I Am Behind You

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

But not Isabelle. As soon as she is settled in her seat she waves towards the horizon in front of them. Eagerly. Longing to get there.

  *

  Majvor sits in Stefan and Carina’s caravan and watches Peter drive off with Donald. She stretches her neck so that she can follow them for another thirty metres before they are out of sight, and the only thought in her head is: My cinnamon buns.

  Given the current situation, what are the chances of Donald putting the buns in the oven before they are over-proved? About the same as the chances of her winning the Olympic long jump. Today has been one miscalculation after another.

  However, she does realise that it was necessary to remove Donald. He is much too volatile; he can blow up over nothing, and this time he really did go too far. Firing the shotgun at her! She could have had a heart attack. On these occasions there is only one thing that helps: time. When Donald gets worked up there is no point in arguing with him, no point in doing anything except staying out of his way and letting him cool down.

  Majvor hopes that a few hours’ calm and contemplation will have the desired effect on her husband, and might even bring him to his senses with regard to this insane idea that she and the others are a figment of his imagination.

  Where does all this come from?

  Like the time he decided they should start selling soft-whipped ice cream at the yard. The customers could buy a cone while they were waiting to be served. There would be three sorts of sprinkles. Nobody thought it was a good idea, but it was only Majvor who dared to speak up.

  Not that it helped. Donald was adamant, and installed the most expensive machine on the market. It was meant to be a gimmick, he explained. Something that would make his yard stand out. And indeed it was a gimmick. The customers laughed and wondered what the hell that monstrosity was doing there, but hardly anyone wanted sticky ice-cream fingers when they were about to handle their goods. Donald was the one who made the most use of the machine, and by the following summer it had been consigned to the loft insulation store room. He refused to sell it, because that would have meant admitting that he had made a mistake, so he insisted that it had just been put away temporarily ‘until the time was right’.

  Majvor continues to run through the catalogue of stubborn decisions and ridiculous ideas that Donald has come up with over the years, until she is interrupted by a child’s voice.

  ‘Hello?’

  A little boy is looking down at her from the sleeping alcove above her head.

  ‘Hello yourself,’ Majvor says.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  She smiles at the directness of the question, and responds in the same way: ‘My caravan has gone, so I’m sitting here for a little while. Is that okay?’

  ‘Of course. Why has your caravan gone?’

  ‘It needed…a little outing.’

  The boy frowns, but seems to decide that her answer is acceptable. He clambers down and stands beside Majvor. He looks her up and down, then asks: ‘Have you got children?’

  ‘I have. Four of them. All boys.’

  ‘They must be really old.’

  ‘They’re quite old, yes. And some of them have children of their own.’

  The boy nods, pleased that he has drawn the right conclusion. He sits down opposite Majvor, lowers his voice and asks: ‘When your children were little…did you ever lie to them?’

  ‘I might have done, now and again. Why do you ask? Has someone lied to you?’

  ‘Mmm. Grown-ups shouldn’t tell lies.’

  ‘No. You’re right, of course, but sometimes….was it about something important?’

  ‘Quite important.’

  ‘Would you like to tell me?’

  The boy straightens up and looks out of the window, chewing his lower lip. The muscles around his eyes are twitching in the way they do when we dream; he is probably studying some internal image. Majvor places her hands on top of one another on the table and waits. She enjoys the company of children; she always has done. Their needs and wishes are not so tangled up in dark urges and unhealed traumas as is often the case with adults.

  On the table next to Majvor is a Lego construction that looks like the beginning of a chimney, with four high walls. When she leans forward, she can see three figures down at the bottom.

  ‘Did you build this?’ she asks.

  ‘Mmm. Me and Mummy.’ Still staring out at the field, the boy says: ‘What are we doing here? Why are we here?’

  ‘Goodness, that’s not an easy question!’

  ‘Do you know the answer?’

