The Black Path

by Asa Larsson

  “And what about your mother?” asked Alf Björnfot.

  “They separated the year before my father died. But I was twelve when she died. She was living on Åland. I was living here with my grandmother. She was run over by a truck.”

  It’s late winter, early spring. Rebecka will soon be twelve. She’s been out with some of the other children from the village, jumping off the roof of a barn. Straight down into the snow. Now she’s soaking wet, right up her back, and her boots are full of snow. She needs to go home and change.

  Home, that’s Grandmother’s house these days. At first after Daddy died she lived with her mother, but that only lasted a year. Her mother often works away. It was a bit of a mess at first; she kept leaving Rebecka with her grandmother, sometimes because she had to work, sometimes because she was tired. Then she would come and pick her up and be cross. Cross with Grandmother, although she was the one who’d asked her to take care of Rebecka.

  Today when Rebecka walks into the kitchen in her wet clothes, her mother is sitting at the table. She’s in a really good mood. There are roses in her cheeks, and she’s had her hair colored properly at the hairdresser’s, not by some friend the way she usually does.

  She’s met a new man, she tells them. He lives on Åland and he wants Rebecka and her mother to move there and live with him.

  She says he has a lovely house. And there are lots of children living nearby. Rebecka will have plenty of friends.

  Rebecka is getting cramps in her stomach. Grandmother’s house is a lovely house. That’s where she wants to live. She doesn’t want to move.

  She looks at her grandmother. Grandmother doesn’t say anything, but she holds Rebecka’s gaze.

  “Never,” says Rebecka.

  And as soon as she has dared to utter that silent word, she can feel how true it is. She will never move, never move anywhere with her mother. She lives here in Kurravaara. And her mother is unreliable. One day she’s the way she is now. And all Rebecka’s friends think she’s so pretty and she wears such lovely clothes, and she chats to the older girls in the schoolyard. One of them sighed one day, so that Rebecka could hear her: “Wouldn’t it be great to have a mother like that, one who understands stuff.”

  But Rebecka knows more about her mother. She can lie on the bed incapable of doing anything, and Rebecka has to run to the shops and live on sandwiches, and she daren’t do anything, because whatever she does is wrong.

  Her mother does everything she can to try and persuade Rebecka. She talks in her very best voice. Tries to give her a hug, but Rebecka slides away. She sticks to her guns. Keeps on shaking her head all the time. She sees her mother looking at Grandmother for support, calling upon her to agree when she says:

  “It’s too much for Grandmother to have you living here all the time, and I am your mother after all.”

  But Grandmother says nothing. And Rebecka knows that means she’s on her side.

  When her mother has been all sweetness and light for ages, she suddenly changes completely.

  “Don’t come, then,” she snaps at Rebecka. “Please yourself. See if I care.”

  And she says she’s been working overtime since Daddy died so that Rebecka can have a new winter coat; she could have been taking a course in something if it hadn’t been for her responsibilities.

  And still Rebecka and her grandmother say nothing.

  They remain silent long after her mother has left. Rebecka keeps her grandmother company out in the barn. Holds the cow’s tail while her grandmother does the milking. The way she used to do when she was little. They don’t speak. But when Mansikka suddenly belches, they have to laugh.

  And then everything is almost back to normal.

  Her mother moves house. Rebecka receives postcards telling her how fantastic life is on Åland. Rebecka reads them, and a stab of longing pierces her heart. There isn’t a single word to suggest that her mother is missing her. Or even that she cares about her. The postcards say they’ve been out in the boat, or that there are apple trees and pear trees growing in the yard, or that they’ve been off on a trip.

  In the middle of summer, she receives a letter. You’re going to have a little brother or sister, it says. Grandmother reads it too. She is sitting at the kitchen table wearing Daddy’s old reading glasses, the ones he bought at the gas station.

  “Jesus siunakhoon ja Jumal varjelkhoon,” she says when she’s finished reading. The Lord bless us and save us all.

