How could that drawing have gotten bundled up with his papers?
I know where I’ve seen those drawings before. That clumsy style that looks like a child’s, but isn’t.
I saw these stick figures this morning, on Birgitta’s table. She must have drawn these.
But as far as we know, Birgitta never strayed more than a few yards from her hut.
So what was one of her drawings doing in the church?
THEN
Elsa knocks at the door. Her knock is harder than usual, but her hand is trembling and she’s finding it hard to keep her voice steady.
“Birgitta!” she says, trying to sound as cheery as she can. “Birgitta, it’s me. Elsa. I’ve brought some food.”
She does have food, in the normal picnic basket, but it’s all wrong—it’s been scrabbled together too hastily. Elsa’s still completely beside herself. Her heart is racing, and she’s sweating, despite the cool summer day.
It has been a dark start to the summer, cloudy and cool, with a constant smell of rain in the air. Elsa’s senses feel stale and insipid, and the villagers have been drifting around town like ghosts, wandering the streets without purpose or feeling. The churchgoers blaze like torches among them.
Something is afoot.
“Birgitta,” she calls out again, louder and more shrilly, and bangs on the door. “Open the door!”
It can’t be anything serious, she tries to reassure herself. She was here just a few days ago. And Birgitta was looking perfectly normal then.
Though perhaps she had been a little wan? Not that Elsa had picked up on it. Or let herself pick up on it. She was too preoccupied with other things: Staffan and his drinking; Margareta and her latest letter. More than anything she wishes she could be there with her now, that she could hold her hand and help her through her pregnancy. Her heart is bleeding for her.
And, with all of this on her mind, she hasn’t seen what has been happening to Birgitta.
To Aina.
Her girls.
Elsa can’t even curse herself anymore; the anger fails her. She drops her hand, puts her forehead to the door and whispers, though she knows Birgitta won’t open it:
“Please, Birgitta, open the door.”
The worn wood feels smooth and cool against her forehead. It soothes the heat in her face.
Her right hand is still banging on the door.
And then she hears footsteps.
She manages to straighten herself up just in time for Birgitta to open the door.
Her first feeling is one of relief. Despite knowing that it couldn’t possibly be the case, she had a crippling fear of finding Birgitta dead—that or gravely ill. Three days untended is a long time for someone like Birgitta.
But the relief soon fades, replaced by something that could almost be called horror.
Birgitta’s eyes are downcast as usual, but they are flitting around in frenzied terror, and she is humming quietly while rocking to and fro. It almost sounds like she’s crying. Elsa has never heard Birgitta cry before.
“Oh, Birgitta,” she says. She puts down the basket and reaches out to hold her, but Birgitta’s hums grow to a moaning roar, and she lashes out at Elsa. One of her arms meets the side of Elsa’s head, forcefully, and Elsa stumbles backward, seeing stars. It hurts terribly, but she manages to catch her balance just in time. She touches her cheek: it’s burning but not bleeding, and nothing appears to be loose or broken.
Birgitta has backed a few steps into the hut. She is still making her plaintive, sorrowful moans, but they now sound almost resigned. She didn’t want to hurt Elsa. Elsa knows that.
“Forgive me, Birgitta,” she says. Her head is still spinning. “That was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Elsa doesn’t know if Birgitta can hear her. She approaches her cautiously, her hands at her sides. She wants to show her she won’t try to touch her again. Then she picks up the basket of food from the ground.
“Can I come in? I’ve brought some food. You must be very hungry.”
Elsa makes sure to stand very still while Birgitta makes up her mind.
Eventually Birgitta takes another step back, just enough for Elsa to be able to squeeze in through the doorway.
“Thank you, Birgitta, that’s very kind,” she says politely, as though Birgitta has just invited her in for a coffee. Elsa makes sure to wipe the mud off her shoes on the threshold before stepping inside. After the long, wet summer they’ve had, Silvertjärn is virtually one big swamp.
