The Lost Village

by Sten, Camilla

  “What do we do?” Robert asks me. I see my own state of mind reflected in his face. His skin is gray.

  “I don’t know,” I say again. “I don’t know. We just have to wait it out somewhere, just find somewhere to…” I trail off and look around.

  “My grandma’s house,” I say. “It should be on the next street. It wasn’t in such bad shape—we might be able to wait there.”

  The other two don’t think about it, they just nod.

  We cut across the gardens of the houses to reach the next street. I see Grandma’s green door straightaway. It’s still hanging slightly ajar, after Robert more or less dragged me out of it.

  “There,” I say to Robert and Max, but Robert has already seen it.

  Was it just yesterday that we were here? Less than twenty-four hours. One day and one night.

  I press up against the wall to let Max and Robert pass with Tone, then close the front door behind them.

  The air in here is mustier than outside, but warmer. To our left, the kitchen cupboards are still hanging open after yesterday’s plundering.

  I hope there’s something left in there. Although I don’t feel like I’ll ever want to eat again, my body is crying out for food all the same. Food and sleep and darkness. The most basic things.

  “What do we do with her?” Max asks. He says it quietly, as though afraid Tone will hear. I can understand. She sways slightly, then leans into him, away from her injured foot. I can barely look at it.

  “Lock her upstairs,” I say. The words sound foreign. “I think there was a lock on one of the bedroom doors.”

  “OK,” Max says with a nod.

  I watch them take Tone upstairs. I’m scared that she’ll fight or protest, fall and hurt herself, but she goes along without any resistance.

  The compact living room is the only room I haven’t been inside yet. It’s straight ahead, through the kitchen, with an eye-wateringly ugly floral sofa suite in a thick throw fabric just past the door and a small ornamental dining table to the right with a faded, embroidered tablecloth. Two of the windows have broken—one from an apple tree that has forced its gnarled branches in through the frame—and big, black spots of mold bloom from the center of the tablecloth, like a morbid imitation of its embroidery.

  I sit down carefully on one of the two puffy sofas. They, too, stink of mold, but I can’t tell if it’s coming from the tablecloth, or if the stuffing has gone the same way. Perhaps both. The cushions are stiff but strangely spongy, and at first I think the fabric is going to rip under my weight, but it holds. I lean back onto the hard back and look at the wall in front of me.

  In the middle of the bloated, discolored, delicately floral wallpaper hangs the photograph.

  It’s the same picture, I’m sure of it.

  I always thought Grandma’s copy was the only one, but here they are staring back at me through a painted gold frame: Grandma with her laughing smile, Aina with her sulky look, birthmark, and tight braids, Staffan with his slightly bulging nose and swollen jaw, and Elsa. Elsa with that straight, uncompromising gaze that seems to see straight through time to me here on this sofa.

  All I wanted was to tell your story, I think.

  All I wanted was to know what happened. Was that so wrong?

  I hear the faint sound of a door closing upstairs. A mumbled conversation between two male voices.

  Elsa stares down at me from the wall. I close my eyes to escape hers.

  I don’t know when I fall asleep.

  NOW

  I wake up to a hand brushing against my cheek.

  My neck feels stiff and immobile. I make a quiet groan as I try to sit up, but it gets louder when Max puts his arm on my back. When his hand touches my deep bruise, it feels like he might as well be stabbing me between the ribs with a kitchen knife.

  “Ow ow ow, shit! Ow!”

  “Sorry,” says Max, quickly moving his arm away. I shake my head and lean back slowly onto the stiff cushions. When the pain begins to pass I realize that I also have the beginnings of a splitting headache, and that my swollen airway is itching.

  I glance over at the small windows that look out onto the garden. It’s still light out, but the day has started to take on the overripe, glowing hue that comes with the approaching dusk.

  “Hi,” I say to Max once I’m sitting up. He gives me a half smile. Thin lips under sunken eyes.

  “Hi. Fall asleep?”