  Who told me she’d died? thought Rebecka. I don’t remember. I remember so little of that autumn. But there are certain things I do remember.

  Rebecka is lying on the sofa bed in the kitchen alcove. Jussi isn’t lying at her feet, because her grandmother and Sivving’s wife, Maj-Lis, are sitting at the kitchen table, so Jussi is lying under the table. It’s when Grandmother is in the barn or has gone to bed that Jussi usually comes to lie on Rebecka’s bed.

  Maj-Lis and Grandmother think Rebecka has gone to sleep, but she hasn’t. Her grandmother is crying. She’s holding a kitchen towel up to her face. Rebecka realizes it’s to keep the noise down, so that Rebecka won’t wake up.

  She’s never seen or heard her grandmother cry, not even when her father died. The sound makes her feel very afraid and uneasy. If Grandmother is crying, the world must be coming to an end.

  Maj-Lis is sitting opposite her and making comforting noises.

  “I don’t think it was an accident,” says Grandmother. “The driver said she looked at him and walked straight out into the road.”

  “It must have been tough, losing both parents when you were so small,” said Alf Björnfot.

  Sivving was still standing by the refrigerator. Holding on to the eggs as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

  When I think about the time immediately afterwards, I feel ashamed, thought Rebecka. I wish I had the right pictures in my head. A little girl standing by a grave, with tears on her cheeks and flowers on the coffin. Drawings of Mummy in heaven, or whatever. But I was completely cold.

  “Rebecka,” says her teacher.

  What was her name again? Eila!

  “Rebecka,” says Eila. “You haven’t done your math homework again. Do you remember what we talked about yesterday? Do you remember promising me you were going to start doing your homework?”

  Eila’s nice. She has curly hair and a lovely smile.

  “I do try,” says Rebecka. “But then all I can think about is the fact that my mummy’s dead, and I just can’t do it.”

  She looks down at the desk so that it will look as if she’s crying. But she’s only pretending.

  Eila falls silent and strokes Rebecka’s hair.

  “I know, I know,” she says. “I’m sure you’ll catch up with the work sooner or later.”

  Rebecka is satisfied. She doesn’t want to do her math homework. She’s got out of it.

  Another time. She’s sitting hiding in Grandmother’s woodshed. The sun is filtering in through the gaps in the walls. Thin curtains of dust seem to be rising into the light the whole time.

  Sivving’s daughter Lena and Maj-Lis are calling to her. “Rebecka!” She doesn’t answer. She wants them to look for her forever. She feels angry and disappointed when they finally stop shouting.

  And another time. She’s playing down by the river. Pretending to hammer and bang on the jetty. She’s building a raft. She’s going to sail it down the river Torne. She knows that the river flows out into the Baltic. She’s going to sail the raft across the sea and down the coast of Finland. To Åland. Then she’s going to go ashore and hitch a ride to the town where her mother lived. Home to the fine house where that man lives. She rings the doorbell. The old guy opens the door. He doesn’t know what’s going on. “Where’s Mummy?” asks Rebecka. “She’s gone for a walk,” he replies. Rebecka runs. She’s in a hurry now. At the very last second she grabs hold of her mother, just as she’s about to walk out into the road. The truck thunders past, almost touching them. Saved! Rebecka has saved her. “I c
ould have died,” says Mummy. “My darling girl!”

  “I can’t remember being upset,” Rebecka says to Alf Björnfot. “I was living here with my grandmother, after all. And there have been so many good adults in my life. Unfortunately, I think I might have exploited it. Noticed that the adults felt sorry for me, and used it to get a little extra attention.”

  Alf Björnfot looked doubtful.

  “Listen, kid,” he said. “They had every reason to feel sorry for you. And you deserved a little bit of extra attention.”

  “The things you say,” said Sivving. “You didn’t exploit it at all. Try not to think about it. It was all so long ago.”

