by Asa Larsson
Lisa goes in. The dogs are left in the car.
Aren’t we coming with you? their eyes ask her. Are we going to get away without any injections, examinations, frightening smells and those humiliating white plastic funnels round our heads?
Annette, the vet, comes to meet her. They sort out the payment, Annette deals with it herself. There’s only the two of them there. No other staff. Nobody in the waiting room. Lisa is moved by her consideration.
The only thing Annette asks is:
“Are you taking them with you?”
Lisa shakes her head. She hasn’t actually thought that far ahead. She’s only just managed to think this far. And now she’s here. They’ll become garbage. She pushes aside the idea of how unworthy that is. That she owes them more than that.
“How shall we do this?” asks Lisa. “Shall I bring them in one at a time, or what?”
Annette looks at her.
“That’ll be too hard for you, I think. Let’s bring them all in, then I can give them something to calm them down first.”
Lisa staggers out.
“Stay!” she warns them as she opens the tailgate.
She puts on their leads. Doesn’t want to risk any of them running away.
Into reception, the dogs around her legs. Through the waiting room, past the office and the treatment room.
Annette opens the door to the operating room.
The panting. The sound of their claws clicking and scrabbling across the floor. They get entangled in each other’s leads. Lisa pulls at them and tries to untangle them as she walks toward that room, just get them in there.
They’ve made it at last. They’re in that ugly room with its ugly red plastic floor and blotchy brown walls. Lisa catches her thigh on the black operating table. All the claws that have scratched the floor have enabled the dirt to work its way down into the plastic matting so that it’s impossible to scrub it clean. It’s turned into a dark red pathway from the door and around the table. On one of the wall cupboards there’s a ghastly poster of a little girl surrounded by a sea of flowers. She’s holding a floppy-eared puppy on her lap. The clock on the wall has a text running across the face from the ten to the two: “The time has come.”
The door glides shut behind Annette.
Lisa unclips their leads.
“We’ll start with Bruno,” says Lisa. “He’s so stubborn, he’ll still be the last to lie down. You know what he’s like.”
Annette nods. While Lisa strokes Bruno’s ears and chest, Annette gives him a sedative injection into the muscle of his foreleg.
“Who’s my best boy?” asks Lisa.
Then he looks at her. Straight in the eye, although that isn’t what dogs do. Then he glances quickly away. Bruno is a dog who maintains the correct etiquette. Looking the leader of the pack in the eye is not allowed, no way.
“You’re a patient boy, aren’t you,” says Annette, giving him a pat when she’s finished.
Soon Lisa is sitting on the floor beneath the window. The radiator is burning into her back. Sicky-Morris, Bruno, Karelin and Majken are lying on the floor around her, half asleep. Majken’s head resting on one thigh. Sicky-Morris on the other. Annette pushes Bruno and Karelin closer to Lisa, so that she has them all with her.
There are no words. Only a terrible ache in her throat. Their warm bodies beneath her hands.
To think you’ve managed to love me, she thinks.
Someone who carries such a hopeless weight inside her. But a dog’s love is simple. You run about in the forest. You’re happy. You lie basking in each other’s warmth. Relax and feel good.
The electric razor buzzes, then Annette inserts a canula into their forelegs.
It happens quickly. All too quickly. Only the last thing is left to do. Where are her farewell thoughts? The ache in her throat swells into an unbearable pain. It hurts so much, everywhere. Lisa is shaking as if she has a fever.
“I’ll do it, then,” says Annette.
And she gives them the injection that puts them to sleep.
It takes half a minute. They are lying there as they were before. Their heads on her lap. Bruno’s back pressed against the bottom of her back. Majken’s tongue is lolling out of her mouth in a way that it doesn’t do when she’s asleep.
Lisa thinks she’ll get up. But she can’t.
