When the Snow Fell

by Mankell Henning

  When they came to the hospital they were told that they couldn’t see Simon. He was still asleep. And he was very ill. They waited until a doctor came out to speak to them. Joel recognized him immediately. He was the one who had looked after Joel when he’d almost been killed by that bus. But the doctor didn’t recognize Joel.

  “So you were the one who found him, were you?” he said, ruffling Joel’s hair.

  Joel didn’t like his hair being ruffled. Not even by a doctor.

  “That was very well done,” he said. “A heroic feat.”

  Then he turned serious.

  “But I’m afraid it’s not clear what the outcome will be,” he said. “He’s had a cerebral hemorrhage. And Windstorm is an old man. It’s too soon to say if he’s going to make it.”

  Joel was quiet when they left the hospital. Samuel noticed.

  “He might pull through,” he said. “Let’s hope so, at any rate.”

  “It wouldn’t be fair if he were to die,” said Joel.

  “Death is never fair, I suppose,” said Samuel. “And no matter when death comes, it always makes a mess of everything.”

  They continued to Simon’s house in the trees. The dogs were waiting outside the house. They whimpered when Samuel fed them. Then Joel and Samuel tracked down the four terrified hens and the cockerel. They were huddled together at the very back of the woodshed.

  Then Joel and his dad set off into the forest. Joel wasn’t absolutely sure where he’d found Simon, but he found the right spot in the end.

  Samuel shook his head.

  “It’s nearly two miles,” he said. “How on earth did you manage to drag him all that way back to the house?”

  “I just had to,” said Joel uncertainly.

  He couldn’t understand himself how he’d done it.

  When they got back to Simon’s house, Joel wanted to take the two dogs home with them, and look after them for as long as Simon was ill. But Samuel said no. They belonged to Simon’s house. That was where they should stay, nowhere else. But Joel would have to feed them every day.

  On their way back through the little town they paused at the shoe shop. Joel pointed out the boots he wanted. Samuel turned pale when he saw the price. But he didn’t say anything.

  Samuel made dinner that evening. Joel would have preferred to do it himself, because it was hardly ever up to much when Samuel did the cooking. But Samuel could be stubborn. He had decided that Joel needed a rest. While Samuel worked, Joel lay on his bed and thought about all the things that had happened over the last few days. He even brought himself to think about the Greyhound and her laughing friends. It seemed to be easier now that he had dragged Simon through the raging sea of snow. He still worried about going back to school the following day, but he knew he was going to go, no matter what.

  Samuel had fried some pork and potatoes. Joel carefully scraped away all the burnt fat.

  “Was it good?” Samuel asked.

  “Yes,” said Joel. “The best I’ve ever eaten.”

  But he sighed quietly to himself when Samuel served him another helping.

  Grown-ups sometimes had difficulty in understanding what other people really meant.

  They went to bed early, Samuel and Joel, that evening.

  And Joel slept.

  The fried pork was slowly digested in his stomach. Samuel snored, and the mouse gnawed away inside the wall.

  Joel had a dream.

  He was crossing over the empty street with Wyatt Earp and his brother. Shuffling and coughing behind them was Doc Holliday. The red dust whirled around their feet. Their spurs jingled as they walked.

  It was time now. Time to confront Ike Clanton and his gang. They were going to fight a duel at the OK Corral. A few minutes from now a lot of people would be dead. Joel was walking just behind Wyatt Earp. He was wearing boots with spurs. He was in front of Doc Holliday, who was coughing drily. He would soon die. Of tuberculosis. But first they needed to sort out Ike Clanton. They couldn’t wait any longer. The moment had come. They could see Ike and his men approaching. Through the heat haze. The sun was turning the air into fog. Then Joel noticed that the Greyhound was there as well. And Ike Clanton’s men roared with laughter. Wyatt Earp stopped dead. Everybody stopped. Suddenly they had all vanished. Joel was standing there on his own. He was gripped by panic. The sun was shining straight into his eyes. He couldn’t see a thing. He groped for the pistol that ought to be at his hip. A Smith & Wesson, with the wooden butt removed and replaced by one made of pure silver. But there was nothing there. His holster was empty. Outside the saloon sat Miss Nederström in a creaking rocking chair, fast asleep.