  Ester Kallis was sitting in her attic room at Regla. She was sitting on the floor with her arms around her knees, getting herself ready.

  She had to go down to the kitchen to fetch the pan of macaroni.

  But it was difficult. The house and the whole estate were full of people and activity. There were specially brought-in waiters and waitresses, and a chef to prepare the food. Out in the yard stood men with walkie-talkies and guns. She’d heard Mikael Wiik talking to them a while ago, standing just below her half-open window.

  “I want armed guards on the gate when they arrive. Not because they’re actually needed, but so the client’s guests will feel safe and secure. You understand? They do a lot of traveling in areas of unrest, but even at home in Germany, Belgium or the U.S., they’re used to being surrounded by security people. So when they arrive, I want two men on the gate and two up at the house. We’ll reorganize once the guests are safely inside.”

  She had to go down and fetch the pan of macaroni. She had no choice.

  Ester went down the attic stairs, passing Mauri’s bedroom door, and continued down the wide oak staircase leading to the hall.

  She crossed the hall, walking over the Persian rug and passing her own reflection in the heavy eighteenth-century mirror without looking at herself, then went into the kitchen.

  Ebba Kallis was standing there discussing wine with the chef, and at the same time delivering instructions to the serving staff. Ulrika Wattrang was standing by the marble worktop arranging flowers in an enormous vase. Both women looked as if they’d come straight out of a glossy magazine, with their simply cut evening dresses protected by aprons.

  Ebba had her back to Ester when she walked into the kitchen. Ulrika caught sight of her over Ebba’s shoulder and raised her eyebrows at Ebba. Ebba turned around.

  “Hi there, Ester,” she said in a friendly voice, accompanied by an extremely worried smile. “I haven’t set a place for you, I didn’t think you’d want to join us, it’ll just be a lot of talk about business…deathly boring. Ulrika and I are under orders to attend.”

  Ulrika rolled her eyes to show Ester how tedious it was to have to be there.

  “I just wanted to get my macaroni,” said Ester quietly, her eyes fixed on the floor.

  Her feet were prickling. She couldn’t look at Ulrika.

  “Oh, but of course we’ll make sure you get something to eat,” exclaimed Ebba. “We’ll send a three-course meal up on a tray.”

  “God, that sounds wonderful,” said Ulrika, “can’t you do that for me as well? Then I can just lie there watching a film and eating something delicious.”

  They laughed, slightly embarrassed.

  “I just want my macaroni,” said Ester obstinately.

  She opened the refrigerator door and took out a big pan of cold cooked macaroni. Lots of carbs.

  Then Ester looked at Ulrika. It was unavoidable. She was standing there when Ester closed the refrigerator door and turned around. Ulrika as white as paper. A red hole in the middle of her face.

  A voice. Ebba’s or Ulrika’s.

  “Are you okay? Don’t you feel well?”

  Oh yes, she felt fine. She just had to get back upstairs to her room in the attic.

  She made her way up the stairs. A while later she was sitting on her bed. She was eating macaroni out of the pan with her hands, she’d forgotten to bring a fork. When she closed her eyes she could see Diddi Wattrang sleeping deeply in the matrimonial bed. He was fully dressed, although Ulrika had taken his shoes off when he got home last night. She could see Mikael Wiik stationing his men around the estate. He wasn’t expecting any problems, just wanted the guests to see the guards and feel secure. She could see Mauri, wandering back and forth in his study, nervous about that evening’s dinner party. She could see that the wolf had climbed down from the tree.

  She opened her eyes and looked at her oil painting of Torneträsk.

  I left her, she thought. I went to Stockholm.

  Ester goes by train to Stockholm. Her aunt meets her at the station. She looks like a bookmark, or a hard-nosed film star. Her straight, black Sami hair has been curled and sprayed into a Rita Hayworth style. Her lips are red and her skirt is tight. Her perfume is sweet and cloying.

  Ester is going to the art school for an interview. She’s wearing an anorak and sneakers.