  “Yeah,” I say. Weird question, seeing as he’s just woken me up.

  Reality has started to seep back in, thick and viscous like tar. Images returning. Emmy on the floor. Tone’s unseeing eyes. Her light hair a caked-on pile of blood and dirt.

  “How are you feeling?” Max asks.

  I shake my head, choosing to answer the more innocuous side of the question.

  “My back really hurts,” I say.

  “Let me take a look,” he replies.

  He doesn’t exactly have any medical experience, but I don’t mention that. Instead I just twist away slowly and let him pull my top up over my back and the bruise. He whistles quietly when he sees it.

  “Looks like someone’s painted you with purple watercolors,” he says, running his fingertips gently over the skin above my ribs. I gasp when he presses slightly too hard.

  “Does that hurt?” he asks, without lifting his hand.

  “Yes,” I say. I pull away slightly and roll my top down again. “How are you feeling?” I ask, tucking my hair behind my ear.

  Max shrugs.

  “Empty, somehow,” he says. “Does that sound weird? I feel completely blunted.”

  “I know what you mean,” I say. My eyes wander the room in the overripe afternoon light.

  “It doesn’t feel real,” I say slowly. “None of it does.”

  “No,” says Max.

  “How is…” I have to swallow before I can say his name. “How’s Robert?”

  “I don’t know,” says Max. “He’s not saying so much. Not that he was so talkative to begin with, but now…”

  “Where is he?” I ask. “He isn’t outside on his own, is he?”

  “He’s in the kitchen,” says Max. “Not that that matters now. I mean, she’s locked upstairs.”

  She.

  As though she were a monster, a ghost. A shadow without a name.

  “Hey,” Max says softly, then reaches out to stroke my cheek with his thumb, and I realize it’s because I’m crying. The tears spill over without me being able to stop them. I try to wipe them off, shake my head.

  “It’s OK,” I say.

  “No, it isn’t,” says Max, and then I crumble.

  I bawl, a sob that runs so forcefully through my body that it feels like I’m cramping up. Max wraps his arms around me and holds me to his chest. The tears run out of my closed eyelids as I cry a hacking, ugly cry, like a blubbering child, uncontrolled and uninhibited. The words I’m muttering make no sense.

  I think I say “Emmy.” Or else “sorry.”

  Max is rubbing my back hard, and it hurts—so much that it makes me whimper every time he touches my bruise—but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Shh,” he says, petting me like an unruly cat. “It’ll be OK. I’m here. I’m here.”

  I feel my snot running into his T-shirt and try to sit up, but he won’t let me go.

  “I’m here,” he says again.

  “I never meant for this to happen,” I whisper into his top, where my words dissolve unheard. “It wasn’t meant to be like this. It wasn’t meant to be like this. I didn’t know.”

  Max kisses my head. Dry lips on my sweaty scalp.

  “We’re going to get through this, Alice,” he says into my hair. “We’ll get through this, we’ll get past it. I promise. I’ve got you. It’s going to be OK.”

  He keeps on rubbing my back, and my sobs have started to calm. I try to pull away again, and this time he lets go of me.

  I dry my nose. Max looks at me and half smiles again. Up close, his pupils are huge. />
  “I’m here,” he whispers, and touches my cheek.

  His caress turns into a light grip on my neck, and he pulls my face into his and kisses me.

  His lips are rough, and his mouth tastes rank and too sweet, of blood and sugar. I try to pull back but he moves with me, forcing his tongue into my mouth. It’s only when I forcefully twist my head away that he stops.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I ask, staring at him as I wipe my mouth with my hand.

  His small, warm smile gradually slips off his face.

  “What do you mean?” he asks, defensiveness already creeping into his voice.

  “What are you doing?” I repeat, standing up. I feel like I need to get to my feet, take a wide stance to steady the ground beneath me. My head is spinning.

  “I thought it was what you wanted,” says Max. “I was trying to comfort you.”