  ‘No, but I can tell you what I think.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I think…’ Majvor’s gaze rests on the Lego as she remembers how she felt when she first saw the crosses on the caravans. ‘I think everything has a purpose. That there’s a reason why we’re here. And that it will all become clear.’

  The boy looks disappointed. ‘Is that all?’

  No, that’s not all, but Majvor doesn’t know how to explain the rest, so instead she asks: ‘Do you believe in God?’

  The boy shrugs. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Would you like to say a prayer with me?’

  Once again the boy frowns as if he is concentrating hard, weighing up the pros and cons of her suggestion. After a moment he says: ‘Okay. If you promise to play with me afterwards.’

  Majvor holds out her hand to seal the deal. The boy looks a little lost, then does the same. As Majvor’s fingers close around his fragile little hand, for the first time today she feels a real confidence. A conviction that everything will sort itself out, one way or another.

  Then she lets go and interlaces her fingers in prayer. The boy copies her, a determined look on his face. Majvor begins to recite the Lord’s Prayer, and the boy repeats it after her, one phrase at a time. When she reaches ‘For ever and ever’, she adds: ‘Show us the way we should go and lead us back home. Amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ the boy says. They sit for a few seconds looking into each other’s eyes, struck by the seriousness of the moment. Then the boy asks: ‘Do you know Star Wars?’

  ‘The film?’

  ‘Films. Yes.’

  ‘Not very well.’

  ‘Do you know Chewbacca?’

  Majvor and Donald’s son Henrik had the first three Star Wars films on video, and Majvor watched the first one. She can’t remember anyone called Chewbacca, but she thinks they might have made more films later on.

  ‘No. Who’s he? Is he the one in the black mask?’

  Her comment provokes an unexpected reaction. The boy throws himself backwards on the sofa and bursts out laughing. Majvor picks at the Lego building. It can’t have been that funny, but the boy is laughing so hard that he is clutching his stomach, legs waving in the air.

  ‘Darth Vader,’ he shouts. ‘That’s Darth Vader!’

  ‘I see,’ Majvor says, and in spite of the fact that there is no reason to do so, she feels herself blushing slightly. ‘So who’s Chewbacca?’

  The boy’s face is flushed as he sits up, gasping for breath. ‘He’s… Han Solo’s co-pilot. He’s all furry and…he talks like this…’ The boy makes a noise that could be a cross between a tiger and a goat, and something stirs in the back of Majvor’s mind.

  ‘The one who looks like an ape?’

  She is afraid that this might cause another fit of hysteria, but the boy nods thoughtfully. ‘Yes. I suppose he does look a bit like an ape.’

  ‘So what about him?’ Majvor says.

  ‘You can be him.’

  ‘Do I have to sound like you just did?’

  ‘Of course. See if you can do it.’

  Majvor tries to imitate the sound the boy made, and he laughs again, but appreciatively this time. Then he explains the game. They are going to blow up something called the Death Star, there will be lots of enemy spaceships, and Chewbacca must be ready to man the guns. Majvor makes the noise to show that she has understood, and they’re off.

  Majvor used to play games with her b
oys when they were little, and it’s amazing how quickly it all comes back to her. After a few minutes Majvor steps back and watches herself. She is sitting there grunting and waving her paws and pretending to fire laser guns, while at the same time her mind feels clearer than it has done for a long time. She doesn’t give a thought to Donald or her cinnamon buns, or anything else outside the situation.

  Since the children moved out she often feels incapable of grasping what it’s all about, what is important, what she should be doing with her life. That kind of egotistical brooding doesn’t exist right now. She knows what she should be doing, and she knows what is important. She must defeat Darth Vader!

  *

  Stefan has never had unrealistic expectations of himself or his life. When he left school with acceptable grades, he immediately started working full-time in his father’s grocery store. His little cabin in the grounds was extended, and he lived there until he was twenty-three, when he was able to buy a house of his own just three hundred metres away, with a loan secured by his parents.