She steps inside and looks around. To her surprise, the musty stench is no worse than normal—quite the opposite, in fact. The summer sun filters in through the slender branches of the young oak and down onto the kitchen table.
There’s something there.
Elsa takes a close look at Birgitta before going further in, but Birgitta shows no signs of agitation. She appears to have calmed down. Elsa puts the basket on the chair, as usual, and looks down at the tabletop.
Crayons.
Four small, cheap crayons, the sort a child would have, and clearly well-used. There are four colors: red, blue, yellow, and black.
Elsa leans over the tabletop to see what Birgitta has drawn, but finds nothing. Her eyes scan the room. Nothing.
Then her eyes land on the floor next to Birgitta’s feet.
Faint traces of mud.
Footprints, in the same mud that surrounds the hut.
Elsa looks at Birgitta’s feet, but she already knows the footprints can’t be hers; they’re too big to come from Birgitta’s surprisingly dainty feet, and they’re shaped like a pair of shoes. As far as Elsa knows, Birgitta doesn’t own any shoes, and she shakes her head and flails around if anyone so much at tries to get her to wear anything other than the big, shapeless dress she’s lived in since her mother passed away. Anything else seems to cause her pain.
“Birgitta,” she says slowly, turning her eyes back to the crayons. “Who has been here?”
Elsa wants Birgitta to look at her and answer the question. But she can’t. She just mutters to herself, sounds without context or meaning.
It can’t have been Aina. Elsa knows it can’t have been her, for Aina’s defiant, contrary voice is still ringing in her ears, along with those strange, wicked words that she could never have imagined coming from her daughter’s mouth.
“You have no power over me! I’m one of God’s chosen ones. You can’t tell me what to do, and I have better things to do than look after that monster!”
Elsa has never hit one of her children before, has never raised her hand against anyone in anger. Her hands have always been ones that comforted and soothed, that sought to help others.
But her palm is still burning from where it met Aina’s cheek.
And what haunts Elsa now is not the lie, nor Aina’s defiance, nor even the slap that rang through the room.
No—it’s the spark that had flashed in Aina’s beautiful dark eyes as she slowly raised her hand to her cheek, her gaze locked on Elsa’s. A look that resembled triumph.
Elsa feels sick.
Birgitta has started to rock back and forth on the spot again. She moves one foot, places it over the dried-on footprint, and rubs until hardly any of the shape remains, just a brownish patch of dust on the floorboards.
As she does so, through Birgitta’s swaying, straggly curtains of hair, Elsa catches sight of some dark patches at the base of her neck. Patches shaped like fingers.
Far away, like a rumble from the underground, Elsa hears the faint sound of hundreds of people singing in chorus.
Evensong has begun.
NOW
I open the pantry doors and look at the contents. Nothing to eat here, either, just shriveled paper bags of mummified flour and oats, small tins of spices, and glass bottles with coagulated, calcified contents.
“Nothing here, either,” I say to Robert as I close the doors. The hinges creak, but they still do their job. He nods, a furrow appearing between his transparent eyebrows.
This is the fourth house we’ve checked, and I’ve started to give up all hope of finding anything.
Max was the only other one of us, apart from Robert, who took his rucksack with him from the square, and the three protein bars he had in there didn’t go far. By the time darkness started to draw in, we were forced to make a new plan.
I didn’t say much while the others discussed what to do. All of our provisions were in the van that blew, so Emmy said the best solution would be just to do the rounds of the nearest houses and check the pantries. Surely there would be something: some foods don’t go off, and it doesn’t need to be gourmet. So long as we get some nonpoisonous calories in us, it doesn’t matter where they come from.
When the others nodded I sat up and said I could go.
Emmy told Robert to go with me, and he nodded without protest. We’ve been told to contact them every fifteen minutes so they know we’re safe.