The tears are just beneath the skin of her face. Her face is trying to resist. It’s like a tug-of-war. The muscles are fighting against it. Wanting to pull her mouth and eyebrows back into their normal expression, but the tears squeeze their way out. Finally she cracks into a grotesque, sobbing grimace. Tears and snot pour out. To think it can be so unbearably painful. The tears have been waiting behind her eyes, and it’s been like pressing down the lid of a pan. Now they’ve boiled over and are running down her face. Down onto Sicky-Morris.
A cross between a groan and a whimper emerges from her throat. It sounds so ugly. A kind of oohoo, oohoo. She can hear it herself, this dried up condemned old woman moaning. She gets up on all fours. Hugs the dogs. Her movements are violent and reckless. She crawls among them, pushing her arms under their limp bodies. Strokes their eyelids, their noses, their ears, their stomachs. Pushes her face against their heads.
The tears are like a storm. They snatch and tear at her body. She snivels and tries to swallow. But it’s hard to swallow when she’s on all fours with her head down. In the end the snot trickles out of her mouth. She wipes it away with her hand.
At the same time, she can hear a voice. Another Lisa who is standing there watching her. Who says: What kind of a person are you? What about Mimmi?
And she stops crying. Just as she’s thinking it’ll never stop.
It’s remarkable. The whole summer has been a list of things to do. One by one she’s ticked them off. Tears weren’t on the list. They put themselves there. She didn’t want them. She’s afraid of them. Afraid of drowning in them.
And when they came. At first they were horrible, an unbearable torment, darkness. But then. Then the tears became a refuge. A place to rest. A waiting room before the next thing on the list. Then a part of her suddenly wanted to stay there among the tears. Put off the other thing which is going to happen. And then the tears leave her. Say: that’s it, then. And just stop.
She gets up. There’s a hand basin, she grabs the edge and pulls herself to her feet. Annette has obviously left the room.
Her eyes are swollen, they feel like half tennis balls. She presses her icy fingertips against her eyelids. Turns on the tap and splashes her face. There are some rough paper towels beside the basin. She dries her face and blows her nose, avoids looking in the mirror. The paper rasps against her nose.
She looks down at the dogs. She’s so exhausted, worn out with her tears, that she isn’t capable of feeling so strongly any longer. The overwhelming grief is just like a memory. She crouches down and gives each dog a much more thoughtful caress.
Then she leaves the room. Annette is busy at the computer in the office. All Lisa needs to do is mutter a good-bye.
Out into the September sunshine. That stabs and torments her. Sharply defined shadows. The sun is in her eyes, except when a few clouds drift by. She gets in the car and flips down the sun visor. Starts the car and drives through town before driving out onto the road to Norway.
She thinks about precisely nothing during the journey. Except for how the road curves its way forward. How the pictures change. Bright blue sky. White, ragged clouds shredding themselves as they scud along high above the mountains. Sharply defined, rugged ravines. The length of Torneträsk, like a shining blue stone with yellow gold spun around it.
When she has passed Katterjåkk it appears. A huge truck. Lisa keeps driving fast. She undoes her seat belt.
Rebecka Martinsson followed Nalle down into the cellar. A stone staircase painted green made its way down beneath the house. He opened a door. Inside was a room that was used as a larder, and for carpentry and general storage. Lots of things everywhere. It was damp.
The white paint was covered with black spots in places. Here and there the plaster had come away. There were basic storage shelves covered in jam jars, boxes of nails and screws and all kinds of bits and pieces, tins of paint, tins of varnish that had evaporated, brushes that had gone hard, sandpaper, buckets, electrical tools, piles of flex. Tools hung on the walls where there was space.
Nalle shushed her. Placed his forefinger on his lips. He took her hand and led her to a chair; she sat down. He knelt down on the cellar floor and tapped on it with his fingernail.
Rebecka sat in silence, waiting.
He took an almost empty packet of biscuits out of his breast pocket. Rustled the packet as he unfolded it, took out a biscuit and broke it into pieces.
And then a little mouse came scampering across the floor. It ran over to Nalle following an S-shaped route, stopped by his knees, reared up on its hind legs. It was brownish gray, no more than four or five centimeters long. Nalle held out half a biscuit. The mouse tried to take it from him, but as Nalle didn’t let go, it stayed and ate. The only sound was small nibbling noises.