  For two years he lived with Jenny, a girl he had met at school. Then Carina came back to Ålviken, and a few difficult months followed before everything settled down. They married when they were twenty-eight, and two years later Stefan took over the store.

  It was a couple of years before they decided to try for a baby, and another three before they succeeded. By the time Emil was born in 2006, the store was flourishing as well as a store in a small community could be expected to flourish, and they had renovated the house from top to bottom.

  Stefan remembers that moment a year or so later very well indeed. It was a Sunday morning at the beginning of June. He was looking forward to opening up the store; this was the best time of the year. Enough customers to make him feel secure, but the frantic rush of high summer was still to come.

  He was humming ‘Hey Hey Monica’ as he walked downstairs and stopped three steps from the bottom. Carina had got up with Emil an hour ago and the two of them were in the kitchen; Stefan had a perfect view from where he was standing.

  The morning sun was shining in through the window, casting its soft light over the oiled wooden floor and rag rugs. The aroma of coffee and freshly baked bread filled the air. Carina was moving around the floor with Emil’s feet balanced on her own as she held his hands. Emil was laughing, his downy blond hair almost transparent as Carina kissed the top of his head and nuzzled him with her nose.

  Stefan stood motionless, watching. And that was when the thought came to him: This moment. Take it in. Save it.

  This was perfection. He had everything he had ever wanted. Everything. If Nirvana means freedom from demands and desires, he had achieved it in that instant. And yet he hadn’t. Because he still had one wish: that it would never end, that things would stay like this forever.

  With one hand resting on the banister he absorbed the light, the aromas, the sound of Emil’s laughter and Carina’s murmurs of encouragement, the image of a strand of hair falling forward as she bent over her son, turning to gold as it was caught by a sunbeam. The lawn outside the window, the wagtail on the veranda rail. He wanted to save it all.

  He had been standing there for perhaps ten seconds when Carina caught sight of him, smiled and said: ‘Good morning. Coffee’s ready.’ Emil toddled a few steps under his own steam and shouted : ‘Offee!’ Then down he went.

  Perhaps it isn’t unusual for people to think this way at moments of particular happiness: Let me hold on to this forever. What was special about Stefan’s situation was that he had succeeded.

  It took some work, that was undeniable, but Stefan was a stubborn individual. If he had set himself a task, then he carried it through. This was about preserving ten seconds of his life, and methodically he set to work.

  Over the next few days he made sure he went over the scene time and time again, rerunning it in his mind and making use of his other senses until it was imprinted within his consciousness as securely as a photograph on the desk that you glance at every day.

  He didn’t stop living for the present, or enjoying the happiness that continued to come his way, but from time to time—when he was unpacking a delivery of mineral water, for example—he would go through every detail of the image. The fringes on the rug, Emil’s toes, the gleam of the toaster, the dust motes swirling in the sunlight.

  Weeks, months, years later, he continued to keep it alive by taking it out and examining it every so often, playing with it by looking at it from different angles from the one he actually saw.

  No, Stefan has no unrealistic expectations of life. He has been given everything he could have wished for. And if he doesn’t have it right now, at least he had it once. He finds great consolation in that thought.

  When Stefan hears Emil, now five years older, laughing in the caravan, the picture opens up inside him once more, settling like a comforting blanket over the anxiety that is tearing at him from all directions. Carina’s absence, his father’s illness or possibly imminent death, the lack of food, the fact that the situation they are in makes no sense at all. He will deal with all that in a little while. First he needs some peace.

  Stefan places the remaining folding chair at one end of the caravan so that he can keep an eye on the direction in which Carina drove off. He settles down, plugs himself into his MP3 player with one hand and flicks through the track list to ‘MZ’ with the other.

  At difficult times Monica Zetterlund’s voice can reconnect him with life; she has a tone that sounds to him like the truth. He has felt that way ever since he found Ohh! Monica! among his father’s record collection when he was fourteen years old.

