got in a muddle and wouldn’t do what they were supposed to do, but Bengt was as patient as Baloo. They caught a few pike, but they weren’t as large as the winter ones.

  ‘Ice dragons,’ said Mik. ‘This winter we’ll fish for ice dragons, won’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bengt.

  ‘Promise me I’ll still be here, catching ice dragons with you.’

  ‘Of course, I promise. You can hide in my house if they come. We’ll load the gun and then just let them try. I’ve shot both bear and wolf.’

  He laughed.

  It was a bad catch that day but it felt good to be with Bengt, to sit there in the boat, swaying to the movement of the oars. And out here on the water no one could take him by surprise. His vision was clear in all directions. On the other side of the lake, Synchro-Bertil was rowing.

  ‘Why don’t you talk to each other?’ asked Mik.

  ‘He’s an idiot and speaks in riddles.’

  ‘Yes, but what he says is exciting.’

  ‘Exciting?’ said Bengt, and rested on the oars.

  ‘Yes, that the cosmos is only an idea and that a pike doesn’t necessarily have to be a pike.’


  ‘He’s lost his mind. That’s the talk of a genuine fool.’

  ‘My brother’s gone,’ said Mik. ‘I’ve written masses of letters but he never answers.’

  ‘Could be something wrong with the post,’ said Bengt.

  Mik lay along the prow of the boat, his face looking down into the water. He saw his own reflection and thought of Tony. Was he dead or what?

  ‘As for the post,’ said Bengt. ‘It isn’t what it was once. Perhaps your brother hasn’t even received the letters. There have actually been letters that have taken twenty years to arrive.’

  Mik caught a white water lily and the stalk came off with a pling, like an elastic band. It was for Lena. Or Pi. No, that would be stupid. Lena could have it.

  ‘The water lily only opens when the sun shines,’ said Bengt. ‘On cloudy days it stays shut. That’s good. Make the most of the sunny days; don’t bother about the rest.’

  ‘That sounded just like Synchro-Bertil.’

  ‘Did it? That can’t be possible.’

  ‘I wish Tony was here. There’s so much I’d like to tell him and show him.’

  Bengt stopped rowing. Water dropped from the oars. He looked out over the lake.

  ‘I wish my brother would fall out of his boat over there on the other side and get tangled up in his nets and sink to the bottom.’

  Mik dropped the water lily into the water but quickly scooped it out again.

  ‘What, so that he drowns and dies?’

  ‘No, so I can save the old devil and make it quits.’

  Lena was sent the application forms. She worked on them all evening at the kitchen table. Read and wrote. Mik was allowed to read what she had written but didn’t understand much. The water lily stood in a vase on the table. The flower was closed.

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Lena and looked around the untidy kitchen. ‘They want to know everything.’

  ‘Write that it’s the best living here. Best place in the world. Write that Synchro-Bertil has built a landing place for the UFO.’

  ‘It’s me they want to know about. My home will be inspected. Personal interviews. They’re going to turn everything inside out and check my entire life.’

  ‘Do they have to know everything? Is there someone who knows everything?’