The Forbidden Place

by Susanne Jansson

  It all started with the discovery of the old corpse. It happened during a period of intense work in the peat quarry; school had just finished and a bunch of boys from town were working on Julia’s farm.

  Nathalie was there when it happened. She and Julia had recently turned twelve and they were sitting on a blanket in the sun and playing cards for acorns. Nathalie had just lost her last acorn when Julia’s dad came up to the yard. His face was red and shiny with sweat. He walked up with a rag in his hand and stopped next to them.

  When Nathalie looked up, his gaze was somewhere else entirely.

  “We found something,” he said.

  “What?” Julia asked.

  “Where’s Mum? I think I need to call the police.” He walked into the house.

  A police car showed up straightaway, and then people came from the cultural center and soon they called in staff from the museum in Karlstad. Even the newspaper showed up eventually, and with that there was a complete hullabaloo at the farm. Julia’s mum made coffee and put out tray after tray of pastries. Nathalie heard a man being interviewed by the local paper.

  “There’s no way to be certain yet,” he said, “but signs indicate that it’s the body of a young woman who lived a very long time ago. Perhaps as long ago as the birth of Christ. There are long-standing theories that this site was used as a sacrificial bog, and now we may have found concrete evidence. We’ve found clothing and some sort of gold amulet. It’s a fantastic discovery.”

  It took several days for everything to calm down. Nathalie practically lived with Julia during that time; it was exciting to be at the center of the action.

  Julia’s father was less amused. He wanted to keep harvesting his peat, keep working.

  “Enough is enough,” he said. “All this fuss over an old body.”

  The museum took possession of the body and eventually it found a home there and went by the name “Lingonberry Girl.”

  Around the same time, Tracy had met a new guy, an older one. People said he was almost thirty.

  “It’s disgusting,” Julia said. “He’s an old man.”

  “It’s exciting,” Nathalie taunted her.

  “Nah, just disgusting.”

  But they hardly saw Tracy any more. Her new boyfriend almost never came out to Mossmarken. And Tracy herself had rented a room in Åmål to be closer to her school.

  But one Friday night Nathalie was in Åmål with her parents. They were going to have dinner with friends and she packed a bundle of comics and came along.

  “Is it okay if I go out?” she asked after dinner.

  “Where are you going to go?” Her mother’s voice was softened by wine. In the background she could hear the others playing records and discussing songs. Someone opened the patio door to let out cigarette smoke.

  Nathalie shrugged. “Dunno. The kiosk.”

  Her mother smiled and took out her wallet. “Of course you can go to the kiosk. Here you go.” She pressed a bill into Nathalie’s palm and closed her fingers over it. Then she brought her own index finger to her lips in a shushing gesture and winked.

  Nathalie didn’t open her hand until she got out to the street. Fifty kronor. She did the maths in her head. A nougat bar, a Fanta, a bag of cheese puffs—and money left over.

  A number of different gangs had gathered down on the square. Some seemed drunk, reeling around and yelling at each other, laughing loudly; someone was crying.

  Nathalie was hesitant. She felt out of place, almost frightened, and she headed for the back of the kiosk to avoid attracting attention.

  It stank of urine and beer and rancid grease there.

  Then she heard muffled voices on the other side of the refuse bins. She peered through the gap. A guy and a girl were holding each other. She heard the girl give a sob, and then she realized who it was.

  Tracy.

  “I don’t want to stop seeing you. I don’t know what I’ll do without you,” Tracy said, tears in her voice.

  “Don’t say that.” The man stroked her hair, brought his face to hers. “You’ll be just fine,” he whispered. “Maybe better, even. You… your life isn’t like it used to be, Tracy. I’m not good for you.”

  And they stood like that for a while, their faces so close. Then their lips moved closer and they kissed. First tentatively, then wildly, hungrily. At last he shoved her away and caught his breath.

  “Shit, I can’t.”

  “Why not?” she heard Tracy’s voice. “Are you already together, or what?”

  Silence.

  “Are you? Have you slept together?”

  The guy didn’t say anything; he just looked at her.

  “Fuck you,” Tracy said. “Go to hell. I never want to see you again.”

  She stalked off, sat down on the slope that led down to the river, and waved him off dismissively.

  “Tracy,” the guy said, beseeching.

  “Get lost.”

  He ran his hand through his hair and looked at her for a long time. Then he turned around and left.

  At first Nathalie didn’t dare move. But after a while she came out cautiously from behind the bins and started walking along the slope. She pretended that she had just arrived.

  “Tracy? Is that you?” she asked.

  Tracy snuffled and whipped around. She squinted, as if to get a better look. “What the hell… is that you, Nathalie?”

  “What are you doing here?” Nathalie asked.

  Tracy raised her eyebrows. “I should be asking you that.”

  “My parents are over at—”

  “Screw it. Come and sit down and we’ll have a smoke.”

  Nathalie felt a thousand birds take flight inside her chest. They flew out over the expanses inside her; in an instant she was bigger than she’d ever felt before.

  Come and sit down and we’ll have a smoke.

  She walked over and sat down on the dry grass.