  He selects ‘Little Green Apples’, presses Play and leans back with his eyes closed. As soon as he hears the first few notes of the flute, he begins to relax. When the orchestra softly joins in, accompanied by a single note on the xylophone, Stefan lets out a long, shuddering sigh. Then Monica begins to sing about waking up in the morning with her hair down in her eyes, her lover greeting her with a ‘hi’. A smile plays around Stefan’s lips as he listens to the description of an ordinary, loving morning routine. He doesn’t know how many hundreds of times he has listened to this song, but he tries not to play it too often these days. He doesn’t want it to lose its ability to bring the world to life for him.

  It is about him and Carina, and about how love does not manifest itself through grand gestures, but through tenderness, through consideration for each other on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and every other day of the week. How this is the most beautiful thing in the world. The anxiety that has been gnawing at his body ebbs away a little more, and Stefan takes a deep, relaxed breath as the chorus kicks in.

  Then he frowns as Monica tells him there are no seas, no islands, if God didn’t make those little green apples. It’s as if he is hearing the words for the first time, as if he has no idea of how the chorus goes. His grip on the MP3 player tightens and he holds his breath, waiting for what comes next. Monica sings about the lack of laughter and children playing, the fact that the sun is cold. He switches off the player and opens his eyes, looks up at the empty sky. He glances to the right, to the left. Nothing. No seas, no islands. No mountains, no lakes.

  If nothing exists, can love exist?

  The love in Monica’s song is so great that it is as impossible to deny as the existence of the mountains and the seas. But what happens when there are no mountains, no seas?

  The little details. The things that make up everyday life. Working together, sharing leisure time. If all that has been eradicated, what is left?

  Stefan removes his earbuds and gets to his feet, still clutching the MP3 player. An object made of plastic and metal. And perhaps God didn’t make the little green apples after all. They just exist, like everything else. Until everything ceases to exist.

  Tears fill his eyes and he stares out across the field. Then, unsure if he is really seeing what he thinks he is seeing, he scrubs the tears away with his sleeve and takes a closer look.


  Ten seconds later he is on the roof of the caravan with the binoculars to his eyes. There is no doubt whatsoever. From exactly the direction in which Carina disappeared in the car, the white figure from the bottom of Mörtsjö lake is now approaching, moving slowly as if it has all the time in the world.

  Stefan knows what it wants; he has known ever since their first encounter, which is why he refused to acknowledge its presence when he saw it with Emil. It wants to take everything away from him. Back then he had only his pathetic little life to offer, but now he has more. He has love, he has those happy moments that he has saved, he has a family.

  All this is now going to be taken away from him. He knows this with the same clarity as the condemned man knows that this is the end as he faces the firing squad. Thus far but no further.

  *

  ‘I want to do a puzzle.’

  Molly is sitting on the sofa, her penetrating gaze fixed on Lennart and Olof.

  ‘I’m not sure we’ve got anything like that,’ Olof says. ‘We’re not used to…’

  Molly interrupts him, pointing at the pile of crossword magazines. ‘In there. The children’s pages.’

  ‘Help yourself, in that case,’ Lennart says, peering out of the doorway to see if there’s any sign of Peter or Donald.

  ‘But I’m sitting over here,’ Molly says, turning to Olof. ‘Please can you pass me one?’

  ‘Of course,’ Olof says, ignoring the cross look Lennart gives him. He takes a ballpoint pen out of the kitchen drawer and puts it down in front of Molly with a magazine.

  Molly gives him a winning smile and flicks through the pages until she finds a join-the-dots puzzle. Olof joins Lennart, looking over his shoulder. Lennart says quietly: ‘You shouldn’t just do what she says.’

  ‘What harm can it do?’

  Lennart gives Olof a look: Wait and see, wait and see.

  The caravan is small, and neither Lennart nor Olof wants to sit at the kitchen table with Molly, so they both start busying themselves with things that don’t need doing. Lennart decides to check out the fridge. He rummages around, then holds up a flattened bullet.

  ‘Hit the side,’ he says. ‘What kind of ammunition do you think it is?’