  Joel was so scared that his body was screaming inwardly. The Greyhound started running towards him. She grew bigger and bigger, like a giant bird with flapping wings.

  He sat up with a shriek. It was dark in the room. At first he didn’t know where he was. Then he saw the gleaming pointers of his alarm clock. He was back home again. It had only been a dream. A sling that had fired him to the OK Corral and back.

  It was a long time before he could get back to sleep. The dream had been a warning. He would have to go back to school, and that would be like approaching the OK Corral. Without Wyatt Earp. And without Doc Holliday and his tubercular cough.

  But when he arrived at the school playground, nothing was as he’d been expecting. The Greyhound was there. And all the rest of them.

  But nobody giggled. Nobody pointed.

  Nobody pursed their lips or put their head on one side.

  Joel realized he had Simon to thank for that. When he entered the classroom he was still unsure of what would happen. But the Greyhound looked guilty. And Miss Nederström started talking even before she played the morning hymn.

  She told the whole class what had happened. Joel thought it sounded like an adventure tale. Had he really been the one who had dragged Simon all that way? Or had he dreamt that as well?

  Everybody seemed to know about it already. Joel started to wonder if this is how he would be remembered in 2045. The man who once dragged Simon Windstorm through a raging sea of snow.

  He thought about Simon Windstorm. Who had a cerebral hemorrhage. And the dogs whining outside his front door.

  When the first break came he plucked up courage and asked Miss Nederström what a cerebral hemorrhage was.

  “Something that bursts inside your head,” she said. “But don’t think about that, Joel.”

  “What else is there for me to think about?” he asked.

  Miss Nederström said nothing. And the break was soon over.

  After school Joel went straight to the shoe shop. He tried on the new boots. They didn’t chafe his ankles. He paid, and was given the old boots back in a cardboard box. Then he hurried up the hill towards the hospital as fast as he could. In his satchel he had a few bones Samuel had given him that morning. He hesitated over what to do first—visit Simon or feed the dogs. It was a hard decision to make. But the dogs were bound to be pleased to see him, and so he started with them.

  This time they came running towards him. Joel sat stroking them for a while before looking for the hens. They were all in the truck today. Joel crumbled up some dry bread and put it inside the truck for them.

  Then he couldn’t wait any longer. He would have to visit Simon. He had a stroke of luck when he got to the hospital, and bumped straight into the doctor he and Samuel had spoken to the day before.

  No change. Simon was still unconscious.

  Nobody could say if he was going to live or die.

  Joel had tears in his eyes. Not because he wanted to. Why should Simon die now that he was in hospital instead of lying in a snowdrift?

  Joel left the hospital.

  He noticed her immediately.

  The Greyhound. She was standing outside the hospital gate.

  And she looked nothing like a gigantic bird with flapping, threatening wings.

  — EIGHTEEN —

  Joel tried to be angry. But he didn’t succ
eed.

  They walked down the hill from the hospital. The Greyhound didn’t say a word. Nor did she run round and round him like she usually did.

  Instead of being angry Joel tried to demonstrate that he couldn’t care less about her company. To act as if she weren’t there. But that didn’t really work either. He would never be an actor.

  In the end he decided to be himself and do exactly what he wanted to do. They had come as far as the railway station now.

  There were several large snowdrifts just behind the long, red wooden building that housed the freight office. Anybody walking past would think they were only playing.

  As they passed the biggest of the snowdrifts Joel tripped the Greyhound up so that she fell backwards into the snow. Then he jumped on top of her and started rubbing snow into her face. She struggled as hard as she could, but Joel was stronger. Then he started to poke snow down inside her clothes. She kicked and scratched and fought back. Joel still wasn’t angry, but even so, he had to do what he was doing.