  “Have you ever smoked before?” Tracy asked. She had smudges of black mascara under her eyes.

  Nathalie nodded.

  “Liar. Whatever, just take one.”

  Tracy used her lips to catch a cigarette straight out of the pack, which she then held out to Nathalie. She took one and hoped her fingers wouldn’t tremble. Tracy held up the lighter, brought her cigarette to the flame, and inhaled. Nathalie did the same. The tips lit up like two burning eyes staring at each other.

  She held the smoke in her mouth for a moment, then blew it out.

  They sat there without saying a word, side by side on the slope, and then Tracy began to speak.

  “There was a guy here just before you came. That’s why I was… crying. We’ve been seeing each other for the last year or so, but now he wants to break up.”

  Nathalie blinked hard. She had to choose her words carefully. “Are you in love with him?”

  Tracy gave a deep sigh. “It’s more than that. It’s like every cell in my body is completely… obsessed. He’s, like, dug his way into my brain, my body, you know what I mean? Taken over. I hate it.” She burst into tears again. “I feel so fucking awful.”

  Nathalie shifted a little closer and placed a hand on Tracy’s back. She didn’t know quite what to do.

  “It’s been that way ever since the first time I met him,” Tracy went on. “For a whole fucking year. We see each other at night, but in the daytime we lead different lives. He never wanted me for real. It’s so degrading. I feel like a… a fucking flavor of the week.”

  She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “He met someone else. Angelica saw them together in town.”

  She turned to Nathalie and emphasized her words. “In town. He had his arm around her. He never did that with me. We never even went out together.”

  She stopped talking and looked at the ground.

  “It hurts so goddamn much. It feels like I don’t exist any more.”

  Nathalie held her breath. Her thoughts were going a mile a minute. “But you do,” she managed.

  But yo
u do. Jesus, what a comment.

  Tracy forced herself to smile, flicked her butt away, and stood up.

  “It’s fine, Nathalie. You’re nice. But I have to go now.” She ran her hand over Nathalie’s hair. “See you. Take care of yourself.”

  Nathalie stayed put for a while, then she stubbed out her cigarette on the ground, stood up, and gazed out over the square.

  Did that really happen? Had she—Nathalie—really just been sitting there with Tracy, smoking cigarettes and talking about guys?

  She straightened her back and headed for the kiosk. This time she wouldn’t shrink away from the loud teenagers. She walked straight up to the window and bought what she’d been planning to buy, plus a pack of peppermint gum.

  One night a few weeks later, when most of the fuss over the Lingonberry Girl had settled down, Tracy came home. She slid through the front door, acknowledged Julia and Nathalie with a nod, and disappeared into her room. She didn’t say a word about her talk with Nathalie.

  “That guy broke up with her,” Julia said later, as they were sitting on her bed and listening to music. “If they were even together in the first place, I don’t know. He met some other girl, apparently.”

  “Oh,” said Nathalie. “That’s a shame.”

  “No, I think it’s a good thing.”

  She twisted her hair and put it up in a bun. “She’s been so grumpy ever since she met him. And she hasn’t been eating anything either; have you noticed how skinny she’s got?”

  The weather had been nice for several days, but on that particular evening a sudden storm blew up at dusk. Julia had fallen asleep right away, but Nathalie couldn’t settle down. She lay there staring at the ceiling and listening to the wind outside. The whole house was shaking.

  Then she heard it all stop suddenly.

  A thought spurred her to get out of bed and walk to the window.

  She could see Tracy outside, not far from the house, barefoot in her gray and white striped nightdress. She seemed to be stumbling off in the moonlight, heading for the marshy part of the mire where it turned into open water. The part where they were warned never to walk.

  Soon she heard Tracy’s mum from an upstairs window, a cry that cut through the air: “Tracy! Where are you going? Be careful, come back!”

  Then her father’s heavy steps, hard thuds through the house. Nathalie opened her window and woke up Julia, who immediately ran down the stairs and across the yard.

  Tracy kept walking as her parents’ increasingly desperate shouts echoed through the trees in the late evening. She made no attempt to stop; she just pushed further into the marshy land. Nathalie watched her path from the upstairs window; she may have seen better than anyone what happened.

  After a while, Tracy began to sink. First to her knees, then even further. The fog seemed to envelop her body and made it pale in the moonlight, almost shimmering.

  As if it were receiving her.

  As if it were embracing her.

  As if it were pulling her down.

  And then she was gone.

  What Maya had really wanted to know as she chatted with Yvonne at the Larssons’ farm was more about her daughter’s death. But she was hesitant to ask. She didn’t want to reveal just how interested she actually was in that particular incident.

  Now she was driving along the small gravel road with the forest on her right and the bog on her left. After a minute or so she passed a deserted property on her right, and just after that another one, its drive blocked off. She parked at the side of the road, hung her camera around her neck, and stepped out. The sky was bright, almost white.

  She couldn’t tell whether these houses were begging to be seen or trying to shield themselves from sight. The garden she was approaching now was absolutely miserable. The ground was dug up here and there, and upon closer inspection she realized that the pits had been used as toilets.