Nalle turned to Rebecka.
“Mouse,” he said loudly. “Little.”
Rebecka thought it would be frightened away when he spoke so loudly, but it stayed where it was and kept right on nibbling. She nodded at him and gave him a big smile. It was a strange sight. Great big Nalle and the tiny mouse. She wondered how it had come about. How he’d managed to get it to overcome its fear. Could he have been patient enough to sit quietly down here, waiting for it? Maybe.
You’re a very special boy, she thought.
Nalle reached out his forefinger and tried to pat the mouse on the back, but then fear overcame hunger. It shot away like a gray streak and disappeared among all the rubbish standing by the wall.
Rebecka watched it.
Time to go. Couldn’t leave the car parked like that indefinitely.
Nalle was saying something.
She looked at him.
“Mouse,” he said. “Little!”
A feeling of sorrow came over her. She was standing here in an old cellar with a mentally handicapped boy. She felt closer to him than she’d been to another human being for a long, long time.
Why can’t I? she thought. Can’t like people. Don’t trust them. But you can trust Nalle. He can’t pretend to be what he’s not.
“Bye then, Nalle,” she said.
“Bye then,” he said, without the least trace of sorrow in his voice.
She went up the green stone staircase. She didn’t hear the car pull up outside. Didn’t hear the footsteps on the porch. Just as she opened the door into the hallway, the outside door was opened. Lars-Gunnar’s enormous bulk filled the doorway. Like a mountain blocking her path. Something shriveled up inside her. And she looked into his eyes. He looked at her.
“What the hell,” was all he said.
The scene of crime team found a rifle bullet at nine thirty in the morning. They dug it out of the ground by the shore of the lake. Caliber 30-06.
By quarter past ten the police had matched the firearms register with the motor vehicle database. All those who owned a diesel car and were registered as owning a gun.
Anna-Maria Mella leaned back in her office chair. It really was a luxury item. You could recline the back so you were almost lying down, just like in a bed. Like a dentist’s chair, but without the dentist.
Four hundred and seventy-three people matched. She glanced through the names.
Then she caught sight of one name she recognized. Lars-Gunnar Vinsa.
He owned a diesel Merc. She checked in the firearms register. He was registered for three weapons. Two rifles and one shotgun. One of the rifles was a Tikka. Caliber 30-06.
What they really ought to do was take in all the guns of the right caliber for testing. But maybe they ought to talk to him first. Although that wasn’t likely to be particularly pleasant when it was a former colleague.
She checked the time. Half ten. She could drive out there with Sven-Erik after lunch.
Lars-Gunnar Vinsa looks at Rebecka Martinsson. Halfway to town he’d remembered that he’d forgotten his wallet, and turned back.
What kind of bloody conspiracy was this? He’d told Mimmi he was going out. Had she phoned that lawyer? He can hardly believe it. But that’s what must have happened. And she’s come dashing down here to snoop around.
The cell phone in the woman’s hand rings. She doesn’t answer it. He stares doggedly at her ringing phone. They stand there motionless. The phone goes on ringing and ringing.
Rebecka thinks she ought to answer. It’s probably Maria Taube. But she can’t. And when she doesn’t answer, it’s suddenly written in his eyes. And she knows. And he knows that she knows.
The paralysis passes. The phone ends up on the floor. Did he knock it out of her hand? Did she throw it down?
He’s standing in her way. She can’t get out. A feeling of absolute terror seizes her.
She turns and runs up the staircase to the top floor. It’s narrow and steep. The wallpaper dirty with age. A flowery pattern. The varnish on the stairs is like thick glass. She scrabbles rapidly on all fours, like a crab. Mustn’t slip now.
She can hear Lars-Gunnar. Heavy behind her.
It’s like running into a trap. Where will she go?
The bathroom door in front of her. She dashes inside.
Somehow she manages to shut the door and makes her fingers turn the lock.
The handle is pressed down from the outside.