  “Stop it!” she shouted.

  “Purse your lips,” said Joel.

  Then he pushed her head into the snow again.

  He didn’t stop until she had started crying.

  “So, now I’ve gotten you back,” he said, standing up.

  Her jacket was torn. She was crying as she walked away. Joel thought it was odd that she didn’t run. Now, if ever, was the time when she ought to be running.

  He set off for home. But suddenly he stopped dead and started following the Greyhound. Now he was the one running, not her.

  He caught up with her at the tumbledown old building used as a warehouse by Thulin the ironmonger’s. She was still crying, but Joel could tell that it was ebbing out. He walked beside her for quite a while without speaking.

  In the end he couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

  “It served you right,” he said. “But I won’t do it again.”

  “Nor will I,” she said. “But it wasn’t my idea.”

  Joel stopped dead. What she said couldn’t be true.

  “I thought you and I were the only ones who knew about it.”

  “Nearly,” she said. “But it wasn’t me who wanted to do it even so.”

  “Who was it, then?”

  “The others.”

  “But you could have told me.”

  “I wish I had done.”

  Joel gazed down at the ground. Should he believe her or not?

  There was only one way of finding out.

  “Show me,” he said. “Here and now. How to kiss. Then I’ll believe what you say.”

  “Not out here in the street,” she said.

  “We can go behind this building. Nobody lives here. There’s only saws and axes and such stuff inside.”

  “Another time.”

  “In that case, I don’t believe you.”

  She looked at him angrily.

  “But I’ve been crying! I can’t stand here kissing some body when I’ve been crying! Don’t you understand anything?”

  Joel felt unsure.

  “I’ll wait, then,” he said.

  “I have to go home now,” said the Greyhound. “I’ll be in trouble if I don’t.”

  “When shall we do it, then? If I’m going to believe you?”

  “Later,” she said. “I promise.”

  And now she started running. Joel felt relieved that they hadn’t stopped being friends despite everything. He still felt he couldn’t trust her completely, but he felt better even so. And he’d gotten her back.

  Joel went to the railway station. Checked to see if anybody had dropped any small change behind the wooden benches. An old man was sitting with his back resting against the wall, fast asleep. Stationmaster Knif was shouting inside the ticket office, telling somebody off. Joel paused in front of the big timetable pinned to the wall. Somebody had crossed out the name of the little town and written in pencil:

  No trains stop here. Only idiots stop in this dump.

  Joel giggled. He wondered if Knif had seen that. How would he have reacted, in that case? He must have been raving mad.

  The old man asleep by the wall was snoring. It seemed to Joel that he must be a hundred years old. Which would mean he’d been born in 1858. At about the same time as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday had walked down that deserted street for the showdown with Ike Clanton and his gang.

  Joel sat down on a bench and dangled his feet. That was another problem when it came to having parents, he thought. You can’t choose yourself what time you want to live in.

  Joel knew of course that this was a silly way of thinking. Childish. But good fun even so.

  If he could have chosen, he’d have been one of Fletcher’s right-hand men. The one who would take over from Fletcher eventually. And then he wouldn’t have needed to sit around in a boring railway station with an old man fast asleep.

  He’d have been in a totally different world.

  In that world the leaves of palm trees rustled in the wind and women walked around in transparent veils.

  Now he was back on that subject again! He stood up in annoyance. Stamped his feet hard to see if he could wake up the old man. Not a chance.

  He checked his watch. Too late. Ehnström’s had closed. And he couldn’t very well just march up and ring her doorbell. Not when he didn’t have any Christmas magazines to sell, nor any mittens to look for. Besides, that unknown man might be there. The one who’d been holding hands with her at the cinema. It could be risky if he was. He might throw Joel out. Even out of the window. The man might be wild with jealousy. You could never tell in advance.