  At the Idun Lovén Art School, they have seen Ester’s entry exam work. She’s good, but actually she’s far too young. That’s why the board want to meet her.

  “Now remember to talk,” her aunt exhorts her. “At least answer when they ask you something. Promise!”

  Ester promises, from within her numbed state. There is so much going on around her: the screeching and whistling of the subway train as it pulls into the station, words everywhere, posters advertising all kinds of things. She tries to read them, to work out what they’re trying to sell, but she hasn’t time, her aunt’s heels are like drumsticks keeping up a rapid rhythm through a crowd of people; Ester doesn’t have time to look at them either.

  She is to be interviewed by three men and two women. They’re all well into middle age. Her aunt has to wait out in the corridor. Ester is invited into a conference room. There are large paintings on the walls. Ester’s entry exam work is leaning against the wall.

  “We’d very much like to talk to you about your pictures,” says one of the women in a friendly tone.

  She’s the principal. They’ve shaken hands and explained who they are and what their names are, but Ester doesn’t remember. She can only remember that the woman who’s talking now said she was the principal.

  There’s only one oil painting. It’s called Midsummer’s Eve, and it’s a picture of Torneträsk, with a family just about to get into a boat by the shore. Midnight sun, and swarms of mosquitoes filling the air. A boy and his father are already sitting in the boat. The mother is pulling at a girl, who wants to stay ashore. The girl is crying. The shadow of a flying bird across her face. In the background the mountain, with the remains of the snow still lying there. Ester has painted the water black. The reflections in the water have been enlarged; if you look only at them, you get the impression that the lake is nearer to the observer than the family is. But in the composition of the picture, the family is in the foreground. It worked well, making the reflections bigger. It makes the water look big and threatening. And beneath the surface of the water there is something white. But it could just be the reflection of a cloud.

  “You’re not used to painting in oils,” says one of the men.

  Ester nods her head. Because it’s perfectly true.

  “It’s an interesting picture,” says the principal pleasantly. “Why doesn’t the girl want to get into the boat?”

  Ester hesitates.

  “Is she afraid of the water?”

  Ester nods. Why should she tell them? If she does, everything will be ruined. The white shadow beneath the water is the ghostly water horse that has awoken on midsummer’s eve. When Ester was little, she read about the horse in a Swedish book from the school library. In the painting he is swimming down there, wishing for a child to fall in the water so that he can drag it down and eat it up. The girl knows she is that child. The shadow of the bird across her face is the Siberian jay, guovsat, the bringer of misfortune. Her parents see only clouds in the sky. They have promised t
he boy in the boat he can steer, he wants to go.

  They pull out other pictures. Nasti in his cage. Pencil drawings from her home in Rensjön, both indoors and outdoors.

  And they ask about this and that. She doesn’t know what they want to hear. And what can she say? After all, they’ve got the pictures right there in front of their noses, all they have to do is look. She doesn’t want to explain and go into details, so she answers in monosyllables and becomes torpid.

  Her aunt and her mother are sitting inside her head, conducting a lively discussion.

  MOTHER: It’s obvious a painter doesn’t want to talk about his or her pictures. You don’t really know yourself where they’ve come from. And perhaps you don’t want to know, either.

  AUNT: Yes, but sometimes you just have to give something of yourself if you want to achieve a goal. Say something, Ester, you do want to get into art school after all. They’re going to start thinking you’re retarded in some way.

  They’re looking at all the dogs having a crap. It was Gunilla Petrini who chose which pictures Ester should send in. And she liked the dogs.

  There’s Musta, of course, madly kicking snow over her little pile with her hind legs.

  The neighbor’s pointer, Herkules. An austere, quite military hunting dog. Broad-chested, his muzzle slightly crooked. But when he wanted a crap, for some reason he always had to find a small fir tree. He had to do it with his ass pressed against a tree. Ester herself is happy with the way she’s captured his expression, pleasure and straining combined, as he stands there with his back arched over the little tree.