  “By shoving your tongue down my throat?” I splutter. I almost start to laugh. It’s so absurd—with everything else that has happened. In the middle of this terrible, broken situation.

  “So then why did you kiss me back?” he asks. “You didn’t seem to be hating it.”

  “I didn’t kiss back,” I say. “I … I was shocked.”

  Now Max stands up, too. He gives his pants a good brush to get the dust off the denim, despite the blood and tears on his top, despite the dust and wood chips all over his body.

  “Maybe it wasn’t the right time,” he says.

  Reasonable. Always so reasonable.

  I shake my head.

  “Emmy’s dead, Tone’s sick—so sick we’ve had to lock her up—and you—” I say, my voice getting shriller with every word until he cuts me off.

  “I’m sorry! OK? I said I’m sorry! This hasn’t been an easy day for me either, OK? I guess I lost my self-control. It was stupid. I get it.” He throws up his hands, then rubs his face and sighs.

  I shake my head, trying to get my breath back under control.

  “We’re all in shock. These things happen. Let’s forget it.”

  He looks at me. Something flickers in his eyes.

  He opens his mouth, but at first he says nothing. Then:

  “So when is the right time?”

  His voice is soft. I don’t know what to say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come on, Alice,” he says, with an almost resigned laugh. “You know what I mean. I’ve been waiting seven years. Waiting, and listening, and being there for you. Waiting for you to wake up and realize. So when is the right time?”

  I swallow.

  “I didn’t know,” I say, trying to keep my voice as quiet and nonconfrontational as possible. “I’m sorry, Max, but I’m not … I mean…”

  He looks up at the ceiling.

  “No,” he says. “You cannot tell me you didn’t know. I know you saw it. Why do you think I sponsored your little film? It’s not like I’m getting that money back.”

  “I thought you believed in the film,” I say helplessly.

  “I did it because I believed in you, Alice.” He shakes his head. “I saw the look on your face when I said I’d come here,” he says. “Come on. We both knew it was going to happen here.”

  All I can do is stare at him.

  “Alice,” he says softly, taking a step toward me. “Come on. I know you know what I mean.” He smiles to one side, twisting his whole slanting face.

  I take another step back and look down.

  “The police will get here tomorrow,” I say. “It’s going to be OK, Max. We’re not going to die here. It’s going to be OK.” I swallow.

  When I look up again, Max’s teeth are clenched hard, then he swallows, sending his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his neck. A vein is pounding on his temple.

  “Max…” I say, pleading, the tears welling up again. My jaws ache. “Please, don’t do this to me. Not now.”

  “You’re so fucking selfish.” He shakes his head, and says it again: “You’re so fucking selfish.”

  Then he turns and walks out of the room, slamming the door so hard behind him that the doorframe shakes.

  NOW

  I drop back down onto the sofa. I don’t know how long I’m sitting there before I stand up, my feet slightly unsteady, and step out into the hall.

  No one there.

  I sense Robert before I can fully see him, a shadow in the corner of my eye, and when I turn into the kitchen he’s already looking up at me.

  He’s slightly too big for the chair he’s sitting on, and the sharp contrast of his red hair, the turquoise blue kitchen furniture, and the thick rag rug gives the entire kitchen a Wonderland feel.

  At first I hesitate, but then I pull out one of the chairs and sit down. I choose the wall closest to me, so that there’s a chair on either side between us. The chair leg scratches lightly against the floor as I scoot in under the table.

  A clock hangs on the wall above the doorway, with a white face and boxy white numbers. The minute hand has fallen off, and it lies like a dividing line at the bottom of the clock. The hour hand has stopped on three.

  “Have you seen Max?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “He said he was going out,” he says. “He was going to go to the church to fetch what was left of the honey.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  Seconds pass.

  “How are you doing?” I ask.

  He seems to mull over his response. Or perhaps he, like me, doesn’t quite know how to answer. He opens and clenches his fist a few times on the table, looks at it thoughtfully. His knuckles are red and bloody.