  He started pedaling with his feet. Lumps of slush and dirt dripped off his boots and onto the floor. They looked as if they’d formed a map. An archipelago of islands. He started giving names to the various stains. “Snake Island,” “Doc Holliday’s Skerry,” “Windstorm Rocks.”

  But all the time what he was really thinking about was Sonja Mattsson.

  He wondered if he would ever see her wearing transparent veils.

  Joel looked at the old man. And decided to get some help from fate. If he succeeded in waking the old man up before anybody else came into the waiting room, he would see Sonja Mattsson in transparent veils. He wasn’t allowed to shake the old man. Nor to shout. But everything else was permitted.

  If the old man was still asleep the next time the waiting-room door opened, he could forget all about that business of the transparent veils. Fate would have made its decision.

  Joel started kicking one of the bench legs, which were made of steel. All the time he was keeping an eye on the ticket office window. It could open at any moment. Knif had ears that could pick up the sound of a train fifty miles away. But the old man didn’t wake up. Joel kicked even harder. The old man snored. Joel was really furious with him by now. Maybe he was dead? Joel stood up and took hold of the backrest of the bench the old man was sitting on. He started shaking it. The old man grunted and rubbed at his nose. But he didn’t wake up. Joel shook so hard that the whole bench started jumping up and down. No effect. He was sure the waiting-room door would open at any moment now. He thought desperately about what he could do. Then he hit on the only possible solution. He ran to the ticket office window, which was closed, and hammered on it as hard as he could. It opened immediately. Stationmaster Knif was staring Joel in the face.

  “What do you want, belting on the window like that?” he roared. “Do you want a ticket?”

  “I was just checking if you were awake,” said Joel with a grin.

  Knif turned red in the face.

  “Get out!” he bellowed. “Get out of here!’

  It echoed all round the waiting room.

  And the old man woke up.

  Joel ran off before Knif could come storming into the room—but the old man had woken up! That was the important thing. Knif’s voice could awaken the dead.

  So fate had decided. Joel would get to see Sonja Mattsson wearing nothing but transparent veils.

/>   He hurried home as fast as he could. No doubt Samuel would have made dinner and be wondering why Joel hadn’t come home.

  Joel could imagine how astonished Samuel would be, if he heard what fate had decided.

  One evening very soon I, Joel Gustafson, will visit the flat of Sonja Mattsson, also known as Salome, and see her naked behind transparent veils.

  Samuel would doubtless fall down in a faint on the cork floor tiles.

  Joel also wondered if Samuel had seen Sara wearing transparent veils. Now that would have been a sight for sore eyes.

  But needless to say, when Joel got home he didn’t say anything about what fate had ordained.

  And Samuel hadn’t finished making dinner. Typical! He was always messing about and never finished any thing in time.

  He had been a sailor. And he was a lumberjack. But Joel didn’t think his father was up to much as a cook.

  The next day the Greyhound and Joel wrote a never-ending stream of notes to each other. By the end of the school day Joel’s pocket was full of them. They were friends again, it seemed. None of the others who had been present when Joel sat on that chair and pursed his lips said a word. They didn’t even smirk. Even Otto evidently felt obliged to be nice to Joel. It wasn’t just any old boy who was capable of dragging Simon Windstorm goodness knows how many miles through the snow.

  During one of the breaks Otto wanted to show Joel one of the secret magazines he’d acquired.

  “It’s a new one,” he said. “Nobody else has seen the pictures yet.”

  “I think I’ll give it a miss,” Joel said. “The real thing is more exciting.”

  Otto stared at him. Joel stared back. Otto daren’t say that Joel was just making it up.

  It was a good day. One of the best for a very long time.

  After school Joel fed the dogs and the chickens at Simon’s place. The Greyhound went with him. Joel let her feed the chickens while he dealt with the dogs. Then they heard from the hospital that there was no change in Simon’s condition. He was still seriously ill.

  Joel felt sad. The Greyhound tried to console him.