I wonder if Robert would ever challenge Emmy; he seems to view her authority as absolute. I wonder what it feels like to have that sort of power over another person. My relationships have never been like that. Either they’re not interested and I’m left pining, or I’m not interested and they get angry; somehow I always end up losing. Pathetic or cold-hearted, nothing in between.
Still, I’m glad I have Robert with me. It’s nice not to be here on my own—not that the others would have let me go alone. They don’t trust me. Knowing that rubs a bit, but at the same time they’re absolutely right: I don’t think we’ll find any food, I just wanted a chance to look for Tone. Dragging Robert around with me is a small price to pay to be able to keep an eye out for her—for a trace, a hint, anything that could tell me where she might be.
“On to the next one, then,” says Robert, and I nod.
When we come back out onto the street, the sun has disappeared completely. All that’s left of daylight is the fiery spectacle playing out above the treetops, but even that will soon fade. We’re standing on the street that runs along the river, and from here most of Silvertjärn is visible: the teeming roofs, the river that cuts through the center, and the lake, dark and deceitful like a promise.
Robert looks at his chunky black wristwatch.
“It’s been fifteen minutes,” he says. He takes his walkie-talkie out of his belt.
“Robert here,” he says into the microphone. I hear a tinny echo of his words from the speaker in my jeans pocket. “We’re on our way to—Alice, what are you doing?”
I’ve already taken a few steps before I realize what I’m looking at.
That has to be it. No question.
A little yellow house by the river.
It’s a cottage, like all of the others, on the middle of a small patch of land that has long since been overrun by the vegetation jostling along the riverbank. It seems to have held out better than the other houses on the street: the roof hasn’t fallen in, and the door is intact.
A green door.
All of the houses on that street were yellow, but ours was the only one with a green door.
The green paint has faded and started to peel. At one point it must have been a bright emerald green, but years of sun and wind and snow have turned it into a washed-out bottle green that’s peeling away from the grayish wood underneath.
Still.
I look up and down the street, to make extra sure. Yes, every other house is yellow. But none of them has a green door.
It made me feel special.
“Alice, what are you doing?”
Robert sounds unexpectedly nervy, so I turn around to look at him. He’s let go of the talk button and is staring at me.
“It’s my grandma’s house,” I explain.
Robert blinks. He looks at me, then the house.
“Oh,” he says. “Oh shit.”
He studies the house with the green door for a few seconds, but then he shakes his head.
“You know what we said. Water, food, back. We’re safer as a group.”
“There could be food in there,” I persevere. “We can just step inside. Quickly.”
Robert shakes his head.
“No,” he says.
I look back at the house.
“Robert, she could be in there,” I say, quietly. “Tone knows which house it is. She might still recognize it—it might even feel safe to her. There are two of us, and she … she isn’t dangerous, I promise. Can’t we just go take a look?” I start rambling: “Plus we were going to check one more house, anyway. This is one more house. There might be food!”
Robert looks at the house, and I can see the doubt storming over his freckles. I say nothing more. I just look him in the eye, trying to seem stable and sincere. I can’t let my desperation show.
Then he gives a short, sharp sigh and brings his walkie-talkie to his lips.
“Robert here. We’re OK. We may be a little longer than expected.”
He waits for Emmy’s quick, tinny: “OK,” and then gives me a faint smile.
I could kiss him, but I make do with a simple “Thanks.”
Robert reattaches his walkie-talkie to his waistband.
“But if we don’t find her there, how about we don’t mention this to Emmy?”
I nod.
“Of course.”
The house is in a worse state up close. Something that must be some sort of lichen has grown over most of the front steps. The door handle on the faded green door glistens in the dying light.
I put my hand on it and push down. The door opens without a creak.
It’s dark inside. We come straight into a small, low hallway with wallpapered walls. On the right there’s a staircase to the second floor, and straight ahead there’s a small, anonymous door that must lead to a bathroom. The kitchen is to the left.
The same layout as in the other houses. Nothing remarkable.
