Shadows in the Twilight

by Henning Mankell

  Sara had made meatballs. Joel thought it was important that he didn't eat too much. If he did, it would make him tired. The meatballs were lovely, but he forced himself not to eat too many.

  'Didn't you like them?' asked Sara, looking disappointed.

  'Yes, they were very good,' said Joel. 'But I've eaten so many.'

  It was ice cream for afters. He found it hard not to eat too much.

  Sara was still looking worried.

  'Don't you feel well?' she asked.

  'I'm just a bit tired,' said Joel. 'I'll go home and go to bed early tonight.'

  'Are you sure you don't want to sleep here?' Sara asked.

  'I always sleep best in my own bed,' said Joel.

  'You're a remarkable little man,' said Sara, shaking her head. 'Anybody would think you were a grown-up already.'

  Joel was back home by eight o'clock. He went into Samuel's room and fetched a blanket. Then he lay down on top of his bed with the blanket over him. He'd set the alarm clock for midnight. He'd moved the stool further away, so that he'd be forced to get out of bed in order to switch it off when it rang. He tossed and turned for ages before falling asleep.

  He woke up with a start when the alarm went off. His head was buzzing, and he couldn't remember why he'd woken up. Then it dawned on him. He was wide awake in a flash. To build up his strength before his nocturnal expedition, he went to the pantry and ate a few spoonfuls of jam. Then he crept cautiously down the stairs and out into the street.

  The sky was covered by heavy clouds. It was raining. He hurried towards the Telegraph Office. Then he heard Simon Windstorm's lorry approaching. He managed to hide himself in the shadows until it had gone past. Once this was all over, he'd pay another visit to Simon. Once he'd done his good deed and could forget all about ever having been involved in a Miracle . . .

  The lights were on in the Telegraph Office windows. He crept along in the shadows to the back of the building and made his way to the door. It wasn't locked. He walked slowly up the stairs, counting them as he went. When he came to the ninth step he paused and heaved himself up onto the twelfth with the help of the banister rail. He'd noticed the first time he'd walked up those stairs that the tenth and eleventh steps creaked. He listened in the darkness outside the door. A faint strip of light shone onto the landing through the crack underneath the door. He peeped in through the keyhole. The chair in front of the telephone exchange was empty. He turned the handle ever so carefully and opened the door. He could hear snores coming from the back room. He closed the door and carefully took off his rucksack. Then he tiptoed to the door of the back room. Asta Bagge was lying on top of the bed, asleep. The blue jumper she'd been knitting had fallen on the floor. Joel closed the door again. Then he hurried over to the switchboard. Yes, he could remember what to do. But he wasn't going to receive any incoming calls. He was going to make some calls himself.

  He recited in his head what he needed to do. Plug a cable into the number he wanted to call, turn on the switch that would make the telephone ring in the house of whoever he wanted to speak to, keep the microphone switched on and speak when the person at the other end had lifted the receiver.

  But it would be some time before he could make his first call. He had a lot to do before he was ready. He took his diary and a pencil from his pocket. Then he fetched the telephone directory. He started working his way through all the names, in alphabetical order. Now and then he noted down a number on the inside cover of his diary. It was the only place where there was any space left.

  When he'd got as far as the letter F, there was a buzzing noise from the exchange. He'd been expecting that. Even so, he thought he reacted much too slowly. He closed the telephone directory, took his diary and pencil, and hid behind a cupboard. No sooner had he ducked down behind the cupboard than Asta Bagge came shuffling out of the room where she'd been asleep.

  Then he saw the rucksack.

  He'd forgotten it. It was next to the entrance door.

  Numbskull, he thought. Numbskull, numbskull . . .

  Asta had sat down in front of the telephone exchange and put on her earphones. Joel knew that he would have to retrieve the rucksack now. She couldn't avoid seeing it when she returned to the back room.

  Asta responded to the call.

  Joel tiptoed over the floor, grabbed his rucksack and dashed back to his haven behind the cupboard.

  'What's all this nonsense?' said Asta Bagge.

  Joel thought he'd been rumbled. He was in a right mess now.

  But then it dawned on him that Asta was angry with the person who'd made the call.

  'The telephone is not a little boy's toy,' said Asta Bagge, and sounded really angry. 'You are drunk, and should go and lie down and go to sleep instead of ringing here and talking nonsense. Goodnight!'

  Asta switched off and went back to bed.

  Joel waited until he heard her snoring again.

  The he went back and continued sorting through the telephone directory. By the time he'd finished he had twelve numbers. Before starting on his mission, he felt he needed to take a breather behind the cupboard. He'd packed a few jam sandwiches in his rucksack. He ate two of them before he felt up to starting off on what he planned to do.

  Asta was snoring. Spluttering and wheezing. Joel sat down in front of the switchboard. He had the numbers listed in front of him. He started making the various connections. There was the Reverend Nyblom's number. Then Mr Malm, the chief of police. Lieutenant-Colonel Ceder, and the headmaster, Mr Gottfried. Local newspaper editor Mr Waltin . . .Twelve numbers in all. He made all the relevant connections. He could feel his heart beating, and he was covered in sweat. He slowly moved his right hand towards the switch that would start all the telephone numbers ringing at the same time.

  The Lord of the Night, Joel thought. I'm going to wake the whole lot of you up now.

  He threw the switch, and stared expectantly at the maze of connections on the exchange in front of him. When somebody answered, a lamp would start blinking. He adjusted a switch in order to make sure that the ringing wouldn't be heard here at the exchange.

  Why didn't anybody answer? Had he made a mistake? Come on now, answer. Answer. . .