There’s a window, but there’s nothing left inside her that can manage to try and escape. The only thing that exists is fear. She can’t stand up. Sinks down on the toilet seat. Then she begins to shake. Her body is jerking and shuddering. Her elbows are pressed against her stomach. Her hands are in front of her face, they’re shaking so violently that she involuntarily hits herself on the mouth, the nose, the chin. Her fingers are bent like claws.
A heavy thud, a crash against the outside of the door. She screws her eyes tight shut. Tears pour out. She wants to press her hands against her ears, but they won’t obey, they just keep shaking and shaking.
“Mummy!” she sobs as the door flies open with a bang. It hits her knees. It hurts. Someone is lifting her up by her clothes. She refuses to open her eyes.
* * *
He lifts her by the collar. She’s whimpering.
“Mummy, Mummy!”
He can hear himself whimpering. Äiti, äiti! It’s more than sixty years ago, and his father is throwing his mother around the kitchen like a glove. She’s locked Lars-Gunnar and his brother and sisters in the bedroom. He’s the eldest. The little girls are sitting on the sofa, ashen-faced and silent. He and his brother are hammering on the door. His mother sobbing and pleading. Things falling on the floor. His father wanting the key. He’ll get it soon. Soon it will be Lars-Gunnar’s and his brother’s turn, while the girls watch. His mother will be locked in the bedroom. The strap will come into play. For something. He can’t remember what. There were always so many reasons.
He slams her head against the hand basin. She shuts up. The child’s tears and his mother’s “Älä lyö! Älä lyö!” also fall silent in his head. He lets go of her. She falls down onto the floor.
When he turns her over she looks at him with big, silent eyes. Blood is pouring from her forehead. It’s just like that time he hit a reindeer on the way to Gällivare. The same big eyes. And the shaking.
He grabs hold of her feet. Drags her out into the hallway.
Nalle is standing on the stairs. He catches sight of Rebecka.
“What?” he shouts.
A loud, anxious cry. He sounds like a long-tailed skua.
“What?”
“It’s nothing, Nalle!” shouts Lars-Gunnar. “Out you go.”
But Nalle is terrified. Not listening. Takes a few more steps up the stairs. Looks at Rebecka lying there. Shouts again, “What?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” roars Lars-Gunnar
. “Outside!”
He lets go of Rebecka’s feet and waves his hands at Nalle. In the end he goes down the stairs and pushes him out into the yard. He locks the door.
Nalle stands outside. He can hear him out there. “What? What?” Fear and confusion in his voice. Can see him in his mind’s eye, walking round and round on the porch, completely at a loss.
He feels an overwhelming rage toward the woman upstairs. It’s her fault. She should have left them in peace.
He takes the stairs in three bounds. It’s like Mildred Nilsson. She should have left them in peace. Him and Nalle and this village.
* * *
Lars-Gunnar is standing out in the yard, pegging out washing. It’s late May. No leaves yet, but one or two things are starting to appear in the flower beds. It’s a sunny, windy day. Nalle will be thirteen in the autumn. It’s six years since Eva died.
Nalle is running around in the yard. He’s good at amusing himself. It’s just that you can never be alone. Lars-Gunnar misses that. Being left in peace sometimes.
The spring breeze tugs and pulls at the washing. Soon the sheets and underclothes will be hanging between the birch trees like a row of dancing flags.
Behind Lars-Gunnar stands the new priest Mildred Nilsson. How she can talk. It seems as if she’ll never stop. Lars-Gunnar hesitates as he reaches for the underpants that are a bit tatty. They don’t come up very white either, although they are clean.
But then he thinks, what the hell. Why should he be embarrassed in front of her?
She wants Nalle to be confirmed in the church.
“Listen,” he says. “A couple of years ago some of those hallelujah types turned up here wanting to pray for him to be healed. I threw them out on their ear. I’m not that keen on the church.”
“I’d never do that!” she says firmly. “I mean, of course I’ll pray for him, but I promise to do it quietly at home, in my own room. But I’d never want him to be any different. You really have been blessed with a fine boy. He couldn’t be any better.”