Still, it feels like it unlocks something inside me.
I walk hungrily into the kitchen, my eyes like target-seeking missiles. Tone, to my shame, is temporarily forgotten: I’m soaking up all I can. This was their home; where they lived. Here, on these eccentric turquoise Windsor chairs, is where they would sit, talk, and eat; around this rustic table, with a round burn mark at one of the ends. Elsa. Staffan. Aina. Grandma.
I squat down and run my fingers over the rag rug, which has so many colors that they all run into each other, making a meaningless slush.
“Alice?” Robert says quietly behind me, and I turn around and stand up again.
“So this is where they lived?” he says.
I nod.
Robert steps over to the sink and opens one of the cupboards. His rectangular body blocks the contents, so I see nothing.
“Well, would you look at this,” he says softly, reaching up to the cupboard.
He pulls out a jar of honey. It’s almost full. He reaches up to the top shelf and finds a tin labelled “tea,” which is empty, then feels around the obligatory paper packaging on the middle shelf before finding three metal tins of what must be sardines in tomato sauce.
“You think they’re OK to eat?” I ask him.
“Honey doesn’t go off if it hasn’t been contaminated,” he says, his chestnut eyes glinting in the last of the evening light. “It doesn’t look like this has. And I don’t know about the sardines, but we can take them with us anyway. That’ll have to do for dinner.”
I smile at him.
“See?” I say. “I told you it would pay off.”
Thanks, Grandma, I think.
She’s still looking out for me.
I step out of the kitchen and back into the hall, let my eyes wander along the floral wallpaper running up the stairs. The damp has run in thin, sporadic rivulets down the turgid, painted leaves.
I know what must be up there. I’ve seen the other houses.
The bedrooms. Staffan and Elsa’s. And Aina’s.
I walk toward the staircase. It looks stable, not rotten like some of the others. The handrail is essentially held up by one
narrow spindle on one side, but when I test it out with a little weight it doesn’t give way.
“Are you sure going up there is a good idea?” Robert asks. “Maybe we should call first. See if she replies. You don’t know if the steps are stable.”
“I don’t want to scare her,” I say quietly.
Robert has put the food in his rucksack, which he places on the wooden floor beside him. The patterned parquet is scratched, worn, and dry, but it’s clear that at some point it must have been beautiful. That someone scrubbed it and polished it to keep it shining. That someone took pride in their home.
Not someone. Her. Elsa. My great-grandmother.
“We’ll be careful,” I say. “If she’s up there she might be hiding.”
June 23, 1959
Margareta,
I don’t understand why you sounded so angry in your last letter? It hurt me to read it, but I can see that what I wrote must have been hard for you to hear, too. It isn’t always easy to open your eyes to new truths, especially when you’re so tied to the old. That’s what Pastor Mattias says. Here in Silvertjärn it hasn’t been easy to open people’s eyes to God’s light, but when it does happen—ah! I’ll leave you to experience that for yourself. I’m sure you will.
It’s like a new world, Margareta; it feels like I was blind my entire life, running around worrying about petty, unimportant things, feeling small and scared and powerless, but Pastor Mattias has shown me the true way. I know you have felt the same! When you were new to Stockholm and no one wanted to talk to you, when they laughed at your clothes and the way you spoke, didn’t you feel lonely then? You said it like a joke, but I could tell it made you sad! And though you claim to be happy and content now, that old feeling will never leave you, Margareta. It’s there because you’ve distanced yourself from God.
But it isn’t your fault! It’s Mother and Father’s fault. You say that you felt the same way at my age, and that it’ll pass, but have you ever considered that you might have disliked them because they’re bad parents? They haven’t taught us about God. They’ve never truly cared about us, Margareta! Only as pairs of helping hands, no more. That isn’t true love. True love is boundless, unconditional. It is the sharing of both body and soul, nothing withheld. When you live in love, you learn to never say no.
The Lost Village Page 18