  Now the first light started flashing. It was Lieutenant-Colonel Ceder. Then Mr Waltin's number started winking, the newspaper editor. Before long the whole switchboard was covered in flashing lights. Joel pressed the button and started talking into the microphone. He grunted and growled in order to make sure that nobody would recognise his voice, and tried to keep the volume down so that Asta Bagge wouldn't wake up.

  'The Caviar Man is a scoundrel,' he hissed. 'He spies on innocent people. He hides in the shadows. All shadows grow in the twilight. I repeat. The Caviar Man is a scoundrel. His shadow is long when twilight falls.'

  Joel repeated his message over and over again. He could hear the indignant, sleepy, surprised voices wondering who was ringing, what it was all about. He repeated his message four times. Then he put a stop to it all. Pulled out all the connections, took his rucksack and sidled out. Just as he was about to close the door, the whole exchange started flashing and ringing. It looked as if it were about to explode.

  'What the hell . . . ?' he heard Asta exclaim from the back room.

  Then he closed the door quietly and tiptoed down the stairs.

  He ran all the way home. He was suppressing a loud salvo of laughter. But he waited until he was back in his own kitchen before allowing it to burst out.

  His invisible revenge had now pinned down the Caviar Man. And Gertrud had got her own back.

  He sat down at the kitchen table and rubbed out all the telephone numbers he'd written on the inside cover of his diary. Then he returned the book to the showcase featuring the Celestine.

  He felt tired. Or perhaps it was a feeling of relief. Like when a stomachache passes over.

  He had put things right.

  It was all over, at long last.

  Now he would be able to turn his attention to
all the other important things. Finishing the geography game. Finding a good friend. A best friend. Going with Simon Windstorm to Four Winds Lake.

  Gertrud would be back to normal.

  The Miracle wouldn't worry him any more.

  When his twelfth birthday came round, he might well have forgotten all about everything.

  Blasted the Ljusdal bus out of his mind . . .

  He took a few more spoonfuls of jam. One of the jars was nearly empty. But he'd earned it.

  He felt a bit sorry for Asta Bagge.

  But only a little bit. After all, she'd helped somebody to do a good deed.

  She might even believe that it was a Miracle?

  That it really was the Lord of the Night who had called all twelve telephone numbers, then disappeared without trace . . .

  12

  The next evening Joel followed the tracks left by the Black Panther.

  It was a Shadow Beast that only Joel knew about.

  The Black Panther lived in a cave under the railway bridge. Whenever a train went rattling over the bridge, you could hear the beast roar. . .

  The day after Joel's revenge on the Caviar Man he was the most attentive pupil in the whole class. Only once, when he remembered that Miss Nederström might have climbed over the fence while wearing her woolly long johns under her long skirt, did he start giggling. A storm of laughter was brewing up inside him, but Miss Nederström gave him a stern look before it broke out.

  Joel did everything he could to be like all the others. He didn't want to be noticed. He didn't want to be a Miracle Man. Now he just wanted to be an ordinary pupil.

  He had dinner with Sara in the evening. Trying hard to make it sound like no more than an off-hand question, he asked what the beer drinkers in the bar had been talking about that day.

  'Huh, I don't listen to their chatter,' said Sara. 'I'd get earache if I did. It's bad enough having aching feet after all that running around.'

  'But there must have been something they were all talking about,' Joel insisted. He wanted to know.

  And he got to know.

  'Apparently there was some idiot phoning lots of people in the middle of the night and waking them up,' said Sara. 'Nobody seems to know who did it, or how. But I suspect it was Asta at the Telegraph Office who'd drunk a bit too much port wine.'

  Joel could feel himself blushing. So he hadn't been dreaming after all! He really had been in the Telegraph Office during the night!

  'That sounds odd,' he said casually, chewing a piece of veal chop.

  'Asta only talks,' said Sara. 'There's nothing odd about that . . . '

  Joel felt in very high spirits when he walked home. Now at last he could be normal again. He sat down at the kitchen table and wrote in the inside cover of his diary:

  'The Secret Society Lords of the Underworld has completed its mission. The Caviar Man has been defeated.'

  That meant that the book was completely full.

  He would have to buy a new diary. He'd be able to write in it about all the things that hadn't happened yet!

  I'll soon be twelve, he thought as he stood in front of the cracked shaving mirror. Then there'll only be three more years before I'm fifteen.

  He thought he looked older. Older than the day before. His eyes weren't quite so staring. His hair wasn't quite as tousled.

  'I've been in the Underworld,' he said to the mirror. 'I've defeated the Caviar Man.'

  Then he rushed off to Gertrud's house. As he raced over the bridge like a railway engine, the Black Panther didn't dare to roar. Who dares to roar at a man who has defeated the Caviar Man?

  He paused to get his breath back when he came to Gertrud's gate.

  Now he would tell her everything. The whole story from start to finish. And he wasn't frightened in the least. Gertrud would understand. She'd be bound to have a good laugh once she understood what it was all about. But she would be impressed by what he had done at the Telegraph Office.

  Joel didn't doubt for a moment. Gertrud was like that.

  He looked up at the sky. Stars were twinkling like thousands of cats' eyes. He almost felt dizzy at the thought of how many stars there were.

  Could it really be true? That there are more stars than there are ants in an anthill?

  It felt very special, almost solemn, that cold September night. The month would soon be over. It would never come back. Then it would be October, and the first heavy snow would start to fall.

  Before it melted he would be twelve. Twelve years old. He had lived a whole clock face of years.

  It felt strange. Solemn. As if he had almost caught up with the future . . .

  He could hear Simon Windstorm's lorry in the distance.

  Then he went through the gate, through the door and told the whole story to Gertrud . . .