  She walked around taking photos and tried to peer in through the partially drawn blinds. She could see filthy wall-to-wall carpet, bookshelves full of trash and cheap trinkets, and a large, dirty corner sofa covered in piles of clothing.

  Human beings certainly do their best to decay without dignity, she thought.

  She went back to her car and got in. The sky was darkening, and in less than a minute raindrops were striking the windscreen. She was about to turn on the radio but stopped herself. Instead she sat in the front seat and stared straight into the rain as it formed rivers on the glass.

  Then she put the key in the ignition and started the engine.

  She drove another half-kilometer and as the rain let up she turned off at a hand-made sign that simply read “Texas.”

  Sheep and horses were grazing on the property. Hens, geese and a rooster ran around the garden. She could hear loud music coming from the house. She recognized the initial tones and phrases. It was Kris Kristofferson, singing “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” with a familiar melancholy.

  She stopped the car, turned off the engine, and looked around. The mood here was different, to say the least; it was a farm full of life and energy.

  A man appeared on the front steps and approached her. His hair was longish and streaked with gray; his mouth was framed by stubble, and he was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a dirty black apron.

  She got out of the car and went to meet him.

  “Hi, sorry to bother you,” she said. “I’m from Fengerskog and I’m a photographer. I’m working on a project about the area and I just wanted to introduce myself to everyone who lives around here.”

  “Okay,” Texas said with a certain amount of reservation. “Well, you’re the third this week. But I have nothing to add, I can tell you that right away. I just think this is all very unpleasant.”

  “No,” Maya said. “That is, I’m not from the media. I’m an artist working on a project; I want to photograph the area. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the recent incidents out here.”

  He appeared to relax a bit. “Oh, well, that’s a relief. That’s nice then.” He extended his hand. “Texas.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Maya said, taking it.

  He gestured down at his body. “I apologize for my get-up, by the way. I’m putting in the week’s hygiene hours. That means cleaning out the cats’ rooms here in the house. Just has to be done sometimes. I should do it more often. What did you say your name was again?”

  “Maya. The cats’ rooms?”

  “Yes, they have three rooms of the house. It’s like their own apartment. It just happened. They’re in the process of easing us out entirely, you could say.”

  “Us?”

  “Yes, my partner and me. Marie. Although she doesn’t actually live here.”

  Maya told him more about who she was and what she was up to. Texas ran his hand through his hair and listened, paying close attention.

  “Well, you’re welcome to take pictures of the animals at least. It’ll probably take a little more convincing for me, and I don’t know about Marie. She’s at work. I’m on disability benefit for the time being.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m an aide at a mental hospital. But a few weeks ago I was attacked; I got hit on the head by a guy who weighs a hundred and thirty kilos. Ever since I’ve just been tired for no reason. It probably really shook up my brain. Just how it is.”

  The rooster approached Maya rather insistently, as if it had some important issue that couldn’t wait. She looked at its shiny feathers, small eyes and giant claws.

  “His name is Morgan. He’s probably wondering if you have any food. He’ll eat right out of your hand.”

  “Morgan?” Maya asked, amused.

  “Yes, after that guy from Ullared, if you’ve seen him, on TV? The chickens are Boris and Ola-Conny. Among others. The ducks belong to Marie. They were a package deal. They’re nice animals, I have to say. Swedish ducks.”

  Texas took a piece of bread from his pocket and held it out. The rooster hopped into the air and caught it.


  “Well done,” Maya said. “It would be fun to get a picture of the two of you. If that’s okay.”

  “You think so? Well, we can give it a shot. Just tell me what to do.”

  She asked him to sit down on a bucket next to the root cellar, and working together they convinced Morgan to stand still beside him for a moment. They were almost the same height when Texas sat down.

  “You make a very charming couple,” Maya said as she took pictures.

  “Aren’t we?” Texas said. “My therapist says all my progress is thanks to the rooster.”

  “That’s the first time I’ve heard of someone discussing his rooster with his therapist,” Maya said.

  “Someone’s got to do it. Morgan has lifted me out of darkness. We have a very fine relationship.” He patted the rooster.

  “Darkness?” Maya repeated.

  “Yeah, what can I say? Life is hard. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “Oh, certainly,” Maya said. “But… what did you mean, more specifically?”

  Texas shook his head and glanced over at the forest. “Sometimes it feels like the whole point of everything is not to booze too much. And sometimes it feels like the point is to booze. It just feels like everything is always about booze, and then what does it all matter anyway?”

  Maya nodded. “I know what you mean. I think. And getting hit on the head by a hundred-and-thirty-kilo guy can’t make things any easier.”

  “It doesn’t. You’re right about that. Then again, people get knocked on the head all the time.”

  They continued their small talk as Maya took pictures and Texas began to chat about the recent incidents on the bog.

  “I try not to think about what’s going on out there. I can’t deal with it. The police have been around to ask questions, sure, and the papers… yesterday I set Morgan on a photographer who was lying in the bushes. He ran after her with his wings out like this.” He lifted his arms and took a few big steps forward.