  “I tried to punch a wall,” he says, sounding almost taken aback. “For some reason I thought it would help,” he goes on. “But I didn’t feel that, either.”

  “Here?” I ask.

  “Nope,” he says. “In the school.”

  Silence.

  I lick my lips. They are dry, and still taste of Max. I swipe the thought away, and say:

  “I don’t understand.”

  I don’t know if it’s a statement or a question, but it’s the truth. I test saying it again, and this time it sounds like a prayer.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Robert puts his hands flat on the table, palms down. His hands are big and bulky, disproportionate to his slender wrists. Faint freckles run all the way up his forearms.

  “No,” he says. “I don’t, either.”

  I don’t know if we’re talking about Tone or Emmy or Silvertjärn. Perhaps we’re talking about all three; perhaps none.

  My lips tremble, and I press them together.

  “There’s water,” he says, nodding at a ceramic pitcher on the counter.

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “I found it in the cupboard,” he goes on. “It seemed the best option.”

  “Where’s the water from?” I ask.

  “I went down to the river. An hour or so ago.”

  I hear something upstairs, a creaking plank.

  “Has she had anything to drink?” I ask.

  “No,” he says, without looking me in the eye. His voice is strained, squeezed. “I can’t think about her being up there, I just can’t. Because then I think about what she did, and Emmy, and I just want to—”

  He clenches his fists so tightly on the table that one of the cuts reopens. Sharp little drops of blood emerge from under the broken scab, like jewels.

  I don’t know how long I’m holding my breath for. All I know is that I feel the seconds as heartbeats, and that my chest starts to hurt before Robert breaks the silence:

  “You take it up to her. She has to drink something.”

  I waver.

  “If you hear me stamping on the floor, come up.”

  Robert nods slowly.

  “OK.”

  His fists are still tightly clenched.

  THEN

  Elsa wakes up when Ingrid opens the door to her office. She had dozed off in the chair, her head against the wall. Her mouth must have dropped o
pen, because her throat is dry, and her breath tastes revolting.

  “How have things been?” Ingrid asks quietly.

  It’s still dark outside, and there’s hardly any light on the horizon. It must still be night. Ingrid is no more than a shadow among shadows.

  “Fine,” Elsa replies, quietly, so as not to wake the others. “It’s been fine.”

  The girl has slept better than either of her own ever did: she woke up and whimpered twice, but went back to sleep when Elsa rocked her.

  “Has she fed her?” Ingrid asks, looking at Birgitta’s sleeping form.

  Elsa shakes her head.

  “I haven’t dared wake her,” she admits.

  Elsa feels trapped between the two of them. The little one must surely be starting to feel hungry by now. Elsa has given her a towel dipped in milk from the school canteen to suck on, but she knows that won’t be enough. At the same time, she’s wary about even going near Birgitta, let alone waking her.

  Birgitta has slept all through the night, and Elsa can’t deny that she’s afraid of what she will do when she wakes up. How much will she understand?

  Elsa can’t make out Ingrid’s face in the darkness, but she sees that she nods.

  “No,” says Ingrid. “That I can understand.”

  Elsa hears the weight on her own chest reflected in Ingrid’s voice.

  Ingrid sits down on the floor next to Elsa’s chair, and looks over at the little sleeping bundle lying a few feet away. They have layered some sheets up to create something of a cot for her. Dagny had rambled on about bringing over an old cot, but Elsa had put her foot down. They can’t do anything that might attract unwanted attention.

  “How will we get them to the station?” Ingrid asks.

  Elsa shakes her head.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I think all we can do is walk them there as though there’s nothing wrong. It’s not so far. If we go just before the train leaves there’ll be no time for anyone to stop us.”

  Ingrid sighs softly. The night makes it sound bigger than it is.

  “Will you go with them?” she asks.

  “Yes,” says Elsa. “I’ll take them to Stockholm. My daughter lives there.”